Month: December 2006

Female Bunch/Alley Tramp

Another passion of mine, besides music, is Exploitation cinema from the 60s and 70s. Films that should have been seen at the drive-in, but you’ll take watching them at home on VHS or DVD, because that’s the only way you can see them now. The worse the acting, the thinner the plot, the tackier the set pieces, the better. My latest great find in this realm is an odd and highly enjoyable film from 1969 called The Female Bunch. If Russ Meyer and Sergio Leone had ever collaborated on a movie, this is what might have come from such an ungodly marriage. It’s warped Spaghetti Western meets Warped Sexploitation as a band of pissed-off, man-hating honeys set up a commune on a ranch in New Mexico. There, they drink, do drugs, brawl, and maim or kill any many unlucky enough to wander onto the ranch or look at them the wrong way. A young Russ Tamblyn and a not-so-young Lon Chaney are among the hapless victims. There is a theme song that is absolutely cool and which sounds like the Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! theme, if it had been written by Ennio Morricone. I got my DVD copy of this film from an independent seller on Amazon Marketplace. The picture quality is not the best ever, but the film is perfectly watchable.

Prior to that, my most recent trash movie happening was when I bought Something Weird Video’s twin bill of Alley Tramp and Over 18 and Ready. The second feature is kinda cool in its own way, but the real rave-ability of this DVD is all about Alley Tramp. This is what B-movies can and should be. A teenage girl with an annoying Midwestern accent, who catches both of her parents cheating on each other, decides she’s going to join in on the fun. The scene where her parents, who now know that she is fooling around with a distant cousin, confront her about skipping school and generally carrying on in a shameful way, will have you giggling hysterically and doing multiple playbacks. But maybe the coolest part of this movie is the music. In the opening scene, the bad girl walks into her house after a day at school, pops on a record on her parents’ stereo console, and what comes out, and what she does a dramatic dance to, is some kind of groovy, reverb-heavy instrumental that sounds like a cross between The Velvet Undergound and the backing track to a song by The Association. Airy yet rocking.

I’ve been amused this week by a conservabot’s comm…

I’ve been amused this week by a conservabot’s comments on The House Next Door about his perceptions on The Wire’s political leanings. David Simon himself steps in:

Did someone actually describe me as a “self-confessed” liberal? Self-confessed?

Since when did liberalism become something that requires confession? After the last six disastrous years, I would think that to have your political allegiances on the other end of the spectrum might be cause for some angst, shame and reflection. But even harboring such sentiment, I would not be so insulting as to call anyone a self-confessed conservative.

I won’t go into a long political diatribe about the content olf that particular email, its willful ignorance of the profound economic, social and political limitations at work in the West Baltimores of the world, places crippled by decades of deindustrialization, profound social deprivation, political marginalization at the hands of gerrymandering, racialist political parties, a prohibition-induced drug economy that has become the only meaningful economic engine and naturalized unemployment rates at over 50 percent for adult black males — including those who do buy into the system and make “choices” of a kind that would not not bring the judgment of trickle-down, up-from-the-bootstraps, i-know-the-game-isn’t-rigged-because-I-did-so-well-coming-from-the-suburb-I-came-from-motherfuckers down on their already burdened selves. I am sure there are plenty of people who want to debate whether all the characters in The Wire made all of the right personal choices, will find that they did not — Randy for example should have never taken that five-spot to deliver a message to Lex; damn his fourteen-year-old ass to hell — and will find a new way to calculate the degree of personal blame without regard to the two vastly different Americas that we have built for generations now. And I’m sure others will excuse all personal foible by citing political, social and economic conditions — something that The Wire has also resisted doing with its characters. The two sides can have at each other and argue to their hearts’ content. I am indifferent to the nature-versus-nurture pissing match. It doesn’t matter to people on the ground, anymore. It doesn’t matter to a boy in West Baltimore looking to a future that isn’t there. It is the stuff of lame ideologues, each trying to shape facts to fit story. Have at it.

But the next time anyone suggests that I have “confessed” to my political beliefs, they have an invitation to kiss my ass. I am on some issues conservative, on others middling, and on many matters way left of liberal. In Europe, I might be called a social democrat, maybe a green, or, depending on the country, a labourite.

In these United States, I am someone who has spent enough careful time in the other, marginalized America to be wholly contemptuous of anyone who equates raw, unencumbered capitalism — absent any other social or political framework — as even a poor excuse for how to run a country and take care of its people.

Self-confessed. Like I’m guilty of anything other than speaking my mind. Fuck you, asshole.

David Simon
Baltimore, Md.

Lewis Taylor Re-ducks

Those of you with only short-term memory faculties working will note my last blog was about a genius psychedelic neo-soul one-man-band type by the name of Lewis Taylor.

Well, that blog immediately started some things in motion as far as gathering info on this eccentric artist. Within one day after publishing the blog here I heard from the owners of Hacktone Records concerning what I had written regarding them and their artist.

First off, it seems the kind but obviously jealous folks at Shout! Factory had lied to me regarding the status of the Hacktone label. It is, in fact, NOT defunct but has simply changed distributors and has chosen not to work with the fine, fibbing folks at Shout! Factory any more.

Secondly, they report Lewis Taylor has recovered from the nodes on his vocal cords and continues to work on new music for eventual release. While it is too late to promote the US release of the album Stoned (which is four years old anyway), it does mean new material will be released eventually from Taylor.

The label also informed me that, in the meantime, another Lewis Taylor album will be released in early 2007. Titled The Lost Album, it is about a decade old, and was recorded between Taylor’s first and second albums on Island but has never been released.

Seems that Taylor’s disgust at Island Records for not knowing how to promote him lead Taylor to go into the studio and record an album totally removed from the rich, swirling soul music of his first Island record. Instead of sweet soul, Taylor recorded some bristling rock music modeled more after Fleetwood Mac than Al Green. After laying the tracks down and working all of the anger out of his system, Taylor decided to shelve the tracks and instead went back to preparing for another Island album full of his trademark psychedelic soul music.

Now that he is long removed from his Island experience, Taylor has been slowly releasing these tracks. First as a freebie passed out at his gigs and then for sale strictly at his website. Now, the fellas at Hacktone are releasing the record to the world. Again, it seems to be a one-man-band affair and promises a new look at a Taylor so few have heard regardless.

Though newer music would be better than another old album, I am happy to be getting anything at all from this reclusive artist. Hacktone reports that Lewis just hates to tour so whatever albums we get are all we are going to get from Taylor so if we want to experience his genius, we have to take what he and his label give us.

So I will. And I will be happy about it.

Getting to hear the genius will be enough.

When the album comes out, expect a review here. Please pick it up regardless, as it will no doubt blow your mind like Stoned did to me.

The Music Nerd knows………..

Nick Garrie Discovery

This is my first LITG Blog, and in fact my first blog at all. I am happy to be here, and will keep this first one brief. My most recent discovery of an obscure and great record comes courtesy of The Big Takeover magazine, who did a piece in their last issue on Nick Garrie (Hamilton). The article had me running to get Garrie’s late 60s lost masterpiece record, The Nightmate of J.B. Stanislas. Wow. Think the soft, orchestrated pop of Bergen White running into more “serious” folk stuff by, say, Nick Drake, then having some encounters with the Baroque pop of The Left Banke, the left of center melodic singer/songwriter sounds of Harry Nilsson and . . . I could go on with the comparisons, but let’s just say this is a great record that the people of Rev-Ola have put back into the world for us. If you’re into sprawling, pyschedelic folk/pop from the late 60s, Nick is your man and this record will hit your sweet spot. My apologies if anyone on this site has already raved about this record.

Amazon has the record, and if you prefer to buy from your local shop, get them to order it if they don’t have it on the shelf.

A Few Crumbs Won’t Hurt

The neighborhood loses another landmark. It used to be that on a nice summer’s day, the best extreme people-watching used to be the sidewalk tables outside of C Matto, the restaurant/bar formerly known as Cibo Matto on Rosenthaler Str. This outpost of hip was owned and operated by the people who had the popular Kreuzberg bar, Bar, and the place next door to it, known for good burgers. It could be that the band Cibo Matto forced the name change, but that didn’t stop the more colorful Japanese tourists from flocking there, nor the wildest-(un)dressed inhabitants of Mitte. But on a visit to the Wochenmarkt at Hackescher Markt today, I was walking back home and noticed that C Matto’s windows had a garish paper covering all the windows, announcing the imminent opening of a “China Food” restaurant. Just what we need! More brown slime on noodles! I don’t know if this is indicative of a decline in fortune for the Bar folk, Mitte’s declining hipness, Rosenthaler Str.’s rising rents, or what. Now if you want really terrible “Asian fusion” food, you can go across the street to Mitte’s worst restaurant (with the best design), Pan Asia. But don’t.

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Another sight on the walk was next door to Kunst Werk on Auguststr. Workmen have taken over part of the vacant lot next door, where some luxury construction project has been stalled for at least five years after a hole was dug for it, and, on the strip of land immediately adjoining KW, they are assembling a very old, weathered cottage. I figure it’s either art or some Christmas shop — or both — but it’s weird to see something that looks like it’s on the verge of falling down being built instead of torn down.

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I used to think that the worst name for any product ever was the line of children’s bicycles built by PUKY, with which German toddlers endanger sidewalk users daily. That’s changed, though, now that an Italian firm has set up over at the supidmarket selling stoves (which look wonderful — if you have gas, which very few people here do any more) and refrigerators in colors that are guaranteed to make you eat less. Its name, emblazoned across the front of each refrigerator in inch-high chrome letters, is SMEG.

Incidentally, there really is a city in Albania called Puke, which, ironically enough, is supposed to be a delightful place.

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Finally, thanks to Karen for finding me the Zyliss parsley mill on Amazon.de. Click, click, and it’ll be here tomorrow or thereabouts. (Well, maybe: I bought the dancer a birthday present, and Amazon decided it had been delivered, although she never saw it. Amazon, however, can’t be contacted about this, so I’m out 15 Euros.) Thing is, that was money that could have gone to a Berlin retailer. Oh, well.

And as for the ultimate yuppie cooking item, Ben found that. Designer vitamin C?