Synth Britannia is a documentary that aired on BBC Four in October 2009 and that follows the British synth pop movmement from its early and rather experimental stages in the late seventies to the eighties, when it all of a sudden had a major impact on Western pop culture. The inventors of synth-based pop music such a The Normal, The Human League or OMD where all influenced by computer music heroes such as Kraftwerk and Gorgio Moroder as well as the punk era in which making music was no longer perceived as a the privilege of trained musicians. Unfortunately the documentary focuses mostly on the technical side of this music and on the way it affected and was affected by society in general, the fact that this movement established a whole new style that e.g. allowed men to be androgynous and emotional isn’t really analysed here, it’s only superficially mentioned . Still the film is really worth watching if you like the music and the style of that time. I also posted some of my favourite artists and songs appearing in the film below.
Here are two trailers from a time when porn movies actually had something like a story: Steve Scott’s INCHES is a gay porn classic from 1979 and was one of the first longer movies that featured Al Parker (1952-1992) who started off as a butler of Hugh Hefner and became a porn star in the eighties. I found this nice trailer on Colin Quinn’s tumblr and I’m curious how long YouTube is going to keep it online. An explicit version can be found on the webpage of Bijou Video, a vintage porn distributor. On Bijou’s YouTube channel you also find the trailer of A DEEP COMPASSION from 1972. Here a young blind boy is “caught in a web of sin and cruelty” in a dramatic story of “biblical proportions”. Sounds great!
UPDATE: The Bijou Video channel has been deleted by YouTube for showing to much explicit stuff. I tried to find the clips on their website, but the page is also currently down. So at least for now it seems like the trailers are no longer available on the internet.
Here’s some artwork of Stephen Irwin’s exhibition “Sometimes When We Touch” that was shown at the Invisible-Exports gallery in New York City this month. The pictures are taken out of vintage porn magazines and the explicit parts of them are erased. The website The Sword, my source for these pictures, also posted this link to an article about “Erased Porn” as a genre, but I think I’ll refuse to take this whole thing too serious.
“Disco bashing became a major preoccupation in 1977. At the moment when Saturday Night Fever and Studio 54 achieved zeitgeist status, rock rediscovered a rage it had been lacking since the ’60s, but this time the enemy was a culture with “plastic” and “mindless” (read effeminate) musical tastes. Examined in light of the ensuing political backlash, it’s clear that the slogan of this movement, “Disco Sucks!”, was the first cry of the angry white male” (Peter Braunstein) / “The ‘Disco Sucks’ campaign was a white, macho reaction against gay liberation and black pride more than a musical reaction against drum machines. In England, in the same year as the ‘Disco Sucks’ demo in America, The Young Nationalist – a British National Party publication – told its readers: ‘Disco and its melting pot pseudo-philosophy must be fought or Britain’s streets will be full of black-worshipping soul boys.”
The “Demolition Night”
“July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois. Two Chicago radio DJs (Steve Dahl and Garry Meier) came up with the idea of having people bring unwanted disco records to the stadium. The spurned records would be burned between doubleheader games with the White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. Lead by the chant, “Disco Sucks!” most of the records weren’t burned, but sailed through the stands during the game – nearly inciting a riot. Some fans started their own fires and mini-riots. There was so much commotion that the ballplayers couldn’t even finish the last game of the doubleheader; the White Sox forfeited.”
B.J. is a action figure toy produced by Mattel in the 70ies/80ies to teach boys what real friendship between real men can mean. In Germany for some reason it was called Mark Strong. I’ve found the first picture on Popular Sizes.
This is the only article I found on the internet about the Lavender Panthers, a group that was formend in the 70s in San Francisco as a respond to the violence gay people experienced at the time and the lack of security the police and the government provided. It was founded by Reverend Ray Broshears after he had been beaten up himself and it worked like a task force to protect gay people on the streets. The blog “The Outskirts” writes about the group: “It was renowned for its ability to appear out of nowhere (or a large van), and promptly begin flailing ass on anyone who represented a threat to individuals, or the community at large. They also had a form of immunity.” I’d love to have them back sometimes. If you know more about them let me know.
