The Throwback Thursday Retro Video Project; Modern Eon & Section 25

Joy Division had a heavy influence on the post punk scene with a couple of groups showing an obvious influence.

Section 25 were the most obvious band to take after the Joy Division. They had actually toured together and not coincidentally for their first album, "Always Now" (1981), they had the same producer (Martin Hannett), album cover designer (Ian Saville) and record label (Factory Records). Not surprisingly they sound exactly like Joy Division albeit with a singer who has a more airy sound than Ian Curtis.

SECTION 25 ~ "FRIENDLY FIRES";


This spooky track uses a George Melies short "The Haunted Castle";

SECTION 25 ~ "BABIES IN THE BARDO";


This vid uses a strange 1900's short featuring some early stop-action animation.

SECTION 25 ~ "INSIDE OUT";


This vid uses a 1960's Op Art film by Robert Breer.


Modern Eon were a Liverpool group who put out one album in 1981 which tempered their Joy Division influences with a more ethereal sound. They showed altogether more original potential than Section 25 and earned good reviews from the fickle UK music press for their one and only album (and a couple of indie singles) but just as Joy Division met disaster on the eve of their first North American tour, Modern Eon had to cancel their proposed tour after their drummer, who was integral to their sound, was injured. They broke up soon after and none of the members went on to have any noteworthy musical careers.

MODERN EON ~ "WAITING FOR THE CAVALRY";


This vid uses an early silent film by Segundo De Chomon which feature some cool stop-motion animation.

MODERN EON ~ "HIGH NOON";


This vid uses a Segundo De Chomon short from the 1900's "The Chinese Dancers"

MODERN EON ~ "MECHANIC";


This vid uses a 1900's travel doc which has some unintended lighting effects caused by the degradation of the film stock.

MODERN EON ~ "EUTHENICS";


This vid uses another silent travel doc

MODERN EON ~ "CHILD'S PLAY";


This vid uses some spectacular 1900's nighttime footage of Coney Island

MODERN EON ~ "AFTER THE PARTY";


This vid uses some more travel doc footage for an early track which didn't make it to the album

MODERN EON ~ "CARDINAL SIGNS";


This vid uses one of series of short Op Art films by George Cup made in the 1970's.

Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project Pres; Black Sabbath & Monster Magnet

This week on my Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project; Black Sabbath and Monster Magnet.

You wouldn't normally think of Sabbath as subject for some artsy film mashups but there's a couple.

BLACK SABBATH ~ "EMBRYO";


This one uses one of the earliest short clips from Edison Studios circa 1894.

BLACK SABBATH ~ "FX";


For this little effects noodle I used some Edison Studios footage taken from the 1901 Pan-Am Expo in Buffalo which was incidentally where President Willaim McKinley was shot.

MATMOS ~ "FX";


This cover of the Sabbath song was from a Black Sabbath cover album and I used some more Edison Studios footage, this time of the aftermath of the San Fransisco earthquake and fire of 1904.

MONSTER MAGNET ~ "INTO THE VOID";


This epic cover came from yet another Sabbath tribute. Uses a Polish film based on the Gogol story "The Portrait".

MONSTER MAGNET ~ "EGO THE LIVING PLANET";


With their 1995 album "Dopes To Infinity" album Monster Magnet produced the greatest album Black Sabbath never made. More footage from the Edison Studios footage of the San Francisco Earthquake for this instrumental.

MONSTER MAGNET ~ "MASTERBURNER";


For this track I used a short art film made by Yoko Ono as part of Flux Films, a Dada art Collective in 1967.

MONSTER MAGNET ~ "KING OF MARS";


This video used another art film, by Robert Breer from 1970

BLUE CHEER ~ "MAGNOLIA CABOOSE BABYFINGER";


Before there was Black Sabbath there was Blue Cheer. This vid uses some test footage from a horror film from the British studio Hammer Films in the 1960's

The Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project Pres; Destroy All Monsters pt.1

Another in my Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project. This week; Destroy All Monsters.
Possibly the first American Industrial band, Destroy All Monsters were formed in Detroit in 1974 as an experimental performance art/noise band making numerous recordings (mostly crude instrumentals) but had few actual releases until 1977 by which time most of the original members had left and been replaced with Ron Asheton (ex Stooges and Micheal Davis (ex MC5) who turned the group into a more conventional punk band. This latter version of the band is better known, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore oversaw a three CD box set which included most of the original band's work. Given the band's obscurity it's probably safe to say my videos are the only ones.

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS ~ "CHURCH";


This track uses a snippet of footage of an American TV play from the mid-1930's. Almost no TV footage exists from this era and this footage was shot by somebody aiming a home movie camera at a TV screen. Little is known about the actual show.

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS ~ "CONGA";


This track uses newsreel footage from the 1904 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS ~ "CRUNCH DRONE";


For this track I used a 1909 film "Airship Destroyer".

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS ~ "SPACE BEAT";


This video uses a short abstract art film by Robert Breer from 1970.

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS ~ "THRONE OF CHAOS";


This one uses another Robert Breer film, "Eyewash" from 1959.

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS ~ "IT HURTS ME";


This one uses a 1900 Edison Studios film "Faust & Margarite", one of the first films to have a supernatural/horror theme.