“No Glue or Glass Bottles”: The Gateshead Music Collective
An oral history of the Gateshead Music Collective (or GMC) in the words of the young people who started it, ran it, and frequented it in the 1980s…
Tubular Terrors: ‘The Norliss Tapes’
This Halloween, I decided to give another of Kolchak producer Dan Curtis’s horror TV movies a try. The Norliss Tapes, which aired on NBC in February of 1973, features another favorite of genre sci-fi and horror TV, Roy Thinnes, in the lead role…
You Weren’t Supposed to Be Spooky: Non-Halloween Songs for Halloween
By The Mutants
So read on to discover the songs that, despite having no actual connection to the 31st of October, yet produce a frisson of seasonal alarm in the paranormally persecuted inhabitants of mutant mansions…
RAD, MAD & BAD: The Analog Rebellion of Craig Baldwin and Other Cinema
Under the stewardship of underground filmmaker and curator Craig Baldwin, Other Cinema stands as the vanguard of Baldwin’s personal artistic conviction—what he calls “cinema povera”…
“Things Can’t Get Any Worse, They Got to Get Better”: Paul Schrader’s ‘Light of Day’
All of the characters in Paul Schrader’s Light of Day (1987) are looking for a way out. They’re stuck in menial nine to five jobs, on the line in factories and behind candy-colored checkout stands in supermarkets…
On 4th and Broadway: Remembering Tower Records
Having grown up in the 1970s, an era when record shops were a fixture in communities and often served as neighborhood social centers, I became obsessed with a small store located on 146th and Broadway…
“It’s A Great Life If You Don’t Weaken”: ‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle’ at 50
American cinema of the 1970s has long been recognized for its downbeat, character-led crime dramas. From Alan J. Pakula’s Klute (1971) to Arthur Penn’s Night Moves (1975) and Ulu Grosbard’s Straight Time (1978)…
“Have a Good Time All the Time”: ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ and the Art of Longing
1984’s This is Spinal Tap is all about the pining—epic pining, as high and fulsome as the band’s hair and the wailing notes they (try to) hit…
“One Nite Only”: When Frank Zappa Played at State U
In the summer of 1970, the launch of the humor magazine National Lampoon was not going well…
Pop Culture Jam: The Mainstream Subversion of Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel
The subversive paradox created when Max Headroom turned pitchman for corporate cola is just one of many in the career of Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel…
We Are the Mutants 