We’re currently loving Vintage Beat by Joe Penna, also known as Mystery Guitar Man, a clever compilation of film clips from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s that are all connected together with a danceable soundtrack. Happy Monday 🙂
What kind of man reads Playboy? Well, if you believe the vintage ads for the magazine published between 1958 and 1974, the readers of Playboy are all young men, most caucasian, handsome, rich, talented, adventurous, athletic, intelligent, and always surrounded by beautiful women. In reality, it seems this advertising series was primarily intended to market the magazine to advertisers and convince them that readers were not just interested in photos of naked women. Ummm…ok sure 😉
Jean-Marie Donat: This mysterious and mildly terrifying series of vintage photographs taken in Germany between the first World War and the 1960s has now been published in a fascinating book entitled TeddyBär. Finding an old photograph of a man dressed as a polar bear by accident, publisher and art collector Jean-Marie Donat held on to the picture for fifteen years without thinking much about it until discovering a second, then a third similar image. It was then that Jean-Marie Donat had the idea to collect more photographs of these interesting men dressed as polar bears, posing with passersby, on the beach, and even with Nazi soldiers. So strange yet very intriguing – love it! 🙂
CNN: Transporting us back to the golden age of aviation, CNN have compiled a selection of vintage photographs from a time when airlines were selling globetrotting dreams and high-end luxury. The exact opposite of today’s low cost carriers, these photographs from the 50s and 60s remind us that air travel was once synonymous with fashion, cocktails, luxury, glamour, gastronomy, and social status although it did come at a price – a Sydney to London round trip cost the equivalent of thirty weeks wages! Happy Flashback Friday 🙂
David Lynch: In 1968, director David Lynch created the short film ‘The Alphabet’, a bizarre and slightly terrifying recitation of the ABCs that seems to invoke and reflect an extreme fear of learning. This work is very interesting and helps reiterate David Lynch as a true artist in every sense. Definitely worth a watch.
K. Henderson: We love these hyperrealist paintings by American artist K. Henderson, who pays tribute to her childhood with still lifes composed of vintage toys, books, board games and comics, mainly from pop culture of the 60s and 70s. Awesome work! 🙂
Sia: We can’t get enough of Sia’s haunting take on the 1965 The Mamas & The Papas tune, which was mastered for the San Andreas soundtrack and is grand, epic, and catchy – the sort of song you’ll most likely find yourself dramatically lip syncing to. Though it begins with a magnificent orchestra, the song transforms into a dance floor anthem (as Sia songs can do). With a different intention than the folk-rock quartet, this version seems to dwell on loss and catastrophe, proving the versatility of music ever the more. Damn, Sia—you’ve done it again. LOVE and on repeat all day.
Celebrities: Check out this great compilation video of celebrities, before they were famous, in commercials from the 1960s and 1970s. DJ Bobby FX has created an great compilation video of celebrities in commercials from the 1960s and 1970s before they were famous. He was able to dig up ads starring Robert De Niro, Farrah Fawcett, Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, and more. Have a look – who doesn’t love seeing footage of celebrities before they hit the big time.
The Wrecking Crew: The Beach Boys, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Sonny & Cher, Nat King Cole and many, many more. Behind their success was a group of studio musicians called The Wrecking Crew. What the Funk Brothers did for Motown, The Wrecking Crew did, only bigger, for the West Coast Sound. Six years in a row in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Grammy for “Record of the Year” went to Wrecking Crew recordings. And now, ‘The Wrecking Crew’ tells the story in pictures and that oh, so glorious sound. ‘The Wrecking Crew’ is a documentary film produced and directed by Denny Tedesco, son of legendary late Wrecking Crew guitarist Tommy Tedesco, and tells the story of the unsung musicians that provided the backbeat, the bottom and the swinging melody that drove many of the number one hits of the 1960’s. The Wrecking Crew was a nickname coined by drummer Hal Blaine for the group of studio and session musicians that played anonymously on many of these recordings. The crew backed dozens of popular singers, and were one of the most successful groups of studio musicians in music history. The Wrecking Crew’s members were musically versatile but typically had formal backgrounds in jazz or classical music. The talents of this group of “first call” players were used on almost every style of recording including television theme songs, film scores, advertising jingles and almost every genre of American popular music, from The Monkees to Bing Crosby. Notable artists employing the Wrecking Crew’s talents included Nancy Sinatra, Bobby Vee, The Partridge Family, The Mamas & the Papas, The 5th Dimension, The Association, The Carpenters, Glen Campbell, Cher, John Denver, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, The Grass Roots and Nat King Cole. The record producers most often associated with the Wrecking Crew are Phil Spector, who used the Crew to create his trademark “Wall of Sound”; and Beach Boys member and songwriter Brian Wilson, who used the Crew’s talents on many of his mid-1960s productions including the songs “Good Vibrations” and “California Girls”. LOVE – Can’t wait to see this doco in full! Check out the trailer below:
Mary Poppins: Andy Rehfeldt has created a fantastic mashup featuring English super nanny Mary Poppins belting out a death metal version of the her trademark song “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious“. Singers Sera Hatchett of Mercy Brown and Thomas Hinds performed the vocals, Andy Rehfeldt played all the instruments, and music producer Grant Cornish did all the arrangements. Mary Poppins is a 1964 musical fantasy film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney, with songs written and composed by the Sherman Brothers. The screenplay is by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, loosely based on P. L. Travers’ book series of the same name. The film, which combines live-action and animation, stars Julie Andrews in the role of a magical nanny who visits a dysfunctional family in London and employs her unique brand of lifestyle to improve the family’s dynamic. Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson, and Glynis Johns are featured in supporting roles. The film was shot entirely at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Mary Poppins was released to universal acclaim, receiving a total of thirteen Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture—an unsurpassed record for any other film released by the Walt Disney Studios—and won five; Best Actress for Andrews, Best Film Editing, Best Original Music Score, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Song for “Chim Chim Cher-ee”. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Now check this out, it’s so great!
