What Are They Dancing To?

Here’s a Scopitone of Brook Benton lip-syncing Mother Nature, Father Time while bikini girls apparently dance to something else.

If you’re unfamiliar with Scopitones, they were music video jukeboxes typically placed in lounges and similar adult-oriented locations.  It seems that most Scopitones, like the later music-video format, were more about the girls than the songs. (I remember child-oriented ones, but their format and machines had a different name).  The videos often had the hubba-hubba vibe of 50’s-60’s softcore men’s magazines (like here and here).  Although Procol Harum did one, most rock acts snubbed Scopitones. I imagine they’d started looking dated, like something their dads watched for cheap thrills, down there with carnival peep-shows.  One novelty was a live Billy Lee Riley one, unusual in that it’s not lip-synced.

For you film nerds: I can’t verify this, but I know I read somewhere that French (who invented them) Scopitones used Pathecolor, a very early film tinting process that used stenciling.  Wikipedia claims that the last use of Pathecolor was the 1954 Mexican surrealist classic, Robinson Crusoe, but it’s often stated that it was used in that august cinematic masterpiece, Dr. Goldfoot & The Bikini Machine.

Here’s Your Chance

I know Monkeystador has been trying to attract Pussy Riot’s attention for awhile. Well, they’re playing in Tulsa!

You know it’s true because you read it in Pitchfork!

Pussy Riot will receive the Woody Guthrie Prize in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 6, and perform at the city’s Cain’s Ballroom that evening. The prize is given annually to an artist who “best exemplifies Guthrie’s spirit and work by speaking for the less fortunate through music, film, literature, dance or other art forms and serving as a positive force for social change.” The ceremony is part of the Woody Guthrie Center’s 10th anniversary celebration, which takes place from May 5 to 7.

Tulsa is a fun town. Surprisingly hip. We can go to the Dylan Archives while we’re there.

Do Ya Think I’m Sexy

Not really. But unintentionally funny? Yes!

“By now, you and I are very used to watching some of our most elderly and most British celebrities go insane. So allow me to introduce a new and oddly refreshing entrant into the English Boomer cinematic universe: Sir Rod Stewart. As far as I can tell, Rod isn’t against transgender people, or vaccines, or whatever Morrissey happens to be against at any given moment. He just wants to be horny… truly it’s an arse state of affairs when Rod Stewart — a 76-year-old man who has had eight children with five different women and marries a new supermodel once per decade — feels as if his resting libido is being held down. Luckily for us, the old geezer has decided to rebel against all of this millennial prudishness with a new album and a new video. AND WHAT A VIDEO.”

– Drew Magary, in a magnificent article.