The Private Life of A Cat

Griff mentioned in a recent post that I'm a big fan of vintage movies, and I won't deny it. If its black and white and/or features no audible soundtrack then, generally, I'm all over it. Recently, I've been reappraising the work of Alexander Hammid, the Czechoslovakian photographer and film-maker who, along with his wife, the luminously beautiful Maya Deren, became an icon of avant-garde cinema in the US. Both are most well-known for their collaboration on the ground-breaking surrealist movie Meshes of the Afternoon but I wanted to write about another, more domestic, and less famous production that the couple collaborated on, which is once of the most beautifully photographed short films that I've ever seen. 

The film in question is their 1947 production 'The Private Life of A Cat'. This 22 minute, silent movie has a beautifully simple premise - it shows the courting of two cats, the birth of their five kittens, the kittens' gradual maturation and first attempts at exploration and, finally, the moment they grow independent of their doting parents. That may not sound particularly action packed but, the way that Hammid and Deren get intimate shots of the cats and then carefully edit these into a human-like narrative, makes for a genuinely heart-warmig and captivating work of art. See for yourself:



Amazing and touching. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, you're in luck as I'll probably feature more of Hammid and Deren's work over the next few months.

Ray 

Oh, you Hansen devil!

I would imagine that all of the Streetlamp's readers are familiar with the work of anti-folk colossus Beck. How many of you, though, are familiar with his impressive counter-culture ancestry and, in particular, the wild life and times of his mother, Bibbe Hansen. Never heard of her? Good, because the Streetlamp is here to bring you some charming, girl-group music from the early 60s and to take you on a journey through the history of US alternative art and music along the way.

 Bibbe Hansen was born in New York City in 1953 and right from the start she had impeccable Bohemian credentials. Her father was Fluxus artist Al Hansen and her mother was the actress/model/dancer/stripper/poet Audrey Hansen. Bibbe began performing as a child, often participating in her father's avant-garde theater pieces called "Happenings". At the same time, she performed with mainstream theatre companies in New York City and sang in an Elizabethan music group, studied dance with Phoebe Neville and Lucinda Childs, and was filmed by "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema" Jonas Mekas.

In 1964, at the tender age of eleven, Bibbe was leading the typical life of the 'problem child', skipping school, shoplifting, and hanging out in New York panhandling with her similarly wild and crazy friends Charlotte Rosenthal and Janet Kerouac  (yep, the daughter of the legendary beat poet and novelist Jack Kerouac). Anyway, by chance, the intrepid trio of juvenile delinquents accidentally met songwriter Neil Levinson (writer of  the Randy & The Rainbows' 1963 hit "Denise", later covered by Blondie) and hustled busfare from him. On the bus journey, the girls and Levinson began chatting. The Beatles had just spearheaded the British Invasion of the US pop charts and, in an attempt to cash in on the hysteria, Levinson had written a girl-song response to 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'. All he needed now was a girl-group to record it, and so, later that day at Steinway Studios on 57th Street, Levinson and the girls recorded 'I Want To Talk With You'. Have a listen, its a classic slice of early 60s girl group pop.




Incredibly, within weeks, the trio, now called The Whippets, were signed to Columbia's Colpix label and the single was pressed up with the strange and silly 'Go Go Go With Ringo', complete with faux English accents, on the b-side. Have a listen:




The record was released and, apart from making a very small dent in the single's chart in Canada, disappeared without trace.

Shortly thereafter, Bibbe became a “guest” of the State of New York, and spent some time in Spofford Street Youth House and several other NY institutions for child criminals. Upon her release, Bibbe met Andy Warhol when her father took her to Stark’s coffee shop, where the art crowd gathered on Saturdays.
 “And what do you do?” Warhol asked her.
Her father piped up proudly, “I just sprung her from jail.”

Suitably impressed, Warhol suggested they collaborate on a film about her recent experiences. The film was called Prison and also features Marie Menken and Edie Sedgwick. Bibbe went on to make three other films with Warhol and also danced briefly with the Velvet Underground.

Eventually, events brought Bibbe to the west coast of the US and she settled in Los Angeles where she founded a theater company, acted in "B" movies and participated in the local punk scene as musician, and documenteur. Nowadays, Bibbe and her husband Sean are the directors of the Al Hansen Archive, continuing exhibitions of her father's work, performing and lecturing at museums, galleries and universities around the world. You can find out more about Bibbe at her website 'here'.


If you enjoyed The Whippets' songs then you can freely download them as MP3 files from Bibbe's last.fm page.


Griff
xx

Never rode my bike down to the sea

Now that Griff has opened the door to blog posts consisting mainly of series of images with his anarchy cats, I feel as though the door is opened for me, the most visual member of our little group, to make my mark on the Streetlamp's pages. Unlike, Griff and Gord, I'm not going to bore you with too much verbal guff but I'm going to get straight to the pictures. The artist I want to showcase today is Bangkok based illustrator Chalermphol Harnchakkham who works under the psuedonym Huebucket. 

I should mention that Huebucket doesn't always feature bicycles in his illustrations but that those just happen to be my favourite ones (as anyone who knows me could have guessed already). Huebucket also features the ocean and ocean creatures as a recurring motif and the way he juxtaposes discarded human artifacts and the power of the ocean reminds me a lot of Miyazaki's Ponyo. I think the reason I like Huebucket's art so much is that it is bold and linear but also has a subversive, subtle, feminine quality about it. Or maybe I just like it without worrying too much about why.
If you're into buying stuff, you can accquire these images as prints or get them on a t-shirt for looking ubercool when you're out and about cycling. Or you could nick them off here and do what you want with them... after all, I'm not the art police!


Ray

Fashionable Material - Pierre drops the bomb

I've written a couple of times before on the blog (see 'here') about my friend, Pierre Chandeze, the musician and graphic artist who specialises in creating distinctive art  featuring 'ugly animals'. I've also mentioned before that, rather infuriatingly, Pierre always seems to be involved in some sort of marvellous project or other, which serves to make the rest of us look like we're lazy under-achievers. Now, that may well be true but we don't necessarily want to be reminded of it.

Anyway, Pierre's latest project involves taking his excellent 'With A Messy Head' website into the netlabel scene with the release of a brand new, freely downloadable, compilation album on bandcamp.

Called 'You Don't Have To Be Fashionable Vol​.​ 1', the album features  13 shades of pop - principally in the experimental, indie, lo-fi vein - from all across the globe.

We here at the Streetlamp were rather taken by track 9, Veiled Clock by Scotland's own The Maginot Band:


This lot are a six-piece, indie-pop hailing from Caithness in the North of Scotland and this track certainly has something undefinably dark, northern and wintry about it. Check out their bandcamp page for more releases soon.

We also loved the bouncy, bass-driven punk of track 11, Restraint by The Internet from Santa Barbara, US.


The Internet band was formed in May 2010 by guitarist/singer Marvin Dominguez and guitarist/singer Alex Brown. Drums are supplied by Miguel Cuate and bass by Angel Guerra.

I can't finish without also giving special mention to track 12, Lon Chaney by Paul & Pierre. The Pierre in question is, of course the aforementioned Monsieur Chandeze and the Paul is yet another Scottish-based artist, Edinburgh's own cult legend Paul Vickers. Now I'm not going to embed the album version of this song, which is an alternative take on the track, but instead I'm going to give you the official Paul & Pierre video version. The reason for this deviation is that the Streetlamp's Ray, a man with an unparalleled love of black and white horror movies, insisted that this is the version we included. And who am I to argue?




Griff
xx