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 am a little worn out from doing my podcast earlier today and then uploading some tunes to use for this post to acknowledge the birthday of Jimmy Page, a true uranium embued musician if there ever was one.  Since I am really worn out I am not going to say much about a man whom I could say way too much easily. Had the fortune to see him twice in concert, once with Led Zeppelin. Front row even. Am I blessed or what. Posting a video here. No shortage of Zep stuff on Youtube so I selected the live performance of Trampled Under Foot from Earl’s Court, in 1975. Also a few songs I uploaded to edublogs.tv. Some stuff you may not have heard. From The Firm, his one solo album called Outrider and the title song from the pretty decent Page/Plant solo effort called Walking Into Clarksdale. The few Page related articles I have done here are fairly popular in terms of traffic. My post on the Lucifer Rising Soundtrack has now become my most commented on post.  Anyway, I am wiped out suddenly. Had bigger plans for this post. I made the entire podcast, edited it and uploaded it earlier and now want to relax. And in any case, there will always be more mention on Mr. Page here in the future.

MORE JIMMY PAGE STUFF HERE >>

TODAY’S TANTILIZING THRILLER:

MESA OF LOST WOMEN

SEE WHAT HAPPENS ON THE MESA OF LOST WOMEN HERE >>

TODAY’S CYBER-PUNK FREAKFEST:

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN

SEE TETSUO: THE IRON HERE >>

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GIALLO

2009/Director: Dario Argento/Writers: Jim Agnew, Dario Argento

Cast: Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky, Robert Miano, Byron Deidra

God knows I have tried to like Dario Argento. His name pops up everywhere in the horror world and yet I have to admit I have cared for very little he has ever done. His sycophantic supporters say that even if his newer work is weak we must acknowledge the genius of his ‘high period’ when he helped to usher in the great giallo films of the late 60’s and early 70’s as well as his unique brand of horror. And that may well be unarguable. Some of his films from the period, that I have seen, are Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Tenebre, Deep Red, Suspiria, and Phenomenon. While these are classics of some sort, I guess, I have to admit that  all of these films are some of the most confusing and haphazard movies I have ever sat down to watch. When the killer and her motives is finally revealed in Deep Red (some minor female character who had about two or three minutes of screen time earlier in the film) I was so disappointed. Not to say that that is a reason to pan a film and not see it but I seem to missing something that hordes of other people are getting and don’t know what it is. Why is Deep Red (Profundo Rosso) considered to be one of the great giallo films of the 70’s? It is a mediocre film at best. One defense I have read of Argento (and most Italian giallo and horror in general) is that one must not look for a linear story in the Hollywood fashion and instead you have to let yourself go along with the surreal quality of the film and receive its messages on an almost unconscious level.  One is to not watch and analyze the film as a whole but you have look for those special moments that cannot be found in any other genre. I am not sure about all that but as time has gone on I have to admit I have developed a liking for Italian horror and suspense films I did not have when I was younger. I liked Italian post war dramas and pepla and spaghetti westerns for some reason but was confused by Italian horror until I explored Mario Bava’s work. Then I read that Bava was an inspiration for Argento and the men even worked together on some projects at the end of Bava’s career. I decided there had to be something there my Cro-magnon mind could not fathom. Years later I finally concluded some of the stuff is okay after all though I can still be at a loss and typically cannot finish an Italian made horror or crime film in one setting.

MORE GIALLO HERE >>

TODAY’S LUCIO FULCI GIALLO DOUBLE FEATURE:

PERVERSION STORY with DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING

ENTER HERE TO SEE THE AMAZING LUCIO FULCI GIALLO DOUBLE FEATURE >>

TODAY’S FAR OUT FEATURE: TROG

SEE TROG MENACE JOAN CRAWFORD AND MICHAEL GOUGH HERE >>

REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES aka BLACK MAGIC II (Gou Hun Jiang Tou)

1976/ Director: Meng Hua Ho/Writer: Kuang Ni

Cast: Lo Lieh, Lung Ti, Ni Tien, Lily Li, Feng Lin, Wei Tu Lin, Terry Liu

AKA:
Bewitch Tame Head
Black Magic II
Ngau Wan Gong Tau

Shaw Brothers Studios leading horror/exploitation director Meng Hua Ho returns to the helm for this 1976 sequel to the previous year’s Black Magic. Also returning are veteran wuxia pian (‘heroic kung fu films’ usually with a wandering swordsman on a knight errant mission) actors Lo Lieh (sometimes Lieh Lo if you search using the Asian method of family names first) and Ti Lung with Lo Lieh serving this time as the black magician. While I have not yet been able to find of a copy the first Black Magic film I understand that Lo Lieh was not the black magician in that one and will reserve any comments on that film until I have actually seen it. While the two Black Magic films have the reputation as Shaw Brothers studio most famous horror films they were in no way the first as the studio had dabbled in non-Kung Fun genres as far back as the 50’s. The Hong Kong horror genres would evolve , after the 80’s, into the Category III variety (meaning sexually explicit but not quite hard core porn) and contain the sort of gory shock elements found in most modern Japanese horror. With Black Magic II (Revenge of the Zombies and Gou Hun Jiang Tou) there are more than enough elements visually and story wise to keep the film somewhat linked to the classic Shaw Brother’s films of the 60’s and early 70’s and yet has a few twists make it a little surprising as well.

MORE BLACK MAGIC II HERE >>