The Bluffers GuideTo This Year’s Coachella Line-up

THE Coachella Festival is back, announcing the 2014 line-up, much to the excitement of people on Tumblr who are hipster enough to fawn over it, but alas, too poor to actually afford to attend.

The big news is that the festival will have a recently reformed Outkast headlining, which is good news for all. Also topping the bill are Muse and Arcade Fire (Queen 2.0 and Music For Dads, respectively).

In a post on Twitter, the festival revealed the line up for the April event, with the message “Share it like a polaroid picture”. You can see that here.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 9th, January 2014 | In: Music, Reviews | Comment

Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson Shows Rare Honesty About Doing The Voice

MUSICIANS aren’t known for telling the truth very often. When they break up bands, they cite ‘musical differences’ rather than ‘we all pretty much hate each other now and couldn’t convince the record label to let us have a break, so we’re going to argue about music until we can’t look each other in the eye’.

When they nearly kill themselves with drugs and booze, they pretend they’ve got ‘nervous exhaustion’. When they refuse to do promotional work for new records, they know that that, in itself, is promotional work and it works very well thank you very much.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 9th, January 2014 | In: Music, TV & Radio | Comment

Proof: DVD Covers Are Rubbish

IT’S UNFORGIVABLE  to squander excellent source material in favour of garbage.  Anyone who read World War Z and saw the film can vouch for that.  Well, the same sad fact is true for most DVD covers.  An excellent movie poster exists, but the distributor opts for a poor substitute thrown together and Photoshopped in two minutes.

Before anyone points out that movie posters have an edge via larger canvas size –  I’ll acknowledge that.  But there’s plenty of awesome paperback artwork – the smaller canvas didn’t seem to handicap Frank Frazetta or Robert McGinnis. So, I’m not going to give DVD covers a pass.

No excuses.  And to prove my point I’m going to show you some side by side comparisons (DVD abominations are always on the right).  Young children may want to shield their eyes.

Yeoman Lowbrow

Posted: 8th, January 2014 | In: Film, Flashback | Comment (1)

The Baftas 2014 Nominations Are Announced!

2014’s Bafta film nominations have been announced, which is particularly good news for London’s cocaine dealers as they prep themselves for one of their busiest awards of the year.

Leading the pack is Gravity with 11 nominations and true stories dominate the main categories (which probably means all our fiction writers are either rubbish or they’ve given up through a lack of funding) with all but two films (Gravity and The Selfish Giant) falling into that pocket.

It’ll be a good night for Dame Judi Dench too. She’s got a nod for Philomena, which gives her a whopping total of 15 Bafta film nominations – the most nominated actress in the history of the event.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 8th, January 2014 | In: Film, TV & Radio | Comment

Happy Birthday David Bowie: BOWIE’S IN SPACE

HAPPY birthday David Bowie, for us and Flight of the Conchords:

Spotter: Iowahawk

Anorak

Posted: 8th, January 2014 | In: Music | Comment

In 1978 Muhammed Ali Boxed Marvin Gaye, Sammy Davis Junior, Richard Pryor – The Story And Some Great Photos

ON May 8, 1978, Muhammad Ali delivered a punch to the body of entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. during their benefit fight and show at the Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles.

Heavyweight challenger Leon Spinks clowns for the photographers in Las Vegas, Feb. 10, 1978 where he is in training for his title bout against Muhammad Ali, Feb. 15. The sign was provided by some Spinks promoters.

On Feb. 15, Ali had lost to Leon Spinks in a 15-round fight in Las Vegas. Ali was crestfallen. Superman was defeated. But Spinks was too tough.

World heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, right, is shown at a press conference in New York, January 31, 1978, with promoter Don King, left, and Herbert Muhammad, center, to plug a comic book in which he beats Superman. Ali holds a copy of the comic book.

On Aug. 15, Ali won the rematch at the New Orleans Superdome, again after 15-rounds.

Ali had become the first man to win the heavyweight championship three times.

Muhammad Ali, left, playfully spars with a youth on Canal Street in New Orleans, July 31, 1978 where he is promoting his championship fight with Leon Spinks at the Superdome on September 15. Ali took a boat ride, paraded on Canal and then too a turn selling tickets. (AP Photo)

In between those epic bouts, he entered the ring with the fearsome Sammy Davis Junior:

Anorak

Posted: 8th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Key Posts | Comment

5 Inconceivably Awkward 80s Movie Moments

Andrea Howard and Don Adams in the Inconceivably Awkward film The Nude Bomb

BEFORE we carry on with the list, let’s define what we’re talking about here.  “Inconceivably Awkward” simply means it contains both of the following qualities:

1. It is so terrifyingly uncomfortable you instinctively flinch as if you’ve been punched squarely in the genitals.
2. It is so unimaginably awful you question whether the director suffered head trauma and should seek medical attention.

I should also mention that this isn’t a “top five” list as there’s plenty worse out there.  These are just five scenes (plus a runner-up) which spring instantly to mind when thinking of the worst of the worst.

Yeoman Lowbrow

Posted: 7th, January 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comment

Rare Nirvana Footage Appears Online (And Other Greatest Vids)

RARE footage of Nirvana playing their last ever LA gig has been put online by someone who knew the band. Within months of the recording, Kurt Cobain would cut his life short and rid us all of a band who, whether you liked their music or not, were really fun to be around.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 7th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music, Reviews | Comment (1)

The Top of The Tops Unofficial Celebration

TWENTY years ago, the BBC was celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of one of its most ‘iconic’ shows.

Ten years ago, the BBC was celebrating its 40th anniversary.

There was a problem, however. During the first decade of the show – which also unfortunately happened to be its heyday – most of the episodes were erased on the grounds that videotape was expensive, and television was considered an ephemeral medium. Posterity was not a consideration.

In the past decade, some missing footage has been retrieved from private collectors, which boded well for the big 50th anniversary. Or so you might think.

In fact, the BBC has removed footage from the clips that are available, and decided not to celebrate the anniversary at all.

The reason, guys and gals, is simple: the programme in question was Top of the Pops, and the TV studio in which it was filmed served as an HQ for the nefarious activities of Jimmy Savile and his pop pals. Hence Jim’s introductions and performances from certain artistes are now strictly verboten.

None of which will stop Anorak from picking some top pop moments from the show’s golden years – erring on the side of the hidden gems –in this unofficial celebration…

Anorak

Posted: 7th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music, TV & Radio | Comments (3)

Richard Pryor’s Greatest Hits: Mr Black Death Metal Sings The Blues

RICHARD Pryor could sing. Before the comedy hits came, Pryor headed to New York City and sang the blues:

Anorak

Posted: 7th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Key Posts | Comment

The Rock-afire Explosion: World’s Greatest Anamatronic Band Are Back For One Last Show

THE animatronic band of animals that once rocked the Showbiz Pizza Place restaurants have been reprogrammed by fan Chris Thrash to play Pop, Lock and Drop It.

Pizza and robots. Live the dream, kids.

The Rock-afire Explosion rock on. Before the song, let’s introduce the band:

Billy Bob Brockali (bear / bass)
Fatz Geronimo (gorilla / keyboards)
Mitzi Mozzarela (mouse /vocals)
Dook LaRue (dog / drums)
Beach Bear (bear / guitar)
Rolfe & Earl (wolf / puppeteer)
Looney Bird (bird / vocals)

Inventor Aaron Fechter’s band starred in The Rock-afire Explosion, a documentary about their lives and loves:

* The movie focuses on one fan in particular, a small-town roller-rink DJ from Alabama by the name of Chris Thrash. Thrash has actually installed a fully working version of the Rock-afire Explosion in his home, and eventually brought the group new exposure in the 2000′s when he began programming the robots to sing along to current popular music and released videos of it on Youtube.

 

 

Fechter’s story of how he came to create the Rock-afire Explosion is told in the movie, and it’s an interesting and even inspiring one – a struggling inventor trying to door-to-door sell a pool-cleaning device he had created, he just happened to knock on the door of a businessman looking for someone to build him a mechanically operated shooting gallery.

 

 

In 2013, the guys and gals played with Cee Lo Green:

* We’ve seen the RF band appear in music videos and feature films, and today the band takes up residency as part of Cee Lo Green’s live Vegas show at Planet Hollywood opening the show with a rousing Rock-afire rendition of “F*** You”.

See them play Nine Inch Nails, and The Black Eyed Peas.

According to the imdb:

* “The Rock-afire Explosion” is the story of a small-town disc-jockey, a struggling inventor, and an animatronic rock band, that quickly becomes an eccentric portrait of childhood memories, broken dreams, and the resilience of the human spirit.

In this clip the band plays Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) by Arcade Fire:

In October 2013, Aaron Fechter’s downtown Orlando warehouse fell victim to an exploding gas tank. The Rock-afire Explosion went ka-boom.

* An inventor with a flair for music and a degree in finance, Fechter was a CEO and millionaire before he was 30. In 1982, Fortune Magazine called him “a prodigy of automatons,” when his creatures — created in the Orlando warehouse — became headliners at ShowBiz Pizza Placejoints across the country…

As ShowBiz expanded, so did Fechter’s company, Creative Engineering Inc… At its peak, CEI had 300 employees building 70 shows a year. Fortune said each cost $90,000.

When ShowBiz opened its 100th store — in Texas — Fechter donned a Billy Bob suit and arrived by helicopter to mingle with fans. “It was like being a rock star,” he says.

But like every good rock-‘n’-roll story, it couldn’t last. And in 1983, Fechter got a call from ShowBiz. Stop production, the company said, we’re not opening any more restaurants. The company had grown too quickly, expenses had soared, and ShowBiz couldn’t afford Fatz and friends.

ShowBiz merged with rival Chuck E. Cheese, which was also struggling, ultimately asking for the rights to the Rock-afire Explosion. Fechter refused.

“These were my characters, and I thought I might do something with them in the future,” he said. “So I walked away.”

If you like what you’ve heard, the whole film is here:

Anorak

Posted: 6th, January 2014 | In: Film, Music | Comment

Bands Who Sold Out: The Who’s 1982 Schlitz Tour

IN 1982, The Who took the corporate coin and sold out to Schlitz.

Anorak

Posted: 6th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Music | Comment

Lady GaGa Is Mismanaged, Causing Redundancies And Other Pop-Woes

WHEN Bad Romance landed, it looked like Lady GaGa was going to conquer the whole world, forever.  For a time, she could barely put a foot wrong. Each video was a huge pop event, each single had a chorus destined to remove all the tops on all the dancefloors.

Then, something fell flat. GaGa lost momentum. GaGa went from delightfully divisive and ambitious to being stuck in a rut. The talent, clearly still there and the comforting kookiness still shone, but there was something missing and suddenly, she didn’t have ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ was.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 6th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment

12 Impressively Bizarre and Ridiculous Fitness Records

YEARS AGO in days of old when magic filled the air, people did their workouts at home by their turntable.  Generally, the needle bounced and scratched from all the flopping around.  Plus, record players were usually centrally located, which meant you had to get sweaty and embarrass yourself in front of everyone in the living room.   It wasn’t until the advent of the Walkman and the proliferation of health clubs that workout music got practical.  Of course, this meant the demise of the fitness LP.

Thankfully, the fossilized remains of some of these albums have been uncovered and are well worth a look.

Yeoman Lowbrow

Posted: 6th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music, The Consumer | Comment (1)

The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute To The Beatles May Well Be The Worst Karaoke Gig Ever

AMERICA’S fondness for The Beatles is unwavering and borderline bizarre. Of course, The Beatles are brilliant and hugely significant, but it isn’t like The States have a plethora of heroes to celebrate that belong to their shores.

Either way, they’ll be celebrating The Fabs again with a show called The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute To The Beatles, which will be recorded at the Los Angeles Convention Centre on January 27.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 6th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment

Aspen Colorado Plane Crash: No Celebrities Hurt – BREAKING

BREAKING news from Aspen, Colorado. CNN has it:

Celebrities tweet reaction to a small plane crash that occurred at the airport in Aspen, Colorado.

The report adds that “many of the rich and famous” holiday in Aspen. Maybe they can tweet CNN to show us that they are still rich and famous?

I hope they celebs are ok…

Anorak

Posted: 5th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment

Everyday Sexism: How To Draw The Celebrity Female Figure

WOMEN. You bodies are shapes. Not shapeley. Just shapes.

In “Hourglass figure is a thing of the past… we’ve all gone square”, the Sun produces its guide to celebrity womanhood.

Anorak

Posted: 5th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Jim Davidson Is Always 59: The Media Licked Its Lips When The Celebrity ‘Savile’ Cops Swooped

Presenter Emma Willis speaks to Linda Nolan and Jim Davidson as they are handcuffed together before entering the Celebrity Big Brother House, Elstree Studios, Hertfordshire.

“TV Jim” is Jim Davidson, who when flying back to appear on Celebrity Big Brother was arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of abusing a young woman decades previously. The Celebrity Police Force swooped, nicking Davidson in full view in a public place. He wasn’t flying out of the country; he was flying in. He’d have headed to his Hampshire home. Why didn’t the police arrest him there? Are the police now our moral vigilantes?

Anorak

Posted: 5th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment

The Ronnie Biggs Story: Money, Arsenal And Going Punk In Rio

FAREWELL then, Ronnie Biggs.

Anorak

Posted: 4th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Key Posts, Reviews | Comment

Morrissey Delivers To Deadline: Cilla Black And Jamie Oliver Eat Babies And The Meat Eating Queen Is Like A Paedo

MISERABILIST MORRISSEY has been been talking to fans. A few highlights to follow:

On Meat

If you have access to You Tube, you should click on to what is called The video the meat industry doesn’t want you to see. If this doesn’t affect you in a moral sense then you’re probably granite. I see no difference between eating animals and paedophilia. They are both rape, violence, murder. If I’m introduced to anyone who eats beings, I walk away. Imagine, for example, if you were in a nightclub and someone said to you “Hello, I enjoy bloodshed, throat-slitting and the destruction of life,” well, I doubt if you’d want to exchange phone numbers

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, January 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The White Devil And His Music: The Heavy Metal Subculture of Black Africa

IS HEAVY Metal, the music sound hewn in the British Midlands, big in black, sub-Saharan Africa? South African photographer Franck Marshall found a throbbing pocket of metal in Botswana.

The metallers have cracking names. The chap above calls himself “Death”.

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, January 2014 | In: Music | Comment

Morrissey Is Writing Books Because No-One Likes His Records Anymore

FANS of The Smiths, and in particular Morrissey, are a weirdly devoted bunch. Their fervour isn’t matched by the output they receive from the Grand Miserablist.

The Smiths, of course, deserve their place in the annals of popular music simply for popularising an outcast spirit of disenfranchisement. They turned it into an artform and teenagers the world over fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Their records, objectively, weren’t great for the most part… but like The Clash or The Doors, it is what The Smiths stood for which made them so loved.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 3rd, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music, Reviews | Comments (3)

Watch The Day The Clown Cried: Jerry Lewis’s Holocaust Horror Show

THE Day The Clown Cried is an unreleased 1972 Jerry Lewis film. It’s the story of a clown who finds himself in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.

Like the Aryan Papers, Stanley Kubrick’s Holocaust drama, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis and David O Russell’s Nailed (a small town waitress gets a nail accidentally lodged in her head causing unpredictable behavior that leads her to Washington, DC) you won’t have seen it.

The film ends in a gas chamber, with the clown going in to face his death with a group of terrified children, trying to make them laugh in order take away their fear. It ends with them all locked in, the kids laughing as the clown juggles stale bread.

American comedian Jerry Lewis performs as a clown at the 38th Gala de L’Union des Artistes at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris, France, April 24, 1971. Watching in the background are, from left, Italian film director and producer Vittorio de Sicca, opera singer Maria Callas, unidentified woman, Italian actress Gigliola Cinmetti and French singer Hughes Aufray.

Why did he make it?

JerryLewis.com has more:

In 1971, producer Nate Waschberger asked Jerry to direct and star in “The Day the Clown Cried”, based on Joan O’Brien’s book by the same name, about a German clown who was arrested by the Gestapo, interred in a concentration camp, and used to march Jewish children into the ovens. Jerry lost close to 40 pounds to play the role. The shooting began in Stockholm, but Waschberger not only ran out of money to complete the film, but he failed to pay Joan O’Brien the money she was owed for the rights to the story. Jerry was forced to finish the picture with his own money. The film has been tied up in litigation ever since, and all of the parties involved have never been able to reach an agreeable settlement. Jerry hopes to someday complete the film, which remains to this day, a significant expression of cinematic art, suspended in the abyss of international litigation.

Why was it never released? In 2009, Lewis spoke with Entertainment Weekly:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When I asked you about The Day the Clown Cried, you shut me down pretty quickly.
JERRY LEWIS: Why do I want to go there? If you want to play 10 Questions with me, you can ask me any 10 questions you want about it and you’ll get a pretty good amount of answers. And it will only be to satisfy you that it’s not so shut-down because you’re a nice man and I’m comfortable with you. I’ll give you 10 questions.

You’re serious?
Yeah.

Okay, I better weigh them…
I’ve never done this before, I’d like to see what I come up with. Don’t f— this up, Chris!

Do they have to be yes/no questions?
No, I didn’t say that. That’s kind of limiting.

Will I ever see The Day the Clown Cried?
He writes on a piece of white paper in green ink: NO.

Is there more than one copy of the film?
He writes: NO.

Is the film in a safe somewhere?
Yes, yeah.

Okay, number four: is the reason the film has not been released because you are unhappy with it?
He writes: Yes/No.
Which doesn’t mean that Yes, I’m unhappy with the work that I did. But who am I preserving it for? No one’s ever gonna see it. But the preservation that I believe is that, when I die, I’m in total control of the material now. Nobody can touch it. After I’m gone, who knows what’s going to happen? I think I have the legalese necessary to keep it where it is. So I’m pretty sure that it won’t be seen. The only thing that I do feel, that I always get a giggle out of, some smart young guy like Chris is going to come up with an idea and he’s going to run the f—ing thing. I would love that. Because he’s going to see a hell of a movie!

…

I was going to ask you, it’s only creating more interest and tougher criticism if and when it is ever shown.
Of course, of course. What the f— is he saving?!

 

I’m honestly surprised as hell.I am too. I’m very surprised. There’s a gurgling inside that I get when I think about, would this make certain that the Holocaust would never happen again? It’s too small a piece. It isn’t large enough to make a dynamic impact.

Do you think Jewish audiences would like it?
Jews? Oh, they would love it. I traveled for 18 months from Stuttgart to Belsen to Auschwitz. I was putting together my crew and they brought me a man named Rolf, who was the guy who pulled the f—ing lever on the gas chamber. And I said the only way I ever allow him near me, no less interview him, would be if he understood that I am concerned about the accuracy of the film and it would be because I need some information. But I said to my production manager, “I’m not sure I can handle it.” After about six weeks of pretty good meditation, I talked to the guy. The question nobody could answer, that the victims couldn’t answer, was: Where were they [when they] were waiting for the ones ahead of them in the gas chambers? How long were they waiting? Where were they standing? Was there an adjacent room? Did they sit? What kind of time was involved? The torture here was waiting! And they couldn’t dull the sound effects, the screaming. Could I get that information from this man? I wanted to wear a mask so he wouldn’t know it was me. When he came into the office and sat down, I thought, This poor human being. I’m sitting there and it was five after nine at night by the time we were done talking and I was…undone. But he gave me the bottom of his f—ing soul! He wanted penance. I kept looking at his right hand. I was going to ask him which hand did you do it with? I couldn’t do it.

Jerry Lewis, center, shot first sequence of his film The Day the Clown cried and seen here left with French actor Pierre Etaiy, right, March 20, 1972, Paris, France.

You can read the film’s script in full here.

Harry Shearer told Spy Magazine:

With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring, in that you are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. “Oh My God!” — that’s all you can say.

The footage:

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, January 2014 | In: Film, Key Posts | Comment

Pink Floyd: Syd Barrett’s First Trip (Magic Mushrooms) Filmed In 1966

SYD Barrett’s first trip (magic mushrooms) as filmed in 1966 by Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon.

This experimental silent short is very rare (filmed in 8mm) and only lasts 11 minutes. Nigel Gordon, film student, filmed Syd Barrett while he tripped on mushrooms. This film is made up of two parts. Part 1: Syd tripping at Gog Magog Hills. Part 2: April ’67, Pink Floyd right after they signed their first recording contract, with EMI Records at Abbey Road Studios.

Pink Floyd – 1967. Back row: Roger Waters (l) and Nick Mason. Front row: Syd Barrett (l) and Rick Wright.

Early signs of the Pink Floyd front-man’s mental disintegration were apparent in 1967. That year he appeared on stage with an entire tube of Brylcreem in his hair into which – according to some accounts – he had crushed a handful of Mandrax tablets. Mandies or not, the lotion melted under the lights, leaving him looking like ‘a guttered candle’. The song Vegetable Man (unreleased) reflected Syd’s self-loathing at the time…

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, January 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Music | Comment

Operation Yewtree Calls Cheryl Cole?

JAMES Robertson is helping the Daily Mirror gain ground on Bullshit.com by wrapping a lot of words around wrapping a story around Cheryl Cole’s Instagram photo.The headline tells readers:

Cheryl Cole celebrates New Year by kissing the luckiest boy in the entire world

Boy?

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, January 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment