A music giant has left our realm. I probably wrote about 45% of my scripts to the music of Edgar Froese and his band Tangerine Dream and use them as sonic inspiration to this day. Their groundbreaking electronic pulsing melodic ambience has been part of the soundtrack to most of my teen and adult life. Hard to pick one tribute track, but this small piece from Wolf Grimm’s cult sci-fi film with Fassbinder. KAMIKAZE 1989 (1982), might be my single favorite piece by Froese. Dream on…
Yes, THE WEREWOLF OF WOODSTOCK is awful but the sight of Michael Parks trying to hide beneath his cap the entire telefilm is worth one viewing. It throws one back to a bygone Shocktober! era of late-nite television monster viewing…and you can’t not love a film with hardhat reactionary-turned-werewolf falling in love with a hippie rockstar who just missed Woodstock produced by Dick Clark. Especially as presented on the late, lamented ABC’S WIDE WORLD OF ENTERTAINMENT, an interesting way to fill a late evening time slot with myriad programs, some of the most interesting of the network 70’s, including “The Horror Hall Of Fame” and the pinnacle of the TV Art Horror era, Alice Cooper’s WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE. I never saw it except through the pages of “The Monster Times” in their infamous “Worst Issue Ever”…Growl, hippies…
One of the most important storytelling tools for me (and many others) remains the original “Dungeons & Dragons” role-playing game, created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974, a perfect storm of counter-culture and tactical play that formed the basis for the first game to rely on performance art. I’m proud that I introduced the game to my elementary school where it was promptly banned due to excessive student attention but mainly because of the urban legend tale of the “kid who played so much Dungeons and Dragons that he went nuts in the sewers…” Our madness was staying home Friday night to eat pizza, endless bags of chips, cookies, and guzzle sodas while battling the spider queen in her lair… Thank God for Gary Gygax. “You walk into a tavern and toast…”
You knew Peter Marquardt as the white-suited villain from EL MARIACHI (1992) – I knew him as Moco and as “Peter” when we worked together at Ion Storm in one of those amazing moments from the late late 20th century. He introduced me to Robert Rodriguez at his home for a memorable evening among other Texas moments captured in my mind. Peter was fun to work with and fun to laugh with and that’s a good memory to carry. He’s also within the DNA of indie film history. Adios, Peter.
Imagine this on the newsstands and comic book shops in 1973…
In honor of Ray Davies’ birthday and Summer Solstice, you should just relax with an iced coffee and listen to the entirety of The Kink’s 1968 pop pastoral masterpiece, “The Village Green Preservation Society” — the gentle sardonic version of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”…
H.R.Giger’s first film as a designer was actually produced in 1968 – a 35mm science fiction short called SWISS MADE 2069 co-directed by Giger and F.M. Muher about an alien coming to Earth to record its experiences. I’ve never seen a copy of this in any form, even bootleg, but here’s a clip from a Giger documentary. And it’s odd that the film’s poster is defiantly the opposite of his unique style. I first read about SWISS MADE 2069 in Cinefantastique’s incredible ALIEN profile and I immediately fell in love with the design of the alien, an archetypal Giger biomechanoid, but fused with a 16mm camera and Nagra tape deck instead of sexual organs. There’s even a cute little alien dog with a Giger biomechanics shell. This man should have been working non-stop in cinema instead of being misused and misappropriated by lesser artists. Still, he achieved global fame and success and his strange body of work will live in our psyches long past 2069…Now. Who’s got a copy of this film?
The most original visionary, influential artist of the late 20th century has fused into a new landscape.
Yes, it’s a big weekend for Easter, Passover, and of course, 420. But it’s also Record Store Day, started in 2007 by independent shop owners as a way to recognize and celebrate the history of vinyl, along with the importance of a physical locale where tangible culture is bound by intersecting human atoms (I told you it’s also 420, dude). Vinyl has not died despite the endless tech predictions followed by bursts of big media notice (“Records Are Still Cool!”). DJ culture is just the spine to the vinyl skeleton and LP’s still deliver an analog warmth and sound unmatched by any digital binary code — not to mention the tactile esthetic pleasure of sleeve design and weight is one of life’s cultural pleasures. What I’m getting at man, is like, records are US and we are RECORDS. Now go visit your favorite local record shoppe to spin round and round in celebration…
Still and Forever, The King Of Comedy and Total Film-Maker. And my copy is worth half a grand these days.
It’s a new season of experimental film at San Francisco’s greatest micro-cinema in the world, which means another of my thematic clip retroductions — this time we’ll electric boogaloo into the 1980’s Reagan film era featuring “State of the Art” genres that sub-texted jingoism and imperialism, powdered with the cocaine of Capitalism and edited to the video beat of MTV. March 29, 8:30 pm, $6.00 at the door with a totally awesome pre-show, munchies & beverages. Hey bud, let’s party! For more info: Other Cinema
And here be the World Premiere of the trailer. Just Go For It!
From Duran Duran’s terrific 1986 (minus Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor) “Notorious,” nothing sings grey silver atmospherics like “Winter Marches On”…
I have warm memories of hosting poetry readings in Long Beach under misty skies at the long gone Moonbeam Cafe, the air electric with pith and actually little pretension, as the jukebox repeatedly played tracks from the German band Enigma’s 1990 groundbreaking hit disc, MCMXC a.D. Merging Gregorian chants with techno beats was a then bold idea still in overuse today. My favorite track is of course the shortest and most melodic, “The Voice of Enigma,” a soothing cinematic spiritual welcome to the 90’s and a new age, another world of music…
Technicolor Dreams | Anonymous on “Goddamn Army.” |
 | Alexander Raike on Kong Spider Scene FOUND! |
 | Phil Lindholm on Retro-View ’68: Psych-Out |
 | George Cox on Retro-View ’68: Psych-Out |
 | Tony C on Sci-Fi Dystopia Theatre: Rolle… |
Technicolor Dreams 