Friday, February 16, 2018

Richard Kern, Lung Leg, Dave K, zines from last year and yesteryear



Recently, I received David K's (sometimes Dave K) oneshot fanzine from last year, Fiendish. Thanks, David (and thanks for the mention). David does the A Fiend on Film channel on YouTube. Cool stuff, check it out, paesano! Last night I read his article on the complete blu-ray release of Richard Kern's 1980s underground films from New York entitled "Hardcore". Good stuff.

I watched some of Kern's stuff via 4th or 5th generation VHS dupes back in the 90s and always dreamed of having lived in NY in the 80s - and to have hung out with the likes of Lydia Lunch, haha. (don't mention it, no, I'm sure it wasn't as cool to actually have been there as it is to watch the flicks). Funnily enough, David mentions that if he'd seen Lung Leg (from Kern's films) back then he would probably have fallen in love. I can understand why. Fucked up and yet so attractive. The irony is whereas I wished I'd been in NY in the dark and gloomy 1980s David K was actually there ... and missed the whole thing. Well, the Richard Kern underground thing that is. Oh well, that's how life goes sometimes. In regards to Lung Leg here's something I don't think I've ever mentioned on this blog or elsewhere;

I published my first fanzine in 1994, Banned in Britain #1.  Then at some stage in the latter part of said decade I received an e-mail from someone in the States. I forget his name. My zine was distributed by people in the UK, Norway (Thomas Eikrem's Rage distro), and Denmark. But never in the US. But even so by the end of the 90s he'd gotten hold of a copy of that long gone debut issue, and he sent me an article about Lung Leg. By that time she had completely disappeared off the face of the Earth. Or at least disappeared from the New York underground scene and the people who monitored it.

It was a well written article. And that was about it. I never heard from him again. I was slow at getting my arse in gear and putting out the next issue of Banned in Britain. Didn't happen till 2004 and by then I'd completely forgotten about the article. A couple of years back I remembered it and did a Google search and found out that not only had Lung Leg returned from whatever dark, damp, dank hideout she'd been holed up in, but she'd even been in some new horor flick. Well, as The Cramps might or might not have said; that's the way the flop mops sometimes.