Dof

1 tab of acid + 1 Dr. Who marathon + 1 plastic bag = Dof's 1983 "hit" Codo.

"We do not neeeeeed any love on this plannnnnet."

You're the man now David Essex

... as though he wasn't at one time. Who isn't cool listening to "Rock On" and strutting in front of the mirror with a scarf and moon boots?

Midnight Son

One of my favorite odds and ends is Steve Miller's Midnight Son. I picked this up at a library sale in 1986. To call it a comic book would be misinterpreting it. It doesn't feel like a graphic novel either. It's something else entirely. With sequential panels of artwork - crafty B&W images of Pogo-like anthropomorphic animals - and short blocks of text in calligraphy, the Midnight Son tells the story of a visitor to an alien planet (that looks surprisingly like Steam-punk England lorded over by cute Wind in the Willows characters) who descends into its many-tunneled bowels. There he finds a monster and well, himself. The ending of the book has beguiled me since I was a kid - it's both religious and oddly unaffecting. I'm sure there's a story behind it. Or maybe there really never was one. For a long while I assumed I was the only person on Earth who had this book. That's not true, sadly.

Steve Miller's website says, "The Midnight Son tells the archetypal tale of the eternal child of light -- and his pursuit of that ultimate mystery, the source of life itself." There you have it. Jodorowsky eat your heart out.

Four Winds Press, New York, 1981.

The Flying Lizards

While best known for their cover of "Money", The Flying Lizards were one of the more outrageous experimental punk acts from the early '80s. With a catchy robotic post-modernist dada sound, The Flying Lizards built upon the stop-start jerk of Devo and moved from minimalist dub pop to trance-like ambient music. Irishman David Cunningham was the conceptualist behind the group - he played the instruments and formed the dada core - but what really made them memorable were the lead "singers" Deborah Evans, Patti Palladin and Sally Peterson.


Money


TV

Around only for the debut self titled LP, Deborah Evan's deadpan delivery gave the Lizards' an arty quality that rose above the dub and computer clap trap. Sure it's tongue in cheek and at worst it's like the most painful performance art but there's just something oddly lovable about Evan's droll despondence.

Palladin was next up. She'd moved to England with a friend, Judy Nylon, from the states in 1974. They formed a punk band, Snatch, and released a few singles in '76 and '77. (Their single "All I Want" charted at #54 and they collaborated with Brian Eno on the b-side of his King's Lead Hat single.) Patti joined the Lizards in 1981 and wrote/performed on five of the songs on "The Fourth Wall." Palladin delivers a deriding punk sneer where Evan's gave a mechanical monotone.


Dizzy Miss Lizzy

Cunningham finished The Flying Lizards project with the un-commercial modernist cover album, "Top Ten" (1984) with vocalist Sally Peterson (currently a successful DJ in Britain) from which "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" was taken. Peterson closely followed Evan's android vox.

Mark Allen's Flying Lizard's site is essential - http://www.markallencam.com/theflyinglizards.html

Rogue Taxidermists unite!

Good article on the Secret Science Club's Taxidermy Get-together in Brooklyn.

Damn those fans!

According to Fandeath.net fan death is the belief that if "someone is sleeping in a sealed room (windows and doors are closed) with an electric fan on, they could die."

And who believes this? Robin Prime, Fandeath.net's creator, says, "The only country to believe in fan death is South Korea. If you ask any Korean about fan death, they will almost certainly vehemently argue that it is indeed true. It seems Koreans of all ages, professions (including doctors) and education backgrounds believe it. Koreans use the media as proof. Newspapers and TV continually attribute deaths to fans.

"If you approach a Korean about this issue, their first instinct is to defend their culture to foreigners even though they may not agree with the belief themselves. I will commend anyone on their effort to convince a Korean that fan death may not be true, but I think it would be a very difficult task. Even if they did believe you, I still secretly believe they would turn off the fan, or make sure the window or door was open, when they went to bed."

Urgh! - Ain't This the Life

Elfman et crew perform one of their early classics. From Urgh! A Music War- which still awaits a DVD release.

Smokin' Aces

I've always been a sucker for the team movie. The outfit film. In these flicks a motley - or sometimes not so motley - group gets together for some, usually nefarious, reason and hijinks ensue. Sometimes the best outfit film isn't even about the outfit or outfits. The Warriors was best when it was sketching out the various gangs that inhabit a quasi-future New York - hastily detailing hundreds of surreal street thug societies. It's those brief glimpses of odd crews that fascinate me most. Rap videos are filled with them. All those posses - who knew that every rapper's posse (and I mean every freakin' one) had to have a three hundred pound bald dude with a gold chain as thick as my forearm - with a strange multitude of members. I like the oddest ones best: the white guy with spiky hair lounging on the divan, the Heroin-chic one with a giant gold eagle on his neck, the woman with cornrows and an eyepatch, the aforementioned fat guy and the Lurch-like giant who sways slowly (like a Sequoia in the wind) in the background.



Joe Carnahan's latest (following his gangbuster Narc (2002)) is Smokin' Aces and as the preview above shows, it's a balls to the wall outfit movie. Check out all these trippy hit man, bounty hunter and mobster teams - I like the post-Apocalyptic punk outfit the best, they're like LA's Kommunity FK with body armor and automatic weapons. That or the Dreadnoks.

Kommunity FK - Something Inside Me Has Died

L'Incal

Fans of Jodorowsky/Moebius have long awaited a film version of their successful "L'Incal" project. Seems we'll need to wait a bit longer. In the meantime, we have have these fleeting moments. From Popjellyfish who posted it on Youtube:

"Some footage I found of an animated film of The Incal, with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jean 'Moebius' Giraud invovled. It was never finished. Following that is a trailer for an animated film of Moebius' Arzach."

Hypnotic.

More Eleanor

Just a reminder: visit Eleanor's site and then buy something. Her boyfriend Drew's stuff is pretty good too. (This - "Bug Bear" - is a collaborative work by the two of them.)

Sheena is a Parasite

The Horrors' punk meets surf in a graveyard rawk is burning across England, but it's Chris Cunningham's delirious Lovecraft at CBGBs video that has everyone gawking.