Pink Floyd - Live at Pompeii (1971)

 for decades, Pink Floyd live has been an eye-popping spectacle... huge arenas packed to the gills with thousands of people, inflatable pigs flying around, and one of the largest laser/light shows ever put together.  but in 1971, prior to the release of Dark Side of the Moon, Floyd had not yet taken off to those kinds of heights.  Bassist Roger Waters, guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason, and keyboardist Richard Wright had only a few years earlier reinvented themselves after their beloved leader, Syd Barrett, went AWOL and became one of rock music's most notorious acid casualties.  Pink Floyd had just written and recorded Meddle, an album that marked a turning point for the band with their first true epic masterpiece, the nearly 24 minute "Echoes," a song which pointed the band in the direction of their most famous work that would follow.   in the fall of that year, director Adrian Maben brought the band to an ancient Roman amphitheater in the ruins of Pompeii, the Italian city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, and with an audience consisting of only the film and sound crew,  void of any stage set up or extraneous lighting or props, Pink Floyd turned in a mesmerizing and haunting set.  when compared to the large scale, big budget tours that would follow, this stripped-to-the-core performance has an eerie, almost ghostly feel.  some live footage was later performed and filmed in a studio in Paris and edited together with the Pompeii footage for a theatrical release in 1972.  additional behind the scenes footage of the band in the studio recording Dark Side of the Moon was added for an extended release in '74.  In 2003 Maben released a director's cut which unnecessarily included computer generated effects and NASA footage to fluff it's length even more.  this "director's cut" is available everywhere on dvd, and if you pick it up, which i highly recommend, be sure to go straight to the original film which is hidden away in the special features section and bypass the extended cut. 


Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii  is one of the great classic rock performances of all time, capturing the band within that brief and pivotal post-Barrett, pre-Dark Side moment.

NOTE:  the Beastie Boys famously paid tribute to Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii with their video for "Gratitude" from their Check Your Head album in 1992.  check it out HERE


NOTE:  it looks like the original version has been scrubbed clean from the interwebz at the moment, the only version i can find is the directors cut.  i refuse to link that one.  hopefully a new upload will come soon.


Pink Floyd - LIVE AT POMPEII - 432Hz from Rebb on Vimeo.


the Dark Side behind the scenes and interview footage from the '74 edition is not included in the original cut, so check that out here.

Head Medicine's Museum of International Comic Art

Head Medicine's Museum of International Comic Art is a continuing online resource highlighting the finest artwork from the world's premier comic book illustrators.  much of this work is long out of print or never before available in the United States.

here is a sample of the collection so far with links to the complete stories.

"The Actress and the Bishop: The Thing In the Shed" by Brian Bolland (2004)

 

"Wolff" by Esteban Maroto (1971)

"Werewolf!" by Frank Frazetta, written by Archie Goodwin (1964)

"Purple Pictography" by Vaughn Bode and Berni Wrightson (1971)

"The Fix" by Pepe Moreno (1980)

"Heads" by Arthur Suydam (1980)

"The Fall of the Towers" by Caza (1976)

 

"Creeps" by Jim Severin and Wally Wood, written by Archie Goodwin (1968)

 

 

"The Time Zuck Company" by Zeljko Pahek (1990)

 

 

"Miedo" by Albreto Brechia (1978)

"Tap Dancing On a Tender Cerebellum" by Alex Nino (1978)

Aeon Flux (dir. Peter Chung - Liquid Television shorts 1991-92)

in 1991 and '92, Aeon Flux first appeared as a series of six wordless short films on Liquid Television, Mtv's animated anthology.  Peter Chung's bizarre sci-fi vision was drenched in kinky sexuality and violence, and popped off the screen like nothing else at the time.  The dramatic figures were always contorted into spidery Egon Schiele-style poses, Chung's boldly surrealist style of storytelling always kept the viewer engaged but disorientated, and the animation still crackles with pure electricity 20 years later.  a masterpiece.

later, Aeon Flux evolved into an even stranger thirty minute weekly series on Mtv, complete with dialogue and a wider and more complex storyline, but those episodes do not hold a candle to the initial six short films.

Aeon Flux - Pilot. 01 from muhgre on Vimeo.

Aeon Flux - War. 02 from muhgre on Vimeo.

Aeon Flux - Gravity. 03 from muhgre on Vimeo.

Aeon Flux - Leisure. 04 from muhgre on Vimeo.

Aeon Flux - Mirror. 05 from muhgre on Vimeo.

Aeon Flux - Tide. 06 from muhgre on Vimeo.

Flat Duo Jets

Flat Duo Jets were a peel-the-paint-off-the-walls bloozy rocknroll punk band from Chapel Hill, NC and later Athens, Georgia. Singer/guitarist Dexter Romweber and drummer Chris "Crow" Smith were an anomaly in the 80's and 90's with their rowdy Buddy Holly and Carl Perkins on amphetamines sound, but their music was an obvious influence on the early 2000's garage rock revival that came later, led by The White Stripes and The Black Keys.  Flat Duo Jets had more in common with the North Mississippi blues men of the time,  R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, and later the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion than anything else going on around them.

they were known as an extraordinary live band,  relentless in their search for pure rocknroll goodness.  here are a couple of interesting archival clips that give a glimpse into these performances.




here is a full live performance from '96. the sound quality is acceptable at best, but it's nevertheless a pretty compelling performance



here's a documentary on Dexter Romweber and his journey with the Flat Duo jets and his struggles afterwards.

Melvins - Lysol (1992 Boner Records)

The pinnacle of psychedelic sludge metal.  monolithically heavy, like the churning primordial ooze.  side one opens with the 18 minute epic "Hung Bunny" and "Roman Dog Bird"...  a droning guitar intro slowly evolves and solidifies and transforms into a brain pounding war dance before breaking apart into a warped gas huffin' hallucination...  it's pretty much the heaviest thing ever recorded.  side two takes a left turn with a slowly grinding cover of "Sacrifice" by Flipper,  and an inspired  take on Alice Cooper's "Second Coming/Ballad of Dwight Fry".   "With Teeth" brings things back around to the album's opening drone, but the guitars are different now, the oppressive heaviness has been lifted and the music is actually radiating.  Buzzo is at his most optimistic with the lyric, "I know it's not very evil/ but you've just got to learn to let it go/Sometimes when the heart beats wide you can take it on the doves." in typical Melvins fashion, gravity eventually takes over.  the light beams get sucked into the black hole and the song falls in on its own weight. 

Lysol was recorded in one week in 1992.  King Buzzo - guitar/vocals, Dale Crover - drums, Joe Preston - bass.  they were forced to change the name of the album after Lysol filed a trademark protest, so early pressings were sent out with black tape over the title.  later printings omitted the title.






Lysol begs to be synched up with footage of the Hand of God raining blows down upon humanity's head, so turn the volume down on this and let it roll over you