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6 Sick Hipsters: Teaser Trailer

6 Sick Hipster ARCs

Hanukkah in November.

Samurai Cop

Priceless.

"No way, his lips are burned."

Shriekback - Glory Bumps

Shriekback's eleventh studio album, Glory Bumps, is both a continuation of lead singer/songwriter Barry Andrews' long-running neo-primitive sound as well as a throw-back to the Shriek's earlier, edgier rock scuttles. Eschewing the programmed percussion that flattened the sound of Shriekback's last album, the brilliant but flawed Cormorant, Glory Bumps is something of a return to form. I say "something" because for Andrews there is hardly a form. Sure, it's not difficult recognizing a Shriekback song -- the funky bass slithers, the turtle-shell percussion, the synth noodlings and doomy washes and Andrew's grave whisper -- but musically Glory Bumps harkens back to the earliest stirrings of the band when they were more experimental forces than proper recording artists. While Andrew's songwriting remains consistent with his later output, this new album shines a light into the deep waters of what most fans may have considered thoroughly explored territory.

The album opens with the anthem, "Hooray for Everything". It's all loud rolling drums and crawling synth revs and it's somewhat similar to Snog's equally satiric "Hooray!!" "The Bride Stripped Bare" is a fierce monster of snarls and quietly disturbing piano interludes that fades out into a grimy little riff. Glory Bump's first real standout track is the impressionistic funeral dirge on acid, "Burying the Bunny." It's New Orleans via Midian and is highlighted by wolf howls and skeletal keys. Andrew's turns up the ghastly humor in lines like "this benediction isn't something I desire/it was a while ago before I felt so sunny/it's all ridiculous to that I am resigned/and that intensity is very, very funny." A real treat. "Bittersweet" is, as the title implies, a quieter affair and it's as close to anything from Big Night Music that the band has come in the past decade. Choice lines include: "raking through some existential drivel/it was grudgingly sublime, perhaps a waste of time." Glory Bumps finest song is the achingly beautiful "Amaryllis in the Sprawl." Like Oil and Gold's "This Big Hush" or Big Night Music's "Underwater Boys," "Amaryllis in the Sprawl" is a languid meditation (Martyn Baker's percussion is just dead on and the didgeridoo is exquisite) with a soul elevating chorus that is begging for some cinematic use. Best listened to driving at night, it's a Shriekback masterpiece. "Mahalia" is a companion piece to Big Night Music's "Running of the Rocks," all barren but beautiful tumbling chorus and driving, jazzy rhythm. This wouldn't be out of place in a spaghetti western. ("It's a deeply satisfying sound/Mahalia.") The title track, "Glory Bumps", is something of an oddity, a one-off. A snide attack on evangelical thumping, it's loud and aggressive and over-the-top. While the lyrics and clever and cutting, the stagy music is just a bit too shapeless to really deliver the goods. Like Cormorant's "Bonehead", "Squanderer" is a funky cutter. Andrew's falls back on his lyrical listing (a trope from the very beginnings of the band) and some of it is quite silly ("I wanna get a lick of the exorcist stick" Note: Barry clarifies that it's actually "ecstasy stick") but the harmonica infused chorus is undeniably catchy. "Devil's Onions" continues the dusty jams and sounds surprisingly like something from late-90s The The. Great key work and some really nice horns over the "golden age" chorus. The album wraps the instrumental "Yarg 7", similar to Cormorant's burbling "Huytfi Dbl Plus" but without the beats.

All in all amazing.

Buy the album at Malicious Damage Records (see link). There is a limited edition Advent calendar/double vinyl release of Glory Bumps with three additional tracks. Here is more info: "...beautifully packaged in a rapture-ready endtime advent calendar, complete with little windows that open revealing all your little symbols of approaching end-of-the-worldness... the vinyl is packaged in a pure white sleeve and can be stored separately while the calendar can be hung on the wall to impress the vicar when he comes round for tea... there'll also be a numbered personalised certificate of authentication signed by the reverend andrews and a malicious damage representative, plus a few other bits and bobs..." Only 100 made so get it while you can.

New Musik

"One of those massive Euro hits sung by a bloke who doesn't seem to want to be here..."
Ah, stuido rat bands get no love. Chief among them is New Musik, Tony Mansfield's prescient electro-pop band. Despite the slick and airy sonic touch the lyrics were all dour and apocalyptic. This stuff drives a lot of people crazy but that ultra-modern gloss makes me feel clean. This is bleach for your ears.


Straight Lines (1979)- watch for shots of the bored teeny boppers looking at everything other than the band.


World of Water (1980)


Living by Numbers (1979)

XTC - Making Plans for Nigel

From Drums and Wires.

Cinebomb #7: The Shout

How fitting that David Cronenberg cast Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimoski as Naomi Watt's irascible uncle in Eastern Promises. While Skolimoski is a good character actor, I suspect the casting had more to do with Cronenberg's affinity for Skolimoski's films than his burly personality.

Skolimoski has directed over twenty films, the majority Polish language. Most western film audiences were introduced to his work via the startling Deep End (1971). But his lone horror outing, The Shout (1978), has deservedly become something of a cult favorite. Why? It's oblique, dreamlike and frustratingly formless. In other words, a perfect cinebomb.

The late Sir Alan Bates (Women in Love) stars as the enigmatic Crossley, a traveler who slips in between John Hurt and Susannah York. Using aboriginal magic he learned during an 18-year drift in the Australian outback, Crossley beds York and drives Hurt nuts. All of this smarmy intrigue is offset by Skolimoski's outlandish (and many times absurdist) touches. (Crossley talks of how aboriginal witch doctors can bring down rain by cutting a flap of skin around their waists and pulling it up. We see just such a scar on Crossley.) The film's titular trick - a shout that can literally kill - is surely one of the creepier, if understated, devices in film history. Seeing Crossley blast down a herd of sheep is truly mind-boggling. Like The Wicker Man, The Shout is a great example of '70s experimentalism running headlong into metaphysical (and "native") horror.

Now, if you could only find a decent copy in the states.

Kensington Catalog

Page 63, April 08

The Gable Film

Just in time for Halloween. Found(?)8mm film. Creepy as all get out. Hmmmm. Catch this while you can.

Jason Starr's blurb

"6 Sick Hipsters is a wild, poignant, twisted, bitterly funny page turner with dead-on dialogue and a wonderful ensemble cast. Rayo Casablanca has written the big novel the hipster generation has been waiting for. "

This comes from Jason Starr, NYT bestselling author of eclectic noir like The Follower, Lights Out, Slide and Bust. Awesome.

They love Logan's Run too

Daft Punk's Electroma

Vampire Weekend

Bigfoot (1970)

Bigfoot families, bellbottoms and buxom blondes.

Rouge's Malady

Monitorpop, Crippled Dick Hot Wax's DVD arm, has released David Cronenberg's early shorts "Stereo" and "Crimes of the Future." If you haven't seen any of Cronenberg's early stuff, this is a nice place to start. Used to be that David was obsessed with "body horror." His early films, like "Crimes of the Future" and "Shivers," meet at the freaky intersection of medical science and revulsion.

Here's his 1967 short "From the Drain." Sketchy transfer but try and watch for the tendril:


2 EARLY FILMS BY THE MASTER OF BODY HORROR: DAVID CRONENBERG

Stereo – In a scientific institute, a group of carefully selected subjects is submitted to experimental surgery, various drugs and longterm isolation in order to increase their potential for telepathic communication.

Crimes of the Future - Millions have died from Rouge’s Malady – a disease caused by cosmetics and discovered by mad dermatologist Antoine Rouge who has subsequently dissapeared. In his clinic, patients’ bodies start producing mysterious, functionless new organs…

Supplied by Industrial indeed

In Gary's autobiography (I had to shell out 40 pounds for that bad boy, but it frequently goes for $150) he says that right around "Warriors" he started getting hair plugs done. Yea, you read that right. And no, he's not ashamed. Every night of the Warriors tour he had to bleach his "new" hair and it almost wrecked his head. Ah, but you can't have the Mad Max look without a blonde mullet. Right? Cheers and rock on, Gary.

Gary Numan - I Die: You Die

Elli et Jacno - Anne cherchait l'amour

Suburban Lawns - Janitor