It took me way too long to appreciate these guys. At the time, they seemed strictly from squaresville (as absolutely nobody was saying), one of the many second-division U.K. acts scrabbling for our limited record budget. Plus also Allan Clarke seemed like a slatey-faced, woolly-haired cabaret singer and there was a bald guy in a terrible cap.
Starting with
For Certain Because ('66), because it's arguably their first "proper" album, and self-written. Listened to now, it seems
startlingly good, and if some young group sprang up with it today the world would be at their feet. Tony Hicks looks cool, Nash sinister, bald guy hides behind foliage, and Allan Clarke is on his lunch break.
They made two albums in '67,
Butterfly and
Evolution, each mirroring contemporary psychedelic moves, with more self-written songs, impeccable playing and production - their harmony singing was unequalled in the U.K. They offered nothing outrageously original, and were slower on the uptake with U.S. influences than The Beatles. But so was everybody - The Beatles were so supernaturally wired to the zeitgeist we thought they were original thinkers.
Nash was getting unhappier with Clarke, and in one of the most surprising square-to-hip career moves of all time landed in Laurel Canyon with Crosby & Stills. Clarke could now openly display chest medallions in unbuttoned lace shirts, and everything seemed right with the world.
Which brings us to Petals. It's not the "missing" '68 album, but it does include the best tracks they recorded before Nash left which remained in the can for decades. I've added three non-album hits which fit just fine, including the dizzying King Midas In Reverse. There are countless anthologies, best-ofs, and bonus track re-issues, but this may be all you need - a sumptuous feast of late 'sixties pop at its heady best.
Cover notes: Petals (note symbolism) and Butterfly are my own work, and For Certain Because my remix. Evolution is perfect.
To receive this bounteousness, simply talk about what Babs asks you to talk about.
ReplyDeleteGenerally? Or is Babs going to tailor questions for individuals?
DeleteWe'll have to wait for her to take her curlers out.
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DeleteMy favorite cult movie is, "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies" starring Cash Flagg and Atlas King.
DeleteBabs what would you like to know?
ReplyDeleteThe band turned down Nash's "Marrakesh Express", I recently read. Probably old news to the hipsters here...
ReplyDeleteLove the Hollies - some genuinely original ideas.
Modesty forbids me to say that "Petals" is a truly fantastic piece of work, and the best album they never made, but it is. I took a lot of time getting it to sound like an album, and it was worth it. Pop on the cusp of rock, and influenced as much by Smiley Smile-era Beach Boys (listen to "Relax") as the Fabs.
DeleteA lot of people are saying -- I'm too modest to say it myself, but many people tell me that I'm the most honest blogger in the history of the world -- that Petals is very, very, absolutely fantastic. But I will tell you this: years ago -- and many people remember that I said it, and it was perfect -- I was the first one to say that the Hollies were going to be huge. Million sellers, huge crowds. Bigger than Woodstock, believe me. And better than the Beatles. I mean, I don't know about the Beatles, but a lot of fine people on both sides, very smart people, they say those Beatles were overrated. Nasty people, that Ono Yoko or whatever. And that Lennon fellow, he never loved America, and he wanted to hurt God. And we all know what happened to him. Sad! It never would have happened at a Trump property, I can tell you that.
DeleteNo one respects women more than I do, but they never should have let her into this country. Nasty woman. And that's why we need a big, beautiful wall. A wonder wall.
DeleteIt's true; Jonder is the most honest blogger in the history of the world.
DeleteI apologise for Babs' tardiness - you know - dames, huh?
ReplyDeleteactually, no. could you introduce us to some?
DeleteYes, but you're living in the wrong country. Come over to Siam.
DeleteLet's talk about everyone's favorite cult movies.
ReplyDeleteYou are most certainly referring to Withnail & I, everyone's favorite cult movie.
DeleteI'm going to say, "Repo Man".
DeleteAnd I'm going to say, "Repo, repo-repo, repo man!"
DeleteBefore I moved from the UK, I lived 5 minutes away from the location of the tea room and pub filmed in Withnail and I. The tea room was actually a chemist almost right next to my doctor and the pub across the square - the Crown, but called the "King Henry" in the film = was where my son had his wedding reception.
DeleteThe town was Stony Stratford.
More info here:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/withnail-i-richard-grant-paul-mcgann-locations
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/withnail-i-richard-grant-paul-mcgann-locations
Damn that echo.
DeleteWow! I hope your son's wedding reception had plenty of the finest wines available to humanity!
DeleteHe did, in fact! We brought a shedload of wine over with us, including champagne. Had to pay corkage, but still cheaper than just getting it catered.
DeleteI've also gotta say "Withnail and I."
DeleteMy copy of Repo Man is on VHS, not sure that my player still works :-)
Deletebut that is great, I must watch again on the utubes.
Sure, Repo Man sounds like as good an answer as I'm going to come up with so why waste time? I'll go with that one too!
DeleteThe Hollies' Greatest Hits (on Imperial) was the first album I bought. At this point, a cult movie to me is one that deserves a larger audience so I'll say "The Rider" directed by Chloe Zhao.
ReplyDeleteThat was a really good movie.
DeleteNot a great movie goer, I think the last time I went to the cinema was about 1980 but I always remember seeing "Unman Wittering and Zigo" which probably counts as a cult movie. A bit like "If", well they were both set in public schools anyway.
ReplyDeleteTalk of the great If, reminds me I must try to find Britannia Hospital, haven't seen that since the 80's perhaps it won't have aged well?
DeleteA few of my favorites:
ReplyDeleteJim Jarmusch’s "Stranger Than Paradise"
Alexandro Jodorowsky’s "El Topo"
Robin Hardy’s "The Wicker Man"
John Waters’ "Pink Flamingos"
Robert Altman's "Brewster McCloud"
The Monkees "Head", Tarko's "Stalker", "Hellzapoppin'", Jack Benny's "The Horn Blows At Midnight", Powell n' Pressburger's "Canterbury Tale", and here's yer link - honestly, if you're not blown away by "Petals" then, uh, well, you're just not.
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/sMBqkqQyA2t
"Petals" is truly fantastic, thanks!
DeleteYou're welcome Babs - it's hardly left the IoF© Victrola since it was pressed. Instead of this, they released The Hollies Sing Dylan, an answer to a question nobody was asking in 1969.
DeleteThis Hollies song, oddly enough, was only a hit in Australia, New Zealand and a couple of Canadian cities:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgNhEE_y7ds
'Doppelganger' aka 'Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun', 'Chopper', 'Kill List', 'A Field In England', 'Holiday On The Buses'
ReplyDeleteOooh I forgot about A Field In England, I still have some magic mushrooms somewhere, I must make some soup and watch that again.
DeleteThat is one strange film.
DeleteThe Phantasm series
ReplyDeleteI wanted to like the Phantasm sequels, but it seemed like they made the mistake of trying to explain all the weird shit that went on in the first one. First Phantasm, best Phantasm.
DeleteWell, I watched the second one first, and a number of times, because for some reason that one was always on TV, but not the others.
DeleteSo that's my sentimental choice for best Phantasm. I've always hated the third one with its cackling zombies, the black lesbian bad ass and the wise-ass kid with deadly traps - it just smells early 90s in a disagreeable way. But I think Phantasm OblivIOn is about the best that a third sequel with no budget to a series of low budget horro films can be. The last two minutes are genuinely haunting. "It's just the wind...just the wind".
Never bothered with "Phantasm Ravager" which sounds both terrible and sad. The series is fine, frozen in time at the end of OblivIOn and in my mind Reggie is jumping from portal to portal to chase the Tall Man and safe a dying Mike...
I may have given up on the series before Phantasm OblivIOn. Thanks for the recommendation! I saw the second Hellraiser before the first one -- like you said, it was always on TV. Still love the crazy animation in the labyrinth when the doctor turns into a Cenobite.
DeleteOh cool, the director of the first one (Don Coscarelli) came back for Phantasm OblivIOn! Will definitely check it out, thanks again OBG!
DeleteActually Don Coscarelli did all of them. And all except for the second one (where the studio said you can have one but not both) have all the same actors for the main characters. You literally see these guys grow old(er) together on screen, despite movies 2-4 following each other directly and taking place over only a couple of days/week. Maybe that's what inspires phans' (yup) dedication, it's like hanging out with a bunch of old friends because that's literally that's happening.
DeleteCool choices, y'all. I watched "Forbidden Zone", recently. A lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteLast Hollies album played by me, "Best Of". A treat indeed.
@Farq - Great cover art. Much appreciated.
So, how about them Hollies turning into Creedence in the early 70s? "Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress" et al. Didn't see that coming, but they did a pretty good job with that mimicry!
ReplyDeleteU.K. acts generally imitated U.S. acts. Little Richard, on tour with the Beatles in '63, called his manager Art Rupe to tell him to sign them, because "they can imitate anybody". This aspect has been conveniently forgotten, and their skill as imitators was honed into something close to originality.
Delete"Repo Man" vs. "Ed Wood"...
ReplyDeleteRepo Man was consciously made as a cult movie, and Ed Wood thought he was making a real movie. I'm not sure I could sit through either again.
DeleteOK, another contender: El Mariachi.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure Werner Herzog films are cult, so Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre the Wrath of God, and Nosferatu. The making of Fitzcarraldo documentary is great too.
ReplyDeleteJan Švankmajer Alice, is very trippy stop/go animation, everything I've seen of his is quite disturbing though.
And Withnail, love that film.
she done him wrong, international house, and almost all the movies that you guys mentioned. plus, any pre-code paramount, brimming with jaw droppers.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone provide me with a handy definition of a cult movie, beyond being one that only a minority of self-appointed cognoscenti actually want to watch?
ReplyDeleteNot really knowing whether it is a cult or not, but whole heartedly believing it to be wonderful, I'm nominating Celine et Julie vont en Bateau.
I don't think you need go beyond that definition. Cognoscenti generally don't wait to be appointed.
DeleteHollies - mp3@320: Head Out of Dream - Aug 1973 - May 1988 - https://mega.nz/file/XUpEBYQA#P8KvTHRbpB9tIVRxm2fdN8jRH_e2oTBFjWQua1-Yqow
ReplyDeleteThank you very much. Fills in a big hole in my Hollies collection.
DeleteDipping through this - a bunch of underappreciated gems on there, for sure. The last two discs, though? Woof! That Eighties production is just brutal.
Delete80's production. an ass cheek squeezed tight over each of your ears.
DeleteWhen I get my new flux capacitor from Amazon, I'm going to time-travel to the 1950s and kill the baby that grows up to be the man who invented gated reverb. It's him or Hitler on that first time travel trip, and EVERYBODY kills Hitler the first time.
DeleteWow, this box set really is the epitome of "diminishing returns due to chronology". The first one and three quarters discs are really good and then the showtunes, the questionable production and the wobbly song choices/songwriting. Highlights are getting rapidly much rarer and Discs 5 and 6 are largely unlistenable.
DeleteYeah....the Hollies really lost the plot in the 80s. One of those last discs has some decent Buddy Holly covers, but when I want Buddy Holly, I play the original. The surprise for me was that they were pretty good in '73-'75, much better than I remember.
DeleteOf note: the cover of Stop In The Name Of Love got to #29 in the USA. I just played it for the first time since I digitized these CDs, and it's probably the last time I'll hear it. It's...competent. The drummer can count to four. There are harmonies without bum notes. But there's not enough new to it to make me want to hear it again. IT's just....there. It's not bad, or offputting...but life's short and I only have so much time....
Delete"Escape to Victory"
ReplyDeleteLife really is a series of intertwining circles...I've just seen that Pete Brown wrote some of the lyrics on the Hollies' 'Five Three One - Double Seven O Four" album.
ReplyDeleteHi, SteveShark - these may fill a few more (also mp3@320)
ReplyDeleteClarke, Hicks & Nash Years https://mega.nz/file/uMZ1DaCY#AOcjy9P8cecApTtJiZBGak7gytVE1SIyyZqhvO9g3s8 and Changin' Times https://mega.nz/file/qM5wFBBJ#CVF9TdxPMLLSCvW7MzLvwD1Z4szQ6m5Yc2r4FIR-qxc
Many thanks again!
DeleteWhat he said.
DeleteCult movie...I'd say it's a film that wasn't very popular but has a very devoted audience, for a variety of reasons. The audience will go see re-showings at revival (aka repertory) theaters, buy books about the movie. What it is "exactly" isn't easy to define. There are a lot of bad movies, but only a few bad movies have a devoted audience. There are genre films...horror, or kaiju films. Films that were too weird for the mainstream, like Eraserhead. Also good films that failed to find an audience initially but grew to be classics (but not always...The Big Lebowski was a cult film, but It's A Wonderful Life isn't....
ReplyDeleteLebowski hardly qualifies - it was a mainstream hit movie. Grossed about 47m bucks, and Blood Simple about 5. Does this matter? Probably.
DeleteOh, The Big Lebowski absolutely qualifies.
DeleteIt wasn't, like, a major blockbuster when it came out, and just made a little more than its budget back in the US. That's not including marketing and distribution so in domestic gross the film was probably losing money. It did do much better internationally, but wasn't any sort of cult. That popped up later. Me and my friends quoted it right after seeing it, but it took years for thousands of others who saw it on home video to catch up.
It's also a little misleading to just compare two gross numbers like this. Blood Simple made it's money back and then some, grossing 2.7 m agaisnt a 1.5 m budget. That's not a huge hit, but this is a debut film from two complete unknowns and on that scale that's a success.
DeleteBy 1998 the Coens were huge name directors ("stars" might be a little much), Cannes film festival winners etc., with a huge following. Blood Simple mainly played on the film festival circuit and arthouse cinema programming. The Big Lebowski ran in multiplexes. So, apples and oranges.
Here are the U.S. box office receipts for 1998.https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/1998/ Big L came in at #98 for U.S. receipts. You're right, it didn't lose money but it wasn't popular, certainly not compared to the amount of available Lebowski merch available (shirts, replica sweaters, the amount of stuff is immense...: https://thedudesthreads.com/pages/the-big-lebowski So...I'd argue it BARELY qualifies, as the audience is cultish.
DeleteOBG, it's not apples and oranges. It's two movies from the Coen Brothers, so a comparison is absolutely like for like, ya doofus. As you say, Blood Simple mainly played on the film festival circuit and arthouse cinema programming (as good a definition of cult movie as any), and as you say The Big Lebowski ran in multiplexes (as good a definition of a mainstream movie as any). Not sure what your point is, here. The Coens moved from cult to mainstream.
DeleteLebowski pulled off a neat trick in flattering its audience into thinking they were digging a cool, hip movie that appealed to cool, hip people.
So you're telling me a debut film and a film from critically acclaimed 15-year veterans with a built-in fanbase are to be seen in exactly the same way. That's some doofus stuff right there.
DeleteLet's take a music comparison: You're gonna tell me that sales, acclaim or distribution are exactly comparable for, say, The Eagles' debut album and Hotel California (a mere three and a half years later, which is insane by today's standards, BTW) and their sales can just be put side by side without an asterisk somewhere?
Blood Simple, like the majority of debut films, ran the film festival circuit not by choice, or as a concession to/aspiration to be "cult", but because they either lack or have minimal distribution. (Most debuts go to film festivals to find someone to get a national distribution deal, that's what Sundance was for, at least in the first fifteen to twenty years). Unlike a movie like the mentioned Repo Man (or, you know, Buckaroo Banzai) which played to their quirks and were designed as "cult movies", Blood Simple was pretty much a straight thriller with some excentric elements, sure, but nothing to really attract the midnight movie crowd. The fact that small and independent movies play in arthouses and not multiplexes isn't a definition of anything, much less if a movie has a cult following or not.
And my point is, I think, now succinctly made. The Coens always stayed quirky, but gained a bunch of followers and wider distribution in the fifteen years that followed Blood Simple. And when I say "Big Lebowski" ran in multiplexes, that's to say, exactly that - wider distribution. They didn't rule the multiplex and most of its run was in, you guessed it, arthouse and special program theaters.
I don't know what's not to get about my point here. These films separated by fifteen years of an acclaimed career can not be put side by side and then say, "see, 85 is more than 5". Duh.
Sorry. Still not getting your point, but going by your last sentence, you're not getting mine, either.
DeleteThe first paragraph of WIKI says, "A cult film or cult movie, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage in repeated viewings, dialogue-quoting, and audience participation. Inclusive definitions allow for major studio productions, especially box office bombs, while exclusive definitions focus more on obscure, transgressive films shunned by the mainstream. The difficulty in defining the term and subjectivity of what qualifies as a cult film mirror classificatory disputes about art. The term cult film itself was first used in the 1970s to describe the culture that surrounded underground films and midnight movies, though cult was in common use in film analysis for decades prior to that."
DeleteBlood Simple doesn't have any elaborate subculture or a particularly passionate fan base, people don't quote its dialogue or common viewing experiences, not to mention dressing up as characters from the film.
DeleteThe Big Lebowski has all of these markers.
Quod Erad Demonstrandum.
(And with that I'm out of this discussion which has well and truly run its course.)
Your last sentence means "shut up because I'm right", right?
DeleteAs we have wildly different ideas of what "succinct" means, we're never going to agree on what the much vaguer idea of "cult movie" means. For me, a cult movie is probably not a mainstream movie, a box-office success, and for you it can be (that's "succinct").
"The Committee" ticks all my personal cult movie boxes, even if its admirers don't cosplay their favorite characters or quote lines from it.
Upvote for Celine & Julie. Les Enfants du Paradis, is that cult? How about John Waters' original Hairspray?
ReplyDeleteZachariah
ReplyDeleteZardoz
A Boy & His Dog
Harold & Maude
And I still enjoy Repo Man & Phantasm
The Committee
ReplyDeleteNearly commented then changed my mind.
ReplyDelete