October
11th marks the golden jubilee of John Waters' love letter to a life of
crime, Female Trouble, which was theatrically released on October 11th,
1974. Following immediately on the heels of his midnight movie trash
masterpiece, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble doubled down on the
disgusting behaviour as juvenile delinquent, Dawn Davenport, played by
Divine, ruins Christmas, gets pregnant from rape and plunges into a life
of crime. With a story inspired by Waters' prison visits with Manson
family member, Charles "Tex" Watson, it's a muse on the beauty of
celebrity status crime and the appeal of a perverse lifestyle, a
sentiment succinctly expressed by the inimitable Edith Massey as Aunt
Ida, when she declares, "The world of the heterosexual is a sick and
boring life."
While Pink
Flamingos often gets all the glory for its bad behaviour, Female
Trouble, in many ways, manages to surpass its excesses with even more
outrageous and offensive incidents. The "cha-cha heels" Christmas scene
has become something of an iconic crystallization of entitled American
white privilege petulance. It was even recreated on RuPaul's Drag Race,
further solidifying its place as being elevated to the status of camp
high art. The birth scene, where Divine chews on an umbilical cord made
from condoms stuff ed with raw liver, is an exemplary moment of sheer
outrage, the kind of thing that makes this film stand out, even above
its predecessor.
Film critic,
Rex Reed, utterly despised the film, infamously declaring, "Where do
these people come from? Where do they go when the sun goes down? Isn't
there a law or something?" John Waters was so enamoured by the quip
that it became a permanent fixture in promotional posters for the film
and its subsequent releases on DVD. Yet the film now holds a 90%
approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a critics consensus that reads,
"Director John Waters' affection for camp brings texture to societal
transgression in Female Trouble, a brazenly subversive dive into
celebrity and mayhem."
Personally,
I place it only behind Desperate Living and just ahead of Pink
Flamingos in terms of my holy trinity of Waters films. Taken as a
triptych, they are a consecutive trifecta of trash transcendentalism.
Waters brought his penchant for blazing past the boundaries of virtually
every cinematic taboo to a crescendo of Divine-ly
inspired perfection in these three movies, forever solidifying himself
as the "Pope of trash". He's like the anti Mister Rogers, welcoming you
into a neighbourhood of perverts, freaks and criminals, grotesquely
decked-out in the most subversive behaviour, and you just wanna stay on
that trolley and keep riding!
2024-10-11
FEMALE TROUBLE @ 50
2024-10-10
PUBLIC IMAGE LTD - MEMORIES (SINGLE) @ 45
Released
45 years ago today, on October 10, 1979, it's Public Image Ltd's third
single, Memories. The A-side song is wailing denunciation of misplaced
sentimentality. Wobble's thunderously insistent bass line drives the
track against a furious disco beat, courtesy of former 101'R, Richard
Dudanski, who filled the kit briefly during the Metal Box sessions.
Keith Levene layers in Spanish Flamenco influenced guitar chords with
what sounds like organ flourishes (no, it's all guitar), while Lydon's
vocals swoop in, warbling and whooping through the song. "It should be
clear by now" that this is one of PiL's all time best songs. The single
mix is different from the Metal Box version, which inter-cuts two
different mixes together in an alternating back & forth oscillation.
The single version, however, sticks to the mix with the heavy bass,
driving it home all the way through.
The
B-Side features the track, Another, which would only be included on
Metal Box in a radically different instrumental mix called, Graveyard.
Wobble would also "steal" the backing track and remix it again for the
instrumental, Not Another, on his first solo album, The Legend Lives
On... Jah Wobble in "Betrayal". The vocal mix on the single is a
perfect match-up for the A-side, reinforcing the overall "haunted house"
vibe of the record.
The front
cover features a series of black & white photos of a moustache
wearing Lydon in a wedding scene to someone who looks like Jeanette Lee
(she looks too short to be Nora), with the scratches and saturation
making it look all worn and forgotten. The back cover is a shot of a
spiderweb covered oval mirror, reflecting the PiL logo, that was at
John's Gunter Grove house in London. It can also be seen on the front
cover of the Flowers of Romance single from 1981.
The
single would peak at #60 on the UK charts, but along with the previous
single, Death Disco, it would provide a tantalizing sneak peak at the
behemoth Metal Box album that was right around the corner.
2024-10-02
THE KINKS @ 60
Celebrating
its 60th anniversary today is the eponymous debut LP by The Kinks,
which was released on October 2nd, 1964. While not fully indicative of
the latent talents of the band, in particular the songwriting prowess of
leader, Ray Davies, it is at least the home of the band's first chart
topping single, You Really Got Me, a song that would become the
blueprint for garage rock, hard rock, heavy metal and punk rock in years
to come.
The band were founded
by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1963, coming together in London
around the same time as others of the looming "British Invasion",
rubbing shoulder to shoulder with bands like The Beatles, The Rolling
Stones and The Who. The group had signed to Pye Records, who were
initially frustrated by the band's failure to connect with its first
couple of singles. Both their cover of Little Richards' Long Tall Sally
and its follow-up, the Davies' original, You Still Want Me, were pretty
much ignored by DJs and record buyers, despite significant promotion.
After
those two strikes, the label gave them one more opportunity to hit a
home run, and they did so with You Really Got Me. Another Ray Davies
original, the hit version almost never materialized. After recording a
preliminary version, Ray Davies insisted on modifying the arrangement to
something slower and more raw. The label refused to stump up the cash
for the studio time, however, but Davies persisted until session
producer, Shel Talmy, broke the stalemate by underwriting the additional
session himself. The song was inspired by The Kingsmen's version of
Louie Louie, and was taken to another level by the innovative mutilation
of a guitar amp. Dave Davies took a pocket knife and put a slice into
the speaker cone of his amp, causing it to have a distinct buzzing
distortion. It was a sound that instantly gave the record an
idiosyncratic edge, sounding unlike any other guitarist out there. The
single, released in August of 1964, became a top ten hit in both the US
and UK. It's gone on to be widely considered the root for many of the
heavier branches of rock 'n' roll that grew from its inspiration. That
fuzzy distortion became intrinsic to the hard rock and metal sounds that
would proliferate in the following decades.
The
rest of the album, however, wasn't so blessed with as much distinction.
As was the standard of the time, being a new group meant that the
record company expected them to record mostly covers, rather than
original material. This is a situation all of the British Invasion
bands went through with their first recording efforts, which is why many
of those debut albums don't properly capture the true essence of a lot
of those bands, and this is certainly the case with The Kinks. Their
debut LP offers only a bare glimpse into the greatness that the band
would deliver once they were allowed to shine in their own light.
2024-10-01
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE @ 50
The film's promotion said that it was based on a "true story", but while the inspiration for some elements was derived from the notorious serial killer, Ed Gein, who committed his crimes in Wisconsin in the 1950s, the bulk of the story is predominantly fictional, with the assertion of being a "true story", in reality, functioning as a commentary on the manipulation of the press of the era. Media and political "spin" routinely covered up the truth of what was happening in and around the major events of the time, promoting often entirely false narratives. It was also a response to the callous detachment of mainstream journalism as it reported the horrors of the day. Thus, framing the film as "true" was a wink at the audience to consider the source and never take anything at face value.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was Tobe Hooper's third feature film, for which he was writer, director, composer, editor and cinematographer. For the production, he was working with a very tight budget of $140,000 ($700,000 adjusted for inflation). With the principal expenses focused on equipment rentals, the cast and crew were required to work 16 hour days, seven days a week, in order to maximize equipment usage. The entire film was shot in Texas, utilizing mostly unknown local talent for the cast.
Filming conditions were brutal during the shoot, with temperatures routinely topping 100°F, and no AC for any of the interior scenes. With practical effects utilizing actual animal carcasses for props and set dressings, in varying states of decay, including smearing real blood on the walls, plus the inability to launder costumes and masks, especially those used by Leatherface, for fear of losing continuity, the experience on set must have been exceptionally putrid! It was an experience that made many of the cast and crew "hate" Hooper by the end of the production, requiring years for some to fully forgive the trauma of being on that set.
Conceptually, the film is notable for introducing the trope of using power tools for murder weapons, with Hooper having conceived of the chainsaw angle while waiting in a long line at a hardware store one day, musing on what might be an effective way to "thin the queue". The set and setting for the story had been lingering in Hooper's mind for a few years before, dealing with the ideas of isolation, the woods, and darkness. As previously mentioned, notorious serial killer, Ed Gein was a key inspiration for the main characters, and Gein would be a recurring reference point in the genre in subsequent years, with films like Silence of the Lambs also tapping into that history.
Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface, in order to better represent his character, spent time in the classrooms of learning disabled children as a way to get into the mindset of someone who is not able to communicate properly with other people. On set, Hooper would coach him to ensure that he would be consistent in his use of gibberish, though Hooper would make sure Hansen understood the literal intent of what he was trying to say. This attention to detail helped to lend the character a humanizing depth, something that actually made him all the more horrifying by grounding him in a sense of plausibility.
While Hooper had actually refrained from using an excessive amount of gore, in the hopes of landing the film a PG rating, the film board still slapped it with an R, but that didn't seem to hurt the box-office returns, which given the modest investment, were ultimately spectacular. Though it was certainly a commercial hit, it also encountered significant backlash in some markets, with certain countries banning the film, outright. Critics were also split on its merits, with some finding its brutality simply too hard to tolerate, questioning the ethics of the producers, while others were impressed with the acting and the films technical execution.
The film became the next in line to redefine the horror genre, following Night of the Living Dead, as an astute social commentary smuggled in under the guise of low-brow exploitative entertainment. Its rendering of a perverse backwoods family resonates even today, maybe especially today, in the era of "MAGA". It shows this backwoods family living in a state of grotesquely diminished and distorted ethics and values, morphed into some kind of monstrous assault on morality. In the context of the film, they're discards from a capitalistic post-industrial manufacturing wasteland. They worked at a slaughterhouse, in an impersonal industrialized factory dedicated to the process of dehumanizing both the product and the people who worked there. In a similar way, the MAGA crowd are equally disenfranchised and dissociated from normal perceptions of right and wrong. In that sense, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an unsettling prediction of the decline of middle American values and ethics. Others have even interpreted it as a pro-vegetarian salvo, with its grizzly depiction of slaughter and meat being considered some of the best promotional material for vegetarianism around. Some have criticized the films abuse of women, with studies actually using the film as a test of male empathy. Whatever your interpretation, it's clear the movie has a depth of meaning that can be perceived from a variety of angles.
Ultimately, it has remained as a landmark in the genre of horror film making, establishing a number of different tropes in terms of how violence can be depicted and interpreted on screen. Personally, I consider it one of the essential films in the genre from that era, along with George Romero's previously mentioned Night of the Living Dead, and Sam Raimi's Evil Dead. I think those three films have a distinct hold on the reigns when it comes to pushing boundaries and setting standards in the domain of blood & guts film making.
THE MONKEES - PRESENT @ 55
Marking
its 55th anniversary today is the eighth and penultimate original
studio LP by the Monkees to be released during their initial
incarnation, with "Present" being released on October 1st, 1969.
The
full title of the album is "The Monkees Present Micky, David, Michael",
an indicator of the underlying concept that had been developed at the
album's inception. The original idea was that each member of the band
would be given a full side of an LP to do, essentially, whatever they
wanted, with the final product being something of a four-way split solo
collection in a double LP package.
While
the guys had come together into a rather serviceable garage band when
recording their 1967 Headquarters album, which was something of a
celebration of their freedom after the palace revolt that ousted musical
director, Don Kirshner, their subsequent efforts had seen them fragment
into increasingly independent and isolated creative silos, with each
member working on their own material, often with entirely different
musicians and producers. After the cancellation of their series and the
failure of their feature film, HEAD, record sales were slumping, and
the group's label had little interest in overseeing their work, which
created a situation that actually allowed them a tremendous amount of
creative freedom. With those conditions at hand, it made sense to
continue to work independently and give each member equal real estate to
express their musical ideas.
However,
by the time production of the album began, Peter Tork had departed,
taking his leave immediately after completing filming of their bizarre,
misguided 33 1⁄3 Revolutions per Monkee TV special, which aired on NBC
on April 14, 1969. Production ended on the special on December 20th,
which is when Tork bought out his contract, siting exhaustion. He was
given a gold watch to commemorate his retirement from the band. This
left the group as a trio, so the double LP format didn't balance out
anymore, and the decision was made to pair down the tracks to a single
LP release.
Excluding the
soundtrack to HEAD, the group's previous two album's had been something
of a mishmash of new recordings and material pulled from the band's vast
archive of older, unreleased recordings, including material from the
Kirshner days. This frugality somewhat obscured the fact that Peter's
presence was already lacking in the studio, even before officially
leaving the band. It also helped the band keep a bit of a presence on
the charts, with songs from their commercial peak still popping up on
their albums. But "Present" was composed of entirely fresh recordings
from the three remaining members, with only Nesmith's "Listen to the
Band" having prior exposure from being performed on the 33 1⁄3 TV
special. In effect, the band were at last performing without a net, and
relying on their current abilities and resources to make their artistic
statements.
What resulted from
their efforts, while nowhere near the infectious pop confections of
their past, was still an interesting and mature collection of songs.
Their popularity and cohesion as a band may have been on the wane, but
individually, they were creating some compelling music. Dolenz's song,
Mommy and Daddy, especially in its original lyrical form, was a hard
hitting political and social commentary, questioning how we're supposed
to bring up our children in a world full of strife and violence. While
it was severely muted on the final LP version, the original lyrics were
eventually released for the deluxe edition of the album, revealing their
true vitriol at the state of world affairs, referencing the Vietnam war
and the Kennedy assassination in the guise of a playful pop ditty. And
Nesmith's aforementioned Listen to the Band, would go on to become
something of a secondary theme song for the group in later years, as
aficionados matured and reassessments of their work smothered the
ridicule and replaced it with admiration, with subsequent generations
continually rediscovering the vastness of their canon of work and its
inherent quality.
Upon the
album's release, it was heavily promoted by their label, and saw the
group returning to TV as guest on a number of variety shows, like those
of Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash, and the group even briefly took up
residence in a spot on Hollywood Squares, where the trio got cozy in
their single cell. They also went on tour, backed by Sam & The
Goodtimers — a seven-piece R&B outfit. Perhaps it was a bit of an
odd combination, but those concerts were notable for the innovative used
of multimedia technologies, incorporating large screen projections of
clips from their show, an approach that would be revived when the group
reunited in the 2Ks to tour. But despite the promotion and exposure,
the ship had sailed on their popularity, and immediately after
completing the tour, Mike Nesmith departed to form his First National
Band. Micky and Davy soldiered on through one more LP, Changes, in 1970
before finally pulling the plug on the entire project.
Of
course, we all know that's not where this story ends, as the group went
through one revival and reunion after another, decade after decade, as
new generations of fans repeatedly rediscovered their TV series and
music. Though "Presents" may have seemed someone of a sad fading of
glory at the time of its release, in retrospect, it has managed to take
its place as a valued chapter in the band's musical history.