Oh, AM golden goodness roll over me! What You Won't Do For Love makes me feel like I'm being seduced by penthouse views while wearing Harem pants and accepting a glass of sparkling wine.
The song may sound familiar to you from the many, many songs that sample it. This jazzy number was surely the biggest of his career in the US, but I learned from wikipedia that he has a lasting and devoted fan base in Japan. ?br/>
I vividly recall being fascinated by this album cover while digging through dad's basement collection. What kid, or adult for that matter couldn't be impressed with this feat of design? But beyond the aesthetics, Some Girls is also possibly my most favorite Rolling Stones album.
Some purist fans may disagree, but I love the influence of disco on the boys and Shattered and Miss You are some of their best songs. But there's really nary a filler piece on the entire album – they cover one of my favorite Temptations songs, they channel the country music of Bakersfield (with the influence of Gram Parsons) in Far Away Eyes, and they slow things down with the fantastic Beast of Burden.
I'm not left speechless often, but our friend Jessica posted this mind blowing book over at Rotating Corpse, and I have almost no words. I'll let Jessica explain:
“Imaginative Sex with 53 detailed scenarios for sensual fantasies and a revolutionary new guide to male-female relations by John Norman is truly phenomenal. The cover initially grabbed me (enough so that I purchased additional books in the Gor Series, click here for a wonderfully illustrated example of The I-Am-Raped-by-a-Monster Fantasy)?but it was, as Wikipedia says it best, the “male-dominant heterosexual BDSM-type sexual fantasy scenarios, and suggested guidelines as to how a couple can act them out in order to improve their sex life” that really made this a fantastic read. The unimaginative chapter titles give you sense enough of the repetitive, sexist themes. In the rare fantasies that women are given a role of power they are quickly beaten over the head, wrapped in a carpet, raped and/or sold as a slave. I am currently role playing The I-Am-Raped-By-A-Blogger fantasy.” ?
Here's her post in its entirety
It was great going into Tubular Bells knowing very little. Like many of you, I was aware of Mike Oldfield's masterpiece for the beginning of the piece that was used to evoke dread in The Exorcist. If you think you're in for an hour long horror movie soundtrack, though, you are in for a surprise. Tubular Bells changes tones every few minutes and takes you from mountain top jamming, to spoken word, to folksiness to the sailors horn pipe and more.
It's one wild ride that I've had a hard time describing to people for it's sheer variety and uniqueness. I found out after a week of listening to it that the artist was a totally hip and handsome musician, friends with personal favorites John Cale and Kevin Ayers. This composition broke new ground?with what allmusic calls “arguably the finest conglomeration of off-centered instruments concerted together to form a single unique piece”.
Tubular Bells, which prompted Richard Branson to begin his own label, Virgin, after established companies dubbed the music unmarketable. It was a global success and began the whole new age music genre.
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Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant was my introduction to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and it was an introduction long time coming. I've always been intrigued by the covers in video stores of beautiful pained women and the titles like Beware of a Holy Whore and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. Still, I hesitated for years to watch one of his films, but once most were available to me on netflix on demand, I no longer had any excuse.
I've learned that the controversial director with a complex personal life (check out the drama on his wikipedia profile) has a certain style of directing which equals twenty five minute scenes of people talking. It may sound trying, but because the characters are talking about the gossip of their lives as their relationships rise and fall apart, and the acting is so superb, the visuals so stunning – it's riveting.
Fashion wise, the film is beyond incredibly inspiring. See a collection of stills here and long for theatrical wigs and makeup, intricate dense beading, and wild necklines. Petra's apartment bedroom/workspace too,?in which the entire film takes place will haunt your aesthetic dreams. A fully covered floor with white bear skin? I've certainly heard worse ideas.
Even if the setting is stunning, the limited scope gives a claustrophobic portrait of a manic woman locked in her own mind and world with little interaction with reality. It's hard to interpret who you are meant to have sympathy for, if anyone at all. Even Marlene (played by Irm Hermann, once Fassbinder's lover and victim of abuse), the movie's most beaten down and enigmatic (especially when we learn she's been packing heat the whole time) is not wanting for your pity.
It's a slow and challenging movie if you're not in the right frame of mind but it's a rewarding and haunting experience. My curiosity to see more of his prolific career has been piqued.
The genre my friend labeled as “pharmacy rock” (the middle of the road radio music that pumps through rite aids the world over) rarely has me exclaiming “I love this song!” But Crystal Gayle's heartfelt romantic rendition of Somebody Loves You is a beautiful exception. It's the kind of song you imagine really good Midwestern or southern girls putting on their plastic pink record players in frothy bedrooms as they wait for their boys to get back to town.
The song was rerecorded by the queen of rasp, Marianne Faithfull in the Brix Picks album Dreamin My Dreams years later.
The mouthful of an album A Divina Com?dia ou Ando Meio Desligado by the awesome Os Mutantes is a departure from their Tropicalia roots. Instead finding inspiration from everywhere from doo wop, brass and marching bands, psychedelia, gospel, and the blues – the band seems have left the shores of Rio far behind – but don't worry that they've lost their whimsy. Each genre they tackle is infused with their amazing whacked out sensibility.
The Bauhaus appropriate cover art featuring an engraving from Gustav Dore's divine Comedy?is not indicative of the fun the band is still having nor the fun it is to listen and re-listen to this album over and over. Especially if you're in a trippy mood.
Don't you call her no tramp! The gorgeous and glorious Betty Davis may have been romantically linked to Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and of course one-time husband Miles Davis, but she was no groupie and is in fact credited with inspiring Miles to concoct the mix of funk and jazz that became Bitches Brew (a title she insisted on).
Her own rather brief career consisted of a couple of albums, including They Say I'm Different, none of which made her a huge commercial success but all of which caused controversy thanks to her ahead-of-her time “Nasty Girl” image and overt sexuality (see: He was a Big Freak – my favorite song on the album – or Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him).
Super fun for super freaks that want to bob their heads while wearing something crazy and funky this summer.
Listening to John Cale's sophisticated folk pop album, Vintage Violence, is as pleasant as looking at his handsome face. His first solo album after an unamiable split with the Velvet Underground sounds startlingly modern. The soft pleading beauty of Amsterdam, the slow dancey Please, and the far away Charlamagne (that hints at the work to come in his amazing Paris 1919, the album which led me to love the man in the first place) are examples of simple American sounding timelessness, while the bubbly Cleo and Hello There draw from retro pop history.
Cale is such a distinct voice in modern music, one that I'm enjoying discovering with each album. In an interesting side note, this particular album was recorded during his brief marriage to cart-wheeling maniac Betsey Johnson. She's pictured in the album looking more toned down than her shirtless hubby, but no word on whether or not any of the arty lyrics refer to or were inspired by her.
Paul Bartel, the auteur behind the classically quirky low budget black comedies Eating Raoul and Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills, began his illustrious career with Private Parts, a good-enough 1972 psycho-sexual thriller. Made just before the director's odd touch was refined, Bartel is almost playing it straight here… Well, as straight as trans-gender soul swapping, water filled sex dolls, and decapitations can be played.
The movie's about a “teen” runaway (played by the of-age Ayn Ruymen, who can – and does – legally get topless on-screen) who takes refuge from her lousy hippie friends in her aunt's creepy run down San Francisco hotel, a place that houses a plethora of strange tenants including a leather loving priest, an old lady obsessed with a mysterious girl named Alice, and a photographer who takes voyeuristic photos for skin mags.
In many ways this movie is like Bartel doing Polanski, and in fact Polanksi covered similar territory a few years later with his own flawed gem, The Tenant. While Private Parts isn't as ground breaking as the work of Polanksi is, it's actually pretty hard to pull of a decent thriller and this one includes some arresting imagery and showcases the beginnings of Bartel's peculiar signature humor (if you're a fan of his more famous work, you may mourn the absence of laughs – and Mary Woronov). The plot is fine, though maybe the big twist is too easy to guess too early – but if you're not expecting a masterpiece, just some fun, 1970s off beat thrills, you're in for a treat.