Yay! Spiffy!! My new T-shirt!!! Well, my new T-shirt that I've ordered and paid for that is, I haven't received it yet. It's the ad for Richard Kern's FINGERED that stars Lydia Lunch. I got those Kerns films almost twenty years ago thru tape trading. And when Another World Entertainment started out many years ago head honcho Jan Schmidt sent me the reg. 1 "Hardcore Collection" dvd (which contains most of Kern's old New York underground films) which Jan was distributing thru his other distribution company at the time (I believe that label dealt with music releases for most part).
Jan really must have dug those films (understandably!) cos he has just released them on the AWE label! Beyond cool if you ask me! The fact that AWE screw up Lung Leg's name on the cover (and on their website) is very embarrassing though! "Leg Lung", hahaha. Hmm, that reminds me of something that happened 7 or 8 years ago. I didn't have internet at home at the time and instead I'd go to the local library and use their computers. One day I received a mysterious email; A guy somewhere in America sent me an article he'd written about Lung Leg and he said I could print it if I wanted to. I assumed he'd somehow got hold of my English language fanzine "Banned in Britian" which was being distributed in various parts of the world back then. And then... nothing. He just disappeared as mysteriously as he popped up.
The article was a long well written piece on Lung Leg and the mystery that surrounded her at the time; After she made the underground films in New York she completely disappeared for many years. Rumour was she was dead, probably of a drug overdose. The article tried to dig into what might have become of her. As I said it was well written and all but I never got to print it simply because I never published another issue of "Banned in Britain". And even if I were to publish another issue (which I'm not) there's now a new problem: Lung Leg has actually surfaced which kinda renders the article void!! Hahaha. There's a (short) Wiki page on her that mentions her new(ish) work.
Anyway, this isn't a review of the Richard Kern films (it's a post about my new cool T-shirt!) but I highly recommend them. Those New York underground films are everything film making should be about. Nasty, gritty, ugly, in black & white, crude, full of violence, and not holding back. There's even love too. Kind of (in a "I really-really hate you and I would stab you if I had a knife or fork or pencil" way). There's a guy called Henry in there as well. How can underground films with a guy called Henry not be awesome (he uses to be in a band called Black Flag too). Oh, and I didn't even mention Nick Zedd. Man, Nick Zedd had the most pissed off face of any faces. Johnny Rotten would've died for that face!!! When THE CRAMPS has a line that goes, "She's got a look on her puss like she was weaned on a pickle" - THAT'S Nick Zedd!!!!! Forever weaned on a pickle.
Check the AWE disc here. It's in rotten Danish but you can have a gander at the pix.
