by Chris Barrus
Apparently, the Soviet Union had it’s own synthesizer manufacturers – no big surprise since they had their own builders for things like electric guitars, etc. but it’s still wild to see. Much like the western manufacturers, the Soviets built some normal looking ones, and some completely off the wall.
Anyway, all you analog-heads should check out the Museum of Soviet Synthesizers and prepare to pick your collective jaws up off the floor.
As applied to different prog rock bands
Some choice selections…
Heldon chicken – started crossing the road in an electrifyingly anarchistic manner then exploded in a fireball half-way across.
Genesis chicken (with Peter) – danced across, then spread its wings and ascended slowly into the sky. Then the sun came out and all the peoples of the world rejoiced. The new Jerusalem was at hand. Utopia found.
Genesis chicken (after Peter) – kept promising it would cross tonight, tonight, tonight… but it never did. And will it ever? Inquiring minds want to know.
Hawkwind chicken – Made it almost all the way across when it was abducted by evil sadistic cryogenically recycled alien acolates from Zorkon Beta 5QX7 who were collecting Earth specimens for interplanetary scientific research.
Soft Machine chicken – This totally hip chicken was wearing totally rad rectangular spectacles that were so dark and cool looking, it couldn’t see where it was going. It managed to eventually improvise its way across the road.
Legendary Pink Dots chicken – not knowing what a road was, this chicken crossed a gulfstream instead. Remember, relativity over objectivity equals art.
Van Der Graaf Generator chicken – flapped haphazardly into the middle of the road, then rolled onto its back, kicking its legs in the air clucking incessantly.
Peter Hammill chicken – Did the same as the Van Der Graaf chicken, but it also pecked at the pavement violently until its beak was chipped and bloody, then stared painfully into the sun yelling verses from The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.
Yes chicken – Steadfastedly refused to cross the road. Period.
Rick Wakeman chicken – Thumbed its beak at the Yes chicken and waltzed across the road while eating some KFC and chain smoking unfilter Camels.
Patrick Moraz chicken – tripped and fell down half-way across because some idiot left a half-eaten bucket of KFC lying in the middle of the road.
ELP chicken – shot like a cannon across the road, accompanied by swirling fog, atmospheric explosions and fireworks. Tickets to see this highly hyped event were $34.95 and/or £53.
King Crimson chicken – Started to cross the road, but when it got to the center decided that the whole idea of chickens crossing roads was stupidly conceited and overdone. But after sitting on the shoulder watching all the other chickens crossing merrily, it decided it really did want to cross after all.
Pink Floyd chicken – This half-machine, half-animal chicken,instead of crossing the road, would flag down cars and peck the drivers to death.
Amon Duul chicken – Crossed the road by running through a drainage culvert, marveling at the way its movements echoed through the galvanized steel. Went into the Black Forest to experience nature on LSD.
Amon Duul II chicken – Crossed the road like the Amon Duul chicken, but it was suffering from delusions of grandeur, thinking it was a secret agent on a mission to find out where in the world Carmen Sandiego is.
Mike Oldfield chicken – shyly crossed the road when it was sure no one was looking. Incidently, it made the road it crossed. Also, it manufactured the asphalt used to make the road, as well as chip the rock used in the production of the asphalt, as well as invent the use of pavement for roadways to begin with.
Can chicken – BECAUSE IT CAN! End of story.
The Daily Record reports…
ART gallery bosses tried to scare off gangs of Goths with classical music.
But it backfired on them as the youngsters – fans of shock-rockers such as Marilyn Manson and Slipknot – discovered an unexpected taste for Vivaldi.
Even more of them turned up at their meeting place outside Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art as the classical tunes blasted from its windows.
Didn’t they realize that Bach is goth requisite #2 after a Sisters Of Mercy record?
Music For Airports 1/2 is a simulator of one of the tracks from Eno’s Music For Airports. In place of the tape loops from the original piece, the site uses a series of looped QuickTime files.
Yikes, there’s a Jandek documentary on the way.
The UK DVD of 24 Hour Party People has twice the amount of extras than the lame US release.
Awhile back I blogged about the decline of magazine cover design. Today it’s the miserable state of DVD covers – specifically the awful cover for the American DVD of 24 Hour Party People. What the HELL is up with this?
Yuck yuck yuck! Who the hell at MGM decided that a movie about a conceded nut-job record label impresario needed a murky and poorly designed generic “rave” cover? American ravers aren’t really going to be into it because half the movie is centered on Joy Division and the whole post-punk scene. OK, the other half is about the Happy Mondays (who I’d call more Benny Hill than rave), but this has to be the worst case of a cover having nothing to do with the movie.
The UK DVD is a little bit better. At least there’s a picture of the cast…
What’s funny is that the soundtrack album has the best cover of all. Very striking design that evokes Factory Records’ whole look.
In general DVD covers seem to be afterthoughts these days. For example, the remake of Oceans 11 had a great design to the marketing and advertising posters:
But the DVD? Boring and uninspired:
Perhaps not surprisingly, the net comes to the rescue. Spleenworld has full resolution replacement DVD cover art to hide the ugly ones from the studio (including the boring Oceans 11 one). I’m sure there are more sites out there.
Nice picture on the Warren Zevon home page: “Warren being attended to by his personal physician, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson”
Couple of cool Joe Strummer anecdotes that have been making the rounds. The first is from Give ‘Em Enough Rope producer Sandy Pearlman:
When the Clash got here, the first thing they did was go out and see Animal House five times. They claimed to think Animal House was a documentary, and they thought John Belushi was the greatest living American. That was great. I think that actually created a lot of bizarro energy. The other thing they wanted to do was to see Michael Bloomfield play. So they went to see him a couple times and talked to him, and he sort of knew who they were or pretended to. That was their first couple days in San Francisco, doing that and discovering that the Holiday Inn they were staying at in Chinatown had probably been the place where a lot of Dirty Harry was shot. Belushi, Bloomfield, and Dirty Harry represented their trinitarian introduction to America.
The second is from Bauhaus / Love And Rockets bass maven David J:
The following night we played at The Roxy Theater on Sunset Strip. Strummer was there again. Post show he invited us back to his hotel to meet with his ‘cousin Jose’ (neat tequila gold.) We became well acquainted and before long Strummer was imparting wise words of advice concerning instruments. He strongly objected to my choice of guitar, an Ovation acoustic with a plastic back. “The thing is Dave, you’ve got no bassist so you really need that bottom end, yer know?” All yer hear with that fuckin’ Ovation is, ‘thwackey, thwackey, thwackey’ and that ain’t no fuckin’ good! What yer need is The Big Wood! Do yer know what that is?” No? Well, I’ll tell yer! The Big Wood is like a big old fuckin’ Gibson or a Gretch or a Guild, something with a bit of soul to it, a big jumbo chunk of fuckin’ wood and none of that fuckin’ plastic shit! You look at any of yer serious guys, Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Van fuckin’ Morrison, they all got the Big Wood. Now Barry!” (our tour manager at the time. ) At this point Stummer is literally on his knees. “Barry, will you promise me something? Tomorrow morning I want yer to drive down to the fuckin’ river, then I want yer to take those fuckin’ shit Ovation guitars and throw ’em in it! Then take him down to Sunset and get him sorted with the Big Wood! Right!”
Right! We did and it made all the difference in the world.
That last time I saw him in San Diego, the first thing he said to me was, “You
got it, right? You got The Big Wood!” (I had’nt seen him since ’89! ) I gladly answered in the affirmative.
Still feeling sucker-punched from the news about Joe Strummer yesterday. *sigh*. Only saw The Clash once back in the day when they opened up for The Who in 1982 (the bill should have been reversed) and Joe later on the tour for Earthquake Weather, but my favorite Joe memory was from the tour in which he joined The Pogues – possibly the best concert I’d seen in my life. Didn’t hurt that Los Lobos were the headliners too (the show happened the week their cover of “La Bamba” hit #1).