Peur(s) Du Noir teaser

Depraved Press - Review, interview

Alex Martin, a nice bloke who frequents the Cult, gave 6 Sick Hipsters a generous review at Depraved Press. We also did a short interview. You can read the contents of both below:

"They stalk on spiderlike legs wearing jeans tighter than condoms. As they are the scourge of Starbucks baristas, so also 6 Sick Hipsters are the bones of this novel, but don't for a minute assume they're the flesh of it. Rayo Casablanca's debut is as dark as it is hilarious, as encapsulating as it is clever.

He leads us by the hand so charmingly through places so noir their bars sell bourbon on tap and all you can do is smile and follow. From Paleontological pornography to a gangster with the best character name in fiction, 6 Sick Hipsters leaves no stone unturned and when you're not laughing out loud you're silently nodding with a half-shameful envy.

I first heard of Rayo Casablanca over at The Cult. There had been a competition for a fictional oral-biography style passage about Chuck Palahniuk there, and there Rayo's sexually charged winning entry provoked much mirth and not a small dash of jealousy from many. In 500 words his style shines through, and his humor is blatant.

But what isn't readily apparent is the depth of Rayo's pop-culture trivia, and even beyond that, the level of literacy in the novel itself. From Thomas Pynchon to The Sisters of Mercy, 6 Sick Hipsters swells with allusions, which are very, very fun. But ultimately the novel's charm comes from Rayo's beautiful juxtaposition of iniquitous comedy, sly satire and subcultural range, and by fuck does he do it well. All in all a very impressive debut."

- Alex Martin (12/07)

A brief discussion with Rayo Casablanca:

Martin: Starting at basics, every writer seems to have their own method when it comes to spinning a yarn. Will Christopher Baer binges, Craig Clevenger goes through drafts like a hot knife through a small lovable creature. What about you?

Rayo Casablanca: I usually start with a title and then write from there. I suppose I would categorize myself as a drafter a la Clevenger. I typically spin off a hundred pages of extraneous material before settling into a single work. On a good day, I'll have four or five drafts going at the same time. You know, one 1st person, one 3rd person, one from the perspective of the syphilitic killer, one from the perspective of the dowdy doorman. Most don't get past the forty-page mark. Some are just sketches really. In the end, those weaker versions wind up cannibalized or discarded.

6 Sick Hipsters was inspired (largely) by women's undergarments. Seriously. There are these cotton-stretch low-slung panties called hipsters. The ones I saw came in packs of 6. Viola! 6 hipsters. I added the sick because that just made it all the more entertaining. As soon as I had the title the rest just came whirling out.

Martin: You work under the umbrella of healthcare, and it's no secret that the most ill-fated of perverse actions come to light under that very same brolly - if you'll excuse the phrase. How much of the book was informed by real-life (I'm specifically hoping for an anecdote about a wild baboon)?

Rayo Casablanca: Almost all. The character of Radij - the physician with the hankering for obscure new wave/minimal synth and a bad habit of cutting himself - was inspired by a number of people I know. The stories he tells are all based on actual incidents. Truth is always, without question, stranger than fiction. Spend a few minutes in an ER and you'll see things you just couldn't make up.

While I've cleaned glass out of eyeballs and broken ribs doing chest compressions, I've never encountered victims of wild baboon attacks. That little episode was based on images I've seen about the Gadawan Kura ("hyena guides") of Nigeria. These men have adult baboons and hyenas on chains. Most of them are traveling entertainers, do street shows in the dusty markets of Lagos, though I've read totally unsubstantiated rumors of the animals being used for stick-ups and worse. The mind boggles.

Martin: Is there a book tour planned?

Rayo Casablanca: Yeah. I don't know if I'd call it planned. I'll be in NYC, Denver. Possibly D.C., Boston, Chicago, Seattle and Portland.

Martin: Obviously 6 Sick Hipsters is full of literary and musical allusions, from Pynchon through The Sisters of Mercy to Voltron. Are all of the details facts, any artistic license used, and did you just know this stuff or was there a whole lot of research involved behind it?

Rayo Casablanca: Most of it is true. Some of it I made up. Sad as it is to say, the vast majority of it is gleaned from inane trivia I've lined by brain with. I threw a bunch of in-jokes in there for the equally geeky.

Martin: And finally, when can we expect the next?

Rayo Casablanca: Next spring, in fact. Turning in a first draft next month. The run down: a socialite (less Paris Hilton than Edie Sedgwick) vs. terrorists (schizo and led by their therapist) vs. art school students. Throw in a good number of twists, a nihilist hit man, meth-addled dirties and the ghost of Serge Gainsbourg and you've got it. (12/07)

Williamsburg Courier interview

Here.
Thanks to Greg Hanlon/Courier Life

Glowing in the Dark: Minimal Synth MP3 Series #1 -Cinema 90 repost

As requested, here is a repost of Cinema 90's "In Ultra-Violet" - I should have another minimal synth post in the next day or two. Here is the 7" version.

Cinema 90 (a.k.a. Colin MacDonnel, keyboardist for the Seattle post-punk band 3 Swimmers) had one song on this compliation (Seattle Syndrome 2) released by Engram in 1983, "In Ultra-Violet." It's a haunting synth piece with a driving bass line. While there are some similarities structurally to Frank Tovey's early work (RIP), "In Ultra-Violet" is more melodic and less obscure lyrically. Excellent stuff all around and a very nice rip as well.

Life After Death - Isn't It Time

Incredible video from the vaults. Early 80s L.A. synth/electro punk band, Life After Death. From the Video 22 show.

Downtown 81

The film was never finished and Basquiat died in 1988. In 1999 the film was resurrected and released. The audio had been lost so actor Saul Williams dubbed Basquiat's lines. Tons of 80s village hipsters: James Chance, Amos Poe, Tav Falco, etc.
Soundtrack: Kid Creole and the Coconuts, James White and the Blacks, DNA, Tuxedo Moon, the Plastics, Walter Steding and the Dragon People, Melle Mel, John Lurie, Lydia Lunch, Suicide, Vincent Gallo, Kenny Burrell and Gray

Terminus

From Trevor Cawood. Montreal's Spyfilms.

Glass Candy - Digital Versicolor

Now for something a bit more recent. From New Jersey.


Honkey grandma indeed.

Feeling early industrial, French tonight. . .

As opposed to?


Buzz - Kennedy. French. From a 12" w/ "Picasso" and "Kennedy".


Futurisk - Army Now. 1982. Florida. Not French.


Orchestre Rouge - Soon Come Violence. 1982. (More like post-punk.) See: Passion Fodder.


Honeymoon Killers - Historie a Suivre. Amazing live footage. 1983.


Starter - Minijupe. Swiss, of course. Look at those moves.


End of Data - Sahrah. French. 1983. From Rennes.


Hard Corps - Dirty. Live, 1986.

Pete Shelley - On Your Own

Great animation.

Angel Mine

People who have read 6 Sick Hipsters often ask what "trivia" I made up and which is real. This is something the Annotated 6 Sick Hipsters website will address but here's an example: The whole "Angel Mine" section - banter between Swank (an artist who meets an ill end) and his pal - is based on a very real but really obscure film. Here is some info:

“Angel Mine (which came with the warning: ‘This film contains punk cult material!’) signalled in celluloid the arrival of punk and met with the kind of controversy you’d expect and more. ‘Angel Mine came out of nowhere and caught a lot of people by surprise,’ says Blyth. ‘Twenty years down the track I don’t know whether it’s so controversial. I’ve gone on and become far more middle of the road in terms of my film-making. … Blyth was coming to the end of his time at Auckland University where he had become influenced by European cinema rather than Hollywood as well as the values that went along with the music friends in a band were espousing. ‘We all came from the garage band. I was a garage film-maker. I used an old red Bolex and like the musicians didn’t have any formal education. They just got instruments and started making noises and I got a camera and started pointing it around the room. I thought ‘why wait to get experience?’ Everything was fermenting at the same time. The very first punk concert at Auckland University was raising money for Angel Mine. The thing about the film is that it was shot for $13,000 or $14,000, which meant I didn’t have to go to any of the authorities and have my script fettered. It was an attack on the great suburban dream of New Zealand, the whole focus on ‘get a job, get a house and a mortgage’, a whole philosophy which I guess punk was about questioning. … Despite the low budget and the controversy that followed the film’s release, many critics today, as then, have hailed Angel Mine as a superb piece of film-making.” (Mark Amery, Sunday Star-Times, 12 February 1995)

"There are no bohemians in Angel Mine. The couple, played by Derek Ward and Jennifer Redford, are confirmed city dwellers. In their sterile brand-new Lockwood show-home, isolated in the middle of a Pakuranga subdivision, haven for the nouveau riche, they try desperately to conform to the image of the ideal young couple in the commercials. They are surrounded by the material trappings that the slick advertisements insist are requisites for happiness: yet real happiness eludes them. The phantom doubles or Doppelgangers, dressed in shiny black vinyl suits, represent the physical, sensual, animalistic aspects of the couples' personalities, so effectively subliminated by the mass media." (Diana Ward/Art New Zealand, 1978)

"No locally made film has caused more hullabaloo since the advent of the State-sponsored NZ Film Commission than David Blyth's Angel Mine which premiered in Auckland in November and has since moved to other of the country's main cites. It has been the cause of renewed urgings to the Minister of Internal Affairs Alan Highet to tighten censorship law, and to the Government in general to carefully watch how the taxpayers money is being spent in the new surge towards a developed local film industry. Porn watchdog Patricia Bartlett, in particular, has been assiduous in penning letters to Government leaders and newspapers about what she sees as the degrading content of the film and the use of public money for such enterprises. In fact, Angel Mine, which has been made on a minuscule budget of about $30,000 and blown into 35mm from original 16mm footage, is much more than all the "put down" ballyhoo suggests... What it does is make a particularly strong statement about urban materialism and the corrosive nature of visual advertising in the context of the relationship - sexual and otherwise - of a suburban couple..."- (Mike Nicolaidi, Variety, January 10,1979)

The Annotated 6 Sick Hipsters

Coming soon. It'll be a website, open to additions. Page by page references, etc. Should have it up by April. Have any thoughts, or want to lend a helping hand, let me know.

Williamsburg Courier

Did an interview last night with the Williamsburg Courier. Nice chat, though I may have rambled a bit. (How is it that I mentioned the Lost & Found Times?)Not sure when it will hit newsstands.

Banner

Many, many thanks to Alex Martin for this. Spread the love.

Monaco - What Do You Want From Me?

Peter Hook (New Order) and David Potts, post Revenge. 1997.

Metro NY

Metro NY interview. If you're in the city, pick up a copy.

Title Sequences

Always been a huge fan of title sequences. In 5th gade, my teacher brought in a 16mm reel of Saul Bass credits and I was hooked. This is a nice compliation. Some of these are quite obscure (Dorian Gray) and many I would not have normally considered (Death Machines - love it). Below are some of my favs:


Vertigo


Delicatessen


The Good, The Bad and The Ugly


The Mysterious Cities of Gold (Seriously, how can you resist that song?)

6 Sick Hipsters - Trailer 2

Second trailer for the book. Muchas gracias to PureShot for this. Genius.

Ain't It Cool News

Gothamist

Interview