Good morning. Pretend for a moment that this is not, in fact, the Spring of 2012, but rather the Spring of 1982, now thirty years past. We’re in England. New Romance is budding. Rocky Horror is a’rockin’. The likes of Gary Numan, Spandau Ballet, and Klaus Nomi rule subterranean radio.

Under the banner of SHOCK, two young London lads with very excellent bone structure and pop ‘n’ lock skillz named Tim Dry (who would one day become Tik from the robotic mime duo Tik & Tok) and Richard James Burgess (who would go on to produce all manner of sophisti-pop) have joined forces with two young London lasses with very large hair and dovelike coos called Carole Caplin (who shall one day become far better known as the tormented fitness and fashion consultant to Tony and Cherie Blair) and Barbie Wilde (who is soon to be immortalized in celluloid as the creepyhot female Cenobite from Hellraiser II).

And they make this splendiferousness happen:

Via Brian Moroz, with giggly thanks.

If you enjoyed this darque ‘n’ tender morsel of obscure nostalgia, you may also appreciate:

• Teen Goth
• Poésie Noire: “Tragedy”
• The MegaMen
• Bristol Punks
• Tim Curry in “The Worst Witch”
• “Die Sonne”
• Crowleymas, LOLeymas
• Darque Dungeon
• Haysi Fantayzee
• Nosferatu Vogueing: A Symphony of Horror
• Going to MTV Hell With Nick and Blixa
• Lene Lovich

Post tags: Better than coffee, Britannia, Cyberpunk, Dance, Geekdom, Goth, Hair, Music, Punk, Robots, Sci-fi

Bonjour, mes petits concombres!

If you’ve already experienced Will Sweeney and Steve Scott‘s animated psychedelic 2009 music video for Birdy Nam Nam‘s tune “The Parachute Ending”, look away. Or, hey, don’t. Because you know it’s trippin’ AMAZEBALLS and you probably won’t mind watching it again over a nice morning bowl of strawberries ‘n’ Special K.

Most Birdy Nam Nam-related things tend to be –in this blogger’s humble opinion– pretty thoroughly amazeballs. The BNN DJ crew is comprised of four fabulous Frenchmen known as Crazy-B, DJ Need, DJ Pone, and Little Mike. They joined forces in 2006 and has been steadily gaining notoriety ever since thanks largely to their novel and challenging style of music-making: they take thousands of samples gleaned from various sources, press all of the beats and patterns into towering stacks of vinyl, and then assemble/spin these kaleidoscopic collaged elements live. It’s bleepy bloopy bonkers brilliance.

Enjoy, and have a gorgeous day.

© Birdy Nam Nam / Steve Scott 2009

[Hat tip to Mr. Maps!]

Post tags: Animation, Better than coffee, Dance, Drugs, Faboo, Music, Robots, Sci-fi, Vive la France

Yves Rossy, a latter-day Swiss Air Force fighter pilot and current full-time daredevil, has been working on this jet-powered carbon-fiber design with an engineering team for well over a decade. The most resent incarnation, seen above as the Jetman soars high above the Alps of his homeland, can “only” fly for ten minutes at a time. Pffftwhatever. This stuff is still nothing short of MEGA AWESOMEBALLS. (Incredible high-def footage, too.)

Wheeeeeeeee!

[via The Daily What]

Post tags: Geekdom, Jocks, Sci-fi, Technology

But the beat must go on. Perhaps… in hologram form?

In (somewhat oblique) honor of the departed (and because NO halfway decent excuse to feature the Mael Brothers on Coilhouse should ever be passed up) here’s a fabulous performance of “Pulling Rabbits out of Hats” by Sparks on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in 1984, followed by a unexpectedly sweet and silly “interview” between three very disparately distinguished gentlemen. SO GOOD.

Previously on Coilhouse:

• “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For the Both of Us” Top of the Pops, 1974. (A very old post, wherein I get grumpy about Bedford Ave. hipsters and the SPARKS energy drink. Ignore that bit. S’all about the MAEL LURVE.)

Post tags: Dance, Memento Mori, Music, Sci-fi, Stroke Material, Television

This collage series by Nadine Boughton combines men’s adventure magazines from the 50s and early 60s with the pristine rooms of Better Homes and Gardens. Bedrooms, living rooms and bathrooms are attacked by squids and rabid baboons, overrun by bats,  submerged underwater, and besieged by helicopters.

“The collages are set against the backdrop of the McCarthy era, advertising, sexual repression, WWII and the Korean War. The cool, insular world of mid-century modern living glossed over all danger and darkness, which the heroic male fought off in every corner,” writes Boughton.

Previously on Coilhouse:

• 50′s Jell-O Salad is Actually a Shoggoth

Post tags: Art, Cthulhu, End of the World, Flora & Fauna, Horror, Lifestyle, Madness, Sci-fi, Surreal, Ye Olde

Those of you who own Coilhouse Magazine Issues 03 and 05 will remember Jess Nevins’ pieces on Russian and Chinese pulp. You may have also seen Jess’ Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana, his many comic book annotations, or his writing on IO9. As a librarian and author, Jess has an uncanny skill for unearthing rare gems from the realms of pulp and sci-fi, such as the world’s first lesbian science fiction novel (published in 1906), the first cyborg horror story (“The Steam Arm,” 1834), and steampunk poetry from 1867. Jess Nevins can give you the entire history of mad scientists in the industrial age, provide a thorough overview of genderbending in pulps, and hypothesize whether Cthulhu appears on a 300-year-old gravestone. In short, Jess Nevins is a kind of biblio-archaeologist, discovering and preserving beautiful relics from fictional ages past.

His latest endeavor focuses on superheroes. Specifically, superheroes from comics’ Golden Age, which lasted from 1935 to 1949. The project is called The Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes, and Jess is currently raising funds on Kickstarter to produce a book and a website (which will include a free download of the book’s manuscript) to catalogue 2000+ superheroes: everything from “floating eyeballs and centaurs” to “robot brains and super rabbits.” Jess needs to travel to Michigan State University in East Lansing to study up on all of these wondrous things, and estimates that it will take two weeks to get the research done. The money raised by Kickstart will go towards subsidizing Jess’ travel and building the site. The project may have hit its modest funding goal, but believe us, the bare minimum is never really enough. Plus, Kickstarter projects that raise substantially more than the required amount often have a way of evolving and deepening into even bigger, more beautiful work (for instance, Molly Crabapple’s Week in Hell or R. Stevens’ Diesel Sweeties e-book).

In celebration of Jess’ ambitious new project, we are releasing a full, free PDF of his article from Issue 05, titled “Sherlock Holmes vs. The Fox Woman: A Brief Tour of Chinese Pulp”. Lushly-illustrated by Greg Broadmore and Paul Tobin, the article provides a sweeping overview of Chinese Pulp from, from moon colonies to pirate queens. Enjoy!

Post tags: Books, Crowdsourcing, Geekdom, Sci-fi

This week, the Santorum camp released a chilling (read: hilarious) trailer for an eight-part series titled Obamaville. Rife with a combination of Silent Hill-like visuals, random stock imagery (meat grinders and babies!), and Obama/Ahmadinejad speech footage mashups, the 1-minute video closes with an ominous shot of the open road, with promises of more “coming soon.” YES PLEASE. It’s the perfect film to pair up with newly-released Iron Sky.

Matt Novak of Paleofuture has helpfully screen-captured and captioned the most striking images from the video. At time of writing, the video has 852 likes and 11,011 dislikes on YouTube. ”Santorumville” porn parody coming in 3… 2…

[via Matt Novak via William Gibson]

Post tags: Conspiracy theories, End of the World, Future, Madness, Misinformation, Opinion, Politics, Propaganda, Sci-fi, Silly-looking types, Surreal, Television, Testing your faith, War

“We artists can only go so far as the people can follow us. We are not alone, we are part of the system. We can take risks, but if you want to go to the peak of your consciousness, you may very well find yourself alone. Even if you know how to translate what you see, maybe only ten people will be able to understand what you tell. But, if you have faith in your vision, and retell it again and again, you will start noticing that, after a time, more people will begin to catch up with you.”

~Jean Giraud / Moebius / Gir

Post tags: Art, Comics, Memento Mori, Sci-fi, Vive la France

Space Stallions, a bachelor film project from the 2012 Animation Workshop, plays like every Saturday morning cartoon from my childhood boiled down into one four minute concept. Created by Thorvaldur S. Gunnarsson, Jonatan Brüsch, Ágúst Kristinsson, Arna Snæbjørnsdottir, Esben J. Jespersen, Touraj Khosravi and Polina Bokhan, it appears to have everything: spaceships, spandex-clad heroes, rainbows, unicorn-shaped hoverbikes, moustaches, and laser eggs. It’s like someone put peyote in your Lucky Charms.

Post tags: Animation, Cosmos, Crackpot Visionary, Kid Stuff, Sci-fi, Television

A quick Google search shows that this video is pretty much everywhere, but I just can’t resist putting it here. Following up their Star Wars themed Passat commercial for last year’s Super Bowl, Volkswagen returns this year, and once again puts “The Imperial March” to excellent use, in this case having it performed by twelve dogs, some in various forms of Star Wars costumery. It’s so very silly but I love it so very much; especially the grand entrance of the twelfth and final member of this canine chorus. So. Good.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Post tags: Advertising, Art, Faboo, Geekdom, Sci-fi