Tibetian Yoga Masters

Tibetian tantra masters. Very rare colore video.



Two masters meet, and touch Milarepa's dorje.




Very rare color video. Tibetan monks in retreat.

The last 3 faces you'll see in the video are:

1) His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma lineage in India

B) Venerable Kalu Rinpoche, great realized master in the Kagyu lineage.

C) His Holiness, the 16th Karmapa! The head of the Karma Kagyu lineage. A legendery realized master, said to have attained the 'rainbow body' feat.

Peter Clifton’s Superstars In Concert

Superstars in Concert - The most amazing videos are a click away

Peter Clifton (born 1945), is an Australian film director and producer, best known for directing the Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains the Same (1976).

Clifton was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He began his career by filming clips for Top of the Pops, and working with record label Immediate Records. Setting up his own film company called Star Films in Kensington, his first experience in film production was a 30 minute documentary short on the Easybeats tour of the United Kingdom in 1967 called Somewhere Between Heaven and Woolworths, with Australian film maker Lee Pearce. Clifton also directed the famous film clip of the Rolling Stones' performance of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash', as well as clips for the Beach Boys, Jim Morrison, and Eric Clapton. Between 1967 and 1969, Clifton began assembling his first feature film, an experiment in colour, music and effects with performances by the Rolling Stones, Vanilla Fudge, the Bee Gees, Joe Cocker, Traffic, the Animals, and Twiggy, entitled Popcorn (1969). The film established Clifton as one of the leading live music film directors of the period. Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant, and guitarist Jimmy Page met Clifton in 1970, in a bid for his services to edit Stanley Dorfman's footage of the band at the Royal Albert Hall, however the project was cancelled due to the below average quality of the print. In 1971 he directed Superstars in Film Concert, shot in 16mm monochrome featuring John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and Ike and Tina Turner. Released in 1973, Clifton oversaw the filming of The London Rock and Roll Show held at Wembley Stadium on 5 August 1972.

The Wild Angels (1966)

The Wild Angels is a 1966 Roger Corman film, made on location in Southern California. The Wild Angels was made three years before Easy Rider and was the first film to associate actor Peter Fonda with Harley-Davidson motorcycles and 1960s counterculture. It was also the film that inspired the outlaw biker film genre that continued into the early 1970s.

The Wild Angels, released by American International Pictures (AIP), stars Fonda as the fictitious Hells Angels San Pedro, California chapter president "Heavenly Blues" (or "Blues"), Nancy Sinatra as his girlfriend "Mike", Bruce Dern as doomed fellow outlaw "the Loser", and Dern's real-life wife Diane Ladd as the Loser's on-screen wife, "Gaysh".

Small supporting roles are played by Michael J. Pollard and Gayle Hunnicutt and, according to literature promoting the film, members of the Hells Angels from Venice, California. Members of the Coffin Cheaters motorcycle club also appeared.

In 1967 AIP followed this film with Devil's Angels, The Glory Stompers with Dennis Hopper, and The Born Losers. Other films by the same group includes The Trip, Freaked Out, and Easy Rider.

Peter Fonda plays 'Heavenly Blues', the leader of Hell's Angels chapter from Venice, California while Bruce Dern plays 'Loser', his best pal. When they both botch their attempt to retrieve Loser's stolen bike, Loser ends up in the hospital. When the Angels bust him out, he dies, and they bury him. Nancy Sinatra plays Mike, Blues' "old lady" and Diane Ladd plays Loser's wife (Dern's real-life wife at the time). The plot is basically a buildup to the last half-hour of the film in which Loser's funeral becomes another wild party.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi

This is a biographical film on Bhimsen Joshi who is undoubtedly the singer of this century.An exponent of the Kirana Gharana he is equally at ease with lighter varieties such as 'Bhajans' and stage shows. His guru's have taught him not to be gimmicky and therefore he remains one of the most sought after vocalists at most prestigious music concerts.

Barfly (1987)

Barfly is a 1987 American film which is a semi-autobiography of poet/author Charles Bukowski during the time he spent drinking heavily in Los Angeles. The screenplay by Bukowski was commissioned by the French film director Barbet Schroeder – it was published, with illustrations by the author, in 1984 when film production was still pending. Barfly stars Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway, with direction by Schroeder, and was "presented by" Francis Ford Coppola. The movie also features a silent cameo appearance by Bukowski himself.

The Kino Flo light, now a ubiquitous tool in the film industry, was specially created by Robby Muller's electrical crew for a scene in this film which would have been difficult to light using the conventional lampheads available at the time.

The Last Movie (1971)

The Last Movie is a 1971 drama film from Universal Pictures. It was written and directed by Dennis Hopper, who also played a horse wrangler named after the state of Kansas. It also starred Peter Fonda, Henry Jaglom and Michelle Phillips. Production of the movie, which cost $1 million, took place in the film's major setting, Peru.

The film's initial failure led to Hopper's virtual exile from Hollywood, one that lasted well over a decade. Nonetheless, Hopper later announced he was very proud of the film, and hosted many screenings. While he had disparaged the film in the past, Hopper said it was ahead of its time, and only now had audiences and critics started to understand his artistic vision.

Hopper told Playboy in 2006 that he had re-acquired the rights to the film and was planning a DVD release. The magazine even mentions at the time that Hopper held a screening of the film at the Playboy Mansion for Hugh Hefner and several Playmates. Hopper did not realize his plans to release the film on DVD before his death in May 2010.


Hopper appears on The Merv Griffin Show in 1971 just after the release of The Last Movie. More on the film and this interview here.

Voices of Black Panther women (October 26, 1990)

A panel discussion of women who are members of the Black Panther Party in which they relate their personal struggles and experiences as "Panther women" engaged in civil rights activism. This event was organized by the Graduate Assembly, University of California, Berkeley and took place on October 26, 1990 at Booth Auditorium, Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin: A Hero of the Future

Chemist and pharmacologist Alexander ‘Sasha’ Shulgin passed away Monday “peacefully surrounded by friends and family.” He was 88.

DIRTY PICTURES is a documentary about Dr. Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, the chemist who discovered the effects of MDMA (aka Ecstasy) and over 200 other mind-altering drugs. Shulgin's alchemy has earned him the title "The Godfather of Psychedelics," and a reputation as one of the great chemists of the 20th century.

Working from a lab in his home, and using himself and his wife Ann as test subjects, Shulgin's discoveries have brought him into conflict with the law but made him a worldwide underground hero. The two books they co-authored, "Pihkal" and "Tihkal", have built a foundation for cutting-edge neuroscience and medical research. DIRTY PICTURES examines the impact of Dr. Shulgin's lifelong quest to unlock the complexities of the human mind.

Alexander "Sasha" Theodore Shulgin (June 17, 1925 -- June 2, 2014) was an American medicinal chemist, biochemist, pharmacologist, psychopharmacologist, and author. He was the scientist behind more than 200 psychedelic compounds including MDMA, more commonly known as Esctasy. Considered to be one of the the greatest chemists of the twentieth century, Sasha's vast array of discoveries have had a profound impact in the field of psychedelic research. By employing unorthodox methods; testing his creations on himself, working from a makeshift lab in his home, Shulgin has gained the reputation of a modern day alchemist within the scientific community.

Shulgin’s work lives on in his books TIHKAL and PIHKAL.

Velvet Underground Live in Boston 1967

A 33-minute 16mm film shot by Andy Warhol of the Velvet Underground playing live at The Boston Tea Party nightclub in 1967.

Anarchism In Spain - Living Utopia Documentary

Living Utopia is a 1997 documentary produced by TVE and directed by Juan Gamero , in which the lived experiences of the anarcho-syndicalists in Spain are related. Anarchism radically transformed the structures of society in large parts of the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

The film consists of 30 interviews with survivors of the Spanish anarchist revolution, whose testimony shows the constructive work of the social revolution and the historical background of the Spanish libertarian movement. This construction work according to the documentary meant organizing an agricultural community of about 7 million farmers, 3,000 factories and collectively managed firms in cities, the union of anarchists 150,000 militiamen against fascism, as well as cultural , educational activities and the movement of women against patriarchy .

Anarchists interviewed are Miguel Alba, Ramon Alvarez , Federico Arcos , Marcelino Bailo, Batet María Severino Campos, Francisco Carrasquer , Miguel Celma , Valerio Chiné ; José Spain , José Fortea , Juan Gimenez, Antonio Lahuerta , Concha Liano , Fidel Miró, Aurora Molina, Molina Helenus , Conxa Perez, Event Portals , Dolors Prat , Ximo Queirol , Wonders Rodríguez , Juan Romero, Manuel Sanz, Liberto Sarrau Jose Sauces Josep Serra Estruch , Antonio Turon Urzáiz and Jose Antonio Zapata.

Jem Cohen’s “Witness” - (Danceteria '86)

In 1986 the closes thing you could get to the Rites of Pan west of Tangier was a Butthole Surfers concert. Ritual, danger and trance combined into a grinding droning spectacle. This is a short film of the Butthole Surfers at the height of their powers.

In early ‘86 they drove from Los Angeles all the way to New York just to play two lucrative weekend shows at the Danceteria club, only to arrive to find that the second night had been canceled. The band was livid; Haynes got quite drunk just before show time. “During that show it was just complete bedlam,” says Leary, a man who knows from bedlam. After only a song or two, Haynes picked up a beer bottle and viciously smashed Leary over the head with it. Leary’s eyes rolled back in his head as he crumpled on the floor. Then he quickly got up and resumed playing. It was a stunt bottle, made out of sugar. Then Haynes picked up a real bottle and heaved it the length of the room, where it exploded above the exit sign. Soon Haynes had set fire to a pile of trash in the middle of the stage. “And you’re really thinking, ‘Should I get out of here?’” says Michael Macioce. “That was the type of feeling you had - you were 'in danger' at one of their shows.”- Dangerous Minds

Jem Alan Cohen (born 1962) is a New York City-based American film maker, especially known for his observational portraits of urban landscapes, blending of media formats (16mm, Super 8, video) and collaborations with music artists. He is the recipient of the Independent Spirit Award for feature filmmaking. "Cohen's films have been broadcast in Europe by the BBC and ZDF/ARTE, and in the United States by the Sundance Channel and PBS. They are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney, and Melbourne's Screen Gallery." He also makes multi-channel installations and still photographs and had a photography show at Robert Miller Gallery in 2009. He has received grants from the Guggenheim, Creative Capital, Rockefeller and Alpert Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other organizations

Jungle Fever

The final episode of our Channel 4-commissioned documentary series Music Nation is now online to watch in full! Jungle Fever, directed by Ollie Evans and produced by Friend London, charts the rise and fall of one of Britain's most vibrant, unforgettable scenes, featuring jungle veterans Fabio & Grooverider, DJ Hype, Kenny Ken, Brockie and more. Catch up on last week's Dazed Digital jungle day – when we explored everything about it from the style to the sound – here.

Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998)

Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon is a 1998 film made for television by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It was written and directed by John Maybury and stars Derek Jacobi, Daniel Craig, and Tilda Swinton.

A biography of painter Francis Bacon (Jacobi), it concentrates on his strained relationship with George Dyer (Craig), a small time thief. The film draws heavily on the authorised biography of Bacon, The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon by Daniel Farson, and is dedicated to him.

The film won three awards at the Edinburgh International Film Festival: Best New British Feature (director John Maybury) and two Best British Performance awards, one for Jacobi and, the other for future James Bond actor, Craig. The film was also screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.

Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 – 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. His painterly but abstracted figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds. Bacon began painting during his early 20s and worked only sporadically until his mid-30s. Unsure of his ability as a painter, he drifted and earned his living as an interior decorator and designer of furniture and rugs. Later, he admitted that his career was delayed because he had spent too long looking for a subject that would sustain his interest. His breakthrough came with the 1944 triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion which sealed his reputation as a uniquely bleak chronicler of the human condition.

Margaret Thatcher described him as "that man who paints those dreadful pictures"

Claire Colebrook - We Have Always Been Post-Anthropocene

The proposed conception of the Anthropocene epoch marks is radical a shift in species awareness as Darwinian evolution was for the nineteenth-century. If the notion of the human species' emergence in time requires new forms of narrative, imaginative and ethical articulation, then the intensifying sense of the species' end makes a similar claim for rethinking 'our' processes of self-presentation and self-preservation.

One of the dominant motifs of the anthropocene is climate change, which (as Bruno Latour has argued) closes down the modern conception of the infinite universe, drawing us back once again to the parochial, limited and exhausted earth. It might be worth redefining all those hyper-modern proclamations of a post-human and post-racial future as hypo-modern, as refusals of the species' bounded temporality. Nowhere is this more evident than in the seemingly modern fascination with sexual difference. It is the possibility of transcending sexual difference — of arriving at indifference — that has always been harbored as the human species' end.

Grey Gardens (1975)

Grey Gardens is a 1975 American documentary film by Albert and David Maysles. Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer also directed, and Susan Froemke was the associate producer. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive socialites, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived at Grey Gardens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in the wealthy Georgica Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, New York. The film was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival but was not entered into the main competition.

In 2010, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

"It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present," Little Edie wistfully points out, as her mother boils corn on a hot plate next to her bed. Dressed in a bathing suit and torn fishnet hose, her head wrapped in a towel held in place with a large broach, Little Edie has an outlandish sense of style that gives little indication of her family pedigree.

Born in 1893, Big Edie Beale had two brothers: "Black" Jack Bouvier, who made a fortune on Wall Street and fathered Jackie Kennedy in 1929; and Bud Bouvier, who made his money in oil and drank himself to death before he was 40.

An aspiring singer, Edie Beale made a few records before her 1916 marriage to Phelen Beale, an Alabama-born aristocrat whose grandfather was pals with Jefferson Davis. Little Edie Beale was born in 1918, the second of three children. (Edie's younger brother, Bouvier Beale, became a lawyer; her older brother, Phelen Beale Jr., went into business in Oklahoma; both brothers are now dead.)

In 1923 Phelen Beale Sr. moved his wife and children into Grey Gardens, where he abandoned them 10 years later; when he died in 1956, his estate went to his second wife. Forced to rely on her family for the money to raise her children, Big Edie withdrew into seclusion, and after her children reached adulthood she lived alone at Grey Gardens. In 1936, Little Edie had a lavish coming-out party in New York's Pierre Hotel, and she spent the next 16 years in Manhattan attempting to establish a career as a dancer.

Then in 1952 Little Edie returned to Grey Gardens. Whether that return was a result of her inability to make a life for herself, or because her mother needed her, is a subject of endless debate between them in the film.

Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (1895–1977), known as "Big Edie", and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (1917–2002), known as "Little Edie", were the aunt and the first cousin, respectively, of former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The two women lived together at Grey Gardens for decades with limited funds in increasing squalor and isolation.

The house was designed in 1897 by Joseph Greenleaf Thorpe and purchased in 1923 by "Big Edie" and her husband Phelan Beale. After Phelan left his wife, "Big Edie" and "Little Edie" lived there for more than 50 years. The house was called Grey Gardens because of the color of the dunes, the cement garden walls, and the sea mist.

Throughout the fall of 1971 and into 1972, their living conditions—their house was infested by fleas, inhabited by numerous cats and raccoons, deprived of running water, and filled with garbage and decay—were exposed as the result of an article in the National Enquirer and a cover story in New York Magazine after a series of inspections (which the Beales called "raids") by the Suffolk County Health Department. With the Beale women facing eviction and the razing of their home, in the summer of 1972 Jacqueline Onassis and her sister Lee Radziwill provided the necessary funds to stabilize and repair the dilapidated house so that it would meet village codes.

Albert and David Maysles became interested in their story and received permission to film a documentary about the women, which was released in 1976 to wide critical acclaim. Their direct cinema technique left the women to tell their own stories.

Saving Little Wonder Part 1, Rough Cut

THIS is how you can save the world. A group of feral hippies and environmentalists bands together with members of an indigenous Aboriginal tribe to try and save one of the last fragments of Australian rainforest (filled with rare, endangered and unclassified species of animals) from destruction. This is most of a rough cut documentary detailing their true story, rushed to your screen from the lost archives of Australia’s forest wars – because these unique forests are under threat again after the recent elections of rapacious, destructive governments bent on burning the world’s heritage in power stations. Language (and lifestyle) warning. A document by R. Ayana (Part 2 coming sooner)

The Delian Mode (Kara Blake, 2009)

The Delian Mode (Kara Blake, 2009) is a a short experimental documentary revolving around the life and work of electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire (5 May 1937 – 3 July 2001), best known for her groundbreaking sound treatment of the Doctor Who theme music. A collage of sound and image created in the spirit of Derbyshire’s unique approach to audio creation and manipulation, this film illuminates such soundscapes onscreen while paying tribute to a woman whose work has influenced electronic musicians for decades.

"A documentary on Delia Derbyshire who created the theme song for “Doctor Who”. Musical pioneer Delia Derbyshire didn’t just create the Doctor Who theme music; she invented every sound it comprised. Her history, and the history of a BBC department that helped launch electronic music, is told in an innovative, idiosyncratic style." —Telluride Film Festival

Slip Inside This House

Pink Floyd in It's so far out it's straight down

Granada Television produced this fascinating TV time capsule “It’s So Far Out It’s Straight Down” as a special part of their Scene at 6:30 series. The program focused on the young counterculture / hippie scene in London and features Miles, the Indica Gallery and the editorial board of The International Times underground newspaper. Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti are seen at the International Poetry Incarnation and we are taken to The UFO Club where Syd Barrett and the Pink Floyd are playing a live version of “Interstellar Overdrive” (Also heard on the soundtrack is an early version of their “Matilda Mother,” then called “Percy The Ratcatcher” and “It Can’t Happen Here” by The Mothers of Invention).

Paul McCartney is a talking head interviewee (although not framed as such) in the studio, intelligently discussing the nascent underground scene:

If you don’t know anything about it [the counterculture], you can sort of trust that it’s probably gonna be all right and it’s probably not that bad because it’s human beings doing it, and you know vaguely what human beings do. And they’re probably going to think of it nearly the same way you would in that situation.
The straights should welcome the underground because it stands for freedom… It’s not strange it’s just new, it’s not weird, it’s just what’s going on around.

“It’s So Far Out It’s Straight Down” was broadcast in March of 1967. The film focuses on performance (happenings) and The International Times, described by one of its members as communication media. The network element of this film, "to be part of something that has a common bond"is striking in the age of digital networked media. With words "beginning to become obsolete" and posters as the next form of mass communication.

Tribe Called Red (Summer Gig in Norway)

A Tribe Called Red deliver a blistering 45 minute set of electric pow wow music. Roots tunes for an indigenous planet.

A Tribe Called Red will be performing at the Riddu Riđđu festival in Sapmi (northern Norway) in July 2014 if you are on the peninsular at this time. I am working on being there, as it will be mind blowing.

DOWNLOAD THE FREE AUDIO HERE

JustJam is a weekly music show, brought to you by Tim & Barry, (Official photographers of Dizzee Rascal) every Wednesday between 7 and 9pm, on www.dontwatchthat.tv

Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue

Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue is presenting footage of Miles Davis' performance at the British Isle of Wight Festival on August 29, 1970. It presents interview clips from a range of those involved, including Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Airto Moreira, and musicians who were in Davis' musical orbit at the time such as Carlos Santana. It includes interviews with some of the band's participants.

Miles Davis played at the largest pop festival in history to an audience of 600,000.

Tracklist

1. A Spiritual Orgasm
2. "So What" Kind Of Blue 1964
3. Fender Rhodes Piano The New Electric Toy
4. Bitches Brew Shaking The Foundations
5. Betti Davis And Miles' Hard Core Rock
6. Boxing, Improvisation And Miles' Music
7. Caught Up In The Craziness Of The Sixties
8. The Critics' Jazz - The Dirty Word
9. Embracing The Shock Of Electricity
10. The Isle Of Wight - The Sidemen
11. "Call It Anything" The Isle Of Wight Concert 1970
12. Trinute To Miles' Genius
13. End Credits

Produced & directed by Murray Lerner
Executive Producers Terry Shand and Geoff Kempin

This documentary about Miles Davis' legendary gig at the Isle of Wight Festival has won "Banff Rockie Award" in 2005 - at Banff Television Festival - for category "Best Arts Documentary" [MFT and Eagle Rock Entertainment Ltd. (in association with)].

Music Compositions - Written by Miles Davis

"MIles Run the Voodoo Down"
"Bitches Brew"
"So What" Live on Steve Allen Show 1964
"Bitches Brew" Live at Copenhagen 1969
"Spanish Key"
"Pharaoh's Dance"
"Right Off"
"Moja" Live at Tokyo 1973
"Untitled 04" Live at Newport 1971
"Black Satin"
"What I say"
"Willie Nelson"
"On the Corner"
"Ife"
"Untitled 04" Live at Copenhagen 1982
"Call It Anything" Live at Isle of Wight 1970
"So What"
"Untitled 04" Live at Stockholm 1973

Step Across the Border (1990), A ninety minute celluloid improvisation by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel.

Step Across the Border is a 1990 avant-garde documentary film on English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith. It was written and directed by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel and released in Germany and Switzerland. The film was screened in cinemas in North America, South America, Europe and Japan, and on television in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France. It was also released on VHS by RecRec Music (Switzerland) in 1990, and was later released on DVD by Winter & Winter (Germany) in 2003.

Shot in black and white, the 35mm documentary was filmed between 1988 and 1990 in Japan, Italy, France, Germany, England, the United States and Switzerland, and shows Frith rehearsing, performing, giving interviews and relaxing. Other musicians featured include René Lussier, Iva Bittová, Tom Cora, Tim Hodgkinson, Bob Ostertag and John Zorn.

The film won "Best Documentary" at the European Film Awards in 1990. A companion soundtrack album, Step Across the Border was also released by RecRec Music in 1990.

Step Across the Border is subtitled: A ninety minute celluloid improvisation by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel.

"Improvisation" here refers not only to the music, but also to the film itself. Humbert and Penzel state in the 2003 DVD release of the film:

“In Step Across the Border two forms of artistic expression, improvised music and cinema direct, are interrelated. In both forms it is the moment that counts, the intuitive sense of what is happening in a space. Music and film come into existence out of an intense perception of the moment, not from the transformation of a preordained plan.”

The film is not narrated, and the musicians, the music and the locations are not identified. Instead it is a sequence of "snapshots' taken of Frith and musicians he has worked with, rehearsing and performing, interspersed with apparent random images of movement (trains, cars, people, grass) that blend in with the music. The improvised nature of the film and its direct cinema approach make it more of an art film than simply a documentary on a musician.

The music in the film is performed by Frith on his own, with others, and by others on their own. Some of the music is improvised, some is composed material performed "live", and some is previously recorded material played as accompaniment to many of the "movement" sequences in the film.

The recording of the film coincided with the formation and activity of Frith's review band Keep the Dog (1989–1991), and many of the participants of the band appear in the film. There are even a few rare glimpses of the band rehearsing. René Lussier in particular, features prominently and "interviews" Frith about his musical upbringing and approach to music.

The title of the film comes from the lyrics of the song "The Border", recorded by Skeleton Crew on their album, The Country of Blinds (1986). A brief "video" of this song also appears in the film.

 

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

Romeo and Juliet is a 1968 British-Italian romance film based on the tragic play of the same name (1591–95) by William Shakespeare. The film was directed and co-written by Franco Zeffirelli, and starred Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography (Pasqualino De Santis) and Best Costume Design (Danilo Donati); it was also nominated for Best Director and Best Picture. Laurence Olivier spoke the film's prologue and epilogue and reportedly dubbed the voice of the Italian actor playing Lord Montague, but was not credited in the film.
Being the most financially successful film of a Shakespeare play during that time, it was popular among teenagers partly because the film used actors who were close to the age of the characters from the original play for the first time. Several critics also welcomed the film enthusiastically.

In 1985 I was a student at an isolated rural high school, 3 hours west by car from Brisbane in Australia. The main focus of life at Oakey High School was the school rugby league team. I was not really so interested, although I did try to fit in. Mostly unsuccessfully. My English teacher showed us this film and I was blown away. This was Shakespeare as I had never imagined it; tough, rowdy, sexy, dusty and intense. I asked to borrow the VHS cassette and watch it alone in a classroom one lunch hour, and my English teacher allowed me to. Barbara Hunter was her name. Thanks for that Ms Hunter. 

Chappaqua (1966)

Chappaqua is a 1966 cult film written and directed by Conrad Rooks. Click on the image above to watch it in full. The film is based on Rooks' experiences with drug addiction and includes cameo appearances by William S. Burroughs, Swami Satchidananda, Allen Ginsberg, Moondog, Ornette Coleman, The Fugs, and Ravi Shankar. Rooks had commissioned Coleman to compose music for the film, but his score, which has become known as the Chappaqua Suite was not used (see below for full album). Ravi Shankar then composed a score.

The film briefly depicts Chappaqua, New York, a hamlet in Westchester County, in a few minutes of wintry panoramas. In the film, the hamlet is an overt symbol of drug-free suburban childhood innocence. It also serves as one of the film's many nods to Native American culture. The word "chappaqua" derives from the Wappinger (a nation of the Algonquian peoples) word for "laurel swamp."

 Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg sing for their supper in Chappaqua (1966)

Cast:

Jean-Louis Barrault as Dr. Benoit 

Conrad Rooks as Russel Harwick 

 William S. Burroughs as Opium Jones 

 Allen Ginsberg as Messie 

 Ravi Shankar as Dieu du Soleil 

 Paula Pritchett as Water Woman 

 Ornette Coleman as Peyote Eater 

 Swami Satchidananda as The Guru 

 Moondog as The Prophet 

 Ed Sanders as The Fugs 

 Rita Renoir Hervé Villechaize

Directed by Conrad Rooks
Produced by Conrad Rooks
Written by Conrad Rooks
Starring Jean-Louis Barrault
William S. Burroughs
Allen Ginsberg
Swami Satchidananda
Ornette Coleman
Music by Ravi Shankar
Cinematography Étienne Becker
Robert Frank
Eugen Schüfftan
Editing by Kenout Peltier
Studio Minotaur
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release dates November 5, 1967 (USA)
Running time 82 mins
Country USA
Language English

 

1959 The Year that Changed Jazz (BBC Documentary)

1959 was the seismic year jazz broke away from complex bebop music to new forms, allowing soloists unprecedented freedom to explore and express. It was also a pivotal year for America: the nation was finding its groove, enjoying undreamt-of freedom and wealth social, racial and upheavals were just around the corner and jazz was ahead of the curve.

Four major jazz albums were made, each a high watermark for the artists and a powerful reflection of the times. Each opened up dramatic new possibilities for jazz which continue to be felt Miles Davis Kind of Blue Dave Brubeck, Time Out Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um; and Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come.

Rarely seen archive performances help vibrantly bring the era to life and explore what made these albums vital both in 1959 and the 50 years since. The programme contains interviews with Lou Reed, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden, Herbie Hancock, Joe Morello (Brubecks drummer) and Jimmy Cobb (the only surviving member of Miles band) along with a host of jazz movers and shakers from the 50s and beyond.

The Eviction of Charles Mingus 1966

In November of 1966, the great jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus was forcibly evicted from his apartment in New York City. Thomas Reichman’s documentary Mingus (above) captures the sad moment when the musician, with his five-year-old daughter Carolyn at his side, looks through his scattered belongings the night before city officials arrive to cart everything away.
With the camera rolling, Mingus plays a few notes on a piano and then picks up a rifle and shoots a bullet into the ceiling. He finds a bottle of wine and gives a sip to his daughter. He recites his own version of the Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag–the white flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of America. When they say “black” or “negro,” it means you’re not an American. I pledge allegiance to your flag. Not that I have to, but just for the hell of it I pledge allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. The white flag, with no stripes, no stars. It is a prestige badge worn by a profitable minority.

Scenes from the apartment are intercut with footage of Mingus and his sextet performing at a little club in Peabody, Massachusetts called Lennie’s-on-the-Turnpike. The combo features Mingus on bass, Dannie Richmond on drums, Charles McPherson on alto saxophone, John Gilmore on tenor saxophone, Lonnie Hillyer on trumpet and Walter Bishop, Jr., on piano. The music includes parts of “All the Things You Are,” Take the ‘A’ Train” and “Secret Love.”
But the film is more about the man than the music. It records an especially painful moment in Mingus’s life. He had hoped to use the loft at 5 Great Jones Street in Greenwich Village as a music school. In the final sequence, a crowd of reporters and cameramen jostle for position to record the humiliating scene as Mingus’s belongings, including his musical instruments, are hauled out to the curb and loaded onto a truck. Tears appear in Mingus’s eyes when the police block him from going back into the building. When the cops find hypodermic needles among his things, Mingus himself is loaded into a police car and taken away.

Butthole Surfers - Blind Eye Sees All (1985)

We had a VHS copy of this around 1989, passed it round and marveled at the mad genius of the weirdos from Waco. If you have not encountered the Butthole Surfers before, be prepared for something confronting, ecstatic and intense. Musically they occupy the intersection between psychedelia and  punk and deranged Saturday morning cartoons as programmed by a visionary but slightly dangerous outsider artist.

Butthole Surfers - Blind Eye See's All - Live Detroit '85
Blind Eye See's All is a home video by the Butthole Surfers, which was released in 1986 through Touch and Go Video.


* Gibby Haynes - vocals, saxophone, guitar on "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave", "Mark Says Alright" and "PSY"; bass guitar on "Something"
* Paul Leary - lead guitar, vocals on "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave", "Bar-be-que Pope" and "Something"; bass guitar on "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave"
* King Coffey - drums
* Teresa Taylor - drums
* Trevor Malcolm - bass guitar, sousaphone on "Something"


[01]. The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave
[02]. One Hundred Million People Dead
[03]. Bar-be-que Pope
[04]. Cowboy Bob
[05]. Hey
[06]. Tornados
[07]. Dum Dum
[08]. Mexican Caravan
[09]. Cherub
[10]. Lady Sniff
[11]. Something
[12]. Mark Says Alright
[13]. PSY

Butthole Surfers collection on the Internet Archive of live recordings.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964, w/English subtitles)

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Ukrainian: Тіні забутих предків, Tini zabutykh predkiv), also called Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, Shadows of Our Ancestors, or Wild Horses of Fire – is a 1964 film by the Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov based on the classic book by Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky. The film was Parajanov's first major work and earned him international acclaim for its rich use of costume and color. The film also features a detailed portrayal of Ukrainian Hutsul culture, showing not only the harsh Carpathian environment and brutal family rivalries, but also the beauty of Hutsul traditions, music, costumes, and dialect.

In a small Hutsul village in the Carpathian mountains of Ukraine, a young man, Ivan, falls in love with the daughter of the man who killed his father. Though their families share a bitter enmity, Ivan and Marichka have known each other since childhood. In preparation for their marriage, Ivan leaves the village to work and earn money for a household. While he is gone, Marichka accidentally slips into a river and drowns while trying to rescue a lost lamb.

Ivan returns and falls into despair after seeing Marichka's body. He continues to work, enduring a period of joyless toil, until he meets another woman, Palagna, while shoeing a horse. Ivan and Palagna get married in a traditional Hutsul wedding in which they are blindfolded and yoked together. The marriage quickly turns sour, however, as Ivan remains obsessed with the memory of Marichka. Estranged from her emotionally distant husband, Palagna becomes involved with a local sorcerer, while Ivan begins to experience hallucinations.

At a tavern, Ivan witnesses the sorcerer embrace Palagna and strike one of his friends. Roused into an uncharacteristic fury, Ivan snatches up his axe, only to be struck down by the sorcerer. Ivan stumbles into the nearby woods and perceives Marichka's spirit to be with him, reflected in the water and gliding amongst the trees. As reality merges into dream, the colorless shade of Marichka reaches out across a great space and touches Ivan's outstretched hand. Ivan screams and dies. The community gives him a traditional Hutsul burial while children watch through crossbraced windows.

Sergi Parajanov "Color of Pomegranates - Sayat Nova" (1968)

Director Sergei Paradjanov made a practice of making highly idiosyncratic films based on the folklore of regions in the former Soviet Union. In 1969 he made this film, based in part on the life of the 18th-century Armenian poet-monk, Sayat Nova.

Seriously out of favor with Soviet authorities (he was imprisoned in 1974 for his homosexuality, among other things), this film was not seen in the international arena until 1977. Then, The Color of Pomegranates was widely acclaimed for its poetic and non-narrative blending of historical and biographical Armenian imagery.

Cast: Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Aleksanyan, Vilen Galstyan, Giorgi Gegechkori

Narrated by: Armen Dzhigarkhanyan

JON VS JON

Part One

Jon Ronson discovers a twitter spam bot with the username Jon_Ronson.The spam bot was created by academics working formerly at Warwick University. Jon Ronson discusses his frustration with the fact many of the tweets seem plausible, even though they are about things he would never talk about himself. With the creators of this account refusing to take it down, it seems the only way to resolve this is by meeting them.



Part Two

Jon Ronson arranges a meeting with the creators of the twitter spambot 'Jon_Ronson'. After some heated discussion and confusion in this interview, he discovers the academics' true agenda.

ABOUT ESCAPE & CONTROL:
Escape & Control is an online documentary series in which internationally acclaimed journalist and filmmaker Jon Ronson (Adventures with Extremists, The Men Who Stare At Goats and The Psychopath Test) turns his attentions to the Internet.

It can sometimes feel like we're creating a new kind of democracy online, where we control and regulate each other instead of being told how to behave by those in authority. But there are people out there who don't like this idea at all. So they want to come up with ways to control it.

Sometimes maybe even secret ways...

With searing interviews, unravelling mysteries and some great fun along the way, Jon Ronson is setting off on an adventure that may mean you'll never look at your mouse in the same way again.

CREDITS:
Written and Directed by Jon Ronson
Music by Jeffrey Lewis
Filmed, edited and produced by Remy Lamont
Produced by Lucy Greenwell

Grace Slick on Religion and Spirituality

Grace Slick sits with ReligionMatters Show's, Dr. Arik Greenberg, to share some memories of the 60s, personal stories and her spirituality. The interview is in two parts.

Critique of Separation (English subtitles) by Guy Debord, 1961

Critique of Separation (English subtitles) from 1000littlehammers on Vimeo.

Shot September-October 1960 and edited January-February 1961. Production: Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilmskompagni. 20-minute short, 35 mm, black and white. GTC Laboratory; sound recorded at Studio Marignan.

Cameraman: André Mrugalski. Editing: Chantal Delattre. Assistant Cameraman: Bernard Davidson. Continuity: Claude Brabant. Grip: Bernard Largemain.

Before the credits, a hodgepodge of meaningless images is punctuated by a series of text frames — “Coming soon to this screen . . . One of the greatest antifilms of all time! . . . Real people! A true story! . . . On a theme the cinema has never dared to confront!” — while Caroline Rittener reads the following passage from André Martinet’s Elements of General Linguistics: “When one considers how natural and beneficial it is for man to identify his language with reality, one realizes the level of sophistication he had to attain in order to be able to dissociate them and make each an object of study.” All the rest of the film’s commentary is spoken by Guy Debord. Caroline Rittener also plays the young woman in the film. The music is by François Couperin and Bodin de Boismortier.
The images in Critique of Separation are often taken from comics, ID photos and newspapers, or from other films. In many cases subtitles are added, which may be rather difficult to follow at the same time as the spoken commentary. The people who have been directly filmed are almost always none other than members of the film crew.

The relation between the images, the spoken commentary and the subtitles is neither complementary nor indifferent, but is intended to itself be critical. —Technical Notes on "Critique of Separation
bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/technotes.htm

Critique of Separation by Guy Debord
Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilmskompagni (1961)
Translated by Ken Knabb

WE DON'T KNOW what to say. Words are formed into sequences; gestures are recognized. Outside us. Of course some methods are mastered, some results verified. Quite often it’s amusing. But so many things we wanted have not been attained; or only partially and not like we thought. What communication have we desired, or experienced, or only simulated? What true project has been lost?
The cinematic spectacle has its rules, which enable one to produce satisfactory products. But dissatisfaction is the reality that must be taken as a point of departure. Whether dramatic or documentary, the cinema functions to present a false, isolated coherence as a substitute for a communication and an activity that are absent. To demystify documentary cinema it is necessary to dissolve what is called its subject matter.

A well-established rule is that anything in a film that is said other than by way of images must be repeated or else the spectators will miss it. That may be true. But this sort of incomprehension is present in all everyday encounters. Something must be specified, but there’s not enough time and you are not sure of having been understood. Before you have said or done what was necessary, the other person’s already gone. Across the street. Overseas. There will never be another chance.
After all the dead time and lost moments, there remain these endlessly traversed postcard landscapes; this distance organized between each and everyone. Childhood? It’s right here; we have never gotten out of it.

Our epoch accumulates powers and dreams of itself as being rational. But no one recognizes these powers as their own. No one becomes an adult — there is only the possible eventual transformation of this long restlessness into a routine somnolence. Because no one ceases to be held under guardianship. The problem is not that people live more or less poorly, but that they live in a way that is always out of their control.

At the same time, it is a world in which we have been taught change. Nothing stops. It changes more every day; and I know that those who day after day produce it against themselves can appropriate it for themselves.

The only adventure, we said, is to contest the totality, whose center is this way of living, where we can test our strength but never use it. In reality no adventure is directly formed for us. The adventures form part of the whole range of legends transmitted by cinema or in other ways; part of the whole spectacular sham of history.

Until the environment is collectively dominated, there will be no individuals — only specters haunting the objects anarchically presented to them by others. In chance situations we meet separated people moving randomly. Their divergent emotions neutralize each other and maintain their solid environment of boredom. As long as we are unable to make our own history, to freely create situations, striving toward unity will introduce other separations. The quest for a central activity leads to the formation of new specializations.

And only a few encounters were like signals emanating from a more intense life, a life that has not really been found.

What cannot be forgotten reappears in dreams. At the end of this type of dream, half asleep, the events are still for a brief moment taken as real. Then the reactions they give rise to become clearer, more distinct, more reasonable; like, so many mornings, the memory of what one drank the night before. Then comes the awareness that it’s all false; that “it was only a dream”; that there are no new realities and no going back into it. Nothing you can hold on to. These dreams are flashes from the unresolved past. They unilaterally illuminate moments previously lived in confusion and doubt. They strikingly publicize those of our needs that have not been answered. Here is daylight, and here are perspectives that now no longer mean anything. The sectors of a city are, at a certain level, decipherable. But the personal meaning they have had for us is incommunicable, like all that secrecy of private life regarding which we possess nothing but pitiful documents.

Official news is elsewhere. The society sends back to itself its own historical image as a merely superficial and static history of its rulers. Those who incarnate the external fatality of what is done. The sector of rulers is the very sector of the spectacle. The cinema suits them well. Regardless of its subject matter, the cinema presents heroes and exemplary conduct modeled on the same old pattern as the rulers.

All existing equilibrium, however, is brought back into question each time unknown people try to live differently. But it’s always far away. We learn of it through the papers and newscasts. We remain outside it, confronted with just another spectacle. We are separated from it by our own nonintervention. It makes us disappointed in ourselves. At what moment was choice postponed? We haven’t found the arms we needed. We have let things go.

I have let time slip away. I have lost what I should have defended.

This general critique of separation obviously contains and covers some particular memories. A less recognized pain, the awareness of a less explainable indignity. Exactly what separation was it? How quickly we have lived! It is to this point in our unreflecting history that I bring us back.
Everything that concerns the sphere of loss — that is to say, the past time I have lost, as well as disappearance, escape, and more generally the flowing past of things, and even what in the prevalent and therefore most vulgar social sense of the use of time is called wasted time — all this finds in that strangely apt old military expression, en enfants perdus, its meeting ground with the sphere of discovery, of exploration of unknown terrains; with all the forms of quest, investigation, adventure, avant-garde. It is the crossroads where we have found and lost ourselves.

All this, it must be admitted, is not clear. It is a completely typical drunken monologue, with its incomprehensible allusions and tiresome delivery. With its vain phrases which do not await response, and its overbearing explanations. And its silences.

The poverty of means has to plainly express the scandalous poverty of the subject.
The events that happen in individual existence as it is organized, the events that really concern us and require our participation, are generally precisely those that merit nothing more than our being distant, bored, indifferent spectators. In contrast, the situation that is seen in some artistic transposition is rather often attractive, something that would merit our participating in it. This is a paradox to reverse, to put back on its feet. This is what must be realized in acts. As for this idiotic spectacle of the fragmented and filtered past, full of sound and fury: it is not a question now of transmitting it — of “rendering” it, as is said — in another neatly ordered spectacle that would play the game of neatly ordered comprehension and participation. No. Any coherent artistic expression already expresses the coherence of the past, already expresses passivity. It is necessary to destroy memory in art. To undermine the conventions of its communication. To demoralize its fans. What a task! As in a blurry drunken vision, the memory and language of the film fade out simultaneously. At the extreme, the miserable subjectivity is reversed into a certain sort of objectivity: a documentary on the conditions of non-communication.

For example, I don’t talk about her. False face. False relationship. A real person is separated from the interpreter of that person, if only by the time passed between the event and its evocation, by a distance that continually increases, that is increasing at this very moment. Just as the conserved expression itself remains separated from those who hear it abstractly and without any power over it.
The spectacle in its entirety is the era, an era in which a certain youth has recognized itself. It is the gap between this image and its results; the gap between the vision, the tastes, the refusals and the projects that previously defined it and the way it has advanced into ordinary life.

We have invented nothing. We adapt ourselves, with a few variations, into the network of possible courses. We get used to it, it seems.

No one has the enthusiasm on returning from a venture that they had on setting out on it. My dears, adventure is dead.

Who will resist? It is necessary to go beyond this partial defeat. Of course. And how to do it?
This is a film that interrupts itself and does not come to an end.

All conclusions remain to be drawn, everything has to be recalculated.

The problem continues to be posed, its expression is becoming more complicated. We have to resort to other measures.

Just as there was no profound reason to begin this abstract message, so there is none for concluding it.
I have scarcely begun to make you understand that I don’t intend to play the game.

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/separation.html

Ghosts of a Ghost: Time surgery, William Burroughs and the death of the image

Burroughs Lecture Series: Iain Sinclair from The Photographers' Gallery on Vimeo.

To coincide with the centenary of William S. Burroughs' birth, writer Iain Sinclair presents Ghosts of a a Ghost: Time surgery, William Burroughs and the death of the image, a fragmentary consideration of the interplay of photography, sound recording, manipulated autobiography, interview and anecdote in Burroughs' work. Sinclair draws on inspiration from the Taking Shots exhibition, personal correspondence, aborted film documentaries and late meetings (as recorded in his book American Smoke: Journeys to the End of the Light).

Supported by the University of Edinburgh
The Leverhulme Trust

Slint - Live in The Brown Theater in Louisville, KY 2005

I have been listening to Spiderland, the 1991 masterpiece by Slint. It is as brilliant as it was when I first heard it back in 1991.  This is the first show of their reunion tour on 2/22/05 at The Brown Theater in Louisville, KY.

Grateful Dead Live in Château d’Hérouville 1971

Grateful Dead at full strength, with Pigpen still in the group (he would leave in 2 months and be dead in 12). He sings Hard to Handle here in sudden color. I am a great fan of the great three:

• The Grateful Dead (1967)
• Anthem of the Sun (1968)
• Aoxomoxoa (1969)

After 1970 things started becoming too country for my taste, although the playing and jams remained the work of excellent musicians, the seeking become a parade rather than a quest. This hour long film from French TV could be one of the last documents of a time that was near spiritual in its intention.

The entire audio for this performance is streamed here:

"We went over there to do a big festival, a free festival they were gonna have, but the festival was rained out. It flooded. We stayed at this little chateau which is owned by a film score composer who has a 16-track recording studio built into the chateau, and this is a chateau that Chopin once lived in; really old, just delightful, out in the country near the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, which is where Vincent van Gogh is buried. 

We were there with nothing to do: France, a 16-track recording studio upstairs, all our gear, ready to play, and nothing to do. So, we decided to play at the chateau itself, out in the back, in the grass, with a swimming pool, just play into the hills. We didn't even play to hippies, we played to a handful of townspeople in Auvers. We played and the people came — the chief of police, the fire department, just everybody. It was an event and everybody just had a hell of a time — got drunk, fell in the pool. It was great." - Jerry Garcia

Monterey Pop Festival

Monterey Pop is a 1968 American concert film by D. A. Pennebaker that documents the Monterey International Pop Festival of 1967. Among Pennebaker's several camera operators were fellow documentarians Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles. The painter Brice Marden has an "assistant camera" credit. Titles for the film were by the illustrator Tomi Ungerer. Featured performers include Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Hugh Masekela, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar, the Mamas & the Papas, the Who and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, whose namesake set his guitar on fire, broke it on the stage, then threw the neck of his guitar in the crowd at the end of "Wild Thing".

Scott McKenzie – "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)"*

The Mamas & the Papas – "Creeque Alley"* and "California Dreamin'"

Canned Heat – "Rollin' and Tumblin'"

Simon & Garfunkel – "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)"

Hugh Masekela – "Bajabula Bonke (The Healing Song)"

Jefferson Airplane – "High Flying Bird" and "Today"

Big Brother and the Holding Company – "Ball and Chain"

Eric Burdon & the Animals – "Paint It Black"

The Who – "My Generation"

Country Joe and the Fish – "Section 43"

Otis Redding (backed by Booker T. & the M.G.'s) – "Shake" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long"

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – "Wild Thing"

The Mamas & the Papas – "Got a Feelin'"

Ravi Shankar – "Dhun" ("Dadra and Fast Teental") (mistitled as "Raga Bhimpalasi")

* - Studio version, played over film footage of pre-concert activity.

The Legend of Leigh Bowery (2002)

82 min, color, sound

This documentary explores the life and times of Australian artist / designer / performer / provocateur Leigh Bowery. He designed costumes and performed with the enfante terrible of British dance Michael Clark, designed one of a kind outrageous costumes and creations for himself, ran one of the most outrageous clubs of 1980s London club scene Taboo (later immortalized in Boy George's Broadway musical, and was the muse of the great British painter Lucian Freud. The film includes interviews with Damien Hirst, Bella Freud, Cerith Wyn Evans, Boy George (who talks mainly about himself), and his widow Nicola Bowery. The sound score is by Richard Torrey, who performed with Bowery in their band Minty.

In 1993 Leigh Bowery formed the band Minty with friend and former 1980s knitwear designer Richard Torry, Nicola Bateman and Matthew Glammore. Their single "Useless Man" "Boot licking, tit tweaking useless man..." which was remixed by The Grid along with their twisted onstage scatological performances caused The Sun to describe them as the "sickest band in the world", of which Bowery was very proud.

Tinariwen - Recorded in Gothenburg Sweden in juli 2012 (French and Arabic with Swedish Subs)

Tinariwen  (tinariwén "deserts", plural of ténéré "desert") is a band of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. The band was formed in 1979 in Tamanrasset, Algeria, but returned to Mali after a cease-fire in the 1990s. The group first started to gain a following outside the Sahara region in 2001, with the release of The Radio Tisdas Sessions, and the performances at Festival au Désert in Mali and at the Roskilde festival in Denmark. Their popularity rose internationally with the release of the critically acclaimed Aman Iman in 2007. Tinariwen's biography has variously been described as "the most compelling of any band" (Songlines), "the most rock'n'roll of them all" (The Irish Times), "hard-bitten" (Slate.com), and "dramatic" (The Independent).

Rosi Braidotti: The Posthuman Predicament: Affect, Power and Ethics.

Keynote from the 4th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies July 1st, 2013 at the University of Groningen.

Professor Braidotti, who holds Italian and Australian citizenship, was born in Italy and grew up in Australia, where she received a First-Class Honours degree from the Australian National University in Canberra in 1977 and was awarded the University Medal in Philosophy and the University Tillyard prize. Braidotti then moved on to do her doctoral work at the Sorbonne, where she received her degree in philosophy in 1981. She has taught at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands since 1988, when she was appointed as the founding professor in women's studies. In 1995 she became the founding Director of the Netherlands research school of Women's Studies, a position she held till 2005. Braidotti is a pioneer in European Women's Studies: she founded the inter-university SOCRATES network NOISE and the Thematic Network for Women's Studies ATHENA, which she directed till 2005. She was a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College in 2005-6; a Jean Monnet professor at the European University Institute in Florence in 2002-3 and a fellow in the school of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1994. Braidotti is currently Distinguished University Professor at Utrecht University and founding Director of the Centre for the Humanities.

Braidotti’s publications have consistently been placed in continental philosophy, at the intersection with social and political theory, cultural politics, gender, feminist theory and ethnicity studies. The core of her interdisciplinary work consists of four interconnected monographs on the constitution of contemporary subjectivity, with special emphasis on the concept of difference within the history of European philosophy and political theory. Braidotti’s philosophical project investigates how to think difference positively, which means moving beyond the dialectics that both opposes it and thus links it by negation to the notion of sameness. This is evidenced in the philosophical agenda set in her first book Patterns of Dissonance: An Essay on Women in Contemporary French Philosophy , 1991, which gets developed further in the trilogy that follows: Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory , 1994; Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming , 2002; and Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics , 2006.

Throughout her work, Braidotti asserts and demonstrates the importance of combining theoretical concerns with a serious commitment to producing socially and politically relevant scholarship that contributes to making a difference in the world. Braidotti's output also included several edited volumes. Her work has been translated in a total of 19 languages and all the main books in at least three languages other than English.

Influenced by philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze and especially "French feminist" thinker Luce Irigaray, Braidotti has brought postmodern feminism into the Information Age with her considerations of cyberspace, prosthesis, and the materiality of difference. Braidotti also considers how ideas of gender difference can affect our sense of the human/animal and human/machine divides. Braidotti has also pioneered European perspectives in feminist philosophy and practice and has been influential on third-wave as well as post-secular feminisms.

On 3 March 2005, Braidotti was honored with a Royal Knighthood from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands; in August 2006 she received the University Medal from the University of Lodz in Poland and she was awarded an Honorary Degree in Philosophy from Helsinki University in May 2007. In 2009, she was elected Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Internet: http://www.rosibraidotti.com/

4ZZZ Radical Radio from Brisbane Australia Documentary

4ZZZ.mp4 from Peter Gray on Vimeo.

4ZZZ (pronounced "Four Triple Zed" or simply "Triple Zed") is an independent community radio station operating in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, at the frequency 102.1 FM. As a community radio station, 4ZZZ is a member of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA). The station broadcasts to much of South-East Queensland, parts of Northern NSW and web streams from its website.

4ZZZ was established to provide a radical alternative to mainstream news, to promote a sense of engagement and activism in community life and to promote Australian music.[3] The station began transmission on 8 December 1975 as the first FM community broadcaster in Brisbane transmitting in stereo.

The station's first studios were constructed by announcing staff and volunteers, using second hand building materials and furniture. The first transmitter was hand built by the station engineer. Founders included activist, Jim Beatson, journalist Marian Wilkinson, Arts Administrator, John Stanwell and academic Alan Knight. Announcer John Woods launched the station with The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" at Midday 8 December 1975.

On 14 December 1988, 4ZZZ was taken off air and forcibly evicted from its University of Queensland premises by the then UQ Union ALSF and Young Nationals student union executive. While university students rallied to support the station, 4ZZZ moved to alternative premises on Coronation Drive in the suburb of Toowong. In 1992 the station was able to obtain a loan to buy the former headquarters of the Communist Party of Australia. 4ZZZ still broadcasts from these premises on St Paul's Terrace in Fortitude Valley.

HARPO THEATRE / MUSIC EVENT (in Toowoomba, Australia, 1972)

The Super 8 film shows a team arriving from Brisbane to set up for a HARPO performance event at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education in Toowoomba in July, 1972.

HARPO was formed in Brisbane, Australia, in late 1971 as a counter cultural organization promoting alternative music, theatre, politics and healthy living. It had its roots in several earlier organizations.

Prominent HARPO founding members included Graham Cathcart and Bomber (Robert) Perrier. John Stanwell was an early and also influential member. Other active members included Stuart Matchett, Ken McSwain, and Colin Beasley (among many others).

The name Harpo was originally chosen simply because it was an interesting-sounding name. Then somebody joked H.A.R.P.O. stood for "How About Resisting Powerful Organizations." The acronym stuck, giving the appearance this was the original idea behind the group's name all along.

The first of the famed "Harpo's Nite Out" concert events was held in the University of Queensland refectory building in March, 1972. It featured a combination of political theatre and live music. The theatre performance was by the Laurence Brown Theatrical Troupe (another name HARPO chose because it had a nice ring to it - there was no Laurence Brown). The troupe had evolved from an earlier performance group, Romp Street Theatre.

The headline band was MACKENZIE THEORY from Melbourne. The band was so popular, they became a regular main stay of Harpo's Nite Out events. Mother's Lightworks (Phil Hutson) did the psychedelic light shows, and Peter Gray contributed to the atmosphere with his quadraphonic-sound system (Electronic Excursions), a forerunner to the DJ phenomenon.

A second "Harpo's Nite Out" followed at the same venue on 8 July, 1972, with even bigger crowds in attendance. The supporting act was Brisbane-based band, SHEPHERD, and THE CLITETES also appeared.

This second show was the beginning of a road tour sponsored by the Australian Union of Students (AUS). The tour helped spawn a newly evolving, co-operative, working relationship with Johnny Allen and Graeme Dunstan of Aquarius fame, key figures in AUS at the time.

The day before, 7 July, the tour officially kicked off with a show performed at the Toowong High School. The Toowoomba event, seen in this film, was the third engagement of the tour. Next stop was the campus in Armidale, and finally the tour continued on to campuses in Sydney.

The first two "Harpo's Nite Out/s" coincided with the publishing of a tabloid newspaper called, "HARPO: The Alternate Organ." A pile of these newspapers is seen stacked up in front of the spare tyre (tire) in the back of the HARPO van at 3:51, awaiting distribution during the tour.

Local Brisbane band, SILAS FARM, played before the regular headliners, the Laurence Brown Troupe and MACKENZIE THEORY at later Harpo's Nite Out concerts in 1973.

Harpo's Nite Out drew inspiration from Foco, a legendary, multi-media, cultural event started by radical unionists and students held on Sunday nights in Brisbane's Trades Hall in 1968 and 1969. Harpo's Nite Out, in turn, inspired the 4ZZZ Joint Effort, popular concert events showcasing emerging rock bands, organized by independent radio station 4ZZZ-FM in the mid 1970s as their main fundraising activity.

HARPO worked "organically" in a loose organizational structure with the attitude "we can do anything"......and they did. In June, 1972, HARPO took over the running of Wholefoods Organic Food Co-op in Milton Road, and for a time the running of Mr. Natural's Food Kitchen, a vegetarian restaurant on Schonell Drive near the university. HARPO headquarters were flats in an old house behind the Toowong library where Bomber Perrier and Graham Cathcart lived.

"Laurence Brown" developed the guerrilla street theatre troupe, the Harpo Super heroes with Steel Sheila, Wonder Wombat, Zap Crapper , Laughing K. Kookaburra, et al. One of the Super heroes (Bomber Perrier) managed to convince the iconic American beat poet, Allen Ginsberg, to do a concert of readings in Brisbane before returning to the US after the Adelaide Festival. Ginsberg appeared with visiting Russian poet, Andrei Vosnesensky. The Super heroes crashed their own press conference, and Ginsberg reportedly loved this because it reminded him of the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

HARPO made a two-hour radio program called "The Whole Earth Radio Show" for the ABC, which was produced in the broadcaster's conveniently-located Toowong studios right near HARPO "headquarters".

This film is dedicated to Graham's memory. Also to the spirit of those times as the younger generation emerged from the oppressive conservatism and restricted thinking of post-war Australia.

The Lorax (1972)

At the far end of town where the Grickle-grass grows/and the wind smells slow and sour when it blows/and no birds ever sing, excepting old crows/is the street of the lifted Lorax.