A fitting tribute to the great man from one of our most idiosyncratic directors.
I've been meaning to write a blog post about Alex Cox for a while and this has just reminded me.
Friday, 4 June 2010
Monday, 3 May 2010
When friends do cool stuff
Russell Lee’s creativity is a scary and beautiful thing. At any one time he appears to be in approximately 17,654 bands, including the second coming of Hüsker Dü-loving punk poppers Midway Still who are touring RIGHT NOW, is a boss photographer whose work graces various books that neither you nor I will ever be able to afford and he provided the haunting music for my film The Initiation. When I'm a full time filmmaker, he will be my Morricone. Believe.
Ben Robinson - the British Charles Band is currently working/globe trotting with the DOHA Tribeca film festival, helping students make one minute movies amongst other things. He’s a godammn filmmaking machine yessir, so get check his shit out. He’s also blogging on the site and recently provided a ferocious critique of the new Michael Winterbottom film The Killer Inside Me.
Ben and I are collaborating again very soon. Our last venture pre-Horrorshow was this beauty, which rocked the Texas SXSW film festival back in '07.
Phil Newton is one half of this great podcast your one stop shop for all things fantasy/horror/SF based.
Ry McDermott and his band of filmmaking lunatics are off to Cannes with their short film Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders. Seek it out. It's a manc Hellboy with McDermott flexing leading man chops with a performance that is Gerard Butler by way of Shameless
Shameless self promotion: The Initiation, Horrorshow and The Followed
Back in 2008 I wrote, directed and produced a short film:
The Initiation (excerpt)(2008)
An affectionate tribute to a particular strain of 1970s English horror typified by films like Blood on Satan’s Claw and the most obvious influence The Wicker Man, it formed part of a wider project, an anthology collection of macabre tales called Horrorshow.
I didn’t really stop to make sense of it at the time but thinking about it all nearly two years on the experience of working on these films was utterly, utterly incredible – a surreal, brilliant, joyous, giddy and insane time. Five like minded souls came together in the space of a few manic months and made five wildly different but crucially interconnected works.
North London gonzo kingpin Ben Robinson’s hi-energy polizi/gialli mash-up Neon Killer
Sophie Cowles’ lacerating, brutal revenge vignette Smile
Ben Steiner’s cerebral de-vamp The Flea
Giles Edward’s tricksy Italian horror valentine The Incursion
The fact that we were able to secure an intro and linking segments from the marvellous English cult horror legend Norman J Warren was the icing on a sickly, gore filled cake.
When I wrapped shooting my entry the high was better than any drug. To anyone considering making a film, short or feature, I would urge them to do it. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
When the film premiered at the amazing FrightFest in Leicester Square it was mindblowing. I was almost sick with nerves, and even the supposed calming nature of alcohol couldn’t prevent me from giving a pretty incoherent, nervy onstage intro, alongside my cinematic partners in crime. Thankfully, there apperars to be no public record of my gibberings, but there is this pic of us with the lovely Norman J.
But even if we didn’t blow the festival away like we had hoped (the films’ ramshackle, flawed charms were no match for some of the ruthlessly professional and slick works on show) I wouldn’t have changed anything. Even the downsides of putting your work 'out there', and there were a few (oh the brutal honesty of the basement dwelling blogoverse!), can’t taint the overall experience.
What making the film taught me, amongst many things, was just how vital collaboration is to making art happen. At times during filming I felt less like a director, more like a demented ringmaster bringing some amazing talents together for the manic shoot in Cornwall.
One of the best things about making the film was meeting and collaborating with some truly talented people. Cinematographer Morgan Lowndes, who effectively co-directed the flick, game actors Becky Barry, Tom Hare, Rory Wilton and Zoe Grisedale ('Twingo' superstar!) who lent much needed credibility to what was essentially a fairly arch and silly script and the Cowles family who made it all happen, in so many ways.
Not forgetting the beautiful, haunting music for the film by the upsettingly multi-talented Russell Lee. And I always felt like I didn’t capitalise enough of the genius FX work that Steve Hollins (Cornwall’s answer to Tom Savini) brought to the party.
Anyway, two years on I’m now preparing to do it all again, with a new project: The Followed. Hopefully with as many of the same brilliant people and with some new collaborators too. Watch this blog!
There are so many reasons I want to do this again. Filmmaking is essentially a drug, and I've been clean for far too long. Also, in the back of my mind is the nagging feeling that if I don't hurry up and make some more films, somewhere in the none-too-distant future I'm going to end up like Les McQueen in this scene from League of Gentleman, with a stack of Initiation DVDs instead of Creme Brulee CDs, telling younger, more talented people that I 'made a film...once'.
To future adventures in filmmaking!
The Initiation (excerpt)(2008)
An affectionate tribute to a particular strain of 1970s English horror typified by films like Blood on Satan’s Claw and the most obvious influence The Wicker Man, it formed part of a wider project, an anthology collection of macabre tales called Horrorshow.
I didn’t really stop to make sense of it at the time but thinking about it all nearly two years on the experience of working on these films was utterly, utterly incredible – a surreal, brilliant, joyous, giddy and insane time. Five like minded souls came together in the space of a few manic months and made five wildly different but crucially interconnected works.
North London gonzo kingpin Ben Robinson’s hi-energy polizi/gialli mash-up Neon Killer
Sophie Cowles’ lacerating, brutal revenge vignette Smile
Ben Steiner’s cerebral de-vamp The Flea
Giles Edward’s tricksy Italian horror valentine The Incursion
The fact that we were able to secure an intro and linking segments from the marvellous English cult horror legend Norman J Warren was the icing on a sickly, gore filled cake.
When I wrapped shooting my entry the high was better than any drug. To anyone considering making a film, short or feature, I would urge them to do it. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
When the film premiered at the amazing FrightFest in Leicester Square it was mindblowing. I was almost sick with nerves, and even the supposed calming nature of alcohol couldn’t prevent me from giving a pretty incoherent, nervy onstage intro, alongside my cinematic partners in crime. Thankfully, there apperars to be no public record of my gibberings, but there is this pic of us with the lovely Norman J.
But even if we didn’t blow the festival away like we had hoped (the films’ ramshackle, flawed charms were no match for some of the ruthlessly professional and slick works on show) I wouldn’t have changed anything. Even the downsides of putting your work 'out there', and there were a few (oh the brutal honesty of the basement dwelling blogoverse!), can’t taint the overall experience.
What making the film taught me, amongst many things, was just how vital collaboration is to making art happen. At times during filming I felt less like a director, more like a demented ringmaster bringing some amazing talents together for the manic shoot in Cornwall.
One of the best things about making the film was meeting and collaborating with some truly talented people. Cinematographer Morgan Lowndes, who effectively co-directed the flick, game actors Becky Barry, Tom Hare, Rory Wilton and Zoe Grisedale ('Twingo' superstar!) who lent much needed credibility to what was essentially a fairly arch and silly script and the Cowles family who made it all happen, in so many ways.
Not forgetting the beautiful, haunting music for the film by the upsettingly multi-talented Russell Lee. And I always felt like I didn’t capitalise enough of the genius FX work that Steve Hollins (Cornwall’s answer to Tom Savini) brought to the party.
Anyway, two years on I’m now preparing to do it all again, with a new project: The Followed. Hopefully with as many of the same brilliant people and with some new collaborators too. Watch this blog!
There are so many reasons I want to do this again. Filmmaking is essentially a drug, and I've been clean for far too long. Also, in the back of my mind is the nagging feeling that if I don't hurry up and make some more films, somewhere in the none-too-distant future I'm going to end up like Les McQueen in this scene from League of Gentleman, with a stack of Initiation DVDs instead of Creme Brulee CDs, telling younger, more talented people that I 'made a film...once'.
To future adventures in filmmaking!
Friday, 9 April 2010
Another waltz, darling?
In all the tributes to Malcolm McLaren today, understandably the focus is on the Pistols and the Kings Road fashion stuff, and rightly so. But I was a toddler when ‘God Save’ came out and although I loved ‘Buffalo Gals’ as a breakdancing obsessed kid I didn’t really understand the cultural impact. That song/video feels so right in the current musical climate though doesn’t it?
A MM record I did buy though, and really liked, despite getting MUCH flak for it from my Indie or nothing friends at the time, was 'Waltz Darling' - the bizarre, long forgotten detroit house/classical/fashion/pre-Madonna vogue-ing concept album that he collaborated on with various typical (Bootsy Collins) and atypical (Jeff Beck) guests.
I remember it getting an absolute pasting in the music press. It's far too random and unfocused to be called a lost classic and over a whole record it all gets a bit effette, but there are moments of brilliance and weird, funky, off-kilter pop. 'Call a Wave', with its shameless Barry White sample, Beck solo and breathy vocals, is quite excellent.
Beware though: the album contains Dave Stewart.
Some great videos too that are a perfect reflection of McLaren’s public (and presumably private) persona; arch, silly, urbane, dandy-ish, massively pretentious but always with a sense of fun and (mis)adventure.
It must be said though, these vids are firmly in the late 80s Julian Temple/THE FACE/Bruce Weber mould so they're a euro-ponce BONANZA.
the stunning girl in this vid, I think, is Tim Burton's ex, Lisa Marie. She's on 'vocals' for sure.
A MM record I did buy though, and really liked, despite getting MUCH flak for it from my Indie or nothing friends at the time, was 'Waltz Darling' - the bizarre, long forgotten detroit house/classical/fashion/pre-Madonna vogue-ing concept album that he collaborated on with various typical (Bootsy Collins) and atypical (Jeff Beck) guests.
I remember it getting an absolute pasting in the music press. It's far too random and unfocused to be called a lost classic and over a whole record it all gets a bit effette, but there are moments of brilliance and weird, funky, off-kilter pop. 'Call a Wave', with its shameless Barry White sample, Beck solo and breathy vocals, is quite excellent.
Beware though: the album contains Dave Stewart.
Some great videos too that are a perfect reflection of McLaren’s public (and presumably private) persona; arch, silly, urbane, dandy-ish, massively pretentious but always with a sense of fun and (mis)adventure.
It must be said though, these vids are firmly in the late 80s Julian Temple/THE FACE/Bruce Weber mould so they're a euro-ponce BONANZA.
the stunning girl in this vid, I think, is Tim Burton's ex, Lisa Marie. She's on 'vocals' for sure.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
It's just Big City Talk ; more 80s influence
As well as Henley and co, 'Big City Talk' by Marc Hunter (1981) is a beloved track of the new 80 hyp-poppers I talked about in my last post.
I had never heard of it, yet it sounds exactly like so many soft rock anthems of it's time. It’s got that Phil Ramone produced Billy Joel meets J Geils Band sound (with a hint of 'Life's Been Good') that DOMINATED American charts back in the early 80s (even though its not an American record). And that magnificent guitar echo throughout.
The kind of stuff that Jonathan King's 'Entertainment USA' used to feature relentlessly. Hmm. I wonder how many kids my age hooked into US culture via that show? No one talks about it much these days, understanding perhaps, given it’s creator's unfortunate legacy. I know very little about Hunter, but I have learned that
• he was in a band called DRAGON (more 80s arcania, think 'Last Dragon', Carpenter's 'Big Trouble in Little China' etc)
• he’s from New Zealand, and was a big deal there, and in Australia
• He died in 1998.
Oh and one other thing. In this borderline genius video, which has the feel of a cheap 42 street porno, he is rocking an extraordinary look - think Russell Brand wearing a death mask of Abel Ferrara in a remake of Friedkin’s CRUISING.
Epic.
Monday, 5 April 2010
After the summer: neon dreams and hypnagogic pop
The 80s influence on current pop/movie culture continues to be incredibly resilient. To be honest, I thought the fetishisation of the era had reached its peak by the time of Kanye’s ‘808s and Heartbreak’ and M83’s fitfully amazing ‘Saturdays=youth’ album, but the decade’s legacy continues to be plundered to hit easy instant nostalgia/pleasure notes.
For starters, this looks like being THE must-see film for pretty much everyone who was ten years old when ‘Back to the Future’ dropped.
Musically, in the UK at least, producer Grum would seem to be the populist man of the moment, although I’m not entirely persuaded. I’ll admit though, he has been responsible for some ferocious mixes, all of them pushing those 80s electro pleasure buttons.
And, although ‘Can't Shake This Feeling’ is pretty standard retro shtick, the video is worth checking out, if only for the way it morphs from the traditional tits n' lycra aesthetic of every euro/disco/house cheese vid into a (possibly unintentional), weird, mildly unpleasant semi-tribute to Paul Schrader’s 1979 film ‘Hardcore’ (if Schrader’s flick had had a 'sploshing' subtext that is). Bizarre.
He also cooked up a video mix of his own 'Runaway' set to images from the almost completely forgotten Dan Aykroyd vehicle 'Doctor Detroit' that I have to admit gives VERY good eighties..
80s art-funk continues to provide inspiration, Yeasayer's new track taking the neon biscuit with a video that looks like the setting for an unfilmed 1986 middle eastern post apocalyptic SF movie – there's even a woman wearing a steel glove?
Amazing tune too.
There are hints though, that the straight-up musical replication of the decade is becoming a bit, well, knackered. Lots of people seem to like perennial bandwagon jumpers Goldfrapp’s disco-fied ‘Rocket’, but to my ears it sounds limp, tired. Didn’t Ladyhawke do this already?
Time for some ‘new’ sounds then.
I’m aware it’s been bubbling under for about ten months or so, but I’m seeing and hearing more and more of what WIRE magazine described last summer, in a fascinating and hotly debated article, as hypnagogic pop.
This unwieldy term was used to describe a bunch of loosely connected US underground artists who are drawing from the 80s in a more abstract, dreamlike fashion.
Similar in spirit to the splendid British Ghost Box label - whose artists mine the rich seam of British 1970s radiophonic workshop sounds, public information films, schools workshop recordings and the uncanny novels of MR James and John Wyndham to create rich, troubling musical compositions that sound both familiar and unsettling, and VERY similar in approach to the work of groundbreaking Scottish electronica geniuses Boards of Canada – these musicians approach pick n’ mix 80s mainstream sonics to create music that funnels pristine pop, analogue ephemera and trashy TV cop show synthesiser scores. Using lo-fi technology – cheap samplers, cassette and vinyl recordings that retain crackle, hiss and distortion – they occupy a terrain between the long forgotten, the half remembered and the immediate.
“Hypnagogic realms are the ones between waking and sleeping, liminal zones where mis-hearings and hallucinations feed into the formation of dreams." David Keenan, WIRE magazine
Although not mentioned in the WIRE piece, this magnificent work by the mysterious sunsetcorps seems to sum the aesthetic up perfectly. By the way, the beautiful cut-up tune playing over some phenomenal 80s imagery is Fleetwood Mac’s little known ‘Only Over You’ from their 1982 album 'Mirage'.
The artists who are namechecked in the article (not online, sadly, as far as I know. If I find, I’ll link) are, as you would expect, very much underground practitioners, unlikely to 'break through' in any traditional sense. And to be honest I’m more sold on some than others.Key figure James Ferraro (who releases most of his music on CD-Rs) has a backgorund in noise-rock and is the most conceptual. Subsequently I find a lot of his stuff quite draining, and about as accessible as a Harmony Korine triple bill. Maybe I need more time with it. The amusingly named, and occasionally brilliant, clearly Tom Tom Club influenced Pocahaunted
were more to my taste and I kind of liked bits of Ducktails who offer a fuggy, obtuse, lo-fi, angular and disquieting take on the kind of fuzzy alt pop that soundtracked many a John Hughes flick.
I’m MUCH more taken with the electronic soundscapes of Oneohtrix Point Never whose stuff will strike a chord with fans of Tangerine Dream’s scores for iconic 80s movies like 'Risky Business' and 'Thief'. Check it.
Mann-tastic. I've included some of TD for comparison sake.
There are signs this approach is definitely being co-opted more into the mainstream. Bands like Washed Out, Memory Cassette and Neon Indian are creeping over the radar, with a more immediate though similarly disconnected sound – a kind of woozy dream/nightmare nostalgia-pop, muffled with snatches of half remembered samples and retro sounds.
The roots of all this music, ironically enough, lie in the highly commercial tracks of the era, huge pop records with an undercurrent of sadness like Hall and Oates' 'She's Gone', Chris Rea’s 'On the Beach' and, as Keenan makes clear, the absolute touchstone, Don Henley’s 1984 yacht rock masterwork 'The Boys of Summer'.
The co-opting of Henley’s track makes perfect sense. On the one hand, it’s the sound of an untouchable American fantasia; produced during a time of 80-track recording studios, bearded producers being blown by lissom models, Scarface-sized bowls of cocaine on the mixing desk. Yet it’s also a haunting,‘after the summer’ snapshot, resonant of an age of innocence, musically and artistically, and the driving synth is spooky, almost ghostlike. Of course it’s almost certain that none of the artists I’ve mentioned will produce anything quite as sublime/revelatory as this, but that of course, is not the point.
It’s that kernel of yearning, the moments of sublime joy, sometimes buried deep in the mix, that these pop alchemists are trying to unearth. Ariel Pink, a lo-fi recording whiz who has been working this kind of trail for years, is just about to release his most commercial work yet – a record that is very definitely in this spirit.
I’m certainly not sure about ‘that’ term though. Even saying it in my head makes me feel uneasy. And saying it out loud makes you sound, well a bit of a nob, to be honest. But I get the ethos, totally. Essentially what all these artists have in common is a firm belief in music as transportation, a kind of sonic time travel. Not to a particular place or moment but instead a dream state, one that extracts nostalgic elements from their immediate cultural context and puts them firmly into that liminal zone that Keenan mentions.
Rather than replicating simple pop pleasures, these artists are finding new ways to mine sublimity from a degraded, derided, almost exhausted, heavily pastiched and frequently misunderstood era.
Which in a weird way, I guess, brings us back to ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’.
For starters, this looks like being THE must-see film for pretty much everyone who was ten years old when ‘Back to the Future’ dropped.
Musically, in the UK at least, producer Grum would seem to be the populist man of the moment, although I’m not entirely persuaded. I’ll admit though, he has been responsible for some ferocious mixes, all of them pushing those 80s electro pleasure buttons.
And, although ‘Can't Shake This Feeling’ is pretty standard retro shtick, the video is worth checking out, if only for the way it morphs from the traditional tits n' lycra aesthetic of every euro/disco/house cheese vid into a (possibly unintentional), weird, mildly unpleasant semi-tribute to Paul Schrader’s 1979 film ‘Hardcore’ (if Schrader’s flick had had a 'sploshing' subtext that is). Bizarre.
He also cooked up a video mix of his own 'Runaway' set to images from the almost completely forgotten Dan Aykroyd vehicle 'Doctor Detroit' that I have to admit gives VERY good eighties..
80s art-funk continues to provide inspiration, Yeasayer's new track taking the neon biscuit with a video that looks like the setting for an unfilmed 1986 middle eastern post apocalyptic SF movie – there's even a woman wearing a steel glove?
Amazing tune too.
There are hints though, that the straight-up musical replication of the decade is becoming a bit, well, knackered. Lots of people seem to like perennial bandwagon jumpers Goldfrapp’s disco-fied ‘Rocket’, but to my ears it sounds limp, tired. Didn’t Ladyhawke do this already?
Time for some ‘new’ sounds then.
I’m aware it’s been bubbling under for about ten months or so, but I’m seeing and hearing more and more of what WIRE magazine described last summer, in a fascinating and hotly debated article, as hypnagogic pop.
This unwieldy term was used to describe a bunch of loosely connected US underground artists who are drawing from the 80s in a more abstract, dreamlike fashion.
Similar in spirit to the splendid British Ghost Box label - whose artists mine the rich seam of British 1970s radiophonic workshop sounds, public information films, schools workshop recordings and the uncanny novels of MR James and John Wyndham to create rich, troubling musical compositions that sound both familiar and unsettling, and VERY similar in approach to the work of groundbreaking Scottish electronica geniuses Boards of Canada – these musicians approach pick n’ mix 80s mainstream sonics to create music that funnels pristine pop, analogue ephemera and trashy TV cop show synthesiser scores. Using lo-fi technology – cheap samplers, cassette and vinyl recordings that retain crackle, hiss and distortion – they occupy a terrain between the long forgotten, the half remembered and the immediate.
“Hypnagogic realms are the ones between waking and sleeping, liminal zones where mis-hearings and hallucinations feed into the formation of dreams." David Keenan, WIRE magazine
Although not mentioned in the WIRE piece, this magnificent work by the mysterious sunsetcorps seems to sum the aesthetic up perfectly. By the way, the beautiful cut-up tune playing over some phenomenal 80s imagery is Fleetwood Mac’s little known ‘Only Over You’ from their 1982 album 'Mirage'.
The artists who are namechecked in the article (not online, sadly, as far as I know. If I find, I’ll link) are, as you would expect, very much underground practitioners, unlikely to 'break through' in any traditional sense. And to be honest I’m more sold on some than others.Key figure James Ferraro (who releases most of his music on CD-Rs) has a backgorund in noise-rock and is the most conceptual. Subsequently I find a lot of his stuff quite draining, and about as accessible as a Harmony Korine triple bill. Maybe I need more time with it. The amusingly named, and occasionally brilliant, clearly Tom Tom Club influenced Pocahaunted
were more to my taste and I kind of liked bits of Ducktails who offer a fuggy, obtuse, lo-fi, angular and disquieting take on the kind of fuzzy alt pop that soundtracked many a John Hughes flick.
I’m MUCH more taken with the electronic soundscapes of Oneohtrix Point Never whose stuff will strike a chord with fans of Tangerine Dream’s scores for iconic 80s movies like 'Risky Business' and 'Thief'. Check it.
Mann-tastic. I've included some of TD for comparison sake.
There are signs this approach is definitely being co-opted more into the mainstream. Bands like Washed Out, Memory Cassette and Neon Indian are creeping over the radar, with a more immediate though similarly disconnected sound – a kind of woozy dream/nightmare nostalgia-pop, muffled with snatches of half remembered samples and retro sounds.
The roots of all this music, ironically enough, lie in the highly commercial tracks of the era, huge pop records with an undercurrent of sadness like Hall and Oates' 'She's Gone', Chris Rea’s 'On the Beach' and, as Keenan makes clear, the absolute touchstone, Don Henley’s 1984 yacht rock masterwork 'The Boys of Summer'.
The co-opting of Henley’s track makes perfect sense. On the one hand, it’s the sound of an untouchable American fantasia; produced during a time of 80-track recording studios, bearded producers being blown by lissom models, Scarface-sized bowls of cocaine on the mixing desk. Yet it’s also a haunting,‘after the summer’ snapshot, resonant of an age of innocence, musically and artistically, and the driving synth is spooky, almost ghostlike. Of course it’s almost certain that none of the artists I’ve mentioned will produce anything quite as sublime/revelatory as this, but that of course, is not the point.
It’s that kernel of yearning, the moments of sublime joy, sometimes buried deep in the mix, that these pop alchemists are trying to unearth. Ariel Pink, a lo-fi recording whiz who has been working this kind of trail for years, is just about to release his most commercial work yet – a record that is very definitely in this spirit.
I’m certainly not sure about ‘that’ term though. Even saying it in my head makes me feel uneasy. And saying it out loud makes you sound, well a bit of a nob, to be honest. But I get the ethos, totally. Essentially what all these artists have in common is a firm belief in music as transportation, a kind of sonic time travel. Not to a particular place or moment but instead a dream state, one that extracts nostalgic elements from their immediate cultural context and puts them firmly into that liminal zone that Keenan mentions.
Rather than replicating simple pop pleasures, these artists are finding new ways to mine sublimity from a degraded, derided, almost exhausted, heavily pastiched and frequently misunderstood era.
Which in a weird way, I guess, brings us back to ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’.
"It's not blood, it's red!”
Rewatched the greatest horror film of all time again on its splendid recent Blu-Ray release.
Still a psychotic, erotic, oneiric, insane, never to be repeated masterpiece. With more dread in the opening ten minutes than in most horror films entire running time. And that blood, surely the reddest blood that ever splashed onscreen?
Watching for the umpteenth time I was struck again by the fact that there’s just no story, it’s a one-line pitch at best. You could never get this film made now. Fact. It’s pure sensory experience, closer to being at a poundingly loud, terrifying gig.
A gig in which the band is made up of deranged Italians and the instruments are being controlled by demonic witches. In a beautiful, chic, gaudy art-deco setting. With an audience of teenage ballerinas.
A cinematic synthesis of extreme sonics and visual overload, it has no equal.
Plus when it’s not scary, it’s utterly fucking hilarious.
See it if you haven’t.
On a massive telly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
