The Price of Pop: Halloween Challenge Night 16

 

I am twelve, and like most people I know my age, I am crazy about Michael Jackson's new album. 'Billie jean' is an absolute banger, 'Beat It' a badger of very hot properties. The whole things sounds brilliant and is probably the first album I ever buy that I listen to, absorbing as much of the backing instruments and their interplay as I can to try and work it all out. It was a fool's errand, and I may as well have tried to pull apart Jackson's insane dance moves for all the good it (and that!) did me. But the best was yet to come. Tonight, for Halloween, I'm revisiting the next big thing to come off Jackson's unassailable album: 

Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' (John Landis, 1983)

The production is a film and cult media geek's dream: Landis was not long off the set of The Twilight Zone, bringing Rick Baker in tow for makeup - both had worked together of course on An American Werewolf in London, the only movie of Landis' that Jackson had seen, although  it was enough to get him on the line. Rounding out the interstitial music was Elmer Bernstein, also a past collaborator with Landis on Werewolf as well as Animal House, and soon to be providing the original score for Ghostbusters. And then of course Vincent Price, who doesn't seem to have been on set, but whose presence is essential in the song and for the extended reawakened dead scenes. The short film itself is an honest homage to the old form - Jackson loved the tradition of movie shorts, so wanted to bring them back, the story takes place in a Fifties'/ Sixties opening, and later zombies storm a creepy abandoned house, shuffling and moaning in a visual recreation of Night of the Living Dead. Finally there's the cinema itself, location of the movie within a movie opener, and tellingly festooned with posters of Price's - and Landis' past works. Much of this I know - but not all. And for the first time seeing it on TV, the same night as all of those other kids I know, I have no idea what's coming next. But it's brilliant.

Forty-three years on, and it's still a great diversion, even if you have to squint your brain at the history of some of its principal players. The direction is nice, the sound and lighting terrific and the colours in particular are fantastic - I'm a sucker for Eighties zombies with their parchment skin, deep-set eyes and angular features. get them dancing the way Jacko did and it's a vision. Plus, I can swear that one of them is a reference to Tor Johnson. In y opinion Jackson peaked here - he never looked as good, cast such a shadow, or electrified the screen. Thriller is a miniature treat, from gas-strapped prologue to that memorable final spin with its cat-eyed hero that would stay in my young mind for days afterward. Truly, noone could resist this Thriller.

Halloweenometer. As loath as I am to go straight down the zombie route, this has graveyards, a full moon, a spooky house and a werewolf. It's pretty much made for Halloween.

Companion Piece. The audio for Vincent 'One Take' Price's additions (complete with third, unused verse) is here. But why no add in another of Landis and Baker's great collaborations from the time - courtesy of a future Ghostbuster, naturally. I rewatched this again for a laugh and still jumped, crying out, knowing what was coming. And laughed at my silliness. By jeepers it's a good scene!

Buy Before You Die - Halloween advertising across three decades: Halloween Challenge Night 15

A lot of my idea of what Halloween is come naturally from US sources – the Child Life journals picked up from our town library, the odd TV programme, and in later years that recentday Bible of Americana, ET the Extraterrestrial. The latter I really took to, especially as it included a pretty hefty – if dubious – nod to the Dungeons & Dragons phenomenon, but the Halloween aspect is key to the story. The disguise our titular alien wears, Elliot’s skeleton makeup, a cornfield bursting with golden promise, the great Star wars vuisual gag in the Trick or Treating scene (which to my astonishment seemed to take place in near full daylight – most ujnlike the dark autumn evenings I’d grown up thinking were a staple. They were like us after all!). Oh, and a trail of candy with which to trick the cosmic critter in the first place. 

Halloween in America, the young Simian concluded, must be an awesome thing indeed. Subsequent encounters with States-born classmates and friends have tempered that somewhat – and of course, Hollywood will glam these things up, but for further evidence this evening I took to everyone’s prime source of facts, YouTube, to see how Halloween was interpreted on the domestic tube in the 70s, 80s and 90s. How did it go?



As a goodie bag? A bit mixed, to be honest. I have takeaways. Some hard candy, some soft centres, some saccharine offerings of dubious origin, indeed. The 70s are a particular revelation, marking the first technicolour video decade of regional channels promoting local fare on a budget. Yep, Halloween costumes looked very… economical. Thin, plastic half masks, tamer choices of raggedy Annes or hoboes (a VERY popular and DIY-friendly choice from that time, it seems), and some sound mixing and which has not survived the ravages of time and early VHS technology. It was a bit underwhelming, and the ever-present cereal ads of Count Chocula and his frightful brethren, not to mention the long-forgotten pretenders to the McDonalds/Burger King etc throne looked a bit forlorn. 

Ten years later the dayglo decade became a little more adult-friendly with face paints and a promise of dancing and snagging your intended with the right costume… not a lot of spookiness here, really. By the 90s it was more of the same. The technology had improved, but the whole things had a rushed, improvised aspect to it, maybe because of the hodgepodge of corporate and Mom/Pop franchises vying for that sweet sweet Halloween dollar.

 Halloweenometer. The question I found myself asking was “does it get me in the mood?” Kind of. “Does it give me a good idea of what Halloween may have been like back in the day?” Well, maybe it did  - and possibly despite itself. Try it out and see what you think!

Postscript: In the interests of weird science I did compare thins to UK Horror-themed ads of the same time. Beer ads, Hamlet cigars… illicit ice lollies. It’s a contrast, but as much as  I had fun with them, they weren’t real Halloween fare. Good, though.

Seasonal Bargains of the Witch: Halloween Challenge Night 14

 So far so much straying from Halloween itself. So tonight, Matthew, I've returned to the Sates, to a slightly more modern time for the movie that it's in: Halloween 3 

 Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, not John Carpenter and not Nigel Neale so stop asking)

Ah, the dreaded threequel. Nigel Neale wrote this, you know. Then had his name taken off it. Tom Atkins is in it – a sure sign of quality with his horror pedigree (The Fog! Monster Squad! Night of the Creeps!) I’d heard this was at best a guilty pleasure, and had nothing to do with the tale of Michael Myers. Was it right? And did it not?

Yes, reader, for if you’ve not dived into the backstory of this movie to date, both are respectively kind of right, and very much on the money. The idea, apparently, was to have Halloween-adjacent and not necessarily linked stories going forward in this franchise, leaving the tale of poor beleaguered Laurie Strode and less-fortunate souls behind to allow the films to spread their batlike wings and take off. Reader, they didn’t.

This is… fine. A take of sinister advertising, mind-controlled kids, electronic puppetry and dubious Halloween masks, it’s cosmetically on point. But its also a bit confused, fumbles the alleged Celtic connections in a way that many many modern horrors do, and the final product is a real mixed goody bag. Charismatic leads, sure – but I missed the Shape of a proper bogeyman. The movie straddles uneasily the slashy Seventies with the more visceral, technological Eighties. Freddy Krueger was mere months away, and ready to reinvent the form. This could only suffer by comparison.

Halloweenometer. Well, it says it on the tin, and the VHS wrapping is very enticing. PLUS I have feelings about serial killers stealing the season from the spooks and ghouls. But I was a bit stratchy watching this one. On theme, but maybe not on point. 

Pumpkinwatch: We're back on familiar ground, and there's plenty to choose from here, including a new fangled digital title sequence! But it's the masks we've come for, so feast your peeps:

Generation X(mas)

 There's been a bit of an Idol Renaissance in the Simian household this year, spurred on by a little nostalgia. Jet Jr is about to start high school next year, bringing out all my feels as well as the music I was listening to at the time. That's for another post, but the works of the man born William Broad, plus his lead gunslinger Steve Stevens is on pretty high rotate. That's helped also by a pretty decent return to form this year with some studio TV appearances to boost sales of his new Roadside EP, the first single of which, 'Bitter Taste' I liked a lot.

Old (Rebel) Yeller Billy Idol has aged well, his voice acquiring a Johnny-Cash-like rumble, and he was always a lover of the classics of rock and roll, so it should be no surprise that he had a Christmas song in him. In fact, he's had several through the years, including the bittersweet family memoir 'Yelling at the Christmas Tree' from 2005 album Devil's Playground - but that has to have been beaten this year with an entire album, ladies and gentlemen, of Christmas standards. Read that list and weep, because the man is committed to the form, and he doesn't disappoint. 

But it's not all covers. This is his (presumably original) 'On Christmas Day', an epic, sweeping statement of redemption and amends, of a family reunited on a specific day dedicated so often to the concept of family. Here's Billy Idol, family man On Christmas Day, born to run wildly back to his 'child' (interpretations open, which is clever) And it's another cracker!

We can forgive Mr Broad for missing the obvious 'Dancing With My Elf' this time, but he's on notice.

Merry Christmas, one and all, and rock on! Have a safe and happy family holiday, whatever and wherever your family may be.

We Never Leave a Man Behind!

 Good news in the Simian household with the arrival of a box of weird stuff from my teenage years!

This was quite the thing. Collected (I think) from various stages of a garage tidy-up by my Dad, it's presumably passed through two houses since some of it was first packed away - and it shows. Things have got dusty, some a bit worse for wear over time, and even the moths have had a go (eek)

But amongst the old scout badges (of more later), and early modelling gear (again, later), a prize. 

This dude:

Once again, this is a Grenadier model - one of a blister pack of four, including a fallen orc, goblin and thief/magic-user (I could never tell), which a scan of Miniatures Workshop tells me was Fantasy Lords release 110: 'Casualties'.  I think this was an early purchase - 1984 or 1985, as the spread of subjects was probably economically attractive, and I was very keen on dioramas and dungeon dressing back then. He's clearly had a few paintjobs. Well, judging by the way he's laid out he may have just had a few. Here he is after an initial bath and scrub in Simple Green:

Those are enamel paints, so the soak might need to be a bit longer. It's telling that some of the colours here were the mainstays of my 'Humbrol Years' of model painting: there's a burgundy, for example, which was one of the few paints I purchased which wasn't a hangover from earlier WW2 model painting (of which more, etc) Underneath that, of course, is the white undercoat. These days I use black and work up to light, but I think for a novice painter it was a blessing - as was the enamel I used. Both worked really well for washes, and the paint jobs held impressively after years of being knocked around - as the bath above shows. At least I only have one side to clean.

So now all of my old minis are present and accounted for. I'm pleased as punch. Time to get painting! 

Christmas is a Love Story

The kids these days - and by kids I also mean middle-aged nostalgonauts, have apparently taken to dubbing a certain Bruce Willis movie a 'Christmas Movie.' Fair enough - I can't argue, as to shout against all that would also be to shout against some other fine Yuletide romps, like Gremlins, Batman Returns - and even Shazam! has Santa in it. It's a movie about children, wishes, magic and families - of course it's a Christmas movie!

But similar things could be said for songs. We adopt songs for our times, and reinvent songs to fit our times. I was agog this week to discover, for example, that my chosen musical bete noir of Nativity-tide, the veritable dog in the manger if you will, said Jingle Bells - is many times not Christmas. It's a Thanksgiving song, apparently. But here we are. And sometimes songs slip into Christmas by intent, despite some ropey sentiment (cough!DoTheyKnowIt'sChristmascough!) and, in the following case, by timing and visuals.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood's The Power of Love, the third and greatest of the singles troika going by that name in 1985, is now 35 years old. Sweet Baby Jesus. Released in November of that year, it crept into the public consciousness and made FGtH's third consecutive number one from their debut album. Thematically, it's not Christian in focus or Christmas in theme, but I cant hear it without thinking of the Godley and Creme video and its multi-ethnic magi, imagining the lyrics to be the sentiments of a bewildered and bowlderised Joseph, who loves this girl, but like her is just being carried helplessly along by a greater tide. Back in its native home that video (not to mention single sleeve) did the job, almost, and it would have made the coveted Christmas Number One slot but for Sir Bob Geldof and chums. Never mind. Enjoy this at the close of another brutal year- the sweeping strings, lulling piano, children's cartoon bogeymen, and those vocals. Dampen down the inhumanity and misfortune that 2019 wrought, and hope for better things to come. Let yourself be beautiful, indeed.

I had a girlfriend once who thought this song was warbling drivel. Always knew she was a wrong'un.




"I always felt like 'The Power of Love' was the record that would save me in this life. There is a biblical aspect to its spirituality and passion; the fact that love is the only thing that matters in the end."
- Holly Johnson

Geek Like Me

'Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks' by Ethan Gilsdorf (2012)

On a recommendation from the Save or Die podcast I recently read through Ethan Gilsdorf's Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, an autobiographical journey by the author, a journalist, who revisits an Eighties childhood of roleplaying games through literally revisiting and immersing himself in many of the elements past and present of a fantasy geek lifestyle. Along the way he meets other gamers, lifestylers and geeks, some of whom also tell their story through Gilsdorf.

Gilsdorf is around my age, but got into gaming earlier, and seemed to stick with it larger, and yet his experiences of leaving the game seem pretty familiar to anyone who has left home, entered adult institutions and fumbled their way through the sought treasures and pitfalls of adult relationships. In fact, the author's late childhood of nursing a severely disabled mother while entering his teens weighs heavily on the narrative, as does his confessed difficulty with committing to his longtime girlfriend. In a way, the premise of the book as quest oriented helps tell his story - the work of the journalist being one of discovery, detective, conflict and intuition, much like that of an RPG character; however, it's a piecemeal journey, with interruptions, revisions and deviations. There's also an returning element in Gildorf's writing that admits to a form of arrested maturity in the writer - something he explains in part to his unenviably difficult teens, but nevertheless it intrudes into the narrative. In short, there are times when the quest seems to be aimed at more than just awakening and examining the geek in Gilsdorf's head, but also pursuing a warrior queen of his very own, and to me it sat uncomfortably.

Nevertheless, there's plenty here to absorb if, like Gilsdorf, you've been somewhat divorced from the world of roleplaying games and are interested in how its various worlds - tabletop gaming, LARPing, historical reenactment, online MORPGs and fan culture, have evolved. As anyone who has followed the fortunes of games like Dungeons and Dragons can attest, the fortunes of the game and its community have waned and waxed over the years and fought their share of demons - from Eighties Satanic Panic to the collapse of many of its gaming studios, to the emergence of new media and the digital age. I found a lot of interest in Gilsdorf's visit to the spiritual antecedents of RPGs, in particular Guedelon in France, where a castle is being constructed strictly according to mediaeval methods including manpower, and the modern re-enactors, whose lives I do not envy, but dedication and philosophy intrigues me.

Perhaps the book rather extends its stay, though. The coda, a visit to New Zealand, seemed tacked on to complete Gilsdorf's mission of visiting a fantasy world up close and offer the best chance to immerse himself in one post-Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. But anyone who has tried to accomplish this will probably tell a similar story of the variable fortunes of attempting to meet screen with reality. It's a rather flat ending, and somewhat unsatisfying. I recommend Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks with some hesitation, but will say that its coverage for the time is pretty generous, and while told from a US perspective, doesn't seem to be especially parochial. Gilsdorf himself comes across as a pretty intense individual - sometimes apologetically so, and as noted above, this personality drives a lot of his book: your mileage may vary. Fr my pafrt I finished the book a little less patient with its writer, but happy to have been on some of his journey at least.

Here, recently posted on YouTube is Gilsdorf's original films of his teenage gaming group in jittery, blurry Super 8, with the soundtrack 'Kids' from Stranger Things. As an artefact of its time it's damned near perfect.

Here Be Dragons!

A quick post for a wee victory dance. Long-time readers may recall that I've had a long-term ambition to find some of the old Grenadier Models Lord of the Rings minis to complete (or at least enhance) my existing set. I've also for even longer than that wanted to have my very own dragon miniature to paint. Well, consider the target reached and half-completed.

A chance car boot sale at a local school saw the Simian familty sauntering past on a dry run before an inevitable garage sale we'll be having some day soon. We brought money with us, but didn't really intend to spend any. But what did I see going there?

The Grenadier LotR sets - likely both the monsters and Fellowship (and Bill the Pony - I could kick myself!) together in a box, painted very nicely, and going for $15.

With them was a similar Grenadier box of orcs and Dwarves - also painted very nicely. $15

With them, a Mithril Minis diorama of Eowyn, Merry and the Lord of the Nazgul astride his Fel Beast. Unpainted. $10. And with that, a Ral Partha Armoured Dragon - simply undercoated and like the Tolkien diorama a tidy 25mm scale. Also a tenner.

Cue much hand-wringing and balancing out of cash reserved for the daily commute. In the end, I chose, and I think I chose wisely. Mithril and Ral Partha are companies who made quality minis back in the day, and I've always wanted something from both of their stables. And now I'm not only a dragon richer, but also a rather cool diorama to paint for my very own. The LotR set I left behind - and still I feel the pang. But hey, they were painted really really well by someone who loved them, so they've already had a great life, and I have over half the contents of that box already (don't mention Bill!) Hopefully someone got them in the end, and if they did they got a great deal.

As for me, I'm happy! But Metal Mountain just got that little bit higher.

PS: A note about the unboxing though - the Armoured Dragon is missing a foot. A shame, but not the end of the world. A missing piece means a story to add to the picture...

Brought (back) to Book

Ma, I fixed a book!

This book I have enjoyed since I first found it in a bookshop in Roslyn, Dunedin some time in 1984.

It's not the actual book, actually. Who knows where that went? Loaned to a RPG-curious nephew, lost to the ages. Probably sent to a school fair or assisting in filling land. It happens, and because it happens, I looked for a replacement nearly ten years ago, and in that time (mainly sitting in my bedside cabinet), the secondhand copy I bought in a Newtown shop turned into this:

Now, the thing about having been a librarian for nearly 25 years is, I've never ever mended a book. At all. So when faced with detatched covers, dangling spines, and dried up glue like this:

...I had to resort to the librarian's friend, Google!

Long story short, during a week at home after Wellington's last office-closing earthquake, I discovered the book lying in pieces at the bottom of a box and decided then was the time to take action.

Covers were trimmed, glue was scraped off, and while the inner pages were separated into two or three 'blocks', luckily the interior was in pretty good shape despite some slight foxing. Hey, it's a paperback book - it's hardly top quality material from the get-go.

But hey, it worked! Mod Podge was the glue, a nondescript laminate (Coverseal, basically) stiffened up and waterproofed the cover, and I was even fussy enough to paint out the white creases and tears which couldn't be glued back together.

I fluffed the front cover, it turning out skew and the patched card replacement won't fool anyone; but my beloved old book is back in one piece and readable again. Hooray!

So proud I was in showing it off to Mrs Simian. Of course, it was only then that I realised I'd re-glued the insides upside down.

Steve Dillon

Just bloody gutted to read this this morning. 

Steve Dillon was one of my early art heroes. Coming into the world of Eagle's second generation return, and then into 2000AD meant that a banquet of inspirtional art was suddenly opened to me after childhood years of rote caricatures and established characters through Disney comics and UK kids' titles. I've not thought until now just how immediate the variety of styles and techniques hit me. There was no way any of these guys - the O'Neil's, Ezquerras, Kennedy's and especially McMahons would ever be mistaken for something from Key Comics. As I got older these stylistic and idiosyncratic outings became more and more intimidating as I vainly tried to copy them and develop my own confidence in drawing.

Cry of the Werewolf

Fortunately, among these artists was a younger name, only eight years older than me, whose style was more relateable. Assured, yes, but solid - really solid, well-defined and very 'readable'. Steve Dillon's  art was easy to aspire to, but reliably more complex than its his clean lines and nice black and white balancing suggested. That said, though, if there's a style that I took to most readily, it was Steve Dillon's. I mean this as no damped-down praise - Dillon was a master of ink, confident in every line, especially given his young age, and I've no doubt that I'm not the only young artist who ran to his deceptively-effortless work as a masterclass (paging Guanolad...)

City of the Damned

The rest, for Dillon at least, is history. Some early Doctor Who Magazine work, initially as a backup artists, but later to provide the work for Steve Parkhouse's last regular story The Moderator in which both Parkhouse and Dillon combine two then near-inconcievable Doctor actions - the Time Lord crying and shooting a gun, and turn the result into something very Doctorish indeed.   Lots of 2000AD, including three of the big hitters in the Eighties - Judge Dredd (the momentous death of series regular Judge Giant is pictured here, from Block Wars), Rogue Trooper and ABC Warriors plus some lovely covers for Zenith), and then, into the Nineties and more recent years, Transatlantic success, the most notable being Preacher, which he co-created with fellow 2000AD alumnus Garth Ennis. His line of stories for The Punisher has already been credited on several comic boards as being the reason some readers returned to the series, Dillon was that effective, that readable.

54 is no great age to depart this earth, though the very young age at which Dillon started his career (drawing Nick Fury and the Hulk at sixteen! And thanks to the keen foresight of Dez Skinn) means there are decades of his work to see, and a mighty field of followers who saw and were inspired by his instantly recognisable style, an who went on to draw for 2000AD, DWM, Marvel and DC. With the late Brett Ewins he co-created the influential breakaway pop-culture comic  Deadline and from that venture we have Peter Milligan, Jamie Hewlett and Tank Girl among others. The comics world has indeed lost a great storyteller.

As others have said already, completely unexpected. Thank God his prodigious start and global success means his talents and influence won't be forgotten.

 RIP.

The Moderator, Doctor Who Magazine

The Grognard Files - the right of reply

Readers with long memories may recall the last time I brought up an RPG podcast it was the North Texas based Save or Die podcast, dedicated to Basic Dungeons and Dragons, still my favourite version of Ye Auld Gayme - and still a great podcast, although its frequency has lessened somewhat of late (ahem). In the meantime I've had time to seek out another more recent podcast, this time from across the Atlantic pond: the Bolton-based The Grognard Files. Unlike SoD the Files cover a variety of early 80s RPGs; and D&D isn't even their favourite by a long chalk!

The net result is a boon to me.

Firstly, having binged somewhat on North Texan fare, I've become a little too accustomed to the pecadillos of its regular hosts and their various likes and dislikes. Former 'Armchair Adventurers' Dirk the Dice and his cohorts judge Blythie, @dailydwarf (through whose Twitter feed I discover the Files), and the lesser-heard collector Ed (he of the Bargain Shed) are fresh voices and opinions; and because the Files are still young and their focus shifts every month or so, from Stormbringer to Traveller to Call of Cthulhu to AD&D ("TM") to their particular favourite Runequest, there's a lot that's new to me. I never played those particular games outside AD&D, and everything else I schooled up on through whatever magazine or book I could, usually White Dwarf, which is rightly revered and fondly remembered by the Armchair Adventurers for not only introducing them to the various games and their communities, but adding to the same worlds and adventures in a way that resonates with me. The Files do an admirable job of explaining and deconstructing each system, with Blythie - a self-confessed rules lawyer, using his own set of powers for good in his analysis. I've learned a lot as a consequence - not just about those games, but about my own favourites.

And The Grognard Files is a lot of fun. It's very much informal, witty, intimate, self-effacing and utterly British in aspect. My RPG world has two hemispheres, the American and the British. Both are equally valid and fascinating, but I've made no secret that it's the British I gravitate towards more. The added and rarely-heard regionality of a small group of Northern players not hailing from "that London" just adds to the interest factor. And who can resist a bit of Hawkwind as a closing theme?

A recent half-week in Hawkes Bay for work meant that I had a lot of driving to do, so I took Dirk and Blythie on the road with me on a USB stick to play in the car on the way up, and the four-hour trip sped by very nicely indeed.

Coming soon is a look back at Tunnels & Trolls, another heard-of-but-not-played for me. I can't wait.

Very much recommended.

In the Years of the Scavenger.

"I do get the feeling that by listening to the album we can kind of get closer to you than we have for many years, in terms of knowing who you are and where you are at?"

[Pause]

"You know, Jonathan, that'll never happen."

Bowie on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, 2002.

I first discovered David Bowie in the early Seventies as a young child, listening to The Laughing Gnome played on the Sunday morning children's show on an orange Aztec radio in my room. I can't remember what I thought of the song - I think I liked the sped-up voices.

I first discovered David Bowie in 1979, in television advertisements for the Australasian collection 'David Bowie! Chameleon'. Snatches of songs - 1984, Sorrow, over the top of weird and jarring images from his music videos lingering in my young mind. DJ featured heavily; Venetian blinds, mixing desks, a gas mask and boiler suit.

I first discovered David Bowie in 1979 on Star Trek, a compilation of Sci-Fi-themed music and songs. My brother and I had bought it for the Star Wars and War of the Worlds themes, probably, but this also featured sound-alike versions of Space Oddity, Life on Mars? and Starman alongside other knockoffs of Elton John, Boney M and The Carpenters. They were the definitive versions of the songs for me until...

I next discovered David Bowie on a three-album collection of Sixties British pop, the real Space Oddity featuring alongside the likes of The Honeydrippers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Petula Clark and Cliff Richard. The box-set collage featured Bowie in an anachronistic Ziggy guise. I wasn't taken in.

I then discovered David Bowie as a creepy, unearthly figure, the singer of the irresistible Cat People (Putting Out Fire) which loomed large in my pre-adolescent subconscious, and of Ashes to Ashes, an even freakier video in which he tiptoed around a woozy landscape dressed like a scary clown (or, as I noted mere months later, Doctor Who in 'Watcher' form), or as a thrashing astronaut brought down to a suburban nightmare. Even I knew that Major Tom was a junkie by then. 

Then I discovered David Bowie with Let's Dance and China Girl; and, inspired by information gleaned from a courtesy cousin 'enthusiast', made my own compilation of Bowie songs, one side of a C60 cassette combining the various records we had and off-air radio recordings. "That's Bowie-", the excited announcer cries out at the end of Let's Dance; an addition I'm utterly unable to edit out, but which at least convinces me that once you're on top of the world you don't need two names. Like the rest of my class I was a fan. Briefly.

Then I forgot Bowie, and found him again, and set him aside once more for other things. He did duets with Tina Turner, movies like Labyrinth and Absolute Beginners, the Glass Spider Tour, floundering fare like Tonight and Never Let Me Down, and a classmate was such an ardent fan I avoided Bowie for years.  I was done. There were more interesting and less try-hard and pretentious artists out there. Like Sting!

I discovered Bowie in the smoky, incense-fogged bedroom of a bandmate on a loose Saturday night not gigging. He played Hunky Dory and pointed out, quite rightly, that it had a lot going on over the Flying Nun stuff I was immersed in. Even Andy Warhol.

Then Bowie turned fifty and had a big party with my university favourite acts, like Robert Smith, Frank Black, Billy Corgan and Foo Fighters. He released Earthling and Little Wonder, went all drum-n-bass and jungle, and in the middle of a brief but colourful UK glam revival in the Nineties, I was intrigued. Bowie pointedly didn't do the glam bits, but he didn't need to when the likes of Suede, Babylon Zoo, Spacehog, Placebo, Nicky Wire and Todd Haynes were happy to tip their hats to the master.

I rediscovered Bowie wearing headphones in a city dentist's chair in Wellington, listening to a supplied CD (Suffragette City), one of the most exciting songs I'd ever heard the man play. And being played by a Cuba Street busker (Ziggy Stardust). He was everywhere. I bought two compilations (The Best of David Bowie 1969-1973, The Best of David Bowie 1974-1979) and listened to it - selectively.

Then Bowie came to Wellington, and on a very rainy night I went to the concert. More on that later. Graham Reid produced three excellent overviews of the man's music for Radio NZ, interspersed with some earlier interviews. It was an education, uncovering more deep cuts to my growing knowledge - The Belway Brothers, Memories of a Free Festival, It's No Game. I think I still have the tapes somewhere...

Dad Rock ensues. Nothing to see here.

Then I rediscovered David Bowie through Jet Junior, who was, like many of his generation, an early adopter of the futuristic. Bowie songs grew and grew among our bedtime song collections. I finally discovered the simple genius of Absolute Beginners and its gorgeous C#m to Gdim drop through playing it on a ukulele of all things. But then, as Jet Jr would remind you, Bowie composed Lust for Life on a ukulele, so there. Kooks was my favourite to sing to him, and still is.

I'm still discovering David Bowie.

Ed Games

This has been out a week now, so apologies for the dated-ness.

But, datedness is sort of the theme of this post! Iron maiden's new album is out next month, and in advance of this their new single 'Speed of Light' was released to the internet just over seven days ago.

The song is pretty cool - something of a throwback to early Nineties Maiden with Bruce Dickinson's growly voice, and a more rocking feel than the progfests of recent albums. That said, it's an opening track, and the band tend to have form on this tactic - 'El Dorado' was the taster for Final Frontier, 'A Different World' was AMOLAD's opener, and it's arguable whether either was indicative of their parent albums.

But hey, I like it. It's got a lovely Ritchie Blackmore style riff to kick things off, some nice leads from all three guitarists, Bruce sounds great (pre-cancer diagnosis, it must be said), and there's more cowbell working hard here than Waikato Stadium in a home game.

To be honest, though, it's the video that's the drawcard. I love a good video, and with Maiden I think they're something of a rarity: the early days are very much live performance-based with movie cutaways; in the Nineties these turned into slicker products that somehow didn't really sell the band or Eddie very well - some of them just tried too hard. On the whole, however, it's when Eddie'in the visuals that the videos work best, and 'Speed of Light' is a great example, being almost all about the history of Eddie and Maiden's most memorable album covers, as experienced through the medium of... video games! I have fond memories of mashing rubber ZX Spectrum keys to the background sounds of Number of the Beast and Maiden's debut album (point of fact: both games and music were likely loaded on the same tape deck.) Iron Maiden are around the same age as your common or garden home entertainment system, so the synergy of the band's evolution alongside that of digital gaming works really well. Eddie is back in his rightful punkish fright wig original form, it's witty, deferential, self-referential (count those nods!*) and, I think, more than a little essential.

A brief pause to reflect that this is not the first time the worlds of Maiden and video games have crosed paths, as the mid-Nineties compilation/video game Ed Hunter attests. Reception in the gaming mags was not kind, apparently, and it goes to show that despite heavy metal making an excellent gaming soundtrack, getting the right mix is a delicate art. I think they've cracked it this time, though. Hell, I'd buy it :)

UPDATED: Thanks to Dave R's observations, it appears I got my wish! 

*Visual references I noted:

He[a]r[i]n the Hunter/s

Evening all.

Now, of late things have been quiet on Jetsam, and somewhat reactive rather than proactive. I'm hoping to address this soon by posting some creative endeavours, but in the mean-time, some more reaction in the cheapest way - a combination post! Yes, my apologies. It's nearly bed time.

So what am I reacting against? Whaddaya got? Well, how about the long-rumoured and finally confirmed return of Hawk the Slayer?

That's pretty cool. Lord knows, the original movie had enough sequel hooks in it, and if I might take a moment to be a leeetle unkind, this is a movie project that may benefit from having some of its old cast unavailable for bookings. Okay, that is unkind - I loved Bernard Bresslaw and Morgan Sheppard, and it looks like Ray Charleston is back as a very Old Crow, but Voltan must be recast with Jack Palance out of the frame and, well, I wish them all the best. As readers will know, I rather took a shine to this little piece of cinematic miscalculation, and after some very disappointing fantasy movie spectacles, perhaps small-scale fantasy might be the way forward for a while?

And while we're riding through the glen, today's news is of another long-rumoured, long-attempted follow up to an even more beloved Eighties slice of fantasyfolklore. Robin of Sherwood is getting an audio sequel! Based on a script by RoS' late, great creator Richard Carpenter, Knights of the Apocalypse has a title that promises something as big and tumultuous as the original series' The Swords of Wayland. Even better, it's in good hands, courtesy of Bafflegab (who produce the wonderful Scarifiers series), script editor John Dorney (who has produced some top-notch stories for Big Finish's Doctor Who line) and a lot of the original cast. Okay, no Michael Praed, but Jason Connery, Nickolas Grace AND Ray Winstone, plus Judi Trott and Paul Rose! I'm in. Sign me up.

What a year to be alive. Cue Hawk-inspired rock song!

This Is The Day The World Ends

In the summer of 1982 the Stockholm Scientific Institute prepared an analysis of the aftermath of a theoretical nuclear holocaust set a few years into the new decade. The work caught the attention of Vatican Radio, who made much mileage over its doom-laden forecast of human annihilation and a planet reduced to desert and scavenging rodent survivors. As mention of the study was also made in this book, it also caught the attention of me and my friends mid-1984. After all, the fateful date in question for the study was the slightly more imminent June 15, 1985.

Today marks the 800th anniversary of a much happier milestone event, King John's signing of the Magna Carta, but the aforementioned date held our juvenile attentions much more, I should think. For a while, at least. A year after reading this tid-bit the thought really only occurred to me at a local youth group social, when I realised on the dance floor, awkwardly twitching to something ephemeral and of the moment, that that date had actually arrived - as in, right now. With somewhat nervous laughter I informed one of my friends, and, well, we danced on, a little more reassured - or not.

Thirty years on and the world has not collapsed into a radiated wilderness - yet. I don't recall why this anniversary popped into my head over the past weekend, but here we are, upright (or vaguely so) and here I am grown up, schooled up, mortgaged up and looking for work in all the wrong places. My adolescent anxiety/enthusiasm over nuclear Armageddon seems hopelessly quaint now, almost enviable. The stuff of nostalgia - and long may it remain so.

So in the spirit of thermonuclear nostalgia and misplaced plans, here's my get-through list for Post-Apocalyptic modelling, post-Mirky Dozen, of course. I've stuck to a short, easily-manageable list this time, even though with a new Mad Max movie out and Fallout 4 having just been released, PostApoc gaming and modelling has never been busier! 

My dreams of conquest (ruined):

1 irradiated roadside diner

1 battlecar-ready 1:75 modded 'Doc'

1 battlejeep

1 scavenger dune buggy

and maybe,

1 Battletruck(tm) should I ever want to drop down a scale and join the kids kit-bashing Matchbox toys. Looks like fun!

Should that all fall into place then maybe I'll branch out into a Cursed Earth model and go full-Helltrekker. But that might have to wait for a few Dredd models first.

Friday Night Local: Shona Laing - 'Soviet Snow' (1987)

Let's go back to the Eighties. The mid-Eighties. The Cold War's not yet over, and we don't really trust those Russians, but we also don't want to go to war with them because what would follow would be a Very Bad Thing for the entire world. This dread of brinksmanship and the possibletipping point into nuclear oblivion is seeded throughout a lot of creative works from this era - even music. Even here in little old, Nuclear Free (tm) New Zealand.

Soviet Snow hails from Shona Laing's big comeback album South (1987); this version is a revamp of the earlier one on South's predecessor, Genre. In the time between albums the Cold War has lingered, perhaps a little less worryingly than the early 80s, but other, equally worrying events have unfolded.

At the time of its release I took the song's title literally, being aware of panic across Europe of fallout drifting with weather currents across Europe and as far as Ireland following the catastrophe at Chernobyl. Laing's song of course was composed before the reactor meltdown, but the incident allows a second reading of the song's chorus and, if I might be so bold, grounds it a little:

Now we're wide awake, the world's aware
Radiation over Red Square
Creeping off to cross Roman roads
Fear of freezing in the Soviet snow
One eye on the winter - oh, just a hint of Soviet snow.

So there's that, at least.

The video is pure Eighties - all big caps CG text buzz words and video montages. And of course, there's the Soviet and Russian imagery and iconography, none of it demystifying the Soviet Union of the Eighties, but anchoring it in a jumble of popular associations, a visual word association game. Laing is a far cry from her long-haired, freckled teenaged Seventies self with spiky, cropped hair (the infamous 'femullet' is, as far as I can remember, only a feature of the video of her bigger hit (Glad I'm Not a) Kennedy), her face intruding from angles, like Rodchenko's Lilya Brik. One more single, Drive Baby Drive and Laing's career would shift again, back out of centre stage; but this song at least freezes a moment of Southern Hemisphere pre-Glasnost anxiety, two years before the Wall would fall and the thaw would begin.

Fakes Seven

This is the second of three synched blog reviews with Jamas and Al - check them out!

Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

It is 1980 and I am ten. I have never heard of this movie. In 2014 I finally see it. Can I stop now?

Oh, alright then.Three years after Star Wars borrowed elements of Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, another 'noted' name of Hollywood sysnonymous with low-budget, profit-making schlockbusters did the same, purloining the master's Seven Samurai - and setting it in space!

Of course, between Kurosawa and Corman there was John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven, and it shold be said that Battle owes much more to the Western version, stealing dialogue and one of its stars - Robert Vaughn playing virtually the same character, as it does. I haven't seen Sturges' film, but I have seen Kurosawa's, and I'm biased, because my ideal sci-fi adaptation of Seven Samurai features robots (the Meknificent Seven) and was written by Pat Mills Tharg.

Corman's robots aren't bad - all disco moves and all, but they're no Hammerstein and company, and so the rest of the movie falls - too many humans in bad makeup, not enough sci-fi spectacle, and a space ship with a really distracting rack.

You have to give props to an actual spaceship to try to upstage Sybil Danning, but the organicaly-designed Nell does - for the most part, helped along by the very very thin character given Danning's Valkyrie, secreted somewhere between her Thor-lite costume and increasing innuendo. Seriously - Google will provide what I won't: fill your boots.

Our hero is Richard 'John-Boy' Thomas and a rag-tag bunch of desperadoes - the aforementioned Vaughan (taciturn gunslinger - nice idea, but phoning it in), Danning (The Howling II is only five years away!) and an affable George Peppard as an actual space cowboy ("I'm from Earth - ever heard of it?") alongside some nice but frankly squandered ideas - a female robot technician who technicians no robots, Nestor the gestalt entity who has a really nice jellyfish-like spaceship, and Cayman - a lizardman who is the last of his kind (awww.)

All have reasons valid and spurious to off chief baddie Sador, a limb-replacing, shiny-faced megalomaniac who farms civilisations, destroys planets and never leaves his ship (maybe he's in another movie? I wouldn't put it past Corman.) Honestly - would it have hurt Corman to actually have a end-level fight with the big bad and the hero on their feet and properly duking it out rather than all these interminable dogfight scenes? I don't care if they were the work of James Cameron - this is one of many wasted opportunities!

I'll draw this thing up. I'm glad I've finally seen Battle Beyond the Stars, but I fear a year of film studies and The Galaxy's Greatest Comic may have spoiled the novelty for me. This movie is just too contrived and cheap - its spaceships made from butchered Star Wars models, its dialogue lifted from another movie. As it turned out, I do believe I have seen this movie - or bits of it at least, aged fourteen watching the daggy ends of Tom Hanks opus Bachelor Party, where segments feature as part of a 3-D movie at the film's climax (still my favourite part of the movie - both movies!) Had I seen this aged ten, chances are my memories would be as fond or at least as vivid as those I have of The Black Hole. But at fourty-four I'm officially Getting Too Old For This Sh*t. And that's my review of Battle Beyond the Stars by Roger Corman.

Friday Night Local: Sneaky Feelings - Husband House (1985)

Crikey Fridays - trailers everywhere! If you haven't already seen the Star Wars one then you might have seen the Batman vs Superman leaked one. Coming soon: the same thing with motion control and no Spanish subtitles!

Yes, it's the season. And the change of seasons is the subject of tonight's Friday Night Local. Last week I did all I could to not put another Shihad video up, because even then it was two weeks gone from Daylight Saving, and so a song that begins with the line "Put your clocks back for the winter" - though appropriate and wholly deserving - not to mention useful, just seemed an indulgence. So here instead is a song that marks the seasons change while being about something else.

Sneaky Feeling were a 'Dunedin Band' - one of the classic acts from Flying Nun's roster, although since their early triumph at making FN's much-lauded 'Dunedin Double' EP twinset, it seems the rest of the band's life was spent for the most part escaping the Dunedin label, while at the same time fighting for recognition from their record label. It's a complicated and somewhat fraught story, told much better and more personally by chief spokesman and frontman Matthew Bannister in his must-read memoirs Positively George Street. I was not a fan, but felt more than a little alliegance wit them during band days - they were local, they were somewhat 'outsiders' among the cool alternative Nun set, I could claim a vague familial connection with one of them, sat in lectures behind another, and so it went. But they didn't fit the Flying Nun label, and they weren't the only band to suffer for this. Bannister does a nice line in sardonic observational lyrics, but it's safe to say there's probably no other ex-FN act that can boast a teacher, archivist and high commissioner in its collective future.

And no other Flying Nun act produced a 'Husband House', with its opening crawl across the Sew Hoy factory and Speights brewery rooftop, goofy chess-club cool video, and irresistable droning chord refrain, which I stole for at least one of my songs back in my guitaring days. Some form of suspended A, if I remember it right.

'Husband House' of course observes the approach of Autumn with the not-too-shabby line "the season's old, and the leaves have turned to gold/and the wind blows cold from the south." It might sound a little pithy, but anyone who's experienced a southern winter in the Feelings' home town will know exactly what Matthew Bannister is talking about - and if you don't, just cop a view at theose wonderful rolling St Clair waves, delivered hourly from the South Pacific ocean. Now that's cold water surf. And speaking of rolling, mister projector sir:

Good Friday Night Local: Easter Edition.

Tonight I wasn't gong to do a Friday Night Local, I was going to post about Easter instead. But then inspiration struck and I thought to myself, as they say in Mexico: 'Why Not Have Both?' Welcome then to a very special post.

I am not a religious Simian. Oh, for a while in my past I definitely was; and then, almost overnight, I wasn't. A story for another time, perhaps. Despite this, I do find myself reflecting on the origins of Easter a this time of year. What a surpirse, you might think. Funny old world.

Here in NZ Easter comes at the begining of autumn, so any sort of hissiness about the appropriation of traditional seasonal festivites by the Christian church sounds about as silly as complaining the same of Halloween or Christmas down here. Our seasonal festival calendar just isn't working out being project-managed from the other side of the world. But here we are with Easter anyway, the spring festival at the end of summer.

In the Simian household we've settled into some traditions around Easter. You can't guarantee the weather will be good, but it's harvest time for the garden, and so the tomatoes are coming in, the bok choi is being picked over daily for bastard cabbage white butterflies, and planting for spring (dill, garlic maybe, broad beans) will start soon. Feijoas are in season, and after a delightful Easter in Rotorua a few years ago, they've become something of an Easter treat for us now - muffins and crumbles alive alive-o! nd of course, though summer is no time to be scoffing fruit cake, April in the southern hemisphere is quite fine for tucking into hot crossed buns, true comfort food. With one day left of daylight saving I've started fixing up some dodgy bits of paintwork around the house exterior. The spirit was willing over summer - it really was.

Let's talk about the video, though. ere's Shihad's Stations, from their debut LP Churn, now a sprightly 21 years old. Crikey. I do like this song, but even at the time I didn't receive the song's title as anything of religious significance (it was the future Mrs Simian who took me aside to tell me, you see); and so the video with its Christ (played by Headless Chickens' Bevan Sweeney) walking the stations of the cross seems to match the title of the song, if not the lyrics themselves. Anyway, as far as I can recall, this is the most Easter-y of all NZ music videos, so why not?


Have a happy and safe Easter, everyone!

Ruby and Ferris: Done!

So yeah - I done gone and finished basing Ruby and Ferris, put Ruby's helmet on, and now they're done and good for quarantine display - whatever that is.

Not much to report, although this is the first time I've used my matte varnish - Testors Dullcote for those of you playing at home, and I'm pretty happy with it! Rather cynically (for reasons mentioned in the linked post) these guys were my first try-out on the spray, and as the result is no overt shininess or yellowed finish, I'm sold. Legions of lovingly-painted miniatures will soon be ready for their close-up!