My Top 20 Albums of 2013 – Young Galaxy Triumphant

My Best Albums of 2013 (for what it’s worth)

 

In a rough descending order –

 

Young Galaxy –Ultramarine

 

Arcade Fire -Reflektor

 

The National –Trouble Will Find Me

 

Atoms for Peace –AMOK

 

Momus – Bambi

 

Non – Back to Mono

 

Ministry – From Beer to Eternity

 

Pet Shop Boys – Electric

 

The Knife – Shaking the Habitual

 

Portugal The Man –Evil Friends

 

Austra – Olympia

 

Kirin J Callinan –Embracism

 

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away.

 

SNOG – Babes in Consumerland

 

Erasure – Snow Globe

 

OMD – English Electric

 

John Grant – Pale Green Ghost

 

Polica – Shulamith

 

Pankow – And Shun the Cure They Most Desire

 

David Bowie – The Next Day

 

Depeche Mode – Delta Machine

 

 

The Last Days of Joe Blow – New Trailer

The Last Days of Joe Blow Trailer on Vimeo.

We have had to cut it a bit to meet their silly sexuality guidelines.

Trust me the feature is much juicier.

It is at the AFM right now, folks, with the Producer Jason Byrne. So if you’re from a fest playing next year and want to see it – drop Jason a line and meet up/make contact. etc.

Otherwise sit back and enjoy the trailer. http://vimeo.com/52599100

Rough credits:

Director/C0-Producer-Richard Richard Wolstencroft, Producer-Jason Byrne, Co-Producer-Tait Brady, Associate Producer/Editor-Mark Bakaitis. Camera-Mark Mark Savage & Richard Wolstencroft, Music-David Thrussell, Damian Whitty and others. Featuring Michael Tierney as Joe Blow. Also featuring William Margold, Ron Jeremy, Eric John, Missy Woods, Charlie Chase, Jeremy Steele and many others. Special guest commentators Bruce LaBruce and Andrew Richardson.

A few stills below. A couple with raunch.

The 1st Bloodfest Fantastique Film Festival Award Winners

Best Film

 

– The Tunnel (Carlo Ledesma)

 

 

 

Best Director

 

– Chris Sun (Come and Get Me)

– Josh Reed (Primal)

 

 

 

Best Actor

 

– Damian Walshe-Howling (The Reef)

 

 

 

Best Actress

 

– Kelsie McDonald (Come and Get Me)

 

 

 

Best Supporting Actor

 

– Michael Rooker (Penance)

– Steve Davis (The Tunnel)

 

 

 

Best Supporting Actress

 

– Kerry Ann Reid (Family Demons)

 

 

 

Best Screenplay

 

– Ursula Dabrowsky (Family Demons)

 

 

 

Best Editor

 

– Michael Gilbert (Come and Get Me)

 

 

 

Best Cinematography

 

– Shing Fung Cheung, Steve Davis (The Tunnel)

 

 

 

Best Special Effects and Make-Up

 

 

– Chris Sun (Come and Get Me)

 

 

Best Cult Film

 

– Starship Invasions

 

 

 

Best Short Film

 

– Meth to Madness (Chris Mitchell)

 

 

 

Best Short Film Director

 

 

– Chris Mitchell (Meth to Madness)

 

 

Best Short Film Actor

 

– Jeremy Kewley (Shepherd’s Hill)

 

 

 

Best Short Film Actress

 

– Jamie McDowell (Home)

 

 

 

Bloodfest Genre Innovation Award

 

– Someone’s Knocking at the Door (Chad Ferrin)

 

 

 

Special Short Film Jury Prize

 

– Flow (Scott Dale)

 

 

Special Jury Prize

 

– The Reef (Andrew Traucki)

 

 

Best Documentary

 

– Video Nasties (Jake West)

An Open Letter In Support of The Melbourne Underground Film Festival by Jack Sargeant

An Open Letter In Support of The Melbourne Underground Film Festival

Bruce LaBruce is an internationally renowned filmmaker and writer. His works
have screened across the globe: at the New York Museum of Modern Art, the
Sundance Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival,
the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and many others. Several of his
films have also screened to appreciative Australian film festival audiences. His
films are readily available to rent and buy, both internationally and nationally,
where many have been released on DVD.

Mixing black comedy, politics, genre, melodrama and porn, LaBruce’s films tell
stories of homosexual desire, of lust and love, all shot through with a low budget,
post-punk aesthetic that pays homage to both underground cinema and
Hollywood classics. He has a dedicated cult fan base and his work is central in
both indie film and contemporary GLBT cinema, a documentary study of
LaBruce’s work is due to premiere at a major European film festival in 2011.

His most recent movie, LA Zombie follows a ‘gay’ ‘zombie’ who, rather than killing
brings the dead back to life by having sex with them. The sex, much of which is
faked, is, behind the ʻshockingʼ concept, gentle and loving. Beneath the stage-
bloodied zombie movie is a tender film about the regenerative powers of sex and
love.

Film fans across the world were surprised when LA Zombie was ʻbannedʼ during
the Melbourne International Film Festival. When the film was subsequently
screened with no police interference to an appreciative audience as part of the
Melbourne Underground Film Festival many praised the event for enabling an
audience to see the work.

It is, then, troubling that Richard Wolstencroft, the director of the Melbourne
Underground Film Festival, had his house raided on 11th November by
detectives searching for a copy of the film. The involvement of Victoria Police and
the threat of legal action simply for screening a film that has already played to
global audiences is deeply disturbing.

The image of the police and courts enforcing censorship is never pretty; when the
target is the work of an internationally famous gay filmmaker it is downright
shameful. The threat of legal action simply for screening a film is part of an
increasingly hysterical response that can only have a detrimental effect to
filmmakers and audiences in Australia.

As filmmakers, film fans, and consenting adults, we roundly condemn the
banning of this film and the possibility of legal action against the director of an
independent film festival.

Jack Sargeant
Richard Sowada
Anne Demy-Geroe
Julie Rigg
Dov Kornits
Christina Andreef
Fiona Patten
Maija Howe
Dominique Angeloro
Dan Angeloro
Jon Hewitt
Stefan Popescu
Katherine Berger
Dean Bertram
Mathieu Ravier
Daniel Palisa
Michael Adams
Dejan Ognjanovic
David Leadbetter
Matthew Clayfield
Jane Louise
Brendan Walls
Dave de Vries
Frank Howsom
Bec Sutherland
Leigh Barnes
Joel Brady
Ian Drummond
Simon Strong

International:
Craig Baldwin
David Flint
Carl Ford
Mitch Davis
Michael Tierney

The Moronic New Wave of Gangster Rap

I was watching Rage on the weekend. I saw a series of modern rap songs. I like some rap, especially of the political variety like Public Enemy and even hard-core gangsta rap of Schooly D, etc. But I find this new school of mainstream gangster rap of Jay Z, Nivea, 50 cent, etc., so passe. They are simple ads for Capitalism and conspicuou…s consumption. Most modern rap artists display their wealth in their videos betraying their peasant origins in its ostentation. Each video has the bling, creepy black thugs, booty shaking sluts, cristal, Rolex, hot cars, et al,… yawn. They are sickeningly conservative and dull expressions of a lifestyle most blacks never experience. They also promote a moronic view of the gangster life style. The rappers are also managed by greedy money-grubbing scumbags even worse than the artists. I find this type of music culture destructive, incredibly moronic and deeply counter revolutionary. End Fragment.

Here is but one example from 50 cent:

The Prostitutes – A blast from the past

Here is an article sent to me by Kent Morris of the band The Prostitutes. The Prostitutes were am electronic industrial band from Melbourne in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Here is an interview I did with them when I was editor of Beat magazine back in 1990 and 1991.

A prayer for Dave Gahan

Dave Gahan has been sick with bladder cancer, and has had a tumor removed. Mode have canceled shows for a month, and in my opinion should cancel more, so Gahan can rest up.

To me, my favourite band was never The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin or Dylan. To me they were naive sixties idealists and hippies espousing an absurd and lazy philosophy, their music good… but so 20th century. My favourite band growing as a teenage, and in many respects to this days was/is Depeche Mode. They were something else, something alien. They were the Future, baby. They were my Beatles. And I dare say it, a more profound outfit, and of a longer lasting significance, than those baby boomer 60’s assholes…

Why? Nihilism, proto fascist imagery, dark moody lyrics, sadomasochism, tortured love, technology, perversion, dance music and clubs, leather and sex. This was the world of Depeche Mode. This was my world as a teenager, and later… Gore’s amazing songs, the electronic sound scapes of the band and Gahan’s amazing voice made for a brilliant and long lasting combination. And still Mode are releasing classic albums 29 years into their career. They have been a consistently strong and amazing band, that define the 80’s generation.

So Idea Fix sends out our heart felt best wishes to Dave G. Mode has been the sound track to my life… and if I feel a little Nostalgia… …well, lets allow Dave Gahan himself to say it best…on this brilliant side project track from Mirror… Get well Dave and keep bringing us the ‘sounds of the universe’…

Fischerspooner and Fascism

I think this is the official video for a Fischerspponer song, “Happy”. It makes a link between electro, industrial and dance music being inherehtly fascist. The thought has more than occurred to me over the years. Slave to the Rythm, the Domination of the beat, the crash of the anvil at the night club school, etc.

Here is quote from whoever posted the “Happy” clip on You Tube:

“Electronic-Disco rhythm, as a regular repetition, is the purest, the most radical form of the militantly organised rhythmicity of technicist production, and as such the most appropriate means of media manipulation. As an archetypal structural basis of the collective unconscious in a worker mass, it stimulates automatic mechanisms and shapes industrialisation of consciousness, which is necessary in the logic of massive, totalitarian production…”

I agree… and say dance, dance, dance…to the fascist groove thang…

Enjoy the Clip! The new Fischerspooner CD “Entertainment” is out and great by the way. I picked it up in Salt Lake City and bopped all around Mormon town vibing on its cool electro veneer while looking at the legacy of Jospeh Smith and Brigham Young. ‘Infidels of the world Unite’… and remember ‘living well is the best revenge’…

The Horror…the Horrors

I like this clip, and song, The Horrors – Sea Within a Sea. Song produced by Geoff Barrow from Portishaed. Portishaed last album, “3” was a fucking masterpiece from last year, too. Enjoy…The Horrors.

Lou Reed visits Australia in the 70’s

Aussie director Richard Lowenstein posted this on his facebook page today, and I just had to share it here after viewing it. A classic interview with Reed in the 70’s.