I think that any fan of David Lynch’s cult-classic television series Twin Peaks will agree that what the show’s legacy has really been lacking is a hip-hop tribute. Luckily, nerdcore rapper MC Chris has stepped up to the challenge, dropping an Autotuned ode to one of the most amazingly strange shows to ever appear on the magic picture box, presented here with fan-made video.
Previously in David Lynch on Coilhouse:
Good morning, loves. How was your weekend? I spent most of mine stumbling around the San Mateo county fairgrounds, gaping at the endlessly astonishing/inspiring/overstimulating 2-day geextravaganza that is Maker Faire. Still feeling a bit fried. Pleasantly so. Speaking of getting fried at Maker Faire, here’s a glimpse of what the ArcAttack! performances on the appropriately named “Tesla Stage” looked and sounded like:
Yes. That’s what a man in chain mail wrangling pure lightning looks like. His name is Patrick “Parsec” Brown. He’s ArcAttack’s MC. I sincerely hope that dude gets hella laid. That goes for ALL the guys on the ArcAttack crew. Way more groupie worthy than the average rock band, if you ask me.
Based in Austin, Texas, ArcAttack’s been developing their tech and stage shows for the better half of a decade now. For their astounding audio/visual displays, ArcAttack has invented a completely original DJ setup:
HVDJ pumps music through a PA system while two specially designed DRSSTC’s (Dual-Resonant Solid State Tesla Coils) act as separate synchronized instruments. These high tech machines produce an electrical arc similar to a continuous lightning bolt and put out a crisply distorted square wave sound reminiscent of the early days of synthesizers.
ArcAttack performing the Doctor Who theme song at Maker Faire, 2010. Photo by darthdowney.
First and foremost, ArcAttack is all about putting on a show that is not just a concert, but an otherworldly experience. In doing so with the technology that we’ve created, we hope to inspire minds, the young and the old, to take up an interest in science, the arts, and their applications, to examine where they intersect, where they are going, and to re-examine the works of past researchers and performers such as Nikola Tesla and Delia Derbyshire in light of the ever evolving face of this amazing world. Maybe they’ll have as much fun as we have. But either way, we want them all to enjoy the show, and maybe, just maybe, be inspired to help to leave the world a little better than the way they found it.
Are you awake yet? Are you in love yet? Many more ArcAttack clips after the jump.
What do you guys think of this new 16-minute commercial that David Lynch created for Dior? Art-directed by John Galliano and starring Marion Cotillard, the film is rife with beloved Lynchian hallmarks: red curtains, an anxious woman in an empty hallway, and curiously gaudy hotel decor. Lynch told the Financial Times, “(Chanel) called me up and said, ‘Would you like to make a short film for the internet? You can do anything you want, you just need to show the handbag, the Pearl Tower and some old Shanghai.'” He added, “this falls between a regular film and a commercial. I liked that idea.” Lynch says that he didn’t know much about the Pearl Tower, but when he learned that the building’s architecture was inspired by a poem, ideas for the long-form commercial started coming to him (in fact, the film itself is based on a poem that Lynch wrote, titled “It holds the love“).
Lady Blue is the third chapter in Dior’s cinematographic campaign starring Cotillard; Lady Noir was directed by La Vie En Rose‘s Olivier Dahan (really moody!), and Lady Rouge was a Franz Ferdinand music video (kind of boring).
Do you like this short, or do you feel like this could’ve been directed by the guy who made the trailer for David Lynch’s A Goofy Movie? I’d have to say “both of the above.” There’s a bit more repetition (or self-parody?) here than in his earlier commercial work – and even then, there was almost always a hint of that in his ads. I love the “Laura Palmer is Alive and Pregnant” commercial, for which, the legend goes, Lynch asked the actress (not Sheryl Lee, but looks like her) to take a pregnancy test, and then switched her result with a positive-testing one unbeknownst to her in order to capture a genuine reaction. Littering never looked more sinister than in his “Clean Up New York” PSA. He made fish rain from the sky, in reverse, to sell us… cigarettes. More David Lynch commercials (with appearances by Heather Graham, Gerard Depardieu, Michael Jackson and Bambi), after the jump.
Weirdness and misogyny this week on The FAM as we present 1987’s The Confessions of Robert Crumb produced by the BBC (which includes the wonderful Arena opening and song. Seriously, I love that intro.) Unlike 1994’s Crumb by Terry Zwigoff (which is seeing a Criterion release this August) Confessions is less concerned with Crumb’s bizarre family and more concerned with the man himself. In that regard it spends much of its time letting Crumb explore and contemplate his objectification of women and self-loathing, preferring to be a catalog of the man’s various fetishes, to merely witness a day in the life of a dirty old man.
Both documentaries illustrate how difficult it can be to separate the artist from their art. A great fan of his work I can’t help but cringe as Crumb displays his current wife to the camera, showing off her musculature as if he were trying to sell the viewer a horse. It is, perhaps, admirable that one would be able to be so honest with the world, willing to expose one’s Id to whoever passes by, and it has certainly worked out well for Robert Crumb. I just can’t help but think that those images made living, breathing flesh are not nearly as entertaining when not on the printed page.
Remember that racy 2008 Orangina commercial from France? Yes – that one. As described by the Todd Mueller, the Creative Director of the Psyop, the agency that produced the spot, the “Naturally Juicy” campaign was all about “raunchy naughty furriness”: animals dancing in burlesque outfits, spraying other with Orangina and riding giant bottles until they explode. The TV ad was accompanied by a colorful pin-up print campaign that included octopus, jellyfish and cactus women, illustrated by artist Antoine Helbert. In his personal work, featured here, Helbert continues the human-animal theme in a more nuanced, less gendered way. Some of these characters remind me of China Miéville’s Remade; people whose bodies are transformed through a mixture of grafting techniques and magic into hybrids of human, animal and even mechanical parts. [via Allie]
Simple and effective, Benjamin König aka Sperber’s illustrations are beautiful little vignettes and eerie portraits, many of them taken from fairy tales, all of them with a dark, creepy Edward Gorey veneer. I just love these, and it took all my strength not to simply put every single one behind the cut. He has a postcard set for sale that is seriously tempting me at the moment.
via Super Punch
I’ve been staring at this illustration by Jerico Santander all morning. Staring, alt-tabbing over to actual work and then alt-tabbing back. Entitled “Only the Strong Survive” it’s a promotional piece for Calder Bateman — which a Google search informs me is a PR company. I’m just completely taken with it. What, really, is there not to love about Deer Hunter as performed by hamsters. Nothing, that’s what. This is, I suspect, exactly what the lives of hamsters are like when not in range of the prying eyes of humans: a shady underworld of illicit gambling and bloodsport, and no one will convince me otherwise. Click here for the full-size image.
via DJ Dead Billy
Um. Is it just me, or is this Raffi-esque version of the classic Cannibal Corpse song markedly more unsettling the original?*
See also:
*My sense of unease deepens as I realize that the overdub also sounds remarkably like Interpol. What the fuck, internet.
Tom Tom Crew is, from the looks of their website, a hip-hop flavored circus troupe originating from Australia, that den of murderers, rapists, and thieves that lies adjacent to the place where the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed, where everything is upside down and roaming gangs of wallabies rule the streets. Tom Tom Crew’s website bills them as the future of Australian circus, a claim I can neither confirm nor deny, knowing as I do, absolutely nothing about Australian circus [Editor’s Note: or Australia for that matter]. What I can say is that they possess something called The Wheel, an ominous contraption consisting of a metal frame which holds a number of plastic vessels.
Into this insidious device, it seems that the Tom Tom Crew places a single percussionist. Where they come from, I can only guess. Perhaps they are merely street performers, shanghaied from the city squares and subway stations they usually occupy. Regardless of their origins, these poor individuals are forced to drum, seemingly for their very lives within the confines of The Wheel. Who can say how many of these performers perished in their attempts to conquer The Wheel before Ben Walsh. Possessing a skill that could only have been born from sheer terror, Walsh attacks the walls of his prison with astounding gusto and an effortlessness that belies the horrific reality.
It’s thrilling to watch, this battle for survival, hearkening back to the days of the Colosseum, when men lived and died for the entertainment of the masses. I pray the gods have mercy on Ben Walsh should he ever stop drumming. Certainly, The Wheel shall show none.
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