Paul Simon’s 1992 South Africa Tour Was In Another World To His 1985 Graceland Mission

ON January 11 1992, Paul Simon kicked off his South Africa tour. He’d visited the country before, back in 1985 in defiance of the UN-sponsored cultural boycott against apartheid. On 2 December 1968, The UN General Assembly requested all States and organisations “to suspend cultural, educational, sporting and other exchanges with the racist regime and with organisations or institutions in South Africa which practice apartheid”. Sportsmen and music acts were encouraged not to play in South Africa.

Singer-songwriter Paul Simon is joined by Albert Mazibuko, left, and Joseph Shabalala, right, at a news conference in New York, Aug. 25, 1986, to introduce Simon’s new album, “Graceland.” Mazibuko and Shabalala are two of the many South Africa musicians and singers who collaborated with Simon on his new album which blends the sounds of American pop music with that of black South Africa. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)

The ANC and Artists Against Apartheid were outraged. Why hadn’t Simon consulted them before arriving?

Said Simon: “You went to South Africa but you didn’t ask us. You need to ask the ANC. So that’s the kind of government you’re going to be? Check our lyrics? F*** the artists like all kinds of governments have done in the past?”

Rev. Allan Boesak of South Africa, left, meets with entertainer Paul Simon at the home of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in Santa Monica, Calif., March 10, 1987. (AP Photo/Mark Avery)

Simon’s foresight introduced much of the world to the music of black South Africa. That first trip led to his groundbreaking Graceland album, featuring South African musicians Hugh Masekela, Simon and Miriam Makeba and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Joe Berlinger followed Simon on his trip. In his documentary Under African Skies, we hear Dali Tambo, founder of Artists Against Apartheid and son of the late African National Congress (ANC) president Oliver Tambo. He says: “At that moment in time, it was not helpful. We were fighting for our land, for our identity. We had a job to do, and it was a serious job. And we saw Paul Simon coming as a threat because it was not sanctioned by the liberation movement.”

Simon found it absurd that artists should be viewed in the light and shadows cast by politicians. Art, said Simon, would endure.

In 1987, Simon performed his Under African Skies Concert in Harare:

American pop star Paul Simon, second right, joins hands with South African musicians Joe Shabalala, left, Miriam Makeba, second left, who has been exiled for 27 years, and Ray Phiri, during the first day on a two-day concert entitled “Graceland in Concert,” in Harare, Zimbabwe on Feb. 14, 1987. Blacks and whites from as far away as New York, Nairobi and South Africa attended the concert, the first public performance in Africa of Simon whose latest songs blend African rhythms with American pop music. (AP Photo)

American singer Paul Simon performs for 20,000 fans in an open air stadium in Harare, Zimbabwe on Feb. 14, 1987, the first day of a two-day “Graceland in Concert” event by Simon and 25 black South African musicians. It was Simon’’s first public performance in Africa of his “Graceland” album which blends African rhythms with American pop music. (AP Photo)

When Simon returned in 1992, that boycott has been lifted. This time the ANC backed him.  

lson Mandela the president of African National Congress claps hands with American singer and songwriter Paul Simon in a gesture that signals the end of the boycott imposed by anti-Apartheid organizations, at a function held in Simon honour in Johannesburg, South Africa Friday, Jan. 10, 1992. (AP Photo/ Adil Bradlow)

Of the show in Johannesburg’s Ellis Park Stadium, The New York Times noted, “Most black South Africans could not afford to pay up to $30 for a ticket, or, lacking cars, to travel to Johannesburg from the outlying black townships.”

Entertainment Weekly surveyed the scene:

While Simon opened his two-week South Africa tour with such gentle songs as ”The Obvious Child,” ”Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and ”The Sounds of Silence,” armored police vehicles, bomb-sniffing canines, and even a surveillance helicopter patrolled the stadium. Outside, clusters of angry black protesters, representing leftist fringe groups that ferociously oppose the lifting of international sanctions against South Africa, were handing out leaflets, waving anti-Simon signs, and threatening to disrupt his concert with violence.

Not everyone could make it. One month earlier, Ladysmith Black Mambazo co-founder Headman Tshabalala had been shot dead by a white security guard. The guard had been arrested. He’d been released on $300 bail.

The day he arrived, two hand grenades exploded outside the offices of a Johannesburg company that helped arrange the tour. Complaints were also aimed at Whoopi Goldberg and the production of Sarafina!, which she is filming in South Africa.

U.S. singer Paul Simon performs during his concert in Johannesburg, Jan. 11, 1992. Simon is the first international star to perform in South Africa since the lifting of the cultural boycott last year. A small group of black militants staged a demonstration outside the stadium. (AP Photo/Adil Bradlow)

The Baltimore Sun reviewed the show:

A small group of black activists, as many as 100 at one point, marched outside the entrance of Ellis Park Stadium in east Johannesburg with signs that said the singer had come at the wrong time with his “Born at the Right Time” tour.

The hand-lettered placards read: “Simon Go Home,” “Yankee Go Home,” “Don’t Delay Our Freedom,” and “Liberation First, Entertainment After.”

Members of a radical black group known as the Azanian Youth Organization had threatened to disrupt the concert with violence, saying that the American pop star was wrong to come to South Africa before the country’s political problems were solved.

“Artists should come after we have a democratic government,” said Kgomotse Modiselle, a 20-year-old high school student who described himself as a spokesman for the left-wing youth group. “Right now is not the right time for sanctions to be lifted.”

He said that only whites were attending the concert because blacks were opposed to Mr. Simon’s presence in South Africa. “The stadium is filled with white people,” he proclaimed.

Fans at American singer Paul Simon’s concert in the first of five concerts in Johannesburg, South Africa on Saturday, Jan. 11, 1992. The concert effectively marked the end of South Africa’’s cultural boycott. (AP Photo/Adil Bradlow)

Violence was never far away.

About a half-dozen tanks painted in camouflage colors sat near the front of the stadium.

South Africa

Anorak

Posted: 11th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment

10 Intensely Disturbing Public Service Announcements

THERE ARE two tactics you can operate from to inspire healthy cautiousness in children: (A) making the topic interesting and intellectually compelling, or (B) scaring the living hell out of them.  More often than not, PSAs in the 1960s–80s opted for the latter.  We’re all familiar with the nihilistic, carnage-filled films used for drivers education.  However, getting “the message” to kids often took a less direct (yet more disturbing) route…

10. Boo-Boo is Propositioned

From a comic distributed to US public schools in 1985

IF the idea of Yogi’s little friend Boo-Boo getting stalked by a peadophile gives you the willies, you may want to brace yourself: there’s nine more PSA’s to go.

It’s a bit disarming when a normally light hearted medium abruptly ditches the funny capers in favor of deep, dark and depressing public service messages. I understand the good intentions behind it, so I don’t want to be too hard on them.  However, there’s just something creepy about horrific real-life entering children’s comics.

Yeoman Lowbrow

Posted: 10th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (3)

Tom Mix Was Hollywood’s Original Cowboy Tough Guy (Photo)

TOM Mix – January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940 – was an American silent film actor who starred in hundreds of films.

TOM MIX FIRES FROM HORSE: 1920

*  In all, he made 336 feature films, produced 88, wrote 71 and directed 117. Tom made only 9 sound feature films and the 15-chapter serial “Miracle Rider.”

Anorak

Posted: 10th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comment

Hilarious: Idiotic Pastor Daniel Castle Explains The Evils Of MTV’s Wonder Showzen

PASTOR Daniel Castle is no fan of MTV’s Wonder Showzen, the Sesame Street parody. Pastor Castle thinks John Lee and Vernon Chatman’s show is real. And – yep – Pastor Daniel is real. He should be work of parody. But he isn’t.

He might be Danny Castle, pastor of Shining Light Baptist Church, Morganton, North Carolina.

YouTuber savedbyjesusblood notes:

Clips of MTV’s evil TV show “Wonder Showzen” explained by Pastor Daniel Castle. This is one of the most evil shows and spiritual exploitation of children I have ever seen. 

Anorak

Posted: 10th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment

Checking The Daily Mail: Richard Littlejohn, The Mark Duggan Peacemaker? Bollocks

Checking The Mail: Richard Littlejohn, the peacemaker? Bollocks

IMAGINE you’re Richard Littlejohn. Once you’ve stopped vomiting, imagine how you’d feel when you heard that the inquest into the death of Mark Duggan had given its verdict. You’d not be sad for loss of life or thinking about the circumstances that lead a family to be as dysfunctional and staunched in criminality and gangsterism as the Duggans. You wouldn’t think: what can police do in those situations other than take a fatal shot. You wouldn’t think for a moment about the societal issues that led to the riots following Duggan’s death. You’d wring your hands, crack your knuckles and jump onto your soap box.

Mic Wright

Posted: 10th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (3)

45 Sinfully Underplayed Songs of the 60s and 70s

AT a time when even the most obscure vintage track is just a few clicks away, it’s very hard to create a list of “underplayed” songs.  Many recordings swept under the rug have now returned to the light via music blogs, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, etc.

The list before you is to help insert some new blood into your playlists.  I’m always appreciative of a recommendation, so I figured some of you would be as well.

Note: There’s a tendency in many music lists to impress the rock snobs. Nothing is ever too unknown or clever for them.  I’ve tried to avoid the temptation to plumb the depths of obscurity just to show off.  We’ll keep things off the beaten path, but no so deep as to unleash the Balrog.

1. 1941 – Harry Nilsson
   Autobiographical ditty which got him noticed by the Beatles.  Legendary debauchery by Harry and Mr. Ono soon followed.
2. 2000 Light Years from Home – Rolling Stones – The Stones shoot for Strawberry Fields and actually nail it.  They’d be moving on to bluesier stuff in a hurry.
3. A Minah Menina – Os Mutantes
   Brazilian psychedelia unbelievably used in a 2008 McDonald’s commercial.  It deserved the attention.
4. Any Major Dude – Steely Dan
   Why this wasn’t a top ten hit will forever be one of history’s greatest mysteries.
5. Ballad of Danny Bailey – Elton John
   With so many hits being churned out by Elton, I suppose this one got trampled and lost underfoot.
6. Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft – The Carpenters
   Much more palatable than the original Klaatu version. Yes, it’s cheesy and insane – but that’s not always a bad thing.
7. Chevy Van – Sammy Johns
   Like “Afternoon Delight”, the innocent veneer masks an extremely dirty song (about having sex with a hitchhiker)
8. Circle Round the Sun – B.J. Thomas
   Beautiful, damn near transcendent song that apparently was too good for radio.
9. Cthlu Thlu – Caravan
   Guitar noodling goes on a bit long in the second half, but HP Lovecraft still would be proud.
10. Daily Nightly – The Monkees
    Moog infused psychedelia that, of course, gets no respect because it’s from the Monkees.
11. Disadvantages of You – The Brass Ring
    Elevator music at its finest.
12. Fundamentally Yours – Stackridge
    Sounds more like Badfinger than Badfinger, but you cannot deny it’s a flat-perfect pop melody.
13. Ghetto Child – The Spinners
    May sound silly to those raised on hip-hop, but this is where talent, soul, melody and message come together.
14. Hard Times – Kiss
    The circus often overshadowed their talent for simple quality rock.   One wonders how their music would be viewed had they had just dressed like Foghat.
15. Hello Little Lover – Mahogany Rush
    These Canadians can rock hard.  Great music to exceed speed limits to.
16. Home Is Where the Hatred Is – Esther Williams
    Esther lays it all out on the table.  You’ll be exhausted by the time she’s through with you.
17. Houdini Said – Gilbert O’Sullivan
    Well crafted, creative, melodic… the adjectives keep on coming, yet I can’t put it into a coherent description.
18. I See the Rain – Marmalade
    Hendrix loved the guitars – you’ll get no better endorsement than that.
19. I’m Mandy, Fly Me – 10cc
    The band was always wandering off the beaten path; here they take an obvious pop nugget and make it interesting.
20. In the First Place – Remo Four
    From the Wonderwall film; a brilliant instrumental with George Harrison as its creator.
21. I’ve Got to Be Going – Peppermint Trolley Co.
    The group is more known for the original Brady Bunch theme than anything else, which is a crying shame because they could craft some great bubblegum pop.
22. Ladies and Gentlemen – Clouds
    In a perfect world, complex tunes like this go platinum.  Instead, it was lost without a trace, and can’t even be found on Spotify.
23. Land of the Few – Love Sculpture
    If ever there was a song begging to added to a playlist, this is it.  Do it for Dave Edmunds.
24. Leave It – Mike McGear and Paul McCartney
    Silly and nonsensical, but McCartney’s ability to come up with a brilliant melody on a dime is unnerving.
25. Life Has Just Begun – Spirit
    The whole Sardonicus LP is woefully under-appreciated.  The songs were just a bit too odd to become a part of classic rock mainstream.
26. Lord Grenville – Al Stewart
    Transcendental tune about a 17^th century naval captain which circles upwards like cannabis vapors to the Heavens. “Our time is just a point along a line that runs forever with no end.” Heavy, man.
27. Love Alive – Heart
    The ladies did their best to be Led Zeppelin in the early days.  Here’s where they came the closest.
28. Man of 1000 Faces – Gene Simmons
    When all four members of Kiss simultaneously released solo albums, we sensed they’d be jumping the shark soon.  This one is just too interesting to ignore.
29. Mary Skeffington – Gerry Rafferty
    It’s about Gerry’s own mother who once was full of promise, now dodges her drunk husband’s punches.  It’s simultaneously depressing and beautiful.
30. Mother Freedom – Bread
    Not as pillowy soft as we’re accustomed with this band, but still has that signature triumphant hook.
31. My White Bicycle – Tomorrow
    Best bicycle song there is: beats both Queen and Floyd.
32. Nice, Nice, Very Nice – Ambrosia
    One of the few prog rock bands that recognized the importance of melody. Even Vonnegut couldn’t help but sing its praises; it’s not easy to adapt Bokononism for the radio.
33. Open Sesame (Groove with the Genie) – Kool & the Gang
    Back when funk bands had 20 members and a horn section; this is the very definition of back porch, booger nosed funk.  Can ya dig?
34. Psychic Vampire – Space Opera
    More complicated than a song has a right to be; yet still pleasing to the ear. I could listen to this on a loop for the rest of my life.
35. Red Telephone – Love
    Easily one of the greatest albums of all time, Forever Changes was widely unknown until it started popping up on “best of” lists.  I’ll add my voice to the chorus.
36. Rose for Emily, A – The Zombies
    It wants to be Eleanor Rigby, and comes damned close. Titled based on a Faulkner novel about necrophilia.
37. Satellite of Love – Lou Reed
    I’ve heard this song 900 times over thirty years and I still don’t know why I like it. It’s a rock snob favorite, so I want to hate it, but can’t.
38. Searchin’ So Long – Chicago
    One of the great codas in rock history.  Coda hall of fame: “Hey Jude”, “Atlantis” by Donovan, “Aquarius” by the Fifth Dimension, and “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears “… and this is my foooour leaf clover.”
39. Seven Island Suite – Gordon Lightfoot
    Epic dirge to escape the rat race.  Rarely are songs this exultant.
40. She Was Naked – Supersister
    Speaking of codas: this one starts off worrisome, then ends with a roundhouse kick to the solar plexus.
41. Some Gospel According to Matthew – Roberta Flack
    Before American Idol infected the world with melisma, and before autotune turned the singers of a generation into synthetic ventriloquist dummies – there was Roberta.
42. Song of the Viking – Todd Rundgren
    Playful on the surface, but bizarrely beautiful.  Obviously written by a mad genius.
43. Summer of ’71 – Helen Reddy
    Hearing Helen sing about getting high on mescaline is reward enough.  The fact that it’s a great song is the cherry on top.
44. Theme One – The George Martin Orchestra
    The Van Der Graf Generator did a respectable cover, but nothing tops the original sonic grandeur composed for Radio One.
45. Vacuum Cleaner – Tintern Abbey
    If you’re not pleasantly surprised by this oft overlooked psychedelic gem, you’re just being stubborn

Over to you…

Yeoman Lowbrow

Posted: 10th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comments (2)

Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Praising Big Brother, Advocating Nuking Nick Robinson

Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Praising Big Brother, advocating nuking Nick Robinson

AS a smug, entitled, metropolitan dicksplash with a $50 vocabulary and a tendency to watch things with subtitles now and then I’m meant to dismiss Channel 5’s rebooted Big Brother franchise. Richard Desmond is a porn peddler turned newspaper baron turned TV channel king so we’re meant to squish our faces into cartoon disgust as if a man selling jizz mags is worse than arms dealers, Saudi princes who keep their people in a state of oppressed ignorance or Russians whose money was scrabbled up in the twilight of the Soviet era by standing on the heads of others and doing a fair bit of backstabbing both literal and figurative. Richard Desmond doesn’t seem like a particularly nice bloke but most newspaper proprietors are like crap James Bond villains so it doesn’t make him stand out really. I like that he’s invested money in bringing Big Brother back to its best because Desmond and his demonic underlings understand the key point of Big Brother: make it funny, make it entertaining, make it ridiculous. Channel 4’s problem was that it kept trying to hang on to the notion of Big Brother as social experiment rather than freak show with freaks who bloody love all that attention.

Mic Wright

Posted: 10th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment

Trading Cards Of The 1970s: The Bay City Rollers Versus The Village People

THE Topps Company didn’t just make baseball cards with a stick of chewing gum in each packet. They made cards for non-sporting endeavours. Collect them. Trade them. The Garbage Pail kids cards sold well. So too Pokemon. But what about these?

In 2013 Topps created Lollapalooza Trading Cards.

But before that, they made these.

The Bay City Rollers

The girls will go wild for the Scots rockers. Back in the 1970s, it was Rollermania as Eric Faulkner and Stuart Wood, Les McKeown, Alan Longmuir and drummer Derek Longmuir emerged from Edinburgh to make tartan cool.

Anorak

Posted: 9th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment

Become An Instant Millionaire For Only $100!

YES indeedy, as a signal that this altcoin market (Bitcoin, Litecoin and the like) you can become an instant millionaire in your own currency for the once only low low price of $100!

This is in fact true as well: although it’s not about to make anyone rich I would have thought. It’s just the sort of thing that happens when people get swept up in a financial bubble. This is tulips all over again, the South Sea Bubble, dotcom mania. It might even be that something useful comes out of it all at the end but there’s definitely going to be tears before bedtime.

Tim Worstall

Posted: 9th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Money, Reviews | Comment

Armed Struggle: Duggan Police Should Be Accountable

Mark Duggan: Well Played Mr Justice Keith Cutler, The Met’s Fearsome Burqa Bandit’s Are Above The Laws They Uphold

MARK Duggan was no angel. The 29-year-old father-of-six’s most ardent friends and family would probably agree.

He died when shot by a still anonymous (to the British Public) police officer.

Was the man who police immediately after the shooting branded as a gun-wielding gangsta who opened fire on them, a victim of the UK’s collective loss of innocence?

The country which has a complete arms ban on hand guns has since the ban’s introduction seen a massive growth in the number of armed alleged criminals and a matching increase in the very much more superior arming of huge numbers of police officers.

As a child he lived in the Broadwater Farm Estate which was a breeding ground of mistrust and conflict between the majority black population and the, now universally accepted, predominately white, right-wing and institutionally racist Metropolitan police force.

The estate’s name was branded into the UK’s population psyche when the unarmed beat bobby PC Keith Blakelock was cornered and chopped to death during the Broadwater Estate riots of October 6, 1985. He was the first serving police officer slaughtered during a civil disturbance for over a century.

Anorak

Posted: 9th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)

The Mark Duggan Story In Photos: Police And Gangsters Shoot To Kill

ON August 4, 2011, Mark Duggan, 29, is show by police in north London. The father-of-four was travelling in a mini cab when pulled over.

Operation Dibri is a disaster. Set up by the Met’s black crime Trident unit, and fed information by the no-longer-operating Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca), police believed Duggan had picked up a gun in Leyton, east London, and was on his way to commit a crime.

Reports are that he had collected a BBM Bruni model 92 handgun. It contained a single bullet.

He was on his way back to Tottenham. With the gun in his possession, police were on his tail. He spotted them following in an unmarked car. Police control gave the order to “strike”. Three police cars swopped, boxing in the taxi. Duggan did not go quietly. He opened the door and got out.

Officer V53 fire not one, not two but three shots. He shot to kill.

V53 said he saw a gun in Duggan’s hand:

“It’s like a freeze-frame moment. The only thing I was focusing on is the gun. The next thing he does, he starts to move the gun away from his body. He’s raised the weapon, moved it a couple of inches away from his body…  The next thing he does, he starts to move the gun away from his body. He’s raised the weapon, moved it a couple of inches away from his body.”

But if he was holding the gun, none of the police saw him throw it over a fence onto grass. Duggan was not holding a gun when police fired. The gun was wrapped in a sock. Polce found none of Duggan’s DNA nor fingerprints on it. It had not been cocked for firing. 

Was Duggan going to shoot? The officer says he thought so. In a split second he made the call to fire.

One bullet his Duggan in the arm, going on to lodge in a police radio. Another bullet hit Duggan in the chest.

The Met told the IPCC Duggan had fired at police. It had been a shoot out. No. He never shot.

The armed officers made written statements as they sat in one room. Did they confer?

The mini cab was not immediately quarantined.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Foote said

“Intelligence over that period and historically was a clear indication Mark Duggan was involved in gun crime. As well as gun crime, he was involved in the supply of class-A drugs and possession of ammunition – all of them very serious crimes.”

Anorak

Posted: 9th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | 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

Roll Over Reeva Steenkamp Today’s Sexy Corpse Is Monica Spear Mootz

WHEN Reeva Steenkamp was found dead, the Sun led with this picture:

Anorak

Posted: 7th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | 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

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

Highlights From The Book Witnessing Made Easy: How to Pass Out Tracts for Jesus

JERRY Keever’s 1986 books Witnessing Made Easy: How to Pass Out Tracts for Jesus is a gem. This is passive aggressive preaching from 1986.

We’ve got some highlights from its 319 pages of dogmatic wonderment.

Anorak

Posted: 7th, January 2014 | In: Books, Key Posts | Comment (1)

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 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

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

Strange and Terrible Fitness Products from the 1970s

THE NEW YEAR has arrived.  Time to once again pledge to stop eating like a starved cow and get going on a weight loss program.   Catalogs and magazines in decades past were full of wonderfully terrible options to start you on the Grand New Year’s Tradition of Fitness Plans Doomed to Failure.  Let’s have a look at a few.

Yeoman Lowbrow

Posted: 3rd, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment

Which Newspaper Hates Migrants The Most? A Look At Those 2013 Front Pages

THE ROGARIANS are among us. On January 1 2014, the Romanian and Bulgarians united to invade the British Isles. Armed with a EU Directive, these villains are right now stealing your kids, using your cashcards, moving into your bedroom (quick, go check) and doing nothing – NOTHING – to help the England cricket team.

Liz Gerard investigates the horror:

Scene 1: A group of Romanians runs a car wash franchise in the car park of a DIY store. It’s a cold, drizzly day and there are few customers. A woman drives up and the entire dozen-strong workforce emerge from their warm hut and get to work on her car. No one sits back to watch others work, and with everyone pitching in, the job is done in five minutes.

Scene 2: A gang of Romanians cases a London antiques fair and follows one of the jewellery dealers home. They set up camp in woodland at the bottom of her garden and watch her movements for a few days. They see her coming home with new stock. At 3am they remove the bolts and padlocks on her doors and break in to steal everything. Her life’s work gone in minutes.

Which would is the better news story?

No contest. One is an everyday occurrence, the other a cruel assault on a woman’s home and life. And we know that an essential element of news is that it should be out of the ordinary.

So why does SubScribe suspect that the raid would be reported by many of our newspapers not as something unusual, but as an indication of the sort of behaviour to be expected of eastern European immigrants?

And why, given our endless fascination with the subject and the reams of newsprint devoted to it, is so little written about work ethic and immigrants’ contribution to the economy?

As Big Ben chimed midnight yesterday, thousands – even millions – of Romanians and Bulgarians were supposed to swarm into Britain to steal our jobs, our benefits and our wallets.

The mass migration did not materialise on cue, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. You never know with sneaky foreigners; they might be biding their time, waiting for us to be preoccupied with the storms, before invading.

And there’s plenty to fear, as the Daily Star warned us yesterday:

“Fears grew of a crimewave last night as hordes of Romanians and Bulgarians bought every seat on planes and buses to the UK…

Police experts predicted a fresh wave of crime as the country already struggles with an influx of foreign crooks.

Shock figures revealed that the eastern Europeans already topped the crime league tables before Britain opened its borders to millions from the two countries today.

Almost 1,000 Romanians were detained by police in just one county alone over the past three years…”

As SubScribe wrote on Tuesday, the new rules on immigration change little. Seasonal workers, those in other specific trades and the self-employed were already able to come to Britain to work. They also had the same right as other EU nationals to enter the country for up to three months as a visitor – and to be deported if they engaged in criminal activity. Romanians and Bulgarians may now come to seek work in any field and stay for any length of time. But they still won’t be allowed to stay if they start begging or stealing.

The newspapers most terrified of this foreign invasion have been reluctant to make this clear. They don’t seem to have grasped the notion that if someone’s intention is to come to Britain to break the law, they didn’t need to wait for the law to change to do so. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to pop over, make hay for as long as they could without getting caught, and then go home with their ill-gotten gains? They could have been doing this for seven years.

Twitter has been a joy the past couple of days, mocking the tabs that predicted floods of evil migrants. Buzzfeed, as ever, put together a good compendium – and just going on to Twitter and searching ‘Romanians and Bulgarians’ brings a rich harvest.

SubScribe would like to make a two-part contribution to the conversation. The first was published on Tuesday. The second, below, are British front page splashes from the past 12 months that have focused on the subject of them darn foreigners. So here goes:

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

And the winner is…

Well, it was neck-and-neck into the final strait. The Express  made the early running and built up a good lead over the Mail. But then it got distracted by the scorching summer and, possibly suffering from a touch of arthritis, started to flag. It rallied in the autumn, but the Mail had  kept enough in reserve for one last push to come home the winner by a single edition. The iwas the dark horse and ran in third, but well adrift of the leaders.

The Times and Telegraph did their best, but didn’t really grasp the rules. This wasn’t about referendums on staying within the EU or the ascent of Ukip; it was about nasty foreigners. The Guardian suffered from the same failing and barely left the starting gate.

The  Sun and the Star understood the nature of the race, but woke up only at the very last moment, so had no chance. They must have had other things on their minds.

The Result

Mail 18; Express 17; i 5; Times 4; Telegraph 3; Guardian 1; Sun 1; Star 1

And the losers are…

Our national reputation and anyone who looks to the popular Press for a fair and balanced view of the value – or cost – of immigrants to society.

liz gerard

Posted: 2nd, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment

Awkward Band Publicity Photos

TO MAKE IT in the music biz and get some publicity, it used to be a requirement to take some “professional” photographs for local newspapers, magazines, and venue posters.    Trouble is, thirty to forty years later someone like me is going to share them with the world.  Chances are, your press photos are a tad on the awkward side, and I’ll have a snarky comment or two.  Shake it off.  It’s all in good fun. Maybe you can even point and laugh at the other bands.

Yeoman Lowbrow

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

Pace Yourself Nigel: Michael “Mighty Mike” Van Gerwen Wins PDC World Championship (Photos)

PETER “Snakebite” Wright and his ensemble of brightly tinted mohawk created by his wife, Timmy Mallet’s cast-offs and an open-mouthed snake painted on the side of his head were not enough to win the PDC World Championship. Having upstaged Simon “The Wizard” Whitlock beard and plait kit, the 43-year-old Wright went down to the less extravagantly attired Michael “Mighty Mike” Van Gerwen, who in his moment of victory upstaged Wright’s effort by wearing the gigantic trophy as a top knot.

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment