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March 19, 2002
Cinema Sewer -- Canada's leading sleaze zine If you enjoy watching and reading about the bottom dregs of exploitation and porn films/videos, along with a few helpings of trash tv and Hollywood curiosities, you should get a bunch of issues of Cinema Sewer.
Issue 5 ($3) has a list of the editor's 20 favourite animated movies, a portrait of the sadistic anal porn scumbag Max Hardcore, a look a nazi sex camp films, review of 2 Elvis movies, the japanese "Killer Snakes" film, an article on porn star Serena (reprint from "Bomba Movies") and more.
Issue 6 ($3) -- The All-Vintage Porn Issue -- has "Deep Throat" and it's star Linda Lovelace receiving a thorough and deserved trashing, a piece on the notorious Anal Dwarf, an article on viewing old 8mm movies of the "erotic" variety, a review of the classic porn video trilogy "Edward Penishands" and an article on the freak porn amputee girl Long Jeanne Silver.
Issue 7 ($3) follows up on the porn theme with Traci Lords, Lolo "Miss Airbag" Ferrari (R.I.P.) and the old pervo sadist Jamie Gillis -- now jerkin', slappin' and fuckin' his way into his fourth decade as a porn "star". His most notorious role is in the enema movie "Waterpower", probably based on the same true story as Frank Zappa's song "The Illinois Enema Bandit Blues". There's also a bit on Mila, probably the nastiest, craziest triple anal cum slurpin' gang bangin' slut that ever worked in the jizz biz. Strongly recommended! On top of all that Robin also tells you about "Ping Pong", a gross and strange japanese anime series.
The latest, issue 8 ($4) has even more pages and a colour cover. Inside, there's a humongous section of japanese "reality" TV shows, all of them containing unbelievable weirdness and large doses of humiliation, pain and torture. There's a piece on the japanese reality TV star Nasubi. The poor guy was locked in a room for 15 months, and could only eat what he was able to win by entering contests in a bunch of magazines they gave him. And he was naked the whole time! Those crazy japanese! You get the lowdown on 70's soundtrack albums, Jaws rip-off movies, an interview with japanese porn director Ryuichi Hiroki, and all you need to know about the aids-infested anal-banging porn star Marc Wallace. And much more.
Every issue is beautifully hand-lettered, and the articles are often illustrated with Robin's drawings of movie characters. Highly original, and it works really well.
Contact editor Robin Bougie at #320-440 East 5th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5T, IN5, Canada. Ask for postage rates to your area. Email: mindseyecomics@shaw.ca.
To look at the covers of issues #1 thru #6, go to http://greatworm.ca/catalog/cinema.html.
To view comics by Bougie and other canadians, go to http://www.bentcomics.50g.com/.
14:18
March 18, 2002
Elefantmannen og Apekvinnen ABC Startsidens "Magasinet" har lagt ut artikler om Julia Pastrana - Apekvinnen og Joseph Carey Merrick - Elefantmannen:
Han ble beskrevet som en elskverdig ung mann med en god sans for humor, men ble husket for noe helt annet. Navnet var Joseph Merrick. Folk kalte ham «Elefantmannen».
Link til The Elephant House.
I den nye filmen "From Hell" med Johnny Depp, som skildrer jakten på Jack The Ripper i London i 1888, får man også et glimt av en tilsynelatende briljant rekonstruert Merrick.
I en sarkofag av glass i kjelleren på det nye Rikshospitalet i Oslo ligger de sørgelige restene av et menneske. Den ene armen er revet av, kroppen ellers er støvete, ramponert og møllspist. Dette er Julia Pastrana. Apekvinnen.
11:17
Henry Rollins on the new live CD and the West Memphis Three This month's newsletter from Rollins:
March 14, 2002: Hi. I am in the studio, sitting next to audio veteran Clif Norrell, engineer, mixer and survivor of our albums: Come in and Burn, Get Some Go Again, Yellow Blues, Nice & A Nicer Shade of Red. This time Clif is mixing recordings he made of the band on March 1 & 2 at the Metro in Chicago, IL. We will be releasing these tracks as a live album this summer. So far it sounds pretty damned good.
Several months ago I was approached by Sanctuary Records about doing a live album. I was hesitant because I know what the usual perception of a live album is to most people; it’s the record many bands release when they have nothing new to put out and the record company wants to squeeze every drop of potential out of their investment. The poor soul who diligently buys said live album is usually treated to a lackluster recording that has been overdubbed to death in the studio rendering it a non-live experience which is a lie to the fans and proof that the band didn’t have the chops to begin with. The only way to judge a band’s true worth is to throw them onstage and let them do it without the help of repeated takes, overdubs and other modern day crutches that hide a band’s weak spots. "Live" is the only way to know for sure. Sanctuary was not interested in releasing a live record as retail fodder until the next studio album came out, turns out they really wanted to put it out as a legitimate release. I was impressed by their enthusiasm and said ok. Since we are such a touring/live outfit, it seemed like a natural thing to do. Also, it doesn’t really matter what we do since radio doesn’t touch us, music television doesn’t acknowledge us, and no one seems to know when we put out a record at retail, so we do as we please. It doesn’t mean you have to move without sense, but there’s definitely no pressure or career making corner for us to turn. All we can do is play well and be grateful for the next opportunity to do so. For me, I play and write better knowing that the only pay off is that I get to do it some more.
I got to thinking about where and when to make this live record and I picked the Metro in Chicago. I have played the Metro many times over the years. We had a great night there the last time we played Chicago and there’s always one hell of an audience. My idea was to play two nights and to record the shows in analog to really get the sounds hot and saturating the tape to the maximum, something that digital just can’t do. And so the shows were booked and we hoped to play well on those two nights. Well, I think we played pretty good. The audience was, as I expected, just through the roof. The live record will come out this summer and when it’s time for release, we’ll let you know so you can check it out if you are interested.
The Metro dates in Chicago concluded our winter tour. We had a great time playing on this tour and I have to tell you how thankful we are that you showed up in such great numbers and were so damn cool to us. We are very fortunate to have you as an audience. This isn’t something that I toss off casually or to gain your favor. I have been at this for a very long time, I am into my third decade on the road, and the fact that you still show up is a source of great happiness for me and the rest of the band and crew. The fact that we couldn’t do it without you puts us in a very precarious position--we survive off your approval--and in a way, it’s a pressure gig but it keeps us honest, grounded and motivated.
After forty shows, fifty-two days and seventeen countries, we left Chicago and flew back to Los Angeles to play one more show. This show was a benefit for three young men, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, now dubbed the "West Memphis Three." I am sure many of you are aware of the Robin Hood Hills murders case, and if not, you should be. At the risk of minimizing it, I will very briefly outline the events: In 1993, three 8 year-old boys were found murdered most horribly in a secluded spot in West Memphis, Arkansas. Three teenagers (Damien, Jason & Jessie) were arrested and found guilty of the murders with no real evidence tying them to the crime at all. They were convicted, it seems, only because they looked different, wore black clothes and listened to heavy metal bands like Metallica. They were incarcerated through ignorance and a blindness that is as infuriating as it is horrifying. These three men have been locked away for many years, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley got life sentences and Damien Echols is on Death Row facing lethal injection. These three are innocent and to stand for the kind of insanity that convicted them is to align oneself with all that is bad. You should check out the two very fine documentaries on this case that HBO has released: Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost II: Revelations. Watch them and see if you’re not incredulous at what has happened to Damien, Jason & Jessie. You
know how I am about time, I don’t like wasting mine or yours, so if I didn’t think this was totally worth your time, I wouldn’t urge you so strongly to check it out and hopefully get involved. To put it bluntly, you’re going to freak out when you see what has happened.
After I saw the documentaries, I got so mad that I had to get involved. We contacted the West Memphis Three Support Group and proposed that the band do a benefit to raise money and awareness. They were into it so we booked a show at a local LA venue called the Troubadour. The gig was set to go on Friday, March 8. That night, with a sold out house inside, the club’s mixing board blew up and the show had to be rescheduled. People had come in from Seattle, Arizona, distant points in California and many other places, so it was really bad to have to tell them there was no show that night. I stayed afterwards and talked to people who were hanging out and they were all cool about it. Some people were not going to be able to make it back for the rescheduled show on March 12 but didn’t ask to get their money back because they wanted to contribute to the cause. I went back to my place very much moved by the goodness of the people I had met that night.
The show on March 12 was a blast. Wayne Kramer’s Ship of Fools opened and then Exene Cervenka’s very fine band, the Original Sinners, played. Everyone was into it. By the time we went on, the place was packed, the audience was psyched and we played hard. It was a great time. I’m glad to know that Damien, Jason & Jessie have so many good people on their side: the people who came to the benefit show, the West Memphis 3 Support Group, and all the others who have raised money and awareness about the disgrace to justice that allowed the conviction of these three men.
Please learn more about this case by going to the West Memphis Three website (www.wm3.org). Please watch the documentaries (rent them at Blockbuster or buy them through Amazon.com (enter through the link on the www.wm3..org website). Please spread the word. And please make a contribution, if you can. I know that this is not the only case of innocent people in prison and I am not trying to imply that this is the only case like this that should be addressed. But it’s there, glaring in your face, obscenely flaunting its ignorance and hatred. You can’t let this kind of thing happen on your watch and call yourself free.
Other news:
-- There will be a few talking shows here and there in April. I don’t know where for sure. When we get the dates, we’ll let you know.
-- Mother Superior has a new album finished called Sin and it’s their best one yet.
-- Rollins Band has nothing planned for a little while, perhaps some song writing and recording over the summer. In late summer when the European festival dates start up we’ll be there for as many shows as they’ll let us play.
-- There is a new book of mine due out in September 2002, called Unwelcomed Songs: Collected Lyrics 1980-1992. I have been working on this one for many years. I am usually let down by lyric books. It’s not the lyrics that are the letdown, it’s that there’s no cool information about the songs or many pictures or stories about recording them. It’s usually just the lyrics printed on a page like a textbook. Not much fun in my opinion. I sought to do something different with mine. Several years ago with this project in mind, I started collecting pictures and holding onto the songs that didn’t make it onto records as well as documenting the making of the records. Last year when I started assembling the parts for this book, I found that I had accumulated a fair pile of stuff. I was still missing some things so I contacted a few people I knew to help me fill in the blanks photo-wise and thanks to Chris Haskett and others, we will be including studio session photos of the making of Hot Animal Machine, Life Time and the End of Silence. There will be many other pictures in the book too, hardly any of them previously published anywhere, including some really cool Black Flag photos and photos that date back even earlier. I don’t think you can ever have enough photos. I am driving our very fine layout guy Dave to an early grave with all this but I know he’ll come through. In addition to the softcover edition, there will be a very limited, hardcover edition of Unwelcomed Songs that we will be offering with "personalized" signing. You send in the name of the person you want the book signed to and I’ll sign it like that. The hardcover will not be in retail stores and only available via the website and perhaps at some of the shows. For those familiar with Get in the Van, this new book will be about the same size in pages and format. I wanted to make it as cool as possible and I think this will be a good one. Like I said, it comes out in September and we’ll send out a newsletter when advance orders are possible. At this point, it’s still in layout and we will be burning lean tissue all the way until we send it off to the printer to make the September release date.
Let me thank you again for showing up to the shows and for packing the place out at the Troubadour. See you down the road.
--Henry
21361 website
10:47
March 14, 2002
"War on Terrorism"Paranoia magazine writes:The apparent goals of the War on Terrorism are the death or extradition of Osama bin Laden, and the neutralization of radical Islamic regimes and networks worldwide. Yet the capture or assassination of bin Laden-- who has followed Carlos the Jackal and Abu Nidal as the latest personification of World Terrorism-- would likely result in more terrorism, not less. Kill one Osama, it is said, and you create 100 more. Furthermore, the military attacks against Afghanistan increase the chances of radical Islamic takeovers in countries that are supporting the US strikes, and for Pakistan you can add nukes to the scenario.
Moreover, the Taliban did not emerge in a vacuum. They were largely created and financed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, countries that are now being sought by America as allies in the War on Terrorism. In fact, the United States gave Afghanistan $124 million in aid in 2001, making it "the main sponsor of the Taliban," according to the May 22, 2001 Los Angeles Times. Indeed, the United States also trained and financed bin Laden himself and other radical Islamics when it served its interests.
This latter point deserves elaboration. Media commentators are now acknowledging that the United States made a "mistake" in the 1980s by supporting bin Laden and his fellow radical Islamics against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. This obscures the fact that the CIA flat-- out created today's violent Islamic movement as a deliberate policy. Furthermore, this policy amounted to much more than supplying the mujahedeen with some Stinger missiles, which is the popular conception of events. As reported in a laudatory 1992 Washington Post article ("Anatomy of a Victory: The CIA's Covert Afghan War"), the United States invested more than $2 billion and several thousand tons of weaponry and supplies in the project. The covert action involved everything from supplying copies of the Koran to constructing training camps -- which we are now bombing -- and teaching the future terrorists how to make bombs. All in all, this "mistake" was the single largest American covert action program since World War II.
If you think arming and supporting radical Muslims was just a tragic mistake of the past, think again. Osama bin Laden and an army of what the United States would otherwise label Islamic terrorists have been and are actively involved on the US-backed side in the fighting in Bosnia, Kosovo and -- most recently -- Macedonia.
Read more of this article by Al Hidell here. Get back issues of Paranoia and subscribe using your credit card at their web site.
00:25
March 12, 2002
Death In June and NON live in the U.S.A.These two live dates were just announced by Douglas P. and Tesco Distribution:
TESCO DISTRIBUTION USA INVITES YOU TO A "BROWN EASTER" CELEBRATION WITH DEATH IN JUNE and BOYD RICE [NON]:
-- Monday, 25th March: The Key Club, 9039 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, L.A. Tickets: $20.00 plus service fee Box Office: 310 786 1712.
-- Easter Sunday, 31st March DEATH IN JUNE and NON: The Lightship "Frying Pan", Pier 63, North River, New York. [one pier north of chelsea piers behind basketball city]
IN THEIR FIRST NEW YORK CONCERT APPEARANCE SINCE 1997 plus a presentation of rare DIJ footage, Pearls Before Swine and other videos. Vending tables from TESCO USA and DEN OF INIQUITY. $25 : 21+ ID REQUIRED : DOORS @ 7PM
More information can be found here: http://www.tesco-distro.com/dij/index.html
19:46
March 11, 2002
9-11 Terror ErrorsToday, six months has passed since the 9-11 attack on WTC in NYC. Nexus Magazine#1, Vol. 9 (dec. 2001 - jan. 2002) posed these critical questions:
-- Why was the US military preparing war plans against Afghanistan months before the September 11 attacks? Were they just looking for some event to propel the normally disinterested American public into a war, as in the past?
-- How could paper documents incriminating bin Laden be found intact at the WTC, but the planes' "black box" flight recorders--designed to withstand crashes--were damaged beyond use?
-- Even days and weeks after the WTC attack, why were news cameramen prevented from photographing the ruins from certain angles, as complained about by CBS correspondent Lou Young, who asked, "What are they afraid we're going to see?"
-- Why has the NYPD liaison to the FBI been sent packing as a "security risk", as reported in the October 16 New York Times? Whose security is at risk? The FBI's? What is it that the Bureau does not want NYPD to know?
-- How could an obviously sophisticated terrorist plan, involving perhaps as many as 100 persons and in the works for five years, escape the notice of our intelligence services, especially the FBI and CIA? And why, instead of cashiering those responsible for this intelligence failure and totally restructuring these agencies, are we doubling their budgets?
-- Why did the WTC South Tower collapse first, when it was not as extensively damaged as the North Tower which burned for almost an hour and a half before collapsing?
-- Why did many witnesses claim to hear further explosions within the buildings? And why did the destruction of the towers appear more like a controlled implosion than a tragic accident?
-- Why did FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledge that the list of named hijackers might not contain their real names? Doesn't everyone have to show a photo ID to claim a boarding pass? Where was the normal security?
-- Why was there a discrepancy of 35 names between the published passenger lists and the official death toll on all four of the ill-fated flights? Internet columnist Gary North reported that "the published names in no instance match the total listed for the number of people on board". Why the discrepancy?
-- As none of these listed passengers had an Arabic-sounding name, how did the government know which ones were the hijackers?
-- Why did the seat numbers of the hijackers, given in a cellphone call from Flight Attendant Madeline Amy Sweeney to Boston Air Traffic Control, not match the seats occupied by the men the FBI claims were responsible?
-- Since Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister claimed five of the proclaimed hijackers were not aboard the death planes and in fact are still alive, and a sixth man on that list was reported to be alive and well in Tunisia, why are these names still on the FBI list?
-- Why were no names of the named hijackers on any of the passenger lists? If they all used aliases, how did the FBI identify them so quickly?
-- Why did one of the named hijackers take luggage on a suicide flight, then leave it along with an incriminating note in his car at the airport?
-- As for the overall investigation into the September attacks, by late October US authorities conceded that most of their promising leads for finding accomplices and some of their long-held suspicions about several suspects have unravelled, according to the New York Times. Since more than 800 people have been arrested and more than 365,000 tips have been received from the public, why has nothing substantial been forthcoming in the largest US criminal investigation in history?
-- Why, of the nearly 100 people still being sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is none seen as a major suspect?
-- Why are we bombing Afghanistan, when apparently no listed hijackers were Afghans but instead Arabs from various Middle Eastern nations? Since Iraq was implicated in the 1993 WTC attack, why are we not bombing that "rogue" nation?
-- Why does the heavy drinking and searching for hookers by some of the hijackers in Boston, as reported by Reuters news service, sound more like mercenaries carousing before a mission than pious religious fundamentalists about to meet their maker?
-- How did the terrorists obtain top-secret White House and Air Force One codes and signals--the excuse for hustling President Bush all across the country on September 11? Was this evidence of an inside job, or was it, as reported by Fox News, evidence that former FBI employee and double agent Robert Hanssen had delivered an updated version of the purloined Promis computer software to his Russian handlers who passed it along to bin Laden? Does this software, which was stolen from a US company during the Reagan administration by Justice Department officials under Attorney-General Ed Meese, allow outsiders carte blanche entrée to our top-security computers? (Hanssen's last job before being arrested as a spy was to upgrade the FBI's intelligence computer systems.)
-- If United Airlines Flight 93 crashed as the result of a struggle between heroic passengers and the hijackers, why did witnesses tell of a second plane which followed it down, falling burning debris, no deep crater and crash wreckage spread over a six-mile area, indicative of an aerial explosion?
-- Why did news outlets describe the throat-cutting and mutilation of passengers on Flight 93 with box cutters, when Time magazine on September 24 reported that one of the passengers called home on a cellphone to report, "We have been hijacked; they are being kind"?
Read more of Jim Marrs' article "An Overview of The War on Terrorism" here.
Jim Marrs is the author of "Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy", the book Oliver Stone based much of his "JFK" movie on.
19:33
 Anton Balsam a.k.a. "Arm" at mp3.com!Check out five music tracks ("W Song", "Four Beautiful Sunsets", "Hurt Y.O.U.", "Less (...The Heart of Dorkness)" and "Protonaut") by ARM, downloadable in a multitude of formats from mp3.com. Arm is the artist formerly known as J. Lien/Anton Balsam/Esther, and as a member of lo-fi hometaperband Åreknuteknyterne. Go to HWEB Shop to get best-of tapes by Balsam/Åreknuteknyterne, and to homemademusic.com to get the Balsam and Åreknuteknyterne tapes as CD-R's with extra tracks. There's sound files of two tracks from each release.
18:26
March 02, 2002
March's "Exotic" by Jim Goad A new month, and a new issue of the porn mag Exotic, which is mostly ads. But the editorial content is written and laid out by none other than Jim Goad, and you can download those pages as PFD files here. This time, the articles are: "Test-driving Viagra" and "Judge Orders Hitler To Undergo Therapy"... The regular columns "The Jack Shack" (reviewing what seems to be an utterly disgusting dwarf fuck-flick called "Strap On Midget"), "My Muscular Ass" and "The Industry" are all present, as well as this month's installment of the comic strip "Trucker Fags In Denial", with art by Jim Blanchard. Check it out! The back issues are in Goad's "Words" section.
20:44
The Beat Generation 101 If you want to impress people with your knowledge of any given subject, but don't want to read countless thick books to obtain that knowledge, the books from pocket essentials are a great find. Most of them are movie-related, like the recent titles on Michael Mann and Ang Lee, but there are also books under the subject headings literature, ideas, tv, history, sport, music, business and culture. My favourite titles so far are Blaxploitation Films, Jack The Ripper, Philip K. Dick, Friedrich Nietzsche, Conspiracy Theories and The Black Death. The latest book is The Beat Generation. As usual, it's an info packed, well-written 100 page primer within its subject. The author Jamie Russell gives a brief historic background, and the basic facts on the most important writers and novels, with great listings of various useful literature, videos and webpages towards the end. The only other thing that really needs to be in this book is a listing of recordings done by the Beat writers William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
19:40
March 01, 2002
Paniscus Revue reviews SHK's "Bad Pills" "Ah, at last! I’ve literally been waiting years for this, the last and probably the greatest comix compendium by dead Dane Sverre H. Kristensen. SHK easily mastered the comix medium and quickly proceeded to drag it to previously unseen depths of hilarious meanness as cute li’l cartoon characters are repeatedly fucked and butchered for the pleasure and horror of the reader. The book’s caption “Sik Cummix for Sik Fuks” ain’t kiddin’ around: the first of Bad Pills’ strips is “There Was Never a Time When Evil Was Real” and in two pages features a double load of beatings and abortion. The holy ass-raping of “Daisy Brown” follows, there are multiple strips featuring the sociopathic exploits of “Dead Boy: The World’s Funniest Abortion,” some psychedelic nightmares are conjured up for “LSD Pig” (“Oh my God! It’s DICK CHEESE MAN!”), and SHK manages to kill, eat and/or cornhole every other character he can come up with. Sverre even skewers Hans Christian Anderson in his misanthropic scatological cavalcade. Included is the first (and evidently the last) lengthy installment of “Prison Toons,” apparently based on the true crime story of “Killer Cop” G.J. Schaefer. SHK was one seriously angry guy (well exemplified in the many chapters of “SHK’s Sexual Fantasy”), and it makes one wonder if the leukemia that tortured him to death spawned his venom or if perhaps it was the other way around. In any case his talent and discipline are undeniable, and this celebration of relentless negativity will be admired by those with a liking for their humor on the blackest side of political incorrectness. The printing quality of Bad Pills is at times uneven but is generally solid and stamped upon glossy paper between bold covers of black, white, silver and red. A most unique and highly recommended publication."
To order, go to HWEB's SHOP section. Very few copies left, as Mike Hunt has swindled me for 100 copies he was supposed to send almost a year ago.
Read 100's of reviews of printed media, videos, records, pork rinds et.c. at Paniscus Revue.
17:46
Paniscus Revue reviews SHK's videos Paniscus Revue, the excellent review zine put out by Crites, the brain behind the comix & grapix zine Malefact, had this to say about the video works of the late SHK:
Something New to Die For -- The Films of Sverre H. Kristensen
Sverre Kristensen was one of the truly prolific and multi-talented modern underground artists, a rare human being indeed. Best known for his countless hardcore comix (starring such lovable characters as Maggot Love Rabbit and Li'l Hitler), SHK also produced the mighty vile Sewer Cunt magazine, put forth a number of audio recordings (most of them under the project name Anus Presley), and was an accomplished video filmmaker. Motherfucker even had a day job, too! And by numerous accounts he was a pretty damn decent human being as well. So of course not only was this prodigious artist killed off at the early age of 31, but he had to be literally tortured to death by leukemia and accompanying "treatments" such as chemotherapy and spinal taps. Pretty amazing, isn't it? Someone busts their ass to not only make a living but contribute creatively to the arts in a number of media, only to be put down while countless completely useless specimens of humanity trundle along with only waste heaps to show for their existence. Ah, shit.
But it is fortunate for us that Sverre was so prolific, as further samples of his work are constantly being made available. Something New to Die For is an excellent example as it collects on one videotape most (all?) of SHK's short films made between 1988 and 1991. Most of these are experimental-type films utilizing creative editing in broadcasts filled with a rapid procession of found and created imagery and sound which occasionally coalesce around a single subject.
Pray to the Virus is the vision of the TV eye gone awry, featuring clips of microbiology, static, and ocular imagery, while a traveling chrome sphere reflects a wooded landscape and a mutant creature performs unsavory acts of self-destruction. Misery is a great short of surreal mirror imagery; Anus Presley blends bondage, photocopy animation, soundbytes, and of course the Pelvis himself; the tripartite Deep End evolves from childbirth to genocide, with plenty of zombies and fundamentalism in between; Mondo Sicko intensifies the weird vibe with a fast-paced hellride of geeking, suicide, execution, mutant action, snake-cams, religious statuary, topless go-go dancing, nuclear explosions, whale fishing, and worm eating: "Too much is always better than not enough!" Sverre animates his drawings for the suicidal killing spree and transformation of Severed Finger Feels All, and Mosquitomen Invades Town is a fine bit of warped xerography which torments a soul to a slice of Coil's Hellraiser soundtrack.
All of this leads to a pair of longer assemblages, the first being the titular Something New to Die For. This Dog Eat Dog World Dog Food Film, A Gosp-Hell Documentary Production, is a Subgenius video which appropriately begins with the introductory statement, "The Church of the Subgenius was founded in 1953 by J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs. Today this self-proclaimed 'weirdest cult on earth' is bigger than ever. Brain-Wash Cult or the One True Religion? Now, you decide . . ." And to help with the judgement call are the proclamations and appearances by Subgenius founder Ivan Stang himself, along with testimony from such acolytes as Dr. Howl, Rev. Sternadox, Puzzling Evidence, Lies, Carol Belo, Sister Mary Squared Au Contraire, and Janor Hypercleats. The Church, once elsewhere not too inappropriately described as "the joke that became a religion that became a joke", is duly presented as the ultimate surreal slack-fueled self-improvement mindwarp conspiracy. "A religion for mutants, misfits, sinners, disbelievers, or people who'll believe anything. And particularly for people with a really sick sense of humor." Spicing the collection of interviews and convention footage are clips of personalities like Two-Headed Chang, Chuck Manson, Satanic Ritual Abuse Victims Annete and Peggy, James Hoskins, and Rodney King, along with video snippets of religious and surgical procedures, consumption, and news broadcasts. Portions of Doug Smith's Subgenius promo for MTV and the inspirational (to Sverre, at any rate) "Subgenius Recruitment Film" Arise! are also shown. Even if you're long past giving a shit about the Subgenius clan Something New to Die For is for the most part an entertaining watch.
Another SHK documentary is No Sense Makes Sense, Sverre's look at the case of Charles Manson. An historical narrative is accompanied by supportive and explanatory statements from proponents of Social Darwinism such as Boyd Rice, James Mason, and Nikolas Schreck (looking very much the worse for wear after years of occult fascist infighting). Newsclips of the Man himself are also shown, and while Manson does a lot of his psycho-improv routine the interpretation given (especially by SHK partner-in-crime and founder of Hypertonia World Enterprises JR Bruun) is that Manson's philosophy of terrorism was actually quite viable. So viable in fact that it had to be cut up by the media and legal systems to be defused, and the resulting clips used as scare propaganda which hypocritically portray him as both an utterly insane lunatic and a dangerously manipulative cult mastermind. The resulting pop culture figure is a posterboy for the archetypal "bad guy", a sort of "Anti-Elvis" according to Bruun. The film ends with the awareness of the irony that while Manson was not present at the Tate or LaBianca homes during the murders he is still doing time for them, and is in fact, as one of his supporters says, a political prisoner.
Closing up the compilation is the TV Stop Storybio Knots Bound Beasts, a documentary and interview with Sverre that is, unfortunately, all in Danish. SHK speaks about his work and segments of his films are shown.
The collection is a promising bunch that makes the very painful point that if Sverre had lived he would have been artistically unstoppable and gone on to do even more amazing things. The quick pace, the multi-layered imagery, and the insertion of dramatic film clips all make for visually exciting viewing, and it would have been truly great to see what subjects SHK tackled next. On the down side a number of the image processing procedures and film clips are repeated between videos, lending a redundant characteristic to the tape. And then there's that whole Subgenius thing . . . But to be fair it doesn't seem like the videos were meant to be watched end-to-end, and the Subgenius stuff was probably a lot more interesting ten years ago. I was tempted to think the Manson material was overkill as well, but that entire slice of history continues to fascinate. And you have to admit, for better or worse Manson is a lot more interesting than Stang. So although several portions of Something New to Die For seem unnecessary, because they're just about the only ones in existence it's damn good to have a record of them. Ordinarily I'd give this a solid recommendation, but because this is all we're going to get and they've been so comprehensively assembled, in honor of the artist I vote to give it a top-notch rating and encourage you to hunt this tape down.
To check out SHK's work, go to HWEB's SHK tribute site. To order stuff, go to our SHOP section.
17:35
Gammal GG Allin P3-innslaget om GG Allin & The Murder Junkies er nå lagt ut på nettet, med et lækkert bilde og følgende intro:
"GG Allin er ikke akkurat som Christian Ingebritsen i A1. GG Allin sa selv at sceneshowet hans overtok der Iggy Pop ga seg. Og når vi vet at Iggy likte å skjære seg med barberblader og rulle seg i knust glass, gir det et hint om hva slags mann denne GG var. Han har selvsagt blitt en kulthelt, og Jan Bruun var en av dem som digget han."
Sjekk ut HWEB's gode gamle GG-diskografi og GG-linker her.
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