Can - Tago Mago

Can - Tago Mago Spoon - Music - Gema LC 7395
Holger Czukay/bass; Michael Karoli/guitar; Jaki Liebezeit/drums; Irmin Schmidt/keyboards; Damo Suzuki/vocals

“Can formed in 1968, featuring two former students of avant-garde classical composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, a former free-jazz drummer interested in math, a rock'n'roll guitarist 10 years younger than the others, and an American sculptor living in Europe in order to evade the draft. Keyboardist Irmin Schmidt had visited America in 1966, hooking up with the Fluxus musicians (Terry Riley, La Monte Young, et al.) and becoming inspired to form a rock band. He and bassist Holger Czukay (who would issue 1969's Canaxis, which used primitive sampling technology) were keen to incorporate experimental composition and compositional theories into a rock setting, and when Czukay's student Michael Karoli turned them onto Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles, the band's fate was sealed.”

Can in 1972: Holger Czukay, Damo Suzuki, Michael Karoli, Irmin Schmidt, Jaki Liebezeit. Link

“1971's Tago Mago saw Can stretching out into the beyond, and it was their first full-length studio record to feature Suzuki. "Aumgn" and "Peking O" are the most experimental tracks in the Can catalog, sharing more in common with the irreverent electronic music of Stockhausen or Pierre Henry than most anything related to rock-- Ummagumma was a possible exception. Of course, when the epic "Halleluwah" starts with Liebezeit's industrial strength funk pattern before winding through dark, echo-chamber ambience and minimalist drone (while never letting you forget those drums), the detours seem a lot less harrowing. The shorter songs, like the gray, faintly ominous "Paperhouse" or the flawless funk and dark impressionism on "Mushroom", are merely smaller pieces of the band's most exotic pie.” Info from Pitchfork.com and The Freak Zone.

Visit Can & Spoon Records

This week Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone on BBC 6 presented a 3 hour show on ‘Krautrock’ (or Kosmische Musik if you prefer) and featured an hour with Julian Cope (author of the excellent and highly recommended ‘Krautrocksampler’). Tago Mago by Can was the featured LP, but Faust, Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, La Dusseldof, and Eloy all put in appearance, as did a few surprises.

You can still listen to the show for the rest of this week HERE.

Brian Eno made this odd little 60 sec. video to honour Can:

Mad Monster Party(?)

Frank Frazetta poster Link

"From Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, the creators of such disturbing "animagic" fare as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the unintentionally terrifying Frosty the Snowman comes 1967's Mad Monster Party, a sort of Jay Ward Lite stop-motion revue featuring the vocal talents of Boris Karloff (shudder) and Phyllis Diller (shudder) as well as Allen Swift doing his best Jimmy Stewart, Peter Lorre, and Bela Lugosi."

Francesca by Bruce Timm

"It seems that venerable Dr. Frankenstein (Karloff) has decided to hang up his mad-scientist frock after reaching the pinnacle of his profession: a potion that causes "complete destruction" in a suspiciously nuclear cloud of smoke. Hoping to choose a successor among his Universal Classics brethren, Dr. Frankenstein invites Dracula, the Wolfman, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and his own stable of Igor, Frankenstein's Monster, and some red-headed bombshell [Francesca-above] who does a nice tango with Drac, to Evil Island and the eponymous party."

Quotes from Walter Chaw @ Flim Freak Central

Apparently both Forrest J. Ackerman & Harvey Kurtzman contributed to the 'screamplay'!

Watch the trailer:

Cannibal Polar Bears

Art © Frank Frazetta

Polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea may be turning to cannibalism because longer seasons without ice keep them from getting to their natural food, a new study by American and Canadian scientists has found. The study reviewed three examples of polar bears preying on each other from January to April 2004 north of Alaska and western Canada, including the first-ever reported killing of a female in a den shortly after it gave birth.

Polar bears kill each other for population regulation, dominance, and reproductive advantage, the study said. Killing for food seems to be less common, said the study's principal author, Steven Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center.

"During 24 years of research on polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea region of northern Alaska and 34 years in northwestern Canada, we have not seen other incidents of polar bears stalking, killing, and eating other polar bears,'' said the study's principal author, Steven Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center.

Researchers discovered the first kill in January 2004. A male bear had pounced on a den, killed a female and dragged it 245 feet away, where it ate part of the carcass. Females are about half the size of males. . Link from LiveScience.com

Savoure Le Rouge

If Jean- Pierre Jeunet’s (Aliens³, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain) city in the film ‘La Cité des Enfants Perdus’ (The City of Lost Children – 1995) had a music video channel this song, ‘Savoure Le Rouge’ by Indochine, would be in heavy rotation:

Born This Day: Jacques-Yves Cousteau

SubHuman™ & © Michael Ryan & Mark Schultz

Cousteau (1910-1977) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, marine biologist and ocean explorer, known for his extensive underseas investigations. He was co-inventor of the aqualung which made SCUBA diving possible (1943). Cousteau the developed the Conshelf series of manned habitats, the Diving Saucer, a process of underwater television and numerous other platforms and specialized instruments of ocean science. In 1945 he founded the French Navy's Undersea Research Group. He modified a WWII wooden hull minesweeper into the research vessel Calypso, in 1950. Link

Visit Cousteau.org

"STAND BY FOR ACTION!":

The Hyborian Age: Chapter Two

CLICK TO ENLARGE & READ ALL PAGES






Script by Roy Thomas; Art © Walt Simonson; The Hyborian Age and Conan © their current copyright holders.

Read Chapter One HERE

The Hyborian Age: Chapter One

CLICK TO ENLARGE & READ ALL PAGES

Robert E. Howard Days 2006 took place this past June 8-10 in Cross Plains, Texas, in honour of the centenary of his birth. Honestly, I’ve never been a fan of Howard’s work – I think you had to first be exposed to it in your very early teens – but the event gives me the excuse to run this nice overview of the Hyborian Age done 30 years ago by Roy Thomas & Walt Simonson. The chances of this ever getting reprinted are slim so enjoy this 1st chapter.

Script by Roy Thomas; Art © Walt Simonson; The Hyborian Age and Conan © their current copyright holders.