KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER @ 50

 

Debuting in its weekly series format on September 13th, 1974, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, is marking its golden jubilee today at 50 years old. While the series only lasted a single season, it has since gained cult status, being cited by the likes of X-Files creator, Chris Carter, as a principal inspiration for his own iconic cult franchise.

Originating as a pair of wildly successful made for TV movies, The Night Stalker (1972), and The Night Strangler (1973), the series' first incarnation was actually in the form of an unpublished novel written by Jeff Rice called, The Kolchak Papers. Initially, the main protagonist was a Las Vegas newspaper reporter named Carl Kolchak, who tracks down and defeats a serial killer who turns out to be the vampire Janos Skorzeny. The novel gave Kolchak's birth name is "Karel", although he uses the anglicized version "Carl".

ABC approached Rice with an offer to option The Kolchak Papers, which was adapted by Richard Matheson into the television movie. The Night Stalker, first aired on January 11, 1972. It garnered the highest ratings of any television movie at that time (33.2 rating — 54 share). Matheson received a 1973 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best TV Feature or Miniseries Teleplay.

Following the success of the TV movie and its sequel, the novel was published in 1973 by Pocket Books as a mass-market paperback original, titled The Night Stalker, with a photo of star Darren McGavin on the cover in order to tie it to the film. With the success of the movies, ABC negotiated with Matheson and McGavin to create a series, with the later given unofficial executive producer status. However, neither ABC nor Universal had obtained novel author Jeff Rice's permission for the series, and he sued the studio. The suit was resolved shortly before the series aired, and Rice received an on-screen credit as series creator.

Also of note in the production of the series was David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, who worked on the series as a story editor, his first regular staff position in Hollywood. Though Chase is credited on eight episodes as story editor, he also helped rewrite the remaining 12. McGavin and others attribute much of the show's quirky humour to his creative input.

As the series evolved, it became a unique supernatural crime drama, with Kolchak's rumpled, gruff persona constantly at odds with his stressed-out publisher and disparaging co-workers. As he dealt with a wide variety of unusual phenomenon and creatures each week, it seemed like nothing he ever wrote got published due to the fantastical nature of his stories. It's a wonder he was able to retain any employment at all, given his incredible and unbelievable subject matter.

His personal life also seemed to be a total disaster, with hardly anything resembling a friend or romantic relationship ever taking any prominence in the series. Yet his isolation from the rest of humanity seemed to be perfectly appropriate for his idiosyncratic obsession with the bizarre and the unnatural. It's not at all surprising he'd be something of a loner, especially given the fact he only seemed to possess a single suite of clothes. He did have a pretty nice little Mustang for a car though. Still, he's the kinda guy who'd probably have fallen in with QAnon weirdos if he were around today.

As a kid, the series had an instant appeal for me. I remember being on the edge of my seat on numerous occasions as Kolchak narrowly escaped one bizarre predicament after another. The series was usually quite good at conjuring up dramatic tension when it came to putting him in tight squeezes. It's no wonder those who grew up with the show never forgot it.

During its initial run, the series was undermined by poor time slots, frequent changes in scheduling and irregular schedules, with hiatuses between clumps of episodes, and some episodes never even airing until the show was in syndication years later. Daren McGavin also had issues with his role within the series, becoming embittered by his lack of credit as executive producer, as well as a lack of financial compensation for his contributions in that role as well. With the lacklustre ratings for the series thrown on top of this, he declined to continue with the series and ABC pulled the show after one season.

Yet the show's impact would see it return in various incarnations and repackaging attempts, gaining a strong cult following when it was aired in late night. It has subsequently only grown in stature as its impact has become more pronounced in popular culture. As previously mentioned, The X-Files owes a huge debt to the series in terms of inspiration, with Chris Carter frequently integrating sly references into his series. He even planned to have McGavin reprise his Kolchak character for an episode, though McGavin refused to return for the role, albeit he did eventually agree to play the character of an FBI agent who had been an early investigator of the so-called "X-Files" department. Carter also incorporated a character in the X-Files revival in 2016 who wore Kolchak's trademark rumpled white suit and straw hat.

An attempt to reboot the series was made in 2005 by ABC, who still had rights to the Character, but low ratings saw the series vanish quickly. I've never seen any of those episodes, and didn't even know that it existed until I started research for this retrospective piece. In May 2012, Disney announced a film adaptation was in the works with Johnny Depp starring and producing, and Edgar Wright directing, but there doesn't seem to be much momentum on that lately, so who knows if its still in the works. It's the kind of property that could certainly be successful in a re-imagined version, if it had the right people behind it, with the proper backing, but for now, the original series is still floating around out there, currently streaming on AppleTV+, for those looking to discover its charms.

COIL - ANS @ 20

 

Released in September of 2004, Coil's sprawling ambient monolith, ANS, is marking its 20th anniversary this month. The primary release of the album consisted of a box set including three audio CDs and a DVD with abstract visual accompaniment. The initial run of the box set included art prints, though some purchasers, myself included, never received their art prints due to issues with manufacturing that were further complicated after the death of Jhon Balance in November of that year.

All sounds on the album were created utilizing the ANS synthesizer, "a photo-electronic musical instrument created by Russian engineer Evgeny Murzin from 1937 to 1957. The technological basis of his invention was the method of graphical sound recording used in cinematography (developed in Russia concurrently with USA), which made it possible to obtain a visible image of a sound wave, as well as to realize the opposite goal—synthesizing a sound from an artificially drawn sound spectrogram." It was built around half a century ago and still to this day sits where it was originally conceived; in the Moscow State University.

At the time of its recording, Coil consisted of Jhonn Balance, Ossian Brown, Peter Christopherson, Thighpaulsandra, and Ivan Pavlov, all of whom contributed to the creation of the album, to some degree, in terms of the creation of the etched transparent plates that were passed through the machine to create the album's sounds. None of the participants understood the exact mechanism for composition when it came to creating etchings, so they essentially created doodles that did not adhere to any fixed musical notation theory specific to the device. It was all a bit of an experiment to see what would happen. Images of the sound plates were included in the graphics package for the box set.

Prior to the full release of the box set, a single CD, identical in content to the first disc in the finished set, was issued in a limited edition, black clam-shell case version in 2003, which was sold at various live shows throughout that year, with the fully packaged box set issued in September of 2004. The album, while perhaps lacking in clear intent, offers up some interesting ambient tonalities. It's a bit like an abstract audio seance, conjuring sounds from the ether in a manner that yielded some unexpected and surprising results.

COIL - MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK VOL. 1 @ 25

 

Marking a quarter century on the shelves, at 25 years old this month, is Coil's Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 1, which was released in September of 1999. The album represented a striking thematic shift for the group and, despite its genesis within the womb of excessive drug use, manifested as some of the most cohesive and intentional music from that era of their existence.

Given the group was primarily the purview of two gay men, their initial conceptual focus was decidedly "solar", or masculine. Solar symbolism was frequently in play, whether it was the Black Sun logo, or the references to gold, an element distinctly connected to solar imagery, though both are also decidedly scatological in nature as well. Their 1984 debut EP release, How To Destroy Angels, was specifically dedicated to Mars and the "accumulation of males sexual energy", deliberately excluding and avoiding female influence as a matter of process. Yet with Musick to Play in the Dark, a realignment had occurred. Jhon Balance specifically announces on the album that this is "Moon Musick", aligning the group's focus with intentionally feminine energies, like tides and cycles of nature. The result in the music is something entirely more atmospheric and ephemeral than much of their prior work.

The album was recorded at a sprawling Victorian manor that Peter Christopherson had purchased in the coastal community of Weston-super-Mare in the UK. He and Balance had set up a recording studio in their new home, and the group, at this time, were augmented by Thighpaulsandra and Drew McDowall.

Their social scene was heavily involved with the consumption of large quantities of MDMA (Ecstasy), the semi-psychedelic party pill popularized by the rave scene of the preceding decade, so the process of recording was done in something of a barely remembered blur of intoxication. It's something rather perfectly captured in the album's opener, Are You Shivering, a reference to the distinct teeth chattering & grinding that occurs with sufficient indulgence in the aforementioned substance. If you've ever taken enough, you will recognize the sensations intimately.

Technically, they were working with some of the latest digital tools that were changing the shape of music making for electronic producers at the time, with Christopherson always keen to work on the cutting edge of the available tech, though there was some balance as well with the use of older gear. Advanced recording software like ProTools and more versatile and sophisticated samplers and synthesizers were combined with vintage gear, like their collection of old rhythm boxes and an Optigan, a keyboard from the 1970s which replaced their unwieldy and unreliable Mellotron and it's tape loops with a much more stable optical flexidisc sound library interface.

Given the nature of the substance abuse involve in the production of the album, one might expect them to have done the obvious thing and delved into the electronic dance music genre, inspired by their late nights at raucous rave-ups, but nothing could be further from the results that came about for this album. The style of the music was predominantly in the ambient vein, though with bizarre intersections through Krautrock influences, similar to early Tangerine Dream, or elements of cocktail jazz, spaced out and slowed down to capture the sense of deep, chill-out late-night altered state listening.

The Lunar conception for the album was intended to be pursued in a series of recordings, with a "Vol. 2" of Musick to Play in the Dark issued the following year, though these were both preceded by the Moon's Milk series of EPs, released in 1998. Collectively, these recordings represent Coil reaching a new peak of creative inspiration, and they have gone on to be valued as some of the group's most accomplished and effective works. They would also provide the momentum for them to take their unique sound on stage in the early 2000s, where they performed many of these pieces in concerts that have since become legendary. Most were documented on video and issued on the limited edition DVD box set, Colour Sound Oblivion.

Unfortunately, this era would be sadly abbreviated by the tragic accidental death of Jhon Balance in 2004, when he tumbled off a balcony in their aforementioned Victorian home. His struggles with substance abuse had taken their toll on both his physical and mental well-being, as well as his relationship with Christopherson, who had recently relocated to Thailand where he would remain based until his own tragic passing in December of 2010.

With both of the group's principal creatives now gone, there has been some confusion in terms of the plethora of reissues that have appeared and who, exactly, has the authority to manage their catalogue. Regardless, the group has left an astonishing canon of work in their wake, with this album sitting among the top of the heap in terms of its significance.

ZERO KAMA - THE SECRET EYE OF L.A.Y.L.A.H. @ 40

Released on cassette in September of 1984, the debut and only full studio album from Zero Kama, The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H., turns 40 years old this month. Subsequently reissued on vinyl in 1988, and CD in 1991, with a special edition remastered 30th anniversary edition in 2014, this might be the most sinister sounding album ever created. If any recording is capable of summoning "Evil Dead" style undead demons by playing it, this could be IT!

Austrian native, Michael Sperlhofer, later Michael Dewitt, now Zoe Dewitt, was an avid admirer of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV in the late '70s and early '80s, respectively. Dewitt engaged in frequent correspondence with members of both projects, especially Geoff Rushton (John Balance), before deciding to found the cassette label, Nekrophile Rekords, with the 1983 release of the compilation, The Beast 666. After initially working under the name, Korpses Katatonik, utilizing fairly standard tools such as tape loops and electronics, Dewitt began conceiving of something far more transgressive, leveraging an interest in occult practices, specifically those of Aleister Crowley and his Thelemic esoteric system. Rechristening their project as Zero Kama, Dewitt began making excursions to the mausoleums of the local graveyard, which were often poorly maintained, with minimal or no security, to procure raw materials for this new endeavour. Various skulls, leg and arm bones were collected, dried, cleaned and carved into a collection of ornately decorated percussion and wind instruments. It was a long process requiring painstaking and often grim preparation.

The resulting recordings created with these hand-crafted instruments, were nothing if not evocative of the most clandestine ritual music one could expect to find in the deepest darkest caverns of some obscure Satanic cult. Initially the identity of the creator of this music was kept a bit secret, which helped develop a mythology around the production of the music. Record collectors could only imagine the sorts of depraved ghouls who would put something like this together. Eventually, it would become common knowledge that Dewitt had been the sole creator of these recordings, likely keeping it quiet initially to avoid potential legal issues.

Since its initial release, the album has gone on to become somewhat legendary in avant-garde music circles as one of the more controversial products of the underground music scene. It inspired other artists like Metgubnerbone to go grave robbing for raw materials as well, though not as discretely since they did face legal blow-back from their actions. Dewitt would subsequently put on a couple of live performances as Zero Kama before withdrawing from pursuing the project any further, though in recent years, a revival has taken place. A lecture by Dewitt at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna on April 30, 2015, offered a detailed exploration of the creation of the album and its relationship to the broader spectrum of experimental music at that time. It is linked below and is well worth the time as a unique perspective on the scene.

 

LAND OF THE LOST @ 50

 

Debuting Saturday morning, September 7th, 1974, the classic children's adventure series, Land of the Lost, is marking its 50th anniversary today. Produced by Sid & Marty Kroft, creators of a string of live action Saturday morning puppet fantasies such as H.R. Pufnstuf (1969), The Bugaloos (1970), Lidsville (1971) and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973), Land of the Lost saw the pair shifting gears into a decidedly more mature and dramatic tone for this particular production. Though still leaning into the "stranger in a strange land" trope that had been the common thread through their previous work, this particular series left the surreal psychedelic fantasy creatures behind for something somewhat more realistic, albeit still otherworldly, with a more legitimate science fiction style structure, utilizing less puppetry and more stop motion animation.

Originally conceived by the uncredited David Gerrold, the premise of the show involved the journey of the Marshall family: father Rick, son Will and daughter Holly, who were mysteriously transported to some kind of alternate reality/time/planet, where dinosaurs still roamed alongside a primitive primate species, the Pakuni, and an enigmatic and antagonistic reptilian race, the Sleestak, who had devolved from highly technologically advanced ancestors. Particularly in its first of three seasons, the series focused on relatively sophisticated science fiction concepts, as the stranded Marshalls attempted to find a way home while learning about the strange domain where they found themselves trapped. Though the series was restricted to a minuscule budget by being Saturday morning kid's fair, the Kroft production team were able to recruit some serious genre writers to help with the scripts, including Star Trek luminaries like D.C. Fontana and Walter Koenig and other respected talent such as Larry Niven, Theodore Sturgeon, Ben Bova and Norman Spinrad. With this set of minds creating the stories, the first and second seasons were often surprisingly sophisticated in terms of the concepts being explored, particularly when they introduced the advanced remnant of the Sleestak race, Enik, who helped the Marshall family uncover the mysteries of the pylons and the ancient Altrusian technology for creating dimensional doorways, the means by which the family arrived in this "lost land".

The series lasted for three seasons, though the already limited production values suffered by cutbacks in the third, with the story sophistication giving way to more comical and childish themes. The cast also lost the father as Spencer Milligan quit the series over disputes regarding compensation, especially in relation to the merchandising of the characters for toys and other memorabilia. He was abruptly replaced by an uncle, who conveniently managed to stumble into the same dimensional doorway just ad poor dad gets sucked out. After its cancellation, it went on to be revived in syndication over the years, developing a strong cult following while becoming an iconic source of childhood nostalgia for the generation that grew up watching the series. It even had a successful big budget feature film remake in 2009, though with a decidedly comedic bent with Will Farrell staring as the father.

It was certainly a staple of my Saturday morning viewing when I was a kid, though I was just old enough to recognized its flaws in terms of its budgetary limitation. However, I always found the basic concepts of the fallen advanced civilization fascinating and worthy of more serious development. I could very definitely see this show succeeding with a reboot aimed at a more mature and sophisticated implementation.

THE SLITS - CUT @ 45

Celebrating its 45th anniversary today is the debut LP by The Slits, Cut, which was released on September 7th, 1979. It's an album that would highlight the core of the "girl power" substrata inherent in the punk and post-punk scenes of the era, with a collection of distinctive and innovative songs, influenced and infused by dub reggae and underlined by the DIY idiosyncrasies of the culture.

The band originally came together in late 1976 after founding members Viv Albertine and Palmolive had a stint earlier that year in the mythical Flowers of Romance, a band that never performed live or recorded, but which had a revolving door of notable members who included the likes of Keith Levene (The Clash, Public Image Ltd), Sid Vicious, Marco Pirroni (Adam & the Ants, Siouxsie and the Banshees) and Kenny Morris (also a Banshees member). The impetus for The Slits formation was an October 1976 Patti Smith gig attended by Ari Up, Palmolive and early member, Kate Korus. Ari had got into an argument with her mum, future wife of John Lydon, Nora Foster, before being approached by Palmolive and Kora with the idea to form a band. After an initial lineup shuffle, the principal early lineup stabilized with Ari, Viv, Palmolive and Tessa Pollit.

This configuration of the group spent the next couple of years performing and touring, mostly as a support act, often with bands like The Clash, Buzzcocks or The Jam as headliners. Their early sound was characterized by the dominance of Palmolive's primal, tribal aggressive drumming style. However, after she left the group late in 1978, joining The Raincoats by January of 1979, the addition of future Banshees drummer, Budgie, had a profound effect on the band's sound. His style helped to push them into the more refined, bass heavy dub reggae influenced sound that would be their calling card by the time they got to recording their debut LP.

Recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in Rusper and produced by Dennis Bovell, the album was a proper fusion of punk and reggae, two musical styles which had intertwined throughout the previous few years, without being a case of cultural appropriation. What the group took as influence was a sincere hybridization, rather than a case of white people ripping off black music. It had its own originality and distinction that was completely idiosyncratic to The Slits. Provocatively packaged in a cover showing the band's female members topless, covered in mud and sporting loincloths, it was a thumb in the eye to the concept of sexual exploitation and, rather, was a proclamation of female empowerment, with the album's title, as it was, being but one letter shy of obscenity. These girls weren't anyone's playthings or victims, and were in complete control of their creative process and what it manifested.

Cut's mark has been noted on several musical movements. The Guardian's Lindesay Irvine saw the album explore "adventurous" sonics while maintaining a "defiant" attitude. This included a full embrace of Jamaican music influences, with which he credited the Slits as one of the first bands to do so. Indeed, PopMatters felt that Cut spoke to post-punk's appropriation of dub and reggae clearer than any other of the genre's records. While only modestly successful at its release, it has become enshrined as one of the essential albums to have come from the UK punk scene of the late 1970s. It may have taken some time for the band to get a record on the shelves, but it sure was worth waiting for.
 

PHASE IV @ 50

 

Celebrating its 50th anniversary today is the classic science fiction macro-photography masterpiece, Phase IV, which had its theatrical release on September 6th, 1974. Inspired by an H.G. Wells short story from 1905, Empire of the Ants, the film featured groundbreaking cinematography of its insect stars, and may have provided the instigation for the crop circle phenomenon to boot!

The idea for Phase IV was apparently hatched over cocktails in 1971, when Peter Bart at Paramount had dinner with Raul Radin and asked him, "What's cooking?" Radin responded, "an ant story", though he actually had nothing. Radin subsequently called graphic designer, Saul Bass, who had a friend who worked with ants and they quickly agreed to work together. Bass was hired as the film's director, though he was mostly known as a graphic artist, creating title and credit sequences and posters for feature films, with a list of credits that included such major releases as Psycho, Spartacus, Ocean's 11, West Side Story, and dozens of others. Ken Middleham, the wildlife photographer who shot the insect sequences for Phase IV, also shot the insect sequences for the documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle. Both feature extensive use of macro-photography of insects.

The film tells the story of an isolated research station in Arizona that comes under siege by a colony of mysteriously evolved intelligent ants. This hive mind organism begins creating megalithic architectural structures in the desert and engaging in tactical assaults on the research station in response to its various provocations and experiments. The activities of the ants are depicted in striking macro-photography scenes, where real ants are shown performing a variety of seemingly intelligent behaviours, many of which beg the question of how they were coaxed to perform so perfectly on cue. There's even a scene where the ants create a crop circle, the first known appearance of such a construct on screen. The film predates by two years the first modern reports of crop circles in the United Kingdom and it has been cited as a possible inspiration or influence on the pranksters who started this phenomenon. Though the setting is in the US, actual principal photography was done at Pinewood Studios in England and exterior locations were shot in Kenya. In addition to the spectacular insect photography, the film is also notable for featuring real computer systems, like the GEC 2050, rather than faked props.

While the film was a solid flop in its theatrical release, it began accumulating a cult audience as it made its way onto TV movie night broadcasts, and further solidified its cult standing by being featured in an early episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Contemporary critical reviews were mixed, with Jay Cocks of Time saying the film was "good, eerie entertainment, with interludes of such haunted visual intensity that it becomes, at its best, a nightmare incarnate", while A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote, "For all of its good, scientific and human intentions, 'Phase IV' cries for a Phase V of fuller explanations." Perhaps it didn't help that an extended ending montage showing the post-revolution impacts of the new "ant empire" was chopped out of the final edit for the theatrical release and lost for decades before being rediscovered and included as bonus material on later HD remastered discs and streaming releases. As a result of its box office failure, it was the only feature Saul Bass ever directed.

I saw the film as a kid on TV in the mid 1970s and immediately fell in love with it. The idea of an evolved, intelligent hive-mind ant colony was a totally unique conception for me, long before the Borg would appear on Star Trek, and it remains a theme that has stood the test of time quite well. I've recently watched it again in a lovely HD version and it retains a maturity and sophistication that make it an essential title in the realm of '70s science fiction classics. The astounding insect photography alone is worth the price of admission, and a cracking good story to boot makes it all a worthy viewing experience.