The Soundtrack To My Life. 08/05/2013.

Are you sick of your record collection? Are you looking for new and exciting sounds?
I am. All the time! Recommend some things to me whydon’tcha!
Here’s what I’ve been listening to of late…

Record: Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor.
Artist: Rob Zombie.
Year: 2013.
Standout Track…

Record: The Terror.
Artist: The Flaming Lips.
Year: 2013.
Standout Track…

Record: People, Hell And Angels.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix.
Year: 2013.
Standout Track…

Record: La Traviata.
Artist: Verdi. (The Rome Opera House Orchestra And Chorus conducted by Tullio Serafin).
Year: 1956.
Standout Track… All of it. It’s an opera, but here’s a little taster…

Record: Next…
Artist: The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
Year: 1973.
Standout Track…

Record: If I Could Only Remember My Name…
Artist: David Crosby.
Year: 1971.
Standout Track…

Record: Kickin’ It!
Artist: Peg Leg Sam.
Year: Recorded in 1970 & 1972, Released 2000.
Standout Track…

Record: Hot.
Artist: Squirrel Nut Zippers.
Year: 1996.
Standout Track…

Record: Pussy Cats.
Artist: Harry Nilsson & John Lennon.
Year: 1974.
Standout Track…

Record: Walls And Bridges.
Artist: John Lennon.
Year: 1974.
Standout Track…

Record: Raising Sand.
Artist: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss.
Year: 2007.
Standout Track…

Record: Franks Wild Years.
Artist: Tom Waits.
Year: 1987.
Standout Track…

Record: Carry On Up The Charts. The Best Of The Beautiful South.
Artist: The Beautiful South.
Year: 1994.
Standout Track…

Record: Computer World.
Artist: Kraftwerk.
Year: 1981.
Standout Track…

Record: Ready To Die.
Artist: Iggy And The Stooges.
Year: 2013.
Standout Track…

You May Also Be Interested In…
* The Soundtrack To My Life. 10/04/2013.
* The Soundtrack To My Life. 06/03/2013.
* The Soundtrack To My Life. 18/01/2013.

The Soundtrack To My Life. 10/04/2013.

Record: The Next Day.
Artist: David Bowie.
Year: 2013.
Standout Track…

Record: Mule Variations.
Artist: Tom Waits.
Year: 1999.
Standout Track… (And the Audio doesn’t kick in until the 50 second mark)…

Record: The Dark Side Of The Moon.
Artist: The Flaming Lips, Stardeath And The White Dwarfs. Featuring Henry Rollins & Peaches.
Year: 2009.
Standout Track…

Record: The Invisible Way.
Artist: LOW.
Year: 2013.
Standout Track…

Record: The Doors In Concert.
Artist: The Doors.
Year: Various (Because it’s a compilation live album).
Standout Track…

Record: The Capitol Recordings. Disc 1 (Of 6).
Artist: Louis Prima, Keely Smith & Sam Butera.
Year: Various.
Standout Track…

Record: The Division Bell.
Artist: Pink Floyd.
Year: 1994.
Standout Track…

Record: Ladies Of The Canyon.
Artist: Joni Mitchell.
Year: 1970.
Standout Track…

Record: Forever Endeavour.
Artist: Ron Sexsmith.
Year: 2013.
Standout Track…

Record: A Hard Day’s Night.
Artist: The Beatles.
Year: 1964.
Standout Track…

You May Also Be Interested In…
* The Soundtrack To My Life. 06/03/2013.
* The Soundtrack To My Life. 18/01/2013
* The Soundtrack To My Life.  09/11/2012

HBO Films: Phil Spector Trailer.

Starring Al Pacino in the lead role, I’m very excited about this…

You May Also Be interested In…
* Thoughts On Phil Spector
* Happy 70th Birthday Al Pacino!
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Macabre, Weird & Wonderful Childrens’ Book Illustrations By Gōjin Ishihara.

Reddit is a wonderful place. I only recently discovered Reddit and even more recently than that I realised that you can search out specific words and phrases on it. I typed the word ‘macabre’ into Reddit’s search box and discovered the bizarre and frightening childrens’ book artwork of post WWII Tokyo based artist, Gōjin Ishihara!

From The Illustrated Book Of Japanese Monsters (1972):

The next two illustrations are from The Illustrated Book Of Hell (1975):

From The Complete Book Of Demons (1974):

Gorgon. The Illustrated Book Of World Monsters (1973):

Aliens In Ancient Japan. From the book, Mysteries Of The World (1970):

From Sonosheet Book (1972):

Prehistoric Man (1970):

Spy Wars…

The World’s biggest glutton from The World’s Greatest Wonders (1971):

Precognition of plane crash. Mysteries Of The Body (1973):

Nostradamus. Psychics Of The World (1974):

Frozen planet. Year X: End Of The World (1975):

Dark star gravity. Year X: End Of The World (1975):

You May Also Be Interested In…
* WWII: Intense Propaganda Posters
* Post-It Monstre By John Kenn Mortensen
* Edward Gorey: “The Gashlycrumb Tinies”

Horror Effects Hosted By Tom Savini.

One of these days, whenever I manage to sit down and completely gather all of my thoughts, I’ll tell you all about my friend Mark Liengie. He was a talented feller and when we were kids we used to draw together. We had this weekly competition going on where we’d try to out-gross the other by drawing the most fucked up images our young minds could conjure up and comparing them at weekends. Unfortunately I don’t know what happened to any of these pictures.

My friend Mark was a genius. A real one.

Before he died he was just about to make his…mark on the special effects industry. I believe he had a hand in creating the dead baby scene in “Trainspotting” as well as making a full dead body for an episode of “Taggart“.

On one of the last occasions I saw Mark he was outside his parents’ house with two fake human torsos on poles that each had wires and cables and string running from them. “Watch this!” he said, and with the push of a button on a handmade controller, the torsos EXPLODED with an amazing bang and instantly, a large part of the garden was drenched in the buckets of fake blood he’d filled the dummys with! Amazing.

Growing up, we’d quite easily watch the likes of “Creepshow”, “Dawn of The Dead” and “An American Werewolf In London” over and over again. We’d pause the tape on special effects shots and quickly draw exactly what we saw so that we could discuss how the effect was achieved later. It was a real learning process for me and really improved my drawing skills but Mark took things a lot further than I ever could. He’d regularly turn up on my parents’ doorstep with animal hearts and parts he’d got from the butcher and we’d cut them open. We’d both draw them but Mark would then go away and build an exact model replica out of all kinds of materials!

It’s amazing to think that he was only 9 or ten years old then but like I said, I’ll tell you all about him and his work another day.

Yesterday, I found a documentary film on Youtube hosted by our childhood hero, Tom Savini. As kids, Mark and I would have killed our nearest and dearest to have seen something like this…

You May Also Be Interested In…
* Blood test: Behind Al Cook’s “Necropolis”
* Graham Humphreys: “Zombie Flesh Eaters” Artwork
* When Barbie Goes Psycho