Joe Simon was an American singer who worked in the soul and R&B idioms. Well-known recordings are “The Chokin’ Kind” (1967) and “Drowning in the Sea of Love” (1971).
But I give you “Love Vibration” (1978) because Larry Levan used to played it at the Paradise Garage.
Be sure to also check “The Chokin’ Kind” for its interesting percussion. Morevoer, that song was written by Harlan Howard, the same songwriter who gave us country music favorite “No Charge”.
Dean Stockwell was an American actor, internationally perhaps best-known for lip syncing “Blue Velvet” (1951) in Blue Velvet (1986) with a lamp shining on his face.
Nino Castelnuovo was an Italian actor best-known for Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).
In my little universe, he is best-known for his part in Camille 2000 (1969).
Lee “Scratch” Perry was a Jamaican composer and producer known for such songs as “Bucky Skank” (1973).
He died and the last member of the holy trinity (Lee Perry, Sun Ra and Fela Kuti) of 20th century black musical “auteurs” is no more.
Perry was an Afro-futurist, Afro-humorist, Afro-dadaist and Afro-surrealist. He taught the world that a mixing desk could be used as a musical instrument.
There was a period in my life he was all I listened to. Album such as Blackboard Jungle Dub (1973), Super Ape (1976) and Return of the Super Ape (1978) were a on repeat and albums such as Cloak and Dagger (1973), Black Board Jungle Dub (1973), and Revolution Dub (1975), were, along with the work of King Tubby, the foundation of dub music.
My brother at one time owned nearly all of his albums.
An issue of Grand Royal by the Beastie Boys was dedicated to Lee.
His flying cymbal sound is as notorious as that of Bunny Lee.
He claims to have part in the authorship of many of the early Bob Marley and the Wailers songs.
What a loss. Not only for the reggae world but for the musical world at large. He was a visionary, the Sun Ra of reggae, saying stuff like:
“I see the studio must be like a living thing, a life itself. The machine must be live and intelligent. Then I put my mind into the machine and the machine perform reality. Invisible thought waves – you put them into the machine by sending them through the controls and the knobs or you jack it into the jack panel. The jack panel is the brain itself, so you got to patch up the brain and make the brain a living man, that the brain can take what you sending into it and live.”
He was a mad genius who wrote, how many songs? Many of them recorded on a four track system, but an incredibly spacious sound.
RIP mister Perry, this feels like a personal loss.
I wanted to do a more thorough write-up, but I only came up with this mixtape: Judge Dread (1967), People Funny Boy (1968), Pop Corn (1970), A Place Called Africa (1970), 400 Years (1970), African Herbman (1971), Mr. Brown (1971), Sun Is Shining (1971), Bucky Skank (1973), Justice to the People (1973), Kentucky Skank (1974), “Curly Locks” (1974), Doctor on the Go (1975), Woman’s Gotta Have It (1975), Chase the Devil (1976), Croaking Lizard (1976), Hurt So Good (1976), Super Ape (1976), White Belly Rat (1976), Zion’s Blood (1976), Big Muff (1977), City Too Hot (1977), Groovy Situation (1977), To Be a Lover (1977), Bafflin’ Smoke Signal (1978), Soul Fire (1978), Throw Some Water In (1978), Huzza a Hana (1978), I Am a Madman (1986).
K. Schippers was a Dutch poet (“Ja”), prose writer and art critic (Eb, 1992).
There are so many reasons to praise Schippers but I shall give only one. The magazine Barbarber (1958–71) which he co-founded and edited, introduced the nobrow sensibility to The Netherlands.
Nobrow means the appreciation and mixing of high and low culture, exemplified in the case of Barbarber on the high culture side by Duchamp, Satie, Schwitters and Carroll and at the low culture side by Krazy Kat, Laurel and Hardy, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly at the low end.
The word barbarber is a portmanteau of barbaar (barbarian) and rabarber (rhubarb).
Gianfranco D’Angelo was an Italian actor and comedian. In Italy known for television variety and comedy shows; outside of Italy for commedia sexy all’italiana such as Biancaneve & Co. (1982) and B-movies such as Mondo candido (1975) in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Mondo candido (1975) is an interesting product.
It is an Italian film in the acclaimed mondo genre directed by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi. The film is a liberal adaptation of Voltaire’s 1759 novel Candide.
It was partly shot on location at Château de Pierrefonds.
Researching Mondo candido, I find out that there is actually a book on shockumentaries: Sweet & Savage (2006) by Mark Goodall.
From that book on Mondo candido:
“He skips off back to the castle and we are back where we started on his metaphysical journey, older if not wiser. Although considered a failure, artistically and conceptually, Mondo Candido still enjoys a strange allure. There are still glimpses of the Jacopetti and Prosperi spirit in this unforgettable overblown, Technicolor indulgence.”
Check out the bibliography of Sweet & Savage. I’ve taken the liberty to put on my pages.
Robert Downey Sr. was an American film director and film person, father of Robert Downey Jr. He is known for having written and directed underground films such as Chafed Elbows (1966), almost entirely consisting of film stills; Putney Swope (1969), a satire on the New York Madison Avenue advertising world; and Greaser’s Palace (1972), an acid Western based on the life of Jesus. The films are typical of 1960s counterculture.
Antonio Salines was an Italian actor known for his parts in Monella, The Gamecock, and Senso ’45.
He is also the devil in Liebeskonzil (1982) which is available now in a German-only bad quality YouTube version.
Liebeskonzil (1982) is a film by Werner Schroeter, based on the scandal play The Love Council (1894) by Oskar Panizza.
The play [and the film] are set in 1495, during the first historically documented outbreak of syphilis.
It portrays the dreaded venereal disease as God’s vengeance on his sexually hyperactive human creatures, especially those surrounding Pope Alexander VI.
Panizza was charged with 93 counts of blasphemy and served his full 12-month sentence in prison.
Harold Budd was an American composer working primarily in ambient music.
His two collaborations with Brian Eno, 1980’s The Plateaux of Mirror and 1984’s The Pearl, established his trademark atmospheric piano style.
Update: it took a Facebook comment of David Toop to bring Budd’s best work to my attention:”Bismillahi ‘Rrahman’ Rrahim” (1975):
Budd’s track on the Marion Brown Vista album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjNqksj0mkk&ab_channel=ishimats
and Budd’s own recording of that track on The Pavillion of Dreams.
Fernando Solanas was an Argentine film director and politician, best-known for his film The Hour of the Furnaces (1968), which is a seminal document of the decolonization of the Americas.