The Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project Pres; Wire

This week on my Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project; Wire.

One of the first generation of Art-Punks (along with Siousxie & The Banshees, The Fall, Ultravox, Subway Sect, Alternative Televison, Soft Boys and Desperate Bicycles), Wire quickly gained a different approach from the basic three chord thrash on their three albums from 1977 to 1979, plus a live album in 1981. After breaking up for a decade they reformed in 1987 and took up right where they left off and they're still at it to this day, albeit sometimes with a different drummer.

WIRE ~ "LOWDOWN";


For this classic from the 1977 second album, "Pink Flag", I used a clip from a 1920's western starring Jack Hoxie which seemed to fit the almost Ennio Morricone feel of the song. Too bad the last few seconds of the fadeout got cut off. I also used this vid for a Fingerprintz vid.

WIRE ~ "STRANGE";


WIRE ~ "FRAGILE";


This one uses some 1920's aerial footage of Wiemar Berlin

Another song off "Pink Flag" this time using a 1907 film by Spanish film-maker Segundo De Chomon, a contemporary of French director George Melies whose style he built upon. I used this film for a Siouxsie & The Banshees song but could decide which I liked better so I kept both.

WIRE ~ "STRAIGHT LINE";


A song off the first album using an early Edison Studios film with a crude attempt at special f/x.

WIRE ~ "A TOUCHING DISPLAY";


for this song off the "154" album I used "Bob's Electric Theatre" by Segudo De Chomon

WIRE ~ "FIELD DAY FOR THE SUNDAYS";


This song from the first album uses a short Dada art film made for the Fluxus Film Collective by George Maciunas circa 1967.

The Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project Presents; Simple Minds

More from my Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project. This week; Simple Minds.

I know everybody remembers them from "The Breakfast Club", "Don't You Forget About Me", and that terrible hit album they followed it up with, blah, blah blah. But they had actually been around for several years by that time having recorded six fine albums full of atmospheric, almost cinematic songs (including several instrumentals) that naturally lent themselves to silent film. At least I always thought so.

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "PLEASANTLY DISTURBED";


The epic closer off their 1979 first album "Life In A Day" mashed up here with a 1915 film "The Portrait", based on a Nikolai Gogol story directed by Polish director Władysław Starewicz, who would later be better known as a pioneer in stop action animation. This little known film is one of the first real horror films and was an obvious influence on the later German Expressionist films especially the classics "The Student Of Prague" and "Faust".

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "REAL TO REAL";


A song off the 1980 second album "Reel To Real Cacophony" using an odd French farce "The Magic Prisoners", which experiments with backwards projection to show some prisoners apparently falling upstairs and breaking into jail.

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "SCAR";


Another song off the second album using a using a short art film, "Tails" from 1976, by Paul Sharits. This film spliced together the faded, underdeveloped ends of other films, hence the title. I used this same film for songs by Cabaret Voltaire and Siouxsie & The Banshees but couldn't decide which version I liked better so I kept them all.

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "CACOPHONY";


An instrumental off the second album using a 1907 film "En Avant Le Musique" by Spanish director (albeit working in France) Segundo De Chomon, a contemporary of George Melies whose style he built upon.

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "VELDT";


Another instrumental off the second album using yet another Segundo De Chomon film "Les Lanatiques" from 1908.

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "FILM THEME";


Yet another instrumental from the second album, this time using some newsreel footage from Edison Studios of an gas refinery explosion from the early 1900's.

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "KANT KINO";


Another track off of "Reel To Real", this time an instrumental, using an early (1902) stop action film "The Destruction Of The Star Theatre" by Edward Armitage

SIMPLE MINDS ~ "ROOM";


Another track from "Empires & Dance" using a 1969 performance art film by Ben Vautier

Next time; More Simple Minds.

The Throwback Thursdays Retro Video Project Presents; Clock DVA

More from my Throwback Thursday Retro Video Project.
This week; Clock DVA. A Northern English band led by Adi Newton who combined a jazz-funk lineup with post-punk/industrial influences on their first three albums. After that the band broke up and Newton continued on as a purely techno band under the Clock DVA name. Guitarist John Valentine Carruthers would go on to join Siouxsie & The Banshees. They don't seem to have made any proper videos during their classic early phase so mine appear to be the only ones.

CLOCK DVA ~ "SENSORIUM";


A track off their 1981 second album "Thirst" (also their best) using a silent "Lone Ranger" cartoon which was filmed off of a television set. This one definitely has the feel of an early Cabaret Voltaire video.

CLOCK DVA ~ "BLUE TONE";


Another song off of "Thirst" using an early French film "History Of A Crime". The film itself obviously filmed on a stage backdrop and is interesting in using a second stage during the scene where the prisoner is shown sleeping to portray him dreaming of his past life. This was a technique used on stage but not in film once they figured out how to do flashbacks.

CLOCK DVA ~ "MOMENTS";


This song from "Thirst" uses a strange British sci-fi comedy "The Automatic Motorist" from 1911. The film's idea of space is basically that of George Melies films but unlike Melies this film uses multiple sets and allows for a car chase and would have made the Melies films of only a few years earlier seem old hat by comparison.

CLOCK DVA ~ "FOUR HOURS";


The closest thing early Clock DVA had to a single (from "Thirst), here mashed up with a George Melies film "Zeus' Thunderbolts".

CLOCK DVA ~ "PIANO PAIN";


Another track from "Thirst" using some very early BBC TV footage that was captured on an American TV where it was somehow beamed through freak atmospheric conditions. Since almost no TV recordings exist from that era it's interesting to see how similar it was to that of the 1950's Golden Age. Incidentally while most people assume that TV started in the 1950's it's not at all true as I've written about here.

CLOCK DVA ~ "NORTH LOOP";


This one uses Edison Studios newsreel footage of the San Francisco earthquake and fire.

CLOCK DVA ~ "DISCONTENTMENT";


This track off the obscure 1980 debut album "White Souls In Black Suits" which was put out by Industrial godfathers Throbbing Gristle on their Industrial label on cassette only. Yes I actually have one. The video uses newsreel footage of New York shot for the French Pathe company sometime in the mid 1930's. Note; I had some trouble with sound levels on this one.

CLOCK DVA ~ "STILL SILENT";


This track from "White Souls" uses another Op-Art Fluxus film, by John Cavanaugh.

CLOCK DVA ~ "THE CAGE"


This track comes from a set of early demos and uses a "In The Land Of Nod" a weird film which uses some early stop action animation.

CLOCK DVA ~ "SEXUAL OVERTURE";


Another early demo for which I used a WW1 British film "The German Spy Peril". Actually it's only part of the final reel in which the hero is captured by an oddly large group of spies and tossed into a tunnel under Big Ben with a bomb. The rest of the film is apparently lost.

CLOCK DVA ~ "UNTITLED DEMO TRACK 2";


This is another early demo and uses one from a series of amateur videos various people made as homages to the Andy Warhol "Screen Tests" of the 1960's

CLOCK DVA ~ "THE SONOLOGY OF SEX";


This song is from the b-side of the "Sound Mirror" single from 1990 put out by the latter, synth only version of Clock DVA. The song is about Elizabeth Bathory the infamous Bloody Countess of the sixteenth century so I used various still photos portrayals of the Countess including some of actresses who have played her on screen including Isabelle Hupert and Palmoa Picasso.

Prof Kitzel's Time Machine Profiles; George W Johnson

~ George W. Johnson (circa 1846~1914) was one of the first major recording stars and certainly the first black recording star as well as being one of the most successful singers of the Victorian era. ..

~ Early life ~ Born a slave between 1846 and 1850 in Virginia, Johnson was raised by a white family who taught him to read and write. His musical training is unknown although he does not seem to have played any actual instruments, he sang minstrel songs as well as being a virtuoso whistler. After the civil war he made his way to New York and New Jersey where he earned a living as a busker in various minstrel and medicine shows becoming a fairly well known figure. ..

~ Recordings ~ When Johnson began recording is unknown but it is rumored that Thomas Edison himself chose Johnson to be one of the first singers to demonstrate his new tin-foil based recording device in 1879 because his clear, staccato baritone could reproduce well on the crude technology. If so these recordings have not survived but when the improved wax gramophones came along a decade later Johnson became much in demand. He recorded "The Whistling Coon" in 1890 for The Metropolitan Phonograph company and then quickly did the same for The New Jersey Phonograph Company, The North American and Edison. The song became the first real hit of the recording era selling for various companies (which would grow to include most of Edison's competitors such as Berliner, Victor, Columbia, Starr and Zonophone) as was common at the time. Due to the crude technology of the day (there were no masters) records were recorded straight to disk five at a time which meant that Johnson would have to sing the same song over again for hours and days in order to make multiple copies. However since he got payed by the song this meant he was able to make a decent living for over a decade singing the same few songs. ..

GEORGE W JOHNSON ~ "THE LAUGHING SONG";


~ Repertoire
~ The number of songs Johnson actually knew is unknown but he only recorded about a half dozen titles. Besides his first hit he later had even bigger hits with "The Laughing Song" and the " The Laughing Coon". Laughing in rhythm was a fad of the era and "The Laughing Song" (originally written by the white song writer Sam Devere as part of a minstrel show) is believed to have been the first million selling record, being recorded for numerous companies between 1894 and 1910. These records were also popular in Europe and Latin America since there was little language barrier to overcome and there are stories of copies of the "Laughing Song" turning up in (then) remote Africa, China, the Arctic and the South Pacific were they were used by missionaries to break the ice with the locals. In the 1922 documentary film "Nanook of the North" film maker Robert Flaherty is shown playing a copy of the record to charm his Eskimo hosts. For a time Johnson was probably the most heard person in the world along with the opera tenor Enrico Caruso. Johnson also recorded a few other titles including "The Whistling Girl","Listen to the Mockingbird" and "Carving the Duck", copies of which have survived along with at least two others which have not, "The Laughing Darkey" and "Uncle Ned's Dream". Johnson also recorded at least two comedy singles as part of Len Spencer's Minstrel Troupe. Spencer (who was actually white) was a popular leader of his own minstrel troupe as well as booking agent who became a manager for Johnson. Besides his recordings Johnson also continued to appear in vaudeville and minstrel shows in New York City and Atlantic City, New Jersey. ..

GEORGE W JOHNSON ~ "THE WHISTLING COON";


~ Decline and death ~ By the twentieth century recording technology had improved allowing for master copies to be recorded as well as allowing a greater variety of singers and musicians to record more clearly and these factors along with more sophisticated tastes effectively ended Johnson's recording career. His popularity also suffered from a mysterious scandal involving his being charged the death of his wife in 1899, Spencer and other performing friends rallied around and raised money for his bail and defense and the charges were quickly dropped . Johnson continued to record until 1910 but then went into retirement and the loyal Len Spencer gave him a job as doorman for the Lyceum Theater in New York. Johnson died forgotten in his apartment of unknown natural causes in 1914. ..

~ Surviving recordings ~ Copies of some of Johnson's recordings an both cylinders and disks have survived in various conditions and sound quality, some have turned up on a compilation entitled "Lost Sounds" on Archephone Records, others can be found on archival websites.

Members;
George W. Johnson ~ Vocals, Laughing and Whistling w/ various pianists incl/ Edward Issler ..

GEORGE W JOHNSON ~ "THE LAUGHING COON";

Erzra Levant tries to save CKLN? WTF?

Most of the predictable hand-wringing, teeth-gnashing, and nut job conspiracy theory rants that followed the loss of CKLN's license were from the usual suspects. The far wack-job left and the NDP activists who enable them. With the usual accusations of racism, "corporate agendas", fascism, white supremacy, sexism, homophobia, censorship and the various other foul deeds our ruling masters have in store for "the voiceless". Ho Hum.

And then there's Ezra Levant. For those who don't know he is the resident Glen Beck wannabe over at Canada's very own Fox News wannabe, the Sun News Network. There he is every damn day with that supercilious smirk and his snide "aren't I outrageous and clever" blanket attacks on Liberals, Unions, Muslims, the media "chattering class" (which he totally isn't a part of really), "elitists" (ditto), "social engineering" (double ditto), Greens, artists, teachers, feminists, the Europeans and basically anybody who doesn't think that Ayn Rand was a brilliant philosopher rather than a spoiled narcissistic hag with verbal diarrhea and an ego only slightly more ludicrously inflated than Ezra Levant's.

Actually you not recall that he once had delusions of getting Harper's job back when Harper was just getting settled in as Tory leader. Levant announced his intention of running as a candidate for the very riding that Harper himself wanted. So Harper told him to get lost, then Levant, with a laughably deluded sense of his own power actually refused, publicly daring the new leader of his own party to take him on. Later after having a temporary moment of clarity Levant grudgingly stepped aside "for the good of the party". Needless to say Harper was rather unamused and Levant's political career was even shorter than Harper's temper.

So our hero went back to being a carnival barker looking for a soapbox, oh and a lobbyist for the oil and tobacco industries, until he got a home at Fox North which went on the air on this April. He used his first show to attack the CRTC which had offended Fox North (and South for that matter) by not giving them the preferential treatment to which they are entitled, although he didn't mention that part of course. Preferring to instead rally support from the left for attack on the CRTC by coming to the defense of the recently shut down CKLN.

His full rant is below;

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// http://www.torontosun.com/2011/04/19/crtcs-a-dinosaur-2
CRTC's a dinosaur
The last thing Canadians need is this group regulating the web
By Ezra Levant ,QMI Agency
First posted: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 10:15:01 EDT AM

A group of Canadian TV companies has banded together to ask the CRTC to regulate the Internet, and crack down on a U.S. based website called Netflix.
They're worried that, if left to themselves, Canadians will start getting their favourite movies and TV shows from Netflix over their computer, or even their cellphone, instead of from cable TV. And they want the government to stop that threat.
So it would be like the candle-making tycoons of the 19th century writing a letter to John A. Macdonald asking him to shut down that troublesome Thomas Edison fellow, and his dangerous electric light.
There's something pitiful here, almost sad. Instead of trying to compete with Netflix, Canadian big businesses are trying to rig the rules, forcing Netflix to submit to all of the red tape, taxes and government meddling they have to obey.
Regulating the Internet is an audacious proposal. The CRTC would have to build something like the Chinese dictatorship has done — the Great Firewall of China — to censor content the CRTC doesn't approve of.
Could you imagine if they were successful? How many bureaucrats would be needed to monitor the Internet, full time? They'd even need to get into your Facebook page, and your e-mails, to make sure you weren’t getting your videoclips from an illegal source.
Who is this CRTC? It stands for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. So it's about as fresh and current as the vacuum tube. They're a government agency created decades ago, back when people didn't know any better about letting the government control TV and radio.
Today, the CRTC's chief reason to exist is to perpetuate itself — to keep expanding its bureaucratic empire. It's called mission creep. If it was a private company, it would have gone out of business around the time Betamax did. When was the last time a government bureaucracy stopped, just because it became useless?

Pulled the plug

The CRTC is worse than useless, though. It’s dangerous to freedom. Take this shocking example from just last week.
The CRTC ordered a little community radio station in Toronto, called CKLN, off the airways last Friday. They just issued the command — and CKLN went silent, after 28 years of serving the community.
Why? According to the CRTC, there was “infighting” in the business. So what? What organization doesn’t have infighting? The CRTC does.
The CRTC says CKLN radio didn’t have enough musical diversity. That’s absurd — it was the first hip-hop radio station in Canada, that launched rap careers like Maestro Fresh Wes, a pioneering Canadian musician. So a radio station that featured black music and gay dance music was shut down for being too straight and narrow by a bunch of old white guys in Ottawa.
Maybe they’ll tell country music stations to have more opera for diversity, too.
But the real beef the CRTC had with CKLN radio was the little station didn’t fill out all of its paperwork properly. CKLN radio is a community station, run by volunteers on a shoestring budget. It’s affiliated with Ryerson University — many of the people running it are just students. But because they couldn’t keep up with the avalanche of paperwork and forms sent over by the CRTC, they’re put out of business.
This is the bright future the CRTC would bring to regulating the Internet.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

As might be expected Fat Bastard Lehrer and the CKLN "community" wasted no time in embracing one of their right wing bogeymen and pasted links to this rant everywhere that would allow then, including a place of honour on the CKLN Wikipedia entry; Fat Bastard boasts that he has enough Wikipedia clout to shut down anything or anyone he doesn't like and a glance at the history of the Wikipedia article does seem to show that "someone" quickly deletes any attempt to make the article more balanced.

Setting aside the complete cynicism of Levant using these far left wackjobs to further his own (and his employer's) agenda of destroying the CRTC, you can certainly why Fat Bastard would feel right at home with Levant at Fox North. They both have the same total disregard for allowing a little thing like "facts" to get in the way of ideological propaganda.

Firstly CKLN was not shut down for being "too black or gay", nor for "not having enough diversity", nor for "not filling a little paperwork", nor is CKLN run "mostly by students". That hasn't been true since Adam Vaughn, David Barnard and Denise Benson took over in the early 1980's and edged out most of the students in favour of political activists and professional DJ's. CKLN was shut down for massive and ongoing incompetence and complete disregard for basic rules of compliance as the CRTC's ruling (which he did not quote from) shows.

Also he uses the usual lame "thin edge of the wedge argument" to suggest that the CRTC is looking to hack into your "facebook page and read your emails" which besides being bullshit neglects to mention that the govt. and courts can easily get a warrant to do that anyway and law and order right wingers never have any problems with that. Also I notice he has no problems with the fact that Harper is already monitoring our facebook pages anyway looking for people to ban from his rallies.

On a historical note I see he uses this Thomas Edison analogy about candle makers using the CRTC to ban light bulbs. Well Thomas Edison himself actually used lawyers and patent law to shut down competitors who had better versions of many of his "inventions".

Actually many of Edison's most famous inventions weren't even his. He bought most of his patents from others including the light bulb itself, the patent for which he bought from two Canadian inventors in 1879 when they were unable to raise enough capital to compete. That's right two Canadians, Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans actually invented the light bulb which Edison got all the credit and wealth for. I expect Americans to be this ignorant but seeing as how one of the slogans of Fox North AKA Sun News is "Unapologetically Patriotic" you would think they might want to show a little hometown pride. But then that would interfere with the point that Levant is trying to make here which is that Robber Barons like Edison must be free from government intrusion so they can create the products that make our lowly lives easier. Right?

Well maybe that whole light bulb affair was an anomaly. Edison invented other stuff right? Like the movies for example. Well no he didn't, but he did buy a lot of patents and became the major film maker in North America at the turn of the 20th century and he used his control of those patents to shut down competition thus retarding the development of the motion picture and record industries for decades while he protected his monopolies. He eventually lost in court, but it cost his competitors a fortune to do it. In the meantime the Europeans (who ignored his patents) were able to develop there own film industries to the point where those in France, Germany, Scandinavia and Italy were actually making more, and much better movies than those in cartel controlled America. It wasn't in fact until after World War 1 wiped out the Europeans and Edison was forced by the courts to give up his patent controls that the Hollywood industry finally took hold. Edison's own film studios didn't survive long, turned out that he had no talent as a film maker, and once there was competition he was finished.

Ditto for later developments in radio when David Sarnoff was able to use his superior resources and ownership of patents (none of which he invented) to keep FM off the dial for decades to protect his AM empire intact. FM was actually discovered by one of his employees, Edwin Armstrong. However Sarnoff decided that FM would make his AM empire somewhat moot, so he had the prototype destroyed and forced Armstrong out. Armstrong fought back by going independent but Sarnoff tired him up with litigation for years until a distraught Armstrong finally killed himself. His widow finally beat Sarnoff in court, but it took years, meanwhile FM was kept off the air for over a decade to the benefit of nobody but Sarnoff and his empire.

Then there's the electric car. There's a whole movie about that. And speaking of movies and cars you might want to check out "Tucker; The man and his dream". And so on. And there was no CRTC or FCC to blame for any of this. Just corporate greed. That's the "bright future" that Levant had in mind. And CKLN's "anti-capitalists" were perfectly happy to endorse this as long as their own pathetic and seedy monopoly is preserved.

Of course since this was written the Tory Government that Ezra Levant carries water for came out for a the most highly restrictive and highly intrusive proposed law to allow police to hack into your emails, with no warrant or probable cause whenever they decide that you, yes you may be a terrorist. Or a child molester. Or a drug lord. Or whatever. I'm sure we can count on Ezra Levant to defend us from this right? Hello? Is this thing on?