Fantagraphics Called Courtney Love Out

Much and more of the same over at www.fantagraphics.com

Exterminate The Brutes: Hunter S Thompson & The Hells Angels

“The hard core, the outlaw elite, were the Hell's Angels... wearing the winged death's-head on the back of their sleeveless jackets and packing their "mamas" behind them on big "chopped hogs." They rode with a fine unwashed arrogance, secure in their reputation as the rottenest motorcycle gang in the whole history of Christendom.”

The Black Belles will break your heart!

Thank you God....... or should that be Thank You Jack White? For the Good Lord put them all on earth, but Mr White brought them together, stuck vintage instruments in their claws, wrote them a killer garage rock tune, cut it to wax, got it on the shelves and directed the awesome video below.

They’re called The Black Belles, they have a 7” out on Jack’s Third Man Records and they’ll put a hex on your black heart.

Abbey Road For Sale

Back in 2007, a hideous dickhead by the name of Guy Hands, set the sights of his private equity firm Terra Firma on one of the most famous record labels in history. Sure, EMI was up the creek, but what major label isn’t? £2.4 Billion later, Guy Hands, a man with no experience of running a record label, was at the wheel of a label that Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd once called home. Additionally, Hands also acquired the legendary Abbey Road Studios, which EMI had built and launched in 1931.

With an intention to reduce the labels overheads by £200 Million per year, it’s no wonder that EMI’s key artists started to desert the ship. How key? How about Radiohead, Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones for a start!

Well 3 years later and Hands is in the shitbooks of his backers, Citigroup. They want their cash back, after fronting over £3.3 billion in loans to Terra Firma. So as well as asking investors to cough up £120 Million by June, Guy Hands is scratching around for stuff to pawn.

Abbey Road may possibly be the most famous recording studio in history (sorry Sun & Hitsville USA), but in the age of Macbook Pro Tools, a Georgian townhouse full of expensive kit would seem a little excessive to any label taking a punt on a new band of skinny-jeaned, gobshite teenagers.

So Terra Firma will be putting the legendary studios up for sale. Yeah, there are a few interested parties, groups of musicians putting a kitty together and even the National Trust preparing a bid, but it’ll most likely see 2010 out as some sort of museum or hotel. By this time next year, you’ll probably be able to get married on the spot where the Fab Four sang “one thing I can tell you is you gotta be free...”

Screw you Guy Hands. RIP Abbey Road.

Where is Justice?

It’s been 2 very long years since French electro duo Justice released their eponymous album ‘†’, 2 years since they dropped the hammer and blew the EDM scene wide open, check that...blew music wide open.

Word spread last year that their sophomore album would be one of the marquee releases on the recently revived (and formerly legendary) Elektra imprint, which has been given a dustdown by Warner’s/Atlantic, in 2010. Fans jibbed out at the thought of them vacating the Ed Banger label family, but it seems that Elektra will be onboard for the distribution side more than anything.

News on the release has been slow since, with no date forthcoming. But 2010 will be the year that Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay return to blow our tiny minds once again. Alongside Daft Punk, who’ll also be releasing new work this year in the form of the Tron Legacy soundtrack, Justice are the most inspirational entity to emerge from electro since Kraftwerk. Here are 3 examples of how their crunching beats have transcended the aural in to the visual.

Genesis House, “Palais de Justice”

Inspired by the ‘†’ album and Justice’s motif, New York and Paris based architects PLANDA have created the Cross House, a hypothetical two story lair featuring a cinema, studio, bar and roof top pool which would perch upon the cliff edge at California's Santa Catalina Island. It’s just blueprints and dreams at the moment, but sometimes that’s all you need.

‘Stress’ Uncut

The boys describe this unbelievably violent video to their mind-bending track ‘Stress’ better than anybody could as a "clip unairable on television" for a "track unairable on the radio". This video ignited a shitstorm of protest in France and beyond, where it fingered a wound still raw from the 2005 Parisian banlieue riots. Watch it for yourself below, but be warned, it’s seriously strong stuff.

Across The Universe

This documentary, helmed by Romain Gavras and designer So-Me, follows the band on their 2008 North American Tour, through bottle attacks, mass hysteria and mucho debauchery. Check out the trailer below and have a little cry over your life not being anywhere near as cool as this shit.

Nightbreed Uncut? Yes Please Mr Barker!

It’s fantastic to see the name of a kick-ass old film being blogged about without the words “remake” or the infuriating “reboot” tailing its ass. Even better when the flick in question is Clive Barker’s 1990 super-failure Nightbreed!

You know the one? It was Barker’s follow-up to Hellraiser, starring Brat Pack wannabe Craig Sheffer in the lead and David Croneberg as the terrifying Dekker. It revolved around a huge community of freakoid monsters living in an underground city called Midian, under a cemetery in Nowheresville U.S.A.

The studio kicked Barker’s ass over the production, cutting 55 minutes and over 2/3 of the monsters out of the final cut. Well, now the original 145 minute print has surfaced and will be playing at the Minneapolis' Horror Hound Weekend in March. Fanboy’s are pissin’ their pants and screaming for a DVD release ASAP! I’m with them.

I loved this film so much as a kid that I even bought the Commodore 64 ‘Nightbreed Version’ just to get my fix of the Midian freaks. Here’s the trailer.

Get Well Soon Ronnie James Dio