O MIGHTY RAY

Based on a true story. Maybe. We don't even know anymore.

SMALL SPACE

Holidays are over, people of Britain. Get back to work.

UP THE SPOUT

The members of TOMTIT recently convened at the bucolic, bubonic Cottage of Electric Hell for a weekend of hiking, drinking and sheep worrying. At around 3.30 one morning we decided to watch the film of David Bowie’s Glass Spider Tour. No, wait, come back, we can explain…actually, we can’t. It was a mad decision, utterly devoid of logic. It was, of course, all Fearlono’s idea.

The Glass Spider Tour took place in 1987, in support of a pretty mediocre but relatively well selling album called ‘Never Let Me Down’. It was a tour of excess: the most expensive ever staged, with an enormous amount of money spent on an vast illuminated spider that stood over the stage and the performers and was so big that it wouldn’t fit into most venues, so they had to build another, smaller one.

The tour was an amalgam of music, theatre, dance and, gulp, mime and, to be frank, was shit. Virtually every single thing about it detracts from the power and beauty of Bowie’s music, from the insistence on performing mediocre tracks from the new album to fucking up stone cold classics with unsympathetic arrangements and embarrassing dance routines. Special attention should be paid to a really dire version of ‘Rebel Rebel’ in which David and dancers high kick their way around the stage like demented Moulin Rouge dancers who have been co-opted into the Nazi party. The song ends with one last stupendous, stratospheric kipper splitting kick from Dave, which the film makers freeze and fade out on, inadvertently giving the impression that Bowie has kicked a hole in the fabric of time and space, and is now stuck in some sort of aerobic limbo.   

David Bowie, usually so cool, looks ridiculous, his hair teased into a huge quiff, wearing a disgusting red suit with matching boots tipped and heeled in silver. He keeps smiling, too, but it is not a smile of joy or contentment, it is an apologetic, embarrassed smile, a sheepish, conciliatory smile, as if he knows that he is desperately wrong but hopes that you love him enough to forgive him.

The music never stops – it’s all obligato, no staccato – and everyone on stage (about thirty people it seems) are all playing, all the time, filling every millisecond of music with a noodle or a paradiddle. When the tireless Carlos Alomar and indefatigable Peter Frampton (who resembles Jack from ‘On The Buses’) solo it is like being trapped in a lunatic’s migraine.  

We are huge fans of David Bowie, but we are also purists, and deeply suspicious of his post ‘Scary Monsters’ output. The ninety minutes we spent gawping at the Glass Spider Tour more than justify that stance. It is not that we didn’t enjoy it, in fact we found it utterly fascinating and gobsmackingly compelling, like the Hindenberg disaster. Oh, the humanity!

Anyway, here’s something we made, culled from the audio track of the tour. If you have any issues with it, contact David directly: he said these things, we just stuck them together. If Iman answers – hang up.  

HE IS SO TOUGH

This isn't a particularly good record, but who cares with a sleeve like this? From the 1977 film 'Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century'.

The obverse carries the lyrics, which are brilliant.

GREAT BALLS OF FYRE

No smartarse comments from us required. General mood after listening to this ten times: FUCK THE WORLD.

A LIKELY STORY

206 pages, the upshot of which is: the Hebrew God Yahweh was an astronaut who happened upon our Earth and got into a pissing contest with the resident God, Elohim. Yahweh wasn't very popular, so he created his own separate race to worship him: the Jews. And that's why anti-semitism is such a big problem. And it's all in The Bible, if you know where to look, and Marc Dem knows where to look, because he's got a massive brain and is an incredibly sensitive and perceptive person who is ABSOLUTELY NOT against the people of Israel. 

We read this shit so you don't have to. Well, we skim it. We skim shit. There's the motto if we ever get a TOMTIT coat of arms. 

XTRO, XTRO, READ ALL ABOUT IT

Looks like P. Parsons is back in business. This glossy SF film magazine landed on our car this morning, and we didn't even reserve a copy by cutting out a coupon and spoiling the back cover.

TEUTONIC INFERNO

Electric Orange are from Westphalia in Germany. The title of one of their albums is 'Krautrock from Hell', which perhaps sums up their mix of drifting psychedelic jam music and occasionally crunching riffage. 

Lots of stuff here and on You Tube, which has several of their albums in their entirety, including 'Platte', a record that sounds like Pompeii era Pink Floyd but without the gongs and afghan hounds.  

HOW SAVAGE ARE YOU?

‘Brutes and Savages’ is a mondo film, so you’ll know what to expect: dusky foreign breasts and repulsive animal cruelty.

The clearly Italian ‘Arthur Davis’ leads an expedition into Africa and South America to document the primitive rites of the indigenous people, the titular brutes and savages. His modus operandi is to tip up to a remote village and ask for the head man’s permission to film some notorious ritual that the tribe are famous for. When the chief refuses (perhaps because he is frightened of Arthur’s salmon safari suit) Arthur makes the culturally insensitive decision to go ahead and film it anyway, at which point we cut to some faked footage that goes on for ages. Don’t worry though:  ‘all scenes, whether actual or simulated, represents actual truth’.

This truth includes a turtle having its throat cut, a goat being decapitated, a llama having its heart removed and numerous scenes of birds and animals killing and eating each other. 

Oh, and a monkey gets put on a fire. 

The whole thing peaks very early on, with a bizarre sequence in which African tribesmen are forced to wade through a river as part of their initiation into manhood. Using stock footage, blatant re-enactment and a series of unconvincing models, the film makers stage a fatal crocodile attack, including jump cuts to footage featuring a different man battling a plastic croc in what looks like a California swimming pool. It’s pathetic, especially the fake hands and fake head stuffed in the fake reptiles fake mouth. Worryingly for the viewer, this is the highlight of the film, and there is still an hour and fifteen minutes left to run.

It's a long haul to the end, although we do get to see men simulate sex with llamas and get a sneak peek at South America’s most important collection of ‘erotic pottery’ (Arthur takes great pleasure in pointing out the penises). Mostly, however, it’s quite boring, interspersed with uneasy moments of graphic nastiness. On the plus side, the music is by Riz Ortalini, and is excellent, although sadly unavailable at present, which is just fucking typical. 

In the end analysis, the narrator (the recently deceased Richard Johnson, slumming it to the extent that he is virtually a homeless, meth addicted derelict) asks if these ‘brutes and savages’ are really any worse than us so-called sophisticates. Is slowly sawing out the throat of a turtle any different to killing a chicken? Does having deep freezes and TVs make us better people? Aren’t we all really brutes and savages at heart?

He’s got a point.

But, unfortunately, he chose to make it in this film.

KINESICS

TOMTIT read a lot of self-help books and instructional leaflets, not because we haven't reached perfection but because it is important to know what your enemy has in his arsenal. Let's face it, it's not the books or even the writers that you have to look out for, but the readers: anyone who buys a book about 'projecting unspoken orders that must be obeyed' to use in earnest needs to be carefully watched: they're clearly some sort of dangerous psychopath, looking for a way to put you under their power. Avoid.

MEGALITHIC

The observant among you will notice something highly irregular about this vintage postcard of Stonehenge. That's right, old people are not usually allowed in the inner circle for hygiene reasons.

HAUNT OF DOOM

TOMTIT love horror comics more than mere words can express, so don't expect any unnecessary verbiage on our new ALL HORROR COMIC blog, HAUNT OF DOOM. Visit once a week for covers and diabolical stories and artwork. Yes. it is exciting, especially as we are pretentious and puffed up with our own importance to the extent that we can now legitimately claim to be 'curating an archive'.  

THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH

Yeah, so this is a real thing, a show from 1976. The synopsis is just about perfect:

'Bigfoot finds a young boy lost in the vast wilderness of the American north west. Bigfoot raises the boy and calls him Wildboy. Now, eight years later, they fight crime and aliens who show up around their forest home.'

Putting aside why Bigfoot didn't try and contact social services, it's worth noting that one of this particular Bigfoot's battle moves is a prodigious leap, something not previously attributed to Sasquatch in anyhing I've ever seen or read. Crime and aliens won't know what's hit them.   

American TV at it's very best. 

PLAY THAT FUNKY MUSIC, WHITE GIRL

(((TOMTIT))) are  currently composing. A word to the wise: whatever we're doing won't be anywhere near as good as what this young woman is playing, so prepare yourself for a disappointment.

HE WILL NOT ANSWER YOU

You can ask Uri Geller about his special powers, he will be delighted to tell you all about them. You can ask him about his charity work, he will happily give you the details. You can ask him about his friendship with Michael Jackson, he will speak eloquently and sincerely on the matter. But if you ask him about his 1974 album, and what the fuck he was thinking, HE WILL NOT ANSWER YOU.

DAREDEVIL, BENT METAL

This is what we love about Marvel in the seventies: Daredevil can meet Uri Geller and, after he insults him, they can team up to fight a villain called Mind Wave together. Simple.  

THE DEVIL TIMES TWO

Millionaire playboy and explorer turned fanatical anti-Satanist Phillip St. George is back, and this time it’s not quite as personal. In the first book, St. George was seeking revenge for the horrific murder of his beautiful wife, a task that he was spectacularly successful at. This time around he’s after a New York coven led by a foxy witch lady, a woman as ruthless as she is attractive. St. George doesn’t BELIEVE in Satanism, of course, he just knows the danger its adherents pose. His sworn duty is to kill them all, and then set fire to where they live.

The most ridiculous scene in this ridiculous book is when he is captured, drugged and laid out, naked, ready for sacrifice. As the witch looks him up and down, she is so impressed by his physical beauty and, not to mince words, the enormous size of his penis, that she decides to make him her lover instead. It’s the break that our big cocked hero needs, and the coven are on borrowed time from there on in.

It seems that this second book in The Satan Sleuth series was also the last. It’s a shame, as although they’re not great literature, they are great fun, and they are perfect for train journeys that last about two hours.      

OUR FAVOURITE MYSTERIOUS LOOSE AND LIMBER SEMI-STONER ROCK GROUP

Number One:

Pyramidion

A TERRIBLE PLAGUE

There’s nothing Guy N. Smith loves more than a disaster; man-made or ecological, he’s really not bothered. Thirst begins with a tanker full of deadly weed killer crashing into a reservoir, sinking to the bottom and contaminating millions of gallons of water destined for the taps of Birmingham. The lucky Brummies get a form of rabies then, within a few hours, die desperately dehydrated and covered in popping boils and pustulent ulcers. The unlucky ones, more or less abandoned by the authorities, are left to fight for survival in Britain’s second city, a place torn apart by death and disease, looting, lawlessness, rape, murder and madness. Apart from the Cliff Richard film ‘Take Me High’, it’s the worst thing that has ever happened there. 

The beauty of anarchy in Guy N Smith’s fictional world is that it allows the author to pad out the story with endless vignettes about nasty people meeting nasty ends. In fact, almost three quarters of the book is dedicated to a non-stop orgy of random violence, and you sense that Smith is really enjoying himself, letting his imagination run riot along with his characters. The typical pattern is to introduce a character, then let us share his or her thoughts and feelings for a while and wonder where they fit in with the overall narrative. The character will then be pushed off a roof, set fire to, castrated or torn apart by a big dog or a big mob. We are then introduced to another character and the cycle begins again.

Halfway through this bloody insanity, Smith becomes suddenly fixated upon the restorative powers of shandy, with a few tins of the stuff taking on a talismanic quality. It’s a typical Smith detail: a fantastic mundanity. It’s a very British trait, and one of the reasons we always enjoy his work so much.   

There is a sequel to this book (‘Thirst II: The Plague’), but we’re going to have a nice rest before we tackle it. Now, where's that shandy?

BECAUSE OF THUMBS

If you sometimes worry about the world and your place in it, just think of this diagram, which conclusively proves that one naked man is better than anything that lives, swims, floats, crawls or scuttles in the ocean. Why? Thumbs, that's why. Thumbs. 

NIMOY NO MORE

Missing you already, Leonard. See you on the other side.

EVERYBODY AND EVERYTHING WAS DOING IT ALL THE TIME

We really miss the 70s.