It's a Beautiful Day: White Bird (1969)

It's a Beautiful Day is the 1969 self-titled debut album by San Francisco psychedelic band It's a Beautiful Day. Although they were one of the earliest and most important San Francisco bands to emerge from 1967's social phenomenon Summer of Love, the band never quite achieved the success of contemporaries such as Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Santana, with whom they had connections. This album's song "White Bird" was the band's biggest hit.

The group's signature song "White Bird" was inspired by the experiences David and Linda LaFlamme had while living in Seattle, Washington. For a few weeks in December 1967 the group members lived in the attic of an old house while playing and rehearsing at Seattle's Encore Ballroom. In an ironic twist on the band's name, the song was partly inspired by Seattle's rainy winter weather. The band's manager Matthew Katz had relegated the band to improve their act before he would book them into San Francisco nightclubs.

In a later interview David LaFlamme said:

Where the 'white bird' thing came from ... We were like caged birds in that attic. We had no money, no transportation, the weather was miserable. We were just barely getting by on a very small food allowance provided to us. It was quite an experience, but it was very creative in a way.

The song's repeated chorus is, "White bird must fly or she will die."

By North Utsire

Summer Solstice (Alban Hefin)

Midsummer, 21^st June

All night the ancient ring of stones and dolmens hums its energies. Dawn’s faint light lifts the darkness, a rosy halo rises above the skyline, and now the sun’s first beam strikes though the granite archway. Hail sun-god, bearer of light and power. Hail, bright deity, ascending the zodiacal arch, and reaching the zenith of the year. Druids welcome you with drumming, blowing of curling horns. The crowning of the year is yours, the time of greatest force and potency. Birch, fennel, white lilies and trefoil are your early offerings. Bonfires are lit, holy men cut staffs and wands from hazel, birch, and willow. The trees of summer, charged by your fullness, hold your most potent magic. Day of feast and celebration, honouring the oak, the Summer King, with rolling of fiery wheels. Now is the dark diminished. Mabon, the sacred child, is victor. Divine Light, shining god in brightest splendour, reaches to fullest glory. 

From The Celtic Book of Seasonal Meditations, by Claire Hamilton

By North Utsire

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

Your eyes are lodestars! and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
fairy Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moone's sphere;

And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, — Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion. 

...Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards.

 

Quotes from A Midsummer Night's Dream; William Shakespeare

Music: A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, Op21; Felix Mendelssohn

Illustrations of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream by Arthur Rackham
Film: Judi Dench as Titania, Queen of the Fairies (1968)

Artwork by Anna Oparina (aka Mukiltocasualtie), Russia 

By North Utsire

Summer of Love

 

By North Utsire

Commune

Commune is a 2005 documentary film by Jonathan Berman. The film is about an intentional community located in Siskiyou County, California called Black Bear Ranch and features narration by Peter Coyote who himself once resided at Black Bear. Above is the trailer but here is a link for the full docu- film with Russuan subs. It goes well with a book I am reading by Richard Fairfield called The Modern Utopian: Alternative Communities Of The ‘60’s and ‘70’s, a quote from which is below. 

Winter Approaches
From Cold Mountain Farm, by Richard Fairfield
First published: The Modern Utopian, vol.3, no.2, spring 1969
Republished in the book The Modern Utopian, Process Press, 2010

So we all lived together, peaceably enough, until one night it was very, very cold, and wet and windy, and we could smell the coming of autumn. Then it was time to begin thinking about what we’d be doing in the winter- staying here or moving on- and making plans accordingly. Mostly we had to consider the hardship of a very cold winter, no gas or electricity, a one- mile dirt road, which would probably be inaccessible because of heavy snow (even during the summer, only jeeps and four- wheel- drive cars and trucks could climb the road).

There were five couples, three of the women were pregnant, and a fourth was nursing. The babies were due in October, November, and February. The first two couples wanted o deliver their own but not take the chance of doing it here. A single girl was already building her stone house for the winter. Another man intended to live in the big house for the winter. Almost all hoped to be here early next spring. By this time, two couples and a girl had moved entirely to their own shelters.

The communal garden was a monstrous failure. After the original enthusiasm of planting, hardly anyone cared enough to weed the rows. (Of course, the huge amount of rain this year retarded the growth of crops and caused the weeds to grow like crazy! And six acres is a hell of a lot of land to weed by hand. If we try again next year, we’ll certainly have to get a cultivator.) At least two acres of garden were lost, either because they weren’t weeded adequately or because they were planted too late and the growing season was too short, or because there wasn’t enough sun and there was too much rain, or because of the aphids, or the potato blight….

We didn’t become new people, we just became physically healthy people. We didn’t find a way of sharing our visions (in fact, we didn’t even have a conscious understanding of the need for such a thing), and we didn’t have a shared vision to bring us and hold us together.

We had ploughed and begun to plant the earth, but we had not pierced our own ego skins. Decay and stagnation had already set in. I went into the woods to meditate. The woods explained: it was high time we ploughed the earth of this community. We must apply the blade to ourselves and cut back the outer skin to expose the pulsing flesh. And then we must harrow and pulverise the outer skin and use our egos for compost. Then, in the new flesh, we must plant the seeds of the people we wish to become.

The Mandala of Great Nature, from The Modern Utopian

By North Utsire

The Four Gospels of Nutrition

I find these 4 books on whole food Nutrition to be indispensable, but the funny thing is they all differ from each other in outlook. There is quite some crossover though, and between them they represent aspects of a whole approach to nutrition.

 

Kitchen Pharmacy Rose Elliot	Takes a TCM energetic view of foods Remedial suggestions, e.g. onions for cough, etc Makes seasonal connections to foods, conditions Constitutional medicine Ideal companion to herbal texts
Healing With Whole Foods Paul Pitchford	Voluminous & complete. Develops concept of Dietary Transition Ultimate destination: vegan wholefood diet, although meats are given consideration in text Primarily Eastern approach, and foods, e.g seaweeds
Nourishing Traditions Sally Fallon	Based on work of Weston Price Traditional diets, including meats, full fats, sauces, etc Excellent theoretical introductory chapters Whole foods and hearty cooking
Diet & Nutrition Rudolf Ballentine	Scientific approach Good analysis of food groups Much contextual information, e.g. cultural, geographic and economic factors in aetiology of deficiency diseases Emphasis on Indian foods and spices, within an Ayurvedic context.

Next: The Other Four Gospels of Nutrition.

By North Utsire

Working Class Acupuncture Movement

WCA is a social business – a term coined by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Muhammed Yunus who launched the micro-credit movement. A social business delivers “social dividends” – in this case, affordable health care and living wage jobs, not financial dividends to be siphoned off to owners or shareholders. For WCA, this means that they only need to break even. Social business is capitalism with a twist – a very deep, very structural twist.

Working Class Acupuncture Website
People's Organisation of Community Acupuncture (WCA Cooperative)
UK Scene: Multi- bed acupuncture clinics

By North Utsire

SE Asian Grated Coconut & Beetroot

Whole Spices ½ tsp Fennel seeds ½ tsp Coriander seeds 1 Star Anise ½ tsp Cumin seeds 1-2 Cinnamon sticks	Powdered Spices ½ tsp Black Pepper ½ tsp Turmeric 1 tsp Garam Masala 1 Tbsp Coriander ½ tsp Chilli powder ¼ tsp nutmeg	Fresh Spices Coriander (handful) Garlic (4-5 cloves) Ginger (1” chopped) 3 Green finger chillies
Liquid Ingredients 1Tbsp Olive Oil 1 Large knob butter 2 Tbsp Greek Yoghurt 400ml pureed tomatoes	Vegetables 12 oz (360g) Grated Coconut 3 Medium grated golden beets 1 Medium Onion Handful French beans, chopped	Other Frozen white fish fillets (optional)
Instructions Roast the coconut in a frying pan, in a small amount of oil until brown In a pan, separately heat the whole spices until aromatic and add to the coconut Fry the onions & garlic in oil until brown Add together, including the butter, on medium heat Add the tomatoes, beets, and other veg and powdered spices Add fresh spices (ginger, chillies and coriander) Simmer for 40- 90 minutes (until coconut is sufficiently softened) If adding frozen fish fillets, simmer for a further 30 minutes

 

By North Utsire

Zdzisław Beksiński

Zdzisław Beksiński (1929- 2005) was a Polish painter, photographer and sculptor, specializing in the field of utopian art. Beksiński did his paintings and drawings in what he called either a 'Baroque' or a 'Gothic' manner. His creations were made mainly in two periods. The first period of work is generally considered to contain expressionistic color, with a strong style of "utopian realism" and surreal architecture, evoking a doomsday scenario. The second period contained more abstract style, with the main features of formalism. Beksiński was murdered in 2005 by stabbing at the hand of the teenage son of his longtime caretaker, whom he had refused to lend only a few hundred złoty (approximately $100).

By North Utsire

Feeding 9 Billion People

This dinky set of 9 short videos are a concise 101 on the current global agricultural and environmental crisis. I have linked up the video titles below for convenience. I have also included a similarly titled short film about the situation in India; Feeding 9 Billion: Seeds of Change.

Video 1: Introducing solutions to the global food crisis

Video 2: Science, Technology and GMO’s

Video 3: What policies can make our food system more sustainable?

Video 4: The need for more equitable food distribution

Video 5: Local food systems

Video 6: Climate change & food security

Video 7: Empowering small scale farmers in the developing world part I

Video 8: The challenge of small scale farming in the developing world part II

Video 9: Food riots

By North Utsire

Killing Fields & The Meatrix

Killing Fields: The True Cost of Europe’s Cheap Meat (2009)

Cheap meat has become a way of life in much of Europe, but the full price is being paid across Latin America as vast soya plantations and their attendant chemicals lead to poisonings and violence. An investigation in Paraguay has discovered that vast plantations of soy, principally grown for use in intensively-farmed animal feed, are responsible for a catalogue of social and ecological problems, including the forced eviction of rural communities, landlessness, poverty, excessive use of pesticides, deforestation and rising food insecurity. For a full report by Andrew Wasley in The Ecologist, click here.

By North Utsire

The Moody Blues: Om (1968)

Colour Me Pop was a British music TV programme broadcast on BBC2 from 1968-1969. It was a spin-off from the BBC 2 arts magazine show Late Night Line-Up.

By North Utsire

Spirit: Girl in your Eye (1968)

By North Utsire

Felix Mendelssohn: Scottish Inspired Music

“The Scottish” (1842) and “The Hebrides” (1830)

Mendelssohn’s 3rd Symphony, The “Scottish”, was inspired by a walking tour around the highlands of Scotland, which he took with his friend Carl Klingemann in the summer of 1829, and draws on indelible memories of visits to the Highlands where he was particularly captivated by Edinburgh’s craggy scenery, making sketches which still exist today. In the ruined chapel of Mary Stuart he noted down the introduction that some twelve years later would inspire the "Scottish". Mixing a dark storytelling mood with a fleetingly Scottish folk music style (the lively second movement is melodically and rhythmically in the style of Scottish folk music, although no direct quotations have been identified), Mendelssohn employs whirling Scottish rhythms with some panache and shapes this exhilarating symphony to exultant, but paradoxically Germanic conclusion.

Mendelssonhn was also naturally compelled to write music when he visited Fingal’s Cave on the bleak uninhabited island of Staffa in the Hebrides. It was here, on August 7th 1829 whilst overlooking the Isle of Mull, that Mendelssohn found the inspiration for his orchestral piece and wrote the opening theme the next day. Though labelled as an overture, it is intended to stand as a complete work. Although programme music, it does not tell a specific story and is not "about" anything; instead, the piece depicts a mood and "sets a scene", making it an early example of a musical tone poem.

The sense of Hebridean wonder soon abated, however. Moving on to Wales, Mendelssohn began work on his Op.12 String Quartet. He was less taken with Welsh national music, which he described in a letter as "having given me a toothache!"

Although the image was cultivated, especially after Mendelssohn’s death in the detailed family memoirs by his nephew Sebastian Hensel, of a man always equable, happy and placid in temperament, this was a bit misleading. The nickname "discontented Polish count" was given to Mendelssohn because of his aloofness, and he referred to the epithet in his letters. Some regard Mendelssohn as sentimental and second-rank because his reputation was assailed by Wagner, who had his own ambitions for a nationalistic German culture, and who had been spurned as a youth when he had sent sheet music to Mendelssohn for his perusal.

But there was also a certain indelible fieriness about Mendessohn. Perhaps that’s why he resonated with the Scottish landscape, people and music. Mendelssohn was frequently given to alarming fits of temper which occasionally led to collapse. On one occasion in the 1830s, when his wishes had been crossed, shortly after his visit to Scotland, "his excitement was increased so fearfully ... that when the family was assembled ... he began to talk incoherently, and in English, to the great terror of them all. The stern voice of his father at last checked the wild torrent of words; they took him to bed, and a profound sleep of twelve hours restored him to his normal state". Such fits may be related to his early death at age 38, although it did cross my mind that maybe he had sneaked a bottle of single malt back with him and had over indulged that night, letting a few choice Scottish phrases out.

Painting: Joseph Mallord William Turner: Staffa, Fingal’s Cave (1831-1832)
Photography: Scottish lochs by Karl Williams

Karl William's subjects are wide and varied, ranging from landscapes, both natural and urban, through wildlife to exterior and interior architectural detail. Much of his recent work makes use of the HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging technique. Karl is currently based in Glasgow.

By North Utsire

Henry Hobson in the Moonraker's Arms

Hobson's Choice is a 1954 romantic comedy film directed by David Lean, based on the play of the same name by Harold Brighouse. The film won the Golden Bear at the 4th Berlin International Film Festival in 1954 and British Film Academy Award Best British Film in the same year.

Malcolm Arnold wrote the score for a small pit orchestra of 22 players, and he enlisted the help of a Belgian cafe owner to play the musical saw for the above pivotal scene. A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. Capable of glissando, the sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin.

After a night of drinking at The Moonraker, Hobson is seeing double, and he fixates on the reflection of the moon in the puddles outside the pub. Arnold deploys the musical saw to represent the willowy allure of the moon, as the clumsy Hobson stomps from puddle to puddle, chasing its reflection.

By North Utsire

Shat Yourself

You have to admire the sheer hubris of a man who can go from supernatural Gothic melodrama Incubus (in the language of pigeon ESPERANTO) to a 60’s outer space psych bubblegum tour with Leonard Nimoy via the Twilight Zone’s Nightmare at 20,000 ft.

By North Utsire

Herbie Mann: Memphis Underground (1969)

Funky ass flute Jazz- Blues, released 1969 on Atlantic label. Reminds me a bit of Sesame Street, but in any event to quote me mam “You don’t hear music like that any more.” True.

By North Utsire

Street Sitar Player

Great sitar player in Santiago: 

By North Utsire

Missing Margi Clarke

In the 90’s I lived in a cramped & squalid shared house in Liverpool off Smithdown Road. Opposite our house was a kind of short cul-de-sac which terminated in a Georgian style town house. It seemed a bit out of character with the pauperish commonality of the terraced row I lived in, but ho hum. I didn’t think much of it. Until one gloomy night I looked out of the window and saw, getting into a taxi from the Georgian house, what appeared to be Margi Clarke. I hollered to one of my house mates:

Me: “Hey Michelle, I think I just saw Margi Clarke getting into a taxi!”

Michelle: “Oh yeah, she lives opposite.”

Me: “What!? I’ve been living here for over a year… I had no idea”

Michelle: “Oh, I thought you knew.”

Well bugger me. Margi was a bit of a screen heroine for me appearing in Letter To Brezhnev (1985), and frequently on The Word, with Terry Christian. I have looked high and low for a hilarious clip from The Word which I remember watching where Margi gets fitted up with a candid camera and goes into Terry’s make up room before the show and tries to seduce him:

Margi: “Alright Terry giz a go on that”

Terry: [Handing her a joint] “Alright Margi”

[some pleasantries are exchanged]

Margi: “So do ya wanna do it?”

Terry: “Do what?”

Margi: “y’know… show us yer plums”

Terry: “Bugger off”

Margi: “Or go on, show us yer plums!” [trying to wrestle into his pants]

Luckily for his reputation, Terry Christian manages to refuse the ravishes of the supervixen. Probably no surprise I can’t find it on Youtube though; maybe a bit too incriminating in these pious times. I did find this 1992 clip from The Word, where Margi plugs her show The Good Sex Guide. It was about that time I lived opposite her. Oh to muse what went on in that detached Georgian town house whilst I unwittingly sat only yards opposite watching my flickering TV retrieved from the skip.

By North Utsire

The Afterlife for New Romantics

The original Planet Earth performed by Duran Duran in the days of the Rum Runner (a Birmingham nightclub). This Demo was recorded in late 1980 in Manchester Square studio. The Demo runs an extra minute longer than the version that features on their debut album ''Duran Duran''. The song also features an extra verse towards the end.

By North Utsire

Rumours that HSE is closing are untrue

In December 2013, I enthusiastically submitted an application to become a member of The Human Scale Education Movement. I quote:

Human Scale is an education reform movement committed to small scale learning communities based on the values of democracy, justice and respect. Human Scale Education works directly with schools and parents to promote human scale learning environments where children and young people are known and valued as individuals.

After a few weeks, I received a letter from them, returning my cheque, and saying regrettably the HSEM was closing with no further opportunity for membership. Imagine my surprise, when some time after this I saw an update on their website saying the following:

Members will be aware that the HSE AGM, held in London on Saturday 18th January, considered a motion from the Board of Trustees that proposed Human Scale Education ceased to operate as an independent charity and that its objectives be pursued through a range of other strategies and channels. After extended discussion, this was overwhelmingly rejected by the 12 members present and there was similar strong support for a proposal that Human Scale Education should continue to operate as an independent charity. The members of the Board of Trustees stepped down from their role as they had intended and a new Board of Trustees was nominated. At the close of the AGM the out-going Board pledged their full support to the new Board that consists at this stage of: Kate Hickman, Robin Precey (Chair), Rosalyn Spencer and Mary Tasker 

Apart from the absurdity of the turnaround only days after returning my cheque, the fact there were only 12 members around in London who were there to take such an important vote is really exploring the outer limits on human scale decision making. Talk about clique. Someone must be getting something out of HSE charity status; maybe expenses for jollies in London. Maybe they can organize a piss up in a brewery after all.

By North Utsire

Dumbing Us Down

John Taylor Gatto was named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991. In 1991, he wrote a letter announcing his retirement, titled I Quit, I Think, to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, saying that he no longer wished to "hurt kids to make a living." He then began a public speaking and writing career, and has received several awards from libertarian organizations, including the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for Excellence in Advancement of Educational Freedom in 1997. He is best known for the underground classic "Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling", and his magnum opus "The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling”. He promotes homeschooling, and specifically unschooling and open source education.

“I've noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my thirty years of teaching: schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers to care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic -- it has no conscience. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive from a common ancestor.”

“This was once a land where every sane person knew how to build a shelter, grow food, and entertain one another. Now we have been rendered permanent children. It’s the architects of forced schooling who are responsible for that.”

“Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your roadmap through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important, how to live and how to die.”

By North Utsire

Unschooling

Frank Zappa, Ken Robinson, and Noam Chomsky explain the real purpose of the industrialised schooling model. UPDATE Nov 2015: Ever since Blogger changed the format of their video reader/ player, I've had to go back fixing every blog I've done, which is more than slightly annoying & still a work in progress. Some of the 'replacement' videos are obvious, some have required a bit of detective work to figure out what I posted in the first place. The 3rd video in this post was impossible to work out though, just being an empty grey box, so I replaced it with the trailer from the 1969 film Kes. Watching the trailer reminded me how brilliant I find the retro folky soundrtack by John Cameron. I expect it came as a surprise because I usually watch Kes in a wistful moment thinking of my school days, half falling asleep on a Saturday in the small hours to a headswirl of grog. I suppose its one of those films (described on Wikipedia as a "word of mouth hit in Britain, eventually making a profit."). In case you decide to do the late night headswirl showing of the film and fall asleep before the end; the kestrel dies.

By North Utsire

Pyramid of the Capitalist System

 

By North Utsire

Rothschild Cartoons

By North Utsire

The Film Music of Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd have contributed some nifty music to a number of really quite good films in the late 60's and early 70's. In 1969, they recorded the score for Barbet Schroeder's film More. To summarise the film plot: German mathematics graduate is ruined thoroughly by the hedonistic lifestyle of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. ‘Tis the age old story. The soundtrack proved beneficial; not only did it pay well but, along with A Saucerful of Secrets, the material they created became part of their live shows for some time thereafter.

While composing the soundtrack for director Michelangelo Antonioni's film Zabriskie Point (1970), the band stayed at a luxury hotel in Rome for almost a month. Waters claimed that, without Antonioni's constant changes to the music, they would have completed the work in less than a week. Eventually he used only three of their recordings. One of the pieces turned down by Antonioni, called "The Violent Sequence", later became "Us and Them", included on 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon.

Zabriskie Plot Summary: Nihilistic youth drops out and seeks nullification in the desert, where he is met by a luscious open- legged vixen, where they form an unspoken pact to wage sweet anarchistic war on the world. Needless to say it all goes wrong. Played against a background of what appears to be the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) / Black Panthers student uprising, mentioned in this blog. Incidentally the stunning Kathleen Cleaver plays a cameo role in the political debate scene at the beginning of the film. The opening and end scenes are particularly affecting owing to the music:

In 1971, the band again worked with Schroeder on the film La Vallée, for which they released a soundtrack album called Obscured by Clouds. They composed the material in about a week at the Château d'Hérouville near Paris, and upon its release, it became Pink Floyd's first album to break into the top 50 on the US Billboard chart. Filmmaker Barbet Schroeder explores themes of sexual freedom, mind alteration, and pursuit of paradise against the backdrop of an early 70's encounter with the Mapuga rain forest tribe in upland New Guinea. The Valley, high in the Guinean mountains, is shown uncharted on maps as 'Obscured by Clouds' and is beyond their previous experiences. Considering the film was made in 1971, it is an amazing feat of documentation of the Papua New Guinean tribes, the eerie Mudmen, the "sing-sing" of the Asaro people, the Bird of Paradise feather craze, etc. which is portrayed so well in the Lost Tribes Documentary.

In researching the film music of Pink Floyd, I also discovered they did a soundtrack for a 1968 British independent Black-and-white film noir called The Committee. Not seen it yet, but I will watch it and maybe blog again. The opening bars seem to be more in line with their music from A Saucerful of Secrets.

By North Utsire

Lost Tribes Documentaries

These beautifully rendered documentaries by New Atlantis are amongst the best I have ever seen. From the fascinating and detailed content, lilting and at times poetic narration, to stunning camerawork, the above three documentaries are just a selection of many others from New Atlantis, well worth a watch.

By North Utsire

Zardoz: The 2nd Level (1974)

I guess when you just don't want to go to the 2nd Level, you just don't want to goddam go. I'm with Friend on this- why force it? [Video removed by Youtube]. 

By North Utsire