Hey, do you know about the Beat? They’re the great power pop band led by Paul Collins, who was in another great power pop group, the Nerves. I’m particularly fond of the Beat’s 1979 self-titled debut, which is just a fantastic rock ‘n’ roll record, front-to-back. Seriously, every song on it sounds like a hit, though, alas, in the States, at least, none of them were. The Beat were better received in Europe, with the band first touring the continent in the spring of 1980. In an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming autobiography, Paul Collins recounts the Beat’s 1980 European tour—one of drink, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
But first, a little more background.
The ‘80s began on a high note for the Beat, with the group taping an appearance on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in February. But this was followed by a disheartening tour opening for the Jam, in which they weren’t even allowed to meet the band. They also learned that Columbia had no intention of getting behind their music; pushing Billy Joel’s Glass Houses was the label’s priority that year. Some good news came when Columbia’s International Department offered to bring the Beat across the pond for a European jaunt, offering full tour support. Soon, the band were flying to Paris to begin the outing.
FYI: In Europe they were known as “Paul Collins’ Beat,” as there was a UK band also called the Beat. In addition to Collins, the lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist, the members of the Beat were Steve Huff, bassist; Larry Whitman, lead guitarist; and Mike Ruiz, drummer. Their road manager, Kevin Burns (“K.B.”), also comes up in the excerpt.
*****
On the evening of March 29th 1980, we arrived at the Orly Airport in Paris. Our guide, a guy named Andre, hardly spoke English, but he was hysterical, and we had great fun with him. Back at the hotel, despite being very tired, I couldn’t fall asleep.
The next morning, I was really spaced out. I had to get my shit together, but there were no drugs, not even a joint. What would I wear for the first gig? I decided to be cool and downplay it, by not dressing up. A jacket, t-shirt, and jeans would do.
Photo: Catherine Sebastian
After breakfast, we were off to the Pavillon Baltard, a fairly large auditorium that held about 800 kids. We were playing with eight other bands, and immediately, we were all on ‘drug recon,’ looking for anything to get high on. We checked out a couple of ska bands, and I met a photographer, who introduced me to a guy from one of the other bands. Finally, we went to the boy’s room and I smoked my first joint in Paris. Ahh… it was great!
A little later, Larry and I were in a tavern around the corner, listening to French rock ‘n’ roll on the jukebox. We met up with some reps from CBS International, named Suzy and Jon-Jacque. We met two crazy American chicks, Jon-Jacque’s friends, and one of them had a huge block of hash. She told me to keep it! Now we had enough hash for the whole trip, and my voice was getting pretty shot.
It was show time, and Steve and I were having trouble tuning our guitars. We were getting worried, until we realized we were a whole key up! I hoped we wouldn’t get booed off stage, but thank god for rock ‘n’ roll. The kids dug us and we got the first encore of the day. Europe here we come!
What have you been doing during the COVID-19 Lockdown?
Binging on boxsets? Drinking too much? Self-medicating? Finding all your good clothes have shrunk from lack of wear?
All of the above?
George Miller spent his time lockdown making a set of beautiful marionettes featuring some of the biggest stars of rock ‘n’ roll, country, and R&B.
Miller is a Glasgow-based artist, singer, musician and iconic pop figure who’s better known as the front man to the legendary Kaisers and more recently the New Piccadillys. I’ve known Miller a long, long time. Well, since he dressed like a rocker in a black leather jacket and sported a quiff like a zeppelin, combed back like a barrel most surfers would die for. Something like that, though memory is fickle.
Since then, Miller sang and played guitar with the Styng-Rites (“We got on telly once, made the independent top 20 once, got in the music papers a bit, built a cult following and gigged ourselves to exhaustion.”); played guitar with Eugene Reynolds’ band Planet Pop; then gigged with the Revillos and Jayne County and the Electric Chairs.
In 1993, Miller formed the Kaisers:
“We ended up making six albums and a bunch of 45s, toured the USA twice, Japan once and gigged all over Europe. We did John Peel and Mark Radcliffe sessions amongst others and got on the telly a few times. I think we lasted about seven years and everything we earned just about covered the bar bill.”
Most recently, Miller was involved with the New Piccadillys, worked with Sharleen Spiteri, then toured and recorded with Los Straitjackets across America. About five years ago, the Kaisers reformed due to public demand and will be releasing a new album in the fall—more on that another time.
George Miller: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Band.
I reconnected with Miller through social media. Over the past few months, he would post a photograph of his latest marionette in progress. Sculpting heads of rock stars like Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly or country greats like Johnny Cash. They were beautiful, fabulous models, which were then dressed by Ursula Cleary and placed in boxes designed by Chris Taylor.
How did these marionettes come about?
George Miller: I’d been working on a BBC children’s drama for a few weeks (I’m a freelance Production Designer, gawd help me) and as lockdown was approaching, production stopped so I went from super busy to completely idle pretty much overnight.
I’d made some marionettes for a video a few years earlier and since then had been toying with the idea of making one of Link Wray but never seemed to have the time, so lockdown seemed the ideal opportunity. I liked the notion of spending time making something that had no ultimate purpose other than self amusement and no deadline for completion. With his outfit made by my partner Ursula, Link turned out pretty satisfactorily but after a few days I got the itch again, so I got to work on Bo Diddley, another guitar favorite of mine. Bo gave me a bit of trouble and the first attempt went in the bin. Realizing I’d tried to rush it, I reverted to lockdown pace, which I’ve employed ever since.
Why did you choose the classic rock ‘n’ roll, R’n'B icons?
GM: I wouldn’t call myself a musical luddite, but nothing has ever thrilled me more than a good rock ‘n’ roll record, so I decided to keep making favorites from the 1950s until my day job resumed. Although a couple of the subjects are still with us, the notion of “resurrecting” the others in some way appealed to me. I like seeing them bursting out of their “coffins.” It’s also a way of expressing my fascination with these people and the music they made. If I start to run out of subjects, I’ll move forward in time, but I doubt I’ll go past 1965 as the joy goes out of it a bit for me around then.
Maybe I’ll fast forward—Joey Ramone would be a good subject.
Where did the boxes for the marionettes come from?
GM: When I posted a photo of the Buddy Holly puppet, a Facebook friend by the name of Chris Taylor sent me a mock-up of a box label with a great illustration and excellent graphics. Chris got me thinking that this could be a “proper” project and we’ve been working together on ideas for an exhibition and a range of merchandise, as the marionettes have been developing a bit of a virtual fan base online. Chris’s illustrations have a great deal of style and though instantly recognizable, they have their own identity, which complements the puppets which are more rigidly representational. It reminds me of opening a box to find that the toy inside looks different to the illustration, something that always registered with me as a child. Chris’s work has definitely steered things in the direction of an art project, albeit with the (for now) all-important absence of deadline.
Where can we buy these Kaiser George Marionettes?
GM: The marionettes are one-offs and aren’t for sale as they take so long to make. I wouldn’t want to sculpt any of them twice, though mould making could be an option. As someone commented on Facebook, it would be a bit like selling your children. Chris and I are working on a set of bubblegum cards which will be for sale and we’re unashamedly excited about it. Second childhood? Definitely.
KGM Trading Cards.
What other plans do you have for your rock ‘n’ roll children?
GM: When the “cast” of puppets grows to 20 or so, I’m planning on making a video showcasing their individual musical styles plus a series of short clips based on the photographs of Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran passing time in the dressing room of the Glasgow Empire theater. I quite like the idea of two marionettes in a small room not doing very much, just idle movements.
Now, if I was an enterprising businessman, I would certainly be thinking of investing in mass marketing these to-die-for Kaiser George Marionettes. You know you sure as hell want one. And damned if I wouldn’t be collecting all those trading cards too.
See more of George’s Marvellous Marionettes, after the jump…
Beyond the Pale, the new album by Jarvis Cocker’s group Jarv Is… is out now and the former Pulp frontman has opted for an innovative video promotion for it that doesn’t involve touring. He was aided in this cause by directors Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard—co-directors of the great Nick Cave documentary, 20,000 days on Earth—who shot the group live at Peak Cavern, Derbyshire. The film premieres tomorrow on YouTube at 8pm BST (that’s 3pm EST, noon if you’re on the west coast) and you’ll have 24 hours to watch it before it disappears.
Cocker posted on YouTube:
Beyond the Pale was written (& partially recorded) in front of a live audience, so it feels extra-strange not to be able to take it on the road at the moment. Fortunately, our friends Iain & Jane suggested a way round the problem: set up our equipment in a cave & they would film the results. We have invented a new way of playing a concert.
Backing Jarvis Cocker during the program are Serafina Steer, Emma Smith, Andrew McKinney, Jason Buckle, Adam Betts and Naala. There’s a trailer for the concert below. Once it’s live you can view it here.
There are too many writers in the world. Too many bad writers. I’ll include myself in that group. No, not false modesty, just how it rolls for the sake of this tale. But you see I have an excuse. I use my bad writing to introduce you to good writing, great writing, writing that will change and inspire you. What purpose is there for bad writing other than to make you yearn for truly great writing?
So, here you go…
Wendy Erskine is a great writer. A true original. A writer whose first collection of short stories Sweet Home contains some of the finest tales ever written. Clever, sassy, nuanced, with a rich seam of dark humor. Erskine’s stories of working class life in East Belfast have been hailed by critics as works of brilliance and her book has been nominated for several awards. Though experience suggests Erskine has worked on these stories and crafted them into things of beauty, they appear so fresh, so fully formed, so organic, that they may have just fallen like ripe fruit straight from the tree.
Go on, take a bite.
Born and raised in Northern Ireland during The Troubles that most dangerous and murderous time in the province’s history, Erskine has produced a wry, wise, funny, and utterly compelling collection of stories. She is the kind of writer that makes you fall back in love with reading. A magician who pulls the Ace of Spades from behind your ear while you’re still wondering how it was removed from your tightly gripped hand in the first place.
Her collection of stories opens with a three-part tale that is compelling and disturbing in equal measure. “To All Their Dues” is centered around a beauty parlor, and the lives of three people: the owner Mo, the local villain Kyle, and his wife Grace. Kyle is a psychopathic character with a pulsing menace few crime novelists have ever imagined or described in such chillingly simple and unforgettable terms. But if that weren’t enough, wait till you meet his wife.
Erskine has a remarkable eye for detail, for character evinced through thought and action, that reminded me of John Updike, Fitzgerald, or the Scottish writer James Kelman.
That long thin scar, running along the inside of your thigh, lady in the grey cashmere, what caused that? Those arms like a box of After Eights, slit slit slit, why you doing that, you with your lovely crooked smile, why you doing that? The woman with the bruises round her neck, her hand fluttering to conceal them. Jeez missus, is your fella strangling you? Bt you don’t ask, why would you?
While the second tale “Inakeen” works, its ending felt slightly contrived in a way that J. G. Ballard sometimes forced his stories to fit a purpose. Even so, it’s a small quibble but is another story that sticks long after reading. “Observation” about two teenage girls and an older man is a powerful work about what’s left unsaid between knowing and action. “Locksmiths” is about the troubled relationship between a daughter and her mother just released from jail. “Last Supper” deals with a manager covering for two employees having sex in a diner’s restroom. “Arab States: Mind and Narrative” and the devastating “Sweet Home” (parts of which I had to stop reading because it hit me so hard) show a writer who is in full control of their talent and knows exactly what she wants to say and how best to say it.
But how to interview such a writer? By email of course. But let’s not get too serious, or ahead of ourselves. Let’s start our interview with Erskine as if this was for one of those teen-pop magazines like Smash Hits:
Writer of the Week: Wendy Erskine
Starsign: Taurus.
Favourite color: Duck egg blue.
First record bought: “Ma Baker” by Boney M.
Favourite food: Green papaya salad, really hot.
First gig: Depeche Mode, the Ulster Hall, 1983.
Favourite band: Velvet Underground.
Favourite singer: Small Faces era Steve Marriott
Favourite artist: Maurice van Tellingen
If you were Prime Minister/President what would be your first law: No one can earn100 times more than someone else.
A full interview with Wendy Erskine, after the jump…
Out this week is the new multi-disc compilation, Surrender to the Rhythm: The London Pub Rock Scene of the Seventies. The collection is an excellent overview of pub rock, a phenomenon that helped paved the way for British punk. Before we get any further, though, we need to address a question many of our readers are probably asking themselves: What the hell is “pub rock?”
Pub rock is a British genre and movement that lasted for a handful of years in the early to mid seventies. Pub rock bands played a back-to-basics style of rock-n-roll that was loose and unassuming. Though very much a London scene, pub rock was kick-started by an American group. In the spring of 1971, Eggs Over Easy were in London recording, when they convinced a local pub, the Tally Ho, to let the band play there on a regular basis. Their subsequent performances at the bar were a popular attraction, and other musicians and pub owners took notice. By 1973, a scene was thriving.
One of the earliest and most popular pub rock acts was Brinsley Schwarz, a group fronted by Nick Lowe. In addition to Lowe, many future punk and new wave players got their start in pub rock bands, including Ian Dury (Kilburn and the High Roads), Joe Strummer (the 101’ers), and Elvis Costello (nee Declan McManus of Flip City). The Jam also got their start playing the pub rock circuit, which is where they were first spotted by Polydor, the label that would sign them.
Dutch picture sleeve, 1973.
By the time 1976 rolled around, pub rock had petered out. Though it didn’t last long, pub rock bands established a circuit for local groups, demonstrating to bar owners that hosting live music was profitable. Punk bands would come to reap the benefits of the successful pub rock circuit, and the stripped-down style of pub rock influenced the sound of punk.
The Razorbacks at the Brecknock.
Surrender to the Rhythm, new from Cherry Red Records, is a three-CD overview of pub rock, containing 71 songs and a 48-page booklet. It spans the years 1970-79, so there are acts on the collection that weren’t part of the scene, but do have some connection to pub rock. An example is the fantastic, new wave-y 1978 single “Driver’s Seat” by Sniff ‘n’ the Tears, a group that spawned from the ashes of pub rock band Moon. A few of the groups on the comp, such as Status Quo, Thin Lizzy, and Mott the Hoople, were so popular they never would’ve played in pubs, but have a similar sound and approach, so they’ve been included. The aforementioned Eggs Over Easy, Brinsley Schwarz, Kilburn and the High Roads, the 101’ers, Flip City, and the Jam are all represented. Surrender to the Rhythm contains a number of previously unreleased recordings, and Dangerous Minds has the web premiere of two of those tracks, Roogalator’s chugging, greasy “Ride With the Roogalator,” and Byzantium’s “It Could Be Better,” which sounds like Badfiner/Abbey Road-era McCartney. They’re on a playlist that Cherry Red has created, which has a few additional highlights from the set. Check it out at the end of this post.
But first, a few more images of pub rockers.
Brett Marvin and the Thunderbolts.
Chas & Dave aboard the HMS Belfast, 1975.
Byzantium with friends backstage at the Roundhouse, 1975.
Order your copy of Surrender to the Rhythm: The London Pub Rock Scene of the Seventies via Cherry Red’s website or Amazon.
Four Allied air raids conducted from February 13th to February 15th, 1945 destroyed the German town of Dresden, reducing it to rubble.
Future artist Wolfgang Grässe, just fifteen at the time, survived.
Following the bombings, he would find his way to Italy to study art with his grandfather Friedrich before returning to Dresden. Upon his return, Grässe was arrested and sentenced to death when, while crossing the border in Germany, his possessions were searched revealing his anti-Soviet cartoon of Joseph Stalin swinging from a gallows. However, instead of hanging the then eighteen-year-old, they changed his sentence to 25 years in one of Poland’s many gulags, where he spent eight long years. Grässe had seen and learned a lot in his short time on earth, and while a prisoner, he would use his artwork to help bargain with his captors, offering to draw them anything they wanted, which he would trade for food and perhaps a little extra looking after. As you probably know, “life” in a labor camp meant non-stop work for those deemed useful, such as physical labor or the production of oil and other industrial materials. Grässe’s horrific early life was nearly impossible to shake for the artist, especially his eight years in the gulag.
At some point, Grässe became a Christian, and his paintings contain religious imagery, which is often combined with images associated with death, the day of reckoning, and vibrant displaced erotica. Here’s Grässe shedding some light on his darkness:
“I paint objective, figurative art with high technical perfection to create beautiful, valuable, and qualitative works with interesting visions. My art is called Fantastic Realism (of the Viennese school) influenced by French surreal and Japanese artists such as Hokusai (Edo period), (Utagawa ) Kunisada, and (Utagawa) Hiroshige.”
Grässe’s work has been associated with Surrealism, but that is not the house he lived in as an artist. He is also clearly inspired by the work of Hieronymus Bosch. However, those familiar with Fantastic Realism will quickly recognize his dedication to this genre. In order to reinforce the distinction between Surrealism and Fantastic Realism, let’s allow Grässe sum up the differences between the two artistic pursuits:
“Fantastic Realism cannot be compared with Surrealism as a garden can’t be compared with a jungle. The fantasy of the Surrealist comes from the subconscious without formal order or relation, whereas the Fantastic Realist uses his images selectively. He uses old and new symbols to express his art purposefully and to show that the human situation never really changes its eternal truths. The automatism of images of the Surrealist are a sharp contrast to the meaningful symbolism of the Fantastic Realist.”
Life & Death: The Metaphysical Art of Wolfgang Grässe was published in 2000. It contains approximately 60 full-color images of the artist’s work, if you can find this rather rare volume. In addition to his artwork, you can also watch a short segment below on Grässe from Australian television. The artist lived out his days painting and exhibiting his work in and around Australia after moving there in 1996. He died in 2008.
There is a very good reason why you’ve probably never seen—or even heard of—a 1997 film titled The Brave that was both directed by, and starred, Johnny Depp: It’s one of the worst films ever made. I mean like as in one of the very fuckin’ worst movies ever made, okay? How else to explain why a feature directed by one of the then most bankable movie stars in Hollywood, and that features a soundtrack by Iggy Pop and one of the final film roles of Marlon Brando, has never been released in the United States, either theatrically, on cable TV or even on DVD? Yes, it’s that bad.
The Brave is an appalling and horrendous piece of shit that apparently left audiences at the Cannes FIlm Festival slack-jawed and saw Depp’s “people” swoop in to make sure that it wasn’t about to ruin their cash cow’s reputation. If The Brave had an odor, it would be lethal and take a hazmat suit with a gas mask to deal with. The film has only ever seen the light of day in ex-US territories, mostly Asia, where it was immediately bootlegged. Trust me, they did Depp a major solid by trying to bury this turd as deeply as possible. (For fun, put yourself into the shoes of the manager or agent who had to put it to one of the world’s biggest movie stars that he’d made a film that was unreleasable! Depp probably looks back on it now and thinks “Thank god I listened to them.”)
Now, be aware that I say all of this as somewhat of an enthusiast, even a connoisseur of “bad films,” myself, but they have to be of the “so bad they’re good” variety, not films that are just… shitty, misguided and boring. The Brave is all that and a lot more. It’s awfulness is special. One of a kind.
The Brave is Depp’s The Day The Clown Cried.
I first read about the film’s existence in Jane Hamsher’s book Killer Instinct, about the insanity she experienced during the of filming of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers. There is just a paragraph or two describing the plot of The Brave in the book and after reading this, I just had to see it. However, this was approximately 1999 when I read it and sans bit torrent, it wasn’t going to be that easy to get my hands on it. A few days later, I figured out that a friend of someone I knew invested in the film and I got him to ask for a copy. The reply came in the form of a suspicious question: “Why does he want to see it?”
Why do you think?!?! Nevertheless, I got a copy with the extracted promise that I wouldn’t say where it had come from. Seemed fair.
So what is it that’s so freaking bad about this film, anyway? God, where do you start?
Okay, first the plot: Depp play a Native American guy named Raphael who lives with his wife and catatonic children in a shantytown near (in?) a garbage dump. He’s an alcoholic and sees no hope for ever being able to pull himself and his family out of their abject poverty. Raphael, who is illiterate, is told of a sinister man named McCarthy who is willing to offer $50,000 if Raphael will agree to be brutally tortured, dismembered and murdered for a snuff film. Raphael sees this as a last ditch way to lift his family from the life they are leading. After a scene of Brando acting as psychotic as you’ve ever seen him, delivering a ridiculous (obviously improvised) wheelchair-bound soliloquy about how the snuff movie will allow those who see it to face death more honestly, and how Christ-like Raphael’s sacrifice will be (it’s Island of Dr. Moreau-worthy stuff), Raphael is given a bag of cash as an advance and signs a bogus contract consisting of gibberish that he thinks will secure his family’s future after he’s gone. If Raphael skips out on the contract, he is told by one of his henchmen, McCarthy will find, fuck and eat his wife and kids
Raphael is supposed to return at the end of seven days to McCarthy’s seedy bunker to be killed in the snuff film. Most of the rest of The Brave shows him showering gifts on his wife children (such as hiring in a small fun fair) and dealing with the fate he’s signed up for. On the seventh day, Raphael returns to the fortress where McCarthy makes his films and The Brave ends (thank god!).
On a technical level, the film is well-shot (by frequent Terry Gilliam collaborator Nicola Pecorini) and edited. Clearly Johnny Depp would have access to the best “below the line talent” money could buy. It’s a technically competent film. The biggest problem with The Brave—the fatal problem, in fact, and precisely what makes it so incredibly bad—is Depp himself in the lead role. Casting himself as “Raphael” was a major, major miscalculation for several reasons, with Depp’s movie star looks being the primary culprit. As I understand it, the original novel/script called for the character to be brain-damaged from alcohol abuse or somewhat mentally handicapped. Had the role been played by a Native-American actor who was dumpy and monosyllabic, it might have worked (or at least not turned out to be the atrocity it did). The audience just never buys pretty boy Depp (looking like a Silverlake hipster) in the role for even a single second and scenes that might (I said might) have otherwise been moving with a different actor in the part, are instead just fodder for loud guffaws, sideways glances, and mucho eye-rolling. It’s a mawkish mess. It tries to manipulate the audience’s emotions, but only elicits… boredom, disgust and pointing and laughing at the screen.
Everyone I watched it with HATED IT, just fucking hated it, and unless you’re a weirdo with shitty taste in films, you will probably hate it, too. When it’s (finally) over, you just want to take about twenty showers and try to scrub it out of your mind. Which. Is. Not. Possible.
Of course, I realize that to some of you reading this, that even this negative review sounds like an endorsement of some sort—perhaps of the “this smells like shit, take a whiff” variety. After all, when I secured my own copy of this gargantuan awfulness 20 years ago, it was certainly my firm expectation that I would be seeing a colossally bad film (and I did). This is not to say, however, that having had that experience, that I’m now recommending watching The Brave to others (to be clear, I am not). If you don’t care and want to see it anyway (it’s all over the web now, just search for it on Google) do yourself a favor and do what I didn’t do and turn it off after Marlon Brando’s scene near the beginning of the film. It’s the only, uh, “good” part of it and as I wrote above, truly one of his single most most berserk onscreen moments.
The rest of it, trust me (no really!) you really, really, really don’t want to see. Not only is it a complete waste of 90 minutes of your life that you will never, ever get back, it’ll just make you feel icky. For days.
RidingEasy Records is the label behind the legendary—and ever growing, there’s a brand new one out—Brown Acid compilations of heavy psych and proto-metal. You have to hand it to them, they really know how to find obscure records and have performed some exemplary subcultural archaeology in the 70s hard rock department. Where do they keep finding these gems you wonder?
In the case of Indianapolis quintet Ice, RidingEasy head honcho Daniel Hall happened to be in a nightclub when the DJ played a test 45 they’d made—it wasn’t even issued properly, or under their own name, that’s how rare it was. Soon Hall was in touch with the band about using the song on Brown Acid: The Ninth Trip, when it was revealed that they’d recorded a never completed full album’s worth of original material in 1970. It just had to be mixed, but the group parted ways soon after the tracks were laid down and the 2” master tapes had been sheveled and long forgotten before Hall reached out to them.
Half a century later, The Ice Age, their ten-song album of 70s FM radio-ready rock will finally see light of day. The hard-driving midwesterners sound like Grand Funk Railroad meets The Guess Who with a definite influence from the Move. Imagine recording an album in 1970 that doesn’t get released 2020? Talk about a bomb with a very long fuse.
The Ice Age will be available on LP, CD and download on July 10th, 2020 via RidingEasy Records.
I’m the guest on this week’s installment of the That Record Got me High podcast. I joined co-hosts Barry Stock and Rob Elba to discuss an album that I like to listen to a lot while I’m high, Jefferson Airplane’s lysergically-soaked 1967 longplayer After Bathing at Baxter’s. I think it’s one of the defining albums of the 1960s. I also think it’s an album that all too many people keep flipping past in the used record bins—dirt cheap Jefferson Airplane albums are ubiquitous in any American record store—and this is a shame. There’s quite a vast difference between the Jeffersons Airplane and Starship, but commercial dreck like “Play on Love” and the horrific ear-bleeder “We Built This City” has all but insured that the Jefferson Airplane albums are unfairly ignored. I wanted to try to rehabilitate their rock snob bona fides in my own small way.
One thing that I had intended to mention on the show but forgot about, is the album’s distinctive cover. It was drawn by underground cartoonist Ron Cobb who would go on to design the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars a decade later.
Front and back of a 1993 Topps ‘Star Wars’ trading card
Counter culture icon and Editor of Dangerous Minds (www.dangerousminds.net), Richard Metzger, dove into the psychedelic deep end of the pool to discuss a record that STILL gets him high: Jefferson Airplane’s darker, heavier follow-up to Surrealistic Pillow, “After Bathing at Baxter’s”. Coffee was consumed, minds were expanded, and by the end the Summer of Love felt more like a hazy hangover.
There are certain things you don’t know you’re missing in life until you’re exposed to them, right? EXP TV just might be one of those things. It’s got an aesthetic that hovers around the same territory as Everything is Terrible! and Vic Berger, it even reminds me of Mike Kelley’s stuff, but that’s only going to get you in the ballpark. Which is good enough, but you just have to click on the link and see for yourself. It’s a barrage of strange imagery and is really quite an inspired—not to say elaborate and work intensive—art project. And just in time for a pandemic. Bored with Netflix? Have enough Amazon Prime? Maxed out on HBO Max? You need to tune in, turn on and drop your jaw to the floor at what’s screening on EXP TV.
EXP TV the brainchild of Tom Fitzgerald, Marcus Herring, Taylor C. Rowley. I asked them a few questions via email.
What is EXP TV? What should someone expect to see when they get there?
EXP TV is a live TV channel broadcasting an endless stream of obscure media and video ephemera from our site at exptv.org. We stream 24/7.
The daytime programming is called “Video Breaks”—a video collage series featuring wild, rare, unpredictable, and ever-changing archival clips touching on every subject imaginable. Similar to how golden era MTV played music videos all day, daytime EXP TV streams non-stop, deep cut video clips filtered through our own distinct POV.
What treasures would reward the loyal Video Breaks viewer? Ventriloquist dummy sales demos, Filipino Pinocchios, LSD trip-induced talking hot dogs, Liberace’s recipe tips, French synth punk, primal scream therapy seminars, Deadhead parking lots, empty parking lots, Israeli sci-fi, scary animatronics, teenage girls’ homemade art films, Belgian hard techno dance instructions, Czech children’s films about UFOs, even Danzig reading from his book collection. And that’s all in just one hour!
We’ve been collecting obscure media for decades, but we’ve sorted through it all and cherry-picked the funny, the bizarre, the relevant, the irrelevant, the visually stunning, the interesting, the infamous, the good, the bad and the fugly. We’ve done all that so the viewers don’t have to. They get to kick back and experience the sweet spot without having to dig for rare stuff themselves or sit through an entire movie waiting for the cool part.
Our Nite Owl programming block features specialty themed video mixes and deep dives on everything under the sun: Bigfoot, underground 80s culture, Italo disco, cults, Halloween hijinks, pre-revolutionary Iranian pop culture, midnight movies, ‘ye ye’ promo films, Soviet sci-fi, reggae rarities, psychedelic animation and local news calamities. On any given night you could watch something like our Incredibly Strange Metal show followed by a conceptual video essay like Pixel Power—our exploration of early CGI art.
Aside from our unique tone and deep crate of video materials, one thing that really sets us apart in 2020 is our format. We are *not* on demand, we are *not* interactive—just like old TV! You can tune in anytime and something cool will be on.
That’s EXP TV in a nutshell. It’s funny, it’s art, it’s music, it’s infotainment, it’s free and it’s 24/7.
We have a little bumper on our Instagram @exp.tv that illustrates this
How much material did you have in the can, ready to go at launch?
We had been quietly working on the channel for over a year so we had quite a bit of material. When the pandemic hit, we decided to launch early as a beta so people could have an alternative to the big streaming channels - something totally different.
In this modern world of all these different streaming platforms, it feels like you spend more time deciding what to watch than you do actually watching something. We wanted to make something you could just turn on and leave on for hours—days even—and you’d be guaranteed to catch something interesting. We basically just made the channel we wanted to watch.
Right now, we have about 60 hours in rotation and we are regularly adding new material—new Video Breaks, new episodes of our ongoing series, and hatching entirely new concepts for shows. Stay tuned for Kung Fu Wizards coming soon!
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