Intimate Live Performances of Radiohead, Sonic Youth, the White Stripes, PJ Harvey & More: No Host, No Audience, Just Pure Live Music

in Music | March 11th, 2021

It should be clear by now that rock and roll pos­es no dan­ger to the sta­tus quo. Fair enough: It’s going on 70 years since Elvis and Chuck Berry freaked out par­ents of scream­ing teens, and 50 years since Iggy and the Stooges ripped up stages in Detroit and the denizens of CBGB made rock sub­ver­sive again. That’s a long time for an edge to dull, and dull it has. Per­haps nowhere is this more in evi­dence than rock films like CBGB, which “some­how man­ages to make punk rock bor­ing,” and Netflix’s The Dirt, a movie about Möt­ley Crüe that gives us as much insight into the band as a cou­ple spins of “Dr. Feel­go­od,” argues crit­ic Bri­an Tal­leri­co.

Yes, we can chalk up bad rock films to lazy film­mak­ing and stu­dio greed, but there’s also a gen­er­al sense that the cul­ture now under­stands rock only as a mat­ter of ges­tures and anec­dotes: the mak­ing of the music reduced to styl­is­tic quirks and kitschy arti­fice.

This is in con­trast, Radio­head pro­duc­er Nigel Godrich felt, to ear­li­er media like the live per­for­mances on The Old Grey Whis­tle Test. (It’s cer­tain­ly in con­trast to John Peel’s raw ses­sions and films like Urgh! A Music War.) In mak­ing his From the Base­ment series, Godrich said, “I’m a sad fan try­ing to bring the mag­ic back to music TV.”

Just as rock pho­tog­ra­phy was reduced from “total access all the time” to well-kept mar­ket­ing and PR (or so claimed the late, leg­endary Baron Wol­man), rock per­for­mance has become over­pro­duced spec­ta­cle in which it can be dif­fi­cult to tell pre-record­ed tracks from real play­ing. Add to this the loss of inti­ma­cy in live venues in the time of COVID, and we get even far­ther away from the music’s cre­ation. Godrich and pro­duc­er Dil­ly Gent con­ceived of From the Base­ment years before the pan­dem­ic, but it’s almost as if they antic­i­pat­ed a cul­tur­al cri­sis of our moment, the enforced sep­a­ra­tion from the mak­ing of live music.

Like the best Zoom con­certs, From the Base­ment, pro­duced between 2006 and 2009, eschews the trap­pings of host, audi­ence, and stu­dio light­ing for an imme­di­ate expe­ri­ence of live cre­ation. It’s a safe, ster­ile envi­ron­ment — miss­ing are mosh pits, fans swarm­ing the stage, and the sex, drugs, and vio­lence of old. But to pre­tend that rock is dan­ger­ous in the 21st cen­tu­ry is noth­ing more than pre­tense. There’s no need to turn the music into the edgy spec­ta­cle it isn’t any­more (and has­n’t been since “Creep” ruled the radio), Godrich and Gent’s con­cept sug­gests. In doing so, we miss what it is now.

Or as Thom Yorke — whose band got first dibs, play­ing “Video­tape” and “Down is the New Up” in the debut episode — remarked, the show “was excit­ing because it came from the desire to cut out the crap that lies between the music and the view­er. To get plugged straight into the mains. No pro­duc­er or direc­tor egos mess­ing it up.” See From the Base­ment per­for­mances from Radio­head, Son­ic Youth, the White Stripes, and PJ Har­vey above and many more archived at the From the Base­ment YouTube chan­nel here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

An Archive of 1,000 “Peel Ses­sions” Avail­able Online: Hear David Bowie, Bob Mar­ley, Elvis Costel­lo & Oth­ers Play in the Stu­dio of Leg­endary BBC DJ John Peel

Radio­head Will Stream Con­certs Free Online Until the Pan­dem­ic Comes to an End

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Per­forms Songs from His New Sound­track for the Hor­ror Film, Sus­piria

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Saturday Night Live’s Very First Sketch: Watch John Belushi Launch SNL in October, 1975

in Comedy, Television | March 10th, 2021

How do you kick off the longest run­ning live sketch com­e­dy show in tele­vi­sion his­to­ry? If you’re in the cast and crew for the first episode of Sat­ur­day Night Live, you have no idea you’re doing any­thing of the kind. Still the pressure’s on, and the new­ly hired “Not Ready for Prime­time Play­ers” had a lot of com­pe­ti­tion on their own show that night. When Sat­ur­day Night, the orig­i­nal title for SNL, made its debut on Octo­ber 11, 1975, doing live com­e­dy on tele­vi­sion was an extreme­ly risky propo­si­tion.

So, what do you do if you’re pro­duc­ers Dick Eber­sol and Lorne Michaels? Put your riski­est foot for­ward — John Belushi, the “first rock & roll star of com­e­dy” writes Rolling Stone, and “the ‘live’ in Sat­ur­day Night Live.” The man who would be comedy’s king, for a time, before he left the stage too soon. His first sketch, and the first on-air for SNL, reveals “a ten­den­cy toward the time­less­ly pecu­liar,” Time mag­a­zine writes, that made the show an instant cult hit.

Rather than skew­er­ing top­i­cal issues or imper­son­at­ing celebri­ties, the first sketch, “The Wolver­ines” goes after the ripe tar­gets of an immi­grant (Belushi) learn­ing Eng­lish and his teacher, played by head writer Michael O’Donoghue, who insists on mak­ing Belushi repeat the tit­u­lar word in non­sen­si­cal phras­es like “I would like to feed your fin­ger­tips to the wolver­ines.”

Belushi’s accent has shades of Andy Kaufman’s “for­eign man” from Caspi­ar, and he gets a brief moment to dis­play his phys­i­cal com­e­dy skills when he keels over in imi­ta­tion of his teacher hav­ing a heart attack. “The Wolver­ines” is short, non­sen­si­cal, and weird­ly sweet. “No one would know what kind of show this was from see­ing that,” Michaels remem­bered. We can still look back at that wild­ly uneven first sea­son and won­der what kind of show SNL would be now if it had held on to the anar­chic spir­it of the ear­ly years. But that’s a lot to ask of a 45-year-old live com­e­dy show.

The night’s guest was George Car­lin, who did not appear in any sketch­es, but who did get three sep­a­rate mono­logues. The show also fea­tured two musi­cal guests, Bil­ly Pre­ston and Janis Ian. Andy Kauf­man made an appear­ance doing his famous Mighty Mouse bit, and the Mup­pets were there (not the fun Mup­pets, but a “dark and grumpy ver­sion” Jim Hen­son dis­owned after the first sea­son.)

The first episode was also the first to fea­ture the icon­ic intro, “Live from New York, it’s Sat­ur­day Night!” — deliv­ered by Chevy Chase. Though it has become a cel­e­bra­to­ry announce­ment, at the time “it’s Sat­ur­day Night!” was a dark reminder of the live com­e­dy vari­ety show, Sat­ur­day Night Live with Howard Cosell, then fail­ing through its first and only sea­son before its 18-episode run came to an end the fol­low­ing year.

See more from that weird first night above, includ­ing Carlin’s Foot­ball and Base­ball mono­logue and the for­got­ten SNL Mup­pets, just above.

via Ulti­mate Clas­sic Rock

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Cre­at­ing Sat­ur­day Night Live: Behind-the Scenes Videos Reveal How the Icon­ic Com­e­dy Show Gets Made

Lorne Michaels Intro­duces Sat­ur­day Night Live and Its Bril­liant First Cast for the Very First Time (1975)

Clas­sic Punk Rock Sketch­es from Sat­ur­day Night Live, Cour­tesy of Fred Armisen

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

A Spellbinding Drone Journey Through a Bowling Alley

in Random | March 10th, 2021

A now for some­thing that’s right up your alley…

Using an FPV drone, YouTu­ber “jay­byrd­films” takes you on a some­what dizzy­ing tour of Bryant Lake Bowl, a vin­tage bowl­ing alley in Min­neapo­lis. As CNET puts it, “It’s an impres­sive bit of film­mak­ing as the … drone flies down bowl­ing lanes, nuz­zles close to the pins and then soars back toward the bowlers. Crisp, atmos­pher­ic audio — of peo­ple chat­ting, bowl­ing balls rolling on wood, pins clang­ing, glass­es clink­ing — adds to the imme­di­a­cy.” Enjoy.

via Kot­tke

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Haunt­ing Drone’s‑Eye View of Cher­nobyl

A Drone’s Eye View of the Ancient Pyra­mids of Egypt, Sudan & Mex­i­co

See the Expan­sive Ruins of Pom­peii Like You’ve Nev­er Seen Them Before: Through the Eyes of a Drone

Guitarist Gary Clark, Jr. Plays Searing Acoustic Blues in a Spontaneous Jam Session

in Music | March 10th, 2021

Gui­tarist, singer, and song­writer Gary Clark, Jr. was “sup­posed to save the blues,” writes Geoff Edgers at The Wash­ing­ton Post. That’s a lot of weight to hang on the shoul­ders of a musi­cian born in 1984. Clark grew up in Austin, Texas lis­ten­ing to Jimi Hen­drix, Ste­vie Ray Vaugh­an, Green Day, and Nir­vana. He’s been onscreen in John Sayles’ Hon­ey­drip­per, played Eric Clapton’s Cross­roads Gui­tar Fes­ti­val, and played along­side his hero B.B. King.

His ring­ing tone recalls King, his sear­ing leads sound like Hen­drix, but he’s just as hap­py evok­ing Cur­tis May­field, Stax Records, and Quin­cy Jones. He’s described his ide­al sound as “Snoop Dogg meets John Lee Hook­er.” The blues, what­ev­er Clark’s crit­ics might think they are, have come a long way since white 60s revival­ists trav­eled south and dis­cov­ered coun­try blues­men like Clark’s fel­low Tex­an Mance Lip­scomb, a share­crop­per all his life, even after his first album made him famous in 1961 and he record­ed with a “who’s who of musi­cians.”

Lip­scomb, “despite his fame,” writes Texas Month­ly, “remained poor.” Clark has done quite well for him­self. His suc­cess pro­vid­ed the occa­sion for his furi­ous, reg­gae-tinged track “This Land,” which recounts a con­fronta­tion with a neigh­bor who refused to believe a Black man could own the 50-acre ranch Clark owns in rur­al Texas, out­side Austin. Clark’s got blues, but it’s a dif­fer­ent era, and the music is more mul­ti-faceted than it was six­ty, nine­ty, or 100 years ago, even if some oth­er cul­tur­al atti­tudes haven’t changed at all.

He clear­ly wants to evade tra­di­tion­al labels and avoid repeat­ing him­self. “If it were up to every­body else,” Clark once sneered, “I would do Hen­drix cov­ers all the time.” (See his “Voodoo Child” live.) He may not want to wear the man­tle of the “sav­ior of the blues.” But he “can bang out a coun­try blues on an 80-year-old res­onator gui­tar,” Edgers writes, as com­fort­ably as he drops sam­ples into the demos he arranges at his home stu­dio.

See Clark at the top in a spon­ta­neous 12-bar acoustic jam in Berlin, and just above, he breaks out the res­onator for “Nextdoor Neigh­bor Blues.” This song is not, in fact, about a racist neigh­bor but about a much more uni­ver­sal sub­ject, one Mance Lip­scomb — and all the blues­men whose songs he remem­bered and record­ed in his own sur­pris­ing­ly ver­sa­tile, vir­tu­oso style — sang about all the time: a love affair gone wrong. It’s a sto­ry as old as music and maybe one rea­son we don’t have to wor­ry that the blues are going any­where.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Jimi Hen­drix Plays the Delta Blues on a 12-String Acoustic Gui­tar in 1968, and Jams with His Blues Idols, Bud­dy Guy & B.B. King

Ste­vie Ray Vaugh­an Plays the Acoustic Gui­tar in Rare Footage, Let­ting Us See His Gui­tar Vir­tu­os­i­ty in Its Purest Form

The Future of Blues Is in Good Hands: Watch 12-Year-Old Toby Lee Trade Riffs with Chica­go Blues Gui­tarist Ron­nie Bak­er Brooks

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Why Is the Debut Disney+ Marvel TV Show a Tribute to Classic Sitcoms? Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #85 on WandaVision

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | March 10th, 2021

The newest, now con­clud­ed super­hero series fea­tures char­ac­ters no one asked to hear more about, one of whom was accord­ing to the Mar­vel fran­chise films def­i­nite­ly dead, and drops them in media res into a lov­ing styl­is­tic recre­ation of The Dick Van Dyke Show, then I Dream of Jeanie, etc. Why is this hap­pen­ing, and is it good?

Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by guest Rolan­do Nieves from the Remakes, Reboots, and Revivals pod­cast try to fig­ure out what kind of sto­ry­telling this real­ly is, whether this exper­i­ment was suc­cess­ful, whether you have to be a Mar­vel die-hard (or old enough to have watched those sit-coms) to get it, and the poten­tial for future odd­ball super­hero out­ings that don’t fea­ture a big boss fight.

This episode is hot off the press­es, and more arti­cles are com­ing out about Wan­daVi­sion now, but here are a few that might help:

• “How ‘Wan­daVi­sion’ Uses the Stages of Grief to Under­stand Wanda’s Men­tal State” by Meaghan Dar­wish
• “Wan­daVi­sion Just Set a Dan­ger­ous Prece­dent for the Mar­vel Cin­e­mat­ic Uni­verse” by Eric Fran­cis­co
• “ ‘Wan­daVi­sion’ Isn’t Too Slow, Every­one For­got How To Watch TV” by Paul Tas­si
• “A Guide to the Sit­com Inte­ri­ors in ‘Wan­daVi­sion’ ” by Jes­si­ca Wang
• “Before ‘Wan­daVi­sion’: The Wild Roman­tic His­to­ry of Vision and Scar­let Witch” by TJ Dietsch
• “Wan­daVi­sion Finale End­ing Explained” by Lacy Baugh­er
• “How Wan­daVi­sion Cap­tured the Secret Hor­ror of The Sims” by Matthew Byrd
• “Wan­daVi­sion Finale: Every East­er Egg” by Ryan Arey
• “Wan­daVi­sion’s Post-Cred­its Scenes Set Up 3 New MCU Movies & Shows” by James Hunt

Fol­low Rolan­do @Rolando_Nieves.

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion (with more Rolan­do!) that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

How Looney Tunes & Other Classic Cartoons Helped Americans Become Musically Literate

in Animation, Film, Music, Television | March 9th, 2021

Dis­tance learn­ing exper­i­ments on tele­vi­sion long pre­date the medium’s use as a con­duit for adver­tis­ing and mass enter­tain­ment. “Before it became known as the ‘idiot box,’” writes Matt Novak at Smith­son­ian, “tele­vi­sion was seen as the best hope for bring­ing enlight­en­ment to the Amer­i­can peo­ple.” The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment made way for edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­ming dur­ing TV’s ear­li­est years when the FCC reserved 242 non­com­mer­cial chan­nels “to encour­age edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­ming.”

Fund­ing did not mate­ri­al­ize, but the nation’s spir­it was will­ing, Life mag­a­zine main­tained: “the hunger of our cit­i­zen­ry for cul­ture and self-improve­ment has always been gross­ly under­es­ti­mat­ed.” Was this so? Per­haps. At the medium’s very begin­nings as stan­dard appli­ance in many Amer­i­can homes, there was Leonard Bern­stein. His Omnibus series debuted in 1952, “the first com­mer­cial tele­vi­sion out­let for exper­i­men­ta­tion in the arts,” notes Schuyler G. Chapin. Six years lat­er, he debuted his Young People’s Con­certs, spread­ing musi­cal lit­er­a­cy on TV through the for­mat for the next 14 years.

“It was to [Bernstein’s] — and our — good for­tune that he and the Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion grew to matu­ri­ty togeth­er,” wrote crit­ic Robert S. Clark in well-deserved trib­ute. Much the same could be said of some unlike­ly can­di­dates for TV musi­cal edu­ca­tors: Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and oth­er clas­sic ani­ma­tors, who did as much, and maybe more, to famil­iar­ize Amer­i­can view­ers with clas­si­cal music as per­haps all of Bernstein’s for­mi­da­ble efforts com­bined.

A Mendelssohn piece that you hear con­stant­ly in clas­sic car­toons, and even more recent ones like REN & STIMPY and SPONGEBOB, is “Früh­lingslied (Spring Song),” which is used to denote peace and tran­quil­i­ty. This is my favorite instance, from the first Ralph Wolf-Sam Sheep­dog film. pic.twitter.com/XJjup7nWU7

— Vin­cent Alexan­der (@NonsenseIsland) March 1, 2021

But Jones and his fel­low ani­ma­tors have not been giv­en their prop­er due, car­toon­ist and ani­ma­tor Vin­cent Alexan­der sug­gest­ed in a recent Twit­ter thread. Aim­ing to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion, Alexan­der post­ed a wealth of exam­ples from Bugs Bun­ny & company’s con­tri­bu­tions to Amer­i­cans’ musi­cal lit­er­a­cy. Grant­ed, many of these car­toons start­ed as short films in the­aters, but they spent many more decades on TV, enter­tain­ing mil­lions of all ages while expos­ing them to a wide vari­ety of clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions.

Franz von Sup­pé got quite a work­out in clas­sic car­toons. “The Poet and Peas­ant Over­ture” shows up in dozens of shorts. My favorite is Pop­eye con­duct­ing the “Spinach Over­ture” while giv­ing Blu­to a rhyth­mic beat­down per­fect­ly in time with the music. pic.twitter.com/6dAr7cgHrC

— Vin­cent Alexan­der (@NonsenseIsland) March 1, 2021

Alexan­der points out how car­toons like the first Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheep­dog (1953) set a prece­dent for using Mendelssohn’s “Früh­lingslied (Spring Song)” in lat­er ani­mat­ed favorites like Ren & Stimpy and Sponge­bob Squarepants. He gives oblig­a­tory nods to Dis­ney and cites sev­er­al oth­er non-Looney Tunes exam­ples like Popeye’s “Spinach Over­ture,” based on Franz von Suppé’s “The Poet and Peas­ant Over­ture.” But on the whole, the thread focus­es on Warn­er Bros. clas­sics, espe­cial­ly those in which Bugs Bun­ny demon­strates his tal­ents as a con­duc­tor, pianist, and bar­ber to the bald Elmer Fudd.

“I don’t know who can lis­ten to the famous opera The Bar­ber of Seville by Gioachi­no Rossi­ni with­out think­ing of Bugs Bun­ny,” writes Alexan­der. “The way direc­tor Chuck Jones syn­chro­nizes the slap­stick action to the sound­track is flat-out mas­ter­ful.” There are fair ques­tions to be asked here — and Bern­stein would sure­ly ask them: How many of those peo­ple can appre­ci­ate Rossi­ni with­out the slap­stick? How many have heard, and seen, a full per­for­mance of his work sans Fudd?

“Sobre las Olas (Over the Waves)” used to mis-attrib­ut­ed to Strauss, but it was actu­al­ly the work of Mex­i­can com­pos­er Juventi­no Rosas. It became the go-to car­toon theme for mag­ic tricks and tight-wire acts. “Roo­­ta-voo­­ta-zoot!” pic.twitter.com/4izREAGKIl

— Vin­cent Alexan­der (@NonsenseIsland) March 1, 2021

Who can hear Wag­n­er with­out want­i­ng to sing at the top of their lungs, “Kill da wab­bit, Kill da wab­bit, Kill da wab­bit!” Good­ness knows, I can’t. Nonethe­less, Chuck Jones’ What’s Opera, Doc? has been rec­og­nized for its major con­tri­bu­tions to “Amer­i­can enlight­en­ment” — deemed “cul­tur­al­ly, his­tor­i­cal­ly or aes­thet­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant” by the Library of Con­gress and pre­served in the Nation­al Film Reg­istry. This, Alexan­der sug­gests, is as it should be. (Just con­sid­er the opera singers Bugs inspired). We should hon­or ani­ma­tion’s major con­tri­bu­tions to our cul­ture lit­er­a­cy: a mass musi­cal edu­ca­tion by car­toon. See many more clas­sic clips in Alexander’s Twit­ter thread here.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Evo­lu­tion of Chuck Jones, the Artist Behind Bugs Bun­ny, Daffy Duck & Oth­er Looney Tunes Leg­ends: A Video Essay

Kill the Wab­bit!: How the 1957 Bugs Bun­ny Car­toon, “What’s Opera, Doc?,” Inspired Today’s Opera Singers to First Get Into Opera

Books Come to Life in Clas­sic Car­toons from 1930s and 1940s

“The Duck­ta­tors”: Loony Tunes Turns Ani­ma­tion into Wartime Pro­pa­gan­da (1942)

A Starling Murmuration Magically Makes the Shape of a Bird

in Nature | March 9th, 2021

“After months of chas­ing these birds around Lough Ennell, Co. West­meath [a lake in Ire­land], James Crom­bie and I cap­tured a unique dis­play, writes Col­in Hogg on YouTube. He’s refer­ring to the video above, which–for one ever-brief moment–captures a mur­mu­ra­tion of star­lings form­ing the shape of a giant bird. It’s a pret­ty meta con­cept.

Crom­bie also cap­tured the moment with a pho­to­graph that graced the cov­er of The Irish Times. View it here. The news­pa­per pro­vides some inter­est­ing back­sto­ry on the video and pho­to­graph here.

Find more mur­mu­ra­tion moments in the Relat­eds below.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Twist­ed Sifter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Fal­con and the Mur­mu­ra­tion: Nature’s Aer­i­al Bat­tle Above Rome

A Stun­ning, Chance Encounter With Nature

Watch “The “Art of Fly­ing,” a Short Film Cap­tur­ing the Won­drous Mur­mu­ra­tions of the Com­mon Star­ling

Compare the Original Trailers of Classic Films with Their Modern Updates: Casablanca, Dog Day Afternoon & The Exorcist

in Film | March 9th, 2021

You must remem­ber this, a kiss is just a kiss and audi­ences’ taste in film trail­ers evolves, just like movies do.

HBO Max is cap­i­tal­iz­ing on these shifts by releas­ing a series of Mod­ern Trail­ers for some of the clas­sic (and not so clas­sic… look­ing at you, Grem­lins) films stream­ing on its plat­form.

Take the recut trail­er for 1944’s Oscar win­ning Best Pic­ture, Casablan­ca, above.

Rather than using a nar­ra­tor to deliv­er expo­si­tion, it’s sup­plied by dia­logue, super­im­posed over moody shots of Humphrey Bog­a­rt’s Rick, smok­ing, lev­el­ing a pis­tol, and sur­vey­ing his bar. We’re giv­en just enough of it to pique our inter­est.

When Ingrid Bergman makes her first entrance, halfway through, the com­pos­er pulls out the Pavlov­ian stops.

At sev­en­ty-five, Casablan­ca is such a part of the canon, even those who haven’t seen it can savor the  mod­ern trailer’s ban­quet of time­less lines, with the most cel­e­brat­ed saved for dessert.

By con­trast, the orig­i­nal the­atri­cal trail­er took a max­i­mal­ist approach, employ­ing an urgent male nar­ra­tor, hyper­bol­ic title cards, and exot­ic trav­el­ogue. There’s heavy empha­sis on dan­ger, romance, and the pres­ence of big name stars. The music is as thun­der­ous as the sales pitch.

As Katie Kilken­ny notes in a 2014 essay on movie trail­er fatigue for The Atlantic:

In the 1940s and ’50s, pre­views tried to per­suade the view­er of the movie’s superla­tive qual­i­ties with caps-locked plac­ards and nar­ra­tion (“A mad adven­ture fraught with bold intrigue!” “The most excit­ing movie ever screened!” “The most mem­o­rable event in the annals of the motion pic­tures!”).

Now images and music do the heavy lift­ing. In an inter­view with Wired, Dan­ish film­mak­er and trail­er guru Nico­las Wind­ing Refn explains:

Direc­tors talk about how it’s all about cast­ing for them—when they get the right actors, their jobs are eas­i­er. For us, that’s true of music. Some­times 70, 80 per­cent of the job can be try­ing to find that per­fect piece. Trail­ers are all about rhythm, pac­ing, and feel­ing… I’ll watch the whole movie with­out sound, just look­ing for visuals—that lit­tle head turn, that glimpse, that spark of some­thing. Then I’ll watch the movie just for dia­log. I can get down to about 10 to 15 min­utes and from there start craft­ing and mak­ing con­nec­tions.

If you had zero pre-exist­ing knowl­edge of Dog Day After­noon and the more rec­og­niz­able mem­bers of its cast — Al Paci­no, the late Charles Durn­ing, and the incom­pa­ra­ble John Caza­le, HBO Max’s trail­er might fool you into think­ing it’s a new release from a direc­tor who wor­shipped at the altar of the great, grit­ty NYC films of the 70s as an alter­na­tive to film school. They cer­tain­ly got the peri­od details right!

The orig­i­nal the­atri­cal trail­er from 1975 fea­tured an info-heavy voiceover, chop­pi­er edit­ing, and a lot more screen time for Judith Mali­na, co-founder of the Liv­ing The­ater, as Paci­no’s moth­er.

The mod­ern trail­er for The Exor­cist, wide­ly con­sid­ered one of the scari­est movies of all time, embraces a 21st-cen­tu­ry pro­mo­tion­al trope of hor­ror films in which chil­dren play a cen­tral role: lean into the inno­cence before unleash­ing the hounds.

Extra points for black and pur­ple text cards in Friz Quadra­ta font, and an extreme­ly zing‑y but­ton.

The dis­turb­ing orig­i­nal the­atri­cal trail­er by edi­tor Bud Smith, below, was banned upon its release. Whether this is because its black-and-white flash­es of a young Lin­da Blair and the demon­ic Pazuzu induced seizures, or because the stu­dio was spooked by its arty sen­si­bil­i­ties is up for debate.

Direc­tor William Fried­kin, who called it “the best trail­er ever made about The Exor­cist,” reck­ons it was the lat­ter.

***Pho­to­sen­si­tive Epilep­sy Warn­ing*** (no joke.)

Smith’s dis­turb­ing vision was quick­ly replaced by the more con­ven­tion­al trail­er, below. It gave away more shocks, but lacks the abil­i­ty to bur­row into your dreams, caus­ing you to recheck the locks and go to bed with all the lights on.

Read­ers, do you have an all-time favorite movie trail­er? Let us know in the com­ments.

Watch a playlist of HBO Max’s Mod­ern Trail­ers here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Watch 25 Alfred Hitch­cock Trail­ers, Excit­ing Films in Their Own Right

Watch the 7 Hour Trail­er for the 720 Hour Film, Ambiancé, the Longest Movie in His­to­ry

Casablanca’s Hilar­i­ous Alter­na­tive Final Scene Fea­tur­ing Sat­ur­day Night Live’s Kate McK­in­non: Prag­ma­tism Car­ries the Day!

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. She most recent­ly appeared as a French Cana­di­an bear who trav­els to New York City in search of food and mean­ing in Greg Kotis’ short film, L’Ourse.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

Alexander Calder’s Archive Goes Online: Explore 1400 Works of Art by the Modernist Sculptor

in Archives, Art | March 8th, 2021

Like all great artists, Alexan­der Calder left his medi­um quite unlike he found it. Near­ly 45 years after his death, Calder’s expan­sion of the realm of sculp­ture in new direc­tions of form, col­or, and engi­neer­ing remains a sub­ject of volu­mi­nous dis­cus­sion, includ­ing crit­ic Jed Per­l’s Calder: The Con­quest of Time and Calder: The Con­quest of Space, a two-part biog­ra­phy pub­lished in full last year. More recent­ly, a wealth of mate­r­i­al has come avail­able that enables us to con­duct Calder­ian inves­ti­ga­tions of our own: the Calder Foun­da­tion’s online research archive, which as Hyper­al­ler­gic’s Valenti­na Di Lis­cia reports includes “over 1,300 Calder works across dif­fer­ent media.”

But wait, there’s more: the archive also offers “1,000 pho­tographs and archival doc­u­ments,” “48 his­toric and recent texts by the artist, his con­tem­po­raries, and present-day schol­ars,” and “over 40 microsites explor­ing Calder’s exhi­bi­tion his­to­ry.” (This in addi­tion to the Calder Foun­da­tion’s Vimeo chan­nel, where you’ll find the films seen here.)

Pace Gallery, which rep­re­sents Calder, high­lights the “new inter­ac­tive map fea­ture called ‘Calder Around the World,’ which allows view­ers to find pub­lic instal­la­tions of his mon­u­men­tal sculp­ture in 20 states domes­ti­cal­ly and 21 coun­tries inter­na­tion­al­ly, includ­ing muse­ums with impor­tant Calder hold­ings and per­ma­nent and tem­po­rary exhi­bi­tions ded­i­cat­ed to the artist.”

As that map reveals, much of Calder’s work cur­rent­ly resides in his home­land of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, pri­mar­i­ly in the north­east where he spent most of his life, but also the Cal­i­for­nia in which he did some grow­ing up — not to men­tion the Paris where he lived for a time and met fel­low artists like Mar­cel Duchamp and Fer­nand Léger, infor­ma­tion about whom also appears in the online archive. You may locate a Calder near you, even if you live in anoth­er region of the world, entire­ly: liv­ing in Seoul as I do, I now see I’ll have to pay a vis­it to 1963’s Le Cèpe and 1971’s Grand Crinkly. Though this ever-more-exten­sive Calder Archive can help us under­stand this most opti­mistic of all Mod­ernists, there’s noth­ing quite like being in the pres­ence of one of his sculp­tures.

via Hyper­al­ler­gic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er Alexan­der Calder’s Cir­cus, One of the Beloved Works at the Whit­ney Muse­um of Amer­i­can Art

Watch Alexan­der Calder Per­form His Cir­cus, a Toy The­atre Piece Filled With Amaz­ing Kinet­ic Wire Sculp­tures

Watch Dreams that Mon­ey Can Buy, a Sur­re­al­ist Film by Man Ray, Mar­cel Duchamp, Alexan­der Calder, Fer­nand Léger & Hans Richter

178 Beau­ti­ful­ly-Illus­trat­ed Let­ters from Artists: Kahlo, Calder, Man Ray & More

The Guggen­heim Puts 109 Free Mod­ern Art Books Online

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Metallica Plays Antarctica, Setting a World Record as the First Band to Play All 7 Continents: Watch the Full Concert Online

in Music | March 8th, 2021

Unless they’ve got fans among pen­guins, there’s no prac­ti­cal rea­son for a band to make the jour­ney to Antarc­ti­ca to play. So why did Metal­li­ca do exact­ly that in 2013? Because they could, and because it made them the first musi­cal act to play all sev­en con­ti­nents — a Guin­ness World Record — doing it all in the same cal­en­dar year, no less. They’re also the only rock band to trav­el to Antarc­ti­ca. (With the excep­tion of Nunatak, an indie rock band made up of British cli­mate sci­en­tists, who played a “sold-out” show to 17 peo­ple at the Rothera Research Sta­tion where they worked in 2007.)

If those aren’t rea­sons enough, the con­cert was a dream real­ized for the 120 fans in atten­dance, includ­ing research sta­tion sci­en­tists and Coca Cola con­test win­ners from all over Latin Amer­i­ca who were able to see Metal­li­ca in a trans­par­ent dome near the heli­port of Argentina’s Car­li­ni Base after a week-long cruise. “Due to the continent’s frag­ile envi­ron­ment,” notes Guin­ness, the band’s amps were placed in “iso­la­tion cab­i­nets” and the audi­ence heard every­thing through head­phones, sort of like a silent rave. Called “Freeze ‘Em All,” the show was live-streamed and is now ful­ly avail­able online (see it above).

“The ener­gy in the lit­tle dome was amaz­ing!” the band writes on their Face­book page. “Words can not describe how hap­py every­one was.” But how cold were they? More spon­sor­ship, in the form of out­er­wear from snow­board and ski giant Bur­ton, kept the band bun­dled up through­out. Metal­li­ca has uploaded the audio of “Freeze ‘Em All” in MP3 and var­i­ous high-end loss­less for­mats at LiveMetallica.com. It’s a very cool idea, but is the con­cert video an hour-long Coke Zero ad? I don’t know.… I am a lit­tle curi­ous about what might have hap­pened if their amps had been at full blast in the Antarc­tic wild….

Here’s the full setlist, with time­stamps, of the record-set­ting gig:

Creep­ing Death (1:25​)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (7:47​)
Sad But True (12:28​)
Wel­come Home (San­i­tar­i­um) (18:58​)
Mas­ter of Pup­pets (25:58​)
One (34:12​)
Black­ened (41:58​)
Noth­ing Else Mat­ters (50:01​)
Enter Sand­man (55:06​)
Seek & Destroy (1:02:20​)

You too, like many a com­ment­ing fan, may feel betrayed by the lack of “Trapped Under Ice” in the setlist. Maybe too on-the-nose, they thought, too cute. But sure­ly a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty that won’t come again. Fill in the gap your­self with the live take below.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Metal­li­ca Is Putting Free Con­certs Online: 6 Now Stream­ing, with More to Come

Metallica’s Bassist Robert Tru­jil­lo Plays Metal­li­ca Songs Fla­men­co-Style, Joined by Rodri­go y Gabriela

Bud­dhist Monk Cov­ers Metallica’s ”Enter Sand­man,” Then Med­i­tates

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness