Most people are probably more aware of the excellent 1995 Robert Crumb documentary by Crumb’s friend and bandmate Terry Zwigoff. That is a film and I was lucky enough to get to see it in one of Seattle’s little art house cinema’s back when I lived there. Less well known but easier to watch than Zwigoff’s often depressing exploration of Crumb’s dissatisfaction with American culture (he is moving to France with wife Aline Kominsky in the film which he considers a nation “slightly less evil than America”) is the one hour documentary produced by the BBC’s Arena Films. Crumb wrote the script for Confessions and the film is full of historical footage and cynical insights but is also a lighter look at the cartoon legend. Like Zwigoff’s film Confessions explores Crumb’s dubious acceptance of his role as a comic book icon and looks at some of the minutiae of his daily life with Aline on a farm. If you’re a fan of the guy’s work then this is a documentary you will want to see. After I moved away from buying and reading the super hero stuff by Marvel decades ago it was the natural progression of events to get into the stuff by Crumb and his peers. I cannot go on enough about how the guy’s work thrills me in terms of his technique and his writing style. His most recent contribution to illustrated stories is a verse for verse comic book rendering of the book of Genesis which is causing a stir amongst religious fundamentalists for its adult themed interpretation of the Biblical book. He spent four years on the project and I have yet to see it but am trying to find a version of it online.  A fascinating personality and talented artist.

SEE THE COMPLETE BBC CONFESSIONS OF ROBERT CRUMB HERE >>

I have not actually seen all of this fine looking Brian Eno documentary in its entirety but what I have seen looks great. I have sent the last day or two trying to edit the full film down to manageable sizes and then getting it uploaded to my trusty Viddler account. it covers the range of his career from the glam days of Roxy Music to his more modern recording. The guy is absolutely brilliant and interesting all the way through even when he is wearing women’s clothes. The film also touches on some of his non-music related interests such as art, his curious journals and odd little inventions. I am about to finally sit down and watch the entire documentary with my wife. Renaissance man hardly begins to describe Eno and the vast contributions he has made to the areas of experimental and popular music. I have another Eno documentary whose quality is far from the level of this BBC4 production but I may edit it up and get it up here as well one day if anyone is interested.

Later: I finished watching the video just a moment ago and cannot recommend this enough to both Eno fans and to people who hardly know the guy or his work. But I am sure most anybody has heard one of the songs he has produced for U2 and maybe for the less  super-popular  Coldplay.  I was so inspired I am getting some hardware and software I have long needed in order to finally (I hope) be able to record my own original music onto my computer. I do that now with prerecorded loops but I want to make my own loops. And this Eno documentary got me off my lazy rump and shopping on line for the weird gadgets I will need to do that.  A gentlemen, a musician, an artist and a philosopher.

MORE OF BRIAN ENO’S BBC4 DOCUMENTARY HERE >>

Hot on the heels of my first rare Robert Fripp interview is this second tasty little morsel. Fripp is young and intense here, looking like he did from the time of his Exposure album. He is in good spirits as he chats with the two fanboy hosts with enviable connections at the Boffomondo Show. Not sure what that is but it looks like some type of public access thing back when some of those shows were cool.  There is some info on the show at the link I posted. Seems these guys (sort of a couple Wayne’s World type  lads) really dug prog rock (as I do) and somehow got some big names to appear on their LA based cable show. Other than Fripp some people they had include Adrian Bellew, John Wetton, Phil Collins, and fusion guitarist Al Di Meola. and  I can’t remember where I got this but it looks like it may have come from Youtube as it was in four short sections which I joined together and uploaded to my Viddler account. Lots of talk about King Crimson and its break up after the Red album.  Not much more to say about this one except that it is not to be missed by Fripp and King Crimson devotees. Will have my Fripp article back up soon I hope after I get the audio file hosting sorted out. Enjoy.

ROBERT FRIPP INTERVIEW 02 HERE >>

If you do not care much for Robert Fripp then this post and the next one will not interest you much. If you like the man and his contributions to music as both a musician and as a producer then you will may want to check these out. I forget where I got them from but this interview and the next one are pretty short but worth watching. Fripp does not seem to do a lot of interviews in any format and so these video interviews I came across are of special interest to Fripp enthusiasts. Both are ripped from fair quality VHS tapes and on this one Fripp performs some music as well (laden with Frippertronics and ambience) in a place called The Reverberation Chamber at the Acoustic Research Lab. The next interview, coming in the next post or two, shows a more hyper and manic, and there more entertaining, Fripp while this one has the King Crimson mentor a little more laid back but none the less cynical at times about the state of modern music as when he discusses appearing live in public (“we are all turkeys”) and watching music videos. And this was a few decades ago when ‘modern’ music didn’t reek as bad as it does now in the 21st century. If you’re curious I also have a Brian Eno interview I may need to edit a bit before uploading it somewhere, but it is pretty cool too. If you like Eno that is. Some people do like this sort of stuff I realize. I, on the other hand, admire both Fripp and Eno and actually owned their collaborative album No Pussyfooting album on vinyl at one time. Have it on digital MP3 nown along with their other collaborations,  and still give it a listen now and then. I will eventually get back up my post of five albums by Fripp that I stuck back in my draft folder after having issues with the audio files being disabled by the hosting service. I will be hosting those files at my own account soon and that post will be back up in a month or so I hope. For now enjoy this little look into the great mind of one of progressive rock’s most creative and hardest working individuals.

ROBERT FRIPP INTERVIEW 01 HERE >>

I recently happened upon this short and relatively unknown 1984 documentary by Tom Corboy about fanatical Elvis fans whose lives revolve the King in one way or another. After the King’s death in 1977 they ave all experienced some loss of purpose and direction that they cannot seem to resolve. One man  named Artie Mentz is an Elvis impersonator who sees himself as a priest in some ways. The same way a real priest represents an invisible but present God so does Artie represent Elvis. At one point Artie explains how he was bewildered when, during lean times, his daughter said he should basically get a ‘real job’. Artie is driven to do what he does by a higher calling  it seems. Another woman story seems almost tragic as she talks about how her marriage failed because her husband did not share her fervor for Elvis and even felt she was a bit insane. She left her son to finish high school in New Jersey so she could travel south and live closer to Memphis and Graceland. She feels any red blooded American woman would have to desire to have sex with Elvis but she is appalled that a friend of her’s claimed that Elvis singing for her would be enough. She say she would like Elvis to sing for her too but while he is making love to her at the same time of course. She talks about a daughter of hers who loved Elvis as well and who Elvis once took upon stage at a concert and hugged and gave a scarf to as a gift.  Tragically the little girl is one day abducted and murdered and the distraught woman causes a controversy in her family by playing an Elvis song at the funeral service. My God, let the woman play what she wants are her own daughter’s funeral. Another pair of super fans are twin girls who believe that they Elvis’s daughters and one proof is that their mother has never said that they weren’t. The girls and Artie see cosmic significance in adding up the date of Elvis’s death, 16 August 1977, and getting the number 2001 which was the song (used in the the Stanley Kubrick film) Elvis used to open his act with in his last years. Well they call the song 2001 but actually the piece was  Also Sprach Zarathustra, a tone poem by Richard Strauss inspired by the book by Friedrich Neitzsche  but who the hell knows that anyway.

MORE OF MONDO ELVIS HERE >>

TODAY’S FEATURE: A WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS DOCUMENTARY

SEE AN INSIGHTFUL WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS DOCUMENTARY HERE