“COMMAND PERFORMANCE”
The Arthur Magazine Email Bulletin
No. 0035
March 23, 2006
Website:
Comments:
1. XSXSWXARTHURX
Arthur’s free SXSW Happening happened in the sweetest way last Saturday. Thanks to everyone who sponsored, organized, performed, attended, volunteered and especial thanks to Lavender Diamond for stopping the rain. More textual and photographic info on all of the above is available on our homepage at
2. TONIGHT!!!! Arthur presents HELIOS CREED (of legendary SF band CHROME) live in Los Angeles!
**** Thursday, March 23 ****
HELIOS CREED (12am) plus Indian Jewelry (10:30pm), God’s Gang, No Things, and Knife Skills.
The Fold at the Silverlake Lounge (2906 Sunset Blvd)
21 & over (sorry!) — $8 adv. – Advance tickets onsale at http://www.virtuous.com
We know we’re always quoting Julian Cope, but why shouldn’t we — how are we gonna top this — from his Drudeness’s assessment of CHROME from a few months back: “…Maybe there were indeed giants walking the earth back in the late ’70s. Unfortunately, the catchy proto-industrial bastard that was Chrome has not easily asserted its place in rock’n’roll history, for its 70% massively-stylised and unrighteously holy mix of Jagger-mouthed robot soul, sweating lo-fi “Bogus Man” dubby skank (drums’n’teatray Swell Maps stylee), NEU 2-styled art house cut-ups, and berserkely feral fuzzsaw Detroit-ness (all projected to the public via record sleeves depicting a monolithically cliched post war view of the future) does not sit well with the band’s other 30% perverse underbelly comprised of cumbersomely unrthythmic UFO-crash-landed-behind-the-gasworks-alien-engineers-trying-to-blowtorch-the-door-open soundtrack. Nor was it ever meant to, of that I’m quite sure. But, damn me, if it ain’t still (once yooz evicted certain obversely perverse miscreants) a fucking glorious rush of sound with which to clear the 21st century custard…” (http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/albumofthemonth/1447)
3. TONIGHT!!! AND EVERY THURSDAY UNTIL WE’RE DONE!
Join your friends from L.A. Record, The Journal of Aesthetics and Politics and good ol’ Arthur Magazine for beers and supernice music at The Echo Park Social(ist) Aid & Pleasure Club, which takes place EVERY THURSDAY 9:45pm sharp to close at the LITTLE JOY public house in the Echo Park division of Los Angeles. (Address: 1477 Sunset Blvd.) No cover — no attitude — no war. Introduce yourself, commingle, commiserate, postulate, plot, dance, smile: it ain’t illegal (yet).
4. AND NOW FOR THE REALLY BIG NEWS….
Celebrated internationally for more than 40 years, and screening as part of the “Day for Night” program at the 2006 Whitney Biennial, Ira Cohen’s legendary film “THE INVASION OF THUNDERBOLT PAGODA” will be released on DVD on June 1, 2006 through BASTET / ARTHUR magazine.
J. Hoberman wrote in the March 16, 2006 Village Voice: “Part ‘Dr. Strange,’ part ‘Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome,’ [‘The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda’ is] so High ’60s that you emerge from its 20-minute vision perched full-lotus on a cloud of incense, chatting with a white rabbit and smoking a banana…. ‘Invasion’ is a languidly opiated costume ball in which an assortment of masked and painted bohos, some sporting outsize elf ears, loll about a candlelit, Mylar-lined set, blowing soap bubbles and nibbling majoon. …In lieu of action, Cohen uses all manner of superimposition and prismatic image-splitting; his big effect, however, is the deliquescent Mylar reflection. What saves ‘Invasion’ from preciosity is the vague menace of Angus MacLise’s improvised pan-piping, tabla-tapping, creature-yipping score. Although this masterpiece of Tibetan-Moroccan-Druidic trance music was reissued on CD several years ago, it truly blossoms in conjunction with the exotic smorgasbord ser
ved at Cohen’s psychedelicatessen.”
The Bastet/Arthur DVD of “INVASION” will feature:
High-quality transfer from the original 16mm film, with color correction supervised by the director.
The legendary soundtrack, newly remastered, by The Universal Mutant Repertory Company (Angus MacLise, Raja Samayana, Tony Conrad, Jackson MacLow, Hetty MacLise, and others).
14-page commemorative booklet with images and poetry by Ira Cohen and Angus MacLise.
“Brain Damage,” a new film directed by Ira Cohen and produced by BASTET, SATURNALIA and the AKASHIC PROJECT created from never-before-seen original 16mm outtakes.
Alternative soundtrack to “Invasion” by avant folk devils Sunburned Hand of the Man.
“From The Mylar Chamber”, an original slideshow of 60 mylar photographs with soundtrack by Angus MacLise and original poetry by Ira Cohen.
* Director’s Commentary track by Ira Cohen.
See box cover art and short film clip at
BASTET/ARTHUR will be manufacturing a LIMITED QUANTITY of these DVDs, which are priced as low as we could manage at $29.95US. $34.95Can and $39.95World, postpaid. If you wish to reserve a copy, PLEASE PRE-ORDER NOW via the PayPal link at
5. WALTER BENJAMIN ON HASHISH
From “Main Features of My First Impression of Hashish (Dec. 18, 1927)”:
“23. You follow the same paths of thought as before. Only, they appear strewn with roses.”
The Peaceandloveniks of Arthur
Los Angeles, California
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