Steampunk

Science Fiction fans of Oxford are lucky to have the current Steampunk exhibition on their doorstep, at the Museum of the History of Science, Broad Street. This historic museum is perhaps the perfect place for the world premier exhibition dedicated to the art and science of this little known sub-genre and underground movement. Steampunk is a literary genre with a strong and growing fan base who embrace it with vigor, often dressing up in full Victorian-inventor attire and actively involving themselves in the scene, by designing art and objects or writing novels and comic books. Born in the eighties, around the same time as the Cyberpunk movement, Steampunk looks back to the Victorian period for stylistic inspiration, embracing the zeal for scientific experimentation and prophetic insight typical of the period dominated by such sci-fi giants as H.G. Wells and Jules Vern. But a certain punkish spirit also runs in its bloodlines. In much the same way that forgotten musical genres enjoyed resurgence in the wake of punk's cultural atomic flash, other areas of sub-culture and fandom went through renaissances of their own, the literary and comic world being no exception. Punk's levelling, grassroots call for individualism seemed to resonate within the hearts of other downtrodden subcultures. Typically looked down upon by mainstream culture, the Sci-fi and comic geeks were the outcasts of the literary world, their beloved genres sneered at by the serious minded literati.
But a hardcore underground movement had been growing for sometime. Many of the indie alternative book shops that sprung up around London in the early seventies such as Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed, as well as the nascent convention scene, seemed to be peopled by the same sort of outsider hippie types that fed into such idiosyncratic proto-punk shops as Granny Takes A Trip and Let It Rock. These young upstarts were beginning to learn the trade and would go on to make a mark on their respective industries in the aftermath of punk's year zero. It seems fair to suggest that the spirit of punk that hugely affected cultural output in the early eighties fed into these growing fan scenes, rejuvenating them with a questioning cynicism and fiercely independent outlook. Only in a post-punk world does the newly gritty, morally questioning and serious-minded comic revolution of Alan Moore, for example, really make sense. The do-it-yourself spirit of punk percolated through into such sectors of society, thus inspiring new lineages to break out. 2000AD for example, a British comic publisher born in the eighties, and starting point for many of today's anarchic British Invasion comic creators, is characterized by its gritty aesthetic nods to punk and sneering, tongue-in-cheek disregard for convention. Indeed, many early examples of the steam- and cyberpunk look can be found in its pages, including the bizarre imperial war machines found in Nemesis the Warlock, and the grimy dystopian mood of Judge Dredd. The Steampunk aesthetic is a strange mixture of Victorian design flourishes in dark wood, brass and tough leather, with the sturdy functionality of bare cogs and gears, reflecting the considerable industrial advancement of the Victorian era. This is all carried off with a youthful narcissistic eye for detail, particularly in the beautifully designed costumes of the scene's participants. Waist coats and bodices customised with straps and cogs, are typical, creating the mad inventor meets gothic dandy look. There's an invigorating enthusiasm reflected in Steampunk, which considers the mechanical age and the potential it harbours with a wide-eyed wonderment somewhat removed from Cyberpunk's techno-cynicism. Steampunk strikes a far more positive chord, by creating its own alternative history which indulges itself in historical speculation and dares to ask 'what if' of the steam era. It paints a whimsical alternative present that has grown out of the industrial age and bypasses our digital age completely, revelling in a retro-futurism and mechanical fetishism that is fantastical and awe-inspiring in its reach.
For more info check out the exhibition and this blog dedicated to it, which has many other related links.

Covered in Punk

Cliff classic gets punk make over by punk favourites, Menace. "Once in every lifetime..."


Check out their homeage
and below...one of their finest balls-to-the-wall, fist-in-the-air punk rock anthems...pure exhilaration...enjoy!

Where have all the boot boys gone?

Two important punk bands from Britain's golden age('76/'77) that are also hailed for defining the sound and attitude that characterized later waves of British punk, including the more brutal, working class sound of Oi!, are Slaughter and The Dogs and Menace.
Both of these bands clearly draw on the American underground scene so influential to British punks, as well as more homegrown influences in the form of glam and pub-rock, and of course London's burgeoning scene. Menace's early few singles, available on the Captain Oi! compilation (pictured), are absolutely essential punk rock classics. The snotty lyrics and buzz-saw guitar assault can be likened to the Dead Boys, and their socially-conscious lyrics portray Britain's disenfranchised youth, politicized and angry at its dead-end factory-floor existence. Track picks include the Stiv Bators nihilistic sneer of Screwed Up and I Need Nothing; the indispensable classics GLC (Greater London Council) with the immortal lyrics "you're full of shit!" and chant-along year-zero anthem Last Year's Youth; and a rousing rendition of Cliff Richards' classic Young Ones, played in the way you'd think it was always meant to be.
Slaughter and the Dogs, on the other hand, wear their glam-influences on the sleeves. Their fantastic name comes from two of their favourite albums, Bowie's Diamond Dogs and Mick Ronson's Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. Early Manchester scene legends, they managed to wangle a support slot at the Sex Pistols' Lesser Free Trade Hall gig on 20th July 1976 along with Howard Devoto's Buzzcocks, and thus their punk status was sealed. They play a gloriously abrassive and yobbish take on sleazy rock, with nods to the New York Dolls and Velvet Underground, two bands to which they pay tribute with cranked-up versions of Mystery Girls and Waiting for The Man. They shy away from explicit politics, instead hammering out some high-velocity, thrash-punk tunes. Though perhaps light on lyrical accomplishment, their songs are irresistibly good fun. Track picks include the schlock horror fun of Victims of The Vampire; a paean to the youth of yesteryear in Where Have All The Boot Boys Gone?; and the nonchalant sneer of We Don't Care.

In both these bands' thuggish swagger and uncompromising hard-punk noise lies the seeds of what later generations would declare to be the 'true punk' sound. The cockney Oi! scene gained popularity in the early 80s thanks to bands like The Business and Cock Sparrer, as well as the genre's self-appointed figurehead, tabloid hack Garry Bushell. It drew on the harder-edged street-wise sounds of the early bands, like Menace and Slaughter..., and considered punk to be a strictly working class expression, an outcry of society's downtrodden. Despite this claim, the later groups would often rather perversely celebrate and accentuate their lower class traits, seemingly unaware that a certain small-mindedness came with the trappings. Sham 69, hailed as godfathers of the Oi! genre, would chant 'proud to be a cockney' at gigs and wrote stirring footy-chant anthems, full of almost comic book cockney jeers of 'oi oi' and 'awright guv'. But such innocent beginnings soon snowballed and took on a life of their own. The scene soon became a caricature, and much like other punk movements, proceeded to paint itself into a corner, constructing and enforcing its own limitations, instead of breaking down boundaries. But worse than this the Oi! scene took on a political slant very much at odds with the left-leaning revolutionary stance of their predecessors.
As the skinheads of the late 60s had learned, it was a slippery slope, especially in the eyes of the media, from expressing your self-respect and championing your working class heritage, to tattooing a swastika on your forehead and hitting the streets for "a bit of the old ultra-violence". The original Skinhead movement, with its roots in Jamaican Rude Boy culture and street-Mod style, had been defined by a sort of inclusive, working-class comradeship. Poor black immigrants and native white skins met on the dance floor in peace, wanting nothing more than to indulge in their adoration of reggae and soul music. The newspapers as ever, out of touch with the movement's original soul, concentrated on the violent few and redefined the movement for future generations. With its love of sensation and conflict, the media took the 'paki-bashing' angle and ran with it making the skinhead something of a scape goat for society's ills. The skinheads have been demonized ever since. In a similar way, oi! which naturally appealed to street-punks and a new generation of skinheads, and therefore had to shoulder the controversies which followed such subcultures, also had public-relation problems. Punk had always had a slightly uncomfortable flirtation with Nazi-regalia and iconography. More often than not it was simply a case of shock value; a sort of childish taunting of accepted social codes, two fingers up at those outside of the scene, who didn't 'get it'. Conversely, as the scene also had a very calculated intellectual side to it, made up of anti-art guerrillas, armchair anarchists and cultural-revolutionaries, such use of offensive imagery was seen as a post-structuralist breakdown of recognized symbols and their associated ideologies. Punks were thought to be taking the icons of the past and ripping them up, sticking them back together in dadaist collage ensembles that rendered the signs as empty and meaningless, yet knowingly mischievous as Johnny Rotten's vacant stare. "History", as Malcolm McClaren famously claimed "is for pissing on".
But Oi!, which seemed to reject such revolutionary affiliations and wanted nothing to do with the arty/intellectual side of things, inadvertently threw out the context which had made the swastika an almost acceptable token of shock. Jokey siegheils, in the context of boisterous working-class pride, inevitably took on a much more serious and ominous meaning. The fact was though that before the National Front had reared its ugly head there were just as many left wing, labour-voting skins as there were right-wing. But since racist rhetoric had gained a stronger hold, and since punk had fractured into hundreds of subcultures, now seemed to be the time to draw the line in the sand and make your allegiances clear. For Oi!, this bad press was both a curse and a blessing. Many bands who had been labelled Oi!, really wanted nothing to do with it. The Angelic Upstarts, who enjoy considerable popularity in punk circles nowadays, were unfairly lumped into the Oi! category, and were plagued by boneheaded neo-nazis who'd come to their gigs to cause trouble. In fact, if you listen to their records, the Upstarts can be likened to an early Clash, and they can be credited as one of the bands that wanted to keep punk relevant in the 80s. Other bands however courted the media controversy, enjoying their time as the country's most hated. Certain stylistic choices didn't help the cause either, as Union Flag waving became de rigueur and record labels released dubiously titled compilations such as Decca's infamous Strength Thru Oi!, which played on the well-known Nazi slogan.
Other bands such as Ian Stewart's Skrewdriver claimed that that was what punk had originally been about, or at least should have been; white noise for angry white youth. These bands were Neo-Nazis, with NF connections, that positively encouraged racial-hatred and happily drew on the disenfranchised youth of Thatcher's Britain to swell their ranks. Often seen as an unfortunate outcome of the punk wars, these groups gained support from the same sort of angry young men that punk had appealed to, by promising them an easy answer. Of course these bands soon disappeared underground, but their legacy continues around the world to this day. It's a great shame that some of the most forward thinking, exciting and positive music of the punk and new wave era such as Menace and Slaughter and The Dogs, as well as the inclusiveness and soul of the traditional skinhead scene, might forever be tainted by their inescapable connection with the small-minded thugs and racists who jumped on the bandwagon. These are youth cultures which spoke to the hearts of many different people around the world, people who became energized to change their suffocating circumstances and work towards making a change for the better, be it coming together with like-minded souls, fighting for a cause or just having the guts to stand up and make themselves heard. As with most things, you have to take the good with the bad. It is to punk's merit that the open-endedness that allowed the far-right a voice in the first place, is also the very thing that allows the movement to change and grow away from its influence. By inviting the marginalized voices in and openly discussing their claims, punk betrays itself as an arena of true freedom of expression, a true democracy, in which young people are actively encouraged to question what they're given, voice their opinion and make up their own minds.

Covered in Punk

Infinitely more enjoyable than Sabbath's frankly plodding original, this cover by LA cartoon punkers, The Dickies was released in 1979, and is one of at least three other rocking cover versions, including Nights in White Satin, Eve of Destruction and Sounds of Silence. The Dickies took up the Ramone's 'stoopid is the new clever' stance and sped-up rama-lama noise and ran with it, making break-neck florescent rock 'n' roll anthems and conquering the British charts several times. They made at least two indispensable albums, choc-full of punk-pop classics, in The Incredible Shrinking Dickies (released in lurid colour vinyl) and Dawn of the Dickies. They are still together and tour regular with an insanely energetic stage performance. Be sure to check out the clown princes of punk here and here.

Grindhouse Trailer Classics

Just the tip of a very slimy 'iceberg' of filth, these trailer discs are big in America and can regularly be seen played at elitist underground rockabilly clubs. For anyone wishing they'd been there in the 70s, a washed-up deadbeat on 42nd street, dirty mac and liquor bottle in a crumpled brown paper bag, staring dead-eyed at the relentless stream of violence and pornography, this is heaven indeed. An endless conveyor belt of men in rubber monster-suits chasing bikini girls, limbs being hacked off with rusty saws, hatchets lodged in delinquents' foreheads, perm-headed hipsters and jive-talking jungle-bunnies, scantily-clad death squads and Nazi prison lesbian torture sequences, this two hour long DVD, complete with 55 cruddy trailer classics is an unbeatable viewing pleasure. There's a bizarrely pure, unadulterated thrill to be experienced viewing these clips, that'll have you appreciating the obvious artistic talent involved in making the lowest form of celluloid scuzz look genuinely appealing. You just know these films of third reich sexual-experiments, hippie-occultism and bad-ass ninja hitmen are total stinkers, but you'll want to see them anyway, even though you've probably just seen all the best bits in the 60 second trailer. The crackling graininess, sordid, unerotic sex and worryingly gratifying primal onslaught of bloodiness, will leave you feeling, to borrow a phrase, unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed. It's probably best to watch these at a party, among friends, where it will no doubt provide a good hour of hilarity and enjoyment. But hey, why not watch it alone. Numbed by the absurdly graphic images indelibly scarring your retinas, you'll start to wonder if the human race hasn't gone very wrong somewhere along the line.
You know what? It probably has. But you'll find the plight of our wayward species will pale in significance as long as the gloriously offensive, hypnotic dance of flesh and death continues. So quit worrying, sit back and gorge yourself on this awesome visual junk.

Covered in Punk

Rock 'n' Roll classic, Lipstick on Your Collar, originally by Connie Francis, re-done here, Ramones-style by the great Australian punk pioneers The Saints. They also did a blistering cover of River Deep, Mountain High which is well worth a listen.
I love the way they don't bother changing the lyrics, so it's kind of fun and ambiguous to have male vocals on this track! Enjoy!


It would seem they have a new album out...
Check 'em out here

And get their I'm Stranded album on ebay or where ever if you don't have it.

Dead Snow

A recent German release, which has had pretty good coverage, considering its small budget, and has been riding the current wave of zombie-mania, Dead Snow seems to have all the right ingredients for a rollicking bad-taste gore flick. Low-budget, good old fashioned splatter (no CGI), undead SS troops and hidden Nazi gold, an isolated cabin amidst windswept snowy peaks and a bunch of hapless, horny teenagers: these are the sort of things which characterise the films we all know and love, right? Even the posters for the film, with its 'Ein! Zwei! Die!' tag line and crusty Third Reich ghoul, brought promise of a return to the putrid, poor taste exploitation trash so beloved of the video-nasty era. Aficiendos of such gutter-swill as SS Experiment Camp, Zombie Lake and the Ilsa She-wolf movies, will no doubt have been salivating at the mere concept of Dead Snow, a film which so clearly hopes to draw lineage with the warped sensibility of the late seventies Italian zombie/cannibal/nazi cycle. And in a sense the film delivers. A bunch of annoying students go on a skiing holiday in the middle of nowhere, a crazy man warns them of past nastiness and a war time curse, the naive fools carry on regardless, and before you know it the place is overrun by zombies. There is quite a bit of gore, particularly in the second half of the movie, and it's pretty decently executed. Stand out scenes include a head ripped in half, with the brain slopping onto the floor; a p.o.v. shot of someone having their innards ripped out and eaten, as she passes in and out of consciousness; and a fleeing victim turning round to find his intestine caught on a tree and unfurled along the snow in his wake like a snagged jumper. The effects team obviously have a sense of humor and an eye for detail, as well as a respect for the splatter genre.
There are however, problems. A lot of problems. and far too many to allow Dead Snow to be anything but a disappointment. Firstly the characters are painfully two dimensional and unforgivably annoying. The introduction scenes, in which two car loads of teens drive to their destination, are enough to let you 'get' the characters immediately. They have all the emotional depth and personality of a puddle of piss. They're what Hollywood thinks young people are like, which usually falls into one of the following categories. Self-centered idiot jocks, with a revoltingly misogynist sense of humor and no other interests beyond partying and getting laid. Token geek-boys, who typically lay down the rules of horror movies (a la Scream's Randy, the only slightly likeable one of his kind), and who then fail to follow said rules because they finally get the girl and then get slaughtered. Sensitive souls who don't fit in, and who usually have some sort of obstacle to overcome: a fear of the dark, say, or a nauseous reaction at the sight of blood. And so it goes with Dead Snow, with all its infuriating characters (of which there are too many anyway) typified by such tired and predictable traits. For, while it tries to shock you by randomly killing off potential heroes, most of the time it only goes to highlight the sheer lack of likeable or interesting characters, leaving you wishing a quick death on all of them and a speedy conclusion to the film. So it would seem the only advantage of filling your film with so many annoying arseholes is that you can have fun killing them off, which just doesn't happen fast enough. No, we have to sit through awkward scenes of 'getting to know the characters' in which they drink and tell jokes, and unconvincingly muck about in the snow. Also there's a horribly misjudged scene in which fatty goes to the outhouse, and no sooner has he 'wiped himself' than one of the nymph bimbos joins him and starts sucking on his unwashed hands. For a moment there, what with it being a German film, I did wonder if I'd accidentally rented one of *those* types of films.
The direction is relatively standard too, and the whole thing has the air of a student production about it, with its occasionally clunky editing and tedious soundtrack. But surely such things are expected in trash cinema, indeed isn't this part of its charm? well, yes and no. When looking at trash there's usually two types of movie: The so-bad-its-good movie, of which there are thousands; and the surprisingly good movie, of which their are precious few.
The joys of these films are as follows:
*The so-bad-it's-good movie*. Well, the attraction is obvious. these are the types of movie that are so remarkably dreadful that they're almost charming. Plan Nine From Out of Space is the classic example. Often such movies have some redeeming feature, be it some shocking splatter sequences, hilariously awful acting and/or dubbing (Zombie Creeping Flesh, anyone), or quite simply, sheer moral bankruptcy, which heightens the vile piece of celluloid to a film that just needs to be seen.
*The surprisingly good trash*, of which Evil Dead is a prime example, is exactly that, and all the more lovable because of the cult statuses such films inevitably enjoy. The Evil Dead is a brilliantly made, massively influential and innovative little horror movie which stands as a cornerstone of amateur film making, and continues to inspire the genre. Watching it, you know its creators have a passion for what they're doing; it oozes from the screen. This is a film which epitomizes the punk rock spirit to do the best you can with the available resources. The Evil Dead is genuinely frightening and suspenseful, as Sam Raimi and co. successfully crank up the tension and sense of claustrophobia, while brilliantly blending elements of comedy and tipping their hat to comic book violence. The joy of watching Evil Dead for the first time is realizing that it's a fantastic horror film, which actually makes good on its grimy poster's promise, mixed with the feeling that you've discovered something secret, something certain people didn't want you to see.

But Dead Snow... well, it's neither of these, and this is part of the reason it ultimately falls flat. It's not so bad that it's worth sitting through to gawp at it's utter incompetency. But it's certainly not good enough to be one of the precious few. It's just... kind of so-so; stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's a schizophrenic piece of film making; it just can't decide what it wants to be. Sometimes it tries to be a slick Hollywood style multiplex type shocker, complete with aforementioned stereotype characters and some standard issue suspense-jump sequences, which don't really work. At others it just wants to let loose and be the sort of gore-drenched slapstick horror trash it keeps referencing. The fatty geek-boy character, who thankfully doesn't last too long, sports a Braindead tshirt and rarely opens his mouth without laboriously informing us of the horror movie conventions. But just mentioning classics of the genre is not enough to raise your film to their level. Few films have referenced previous movies in this post-modern way, and then gone on to be good films in themselves. Those that have been successful, like Scream, have always been clever with their references and brought some new or interesting twist to the mix which subverts the convention, and exceeds expectation. Sam Raimi famously had a Hill's Have Eyes poster appear in the background of The Evil Dead. By bringing a real-world film reference into his movie he was effectively saying "You think that was horror? That was just fiction, this is the real horror!", in the same way Wes Craven had done in The Hill's Have Eyes with a Jaws poster. This is subtle, but effective referencing, unlike Dead Snow, which is undone by its over-referencing. It sets up a standard only to fail to achieve it and delivers only a few fun scenes before getting lost in convention.