More mythology in cartoon form

What, you thought my monster mythology kick might have finished by now? Shame on you! No, I'm still looking for fun and bizarre media based on my favourite world mythologies, and here's another cartoon version. Class of the Titans was a Canadian action cartoon from the mid 00s loosely based on Greek mythology. The premise? Seven kids descended from Classical heroes are gathered together by the gods into use their unique powers against Cronos, who has escaped from Tartarus and isn't very happy. It's not exactly revolutionary, but it makes up for its lack of originality with some inventive character designs and surprisingly interesting takes on the mythological characters. There's even a joke in one episode about not being able to read Linear A. Each episode centres on a particular deity, myth or monster, and is named accordingly with plenty of room for entertaining puns, my favourite being an episode about the Graeae and their famous all-seeing eye called Grae's Anatomy. It ran for two, 26-episode seasons before finishing on a lacklustre cliffhanger.

It's silly but worth a look if you're so inclined. Here's the first half of the first episode. 

Android Apps for the technologically minded pagan

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, I'm lazy.

So, as you may or may not know, I now have a job selling phones to people so I eventually bit the bullet and bought myself a smart phone (so called because it's slightly more intelligent than most of the people selling them!). It's an Android, by which I mean it's software is made by Google, not that it's a humanoid robot (I don't suppose I'd need a smart phone if I could carry Commander Data around with me).

I'm rambling. Anyway, being a flaky neopagan one of the first things I started looking for on the Google Play store was an app to help me out with my witchy goings-on and there's a surprising amount of useful apps out there. There's also an awful lot of terrible "love spell" apps and cheesy airbrushed wallpapers, but let's ignore those. So, since it's Midsummer and I'm feeling witchy, here are some of my android findings for all you techno-pagans out there.

First up, and probably the most handy I've found so far is Pagan Calendar. Run by those helpful people from the website of the same name, the Pagan Calendar app helps you to keep track of Celtic Fire Festivals, Celtic months, Graeco-Roman feast days, Asatru holidays, and a smattering of interesting anniversaries. You can either bring up a list of 20 or so upcoming events from all of the lists, or go through the full lists thematically. Clicking on an individual event tells you a bit more about it. It's pretty much all text so it uses absolutely minimal data. The only downside is, as it's an American site, you might have to do a bit of maths to fit it to your locality.

For those who are looking for some simple on-the-go divination, Galaxy Tarot isn't exactly as in depth a tarot reading you're ever going to get but it loads and runs quite smoothly. The free version has a single card mode, three spreads and a "browse" mode where you can have a look at the full deck. It uses the Rider Waite deck and gives some basic interpretations. Not particularly detailed, but not bad for a free app and handy for divination while commuting... or whatever. You also have the option to turn on reversed readings, a "card of the day" widget for your home screen, and a cute shuffling animation (you can shake your phone to shuffle the cards! Eeee!)

For more fortune-telling goodness, Divination - Rune of Odin is a nice, if simplistic, rune app. There are loads of rune apps on the marketplace, but most are very slow or just send you to a website. Rune of Odin still isn't exactly the quickest app in the world, but it runs better than the other free apps I've tried for this. You only have the option to draw one rune in the free version, but the interpretations are pretty detailed (and, comparing with my books, fairly accurate, unlike some) so with a bit of thought it's fairly easy to find an answer to your queries from it.

Now for some more practical apps. First up, Simple Moon Phase Widget. This thing is so handy. The app itself gives you a chart of the upcoming moon phases on a day-by-day basis organised like a calendar, plus there's a discrete main-screen widget that shows what the moon will look like that night. Plus you have the option to switch between the northern and southern hemisphere (handy if you travel, and doubly handy for ensuring your phone is giving you the right info).

The last two apps I'm going to mention here aren't specifically for pagans, but they do come in handy. Tiny Compass is so called because it doesn't take up much space and it's really useful for on-the-go circle casting and spellcrafting (you know, for those fussy spells that insist on you facing east and chanting or what-have you) or if you just can't remember whether your room is south facing.

Last up, and a bit on the silly side, is Candle Free, a digital candle. Stupid, yes, but useful for emergency spells, for places that don't allow naked flames, and for those annoying landlords that don't allow candles. It's not very bright, but being able to blow out the fake flame by blowing into the mic is a cute touch. Oh, and you can change the colour of the flame to bright green or dark blue or dayglo pink if you really want to.

I'll leave you with something irrelevant to phones, but fitting for the season; a video of pagan folk band Omnia, who you might remember me mentioning after last year's M'era Luna (they were the ones with the telescopic didgeridoo)

EDIT:

I have a few more discoveries I thought I'd share with you. Pagan Radio Basic allows you to stream from the Pagan Radio Network, a lovely online station that plays pagan-friendly music by people like Omnia, ASP, Inkubus Sukkubus, Corvus Corvax, Unto Ashes, Tanzwut and Dead Can Dance, with a lot more besides. The free version of the app allows you to stream a low quality version but there's also a paid app that'll let you have something a little clearer. The app itself is fairly basic, you can check the station's schedule and browse frequently played songs. There's a bit that's supposed to tell you what's playing, but I haven't seen it change in the few weeks I've been using it. The musical choices are excellent, however, perfect background noise for ritual work, spells or just reading your favourite myths.

Galaxy Tone, who made the Tarot app I talked about earlier, have also made a healing crystal encyclopedia Galaxy Crystals Lite and a Rune app, Galaxy Runes Lite. Again for both of these there are paid versions that add a few more crystals and spreads respectively. I'll be honest I haven't used the crystal one much, but the rune one I find myself using daily thanks to a daily rune widget you can put on your main screen. Simple readings but great for familiarising yourself with the elder futhark. As with the Tarot app there are plenty of settings to fiddle with: you can choose whether or not to include the modern "wyrd" stone and whether you want to include reversed readings. 

Palm Reading is effectively a "little book of palm reading", but not bad for beginners or those wanting to show off at parties.

The Night Sky Lite is a handy app that uses your phone's GPS and date systems to show you what constellations are in the sky around you (even during the day, just to confuse things). Interesting and useful for direction-specific ritual work.

eChing Lite is a cheeky modernised version of the I-Ching. The hexagrams are designed to look like the little Android mascot and have basic, easy-to-understand readings.

Lastly, Pocket Voodoo is a fun little app for venting your frustrations without hexing someone. It's a virtual voodoo doll which you can toss about, pull apart and impale. If you're willing to follow some adverts, you can unlock further bits an pieces, like a gun, a cigarette lighter and customisable features to add to the doll. It also has some spells that you can supposedly use with the doll. Completely pointless but oddly gratifying.

Norse mythology has never been so adorable

All these trailers for the new Marvel comics movie, the Avengers, make me long for a proper film based on Norse myths. Honestly, try looking for one, there aren't many. You're pretty much limited to Erik the Viking and various takes on the Ring Cycle and that's it. Well, thankfully I stumbled on something a bit more interesting; a Danish animated film from 1986 called Valhalla. It's based on a series of comics that are loosely based on Norse myths and it's clappy-hands-and-make-squeaky-noises adorable. Or rather, it is if you like trickster myths and good old-fashioned animations. It follows two cute but somewhat gullible Viking kids who get caught up in the misadventures of Thor and Loki, and the whole thing's up on youtube with English subtitles. Hurrah!




There. Don't you feel all warm and fuzzy inside now? Admittedly the ending feels a little rushed (are the kids stuck in Asgard? How did the little troll thing escape?) but that might have something to do with the film going grossly over budget (apparently it cost over 40 million kroner. Ouch) and effectively bankrupting the company that made it. Which is a shame, because according to Wikipedia, the film was a hit and it would have been fun to see a few more myths get filtered through that charming old-school animation style.

I do like the implication that standing out in the rain is some sort of invitation for an Aesir sleepover, though. Hmm.... if standing around in thunderstorms is all you need to do to get to drink with the gods, I'd better stock up on mead.

Oh and happy Beltane/May Day/whatever-you-want-to-call-it everyone! Hopefully the rain won't spoil too many bonfires... and if it does, well, blame Thor!

Unspeakable horrors and eldritch places

Here's an interesting documentary for all you Cthulhu cultists and lovers of "unutterable horrors" out there, a biography of HP Lovecraft with analysis of his work. The music's a bit over the top, but it has a fairly well-chosen panel of talking heads, including Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, Guillermo Del Toro and John Carpenter. Enjoy!

Oh and just a thought, but does anybody else wish someone would make a creepy animated film based on the Cthulhu mythos? I could just imagine an animated version of Shadow over Innsmouth... that would be awesome...

Here's a bit of nostalgia for you...

Don't you just miss the days when blockbuster movies always had some cheesy, slightly bonkers pop song promoting them with an equally cheesy and bonkers promo video to go with it? Well set the way-back machine to the dark ages of 1992 and witness the bizarre pairing of the Addams Family and crazy person rapper MC Hammer!




I don't know what's more adorable: the terrible 90s CGI boncy head, Christina Ricci with sunglasses on, or Lurch dancing with Hammer's dance troupe.

Halloweenies!

Blessed Samhain everyone! Just a quick one today, because I'm lazy and I don't really have much to say, but I can't let my favourite day of the year pass without a post now can I? Well, here's a couple of video links to keep yourself topped up.

In keeping with this joyous occasion, I'm pleased to report that my favourite kids' TV show, Young Dracula, is finally back. It took them three years and a lot of fan petitions, but the first episode of the shiny third series aired today. The budget is bigger, which kind of loses some of the charm, the child cast has aged noticeably (always the trouble with kids' shows) and it's getting darker but it's still a lot of fun. Keith Lee Castle is quite hilarious. Next episode is on tomorrow, so look out for it on iPlayer.

If you're after something spooky this Samhain, though, here's a youtube channel that will definitely give you the galloping heebee jeebies if you're into the supernatural. It's a collection of various episodes from various tv paranormal shows, like Ghost Adventures, Paranormal Challenge, and (my favourite) Fact or Faked. As is usually the case with this stuff, it's over hyped stuff done by very enthusiastic Americans, but there are definitely some creepy stories lurking in there. Enjoy!

Bloody Gorgeous: Nivek Ogre (or ohGr or Kevin or whatever you want to call him)

I've decided that bloody gorgeous (my semi-aborted series of equal-opportunities perversion focusing on pretty men and fake blood (because there are hundreds, nay thousands of pictures of hot lady-people covered in fake blood and the internet demands balance) needs to be resurrected. Since I'm still on a Skinny Puppy kick, who better to feature than the lovely Mr Ogilvie?

Unfortunately I don't know when a lot of these were taken, I found them floating on the internet (links and resources listed below)

I'm guessing (?) these two are from the same photoshoot. He looks positively demonic!

Doesn't he have nice eyes? This picture was used for some of the promo posters for the 2009 tour.

More from the same photo shoot. It's hard to beleive he's 47, innit? (On a side note, should I be worried that the majority of male celebs I crush on are over twice my age?)

Another live shot, I would guess from 2005, just based on the hair.

This one they've been using to promote the 2010 tour, it was on the M'era Luna site. Actually, Cevin Key has quite nice eyes too...

This one's lifted from this article where the band talk about their tattoos (except Cevin Key... I'm guessing he hasn't got any?)

Sources and resources for Sk'uppy/ohGr pics:
This fan archive has a lot of pictures. The live pictures and personal pics of fans with the bands are pretty well archived (dates, credits etc) the photoshoots less so.
http://fuckyeahskinnypuppy.tumblr.com/
Litany is the fan resource to end all fan resources: really detailed FAQs and suchlike. Not so many pictures.

Anyway, I'll leave you with some of my favourite Sk'uppy videos, all of which featuring quite a lot of fake blood. I wonder if he gets much of a discount on fake blood?

Ogre pretending to stick things in his head and Cevin playing half a dozen instruments at once. Cool or what?

Intense and slightly creepy early performance of Assimilate, in which Ogre has fun with blood capsules. He's so young! And I've just noticed he has really skinny legs.   (The whole of this show is available on youtube, and I highly recommend checking it out; the version of The Choke is incredible.)

Oh and this is unrelated to bloody gorgeous but it cracks me up.

"Nothing!"

I'll stop now. Next time on postpunkpixiedust: crafty inspiration, macabre imagery, interesting videos, and ways to keep the cat off the laptop.

More Bloody Gorgeous coming soon! If you have any suggestions of handsome gents that ought to be included, leave a comment!

Links! And more pretty visuals

There you see, I said I'd post something soon.

We'll start off with a few fun eBay finds before I forget about then completely. Looking for a quirky wedding present? How about these? Muppet-style vampire puppets with retractable fangs, customised to look like the real bride and groom. To be honest, they're damn weird looking puppets but I think the general idea is just adorable. If those are a bit out of your price range, how about this pretty dress? I've got my eye on that one at the moment. Not sure lurid purple can really be considered "Steampunk" but it's pretty, no?

Talking of things that aren't Steampunk, Regretsy have started posting things on that very topic. I'm particularly taken by the not-at-all-Steampunk-cat.

Anyway, I promised pretty visuals and pretty visuals you will have. Now, regular readers will recall that I am somewhat suspicious of tumblr (like blogger only for people with shorter attention spans), partly because the site itself encourages short, insubstantial tweet-like posts and constant reposting, but also because it seems to attract pretensious and arrogant people (case in point: if you search tumblr for "goth" you end up with this bloke who clearly isn't a goth, doesn't like goths and tends to post ugly pictures of indie kids wearing black, with only the occasional eighties post punk video to redeem him). Thankfully there are some good gothy tumblrs around too. Nowthisisgothic is an excellent collection of photos and scans, never reposted from elsewhere and quite often not seen online before. She posts fabulous pictures of big-haired new wave types from the eighties and beyond.

Deathwaves post lovely pictures of deathrockers, goths and cool, often obscure, bands, with the odd song or video thrown in too. It's a good place to look for inspiration and for links to other gothy tumblrs (most of which I won't bother posting here since if you're looking for band pictures there all you need do is type "fuck yeah (name of band) tumblr" into google and see what turns up).

One blog that doesn't need much introduction is the Gothic Charm School: Pretty Things page, which does what it says on the tin really: gothy fun things posted by Gothic Charm School Headmistress and blogger extraordinaire The Lady of the Manners. She does keep going on a Haunted Mansion kick though, not sure I quite see the appeal myself.

Another queue worth keeping an eye on for band pictures is Raw Goth Insurrection, a personal tumblr kept by a punky gothy bloke from Seattle. Lots of fun pictures of crusty punk types in spiky leather jackets, lots of slightly faded scans of bands with enormous hair, lots of good tunes, lots of slightly nerdy humour.

And talking of slightly humour, I have to say I get a real kick out of LOLbadseeds, like LOLcats but with pictures of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. There's a lot of bands whose photos lend themselves to LOL macros, why has no one thought of this before? And why, with all those silly pictures floating around, is there not a LOLDamned blog?

Oh and you know when I said there's a "fuck yeah" tumblr for pretty much anything? Well, on the plus side "anything" includes Skinny Puppy and this picture:

I'll give you a moment to absorb the sexy. Bare-chested, tattooed, long-painted-fingernailed, eyeliner-sporting, backcombed-haired, sinewy-armed sexy. Yup, I definitely have a crush on him. He's also prime Bloody Gorgeous material...

Annnnyway... Next time on postpunkpixiedust I'll be posting exciting gothy book reviews! Featuring: Gothic Charm School, Voltaire, Gavin Baddeley, Poppy Z, and Nivek Ogre! (You see, sometimes I even plan what I'm going to post.) And remember you can keep up with my less gothy reviews and rants over on my Triond page.

I'll leave you with a couple of videos for those who want to hear more of the sort of stuff I was enjoying last week at M'era Luna. Here's Unheilig, the happiest Neue Deutsche Harte band in the world with a suitably sweet song, complete with chorus of children.



I'm rather fond of Der Graf's exaggerated gestures here. And his beard.

And now, to counteract the adorable, here's some angry Laibach.



Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

And now it's time to shut up and go and make the most of Film4's horror season (notice the use of Bauhaus on the promo video there. Everything's better with a liberal sprinkling of Bauhaus).

Things Involving A Gothy Weekend

In which the writer explains why she's been neglecting the blog again and relates a tale of her adventures last weekend...

Oh dear, I really am a lazy arse aren't I? A miasma of stress, depression and general under-the-weather-iness left me ignoring my pixie dust despite once again having a big long list of things to post. Still, let's pretend I haven't been neglectful and go straight on to blogging about nice things, shall we?

Last weekend I was lucky enough to take a trip to sunny (by which I mean humid and sweaty) London, as by happy coincidence there've been a few good gigs all at once. I wanted to stay until Monday so I could see PiL but alas I had to work, so I had to "make do" (hah) with Specimen, Gene Loves Jezebel and Skinny Puppy, which is pretty good going for one weekend.

I stayed with my lovely uncle in his beautiful house in Islington, which was again pretty damned lucky as Specimen and GLJ were playing at Slimelight, also in Islington. I'd never been to Slimes before, and to be honest the things I'd heard about it were not exactly complimentary (ie "they don't call it Slimes for nothing", "well, at least my club is clean" and "they're dress code is insane; they refused a bloke in a leather trench coat and goggles for not being goth enough"). Actually, I didn't think it was as bad as all that: it's a rabbit warren of staircases, and by the time Specimen finished my platforms were sticking to the floor a little, but it's certainly not the nastiest club I've ever been to.

For the purposes of the gig, one floor had been coverted into a surrogate Batcave; bedecked with hand-painted cobwebs, trashy plastic chandeliers and polystyrene bats, with DJs spinning the deathrockiest Trad-goth tunes I know (which was fabulolus, frankly, it's so rare to be in a club and actually hear Virgin Prunes, Siouxsie, Bauhaus and Rubella Ballet in quick succession). After a bit of sitting around and goth-watching, the support band came on, a group called Night Porter who opened with a Cramps cover so nondescript I didn't even twig there was a band on. The rest of their set was okay, and although they certainly weren't the worst support act I'd ever seen, they weren't the best either. They finished with a cover of the Doors' "Riders on the Storm" sans keyboards, which worked surprisingly well.

Waiting for Specimen themselves to dain to grace the stage, I had a quick chat with a lad with a absolutely fabulous accent who recognised me from my usual goth-haunt, Intrusion in Oxford, before it was time to sidle forward and scream excitedly at the stage. Now it's been a good few years since the Batcave shut it's doors and the Specimen boys went on to become electro-ravers and session musicians, and time hasn't been entirely kind to those big back-combed hairstyles (Jon Klein is completely bald now, and Jonny Slut's signature deathawk is replaced by close-cropped stubble) but they sounded great. They played most of the songs I know (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Syria, Stand Up Stand Out and Sharp Teeth Pretty Teeth were definite highlights) sounding just as raw and campy as ever, with Ollie Wisdom swinging off the lighting rig, clambering over the monitors and announcing that we were all far too nice and polite, adding before the encore "see, we love you really. Honest!"


And there they are (I've found other vids on youtube but the sound quality is appalling). Is it me, or does Jon Klein look like he's been taking make-up tips from Nik Fiend there? Also, check out Jonny Slut's outfit! PVC and fishnet and platform stilettos all the way!

Their set was far too short for my liking, I would have liked a few more songs, though I suppose that's a good sign. They were really very good, recapturing all the sleazy, funny, high camp tone that they had back in the day. On the plus-side I got to extend my Specimeniness a little late while sitting around in the bar, when I realised that the chap in the stilettos on the other side of the room was none other than Jonny Slut himself. Naturally I had to make a twat of myself and timidly ask for his autograph, so now I have a shiny scrawled-on copy of Alive at the Batcave perched atop my CD player.

Next up were GLJ (or Jay Aston's Gene Loves Jezebel for those of you who live in the US) who, taking the stage at nearly midnight, weren't really suited to playing that late at night and were plagued with technical faults. Much as I like them, a lot of their stuff is a bit.... shoegazey and introspective and, after a long, hot day, shoegazy and introspective becomes soporific. I have to confess to not really being overly familiar with their back-catalogue, so a lot of the songs they played I didn't really know and couldn't name, I recognised Who Wants to Go to Heaven, Bruises, Motion of Love and, their encore and my favourite, Desire. Jay Aston is an odd one, though. GLJ are definitely an alternative band but Jay's moves wouldn't be out of place on some Guitar Hero avatar somewhere, at one point he held his guitar vertically and played a solo. Bit odd. I did quite like his quips about "same Jay different toupee" though.

Anyway, after swaying around for a while it was time to trudge home, humming to myself and rummaging through my bag to admire my new Batcave t-shirt.

The following day started nicely, with me discovering I am completely hopeless on public transport (it took me over an hour to make a ten minute journey. I am clearly not a bus person) when going to visit one of my bestest friends from uni. We went to a cute little restaurant in Holborn that specialised in okonomi -yaki (Japanese omelettes) cooked on a hot plate set into the table before going for a wander and ending up at Maison du Chocolat. I won’t bore you with the details of our lengthy conversations (most of them were either very personal or very surreal anyway), let’s just say it was good.

After a quick dash back to Islington to do strange things to my hair, it was off to Kentish Town and the London Forum, a venue that holds a very special place in my heart as the site of my infamous meeting with Mr Peter Murphy. When I arrived, the support band were already in full swing, a rock-industrial band called Hounds whose fairly enjoyable if ordinary songs were lifted by a wonderful sense of humour. Their singer, whose name escapes me, cheerfully explained that “we’re not used to playing places this big, so this is great for us” and suggested “go and have a look at our t-shirts; even if you don’t like the music you might like our t-shirts”, and before their last song added, “I know you don’t know any of our stuff, but this is our single so when I introduce it, I want you all to scream and go crazy like it’s your favourite”. That cracked me up, I have to say. Not many bands have the nerve to admit that no one knows who they are.

After Hounds left the stage, I bumped into the lad with the Brazilian accent I’d met the night before and the two of us sidled up to the front row with a couple of drinks to have a serious natter. It turned out that we’d both been at both of the Bauhaus concerts back in 2006, and so of course I had to tell him all about the Pete Murphy incident.

At last the lights went down and Cevin Key and Mark Walk came on stage to take their places behind their hulking instruments, before Nivek Ogre himself hobbled out in front, dressed like something that had escaped from a lunatic asylum in Silent Hill. He had a mask made of rags on, various straps and bandages, shoes that made him look like the Elephant Man and an enormous conical hat. In short, he looked fantastic. The majority of their set was taken from their latest album (that’s Sk’uppy’s latest album, rather than Ogre’s ohGr project), with Politikil, Magnifishit and Ugli being definite highlights, but a few earlier tracks got a look in too; Assimilate certainly got some attention since Ogre brought the conical hat back with smoke billowing out of it’s point, and thus I have dubbed it the “Assimilate Incinerate” hat.

And here's a clip of the Assimilate Incinerate hat in action.

Ogre’s stagecraft is exceptional: part of the reason I was so keen to see them live is because I wanted to see their trademark performance art schtick and they didn’t disappoint. We had projections on screens, fake blood, a cage which Ogre slunk in and out of to scrabble around and scream into the lens of a camera (which then projected onto the screen behind him, pretty nifty), and eventually Ogre’s rag mask came off to reveal a mass of prosthetics (how he copes in the heat under all that I do not know). For the encore, he ditched the prosthetics and most of the straps, gloves and assorted mcguffins, and I’m glad he did because under all that he’s quite a handsome fella! Plus, their encore included Worlock which has always been one of my favourites.

Worlock-y Ogre-sans-makeup-y goodness

I was genuinely impressed by their whole show. Ogre is very quickly rising in my estimation to one of my favourite celebrity types; he’s a frightening and powerful performer, and, from what I’ve seen of him in interviews, a really intelligent and nice guy. So, yes, two thumbs way up for them, and I can’t wait to see them again at M’era Luna, even if it’s the same setlist again.

I had to go back to gloomy Portsmouth and to work the following morning, but I don’t mind so much now I have something to look forward to: I’ve booked myself tickets to go to M’era Luna in August with a bunch of friendly gothy types who’ve booked a luxury coach down to there (and a big thank you to the lovely Mr Paul Sticks, gothy DJ and promoter, for pointing me towards them). I’m really excited, it’s going to be a fabulous excursion. The Sisters of Mercy are playing (okay Andrew Eldritch has lost his marbles and his voice but as long as they play either Alice, Marian or Lucretia I don’t care), as are Sk’uppy, Stolen Babies (a bit metal for my liking, but their Oingo Boingo-stylee keyboards are right up my alley), Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance, Placebo (a bit indie but I’ll probably be merry enough to sing along to Nancy Boy by the time they’re on) and many more besides.

Being a big silly Goth is fun!

Lovely videos to restore your faith in human ingenuity

I'm still alive, incidentally. I just haven't been too well recently. Anyway, videos.




Yes that is real. Guitar Hero played with a theramin. That's some pretty nifty electronics going on there.

Talking of nifty electronics...

I don't care that you can see the puppeteers' legs, these are just adorable. They're part of the impossibly lovely Walking With Dinosaurs arena tour (and yes I am still sulking that I missed its UK tour, thanks for asking). Hats off to the very clever people who designed them and the equally clever people controlling them. (And please can we have another UK tour?)

More fun things to come soon, I promise.

Links of the day

A couple of rapid-fire links today. One: It's towel day today, so I feel that some Douggie Adams tribute is needed

Simply because the Share and Enjoy song is one of my favourite moments in the whole series (closely matched with I teleported home one day with Ron and Sid and Meg, Ron stole Meggie's heart away and I got Sidney's leg)

First episode of the radio show with puppets and lego. Puppets and lego! Alright, I don't really get why the voice of the book is portrayed as a puppet teddy-bear-cat-thing, but the lego is fabulous. I really must listen to the radio series again.


Secondly, Doctor Steel, that wonderful lunatic who will eventually rule the world with an army of toys if he gets his own way, has released a shiny new video for Childhood (Don't) A-Go-go. It's only a quick link because someone, for some reason, keeps taking the videos down.

The first two minutes or so are rather generic industrial metal, but his signature jazz-industrial lunacy kicks in rather nicely in the second half. Looks like he's doing rather well on the army-of-toys front.

I promise I will post a blog that doesn't contain videos next time.

Hey Dad!

My Dad reads this blog. Today we went out to Salisbury to see the mighty John Cooper Clarke, punk poet extraordinaire, and over the course of a few drinks, a meal and the interval, we ended up talking about a lot of films and music, as we always do (he's useful like that, my dad, I can't talk about synthpop and punk and world cinema with my mum...or my work colleagues... or my cactus).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I ended up mentioning some things my dad was surprisingly unaware of (Plus I just wanted to post even more videos. No I do not have an addiction to youtube.)

First on the list: Klaus Nomi. Nomi (born Sperber) was a Bavarian countertenor who moved to New York and grabbed the New Wave scene's attention by being consistently odd yet brilliant until his untimely death in 1983, leaving behind him a handful of albums and an unfinished opera.


His albums are a lot of fun; a strange mixture of humour, synths, teutonic accents and straight classical pieces (do look for his rendition of The Cold Song from Henry Purcell's King Arthur to hear him being a bit more...conventional). He's one of those musicians that I don't listen to for ages and then rediscover and listen to non-stop for a week.

Next: (yay another excuse to post something by) Virgin Prunes. Irish post-punk performance artist group, driven by Gavin Friday and Guggi. Friends with U2. Split up criminally early and refuse (quite rightly) to reform.

Part of what made them so great was their range: they could (and would) do furious atonal punky stuff, delicate ethereal laments and silly-voiced folky tracks (like Down Memory Lane) in quick succession.

Next (although I didn't mention them today, I'm fairly sure I have done at some point) Shonen Knife. Mad Japanese all-girl punk/garage group who sing about barbie dolls, cats, rocket ships and bananna chips. I love them, they're just so bloody happy. Apparently Kurt Cobain was a massive fan of them too.


And finally, just because my dad says he hasn't heard it, Gary Numan's new (ish) version of Are "Friends"Electric? everyone's favourite song about broken down robot companions. He's been doing this version with very stripped down, haunting keyboards for a good few years now and it really suits his matured voice (because let's face it everyone's voice changes as they grow older, singers are no different).

Brilliant. Just brilliant.


And just because gig-memories are good


The last gig dad and I went to was the Stranglers at the Southampton Guildhall (or "Southampton's resident wind tunnel and echo chamber" as they put it, that place is a cavern and not in a good way). 

Anyway yeah. I think I'll stop it with the videos for a bit.

Happy World Goth Day!

As you may or may not know, today is World Goth Day, and to celebrate this joyous occasion, I'm going to fill this blog post with enough goth to keep Slimelight busy for a year.

First up, though, on a semi-serious note, do go and download the Hope charity album. It includes tracks by Alien Sex Fiend, The Last Dance, Sex Gang Children, Eden House, Collide, the Mission, UK Decay, Faith and the Muse, and New Model Army, as well as specially recorded tracks by Autumn Cannibals and Uninvited Guest. It's only £8 and all money goes straight to the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. Every track was donated to the cause for free, which just goes to show what a wonderful community we alternative folks have. You have to create an account to download it but it's worth the few minutes faff.

Right, got it? Good. Now, while that downloads, let's get onto the goth.

Where better to start than with my favourite band and the one that really kicked it all off, Bauhaus. (can you really beleive that this was 4 years ago?)

Ah Peter, who art in Istanbul
Hallowed be thy cheekbones...

And now a perfect performance from Siouxsie and the Banshees: Voodoo Dolly at Cologne in 1981. Probably my favourite of their tracks.


She's incredible, isn't she?

Next... the Sisters with Marian. Perfect goth track: girl's name, melancholic lyrics, Eldritch's voice trembling on the point of tears (when you can actually hear him).... beautiful.





Now something a little more modern, Cinema Strange with a glorious live version of Greensward Grey. Lucas' vocals are astonishing


I think we need some Batcave now. Here's Alien Sex Fiend with Ignore the Machine. To me, this sums up the Goth's relationship with the mainstream; it's not about rebelling against the "norm", it's a case of not giving it any importance. Besides that, the Fiends have a great sense of humour.

Talking of the Batcave...

I want to go to a vile dress-up tea party with the Specimen boys! (Incidentally, Johnny Slut babbling in the background is hilarious. "Yay! I like tea parties")

And a bit more vintage Batcave-y goodness

More silliness... and because every goth loves irony, Thoushaltnot with If I only were a Goth


Right... maybe we're getting a bit too camp here, let's have something serious and arty

That's more like it. I just love the guitar on this track, it practically glitters.

Anyway, onward! Here's Flowers by Emilie Simon, who isn't really very goth but it's such a Tim Burton-y video, and with her lovely delicate voice over that spooky tango, it's certainly gothic.


But of course, there's more to the goth subculture than the music... even though the music will always be at the core, so...

...here's one from the Culture Show about the Whitby Weekend. (Look out for Captain Sensible in a cyber wig!)


And lastly, for anyone who's skimmed through all this with a bemused expression, here's the lovely Lady of the Manners of Gothic Charm School explaining what goth is and what it isn't.

I'll stop before I get too carried away. Have a lovely day everyone!

Clive Barker!

Well sod it, I'm going to start posting some of the interesting things I found recently and promptly forgot about. Here's one: Clive Barker on the South Bank Show (or rather, the South Bank Show on Clive Barker) back in 1994. If there's one person I never expected to be South Banked, it's Mr Barker, I know he's a bestseller and everything, but he's not particularly highbrow or all that mainstream. Still, it's a very interesting piece.






I have to confess to being a big nerdy Clive Barker fan: I love his films, his short stories, his paintings, his pretentious early short films...  I even bought Jericho even though I only played the first level because it was pretty awful.

It's a good time to be a Barkerite, isn't it? So many film versions of his films and that shiny Hellraiser remake looming (I don't generally agree with remakes but I do think Hellraiser could do with a new lick of paint: it's too unsettling a concept to be ruined by shoulder pads and a few scenes of really awful effects, I mean, does Pinhead really need to disappear as a yellow sqiggle?)

Incidentally, there's a fun game to play with interviews with Mr Barker: try and find two videos from seperate years where his voice sounds the same. I listened to the commentary on Hellraiser then the one on Midnight Meat Train one after the other and it doesn't sound like the same guy. Very odd.

Incidentally incidentally, and because I'm never opposed to a little shameless self promotion, if you want to see my weird watercolour take on the Cenobites, click here. Drawing pale, mutilated androgens in leather is always fun.

Stunning videos

Wow. Just wow. I saw these on the Gothic Tea Society and if you haven't seen them you must!



From what I can make out, they're from an art installation in Chile and were released in 2007 (which makes me wonder why I haven't stumbled across them yet), but honestly it wouldn't matter if they're from the moon, they're stunning! Anyone else reminded somewhat of Peur(s) du noir?

Caligari A-Go-Go

Do you know what my favouritest film of all time ever is? It's Das Cabinat der Doktor Caligari, the 1919 German expressionist silent movie starring the exquisitely lovely Conrad Veidt (one of my heroes, a thoroughly wonderful man, a wartime humanitarian and a greatly underrated actor, for more about him check out the Conrad Veidt Society) and directed by Robert Weine. It's only 50 minutes long but I love it: I love the look of it, I love the twists in the plot, I love the way Veidt walks, I love the eerie underlying themes of control and insanity. It is, without doubt, a perfect film, and if you haven't seen it, well you're in luck dear reader. One of the lovely things about silent movies is they're almost all out of copyright and thus freely available online. Here's a version with rather melodramatic music dubbed in (remember that back in the day, films would be accompanied by live organ music)...




I'm sure you'll agree that even with the silly music, it's a thing of beauty. If not, get off my blog you fiend!

Anyway, it seems I'm not alone in my obsession. First, in 1962 Robert Bloch (best known for penning Psycho) created a film with a suspiciously similar title, but sadly it wasn't very good. Thankfully in 1979, Bauhaus (aka my favouritest band in the world) put some class back behind the title by using a still of the lovely Mr Veidt for their seminal single Bela Lugosi's Dead. But then a very odd (now cult) movie called Doctor Caligari in 1989 had a go at remaking/messing around with it too, resulting in a lot of weirdness and shoulder pads.

 

Then a Batman comic got in on the act









Then people started doing Caligari-esque music videos...


...like this 'un by that nice Mr Rob Zombie, the chap who makes gory horror movies and industrial-metal records, or this one...



...from the Queen of the Damned soundtrack, and whoever directed this one has obviously cottoned onto the fact that Cesare was one sexy somnabulist.

Now (well in 2005, but it's new to me) there's even a shiny new talkie remake:



And ooh look, it's Doug Jones (of Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth and that-episode-of-Buffy-with-the-voice-stealing-monsters fame) stepping into Conrad's leggings (not literally, mind you, I daresay the original tights would be a little on the threadbare side by now). Now, I was thinking that a talkie remake would be a bit redundant, but a talkie remake with Dougie Jones in? Count me in. (For the record, I like Doug Jones, not only because he's a fine actor,  but also because he has great taste in shirts, he's a contortionist, and he does really silly things on the red carpet,though to be fair I suppose he has to do the Silver Surfer pose or the Abe Sapien thing or the Pale Man hands-on-forehead thing else people won't know who he is. Either way, he's far too handsome and charming to spend quite that much time hidden under prosthetics.) Anyway seeing how tender, strange and downright fantastic he looks with the black under-eyeshadow on, I think Conrad would be deeply flattered. 

(This post is in no way a complete list of Caligari-related fun, just some of the stuff I could find to link to that's sort of official, and I do apologise if I linked to or used anything I shouldn't've. On the unofficial front, there's pretty art by Jade28 on deviantart and art by my true dear friend aliencatx also on deviantart.)

And now I'm off to find myself a copy of that talkie remake whilst wearing far too much makeup and carrying a very long knife and mouthing German to myself...