BEAUTY: Papier-mâché--Bernie Kaminski

Artist Bernie Kaminski's chosen medium is papier-mâché, and he creates delightful artifacts from the 70s and 80s...and I recall them all. I really love his medicine cabinets and the sight of a can of Arrid Extra Dry (with the cheesy silhouette of a man and woman facing each other) and a box of Contact cold pills (with the graphic of a magnifying glass on a capsule) fills me with tickling nostalgia. I also really  love the Tektone home intercom (we never had one in our homes, but I had lots of friends who had them mounted on the walls of their bedrooms), the Princess phone, and the Brim coffee cup ("Fill it to them rim...with Brim!")

Bernie Kaminski does not have a dedicated webiste but he has an IG page:
https://www.instagram.com/berniekaminski/

R.I.P. Burt Bacharach

A giant of 20th century songwriting died yesterday... the brilliant Burt Bacharach, along with Hal David, wrote so many hit songs for so many artists in the 60s and 70s--and 80s(!), it is hard to name all the masterpieces...

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives

R.I.P. Burt and thanks for the tunes.

"Welcome To The Pleasuredome" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

I am feeling love and nostalgia today for the amazing opening track--actually a suite that occupies the entire first side of the original vinyl album--"Welcome To The Pleasuredome" from the album of the same name by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Super group Frankie Goes To Hollywood was a super sensation when they released their debut double album "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" in 1984. Before the album's release, they had caused quite a stir with their song "Relax" and subsequent S&M-themed video. And the iconic Frankie Say tee shirts became ubiquitous throughout the mid-80s. I worked at Tower Records when this record came out and still have my original Frankie Say Relax tee!

Inspired by the poem "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, this opening track, complete with animal and jungle sound effects, comes in at a glorious 13:38, while the single version clocks in at a mere 4:20. Here is the full suite:

And if you can't get your fill in the thirteen minute version, check out this awesome FORTY minute remix!

The group reunited in 2004 for a Prince's Trust charity performance staged at London's Wembley Arena to mark the 25th anniversary in show business of producer Trevor Horn, who made his name overseeing hits by artists like the Buggles, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Yes, and ABC. Lead singer Holly Johnson refused to participate so they held open auditions for a substitute lead singer. Fortunately for all FGTH fans, they found Ryan Molloy. Just listen to that powerful moment when we hear Molloy's voice for the first time, like a young Holly. Take a gander at the smokey eye make-up, the mirrored aviators, the Berber shrug, the beautiful mop of blond, and the toned torso. I don't miss Holly at all. Molloy's performance is inspired and masterful.

https://www.frankiesay.com/
https://www.facebook.com/fgth.official/
http://www.ryanmolloy.com/

O.M.D.

I'm feeling some nostalgia and love today for the early sounds of the electronic/New Romantic (in my mind) group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Despite their few pop chart successes, I will always think of them as an experimental sound band.

"Messages" is from their self-titled 1980 debut release. I bought this when it came out.

Their second album "Organisation" never had a proper release here in the United States, so when the first album was later released after this one, it included this incredibly atmospheric, beautiful song "Stanlow" named after an oil refinery in England, and the measured, melancholy "Statues."

From 1981, "Souvenirs" and "Maid of Orleans" is from their third album "Architecture and Morality" which is listed in the book 1001 ALBUMS YOU MUST HEAR BEFORE YOU DIE.

One of their most experimental records was the amazing, dystopian 1983 release "Dazzle Ships," with its musique concrète sound collages, the use of shortwave radio recordings to explore Cold War and Eastern Bloc themes thus conjuring up images of life among Brutalist architecture, and references to a frightening type of post World War II technology including genetic engineering. The title itself is a reference to a way of painting war ships in a way that disorients the viewer. The album opened with the sound collage "Radio Prague." Highlights are "Genetic Engineering," "Time Zones" (recordings of the time in French, German, Japanese, and American English, all players in the second World War), "The Romance of the Telescope," the unsettling "ABC Auto-Industry," and "Of All The Things We've Made."

See these arms that were broken
How they held you so
Never once did they fail you
They won't let you go

We're just waiting, looking skyward
As the days come down
Someone promised there'd be answers
If we stayed around

Over decades, now this romance
Has sustained us all
Never questioned, only giving
What it made us for

To want this
Of everything we've made
The times it's worked before

Of all the things we've said
The times it's worked before today

To want this
Of everything we've made
The times it's worked before

Of all the things we've said
They always worked before today

As of 2020, OMD are still active and creating amazing electronic music!

http://www.omd.uk.com/

R.I.P. Pete Shelley

Punk rock and bisexual icon Pete Shelley has died at the too-young age of 63. After the success of his punk band Buzzcocks (contemporaries of The Sex Pistols), he went solo and in 1981, he recorded a genre-defying song that mixed both acoustic guitar and synthesizers (which were being heavily explored in music at this time) in a propulsive, effervescent gay anthem called "Homosapien." The mix of acoustic and electronic instruments sounds amazingly fresh and sparkling even today. I used to hear this song played while waiting to see bands like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Ultravox at The Kabuki Nightclub in San Francisco in the early 80s!

I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
And you know we're Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser, you're the loser
Me and you sir, Homosapien too

Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

And I think of your eyes in the dark
And I see the star
And I look to the light
And I might wonder right where you are
All the Gods in the sky, way up high
See the earth spinning 'round
But the sun and the moon
And the stars are so far from the ground

I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
And you know we're Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser, you're the loser
Me and you sir, Homosapien too

Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

And the world's built of age are a stage
Where we act out our lives
And the words in the script seem to fit
'Cept we have some surprise
I just want this to last
Or my future is past and all gone
And if this is the case
Then I'll lose in life's race from now on

Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

And I just hope and pray
That the day of our love is at hand
You and I, me and you
We will be one from two, understand?
And the world is so wrong
That I hope that we'll be strong enough
For we are on our own
And the only thing known is our love

I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too
I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too

R.I.P. Pete and thanks for the music.

Currently listening to...

...a retro moment of "Pretty In Pink" and "Dumb Waiters" by The Psychedelic Furs. I had a flash of these songs in my mind and got out my old vinyl...

Formed in 1977 as an art rock/punk outfit by lead singer Richard Butler and his brother Tim on bass, The Psychedelic Furs became one of the staples of the 80s music scene. Their first album, the self titled "The Psychedelic Furs" was a marvel both sonically (the small group included a saxophone! I can only think of one other group from that time period to use a saxophone so effectively and that is Romeo Void) and lyrically, with a sharp spartan sound and strange dream-like narratives with recurring motifs of everyday objects.

It was their 1981 sophomore effort, "Talk Talk Talk" that brought them to wider attention with their song "Pretty In Pink" which inspired John Hughes to make a film of the same name. While the song was used in the film, lyricist Richard Butler later said that the film had nothing whatsoever to do with the original intent of the surreal, doom-y lyrics. For this kaleidoscopic portrait of an enigmatic woman and her suitors, the main character Caroline makes her second appearance here after appearing in a song called "India" from their first album. Even after all this time, the song holds up. It sounds like it could have been made today (albeit with some better recording equipment, although I actually really like the lo-fi sound). And the video...well, I watched it on MTV when such a thing existed. I just love the hallucinogenic, Alice-In-Wonderland feel of it.

Caroline laughs, and it's raining all day
She loves to be one of the girls
She lives in the place in the side of our lives
Where nothing is ever put straight

She turns herself 'round
And she smiles and she says
"This is it, that's the end of the joke"
And loses herself in her
Dreaming and sleep, and her
Lovers walk through in their coats
She's...

Pretty in pink, isn't she?
Pretty in pink, isn't she?

All of her lovers all
Talk of the notes and the
Flowers that they never sent
And wasn't she easy
Isn't she pretty in pink?

The one who insists he was the
First in the line is the
Last to remember her name
He's walking around in this
Dress that she wore
She is gone, but the
Joke's the same

Pretty in pink, isn't she?
Pretty in pink, isn't she?

Caroline talks to you
Softly sometimes, she says,
"I love you" and "Too much"
She doesn't have anything
You want to steal
Well, nothing you can touch

She waves
She buttons your shirt
The traffic is waiting outside
She hands you this coat
She give you her clothes
These cars collide

Pretty in pink, isn't she?
Pretty in pink, isn't she?

The fractured, disturbing "Dumb Waiters" is also from "Talk Talk Talk" and in fact, opened the album: side one, song one...a pretty splashy way to begin (a poppy, savage sax line plays against a background of dirge-like noise). It harkens back to the sound of the first album which was subversive, textured, and yes, psychedelic, with Butler's amazing, trademark voice, at once gravelly and reedy. And the video feels like an Andy Warhol/Velvet Underground reference.

Give me all your paper ma
Gimme all your jazz
Give me something that I need
Something I can have
Mrs. London's coming round
She's coming with her son
Gimme all your paper ah
So I can get a gun
She has got it in for me
Yeah I mean it honestly
She's so mean

Give me all your paper ma
So I can buy a train
They just wanna suck you in
To being one of them
Tell her that I'm not in here
Tell her I'm a freak
Tell her that I fall about
Every time I speak
She has got in for me
Yeah I mean it honestly
I just scream

Give me all your paper ma
So I can buy a train
I don't know how I got in here
It's making me insane
Have another cigarette
And have another cigarette
In a room where lovers go
Talking on the telephone
They have go it in for me
Yeah I mean it honestly
They all dream

http://www.thepsychedelicfurs.com/

"Saturdays" by Twin Shadow feat. HAIM

Twin Shadow (the nom de musique of George Lewis Jr.) has released a new song, "Saturdays" with sister trio HAIM on additional vocals. The 80s-retro sound puts this kicky song in the running for my "summer song of 2018."

Lewis says, "Growing up, Saturdays were everything for me. I spent the morning in front of the TV soaking up whatever caught my eye, before going out on the day's adventure. After dinner I stayed up all night surfing channels, experiencing some amazing images and sometimes some wild sh*t I wasn’t ready for. We may not have the freedom we once had but the feelings of Saturdays remain."

http://www.twinshadow.net/
http://haimtheband.com/

Serge Lutens

In anticipation of Paris Fashion Week for men which begins today, let's take a look at one of France's most interesting designers...

Serge Lutens is not only a fashion designer but a photographer, filmmaker, hair stylist, and, most famously, a perfume art-director as well. In the 1980s, the Japanese beauty product company Shiseido hired Lutens to develop their product image for Europe and North America. What resulted was an astounding output of package design, make-up design, art direction, set design, and commercial direction. His make-up creations and styling tended toward a pale white face with dramatic dark colors on the eyes and lips, a look that fit well with traditional Japanese ideas of beauty. These highly stylized, nearly hallucinogenic commercials for Inoui, a Shiseido brand, owe a debt to the magical film work of the great Jean Cocteau.

Lutens also directed a very memorable commercial for Jun Ropé, the Japanese fashion brand. I find this one to be the spookiest of the lot. There is something inexplicable and dream-like about the positioning of the woman in the car--she is presented almost like a cardboard cutout, all torso and no lower extremities; see how she is facing the window as if she has no lower body. The sheer nylon around her head gives her an unsettling, ghostly appearance. And the final tableau of the couple in the backseat, staring disconnectedly out toward nothing, seems so frozen and stiff...a cold approximation of what that moment could be. It gives me goosebumps every time.

Lutens is alive and well, and has created over fifty scents for his own perfume empire, Les Salons du Palais Royal.

http://www.sergelutens.com/

Paper Moon Graphics Greeting Cards

I wonder how many of my readers are old enough to remember the 1970s and 80s sensation that was Paper Moon Graphics greeting cards? Their airbrushed, retro, "New Wave," disco sensibility was tons of fun and visually supported a lot of cultural changes that were happening in those decades. They were sold in "cool" and alternative gift stores...take a look...

The great illustrator Mel Odom created this marvelous image called "Jennifer" for Paper Moon in 1979.

Disco and Roller Disco was obviously HUGE in the late 70s and even into the early 80s. I loved these airbrushed images of disco couples, one of them comic and the other sexy...I SO wanted a satin tuxedo like this first image. I already had a shiny acrylic belt that looked like bands of metal...

When I was entering my teenage years, we moved from the east coast to California. It was 1979 and I had been dreaming of moving to the land of film studios and cool clothes. It seemed to be where anything "cool" was from. These images only whetted my appetite for my new home and when I arrived, I was thrilled to find that, while obviously stylized, the images were somewhat accurate! I still adore living here and after nearly forty years, I am proud to say I am a true Californian!

There was a real "Retro" movement in the late 70s and early 80s, fueled by a kind of punk/"New Wave" interest in graphic imagery from the 1950s (you can even see it in the disco images above with the skinny tie, and cat eye sunglasses). I went to more than a few dance clubs in the early 80s that projected cut-up and collaged instructional/educational/public service and corny B science fiction films from the 40s and 50s. There was something fascinating about dissecting these seemingly naïve cultural artifacts, and dancing under film clips showing children how to "duck and cover" in case "The Reds" decided to drop some bombs. But the irony of course was that we were still living in the Cold War, worried about mutual nuclear annihilation.

Keith Haring at the de Young, 2015

I am so pleased I got to squeeze in a visit to the de Young Museum in San Francisco to see their current Keith Haring exhibit before it closes this month.

Haring is such an iconic 80s artist, coming from the downtown Manhattan art scene along with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Madonna, and although Haring died in 1990, his work still speaks to us today. His graphic street style translated well onto large canvases in which he railed against injustice of all kinds: apartheid, the destruction of the planet, rampant consumerism and greed, and the bigotry and hatred that allowed thousands and thousands to die of a disease that, if we had gotten a jump on finding a cure, might be eradicated by now. His squiggles pack a punch. So much so that the show is entitled "The Political Line" since we are still dealing with all these issues more than thirty years on. His work reads like hieroglyphics, recording and marking the rage, terror, and sadness that infiltrated the dark Reagan years. Figures either dance in rapture, or shake and run from a restlessness born of frustration. I lived through those years and while Madonna sang "Everybody/ Come on, dance and sing," there was an anxious, fearful energy in the air because of AIDS and the very real threat of nuclear war with Russia. I think both of these paradoxical feelings--joy and fear--informed Haring's work. Things may have been difficult, but we still wanted to dance and have a good time...

And of course Keith Haring was unapologetically gay and used sexual imagery in his art work. Now, there is of course a history of gay male artists throughout the centuries, but I can't think of another gay artist who drew penises and erections with such dedication, love, and abandon (Tom of Finland aside!). I won't post them here, but the exhibition shows an entire notebook of penises (mostly self-portraits!) and the location where he drew each of them ("Drawing penises in front of the Museum of Modern Art").

As I toured the exhibit, I also realized that so few artists have created their own vocabulary. By that I mean that artists traditionally have painted landscapes or still lifes, figures of mostly women and some of men, allegorical scenes or scenes from the Bible. But who else created anything akin to barking human-dogs, a radiant baby, or persistent and zapping UFOs...and used them in their own visual language. Oh, there are some who created their own semaphores: maybe Cocteau... maybe Francis Bacon in a way...certainly Matthew Barney with his oblique Cremaster Series. But this is not so common to painters. And Haring did manage to invent his own visual language.

Before--and somewhat after--Haring became famous, he drew impromptu scenes on the unused black-lined niches used for advertising posters in the New York Subway. I recall being in Manhattan in the summer of 1982 and seeing, at seemingly every subway station, these curious white chalk drawings of the outlines of angels, or people, or robots...

The exhibit shows a marvelous collection of these drawings in a low-light room so as not to damage the paper or chalk. One is still attached to a film advertisement next to it. And clearly a friend of Haring's wrote some cheeky graffiti: "HARING STOP IT ENOUGH ALREADY."

As I mentioned, there is something wonderfully hieroglyphic and primitive about Haring's lines and he put them on some large vases...which feels ethnic and appropriate.

Below are some of his more directly politically charged pieces. I have to say that since I recall the 80s clearly, it was very powerful standing in front of his Silence = Death. It brought back memories of ACT UP and my own feelings about being gay, being marginalized, and feeling a kinship with the kind of fury that comes from having a large segment of humanity tell you, for no real reason at all, that you don't deserve to be here.

And here is your blogmaster outside the museum in front of Haring's delightful Three Dancing Figures, a joyous explosion of movement in primary colors. I could almost hear Madonna, back when she was still good, urging, "Everybody/ Get up and do your thing..."

If you are in Northern California, do try to get to the De Young for this rare opportunity to see so many Harings all in one place, and to learn about his life and works... it is very special. The exhibit closes this month, February 16th, 2015.

http://deyoung.famsf.org/haring
http://www.haring.com/

All photos by JEF except the last photo by JDG