Vivienne Westwood: 36 Years in Fashion
Until June 10th, at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. (Want to go!)
Related links:
(Both websites above have lots of slow-preloading Flash content... very annoying)
Review/Link: Cinedelica: Big screen: This Is England (2007).
Will this ever be screened in LA? Will it be on DVD? When? Where? How?
BBC: The Devil's Music
(West Side Story's "Maria"! Who knew?)
Via Rebecca's Pocket:- How To Dance Gothic
(...and achieving the proper level of angst)
WHICH WAY IS THE EXIT? Put your arms out to both sides, like you’re being crucified or something. As you do, swirl around once or twice, but remember to do it slowly, not quick like a little kid trying to get dizzy. If you do it right, this one can have some of the feel of time wheeling onward, the spin of the earth around the sun, and so on. It can also come in handy in case some weirdo DJ puts on Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Right Round, Baby”. (“Right ’round like a record, baby, right ’round, ’round, ’round.” Oh, yeah.)
Variations: This is one the most personalizable of all the moves here. You don’t even need to put both arms out; you can keep one in front of your body (ready to do some other move), or put it behind your back, or you can put it up to your forehead to show how angst-ridden you truly are.
We have always been fans of the Evolution Control Committee , supreme pioneers of "Mash-up". Their latest offering is pretty awesome.
Listen: NPR : Jimmie Riddle and the Lost Art of Eephing.
The eccentric Southern tradition of "eephing" is best described as the hillbilly equivalent of the hip-hop human "beat box" vocal style -- a kind of hiccupping, rhythmic wheeze that started in rural Tennessee more than 100 years ago.
Related link: HUMAN BEATBOXING.
Link: Amen break - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"This fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the "Amen Break," a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music -- a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip."
QUOTE: "Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it".
Via Tony Tye's 2-Tone website:
It would be cool to see this.
Related link: Wikipedia definition of Two-Tone.
I posted The Specials: "Message To You Rudy" music video on this blog a few days ago. It really belongs in this entry so I'm moving it over here.
Eddie has a few of the DADDY ROTH and WEIRD-OHS kits back in Sydney, but wow... check out this FRANTICS set by HAWK. Looks really cool and I'd love to have it! I'm getting 3 of these! whee....
Box Art by Bill Campbell
Via ComicBookResources:
As for the Weird-Ohs (which the gremlins in this issue’s cover-story closely resemble, these hot rod monsters first appeared as a series of plastic model kits issued by the Hawk Model Company. An attempt to compete with Revell’s line of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s bug-eyed “finks” (led by the iconic “Rat Fink”) and Monogram’s model kits of Stanley Mouse!’s “Fred Flypogger” and friends, the Weird-Ohs were created and designed by illustrator Bill Campbell in 1963. The original trio of Weird-Ohs consisted of Davey (a biker), Digger (a drag racer) and Daddy (a suburban commuter), who were eventually joined by such plastic “car-icky-tures” as Leaky Boat Louie, Freddy Flameout, Endsville Eddie, Drag Hag, Wade A. Minit, Francis The Foul, Huey’s Hut Rod, Sling Rave Curvette, Killer McBash and others. These led to Hawk’s similar lines of “Frantics” and “Silly Surfers”. The model kits themselves were designed and engineered by Hawk/Testor’s bigshot John (Zawicki) Andrews. In 1993, Testor’s re-released many of the original Weird-Ohs. A few years later, Mainframe Entertainment produced the, CGI-animated TV series starring the WEIRD-OHS, which premiered on FoxKids Network on October 9, 1999 (and released to home video in 2000) but it failed to capture the appealingly manic quality of the original kits.
Somewhat related link: Our character designs for Endsville.
There is a lot of information on Rude Boys and Teddy Boys (eg, Dick Hebdige), but rarely do you read about or see Rude Girls and Teddy Girls on the web or in books. Coincidentally, this week we found two interesting websites...
RUDE GIRLS: www.getupedina.com
TEDDY GIRLS: www.teddygirls.co.uk
Essay and photoseries by Ken Russell. Gallery HERE.
"Yet, just as much as the boys, the Teddy Girl was creating a new world for herself. It may be that the Teddy Girl was difficult to see because fashion was naturally considered a female sphere. Working class boys suddenly wearing their own distinctive but rapidly changing fashions were noticeable, but girls changing styles was simply taken for granted. The Teddy Girl, however, is clearly not simply following a male fashion for Edwardian garb. Instead, she wore a variety of personal styles. Cameo brooches and other accessories hark back, but the fact that these girls wear trousers is very interesting. Most surprisingly the younger girls even wear jeans. As the boys look back for inspiration to a bygone era, the girls seem to be looking forward to modernity, out towards the future." (essay)
