Things have been very quiet here recently...I haven't been very motivated to be honest. There just hasn't been much going on that I've wanted to post about. That, and I've been busy just hustling to find a regular gig, and pay some bills. This means I've gone back to selling music related goods on eBay for the first time in about two years. I'm also selling the guitar you see above - a 1961 Gibson Melody Maker with a 3/4 length neck - via the wonderful Woodstock Music Shop in Woodstock, NY. And lets not forget that Technics 1200 turntable I have listed on Craigslist.
I could post about this stuff I'm trying to sell, but its ALL I've been up to, and I really don't feel inundating faithful Stupefied folks with the sell-sell-sell-buy-buy-buy hard sale. So if you're feeling inclined...you know what to do. And if you know of anyone who might be interested, please send 'em my way.
Its funny how you can make friends with like-minded folks online. I consider myself lucky to count amongst these types, for me, a young lady who goes by the name, Signed DC, after the Love song of the same name. Not only does she host one hell of a hip radio show Real Cool Time (on CIUT), with her husband, Rocky, but she also runs the fabulous & indispensable blog, It's All The Streets You Crossed Not So Long Ago.
Thanks for the list, DC...see you in the new year!
Alrighty Tim, here are a few of my favorite 2012 things:
Its crazy that its been over two years since I first mentioned it here, but the Replacements documentary, Color Me Obsessed, is finally going to be released on DVD!
For a film about a band that doesn't include any music by it's subject, the filmmakers have managed to put together a compelling watch & thorough history of the Replacements. A definite surprise & well worth your time. The official release date is Nov. 20, and the movie includes appearances by Grant Hart & Greg Norton of Hüsker Dü, Tommy Ramone, Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, Craig Finn of The Hold Steady, the Goo Goo Dolls and many more.
The bonus material includes: Nineteen deleted scenes, three complete interviews (Grant Hart, Robert Christgau, Greg Kot & writer Jim DeRogitis), behind the scenes interviews with director and producer (Hansi Oppenheimer), two commentaries and four trailers!
Order from Amazon here.
Official Website here.
Official Facebook here.
Chris Frantz & Tina Weymouth discuss the finer art of meeting trannies on tour in Paris, circa 1978, with James Wolcott. Read a nice write up about the recently released Talking Heads' DVD, Chronology, over at Dangerous Minds. Photo courtesy of Godlis.
Featured here over the last year or two, the excellent documentary about the No Wave scene's visual companion, Blank City, will be available on DVD as of Feb. 21. Pre-order on Amazon here. When you watch it, keep an eye out for some of Eugene Merinov's photography!
For you Talking Heads nuts out there, here's a nice new collection of career-spanning live performances from Eagle Rock...Chronology pulls together live performances from across Talking Heads' career. It starts with their earliest days at CBGB and The Kitchen in New York City in the mid-seventies, through their breakthrough years in the late seventies and on to global success in the eighties. They completed their last tour in 1983 although they would continue to make very successful albums throughout the eighties before officially breaking up in 1991. The DVD concludes with their "reunion" performance of "Life During Wartime" at their induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame in 2002. Order from Amazon here.
Tracklisting:
1) Mic Test (1976)
2) With Our Love (1975)
3) I'm Not In Love (1975)
4) Psycho Killer (1975)
5) Intros Montage (1976)
6) The Girls Want To Be With The Girls (1976)
7) Don't Worry About The Government (1978)
8) Dressing room fan footage: Found A Job (1978)
9) Thank You For Sending Me An Angel (1978)
10) Warning Sign (1978)
11) Artists Only (1979)
12) Take Me To The River (1979)
13) Crosseyed And Painless (1980)
14) Animals (1980)
15) Love - Building On Fire (1982)
16) Cities (1982)
17) Burning Down The House (1983)
18) Life During Wartime (2002)
In 1972, the MC5 had three songs used on a soundtrack for a long forgotten film entitled Gold. It turns out that this film will be getting the reissue treatment at the end of July. As it says on IMDB, the tagline for the film was "A turned on tale of the new American dream." Okay... If you can tell me what this means after watching the trailer below you're a better man than I.
Although it will be interesting to hear the MC5's music in the context of the movie, something tells me the music itself is the best part. If you want to skip the movie, pick up a copy of Babes In Arms from ROIR - a long in-print compilation of MC5 rarities that is out of this world.
Thanks to Retro Kimmer for the news. Read more about Gold and the MC5, and download a clip of the film here.
Back in the early 80s, I spent several wasted afternoons with Steve V. & Dougie from Kraut laying around & watching a bootleg copy of this never-officially-in-print punk movie classic. Looks like its finally getting a legit release. It stars a very young Diane Lane, and Laura Dern! Also, Steve Jones & Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols, and Paul Simonon from the Clash, as well as Ray Winstone, who has done tons of stuff since but was just coming off the making of Quadrophenia when this was made.
Review by Roy Trakin, thanks to Andy Schwartz:
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (Paramount/Rhino Home Video):
This 1981 proto-punk, feminist curio, directed by Lou Adler and produced by none other than Hollywood studio mogul Joe Roth,anticipates the Olympia, WA, riot grrrl phenomenon, from Bikini Kill to Hole, in its tale of the very abrupt rise and fall of a girl group, fronted by skunk-haired, 15-year-old Diane Lane, channeling the Catwoman, Susan Sontag and Courtney Love, along with an impossibly young, 13-year-old Laura Dern.
The film, available for the first time on DVD (it was never released on VHS and was in theatres for a moment), offers an interesting glimpse at punk-rock while it was still almost innocent and idealistic (if it ever was), with a supporting cast that includes veteran character actor Ray Winstone, who most recently appeared in the latest Indiana Jones movie, as a black leather-clad Joe Strummer/Johnny Rotten lead singer fronting The Looters, an all-star band featuring the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones and Paul Cook and The Clash’s Paul Simonon. The Tubes’ Fee Waybill is terrific as frontman for the Metal Corpses, in frizzy fright wig and makeup—a cross between Gene Simmons and Howard Stern—while bandmate Vince Welnick, who also played in the Dead and with Todd Rundgren, eerily demonstrates art imitating life as he dies onscreen of a drug OD with his platform shoes on, foreshadowing his own suicide in 2006 at the age of 55. Other familiar faces, such as Christine Lahti and David Clennon, who played Zen ad agency boss Miles Trentell in thirtysomething, show up, as do such unlikely players as L.A. punk band Black Randy (John Morris) & the Metro Squad, playing with an Israeli flag draped over their monitors.
The concert sequences with The Looters are pretty dynamic, with Winstone doing a creditable job, while the performances of The Stains recall such female DIY agro pioneers as The Shaggs, X Ray Spex, The Slits and The Raincoats, with Lane strutting her stuff in a stunning turn not unlike Ellen Page’s breakthrough in Juno—but even younger.
Released the same year as MTV launched, the film is prescient about the effect TV, and eventually reality series, will have on breaking bands, as well as the contradiction of exploiting politics for commercial gain. And its radical female viewpoint is most welcome, especially its prediction that women will eventually take to withholding sex, Lysistrata-like, (“Don’t put out!” is their slogan), while dressing provocatively, as a means to an end. This is a period piece that doesn’t necessarily hold up, but still has enough to deserve the attention of true rock cognescenti.
David Kleiler Jr. and Jeff Iwanicki document Mission of Burma's influence two decades after their climb to fame. If you weren't around during their first tour de force, this is your chance to get acquainted.
The feature-length documentary about mercurial frontman Arthur Lee and his proto-psychedelic rock band Love, will finally see a release on DVD later this summer on July 29. Continued here.
And more importantly, the Impressions on DVD! My goodness...I have literally been waiting YEARS for this. A DVD collection of Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions will finally be released on May 6 from Universal Music. Not only a DVD collection, I believe this is an actual documentary! Perhaps the end is nigh...Buy/see it here.
(Of course, in true US major label fashion, I had to do a little digging to find out that its actually being released in the US. If you Google the title, it initially only looks like its being released in the UK. US labels - GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER. Imagine what you could do if you actually knew how to sell music?)
Here are the details, starting with a review from AllMusic.com:
This two-plus hour documentary centers on the immortal music of Curtis Mayfield, both as a solo artist and member of the Impressions. In between the 22 full-length vintage clips are first-person tales assembling an all-star cast of folks who knew Mayfield best, as well as those who were directly influenced by his music. Among the key contributors who help to place Mayfield's far-reaching influence in proper perspective are Johnny Pate (producer/arranger), who had helped craft the majority of the Impressions' hits as well as those on the Superfly (1972) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, and fellow Impressions Fred Cash (vocals) and Sam Gooden (vocals). Decidedly more intimate portrayals and memories of the cultural icon at home as a father and husband are portrayed via the artist's wife Altheida Mayfield. In terms of his lasting effect on the community at large, Carlos Santana, Chuck D, and civil rights Ambassador Andrew Young all eagerly pay homage to their mentor and musical and spiritual advisor. Plus, there are several insightful segments from interviews with the man himself from 1972, 1987, and 1988.
As is true with any compendium of a legend, his canon of work should be the primary focus of attention. And it is with that mandate that Reelin' In The Years have outdone even themselves. As the masterminds behind projects such as Dreams to Remember: The Legacy of Otis Redding (2007) and the Stax/Volt Revue: Live in Norway 1967 (2007), this might seem practically unfathomable. More than anything else, Movin' on Up (2008) is an audio-visual repository of classic Curtis Mayfield. Bandmates Cash and Gooden comment on the "People Get Ready" clip showing the trio lip-syncing in a boat for the September 1965 episode of the Dick Clark-produced Where the Action Is. Refreshingly, the vast majority of the tunes are done live, either in front of a studio audience or in a concert hall type setting. As for those cuts that are shown of the Impressions faking their own lead vocals as a tape or record spins in the background, "It's All Right," "I Need You," the aforementioned "People Get Ready," and "Meeting Over Yonder" have all been remastered and given a pristine audio track of the original recordings. Otherwise, the contents are spontaneous in front of the unblinking eyes of the camera. Transcendent are the unique versions of "We're a Winner" coupled with "Amen" from 1968. Clifton Davis joins up for a very special spoken recitation written especially to accompany the Impressions singing "This Is My Country." Equally inspired is "Choice of Colors" from a 1969 guest spot on the Joey Bishop Show. Cash and Gooden confirm the infamous story that the Impressions were told that they were not going to be allowed to sing the tune on network television because of its racial implications. Literally minutes before going on the air, Bishop himself intervened and told the combo to play "Choice of Colors" as planned.
There is an abundance of '70s footage. Top of the list are the extended concert renditions of "We Are the People Who Are Darker Than Blue" which is linked up with "Give Me Your Love," as well as the essential Superfly entries "Freddie's Dead," "Pusherman," "Eddie You Should Know Better," and, of course, the main theme itself, "Superfly." Additionally, among the extras are complete performances of "We're a Winner," "Might Mighty (Spade and Whitey)," "We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue," "Movin' on Up," and "Freddie's Dead." Accompanying the DVD is a 28-page fact-filled booklet. The informative essay by Rob Bowman is surrounded by formerly unpublished photos from the Mayfield family's archives. ~ Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide
Tracklist: It’s All Right (1965)
Woman’s Got Soul (1965)
I Need You (1965)
People Get Ready (1965)
Meeting Over Yonda (1965)
We’re A Winner/Amen (1968)
This Is My County (1970)
Choice of Colours (1969)
Check Out Your Mind (1970)
(Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below We’re All Gonna Go (1970)
Keep On Keeping On (1972)
We’ve Got To Have Peace (1972)
We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue/ Give Me Your Love (1972)
Superfly (1972)
Freddie’s Dead (1972)
Pusherman (1972)
Eddie You Should Know Better (1973)
Future Shock (1973)
The Makings Of You (1970)
Bonus performances: We’re A Winner (1972)
Mighty Mighty (Spade and Whitey) (1972)
We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue (1972)
Move On Up (1972)
Freddie’s Dead (1973)
Buy Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions. It will make your life better:
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at the end of July. As it says on 
