20 years...

The Cramps at Napa State Mental Hospital (1978)

Third outing for this video on Burning Aquarium...

http://d01.megashares.com/dl/tO0su6C/THE CRAMPS-live at Napa State Mental Hospital.rar

Crass -There Is No Authority But Yourself -dir.Alexander Oey (2006)

When I was proudly parading my anarchism in 81-85 (after that it was in my head rather than on my chest) people were forever telling me that Crass were, in fact, a bunch of 'old hippies'. This observation was made both by old school counterculturalists (themselves often derided as hippies) and punks of other stripes and colours.
There was a Class War (not just the paper) in the 80's. We lost it and our lives remain blighted by this defeat. Global Capitalism has been kicking the prostrate body of the working class ever since, and governments have grown ever more sinister and cynical. 
I suspect that, like myself, many of Crass' youthful audience at the time were largely unaware of The Situationists, The Angry Brigade and the like.
Penny Rimbaud makes an observation in this film along the lines of  there being no distinction between hippies, beatniks, punks etc. Here here. As my old headmaster used to say, are you with me boys? well, no sir, we are against you, and we come in many shapes and forms.
He also comes across as the ultimate 'old hippy', and I mean this as an unparalleled compliment.
I've never met him, but he remains one of the most influential people in my life.

Here's an earlier snippet of Rimbaud, comes right at the end of some nauseating antics from the 'Fab' Four.

The Smiths live at The Hacienda July 6th 1983

Another repost with restored links:

It's a pity you didn't sign the Smiths…
God to Tony Wilson, in the movie 24 Hour Party People.

Here's another film:

In 1982 Factory Records impresario Tony Wilson opened a nightclub in a disused Bollywood cinema . It was named The Hacienda (the name comes from a slogan of the radical group Situationist International: "The Hacienda Must Be Built", from Formulary for a New Urbanism by Ivan Chtcheglov) and given the Factory catalogue designation FAC 51.

This was The Smiths 14th gig, their 2nd at the Hacienda. To date they had only released one single. Two days previously Morrissey had given his first national radio interview on the David Jensen Show.

Press:

Smiths sign to independent label Rough Trade
The Smiths, generally considered one of the brightest prospects to emerge this year, have signed a long-term deal with Rough Trade Records. They say this "represents a conscious decision of preference" for the independent label, which was competing against three major labels, one of whom offered a six-figure cash advance. Their single 'Hand in Glove' has already been released, and they are currently in the studio with producer Troy Tate recording tracks for their first album and follow-up single.
New Musical Express, July 9, 1983

Why the importance in carrying flowers?
Morrisey: "They're symbolic for at least three reasons. We introduced them as an antidote to the Hacienda when we played there; it was so sterile and inhuman. We wanted some harmony with Nature. Also, to show some kind of optimism in Manchester which the flowers represent. Manchester is so semi-paralysed still, the paralysis just zips through the whole of Factory..."
Sounds, June 4, 1983
Line up for those born too late or just plain indifferent:
Morrissey- voice
Johnny Marr- guitar
Andy Rourke- the bass
Mike Joyce- drums

These are AVI files. I play them on DivX player.
Use Windows Media Player?
Have a look here.

The Cramps Live at Napa State Hospital (1978)

This is a repost from 2009 along with restored links:

 

In much the same way that I still refer to all recorded music as ‘records' I am still inclined to refer to any moving picture media as ‘a film’. I may post the occasional film, but it won’t happen that often.
The other day I was leafing through The British Journal of Psychiatry and I came across an article on music therapy for in-patients with schizophrenia
(2006 189: 405-409. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.105.015073 if you’re interested) that reminded me of this film.
Whatever you want to call that genre of raw B- movie horror punk that has its roots in early rockabilly and still flourishes to this day, The Cramps bestrode it like a 60 foot woman. The Cramps coined the phrase Psychobilly (or rather, lifted it from a Johnny Cash song). How about Rock n Roll?
Napa State Hospital, California a 500-bed, four-story, Gothic-style asylum opened in 1875, when the institution in San Francisco became overcrowded.
In June 1978 The Cramps gave a free concert for patients at the Napa State Hospital that was recorded on a Sony Portapak by the San Francisco collective Target Video.

Line up:
Nick Knox- drums
Lux Interior – vocals
Poison Ivy -guitar
Bryan Gregory –guitar

In his treatise Meanings of the Intellect al-Farabi (872–950), dealt with music therapy, where he discussed the therapeutic effects of music on the soul. Robert Burton wrote in his 17th century  classic work, The Anatomy of Melancholy, that music and dance were critical in treating mental illness, especially melancholia.So how about this?

http://d01.megashares.com/dl/tO0su6C/THE CRAMPS-live at Napa State Mental Hospital.rar

These are AVI files. I play them on DivX player.
Use Windows Media Player?
Have a look here.

Johnny Carroll

Texan Johnny Carroll had very little commercial success during the heyday of Rockabilly, but enjoyed a new lease of life in the 1970's due to the attentions of European Rockabilly aficionados and a well received Gene Vincent tribute. 

He did , however, enjoy the 'distinction' of appearing in the 1957 movie Rock Baby Rock It, which was a showcase for Dallas Rock n Roll acts held together by a very dodgy storyline.

Tracks: Hearts Of Stone; Why Cry; Love Is A Merry-Go-Round; Stingy Thing; Crazy Little Mama; Sexy Ways; Cut Out; You Two-Timed Me One Time Too Often; You Made Me Love You; Hot Rock; Rock 'n' Roll Ruby; Wild Wild Women; Corrine Corrina; Crazy Crazy Lovin'; Tryin' To Get To You; Rock Baby, Rock It; The Swing; Bandstand Doll; Rag Mop; Run Come See; Crazy Crazy Lovin'.

Shelagh Delaney (1960)

I know this is a rather lazy way to go about the blogging, sticking up things from video sharing sites, but this will be of interest to admirers of The Smiths and Morrissey ( and, of course, admirers of Miss Delaney and literature of the 1950's and 1960's, the whole so called Kitchen Sink genre, the New Wave of British Cinema... it will interest social historians, historians of Salford, of Manchester; students of popular culture, of  Ken Russell...)
From Monitor (1960) Directed by Ken Russell.
Tall, ain't she?

On the Passage of a few People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972

Winstanley (1976)

Regular readers will be aware of my admiration for the Diggers and Gerrard Winstanley.
Kevin Brownlow's  1976  film Winstanley is well worth a look- painstaking authenticity in depicting 17th century life.  Winstanley's writings are used throughout.

John Cale, Nick Cave & Chrissie Hynde- BBC Songwriter's Circle (1999)

A fifty minute video of the BBC show Songwriter's Circle first broadcast on July 9th 1999.

John Cale - Thoughtless Kind.
Chrissie Hynde- Talk of The Town.
Nick Cave- West Country Girl.
John Cale - Fear.
Chrissie Hynde-Kid.
Nick Cave-Henry Lee.
John Cale -Dying On The Vine.
Chrissie Hynde- I'll Stand By You.
Nick Cave- Into My Arms.
John Cale- Ship Of Fools.
Chrissie Hynde- Back On The Chain Gang.
Nick Cave- Ship Song.
John Cale, Chrissie Hynde, - I'm Waiting For My Man

Adam Seymour of The Pretenders and The Katydids also appears.

The KLF- Ultra Rare Trax (1993)

All You Need Is Love.
It's Grim Up North (For Love Nor Money Mix)
What Time Is Love (Techno Scam Mix)
3am Eternal (Blue Danube Orb Mix)
Last Train To Trancentral (Remix 1)
Kylie Said To Jason (Full Length)
What Time Is Love (Power Remix)
Doctorin' The Tardis (Gary Glitter Mix)
Justified And Ancient (Tammy Mix)
3am Eternal (Top Mix- feat. ENT)
What Time Is Love (Wandaful Mix)

Like it says: rare tracks from The Kopyright Liberation Front. Geniuses.

Part 1:http://d01.megashares.com/dl/lGGuC5x/The KLF- Ultra Rare Trax.part1.rar
Part 2: http://d01.megashares.com/dl/BtBznIX/The KLF- Ultra Rare Trax.part2.rar

Recommended:
The Manual.
The K Foundation Burn A Million Quid.

Soul

A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.

Emma Goldman

I have , from a young age, been intrigued by the flamboyant displays of athleticism displayed in the dancing of Northern Soul devotees.

Was this a white working class precursor of breakdancing?

I have read that an influence on the evolution of 'b-boying' was Get on the Goodfoot by James Brown, a record that did not appear until 1972, and in fairness, Northern Soul was such an obscure cult, having very little influence on the culture outside of the dancehalls of Manchester, Wigan and Stoke on Trent, that the likelihood of it having in some way shaped events in New York is beyond the bounds of possibility.

I can only assume that there was some (almost) parallel and yet unconnected development, a reflection of a primal urge in the dance culture of the soul obsessed Mods (and those who followed in their wake) of the north of England and the African American culture of the Bronx.
Here is a selection of 29 soul records which compel you to move, even if like me you are long past your sell by date and the prospect of an all nighter makes your spinal column freeze.

01 - The Charades- Key To My Happiness; 02- Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do); 03 - Velvelettes - He Was Really Saying Something;04- R. Dean Taylor-There's A Ghost In My House; 05 - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles- The Tears Of A Clown;06 - The Flirtations -Nothing But A Heartache; 07- Marlena Shaw- Let's Wade In The Water; 08 – The Dells - It's All Up To You; 09 – The Carstairs - It Really Hurts Me Girl;10 – Earl Jackson - Soul Self Satisfaction; 11- Jackie Wilson- (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher;12 – The Impressions - Can't Satisfy; 13 - The Originals – Suspicion; 14 - Mill Evans - Why, Why, Why; 15 – Willie Hutch- Love Runs Out; 16 – Chris Clark- Love's Gone Bad; 17 – Tony Clarke – Landslide;18 – The Prophets - I Got The Fever;19 - Velvelettes - Needle In A Haystack; 20 - Marvelettes - Too Many Fish In The Sea;21- Gladys Knight & The Pips- No One Could Love You More;22 – Dusty Springfield -Live It Up; 23 –Dobie Gray- Out On The Floor; 24- Gloria Jones - Tainted Love; 25 – Eddie Holman - I Surrender;26- Al Wilson - The Snake; 27 – Jimmy Ruffin- He Who Picks A Rose;28- Geno Washington- Michael (The Lover); 29 – The Barrino Brothers - Trapped In A Love.

The Truth About Skinheads- Man Alive (1969)

Half of a Man Alive documentary from 1969 (the other half was about 'them greasers what calls themselves Hells Angels, but they ain't Hells Angels, not proper ones. Not the ones you get over here...')
Brilliant insights into life, habits and manners of 40 years ago.
Credit to MrSkinheadof69.

Richard Allen

A documentary about 'Richard Allen' ( James Moffat, 1922-1993), the pulp author responsible for the New English Library's phenomenally successful Skinhead books of the early 1970's.

Skin Flicks...

Oi For England (1981)

Directed by Tony Smith, written by Trevor Griffiths. Adam Kotz as Finn, leader of an Oi band caught up in race riots in Manchester's Moss Side.
Watch online here.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1917768040647895869#

Made in Britain (1982)

Directed by Alan Clarke and written by David Leland. Tim Roth plays Trevor, a skin on a crash course with authority.
Can be seen on YouTube.

Meantime (1984)

Mike Leigh's look at the impact of unemployment in Thatcher's Britain sees hapless Colin Pollock (Tim Roth) coming under the wing of Skinhead Coxy (Gary Oldman).

Widely available on DVD.

Romper Stomper (1992)

An unlovable group of Melbourne skins led by Hando (Russel Crowe) and his lieutenant Davy (the doomed Daniel Pollock) crumble in the face of progress and internal strife fuelled by sexual jealousy. This mob are racist bullies and cowards. Hando has a Hitler fixation. Geoffrey Wright apparently got the idea when he saw some Skinheads in a pub in Cardiff.
Widely available on DVD.

This is England (2006)

The Skinheads in Shane Meadows' film include a Jamaican, listen to ska, not Oi, and right wing politics divides the group. There is also romantic conflict between the two leading skins ( Combo and Woody, as opposed to Romper Stomper's Hando and Danny. The gang in Romper Stomper had also 'adopted' a young boy, Bubs).
Widely available on DVD.

Россия 88 (2009)

Pavel Bardin's movie, which was banned from cinema and TV release in Russia, follows the eponymous Russian skinhead gang as they prepare a video for the internet. When the gang leader finds out that his sister is dating a man from the Caucasus ( people from the 'non European' former republics are the objects of hate to right wing Russian skins) the shit really hits the fan.
Can be seen on YouTube.

World Of Skinhead

This documentary by Doug Aubrey was shown on Channel 4 in 1995. In it we hear from Skinheads from all around the world who represent a cross section of the Skinhead culture in terms of their politics and attitudes.

My download link is dead but you can see the video here.

Eye of the Devil (aka 13)

Ask anyone who knows me and they'll probably tell you that I have a good memory. They might even say an exceptional memory, an unnatural memory...
I disagree. True, there was a time when I could perform prodigious feats of memory. Party tricks.
My memories of real life events however, tend to be sketchy collages of fact and fancy. I know for a fact that some of my memories are memories of dreams.
I was convinced, however, that when I was a child I had seen this film.
It would have been in the early seventies and I would have seen it on TV with my nutty 'babysitters', late on a Saturday night.
I could remember only tantalizing details; The Marquis' moustache, the somnambulism, the bow and arrow, the candles...
It's taken about 25 years for me to track it down. You can download it from this blog.

Yarbles!

In 1961, convinced he was dying, the English author Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) wrote five novels in an attempt to guarantee a future income for his wife.
one of these books, which Burgess later described as being knocked off for money in three weeks, and largely ignored at the time, was A Clockwork Orange.
Various filmmakers (including Warhol) had toyed with the story during the 1960's.
In 1970 Burgess heard that Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) was going to film the novel, news he received with some trepidation: I foresaw a dangerous situation for myself and I was right to do so...
Burgess and Kubrick, as befitted two geniuses, had an interesting relationship.

Burgess had earlier written a screenplay of the novel for a proposed adaptation to star The Rolling Stones. For the Kubrick production there was no screenplay per se; using the novel as a guide Kubrick had the actors improvise the scenes. Burgess (along with leading man Malcolm McDowell) resented Kubrick being credited with the screenplay. In terms of financial reward Burgess collected a relatively small sum from Warner's in an out of court settlement (whereas Warner's had paid the lawyer who owned the option on the novel $200,000). Burgess however, collected awards on behalf of the reclusive Kubrick, and worked with him on an unrealised Life of Napoleon.
Even though Burgess had no involvement in the film's production , the way in which its notoriety forced him into the spotlight obliged him to defend it.
Some elements of the novel are more disturbing than those of Kubrick's film. For example, in the book the gang members are only 14 years old. On the other hand Burgess' Alex (from the latin A Lex- without law) renounces the thrills of 'ultraviolence', whereas Kubrick worked from an American edition of the novel that lacked this final, redeeming chapter.
Amid the media hysteria in which crimes perpetrated by people who had never even seen the film were attributed to its influence, there was one event that stands out for special consideration. I've never seen it, but in what must have been a truly bizarre piece of television, the BBC asked Burgess to defend the film in front of an almost unanimously hostile audience. And who did the BBC choose to host this? Some expert on modern literature perhaps, or an eminent criminologist? Someone who was in a position to comment on the causal link between viewing or reading habits and maladaptive behaviour?
I'm not making this up. They chose (Sir) Jimmy Savile (OBE), the famous disc jockey.

Burgess: Ow's about that then?

The scapegoat Burgess was not allowed to put his case across or to effectively challenge the views of the audience. He did manage to get in the great argument that if indeed there was a causal relationship between literature/ drama and violence then having seen or read Hamlet millions of people would have been incited to kill their uncles.
Burgess would comment years later: If they can give Jimmy Savile a knighthood, well, the honours system is so dishonoured that one wouldn’t want it.
For all the tribulations that the scandals surrounding the film caused Burgess he must have taken some comfort from the fact that when Penguin reissued the novel in the wake of the film's release it sold 50,000 copies in two weeks.
Horrorshow!

Further reading:
Stanley Kubrick; A Biography by John Baxter (1997).
You've Had Your Time, Being the Second Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess by Anthony Burgess (1990).

The Mark of Cain...

Nobody in my family had tattoos. Well, my great grandfather did, apparently- had them done in The Great War, but he was dead years before I came along. From an early age I was inexplicably fascinated by tattoos. I even dreamed about them- I once dreamed that my left shoulder was encased in ivy- which it now is.
I somehow understood that the significance of the designs went beyond the pictorial image- sure, the pictures meant something, but the very fact that you had committed to being tattooed meant something as well.
A fair percentage of my body is now tattooed, and I’m something of a student of the sociological/ anthropological significance of tattooing.
Russian criminal tattoos entranced me even before I became a regular visitor to that country.

In The Mark of Cain filmaker Alix Lambert takes us into the gloomy world of the Russian penal system. There are about 800,000 prisoners in the country and the conditions are notoriously harsh. Overcrowding is a particular problem. For example, in the mid nineties Kresty Prison in St Petersburg held 12,500 inmates. It was designed to hold 1150.

We hear from wearers of the old school tattoos which showed where they stood in relation to the complex subculture governed by the Thieves Code , witnesses of the way that the changing political climate has been reflected in prison society, and an inmate tattooist who works with a machine adapted from a Sputnik wind up shaver.

Aphex Twin - Windowlicker (1999)- directed by Chris Cunningham

…the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music
Paul Lester, The Guardian (2001)

Richard D James , aka Aphex Twin, has had a fascinating career in which he has broadened the horizons of electronic music. At the age of 11 he was tinkering with a Sinclair ZX81, producing sounds (on a machine with no sound hardware) and composed ambient techno music at the age of 13. His contribution to electronic music would take pages to catalogue; he has been a trend setter in Ambient, Jungle, Drum and Bass- critics have struggled to define the genre in which James operates, and he does not ease their toil by avoiding labelling.
He has acknowledged the influence of avant garde composers such as Satie, Cage and Glass as well as electronic/ ambient masters such as Brian Eno and Krautrock outfits Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and Tangerine Dream

This is the video for Aphex Twin's 1999 hit Windowlicker. The title is derived from the French term for window shopping (faire du lèche-vitrine which translates literally as

licking the window). The homies in the video are cruising - windowshopping for pussy...

The film was directed by Chris Cunningham.
As a 19 yr old Chris worked on radical puppet show Spitting Image - before moving into movies , working on sculpture and animatronics for the film Alien 3- he later worked with Kubrick.
His work is characterised by startlingly disturbing imagery.
Here's a Dazed and Confused article...

An approximate obscenity count for the dialogue: motherfucker or variants-26 ; fuck- 46 ; shit- 16 ; non pejorative use of the word nigger-43.
For lovers of the written word here's a transcript...

And finally a link to the movie ...