WHERE ARE THEY NOW? COME TO THINK OF IT, WHERE WERE THEY THEN? There's a guy named Tom Price running for some office here in Lincoln, Nebraska, so everywhere I drive in town I see the usual election-year lawn signs that say "Vote for Tom Price." It always makes me chuckle because I can't help but think of it being the Tom Price, you know, the guy who played drums on a few classic ESP-Disk free jazz records from the Sixties. Who was/is this guy? He played on Patty Waters's "Black Is The Colour of My True Love's Hair," which is one of the most legendary free jazz tracks of all time, and he played on the self-titled debut album by the Frank Wright Trio, which I'm listening to right now. He's a really terrific drummer, and his disappearance from the scene was so complete that I'm actually tempted to believe that it's really him running for Lincoln, NE city councilman or whatever. After all, Glen Buxton from the original Alice Cooper band ended up living (and dying) in Clarion, Iowa, so these sorts of things can happen. So is it the Tom Price? Tom, if you're listening, drop us a line here at blastitude@hotmail.com. I wanna interview you! (Also, bassist Steve Tintweiss, if you're listening, same goes for you.)

THE INEVITABLE SURFABLE LINKS PAGE

Man like I've never even heard Nurse With Wound but here's a great interview with Steven Stapleton.

Check out the online home of the striking British labour-of-love print mag The Sound Projector.

While doing a little research so I could poke fun at Mike Patton and Bill Gould for this issue, I came across this interview with those very two guys in which they rant in a rather well-considered fashion about this vast sandtrap of pop culture and the music industry.

Okay, you want some real blastitude, go to the Flemish Masters and get lost, lost, lost.

PARTING SHOT Look at this grotty flier for John Carpenter's Halloween (1979). Must've been for a screening on the 'grindhouse' circuit, which YOU, yeah you, might know by its sanitized name, the 'drive-in' circuit -- c'mon, this is quickie filmmaking for quickie profit, you think they're only gonna show these flicks in big outdoor pastures where you have to watch the movie from your parked car? That's an image strictly from the Midwest and California. What about in the middle of New York City? How about all those hundreds of thousands of people who don't have cars because they live in inner cities and they walk and take buses and subways everywhere? If you just show movies at drive-ins, you're missing the ticket purchases of a whole bunch of Americans right there, and people who live in inner cities certainly make a worthwhile target market for exploitation flicks (you know, they're tough 'blue-collar' cusses, used to or at least well aware of the hard knocks of street life, the evil that men do, etc., and they ain't gonna settle for no namby-pamby entertainment, give 'em EXPLOITATION all the way, 'cause smart and dumb 'blue-collar' 'hard knocks' cityfolk alike can handle their movie-goin' kicks raw and raunchy). Of course, they could get a ride out to a drive-in with someone they know who has a car, but how often is that gonna happen? The person you know with a car also has to be someone you'd wanna go see I Dismember Mama or Bloodsucking Freaks or Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens with, so you know, most of yer relatives aren't gonna be able to help ya (at least not without causing a mild family scandal). But not to worry, because back in the day any canny grindhouse circuit entrepeneur knew to put sleazy theaters (you know, grindhouses) in the inner cities so all that the carless street-life mob had to do to buy tickets was walk right around the corner from the rowhouse apartments and the rowhouse storefront strip joints and corner bars etc.
          But anyway, where is the grindhouse circuit today? Has Hollywood truly taken completely over? It seems that all Hollywood had to do to kill the grindhouse circuit was make sure there was at least one of their big-budget action movies (or gross-out comedies) with at least one Hollywood star famous for his/her ass-kicking (or gross-out humor) and sexiness (or goofiness/"cuteness") showing in every neighborhood.
          Of course, that's not true. Back in the glory days of the grindhouse circuit, there were big-budget Hollywood movies showing in the same towns with just as simple of an intent and just as simple of a star system tempting the masses. Even with this competition, there was still a market for grindhouse fare, so why isn't it being tapped into now? Simple: the invention of the Video Cassette Recorder. To paraphrase the Buggles, 'twas videotape that killed the grindhouse star. (The modern analogue to 'grindhouse circuit' is 'straight-to-video.' And it's not as much fun.)
          Ah, but we still have exploitation movies that run in our movie theaters, no doubt about it. It's just that now they cost anywhere from 40 to 100 million dollars to make and star Tom Hanks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Val Kilmer, Denzel Washington, Ashley Judd, Gary Sinise, Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Michael Caine, Sharon Stone, Billy Crystal, Samuel L. Jackson, Ryan Phillippe, John Leguizamo, Brad Pitt, Nick Nolte, John Travolta, Kurt Russell, Halle Berry, Michael Douglas, Kevin Bacon, Mel Gibson, Gary Busey, Julia Roberts, Michelle Pfeiffer etc. This new breed of big-budget B movies can be fun....but not as much fun.