Holly Woodlawn RIP

Holly Woodlawn - RIP.

Movie of the Week: Ghost On The Highway - A Portrait of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club (2006)

 

Official film website

Now Playing: The Black Panthers

For screenings around the country (including NYC now thru Oct 27), visit theblackpanthers.com.

Movie of the Week: I Thought I Told You To Shut Up!! (2015)

ithoughtitoldyoutoshutup.com

facebook.com/IthoughtItoldyoutoshutup

Movie of the Week: Kmart Store Background Music & Announcement Cassettes

From the uploader: OK, I have to admit this this is a strange collection. In the late 1980's and early 1990's, I worked for Kmart behind the service desk and the store played specific pre-recorded cassettes issued by corporate. This was background music, or perhaps you could call it elevator music. Anyways, I saved these tapes from the trash during this period and this video shows you my extensive, odd collection.

Until around 1992, the cassettes were rotated monthly. Then, they were replaced weekly. Finally sometime around 1993, satellite programming was intoduced which eliminated the need for these tapes altogether.

The older tapes contain canned elevator music with instrumental renditions of songs. Then, the songs became completely mainstream around 1991. All of them have advertisements every few songs.

The monthly tapes are very, very, worn and rippled. That's becuase they ran for 14 hours a day, 7 days a week on auto-reverse. If you do the math assuming that each tape is 30 minutes per side, that's over 800 passes over a tape head each month.

Finally, one tape in the collection was from the Kmart 30th anniversary celebration on 3/1/92. This was a special day at the store where employees spent all night setting up for special promotions and extra excitement. It was a real fun day, the store was packed wall to wall, and I recall that the stores were asked to play the music at a much higher volume. The tape contains oldies and all sorts of fun facts from 1962. This may have been one of the last days where Kmart was in their heyday - really!

One last thing for you techies, the stores built in the early 1970's (such as Naperville, IL Ogden Mall Kmart #3066, Harwood Heights, IL #3503 and Bridgeview, IL #4381) orignally had Altec-Lansing amplifiers with high quality speakers throughout the store. When you applied a higher quality sounding source, the audio was extremely good. Later stores had cheaper speakers and eventually the amps were switched out with different ones usually lacking bass and treble controls.

The tapes are available for listening at Archive.org. Amazing!

Hat tip to Chart Attack.

Movie of the Week: Weekender (1992)

A 1992 short film made to accompany the single of the same name by Heavenly Records band, Flowered Up. The song is considered by many to be an era-defining single. Directed by WIZ.

Hat tip to Paul Gallagher over at Dangerous Minds.

Don't be a square, kids

This is just TOO good!

Posted by Rick Swann on Saturday, August 29, 2015

Movie of the Week: Chet Baker - The Final Days

From the Netherlands in the early 1990's we get a good look at Chet Baker's life in a much better way than the over stylized Let's Get Lost.

Movie of the Week: Lee Hazelwood - Cowboy In Sweden (1970)

Movie of the Week: Your Mind and We Belong Together (Love, 1968)

Movie of the Week: Put Blood In the Music - Underground New York Music Scene feat. John Zorn & Sonic Youth (The South Bank Show - 1989)

Movie of the Week: Speciman & The Batcave at Danceteria (1983)

This one goes out the goth's, and the goth's at heart. In 1983, hot London club night of the time, The Batcave, hosted a night at Danceteria in NYC. Here is some suitably grainy footage from the night, featuring Jon & Ollie from Speciman, and the band, Sexbeat, along with all four(!) pages of the original invite. Scroll to the bottom for extra gothy Speciman footage.

Movie of the Week: The Queen Is Dead by Derek Jarman (1986)

Here's a short film by Derek Jarman for the Smiths' new release at the time, The Queen Is Dead. There are three songs used ('The Queen is Dead', 'There is a Light that Never Goes Out' and 'Panic'),  and they are matched by some great imagery put together by Jarman. Apparently the "Panic" video was extracted from this film.

Revenge of the Mekons documentary available in July

Revenge of the Mekons, which hit some theater screens last year, will be released on DVD at the end of July. It can be pre-ordered on Amazon here.

Here's the scoop:

Revenge of the Mekons Music Box Films Home Entertainment

DVD RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015

PRE-ORDER DATE: June 23, 2015

Price: DVD $29.95
Director: Joe Angio
Running Time: 96 minutes 

Format: 1.85:1 widescreen

Sound Format: Dolby Digital 5.1

Rating: NR

Country: U.S.

Language: English  

Bonus Features

·  Mekons Live Concert at the Bell House in Brooklyn, NY

·  Mekons Symposium at Columbia University

·  Bonus outtakes and interviews including Rico Bell and Will Oldham

·  Concert Poster Gallery

Movie of the Week: B'dum B'dum - Buzzcocks & Magazine on What's On with Tony Wilson (1978)

Manchester rules, ok. Left to right: Pete Shelley, Tony Wilson, Howard Devoto

Movie of the Week: Ride at Primavera, 5.29.15

Ride rocked Primavera last night in Spain. After posting the recent BBC 6Music session, enjoy the added bonus of the visual here.

Setlist:

Leave Them All Behind

Like a Daydream

Polar Bear

Seagull

Sennen

Black Nite Crash

OX4

Dreams Burn Down

Time of Her Time

Chrome Waves

Paralysed

Taste

Vapour Trail

Drive Blind

Mouse Trap

Chelsea Girl

Documentary of Note: Big Gold Dream - Scottish Post Punk, and Infiltrating The Mainstream

Here's a good one thats been in the works for a while, so keep an eye out for it! Big Gold Dream is a feature length doc from director Grant McPhee, and tells the tale of Scotland’s post-punk & indie music scene circa 1977-1985. It will apparently premiere, naturally, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on the 19th June.

Movie of the Week - A Box Full of Rocks: The El Cajon Years of Lester Bangs

A big tip 'o the cap to Joe Carducci (who recently started blogging again over at Gas Giant - HIGHLY recommended interesting tidbits, links & tips of a historical bent) for pointing to the full stream of this Lester doc on YouTube.

I first learned of this film almost two years ago, and then promptly forgot about it. I'm happy to have the opportunity to watch it in full now.

Before & After: Danzig (2015) vs Elvis (1968)

Before - Elvis Presley Comeback Special (1968)

After - Glen Danzig Legacy Special (2015)

Movie of the Week: Desperate Man Blues (2003)

A look at famed 78 RPM record collector, Joe Bussard, and the wild, weird, world of 78 collectors. From 2003.