A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Psychedelia
More psychedelic freakery from American filmmaker Jud Yalkut. Us Down By The Riverside (1966) is short and sweet: three minutes of acid visuals accompanied by a muddy recording of The Beatles playing Tomorrow Never Knows. Groovy. For a very different take on John Lennon’s psych-out, see the penultimate episode of cartoon show, The Beatles.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The abstract cinema archive
I’m currently reading my way through Rob Chapman’s lysergic doorstop Psychedelia and Other Colours, a comprehensive study of a cultural phenomenon that’s well-represented on these pages. So expect more posts like this one which concerns another gem of abstract/psychedelic cinema. Turn, Turn, Turn (1966) is a collaboration between Jud Yalkut (visuals) and the Us Company aka USCO (sound). The latter receive several mentions in Chapman’s detailing of the early psych scene in San Francisco in the mid-60s; here they put a Byrds song through the mangler while Yalkut’s mechanical and other effects flicker and gyrate. The visuals are reminiscent in places of the film made by László Moholy-Nagy of his Light-Space Modulator, fittingly so when Chapman credits Moholy-Nagy’s machine with being one of the many forerunners of psychedelia in the art movements of the early 20th century.
The YouTube copy linked here has a bonus at the end with a truncated version of a later Yalkut collaboration with Nam June Paik, Beatles Electronique.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The abstract cinema archive
Sunday by Amanda Elledge.
• Coming from Strange Attractor this November: The Moons at Your Door, an anthology of strange tales selected by David Tibet. “The Moons At Your Door collects over 30 tales, both familiar and unknown from: Robert Aickman, Algernon Blackwood, DK Broster, AM Burrage, RW Chambers, Aleister Crowley, Sheridan Le Fanu, Elizabeth Gaskell, WW Jacobs, MR James, Vernon Lee, LA Lewis, Thomas Ligotti, Arthur Machen, Guy de Maupassant, Perrault, Thomas De Quincey, Saki, Count Stenbock, Montague Summers, HR Wakefield and Edith Wharton. The volume also includes extracts and translations by the author from Babylonian, Coptic and Biblical texts alongside poems and fairy tales.”
• Gay-rights activists give their verdict on Stonewall: “This film is no credit to the history it purports to portray”. The only surprise about this episode is that anyone expected Roland Emmerich to make a historically accurate film in the first place. Related: Edmund White’s first-hand report written a few days after the riots.
• “If you hate [Boom!], I hate you, and I could never be your friend or your boyfriend. Divine and I had seen Boom! right before we made Pink Flamingos, and it’s about Elizabeth Taylor, retired, writing her memoirs, which is what Pink Flamingos was too, in a way.” John Waters (again) gives Hayley Campbell some dating tips.
• “We moderns may too-often suffer from a mixing up of historical sequences, but better that, surely, than risk raising a population that is entirely not-arsed about its past.” Julian Cope explores the Celts: Art and Identity exhibition at the British Museum, London.
• “But I am talking about psychedelic music, and obviously some of that comes from early psychedelic rituals, which are all about losing yourself…and I did come back into the world in a different way.” Natasha Khan on her new musical project, SEXWITCH.
• At Dangerous Minds: Vincent Price teaches the dark arts on his 1969 album An Adventure in Demonology.
• A trailer for Salthouse Marshes, “a short, landscape obsessed ghost story” by Adam Scovell.
• Rare video of Young Marble Giants playing for 45 minutes in Vancouver, 1980.
• A collection of Ghost Box posters and flyers designed by Julian House.
• Mix of the week: Secret Thirteen Mix 163 by Ssleeping desiresS.
• Ministry, a new photo series by Ellen Rogers.
• Julia Holter‘s favourite albums.
• Boom Stix (1962) by Curley & the Jades | Things That Go Boom In The Night (1981) by Bush Tetras | Boom! (1991) by The Grid
And speaking of The Charlatans, these three posters by Rick Griffin stand out for me for the way they show the name of the headline group running across the set when placed together. Serial prints weren’t unusual among the San Francisco artists but this is the only example I’ve seen that works in this manner. The posters were promoting three concert sessions at the Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, from May to July 1967. The photography by Herb Greene adds to the attraction of this series; the combination of lighting, sepia tint, and the group’s apparel gives a more convincingly antique effect than similar attempts by other bands. For a taste of The Charlatans’ music, Alabama Bound is featured on my fourth psychedelic mix.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Seed
• Art that transcends
• Fillmore sealife
• San Francisco angels
• Family Dog postcards
I was so overworked during the summer months that late in June I missed the 50th anniversary of the birth of the psychedelic poster, something of a regrettable oversight considering I had an article about psychedelic art in print throughout that month.
This weathered item from June 1965 is generally credited as the first example of a type of poster whose influence—diluted or not—would be global during the next few years, hence the nickname given to it by collectors: “The Seed”. George Hunter and Michael Ferguson were the artists, and the antiquated drawing style is partly an attempt to complement the persona of The Charlatans, a San Francisco group who adopted 19th-century clothing styles. The Seed may appear naive in light of all that was happening a year later but Hunter & Ferguson’s florid graphics were something new in 1965; the poster for the Jefferson Airplane’s first show at the Fillmore in February 1966 is more restrained in comparison, as were other concert posters from around the same time. The most surprising thing about The Seed as a cultural landmark is that it was promoting a series of concerts over the state border in Virginia City, Nevada, not San Francisco as you might expect.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Art that transcends
• Fillmore sealife
• San Francisco angels
• Family Dog postcards