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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Pussy Galore - Maximum Penetration (1987 from VHS)

Pussy Galore - Maximum Penetration (1987) from Traci Lords Is Aroused on Vimeo.


“Maximum Penetration,” a Pussy Galore video compilation that came out in 1987.
Pussy Galore was an American band that formed in Washington, D.C. in 1985. They had a constantly fluid line-up until their demise in 1990. The band broke new ground in the mix of industrial and punk genres. They also preempted the Copy cultures that became popular in the nineties, with entire albums released that were covers of other band's albums. Many of the members of Pussy Galore went on to play in other bands or start their own, which then became critically acclaimed if not always mainstream popular.
1. Pig Sweat 2. White Noise 3. Just Wanna Die 4. Nothing Can Bring Me Down 5. Biker Rock Loser 6. Constant Pain 7. Rope Legend 8. Pussy Stomp 9. NYC: 1999! 10. Cunt Tease 11. When I Get Off 12. Get Out 13. Pretty Fuck Look 14. Trash Can 15. Die Bitch 16. Spin Out 17. Kill Yourself 18. No Count 19. Fuck You, Man 20. Alright [Cut]

Jon Spencer (guitar, vocals); Julie Cafritz (guitar, vocals); Kurt Wolf (guitar); Neil Hagerty (guitar); Bob Bert (drums).

The Xtrmntr blog has Pussy Galore  Exile on Main St, with just 550 copies produced.

Chelsea Girls (1966 Full Film)


Chelsea Girls is a 1966 experimental underground film directed by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey. The film was Warhol's first major commercial success after a long line of avant-garde art films (both feature length and short). It was shot at the Hotel Chelsea and other locations in New York City, and follows the lives of several of the young women who live there, and stars many of Warhol's superstars. It is presented in a split screen, accompanied by alternating soundtracks attached to each scene and an alternation between black-and-white and color photography. The original cut runs at just over three hours long.

The title, Chelsea Girls, is a reference to the location in which the film takes place. It was the inspiration for star Nico's 1967 debut album, Chelsea Girl. The album featured a ballad-like track titled "Chelsea Girls", written about the hotel and its inhabitants who appear in the film.

The film was shot in the summer and early autumn of 1966 in various rooms and locations inside the Hotel Chelsea. Filming also took place at Warhol's studio "The Factory." Appearing in the film were many of Warhol's regulars, including Nico, Brigid Berlin, Gerard Malanga, Mary Woronov as Hanoi Hannah, Ingrid Superstar, International Velvet and Eric Emerson.

Once principal photography wrapped, Warhol and co-director Paul Morrissey selected the twelve most striking vignettes they had filmed and then projected them side-by-side to create a visual juxtaposition of both contrasting images and divergent content (the so-called "white" or light and innocent aspects of life against the "black" or darker, more disturbing aspects.) As a result, the 6½ hour running time was essentially cut in half, to 3 hours and 15 minutes. However, part of Warhol's concept for the film was that it would be unlike watching a regular movie, as the two projectors could never achieve exact synchronization from viewing to viewing; therefore, despite specific instructions of where individual sequences would be played during the running time, each viewing of the film would, in essence, be an entirely different experience.

Several of the sequences have gone on to attain a cult status, most notably the "Pope" sequence, featuring avant-garde actor and poet Robert Olivo, or Ondine as he called himself, as well as a segment featuring Mary Woronov entitled "Hanoi Hannah," one of two portions of the film scripted specifically by Tavel.

The cast of the film is largely made up of persons playing themselves, and are credited as so:

Brigid Berlin as herself (The Duchess)
Nico as herself
Ondine as himself (Pope)
Ingrid Superstar as herself
Randy Bourscheidt as himself
Angela 'Pepper' Davis as herself
Christian Aaron Boulogne (Nico's son) as himself (as Ari)
Mary Woronov as Hanoi Hannah
Ed Hood as himself
Ronna as herself
International Velvet as herself
Rona Page as herself
Albert Rene Richard as himself
Dorothy Dean as herself
Patrick Flemming as himself
Eric Emerson as himself
Donald Lyons as himself
Edie Sedgwick as herself (footage cut)
Gerard Malanga as Son
Marie Menken as Mother
Arthur Loeb as himself
Mario Montez as Transvestite

Chelsea Girls is largely unavailable for home video format. The film belongs to the Andy Warhol Foundation, and it, along with Warhol's other films (apart from a handful of his screen tests, which have since been released on DVD)[7] have never seen home video releases in the United States. In Europe, however, a handful of Warhol's films were released on DVD, including a short-lived DVD print of Chelsea Girls which was available in Italy for some time. This Italian DVD print, which is the film's only official home video release, was released on September 16, 2003.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child (2010)


Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child is a respectfully vivid, accurate, and entertaining homage to a painter who led a radical life and left an ambitious body of work behind after his premature death. The film opens with 1986 footage of Basquiat being interviewed in a hotel room by friends Becky Johnston and director Tamra Davis. For Basquiat fans, this film will prove essential viewing to flesh out an understanding of downtown New York's art scene in the 1980s, and to see Basquiat's pivotal role in this. While Downtown 81 is an awesome fictionalized portrait of Basquiat and his crew, and Julian Schnabel's feature Basquiat serves as tribute via Schnabel's dramatic artistic interpretation, Radiant Child offers the best possible documentary coverage of Basquiat's triumph and demise.

This feature-length film, constructed after Davis unearthed her 10-years-buried Basquiat footage to make a 20-minute short, then buried that another 10 years because of her strong wish to avoid exploitation, contains so much footage of Basquiat painting, partying, and being his charismatic self that one trusts it immediately. Additionally, Davis has interviewed every affiliated gallerist, among them Diego Cortez, Larry Gagosian, Bruno Bischofberger, Tony Shafrazi, Annina Nosei, and Jeffrey Deitch, not to mention all of Basquiat's surviving close friends, including Schnabel, Fab 5 Freddy, Glenn O'Brien, Maripol, and Thurston Moore. The film, organized chronologically to chart Basquiat's move out of Brooklyn to Manhattan, his beginnings as an itinerant street artist named Samo, his rise to gallery stardom, and his struggles at the end, marks time by showing paintings throughout that commemorate moments in Basquiat's life.

While the film obviously ends on a melancholy note as a warning about sudden fame and fortune, this film is ultimately more than a documentary about one man. It is a well-made testament, from the actual participants' perspectives, about what conspired in New York to allow Basquiat to shine. For viewers who recall those times, it may feel nostalgic; for viewers who glorify 1980s New York, this film will solidify New York's greatness; viewers who are artists may identify most, as one experiences a glimpse of a New York lifestyle that has come and gone.

"As I had discovered, Jean-Michel could be pretty awful. He also could be very kind and sweet, and The Radiant Child apparently showcases that side of Jean's character. In my presence he was often very paranoid about the people surrounding him, and he certainly was right to be that way as so many people were using him in one way or another. At least one of the people who was around his studio stole drawings, and I tend to think that Jean liked to be stolen from: he could then amaze the thief by confronting them and knowing exactly what they had taken." - John Seed, Driving Mr. Basquiat 
He died on Friday August 22 1988 at his live in studio at 57 Great Jones Street, amidst a heatwave in New York, alone and using. A girlfriend in the lounge downstairs, who waited for him to wake up alone. He was a junkie, a genius and too young but so wise.
"Basquiat was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn five days later. His father invited only a few of the artist's friends to the closed-casket funeral at Frank Campbell's; they were outnumbered by the phalanx of art dealers. The heat wave had broken, and it rained on the group gathered at the cemetery to bid Jean-Michel goodbye. The eulogy was delivered by Citibank art consultant Jeffrey Deitch, lending the moment an unintentionally ironic tone. Blanca Martinez, Basquiat's housekeeper, was struck by the alienated attitude of the mourners. "They were all standing separately, as if it were an obligation," she says. "They didn't seem to care. Some looked ashamed." People began to leave the cemetery before the body was buried. Ignoring the objections of the gravediggers, Martinez tearfully threw a handful of dirt onto the coffin as they lowered it into the grave." From Basquiat - A Quick Killing in Art By PHOEBE HOBAN
In the studio apartment was found finished and unfinished paintings, other artists' works (including several dozen Warhols and a piece by William Burroughs), a vintage collection of Mission furniture, a closet full of Armani and Comme des Garcons suits, a library of over a thousand videotapes, hundreds of audiocassettes, art books, a carton of the Charlie Parker biography Bird Lives!, several bicycles, a number of antique toys, an Everlast punching bag, six music synthesizers, some African instruments, an Erector set, and a pair of handcuffs.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Sounds of the West Pt 1.



Sounds from the West of England are unique, and suffer from none of the second-city rivalries and hang-ups of other national centers of musical excellence. This is cutting-edge music - without boundaries, free to experiment, bred from a rich cultural mix-up and fed on an independence of spirit - that has always stood on its own terms. Sounds of the West is the showcase for this music, its history and influence, and it includes commentary by Phil Johnson (author of Straight Outa Bristol) and John Mitchell. It focuses on three formats: Techno, Drum 'n' Bass, and Dub Out West and features artists such as Pete Kowalski (Death Row Techno), Producer, Subvision, Way Out West (Nick Warren & Jody Wisternoff), The Advent, Scorpio, Roni Size, Ray Mighty, Ruffneck Ting (MC Jakes & DJ Dazee), Full Cycle (DJ Krust & MC Dynamite), DJ Die, Virginia Lynch, Flynn & Flora, Gaffa, Black Roots, Prince Green, Orange Street with Delroy O'Gilvie, Jah Trinity Sound System, Ray Mighty, Henry & Louis, and The Rhythmites.

This cutting-edge music series focuses on the unique and independent-spirited tunes coming out of Bristol and the rest of west England. Part 1,2 & 3 focuses on the musical areas known as "techno," "drum 'n' bass," and "dub out West." Part 4 is punk to avant garde.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Jimmy's End - Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins





A film by Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins

We've all been there: in the lapses after midnight, stumbling down unfamiliar gutters after one too many for the road and looking for inviting lights before they call last orders. James is trying to lose himself, but in a fractured men's room mirror finds the eyes that have been waiting for him.

Following from the unnerving prelude Act of Faith, Alan Moore and Mitch Jenkins unveil a phantasmagoric English dreamtime made of goosefleshed pin-up girls, burned out comedians and faulty lights, with judgement just behind the tinsel

Jimmy's End pulls back the purple drapes upon an intricate new planet of desire and mystery. We've all been there.

Or it's where we're going.

http://www.lexprojects.com

Breaking the Taboo


Breaking the Taboo: The Truth About the War on Drugs is a 2015 Brazilian documentary on the War on Drugs (1971-) in which countless lives have been lost or destroyed at a cost of billions of dollars. This film is narrated by Morgan Freeman and is a harrowing account of how drugs policy is enacted on the ground around the world. From the slums of Baltimore to the mountains of Afghanistan a violent campaign is being waged against the production, distribution and consumption of illegal narcotics. But when viewed in light of human rights and harm minimization the cost of the War on Drugs can be argued to outstrip the cost of addiction and health problems from taking drugs.

The film also had repercussions in the English newspaper The Guardian: "The documentary highlights the perils of debating an issue so clouded by ideology and calls for an end to the stigmatization of the debate. It boasts the support of several former world leaders including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter."
"The War on Drugs has failed. After 50 years of prohibition, illicit drugs are now the third most valuable industry in the world after food and oil, all in the control of criminals. Drugs are cheaper and more available than ever before. Millions of people are in prison for drugs offences. Corruption and violence, especially in producer and transit countries, endangers democracy. Tens of thousands of people die each year in drug wars."

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Alan Moore on Austin Osman Spare


Austin Osman Spare (30 December 1886 – 15 May 1956) was an English artist and occultist who worked as both a draughtsman and a painter. Influenced by symbolism and the artistic decadence of art nouveau, his art was known for its clear use of line, and its depiction of monstrous and sexual imagery. In an occult capacity, he developed idiosyncratic magical techniques including automatic writing, automatic drawing and sigilization based on his theories of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious self.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Examined Life (2008)


Examined Life pulls philosophy out of academic journals and classrooms, and puts it back on the streets. In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today's most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas. Peter Singer's thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue's posh boutiques. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco's Mission District questioning our culture's fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West - perhaps America's best-known public intellectual - compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy's power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it.

Slavoj Zizek and Cornel West on Belief, Subjectivity, Fundamentalism, Inequality


The Ignorance Of Chicken - A Talk at Princeton Zizek talks and Cornel West listens and responds a little. A short Q+A follows. 10th November 2005