MACBA

They're doing a short series of lectures at the Museu d'Art Contemporani in Barcelona, and they've kindly invited me to come and do one of these talks on April 1st. The link above has all the information.

CUT HANDS 2

The album has now been mastered by the audio legend that is Denis Blackham and there should be an official release date to announce shortly. Am excited. More news soon.

CUT HANDS

FILLMORE DISCOS 61 - '80s RARITIES 2

Private School, 1983 (****)
as you'd expect from a teen sex comedy, there's lashings of nubile flesh on display, often partially wrapped up in arousingly slinky 80s lingerie, plus the irresistible treat of having Betsy Russell and Sylvia Kristel in the same movie, but the direction is crisp, the characters come across as real human beings, and it's its rare sincerity and honesty that makes Private School such a cut above other generic trash

Angel, 1984 (*****)
outstanding cult classic about Molly, a bright 15 year old schoolgirl by day, Hollywood Boulevard hooker by night, plus her colourful band of faithful friends including a Jewish dyke, a huge tranny, and a glass-eyed cop, amongst others, as they try to nail a necrophiliac serial killer who's on the loose around the Strip; Donna Wilkes is sensational as young Molly and it's almost impossible to believe she was 25 when making this; I also can't imagine a film nowadays portraying subject matter like this with such affection and without condemnation, now we're stuck with hateful born-again moralists such as Moodysson and Haneke

Heavenly Bodies, 1984 (****)
the beautiful Cynthia Dale is fantastic as the female lead in this awesome low budget Canadian dance movie about three girls who set up an aerobics studio in a converted factory, the hi-nrg soundtrack is one of the best of the decade

Tomboy, 1985 (****)
80s camp heaven - you've got everything here, music, hairstyles, sexy clothes, bare breasts, and the iconic beauty of Betsy Russell (yes, she of Saw fame) in a fantastically nuanced role as the young girl working as a car mechanic

Bloody Pom Poms, 1988 (**)
a pretty incompetent generic slasher you badly want to like but ulitmately merely serves to remind one how effective and brilliantly made the canonical non-apocryphal first eight Friday The 13th movies were, even with the limited budgets at their disposal

Vicious Lips, 1988 (**)
intergalactic cyberdyke band Vicious Lips, along with their new singer, race across the galaxy to perform a gig; despite desperately low production values (and yet probably only a little worse than the shoddy fx in Star Wars), it's worth watching for the highly enjoyable musical moments and some occasionally successful flashes of campy humour

FILLMORE DISCOS 60 - '80s RARITIES
FILLMORE DISCOS 59
FILLMORE DISCOS 58 - JOE ESZTERHAS SPECIAL

CUT HANDS

Yes, it's hard to believe. After several years' toil, all the songs for the Cut Hands album are finished and there's not going to be any more tweaking, enhancing, or indeed fiddling. The finalised track listing is here below. So now before there comes any more temptation for meddling and interference, it's going to be shipped off for mastering.

Welcome To The Feast Of Trumpets
Stabbers Conspiracy
Rain Washes Over Chaff
Nzambi Ia Lufua
Who No Know Go Knows
++++ (Four Crosses)
Backlash
Shut Up And Bleed
Munkisi Munkondi
Impassion
Ezili Freda
Bia Mintatu
Rain Washes Over Every Thing

DIETROLOGY 11

DIETROLOGY 
Bingo And The Suicide Strategy

Don't ask why as I can't even remember myself how, as a teenager, I started going along to bingo evenings at the local Mecca, a gaudy cavernous hall in Brighton that had clearly once seen more elegance and glamour. Maybe it was just the allure of experiencing an unusual subculture; it certainly wasn't in order to meet anyone there, mostly frequented by  middle-aged or elderly women as it was. Each and every one armed with a drink and a fat marker pen, all entirely focused on their table array of bingo cards, readying themselves for eyes down.

Clickety Click, sixty-six. As a panicky neophyte fish amongst these experienced female bingo sharks, I found it surprisingly hard to keep up with the numbers, even with my one tragically solitary card. Two Fat Ladies, eighty-eight. Most of the other players would have, incredibly, by comparison, from six to a dozen cards each to keep track of. Kelly's Eye, number one.

The tension got really bad in the second game when all the numbers on my card started filling up. Fuck, I now only need the 11 to win! Legs Eleven, number eleven. 'Bingo!', I blurted out. There was a sharp disapproving collective intake of breath. Not only did this male interloper insult formal bingo protocol but he had the cheek to win the £50 prize with his lone card. Unlucky For Some, number thirteen.

It was in conversaton a few weeks later I made the facetious remark to someone that I was now qualified to write The Skill Of Bingo. Surprisingly, and unwittingly, that turned out to be an invaluable lesson to me, and formed the basis of a rather special longstanding theory of mine. Heaven's Gate, seventy-eight.

See, on the face of it, bingo is a game of pure chance. Ostensibly, there is no skill. But, upon reflection, I began to realise that there was quite a bit. But not in the obvious sense.

First, to get the best odds you should only have one card. Otherwise you're effectively playing against yourself in a game in which the house takes a percentage; a bit like for example the folly of backing the entire field in a horse race, or betting on every number on a spin of roulette.

However, more than that, the most important skill of all: you must cross the numbers off correctly.

One number mistaken or missed and you cannot win a game of bingo. Many of these older ladies are playing with far too many cards at once and often simply can't keep up. Why do they do it? Because it's edge play, it appeals to superstition, to marginalisation, it's more exciting, it appears to give them more winning chances. In truth, it's a suicide strategy.

It sounds too obvious, and yet this is a priceless transparent concession, one where delusion is the inevitable precursor to success, and failure to disappointment. In other words, what if the most critical skill isn't founded in doing something well, it's in the simple managing to avoid adopting strategies for self-destruction? The longer that resonates, the more it begins to make sense, in all kinds of unexpected ways. Staying Alive, eighty-five.

DIETROLOGY 10
DIETROLOGY 9
DIETROLOGY 8

AFTER SIGHT 14

FILLMORE DISCOS 60 - '80s RARITIES

The Unseen, 1980 (*****)
don't miss out on meeting 'Junior' waiting in the basement for you in this criminally underrated classic early 80s sleaze by High Rise director Danny Steinmann, never will you see mentally retarded done better; the only slight weakness for me is comedic thesp Sydney Lassick whose cheeseball horror-comedy performance seems incongruent with the otherwise darker mood of the film

Maniac, 1980 (***)
more creepy is less creepy: Joe Spinell overplays his role as the serial killer protagonist and never really convinces; that said, Tom Savini's effects and, in particular, the scene design of the maniac's small apartment are fantastic

Cruising, 1980 (*****)
William Friedkin's Cruising is not really such a rarity, indeed it stars Al Pacino, but it always surprises me to learn how few people have seen it; a cop goes undercover in the New York gay scene to investigate a serial killer preying on homosexuals, and what begins in sleazeball giallo territory ends in pure, yet oddly satisfying, enigma; top soundtrack too, a pertinent reminder that 70s/80s underground gay club music was far more eclectic than extended Donna Summer and Patrick Hernandez mixes and other stereotyping revisionism would credit it

Savage Streets, 1984 (*****)
incredibly enjoyable rape revenge sleaze masterpiece with Linda Blair and scream queen Linnea Quigley plus a perfect mid-80s rockin' AOR soundtrack to match

Silent Night, Deadly Night, 1984 (**)
the makers' ambitions were far greater than their budget or abilities, the acting is so bad (particularly the lead), the sets so cheap, and the script is so dull, that all the nice sleaze and gore moments ultimately fall rather flat; that said, the initial scenes with Billy in the convent school are superb

Crimes Of Passion, 1984 (****)
it's the captivating performance from the god that is Anthony Perkins that makes this (often overlooked) Ken Russell film so watchable; AP plays Rev. Shayne, a man riven with internal conflicts and demons, a man who becomes obsessed with China Blue, a part-time hooker

FILLMORE DISCOS 59
FILLMORE DISCOS 58 - JOE ESZTERHAS SPECIAL
FILLMORE DISCOS 57

AFTER SIGHT 13

PUFFERS 2

Just as mysterious as the Turin Shroud is the Voynich Manuscript (enter Voynich into the search string), a handwritten and illustrated book which is likely to also have been created in the early 15th century by author/s unknown. It is written in a language or code that, despite extensive research and theorising, to this day nobody has identified or deciphered. The book's contents appear to be subdivided into several sections that cover areas such as the astronomical, pharmaceutical, biological and so forth - indeed many of the favoured topics of the era's alchemists.

As you begin to survey its pages, the pareidolia kicks in hard as you vainly try and make sense of it all; just as the potential value of its meanings and revelations increase in direct ratio to its tantalising incomprehensibility. It's an undeniably fascinating process. Yet not only must we accept ignorance of what's being said, in what language or code, we neither know whether it says anything at all.

In the case of the Voynich Manuscript, the range of theories put forward are impossibly, exquisitely balanced between the plausible and implausible. Exotic, hybrid, or constructed language? Meaningful or meaningless? Glossolalia? Outright hoax, ancient or modern? None of them entirely convincing, yet all make a little bit of sense. To each our final preference, to each our personally honed romantic notion.

In contrast are the shelves of texts and books for which we'll never demonstrate the slightest interest, their crime merely to be in a familiar acculturalised form.

PUFFERS

SATURNALIA

There may not have been many posts recently, but, to those that have written in asking, rest assured that (contrary to wicked rumour) I'm still alive! It's been a difficult few weeks with a combination of not feeling too great and assiduous, if not downright pedantic, attempts to finalise the mixing of the last two Cut Hands album tracks, Stabbers Conspiracy and Shut Up And Bleed. Fuck, I hope it'll be worth it.