New York Fever

Well me and Mrs Pontiac and are back from the Big Pork and can confirm that after a long and deep nights sleep recovering from a return to Scottish time, we are showing no signs of the three-way we had with Miss Piggy.

So no bacon flu yet but a lot of good memories and slick shopping stays with us. Of course this is all about holiday to New York where the mantra was "we will not retread" and "we want to visit 'New' New York." And pretty much we managed that.

Main tourist spots where side stepped and new corners missed last time where exploited to the fullest. We did the lower east side, alphabet city, coney island, williamsburg, brooklyn heights, fort greene, chelsea etc etc. You get the point.

The highlights.........

1) Is That Bruce Springstein?
While lining up to get into a comedy club everyone was sitting or standing on the sidewalk waiting for the doors to open. Suddenly we hear a few muffled screams, hoops and movement. Is it a comedy star like Steve Guttenberg or a movie star like Steven Guttenburg? The screams got louder and the queue parted as if Moses himself was parted it. Out of the gloom charged a pretty big rat racing at me!!!!...or near me. As I jumped up into Mrs Pontiac's arms, Pussy (as we later named the rat bastard), dashed into some nearby shrubbery.

2) Sunday Service
Until Sunday I had never been on a rollercoaster. But we took a trip to Coney Island to escape the record breaking heat of the city and I had a wee look at the Cyclone and thought, "hey its small and got some wooden bits...how bad can that be??"



Well I am not in a rush to go on another. My scrambled eggs went up and down i perfect symmetry to to the ride, the wheels where square, the corners right angles. Mummy.

3) We're All Gonna Die
American TV is worth a holiday in itself. Swine Flu, adverts for immortality drugs, murderers, Swine Flu, out of control children, Swine Flue and things coming up, up, up!

4) Western Wet Dream
I got to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at an open air drive-in style event by a sun soaked Hudson River. Excellent.

5) The Chelsea Star Hotel
Great hotel. Great staff. Great Location. Great drunken jakes across the street each morning letting the world know what was what. Great room. See the pic below. each room had a theme and ours was the Wizard of Oz.



There is more. Tomorrow I will post details of the stars we saw and I how excited that made us. One is a genuine cinema legend.

Bleep, Bleep, Crunch, Scratch & Wirl

Not sure when it happened. It started before I had my own taste, i know that for sure. It has sometimes been an obsession. Sometimes it just lies about in the dusty attic of brain. But every once in a while its steps forward.

No, not my invisble friend, Harry Fercklesteinbergblum, but my fascination of electronic beat/bleep-scapes. Be it the sound u-zip, Luke Vibert, Tom Jenkinson, Richard James, Vadim and the mountain of records I picked up in the late 90s searching for the new chunk of electronic junk, its very apparent inaccessbility is its sweetest sound. Finding a moment where you hear a sound you aint heard in a record before is a discovery worth waiting for.

So to the new album from Prefuse 73. Just like Dan Deacon I am not in a position to give a biography of the guy or even historical background to his musical devlopment but I have....or had a few of his albums lying around the flat or PC. While they were more conventional (in the sense of accessibility rather than experimental adventure), his new album Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian plays like an epic electronic track broke into smaller electrons known as tracks.

I have not had the time to sit and listen to in one session but heard most of it while getting ready last week and with the exception of a harpsichord-like sound that I can do without, it is triumph in random electronic inchoherent coherency (I should have worked for Muzik magazine!!). Not many tracks that would make sense alone but I have added a couple below for your enjoyment/interest.

Prefuse 73 - Regato

Prefuse 73 - Natures Uplifting Revenge

For Mr & Mrs Chivas

VOGUE!!!!!

Goodbye Film Memories, Hello....Music?

I will not pretend to know a lot about Dan Deacon.

I am aware from the blog the blog grapevine that his noises are experimental, electronic, childlike and dance conscious. I know his live shows are meant to awesome-o. And I know his new album and pretty sweet.

Bromst is his latest album and I've been enjoying it the last few weeks. It's hard to pin down what it's like. At times you feel you've stumbled across a gem from Warp as there is tastes of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin in there. But there are not, if any, dark edges or shadows that the aforementioned couple use to such disorientating effect. Sometimes it feels like a lullaby for a 22 Century kid deep in a techno induced coma. It's a lot of fun. And at times it's a little exhausting but in terms of quality electronic noises, voices and beats I would recommend visting it.

Dan Deacon - Red F

Here is a wee example of Deacon's live experience......

Now Post-Apocalyptic 75

Well I think I have made it clear how important and how much I enjoyed the midnight hour movie treats of pre cable tv. All the channels chipped in. Even Channel Five.

So before I move onto to playing some new music I have been listening to and my latest obsessions, I have one more film to give a big olde clut shout out.

Now sci-fi is a genre I can take or leave. For me it seems hard that a genre that demands such an expression of imagination can throw up so many tepid visions of our future or aliens that are human but with a third ear.

However, one sub-genre of sci fi I have always had an interest in is the Post Apocalyptic vision of the future. Films such as Delicatessen, Hardware, The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Logan's Run, Mad Max 2, Plant Of The Apes, Day Of The Dead, 1984, Death Race 2000, Esacape From New York and Rollerball.

Now I know some might say that some of those are Dystopias. But I aint going there. Like I said I like these films, I don't obssess over them.

My favourite Post Apocalyptic (love that word) movie has to be A Boy And His Dog. Starring a yougn Don Johnson and directed by Peckinpah stock actor LQ Jones its the story of earth after World War Four. Walking through the nuclear desert and amongst the savage remnants of humanity is Don and his dog. His dog and him can talk telepathically. A side effect of the radiation. Don finds food. The dog warns of danger and seeks out women. And in this vision the women are not for companionship or babies. As the film develops we meet an insane community based on Philip Sousa, marching bands and town hall meetings that meet out capital punishment. I don't need to say anymore.

I have included the original trailer below and then the re-release trailer. Why two? No idea but I would the guess the incoherent marching band music, flashing images and lack of narrative meant nobidy understood it. It certainly does not mention the talking dog.

The Last American Hero

Been a while since the last post but want to keep the theme of late night movie treasures going on and since the last post there has only been one movie I have wanted to talk about.

Vanishing Point.

Starring Barry Newman (TV's Petrocelli) this existential descent through the repressive urges and progressive fractures of Nixon's America seen through the destructive eyes of Kowalski, a guy whose American Dream has left him trying to drive from Denver to Frisco in 24 hrs with only a big bag of speed, a disc jockeys words and memories of loss. I know I really pretentionised that right up but my god this is a great film. Booming soundtrack. Car chases. Easy Rider's dream turned nightmare theme. A hero.

Check out the trailer below. I saw this on the Mark Cousin's shift as Moviedrome presenter. Instantly and just like a first listen to Neil Diamond, you say 'how did i live without this???'



And as an extra treat here is a couple of the tracks from the soundtrack. The first is followers one of the more manic car chases while the second gets us ready for the inevitable. Sorry that the rips are little poor.

The J.B. Pickers - Freedom of Expression
Segarini & Bishop - Over Me