WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Morgue Story & The Dead Outside

Of the films I saw in the San Francisco Roxie Cinema's 6th annual Another Hole in the Head festival, two features stood out high above the lot: the Brazilian horror/comedy Morgue Story (Sangue, Baiacu e Quadrinhos), and the almost static, post-plague survival drama from Scotland, The Dead Outside (trailers viewable at those links.) These are two very different films, to be sure, but they share two significant common ingredients: an empowered, gutsy heroine, hell bent on survival (these chicks are neither skinny, nor do they shriek and fall down when running); and a visual and color palette that distinguishes the story immediately as its own universe. (Sadly, I left town the night the tantalizingly Mother's Day-esque Run! Bitch Run! premiered; anyone who's seen it should feel free to chime in with their thoughts.)

Morgue Story is a taut, clever and grisly horror comedy with an Evil Dead II-like dual sense of calamity and humor that leaves nothing off the, uh, slab. When Ana, a successful graphic novelist (who has nonetheless lost at love, and whose most famous character is a "living dead") ends up not-quite-dead in the morgue, she runs afoul of a sleazily efficient, God-fearing necrophiliac coroner. Also in the mix is a self-effacing cataleptic, who looks like Lux Interior's younger, paler brother and may just be an (albeit weak-willed) ally for our heroine. The three spar off verbally and physically as the English subs fly by, unpredictable shifts of power occur, and you find yourself reacting with equal measures of laughter and revulsion to the fairly graphic scenes of necrophilia. Everything is shot in grey, green and sepia tones, the washed-out institutional colors perfectly underscoring the essences of death, depravity and sickness. This is the only film I saw in the whole festival where the crowd immediately erupted in enthusiastic and unanimous applause at the conclusion. That tells me the world needs more necrophiliac comedies—or at least this one.

Come see The Dead Outside expecting buckets of blood and non-stop zombie action, and you will be disappointed. The Dead Outside is more the zombie-film equivalent of listening to your favorite Oval LP, which turns out to be not at all a bad thing. Moody and hovering, with an excellent soundtrack that veers from drony buzz into gentle piano melodies, The Dead Outside reads like a side tale to 28 Days Later if directed by Atom Egoyan. As with Morgue Story, the action here centers on an unconventionally attractive heroine, a hard-boiled, chip-toothed goth girl who's slaughtered her own family in order to survive, and is played with resonance by Sandra Louise Douglas (who seems destined to flash her violently blue eyes on bigger screens.) The danger in The Dead Outside is less in the infected that keep getting stuck in the barbed wire outside, than it is in the minds of the survivors who must live out the daily drudgery that is post-zombie-plague existence. Again, the expectations of horror purists may be let down here, and the film also loses minor points for dropping critical exposition to the lack of subtitles (it's been a long time since I saw Teenage Fanclub, and my Scots is rusty.) Though The Dead Outside does have a few scenes of seat-jumping zombie action, that won't be why you remember it. Its muted blues and greens, and matter-of-fact realism, tell a very atypical and understated horror tale.

P.S. - I'll be returning to weekly broadcasting on WFMU this summer, after a ten-year hiatus. Tune in for the premiere of My Castle of Quiet, Wednesday, June 24, at 8 p.m. ET.

A Proposition for Robert De Niro

From markmaynard.com.

Tonetta777 - Demented Spastic Gyrations

I have no idea...mental breakdown dirty dancing to self-produced jams that sound like a cross between The Pod-era Ween and Right Said Fred. Watch all of Tonetta777's videos on his youtube page. Not necessarily NSFW, but it might creep some people out. 

Horndogs Rejoice! - Sexlab Cometh

Have you ever wanted to ask a WFMU radio personality about cunnilingus technique, clitoral stimulation, anal doucheing or "the helicopter"? Yeah, maybe not. But this Friday you'll have your chance anyway, when Sexlab hits the Web waves.

Conceived in a hailstorm of double entendres by our illustrious Queen of Friday Nights, Pseu "Honey Pot" Braun, and gestated in a dong-shaped space station by Pseu and her colleagues / co-researchers Mark "ASS9000" Allen and myself, Wm. "Money Shot" Berger, Sexlab is designed to hold your, um, "hand" and glide you into this new century of suckin' and fuckin'.

While Dave Mandl fills in for Pseu at our FM frequencies and on the regular Web stream, Sexlab will be streaming (with volume AND distance!) at an alternate Web feed accessible at wfmu.org. As Mark says, "online only, because in the Internet the FCC can't hear you curse."

And me? I started rubbing it to Morticia Addams when I was eight years old, and I haven't looked back since. I've been told more than once that I have an "enthusiasm," a certain bonus zeal for the sex act, so hopefully my life of gradual transition from hyper-libidinous man-slut to happily monogged married man will be of service to someone. And my colleagues, well they're unrepentantly horny bastards, too. Either way, Pseu, Mark and I can pretty much guarantee it will be funny (and hopefully genuinely informative as well.)

Sexlab will be live on the Web, this Friday, May 22, from 8-11 p.m. ET. We'll be taking your calls at (201) 209–9368 (for those prone to jump the gun, store that load in your third eye and call us then, not before.) If you'd like to submit a question or suggest a discussion topic in advance (or during the broadcast), we've set up a special email address: asksexlab@wfmu.org

Sexlab Facebook Page (for throbbing members only)

My Ill Na-Na

So last week I went to the gynecologist, and before I could see the doctor I had to sign a form that said I had read the 6-page “Notice of Privacy Practices,” effective date 4/14/03. They seemed pretty surprised that I actually wanted to read the Notice before signing the form that said I had read it. So they gave me a copy, and I did read it, and I was very relieved to see the section on National Security and Intelligence Activities. I have now given permission for my gynecologist to release medical information about me to “authorized federal officials for intelligence, counterintelligence, protection of the President, other authorized persons or foreign heads of state, for purpose of determining [my] own security clearance and other national security activities authorized by law.” I hope it makes the President and all those other foreign heads of state (Stephen Harper! Hugo Chavez! Kim Jong-il!) sleep better, to know that my ladyparts are thriving.

Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and may God bless.

Better Living Through Bad Movies - Blood Sabbath (1972)

A walk into the woods is a primal human experience, like staring at the ocean. It re-connects us with the infinite and the subconscious. We feel fear, and irresistible expectation. Though real forests have finite borders, in the subjectivity of our psyches, anything can happen under the cover of the treetops—and that's part of what we love about the woods. It's a theme that's been explored by auteurs from Shakespeare to Sam Raimi, and in horror films from Equinox to The Blair Witch Project and beyond.

What might a stateless, flashback-ridden Vietnam vet find on a walk into the woods in 1972? That question is more than answered by the deliciously oddball American film Blood Sabbath, which despite its obvious lack of resources, comes off inventive, low-key, and generally well done—in contrast to the (nonetheless beloved by me) Euro-schlock horror/fantasy pictures of the same period. Blood Sabbath is also packed with top-shelf cult talent: David, the hapless young soldier, is played by Tony Geary, later to become Anthony Geary, and achieve global notoriety playing Luke on General Hospital (thankfully, Blood Sabbath is pre-perm); and Alotta, Queen of the Witches (yes—you read that right) is played by none other than Dyanne Thorne, world-renown for her tenure playing Ilsa in all the Ilsa movies.

Our hero David, for whatever reason, runs in terror from three aggressively playful, stark-naked hippie girls who ambush him early on in the film, yet moments later has no problem falling irreversibly and painfully in love with a mysterious lady of the lake who's wearing a very distracting wig. (As my wife put it, Yyalah, said lady of the lake, is "magical.") See what happens later in the story when David, now under Alotta's power, hungrily accepts a chalice of sacrificial blood—this clip of David's ritual-induced fever dream is most definitely not safe for work. View below or download in m4v format to have and hold.

A Tummy Tickler from The Soul Clowns : Skillet & Leroy

Department of Less-Than-Hilarious Comedy Albums/ Today's offering:  The Okra Eaters.
A scandalous, shocking, nasty damned dish.
They really need little introduction, just pour a libation, settle down and get ready to laugh until some okra comes up.
This is the complete 1974 adults-only lp, with ripping incidental music by the Johnny Otis Show, and another lovely (?) Laff Records cover designed by Howard Goldstein with Bud Fraker photography. Oh, and I fixed the tracklist- the original lp had the cuts listed wrong on the cover and the label. But who would care or notice? Tracklist schmacklist.
Again--if you didn't glean this already--This is NOT work-safe or even safe for pets or children, for that matter- just very down and dirty.  It hovers somewhere just short of 'foul' and nearby to 'cute'.

70's Culture Quiz: The concept "Karate Jaws" is a send-up of an ad campaign related to what 1970's icon?

Here is the link to the corrected cover art, and here are the 13 tracks:
01  Bazooms     02  House of Pleasure     03  Miscarriage     04  Eat My Okra     05  Chocolate Ice Cream     06  Proud     07  Hold That Tiger     08  Son in Law     09  To Be Sure     10  Bad Weather     11  Blowin' Mule     12  Big Mary     13  Dr. Weightoff

UPDATE 3/12/2012: Audio has been removed. Keep an eye on www.oldschoolcomedyclassics.com for the official reissue.

Marilyn Chambers 1952-2009

Just days after legendary 70s porn star Jack Wrangler passed away, so has his contemporary Marilyn Chambers. Chambers was originally the model on the box of Ivory Snow before going on to star in Behind the Green Door. Do porn stars also die in threes?

WFMU: Now With More Video

Hello, please enjoy WFMU's first VIDEO PODCAST, VIDEO QUEST.

Subscribe to the feed here, watch it up there, or download it and put it in your pod.

Watch this space for more info, next episode coming mid-April.

Elton and Betty White / Folk stars of the fin de sie`cle / Part Two (of two)

As promised, here are my final 25 cuts by the unforgettable Elton and Betty White.  I think that due to the shortness of their songs, one needs to hear rather a lot of them to gain a better feel for what they did. I suppose I should describe their music to those who haven't heard it, I keep assuming that WFMU reader/listeners know about them; the best and most I could say is that they sing straight from the heart about some earthy, patently human things, and what they may lack in skill as poets and players disappears under the weight of their charm. I didn't even expect to be doing Elton and Betty as my first couple of regular posts here on BOTB, but fate seemed to push them into this spot, in several ways.
By the way- I'm tickled to be here.

The second tidal wave of E & B hits after the break.

KONICHIWA, STUNTKUNT CLAIREBARE NAIR FOR I-CAN'T-BELIEVE-IT'S-KNOTTED-BUTT-HAIR OVERTANNED UNDERMANNED B9ITCHES WITH STITCHES IN THEY HOT BRITCHES: AN ED SHEPP NEW YEAR FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY TALKING RECTAL WART

You know that time when you were all wanting to make your friend Xtina's Sunday really, really special, and you were like, "I'm going to make her a ten-tiered layer cake with columns and Ed-ible glitter and rhinestones, and it's gonna have color-changing LED lights and rotate 360 degrees and each layer is going to have its own unique theme, and when I present it, a mini-Fergie is going to pop out the middle and perform nose piercings? And it's gonna be like that Lexus commercial that plays every Christmas, only without that algal bloom schmaltz? Remember that?

And how you kept trying to make it, but this wasn't really coming out right and you didn't really plan that out and every time you tried to correct it, new obstacles appeared and then you started to think like, "Shit, we're in a Depression — maybe I oughtta stop metaphorically flicking off SoHo store owners by balking at their 80%-off prices and, like, SERIOUSLY focus on my job?" So that when Sunday finally rolled around, all you had for Xteenerz was a plate of half-underdone, half-burnt cookies that you put too little sugar and too much salt (and banana flavor!) in, but mixed it wrong, so that one bite was like a Matterhorn-size circus peanut and the next was all brackish seawater but mostly it was just charred flour? Remember that? Remember? You do??

Well, um... OK, then. [deep cleansing breath] Happy Sunday, X-teenzlers! [best :/ face here]

Ballad of the Skeletons (video)

A "clean" and abridged version of Allen Ginsberg's "Ballad of the Skeletons", with music by Paul McCartney, and video directed by Gus van Sant.

YouTube [link]:

Elton and Betty White / Folk stars of the fin de sie`cle / Part One

You've heard a song or two perhaps, but a full frontal attack of 43 songs and three announcements by wonderful and unusual folk duet Elton and Betty White is what I'd like to lay on you today.

Learn a little about them and hear 'part one'  after the bump.

"Are We Going To Play With Our Friends' Balls Today?" (video)

A slightly different episode of the British children's TV show Rainbow...

Blagojevich!

Living in Chicago, I have been obsessed with Rod Blagojevich ever since his campaign posters plastered the city years ago. Like Gefilta Fish, it's a name I love to repeat over and over again...BLA-GOY-A-VICH...BLAG-OYA-VICH...BLA-GO-YAV-ICH. It's an ugly word that rolls around the mouth like a pair of soiled underwear, tumbling around your tongue and throat until you suffocate in glottal spasms.

...and of course the fluffy hair helmet, the creepy grin, the hilariously coarse Chicago accent...and this picture from my friend Andy Beaman.

Vinyl Finds: Mag & The Suspects - Erection/Thousands Dead (12" Maxi, 1981)

Steve M.'s house was the party house.  Through Steve and his sister J., a wildly diverse collection of disenfranchised suburban teens and twentysomethings had gathered there, some from "broken" homes, some runaways, some kicked out—others just looking for a good place to party.  This was our pre-River's Edge River's Edge, and though we never covered up a murder, we did just about everything else.  I lost my virginity under the big tree in Steve's backyard.  There were empty Budweiser cans and overflowing ashtrays all over the house, and for a while there was an "orgy room" set up in the attic (which was only moderately successful.)  I once hid in a closet in Steve's house to escape an ass kicking from a bikeless biker (for some reason, a breed so prevalent in N.J.) whose girlfriend I had slept with; I'd seen what he had done to a guy who owed him 10 bucks and I wasn't having any of it.

The inner sanctum of the house was Steve's bedroom on the second floor.  There he held court, and though the door was often locked and I wasn't always allowed in, I did eventually spend a lot of time in there, talking to Steve, who as we spoke would dole out samplings of the main feature of his room:  a staggering collection of several thousand LPs lining the walls, mostly acquired at garage sales and flea markets.  I was exposed to records like Ataraxia - The Unexplained, several years before I came to WFMU and found out who Mort Garson was.

One of the most dazzling chips off of Steve's monolithic collection was this 12" single by Mag & The Suspects, released by the very major London label in 1981, and clearly the label's singular stab at Rough Trade-style arty post-punk.  Both sides are absolutely killer, one an erotic recitation over minimalist thump, the other a deceptively carnivalesque commentary on how TV alienates us from global suffering.  This single should be at least as revered as The Normal's one-off classic "T.V.O.D./Warm Leatherette".  Right now, you can't imagine yourself humming the phrases "burning corpses are missing" or "soon, it's gonna get in, real hard" over and over, but just you wait, wait and listen.

Mag & co. released only these two songs in several formats and have virtually no Web presence.  Any biographical or "where are they now?"-style information on the band would be greatly appreciated (though to me, the record screams L.A., and would sit comfortably amongst the Posh Boy discography.)  I have never seen this record since; these mp3s are ripped from a cassette dub of Steve's vinyl.

Mag & The Suspects - "Erection"
Mag & The Suspects - "Thousands Dead"

Rock out with your whatever out

When it comes to guitars, I'm what you would call a "looker", as in I Like To Look, and "Looky, what a cool guitar". When I get the gumption once a few decades, I might even spring for one, which is what I did just yesterday for a bass. I'm not gonna talk about the bass because then it'll get ugly with me and you guitar enthusiast types out there. Yeah, if I had $2500 I'd get a Rickenbacker bass, which would mean I probably had another $2500 somewhere and I'd have to have two Rics then. Well, I don't have that kind of scratch so I got something new but affordable. In my travels around the internet browsing and gazing at guitars recently though, the proliferation of the Girly Guitar has officially saturated the Guitar Dewd Marts around the country. With brands like Luna, Daisy Rock, and the Les Paul Goddess the ladies now have the option of specially-sized and brightly colored axes to play. This apparently now raises new dialogue about our die-hard perceptions of The Rocker and the esthetic of the guitar to the body.

Reading in Someone Else's Voice

If you're like me, you hear voices when you read.  If you're familiar with the author and his or her tone, you hear a familiar voice; if not, or if the piece is anonymous, the right voice gradually develops - and it is most definitely an audible sensation.  So it can really fuck you up when you think you're reading one person's words but you're actually reading another's.  I had just such an unsettling experience earlier this week while reading this blog recap of Billy Jam's excellent live-at-the-Knitting Factory radio show from May 23rd.  I made the mistake (which I often do) of looking to see who posted it before reading it.  Liz Berg posted it, so I heard Liz Berg's authorial voice as I read it.  I missed the crucial "Billy Jam says:" way up at the top of the thing.  Hearing Billy Jam's words in Liz Berg's voice (and not knowing it), I actually felt a bit of planetary shift in my confusion - it was just all wrong!  Sure, there are probably greater distances than the one between Billy's and Liz's blogging / speaking / writing styles, but theirs still packs a disorienting wallop.  The closest comparable experience I can think of is a bad acid trip in the company of a couple who're fighting, to a soundtrack of "The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes".  Been there, brothers and sisters - great music, nice people, baaad trip!

Or I can share the experience.  Jump the flip to enjoy four very distinct New York newspapers reviewing one egregiously New York-identifying movie with legs as unbreakable as the presidential campaign of one New York senator.  All four reviews appear (in excerpted form) anonymously, so as to maximize your potential to confuse, say, New York for the New Yorker, or the News for the Post.  (The Times chose to remain above it all, natch.)

I hate people who use "natch" in conversation - if there's an "ersatz" to follow, then I declare this post hijacked!

Vinyl Finds: Merzbow Singles

Why do I love Merzbow's music?  Total, uncompromising sensory envelopment.  The sheer aural bombardment and crafty sonic layering of Masami Akita's finest recordings seek and destroy in the darkest corners of my psyche, wiping clean my floating anxieties and pettiest earthbound concerns.  There's simply no room left for bad thoughts.  While many a listener is sure to find this music to be one long bad thought, I (and I suspect a great many others*) find sanctuary in the bleeps, crashes, blasts and buzzes—the explosion of sound that is Merzbow.

As promised in my last post, here are some of my Merzbow singles, not all of them (apologies to those expecting the mother lode; much of my vinyl sits in storage) but the essential two I keep at the ready to listen to any time.  Masami Akita has typically demonstrated a reverence for the 7" format (especially considering his style of not-necessarily-singles-ready music) such that both of these discs are zingers that make the most of the allotted space/time.  That said, one of the singles, SCUM - Steel Cum is available as disc 35 of the Merzbox** in a presumably full, expanded form, broken out into individual tracks.  Personally, I prefer the condensed wallop of this 7".  The other, Music for 'The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man' has never been digitally reissued anywhere.  Curiously, when preparing this post, I realized that both discs were release number 7 for their respective labels, and that both are pressed on see-through bright yellow vinyl.

SCUM - Steel Cum (Vertical 1991)
Side A
Side B

Music for 'The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man' (Robot 1994)
Side A (Fire; Burning Building of Waco, Texas; Taxi in the Car Wash)
Side B (The Beach)

(Be careful when clicking on the thumbnails of the sleeve artwork; some images are nsfw.)
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*Just take a look at this list from OkCupid.com of "Singles Interested in Merzbow."  Quite impressive, as never once in my single years did I consider my interest in Merzbow a potential springboard to dating.

**Incidentally, Merzbox 37 is Newark Hellfire - Live On WFMU, 1990.

Hoppe-hoppe Reiter! Improved Sound Ltd. mp3s

You know the feeling.  You stumble on a local yard / stoop sale that features a lot of tasteless glassware and sweatshirts, ancient kids' toys and one thin box of records seemingly dominated by James Last and Chicago records.  That feeling is despair.  But you pulled over, so you might as well get your fingers dusty.  Then you spot an inexplicable cover featuring the upper quarters of a Gérard Depardieu lookalike being ridden, hobbyhorse-style, by a mostly naked angel-winged nymph.  Hope creeps in.  You ask how much - the answer: a dime.  Turning it over, you spot song titles such as "Leave This Lesbian World", "Don't Know Baby If You Are Safe" and "Hit'em In The Face", mismatched with the frumpiest looking set of anti-rock stars Bavaria could cough up.  Yes yes, that despair has now flipped itself into a feeling indescribable yet holy and life-giving.  If you know, you know.  If you don't, well... it's like I said to Terre T during one of my insufferable attempts to justify my coffee-snobbery: "it's like trying to explain WFMU to your grandmother".

What this thing is is the soundtrack to one of those arty lite-porn German offerings from the late-60's (1969, precisely), written and performed entirely by the band IMPROVED SOUND Ltd.  The title is "Engelchen macht weiter hoppe-hoppe Reiter" (buy it here).  You want the plot?  Here's a Google translation, courtesy listener Freddy:

"Gustl seller leads a harmonious marriage with Helene, in which sexual life is not too short.  From the time Sexrummel infected, he would like to see a sex party to organize.  Because it echoes Mitmacher not a lack of potential, a date for the orgy reported, but since Gustl gets under suspicion, to have smallpox, he must away from the big event. When thinking about his Helene because without him so everything could drive, it packs the jealousy ..."

Jump the flip for mp3s, the full cover (of which the above is a zoom), some links, and a little more info.