During its limited theatrical release in 1983 Rock & Rule was discounted by critics and ignored by audiences. But over the past three decades it has steadily gained a cult following, particularly among movie geeks who get a thrill out of watching anthropomorphic animals singing new wave songs.
With its amusing cyberpunk plot, clever direction by Clive Smith and a pretty fine soundtrack by Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick, Debbie Harry and Earth, Wind and Fire, Rock & Rule kept me engaged and entertained for the duration of its tight 77 minute running time…which is saying quite a bit considering I have little patience for animated movies. And it’s hard not to like a movie featuring an evil Mick Jagger in the form of a large cat-like humanoid.
If you like Ralph Bakshi and Heavy Metal, you should get a kick out of Rock & Rule.
Robin Gibb passed away today (May 20) after a long brave struggle with cancer. While we all suspected it was only a matter of time, his death still hits hard. The fact that Gibb managed to keep death at bay as long as he did is testimony to the man’s inner strength and courage. It almost looked like he might beat the disease. After all, he had done it once before. But it was not to be.
Spirits Having Flown is a NBC TV special (named after the Bee Gees 1979 album) that was filmed during the height of their Saturday Night Fever fame. The show includes interviews with David Frost, the group at work in the studio and live performances, including guest appearances by Willie Nelson and Glen Campbell.
Spirits Having Flown is lightweight but energetic fun. It’s also been hard to find, having never been released on VHS or DVD. By no means a great document (it was produced by Robert Stigwood), it still provides enough moments of Bee Gee goodness, both on and off the stage, to please fans and admirers of the Bee Gees’ music - classic pop songs that transcend trends and will endure.
Here’s a little something from the Dangerous Minds archives:
Undeniably influenced by the West Coast psychedelia of The Jefferson Airplane, New York’s The Group Image released one album in 1968, A Mouth In The Clouds, that managed to go largely ignored by critics and rock fans. Despite having a wild stage show and a dynamic lead singer in Sheila Darla, the band received little national exposure.
The Group Image played for two years in various locations in Manhattan, NYC, including its own productions / shows at the Palm Gardens, and the Cheetah Club, and shows with the Grateful Dead in Central Park and the Fillmore East, and other outdoor shows in parks such as Tompkins Square Park in the East Village.”
While Sheila Darla shares some of Grace Slick’s hippie allure and a similarity in vocal style, her stage performance bears a striking resemblance to Patti Smith rather than the cool and collected Slick. One wonders if Patti ever saw Darla in action.
Time Magazine reviewed A Mouth In The Clouds in their November 18, 1968 issue. I don’t know who the reviewer is, but it’s amusing how hard he/she tries to get down with hipster lingo. “Liquid Eden” indeed.
This is the first recording by the Manhattan hippie tribe that has been turning on with sound and light in a couple of off-Broadway ballrooms; it will soon open its own permanent ballroom in the East Village. The five-man band has a driving, express-train beat, and a sharp and shimmering harmony, and a high voltage singer named Sheila. Their sound is all their own, but there are some familiar touches of The Lovin’ Spoonful (Grew Up All Wrong) and Jefferson Airplane (Banana Split). In Banana Split, two electronic zaps project the listener, as through a time warp, into a liquid Eden of tinkling bells and clicking percussion. The Group Image calls it the Twinkie Zone, and it’s a pretty good place to be.
By the end of the video, the band erupts in a punk rock frenzy worthy of the Plasmatics.
Presenting The Group Image performing “Hiya,” featuring my new obsession Sheila Darla.
The fact that The King’s Speech beat The Social Network for best picture at the 83rd Academy Awards is another example of artsy acing art.
Colin Firth, a very fine actor, won kudos and an Oscar for his role as King George VI. The Academy loves to give awards to actors who play characters who struggle with physical or mental disorders.
Here’s Firth’s award-winning stutters and stammers. And with all due respect to people who stutter, the video’s cumulative effect is quite funny. I don’t think the intent of this montage is to make fun of people who stammer as much as it is a poke at the movie or simply an amusing tone poem.
On the occasion of Facebook’s IPO, someone decided to spend a ton of money making a really stomach churning video.
At first I thought the “Thank You Facebook Song” was an elaborate, well-executed parody, but it looks like it’s for real. The song is the brainchild of motivational speaker Deborah Torres Patel and musician Gianluca Verrengia and if you check out their web pages, there’s not a hint of irony in anything they do. This not a Spinal Tappish anthem created by a bunch of jaded fucks at the Onion. In this case, what you see is what you get. And what you get is enough to gag a garbage disposal.
So wrong in so many ways. Waiting for the auto-tune version.
Okay, if you follow my posts on Dangerous Minds you know I’m a hardcore Ramones fan. Along with The Clash, Patti Smith and Television, the Ramones defibrillated my rock n’ roll heart in 1976 with their debut record - 14 songs pounded out in under 30 minutes.
With the exception of some glam bands, reggae, jazz cats and old blues re-issues, I wasn’t listening to music in the early 70s as fervently as I had during the psychedelic Sixties. But the year 1976 changed all that. When it came to rock n’ roll it was a very good year. And The Ramones first record made it a very very very good year. I was so knocked out by the “brothers” from Queens, that I started my own punk band, The Ravers, and a year later opened for The Ramones in a small club in Denver.
In 1977, The Ravers re-located to New York City and I spent almost every night at either CBGB or Max’s and my band played both clubs countless times. It was inevitable that I’d come to know Joey Ramone. While we were by no means best friends, we did share more than a few beers with each other and passionately exchanged our views on the one thing that mattered most to us: rock music.
Joey was a shy guy, almost painfully so. But if you gained his trust and he got comfortable with you, he was a wonderful person to talk to - smart, with a dry sense of humor and a sweet disposition. I liked him…a lot. And I miss him and Johnny and Dee Dee profoundly.
When rock n’ roll is your religion, as it is mine, you feel a deep debt to the indispensably essential artists who rescue the music during those critical times when a combination of greed, narrowmindedeness and apathy threaten to destroy what means so much to you. I measure my life not in years but in increments rooted in memories of a string of epiphanies related to rock, sex, drugs, books and movies.
I have forgotten so much over the years. But there are things I’ll never forget, things wrapped around my DNA tighter than a cock ring on John Holmes’ pecker: my first fuck, my first introduction to Kerouac’s On The Road, the first time I saw El Topo, my first acid trip, my daughter’s birth (definitely a rock n’ roll moment), and the first time I heard The Ramones. Like gods hovering over Olympian mountains, these memories loom large in my brain and lodge themselves in my body like invisible visceral tattoos.
It may sound shallow to admit to such a pop culture oriented theosophy, but I’m a shallow motherfucker and, as much as I’d like to think otherwise, I’m heavy into the cheap thrills that keep my prick hard, my heart pumping and fuel the ongoing urge to get up in the morning.
Some people draw spiritual sustenance from Jesus and Mohamed. Some from a diet of brown rice and bean sprouts. Others get off on yoga asanas and mega-doses of vitamin B. And then there are the freaks like me who find God in the almighty power chord that resonates thru my flesh and bones transforming my being into a 190 pound tuning fork made of meat, blood and cum. Hallelujah!
New Directions recently re-issued Patti Smith’s book of poems Woolgathering, which has been out-of-print for almost 20 years. The new edition contains a previously unpublished autobiographical short story called “Two Worlds.”
Woolgathering is an evocation of Smith’s childhood and early days in New York City delivered in sensuous prose that flutters at the edge of consciousness like the iridescent wings of a Luna moth. The writing is vivid, intoxicating and haunted.
“I had a ruby. Imperfect, beautiful like faceted blood. It came from India where they wash up on the shore. Thousands of them—the beads of sorrow. Little droplets that somehow became gems gathered by beggars who trade them for rice. Whenever I stared into its depths I felt overcome, for caught within my little gem was more misery and hope than one could fathom.”
In the video below, Patti reads from Woolgathering and shares memories of growing up in Jersey and New York. She is, as usual, totally charming.
This was shot at my favorite bookstore on the planet, the Strand. For 25 years I lived just a few blocks from the Strand and would spend at least 10 hours a week there hunting and gathering. I have the books to prove it. 1000s of them.
Documentarian Richard B. Weide likes to focus on the lives of comedians in his films and in Lenny Bruce he has powerful material to work with. Combining rare archival footage and interviews with Lenny’s mother Sally Marr, ex-wife Honey, daughter Kitty, Paul Krassner, Nat Hentoff and Steve Allen, Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth manages to be both richly informative and emotionally engaging. It’s a terrific movie.
With lean narration by Robert De Niro, Weide digs deep into the life of a comedian prophet driven to an early death by drugs and a government hellbent on shutting his mouth. Bruce was a punk Jesus who railed against hypocrisy and injustice with the low key deadliness of a man armed with the truth and a razor blade tongue.
Soft Cell (Marc Almond and David Ball) share the stage with Clint Ruin/Foetus/J.G. Thirlwell and squealing saxophonist Gary Barnacle for this excellent cover version of Suicide’s “Ghost Rider.”
Obviously Suicide would have been a huge influence on both Soft Cell and Thirwell, and they really tear it up here in this intense homage taped for the BBC in 1983. Listen loud.
