remember Samuel a' Beckett

the Sixties, part 2

Andrew Parker with some Japanese suggestions:

Throw Away Your Books and Rally on the Street (1971)

"Probably the pick of the bunch. Good soundtrack, from memory"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0228853/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974)

"Another film by Terayama. I preferred Throw Away Your Books, but this one is still worth a look."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071406/

Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)

"A gay inversion of Oedipus Rex, as performed by Japanese transsexuals. Said to be an influence on Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064068/

House (1977)

"Imagine a shampoo commercial crossed with a horror film. It is easily one of the strangest films I have ever seen"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076162/?ref_=fn_al_tt_5

"Note: Don’t watch the trailer – it doesn’t do the film justice and would spoil the surprises."

Himiko (1974)

"Pitched somewhere between performance art and narrative feature, I enjoyed the film but it’s probably not to most people’s taste."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071609/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Black Tight Killers  (1966)

"Campy fun with a well-judged tone."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0273925/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

http://www.rarefilmm.com/2015/02/ore-ni-sawaru-to-abunaize-1966.html

Kwaidan (1965)

"Not really ‘trippy’, but the sets and cinematography are extraordinary. An indisputable work of art."  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058279/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Available on DVD. 

And one non-Japanese suggestion from Andrew:

Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End from I970 (starring Jane Asher, and featuring a cameo by Diana Dors)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066122/

When I commented that "I’m sucker for all that sixties stuff. split screens, trip scenes etc.... 

Still haven’t grown out of being wowed by The Knack (And How To Get it)..."

Andrew pointed out that Deep End "isn’t trippy. It’s more grimy and dour, in an England’s-best-years-are-behind-it kind of way.

"I don´t like colour movies and I can hardly think about colour. It really cheapens things for me and there´s never been a colour movie I've freaked out over except one, this thing called Deep End, which had really great art direction." - - David Lynch, 1982

Here's the whole thing but with Italian subtitles....

conchadelic

soundtrack by Antarjyami Muni

bonus James Broughton 



soundtrack by Morton Subotnik






the Pleasure Garden

the Sixties

Newleydelic

also

Bogardelic

Newleytronica

Out on Blue Six

A group I wanted to work into Rip It Up but couldn't find the place.  And couldn't find the records either (remember the book was done before YouTube and before the big sharity blog explosion). So just had memories of Peel playing them.

More info about Out On Blue Six here at Skank Blog Bologna (great name for a blog):

"Barrelling onto the scene with their bewilderingly brilliant self-released e.p. Party Mood in 1981, OoBS immediately garnered the attention of various hip labels wanting to snap them up. Among the snappers was the London-based avant-pop imprint Armageddon who quickly snared two of the band’s tracks for the above LP’s, the second of which places them squarely into our spiky dread territory.

Soft Sarcasm, like most of the songs from Out on Blue Six’s maddeningly slim back catalogue, blends sharp, icy post punk instrumentation with wry observational social critique delivered in a voice that constantly skitters between yelping mockery and posh insouciance.

Groups I should have made more of in Rip It Up:

1/ Stranglers
2/ XTC
3/ Comsat Angels
4/ Psychedelic Furs
5/ The Clash
6/ The Police
7/ Blondie

and there's others. Oddly more big ones than obscure ones. I can't honestly see Out On Blue Six as a big ommission, as cool as their tracks are. It's a "maddeningly slim" body of work.

cod reggae

What a great idea for a piece - at the Quietus, Bill Brewster plumbs the history of white attempts at reggae.

The goal, though, seems to be to find examples of genuine merit - tasty cod. Thus ruling out many examples of compelling naffness.

But even sticking with pulled-off-well, bit surprised that "Walking in the Moon" doesn't figure.

Or "Hotel California" for that matter...

Or how about the odd skanking breakdowns in the last phase of Rush's "Spirit of the Radio"? First one at 3.49....



And isn't Joe Walsh's "Life Been Good" partially reggae? Check the first verse, from 1.12:

retrodisco

Used to love this single by Coati Mundi and really rooted for it to go UK Top 30 - despite Radio One's heavy support it inched agonisingly slowly in the right direction, then ran out of puff just outside the thirty.



Bought the first two Kid Creole & The Coconuts albums - Off the Coast of Me, Fresh Fruit From Foreign Places, and totally bought into the NME / Face-world buzz about all things Darnellian and ZE-related ....  Then a year or so after the event, decided that the Nuts stuff was fairly wack and got rid of the LPs. But this is the one tune on Fresh Fruit that still strikes me as pretty nifty.  Its dark svelte urgency is superior in the recorded version, though.





Oh yeah, I did buy this single too - the combo of joyous rhythm and cynical lyric stands up well.





Dennis Bovell told me that the rhythm on "Annie" is actually spouge -  from Barbados.

Never had the album (Tropical Gangsters?) with "Stool Pigeon" and "Wonderful  Thing" etc on though....

All in all, a strange episode in the history of pop. And pop criticism.

Now August D's first group Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band was retro-disco, wasn't it?

Meaning, not retrodisco as in flashing back / reenacting the golden days of disco (like all that inspid now-deservedly forgotten house-not-house of the late 90s/early 2000s). But retrodisco as in real-time 1970s disco with a retro element, harking back to Broadway and Hollywood musicals, the 1940s, the Cotton Club etc etc.



Check the old-fashioned bulky microphones etc.







Retro-ism and homage-to-golden-age-of-showbiz was in fact a strain running through disco.... as with this fellow



Or the nostalgia thematics of I Remember Yesterday by Giorgio and Donna, songs dedicated to different decades, the 40s, 50s, 60s, ... and the future ("I Feel Love")




And the image of the Pointer Sisters




And the sound of the Pointer Sisters too





Chic went in for it a bit too, image-wise - and lyrical nods like "stomping at the Savoy"

Or indeed the allusion to They Shoot Horses Don't They with "yowsah yowsah yowsah"