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Magic Sellers sells out

2009-09-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

The first film to originate in a Terry Southern novel, Candy, was the story of innocence being continually duped and decieved; the second and later one, The Magic Christian, has the same theme, only this time from the opposite angle. Candy was always on the receiving end of deception, the hero of Magic Christian, Sir Guy Grand, is always the one who is doing the deceiving. Amazon Elastic Block Store

As well as causing chaos among the unsuspecting, Grand's actions also illustrate another theme— Every man has his price. In the elongated short story that is the written Magic Christian, a series of episodes are strung together to illustrate this time-honoured slogan. The same episosed, with additions, are the substance of the film; unfortunately a story that can be read and appreciated in about an hour, suffers immeasurably by its extension into a film of almost two.

The first mistake that the film makes is transferring the whole story to England. It seems hardly likely that Peter Sellers would be incapable of executing an equally excellent performance as an American tycoon as he does_as an English one. But the. change is made nevertheless and inevitably one feels an immediate alienation from the original story.

The format is essentially the same. A continual flow of visual anecdotes all of which feature Grand and his adopted, ex-beat son, Youngman. Grand as they spend vast sums in bribing worthy members of the public to prove Grand's philosophy by their own willingness to be bought.

The boat race is sabotaged; two championship boxers advance on each other, giggle, and fall en-coupled to the canvas; city-suited businessmen and housewives mingle

Tommy without tears

2009-09-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

The London concert of the latest Who tour in England took place at the Coliseum last month. Obviously the straight opera loving disciples who usually haunt the place were pretty uptight at this invasion by Tommy's disciples. Pete Townshend compared the place unfavourably to the Lyceum, things must have been exceptionally bad. Certainly the one freak who just had to dance around at the front of the stage was very quickly grabbed by the uniformed forces of Sadler's Wells—who now have the Coliseum as their annexe. Townshend's half-serious promise that the Who were going to take up a residency might have saved the place from itself. Some hope. Shopping Cart

The Who have a stage presence that easily equals that of their pop contemporaries — the Stones — of whose recent concerts elsewhere. Pete Townshend in a white boilersuit, Roger Daltry in his fringes, bare chest flashing under the lights, Keith Moon with his trousers rolled up to his knees and John Ent-whistle silent and black. The lights dimmed and they ran on stage to deafening applause. The atmosphere went very tense as they hit their opening number—'Eternal Life' (or it might have been: it hasn't appeared before this tour).

The novelty number over, they tore into 'Can't Explain'; as powerful as ever and improved possibly by the lengthened instrumental. Following it with their own version of the old Merseybeats' hit 'Fortuneteller' they moved on to 'Tattoo', off the third album. To end the first section of the concert came a Mose Allison song 'Youngman Blues', really dragging out Daltry's heart and soul and letting the rest of the band show off their musical talents.

After what were really introductory pieces, Townshend introduced the title track of the Quick One album. This is a mini-opera which he called the parents of Tommy. The touching tale of a girl guide who is discovered in mid-grope by her boyfriend as she is being seduced by Ivor the Engine Driver. Instead of going crazy, he forgives them, because, as the opera's composer revealed, 'he liked to watch'. This mini-opera might have cheered the Glyndebourne fans no end—the falsetto ending sounded like something out of La Scala, let alone the Coliseum.

After Quick One came their three greatest hits—'Substitute', Happy Jack' and 'I'm a Boy'. Then another break for an extensive chat from Townshend, more of Keith Moon's non-stop looning, general fixes of alcohol, abuse of the venue and so on—all culminating in the focal point of the concert—Townshend's announcement of Tommy, the Who's major achievement to date.

Tommy on stage, even without 'Cousin Kevin' and 'I'm a Sensation', still comes over as an improvement on the recorded version. Perhaps it's not really an improvement, but it's very different. The whole thing comes over as much more intense; the band, especially Townshend on

'Underture' and 'Sparks', let themselves get far more into their music. Pete Townshend has never been hyped up as another Clapton but his playing must deserve higher appreciation than it seems to get at the moment. But this is really who the Who are one of the few groups left who are still very much a group. All too often the trend is towards Somebody and the Somethings.

They have retained their solidarity.

In the States 'Tommy' is a fad, another version of the possible subcultures, here it's seen as one of the best examples of a pop composer's work. Everyone has said everything about it. This performance came over as well as ever. Put your own interpretation on what it says.

After Tommy half the audience stood up and cheered. Then they sat back, except for the immediately silenced freaks, and got Eddie Cochran's 'Summertime Blues'. Then the finale, 'our hymn', the inevitable, but always magnificent, 'My Generation'. Then a long jam, for one moment it looked as if they were off into Tommy again, but Townshend brought it all to an end and they tumbled off the stage. Two and a half hours of the Who with virtually no breaks made a great concert. They did more than fill the seats and sit back. Audiences are much more discerning these days, but the Who still get as good reaction as ever.

Tripping out the time scale

2009-09-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

Phillips, the label who have given you such golden greats as Jane and Serge, Dusty Springfield and Ray McVay (the ballroom king) recently went beserk and really let themselves go. They let themselves be associated with the progressive sounds of the Vertigo label—Manfred Mann Chapter Three, Juicy Lucy and Colosseum. The lapse was short-lived. After MRA gurus had 'Je T'Aime . . . Moi Non Plus' removed from the label, the Phillips patronage of Vertigo went as well—apparently the Juicy Lucy cover was too much for them to take, fruit and all. To prevent any further boobs of this nature, the company have established a censorship committee. Highest echelons are doubtless even now Recent Posts probing the song sheets and rooting out offending matter.

The New Year is going to be pretty chaotic if 'our fabulous boys in blue' have their way. Download Joomla Templates A failure to scourge the head population to the extent they would desire— despite plants, violence and God wot— has led to Scotland Yard calling in the distinctly unfabulous FBI. Soon the friendly tones that awake you at 6am won't just be murmuring 'Wot's all this 'ere, then', but 'Get the goddam hell outa that bed . . . ya lousy red Jew fag nigger lovers ! !'. The only saving grace is that they are probably even more absurd, Bullitt apart, than our homegrown products.

Much released single 'Witchi Tai To' is now appearing once more; this time as the first single to come from Charisma. Produced by Larry Smith, ex-Bonzo, it has a cast of ten, none of whom are willing to let their names be known. Due to contract

Variety - the spice of senility

2009-09-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

Things are getting tough for the US entertainment industry. These days, people are living life for real: if you fSellike a bit of action, you go out in the street and kick an obliging pig; if you want to go out of your head, you don't watch a celluloid mock-up of someone else doing it—you score your very own chemical/religious oblivion and take it from Home Theater Systems there.

The ultimate threat to the industry is street theatre. The actors aren't union members; admission is free and the audience is immense (the news media are assuming the role of the entertainment media without inheriting the rituals of the latter).

Variety, the senile organ of a senile industry, was predictably upset by the recent March of Death in Washington. The average local citizen suspects hoodlums and mischief makers will be all over town . . . Some theatre owners may give up and close for the period . . . Yeah, well, for a start, 80% of the local citizens are black—and we all know that niggers are themselves Audio Accessories hoodlums and mischief makers (the theatres told us so). Maybe the theatre owners should just give up

Who's going to watch tame westerns, crime serials and cruddy old films when you can see the real thing in the streets. Even the reactionaries were doing it. Bob Hope and his cronies got together on the day of the march and waved some flags, uttered a few vituperations and had a pretty exciting time. Variety needs a kick up the arse: It needs to be kicked into the streets, where we all belong (if Bob Hope can make it out onto the streets, anybody can),

Sitting sexy

2009-09-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to combat the problems presented in a world where architects are putting us into ever decreasing sizes of environment, John Kaine has designed a domestic machine to take one mentally out of the environment, even if one still is confined physically.

He rejects LSD and art as methods of stimulation; acid is possibly dangerous and 'fine art' has too great a status barrier to most people free mp3

'Stimulation is required to make the participant give up or release his images, and this I am trying to do by mechanical stimulation.'

Since he sees the individual desire to interfere with his own environment as second only to the sex drive, AB Project he has created a means of escape that will be available to everyone, and will require no special provisions to accommodate it.

His Projec chairs fulfill this idea. 'I have made the stimulator in the form of a chair because chairs are common domestic appliances and by re-defining the function of the chair it claims no architectural space in the new form but simply occupies the space of its previous definition.'

The chair, as illustrated, has a revolving stimulator arm that comes between your thighs when you sit on it. The arm rotates at about 20rpm —the ideal rate since it is linked to the respiratory system.Hades Archer

In future developments other zones of the body than the strictly erogenous ones will be given their stimulation; as it is this thrill machine is meant for use with clothes, and it never actually grabs you.

'The machines I have made so far do work, which leads'me to believe that the project is worth continuing,' says Kaine, 'But I now think they should be custom built to individual requirements'.