How to keep cool in boiling heat

Despite what I always tell you I don't live in an Addams Family style house located on top of a hill on the outskirts of town. I'm in a shoebox size flat on the third floor (fourth if you're American) and it's broiling hot. I'm keeping cool by blasting out new and old records. David Koenig wants me to "go ahead and milk your having returned to vinyl" so I'll do just that (or am I paraphrasing here??? muhahaha).

I spun a handful of classics last night, THE CRAMPS' "A date with Elvis" is new to me on vinyl (flawless playback but worn sleeve). The BUZZCOCKS live I got from eBay. Perfect condition although it was released 29 yrs ago. THE LEATHER NUN 12" ep I bought in 1986 and it still sounds amazing (playback AND music). THE BIRTHDAY PARTY live LP I bought in Melbourne in the '90s. It's an official release but reportedly the band wasn't happy about the result. I don't understand why not as it's a super fab record. Great cover front and back (Nick Cave sporting his "A good cop is a dead cop" T-shirt, haha) and great live recording. Pretty rare now (also released as an equally rare cd).

And finally one of the suuuuper cool compilations from Tim Warren's Crypt Records. I've got four of these volumes and I want the rest! (and a new copy of this one as it's pretty worn by now). Oh, and now that I'm playing old garage records I reckon I might as well read some old garage punk/rawk fanzines, so here's "Drink & Drive" no. 3. Man, I bought that issue 21 years ago!

Through the wee hours

LP bootleg limited to a 1000 copies. There's a cassette release as well

As I mentioned a couple of posts back I've finally got a record player for the first time in 10 years. I spent all evening and most of the night last night going thru the olde collection and spinning old and new platters. "New" in the sense of having bought them during the ten year period and thus never actually been able to listen to them.

I spent like three to four hours dividing the collection into four groups:
- Old well known records that I bought in the 1980s and '90s
- "New" records that I bought post 2000 and that I have listened to
- "New" records that I've bought but haven't listened to
- Second hand records that I've bought but haven't listened to.

 Here's the last three records that I played before hitting the sack in the early hours of this morning; The MINOR THREAT / YOUTH BRIGADE LP is a bootleg of old demos. It belongs in the "New and never listened to" category. Unfortunately, it turned out as a bit of disappointment. Not the music but the record. I bought it from new, not second hand, but it has a huge scratch on the B side which covers an entire track! Not cool.

The three track OBLIVIANS 7" is as cool as I remember it. Like everyone else these days the Oblivians have reformed and are playing gigs. They first formed 26 years ago. Aren't garage-punk bands supposed to consist of disgruntled snotty teenagers!?

The PETER BELLI & BABY WOODROSE single won't mean much to you unless you're Dutch (or whatever the hell they are around here). Peter Belli was a wild rock 'n' roller in the 1960s. The Baby Woodrose guys thought his "Det du ka' li'" was cool and decided to make a cover using the original singer. He's an old guy now. The A side is a cover of THE MONKEES' "Steppin' Stone" but with new lyrics. It's kinda rare now. There's five copies on Discoqs ranging from 40 to 50 euros.

More new and old vinyl to kill off annoying silence

Lydia Lunch and the Anubian Lights' 10" five track EP

I've owned the Lydia Lunch, James Brown and the Necessary Evils platters for years on end without listening to them (as mentioned in previous posts I didn't have a record player). "Everything that Rises" on the other hand I've played a 1000 times or more. Btw, Henry Rollins frequently plays Sort Sol on his radio show (not the same album, though. His LP is "Dagger & Guitar").

Necessary Evils' live LP released posthumous. It's limited to 300 copies so I must admit I was pretty stoked to find a brand new copy at a UK online record shop seven years after it was released!

Man, those song titles!

Record No. 3 & 4

I managed to squeeze in two more rawk platters before hitting the sack last night (check my previous post). I bought the Black Sabbath LP in 1987 - notice the date from back then (and it still has flawless playback). The Baby Woodrose LP is from a pile of records that I bought during the ten years without a record player so this was a first listen (I do have the cd version as well, though). It came with a bonus 7" that wasn't on the cd. Great stuff.

Baby Woodrose - "Love Comes Down" inner gatefold sleeve

Spinning the olde platters once again

Or: "Ten years down the line"

I haven't owned a record player for 10 years. 10 years at least! I don't know how the fuck that happened. I just kept spending my dough on films and other things. Anyhoo, I've got a record player again. Second hand but it sounds alright. I knew right away which record to christen my new (second hand) player with: The awesome "Don't like you" LP by CHEATER SLICKS. I've kinda been out of the garage-rock loop for a long time. I figured all these bands were long gone but a quick Google search and Wiki tells me CHEATER SLICKS are still around. Whowoudda thunk!!

As I write this I'm listening to the second record; MAGAZINE's "Real Life" LP. I've never heard it before and it's really thanks to Henry Rollins that I bought it! In the documentary film ATTITUDE: PUNK (1998) Henry talks about how a few of the people who were in the first generation of punk bands in the UK became more interesting once they got rid of the spiked hair and formed new bands. Johnny Rotten's band PIL was heaps more interesting than SEX PISTOLS and the same goes for Howard Devoto after he left BUZZCOCKS and formed MAGAZINE. You can agree or disagree with Henry on this but I quite like PIL and when I found "Real Life" on vinyl during an excursion to a second hand market with my (late) dad 7 or 8 years ago I knew I had to give it a new home. Wiki says about the album, "Real Life has received critical acclaim and is considered a pioneering post-punk record". So far it does sound pretty good.

Oh, and check what I discovered inside the cover; a review of the record from when it first came out. I'm not sure which magazine it's from but it's British and I reckon it's Sounds, NME or Melody Maker.

This is my first post here for quite some time. I'm thinking of reanimating this here dead floater. Even if the reader count won't exceed ... five. Haha. It'll be kind of a diary and you're invited to read in on the goodies. xD

Bruno Mattei's ROBOWAR finally... FINALLY... on Blu-ray!!!

They may not be in the porn business but even so the good people over at SEVERIN are trying their best to give fans of action cinema a throbbing hard-on! And they're succeeding!! I mean what other reaction would anybody get (at least if they're an action flick aficionado) when they learn that Severin are putting out Bruno Mattei's 300% entertaining remake of PREDATOR entitled ROBOWAR (Italy/Philippines 1988) on Blu-ray!!!

Street date June 25. There's various different versions (and prices). Go here for the stand-alone Blu-ray. There's a dvd release as well (but get the blu-ray, cabron!). John Dulaney posted about the release on one of my old posts about the film (from 2010!). John was in the film and in 2011 he posted links to behind-the-scenes videos that he and Catherine Hickland did. Incidentally, those very same videos are now being included on this Blu-ray. You saw them here first! (I just had to say that, haha). This is certainly an old dream come true. Thanks, Severin! (Please put out heaps more Mattei stuff!). 



WE'RE ALL USED TO THE OLD SUBTITLED TRAILER FROM JAPANESE VHS SO HERE'S THE NEW ONE FROM SEVERIN [EDIT 2.5.26: The old Severin YouTube channel is gone and ditto is the embedded trailer, but I found this other better copy of the original trailer]





INFO FROM SEVERIN'S SITE:

A year before their jaw-dropper SHOCKING DARK, director Bruno Mattei (VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN’S PRISON) and co-writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi (NIGHT KILLER, ZOMBIE 4) first collaborated on this brain-melting mash-up of PREDATOR, ROBOCOP and Philippines war movie mayhem: When a team of badass commandos is hired for a jungle rescue mission, they’ll instead find them hunted by a kill-crazed creature that is part man, part machine and all glorious ‘80s ItaloSleaze. Reb Brown (UNCOMMON VALOR), Catherine Hickland (ONE LIFE TO LIVE), Massimo Vanni (RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR) and Jim Gaines (ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD) star in this “freaking awesome must-watch for any action fan” (BMovieCitadel.com), now scanned in 4k from the original negative and loaded with all-new Special Features.  

Special Features:

• Robo Predator: Interview with Co-Director/Co-Writer Claudio Fragasso
• Italian Rip Off: Interview with Co-Writer Rossella Drudi
• Violence She Wrote: Career Interview with Screenwriter Rossella Drudi
• Robo-Lady: Interview with Actress Catherine Hickland
• Papa Doc’s War: Interview with Actor John P. Dulaney
• The Robowarrior: Interview with Actor Jim Gaines Jr.
• War in the Phillipines: Interview with Actor/Stuntman Massimo Vanni
• Catherine Hickland’s Behind The Scenes Home Movies
• Trailer

THE ENCHANTING GHOST (Hong Kong 1970) dir: Chou Hsu-Chiang

Original HK poster (from HKMDB)

I've just watched the Shaw Brothers horror film THE ENCHANTING GHOST from 1970. Today's Netflix audiences would probably moan and feel faint due to the lack of gore, torture, jump scares and special effects - but I loved it.
 

It's a Chinese costume drama about a young male scholar (played by Yang Li-Hua, incidentally a lovely young woman) who loses her home due to her wicked uncle and thus has to move into an abandoned, haunted ruin outside of town. The setting is very much like that of A CHINESE GHOST STORY (1987). 

The young scholar discovers that a young, beautiful woman (Chang Mei-Yao) has already moved into the haunted house with her dying mother. The scenes in and around the house all look to be made on a stage and they're very colourful. I love the fact that you can see it's a stage. I love the colours and the crisp dialogue. I love the Chinese music in the film and the superb acting. Was I scared? No, not at all. But then again what does scare a seasoned horror fan?

Celestial put out the film a decade ago but for some reason they decided to only include it in their video-cd line. However, it was later release on DVD by Zoke Culture over in mainland China. I've got both releases and they look wonderful. However, 88 Films in the UK have recently put out a spiffy blu-ray release of the film (which I haven't got).

HK video-cd (Celestial) Mandarin audio/English & Chinese subs

I tried to look up the film in my HK film books but none of them include the film. This - and the fact that I have never come across any other release in any format - makes me suspect Celestial's VCD is the very first home cinema release of the film. 

Before watching the THE ENCHANTING GHOST and before writing this review I hadn't read one single review of the film. I have absolutely no idea of what other fans or reviewers think about it. But then again, I couldn't care less. I loved the film and I highly recommend it to fans of world-weird cinema/horror and open minded film-goers in general.

Mainland China DVD (Zoke) Mandarin audio/English & Chinese subs

UK DVD & blu-ray (88 Films) Mandarin/English subs

THE ENCHANTING GHOST on HKMDB:


TRAILER:

 

STRYKER (Cirio H. Santiago, US/Ph 1983) Blu-ray/Kino Lorber

I'm just about to post about a new(ish) cool blu-ray release of one of Cirio H. Santiago's MAD MAX II clone flicks. And it occurs to me that it's been almost four years since I posted about Santiago's most recent post-apocalypse film, WATER WARS. A film which also, unfortunately, became Santiago's last film before he passed away. He didn't even finish the film shoot and Jim Wynorski had to take over directing the remaining part (go here for my old post).

During the three and a half years between then and now we have been blessed with a good number of Blu-ray releases of cool Cirio H. Santiago US/Filipino co-productions filmed in the Philippines. Code Red have put out a handful of these films (cheers, Bill Olsen, you madman!) but the film I'm posting about here is from the good people at Kino Lorber (USA): STRYKER from 1983.

MAD MAX came out in 1979 but it's not really a post-apocalypse film, and it wasn't until 1981 that the genre took off as we know it thanks to MAD MAX II (which the American distributor retitled The Road Warrior to hide that it was a sequel to a film released by another label). When the Italians saw how popular MAD MAX II became they were quick to jump on the bandwagon and put out their own "MAD MAX" type films (plural!) in 1982. And over in the Philippines Cirio H. Santiago thought, "Hey, I can do that!" and so in 1983 he made STRYKER! And just like the Italians made not just one clone but a whole series of MAD MAX clones, Santiago followed STRYKER with no less than six Filipino MAD MAX clones (knock-offs, rip-offs, call 'em what you want); RAIDERS OF THE SUN, DUNE WARRIORS, WHEELS OF FIRE, THE SISTERHOOD, EQUALIZER 2000 and WATER WARS (working title: "Road Raiders").

EDIT: I forgot one of Cirio H. Santiago's post-apocalypse films; He didn't do six other films but seven!! (eight in total). The last one is FUTURE HUNTERS. I urge you to read Andrew Leavold's incisive and info filled review here.


PLOT: We're in the wasteland. A narrator (in an Aussie accent, of course) informs us about the end of the world as we know it. Or rather knew it. It went into the toilet long ago, and now the most precious thing is petrol, uh, I mean water!

When the film kicks off a gang of lowlifes are chasing after a young woman in the sand dunes - where she kinda lives (?). They want her ... water! She's then rescued by two good guys which both just happened to drive past. One of the guys is our main character and hero, Stryker, played by Steve Sandor. Sandor was once a bad guy in the cool exploitation flick BONNIE'S KIDS (1972), and he was also in heaps of psychotronic stuff on TV. Very odd to think of when you watch STRYKER; The thing is, Sandor has the charisma and facial expressions of a tree log.

I'm not going to bother going into more detail of the plot line. Santiago wrote it on the back of a half burnt matchbox, and I've already said more than what was on said box of matches. There are some bad guys, some good guys, there are some sexy amazons (their leader was a playboy centrefold), they drive around, they fight, they take revenge, and they all wear Mad Max style clothes. And  Stryker is a loner. If you're familiar with Filipino cinema it won't surprise you when you see scenes of 20-25 dwarfs popping up out of the dunes to attack people. Those dwarfs were in so many films I've lost count. According to Andrew Leavold a lot of them worked at the same "dwarf restaurant" between making films. I'm not kidding you!

The film is probably made on the same budget that MAD MAX II spent on catering. On one day's worth of catering mind you. But kudos to Cirio and his inventive crew who made the cars, motorbikes, and other futuristic vehicles look so bloody cool.

I quite like STRYKER. It's a fun film. Some of the dialogue is slow and there's a couple of romantic scenes that are so schmaltzy you feel like you might lose your lunch.   

If there's one thing I wish they had done differently it's to find another actor for the lead part. I dare you to find another actor in the film that has as few facial expressions as Steve Sandor has. Even the Playboy centrefold has more!


THE BLU-RAY

If I wanted to watch the film before I got this new spiffy Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber I had to dig out my old VHS tape from Greece. Worn, fullscreen and big Greek subtitles that cover a third of the screen. This new Blu-ray (from 2017) is certainly a most welcome release (they also put out a dvd release). Unfortunately, in contradiction to say Code Red, Kino Lorber didn't bother to mention what source they used for the Blu-ray. Was it a film negative, a 35mm print, a betamaster, or what? But in any case, the print looks good. Slightly worn and the colours are kind of faint. But that's alright, it suits the film. There are a handful of trailers (for Santiago's other post-apocalypse films) and a commentary track by Jim Wynorski. The film has optional English subs. That's it!

Go here for a smashing interview Andrew Leavold did with Cirio H. Santiago in 2007.

Wolves Don't Eat Meat AKA Kuwait Connection (Samir A. Khouri, Egypt 1973)

MONDO MACABRO'S ABANDONED WORLD-WEIRD PEARL
Here's a film you've never heard of. Or have forgotten you heard about. Or maybe you've heard of it but you've never seen if. Well, not unless you 1) watch world-weird cinema - and 2) don't limit your world-weird viewing to films that are being handed to you on a plate from the well-known labels.

In 2008 Mondo Macabro was planning to put out a weird and wild Egyptian film from 1973 that has gory violence and nudity. Pete Tombs of Mondo Macabro described it this way in an interview to "Cinema Strikes Back":

"We've also got this Egyptian exploitation film. Yeah, we've got a couple of Lebanese/Egyptian movies. They're pretty interesting, as if Jess Franco met Jean-Luc Godard, you know, with a lot of (boobs). The guy who made them worked in Italy, with people like Sergio Bergonzelli, so he had that kind of sleazy stuff, but he had a political side, and an intellectual arty side. And he liked filth, and sleaze, and naked girls. So you put that all together and it was the early 70s and you've got a pretty good package. Kuwait Connection, it's called. "Wolves Don't Eat Meat" is the other title."

Unfortunately, MM never released the film. Later Pete said (on Cinehound forum), "I spent a long time talking to the Khouri's about this one, but we couldn't get the materials sorted to our satisfaction. It's not a no, but more of a maybe, if and when."

But the film exists on Arabic dvd (a pretty good English/French friendly release actually) and the film is a world-weird blast. I wish MM or somebody else would put it out on blu-ray so it could finally get the love it deserves.

I realise my post is shit in regard to being a review so I urge you to check out Todd Stadtman's cool and informative review over at Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill!  
(PS: and check out the 7 year old comments section!)

EN LEJEMORDER SER TILBAGE in cooperation with PSYCHOTRONIC BROADCASTING proudly presents ... SICKMAN

The music in the background is a quite scratched copy of the original vinyl LP of Jan Johansson's "Jazz på svenska".