INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - LED ZEPPELIN, PRESENCE

While we're on the subject of influential albums and their covers, I wanted to talk about one of my favorites from one of the most important design houses of the 1970s, Hipgnosis. Hipgnosis was stared in 1968 by friends Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell. The duo was later joined in the mid 1970s by a young Peter Christopherson, who would go on to gain acclaim and recognition making his own music as a member of Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Coil and Soisong, as well as releasing solo work as Threshold Houseboys Choir.

Hipgnosis was responsible for many of the most iconic covers of the decade, working with the likes of Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel and Led Zeppelin, just to name a few. It's their 1976 cover for Led Zeppelin's Presence which I want to bring to your attention today. 

 

One of the common traits of Hipgnosis covers, which always drew me to them, was that they usually had some sort of subversive "twist" to them. They were generally photo-real artworks that often relied on in-camera effects to create their surreal auras, though they would also use collage cut-&-paste techniques, something common with Photoshop these days, but much more demanding back then when it was done with physical photographs, blades and glue.

The "hook" with the Presence LP cover was the "object". Designed by Christopherson, it was an enigmatic looking black twisting obelisk type form that appeared to defy normal geometry. Its shape and proportions looked to be at odds with physical space and the cover depicted it in a variety of seemingly benign, mundane contexts of superficial, idyllic mid-century, middle class life. Yet its presence in these scenes lends each of them a nebulously sinister edge. It's obtuse, but it sinks in, almost subliminally, suggesting some kind of conspiratorial plot is taking place. Like some sort of "invasion of the body snatchers" scenario, normality is being subverted here. 

 

I recall seeing this in the shops and being constantly drawn to it. I'd stare at the photos and try to imagine what could be going on. Why was this thing in all these pictures? What was it? What did it do? Its blackness and confounding shape only implied something nefarious. A truly ingenious concoction for an album cover. The record itself wasn't Zeppelin's best, though I find it often unfairly criticized as I quite like most of it, but it's a cover that stays with me after all these years contemplating that "object" and its mysterious purpose...

FORGOTTEN FILM - RIDERS OF THE STORM

Here's a forgotten movie from the 1980s that should get more attention.  I watched this one several times after my first viewing because it was so unexpected and subversive.  It's about a crew of former vets who fly around in an old B-52 bomber fitted out with a mobile pirate TV station and they go around the US jamming local broadcasts and inserting their own counterculture programming.  The captain of this airship is played brilliantly by Dennis Hopper and they go up against a nasty Republican, proto Sarah Palin type presidential candidate.  It's a fantastic stoner movie as the scenes where they jam out local TV shows (like evangelical shows suddenly being interrupted by some Satanic dude with rats crawling all over him) are pretty psychedelic.  The anarchic message of this movie couldn't be more timely, so if you ever come across it, don't miss out!

FORGOTTEN FILM - RETURN TO OZ

I've always had a thing for kids films that aren't really appropriate for kids.  Willy Wonka always appealed to me like that.  When Disney released Return to Oz in 1985, it was pretty quickly savaged by critics and audiences ran the other way.  It was something of a sacrilege in most people's minds, especially if they were fans of the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie, of which they assumed "Return" was meant to be a sequel. 

I remember seeing this on the bottom shelf or the kids section in the video store for some time and every time I walked by it, I heard this little voice, much like the chicken in the movie, beckoning me to pick it up and rent it.  I finally convinced some friends to give it a shot and we went back to the viewing pad and proceeded to get stupidly high before putting it on.  No one knew what to expect, but I was nestled up against my oversized pillow on the floor, gooned to the gills and ready for anything.  I was not disappointed! 

It didn't take long for the eeriness of this film to kick in and I was also immediately struck by the performance of Vancouver native, Fairuza Balk, in her big screen debut.  She was only 10 years old at the time, but there was a maturity and wisdom in her performance that took her out of any kind of childishness.  She wasn't a "dumb kid" in any sense and that made me love her character right off the bat. 

Then the antagonists of the story start to show themselves and they bring this dark brooding quality along with them.  There is no singing and dancing in this movie either, but there is a real sense of menace and malevolence.  However, this is all balanced by the arrival of Dorothy's traveling companions, none of whom were familiar characters.  There is the talking chicken, the mechanical soldier, the pumpkin head and the moose with a sofa body.  Each one distinctive and with an appealing nature that makes you care about them. 

The film is bursting throughout with wonderful visuals and amazing clay animations of the villainous rock gnomes.  The Wheelers, while absurd, are also psychotically terrifying and the maleficent Mombi, with her rotating cabinet of stolen heads, offers one of the most unsettling Disney villains ever.

In all, it's got nothing to do with the beloved classic film and must be considered entirely in its own right as a separate creation with its own merits.   It's a film I own on DVD and can (and have) watch over and over and I get goosebumps whenever I see it.  If you don't know it and you appreciate "fantasy" that falls between the cracks of what's considered adult vs children's entertainment, you can't go wrong with this classic.

FORGOTTEN FILM - THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD

Guy Madden is Canada's answer to David Lynch and has created an often brilliant, though just as often, baffling filmography.  One of his films which has stood out for me the most over the years is his wonderful 2004 feature, The Saddest Music in the World.  It's a surreal, faded memory of a depression era contest organized by a beer baroness in Winnipeg to find the "saddest music in the world".  The contest is organized In honor of Winnipeg being named the "sorrow capital of the world" for the Depression era for the fourth year running by the London Times.  The competition and its $25,000 prize draw contestants from all over the world who enter into an Olympics style set of elimination rounds to inflict the most morose melodies upon their audience.  The film stars the fabulous Isabella Rossellini as the glass-legged baroness and Kids in the Hall alumnus, Mark McKinney, as her nefarious love interest.  The film is shot to look like a period piece of the 1930s, grainy and worn and the musical machinations which run afoul during the contest lead to great conflict and controversy.  It's all incredibly strange and run through with a morose sense of humor.

FORGOTTEN FILM - THE COMPANY OF WOLVES

Long before Inception broke people's brains with its nesting of recursive realities, an odd little twisting of the Little Red Riding Hood fable did very much the same thing.  This fairy tale works its magic by telling its story as a dream within a dream within a dream. 

The Company of Wolves was director Neil Jordan's 1984 fantasy examination of the taboos around sexuality and the coming of age, cleverly woven around the Red Riding Hood fairy tale of a young girl, a missing granny and a voracious wolf.  The film features the legendary Angela Lansbury as the mono-brow admonishing grandmother, warning her granddaughter to "Never trust a man who's eyebrows meet in the middle". 

The film is notable for some fairly advanced special effects for the time, with some transition sequences only rivaled by American Werewolf in London.  It also has some brain twisting scenes of decadence, such as the banquet where all the upper class guests morph into savage, ravenous beasts.

If you're looking to "stray from the path" and enjoy a mind warping interpretation of a classic genre film, you can't go wrong here, but don't mistake this for a family movie.  Its themes reach very much into adult oriented content.

FORGOTTEN FILM - ORGAZMO

In 1997, the same year South Park debuted, creator, Matt Stone, also put out an odd little comedy feature film about a hapless Mormon bible student who gets swept up in the seedy world of pornographic films and ends up bringing his on screen character to life as an honest to goodness sexual superhero.  Along with his diminutive, but scientifically potent sidekick, ChodaBoy, this dynamic duo thwart the criminal aspirations of their nefarious film producers behind the camera of their salacious cinema.

I've seen this a few times and own it on DVD and, from the very first viewing, I was hooked on all the outrageous stunts Parker manages to pull off with his limited budget.  This is one of those films that deserves cult status and endless airings a midnight movie houses.  There are quotable lines, costumes to covet and characters to emulate all over the place.  This really would make a great Rocky Horror style revival if the right crowds could get behind it. 

Parker, as well as writing and directing, stars as the lead and does his duty as the diligent straight man throughout.  He's reserved and righteous in just the right amounts and I am certain there are elements of this that he kept cribbed for recycling years later in Book of Mormon.  And it all holds up well over time and with repeat viewings.  Throw in a few cameos from porn legend, Ron Jeremy (for sheet cred.) and you've got everything you need for a proper cult classic.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUMS - JAH WOBBLE'S BEDROOM ALBUM

In the 40 years I've been recording my own music, I've NEVER worked in a professional recording studio.  The only time I ever did anything in one was to help with some production on some demos for a friend's band.  My own music has always been recorded at some kind of facility in my home or the home of someone else. 

Released in 1983, Jah Wobble's Bedroom Album was a complete validation of that DIY aesthetic and set of creative values.  Recorded on basic 4 channel gear, literally in the bedroom of Wobble's flat, the album demonstrates that someone with pretty much the exact same setup as I had at the time, could create and release an album on their own record label.  It's a powerful statement of intent and ability by a creative force who's spent his entire career successfully paving his own road.