/ˈbɪnd(ə)lstɪf/

As you can see, I'm a real lightning bolt when it comes to posting. However, once in a while I hit a winning streak and I want to share.

I recently revisited Pieter Hugo's site - a phenomenal photographer with a psychically keen sense of what I would find enormously interesting. One likes to think he is well-known for his set of photos entitled "The Hyena & Other Men", but that may be high hopes talking. While looking through his Nollywood images, I noticed a link entitled "Control" off to the left. Turns out he assisted on the video shoot for Spoek Mathambo's cover of Joy Division's Control. The other cinematographer on the scene was Michael Cleary, also clearly talented (and mentioned more below). The video, to me, is a revelation. Every still makes for a striking (and sometimes disturbing) piece of art - the song itself has been successfully revamped into eerie contemporary electro. Combining the two makes for a thought-provoking result.

SPOEK MATHAMBO - CONTROL from spoek mathambo on Vimeo.

Once in a while you "discover" these amazing pairings...the most recent I can think of would be Satoshi Kon and Susumu Hirasawa (as seen in this clip from the movie Paprika). One talent hyperfocuses another with a near-perfect melding, and the end result is exponentially more powerful than what might have otherwise been produced.



Following through, I jumped on the Spoek Mathambo train and discovered I quite love the bloke's music. "War On Words" is a track not to be trifled with - and again, the video is surprisingly substantial. Note the description on Vimeo.

SPOEK MATHAMBO - WAR ON WORDS from spoek mathambo on Vimeo.

I took a small segue over to Michael Cleary's page, where I found the gorgeous clip for Howard Roak's song "You Got The Moves". I'm a little 'eh' regarding the song, but the visuals are dripping with texture. I then noted his work with Max Normal/Die Antwoord, on their video for the song Total Fuck-Up.



Completely hooked by goofy loops, syncopated flows, and some excellent visuals, I started watching other Die Antwoord clips. A friend sent me this, showcasing Yo-Landi Visser's chameleon skills:



...I'm still in the middle of devouring all this South African music (and the associated visuals) like it was caramel popcorn; as I find more, I'll post it. It's a good day when you go from complete ignorance to complete love of something.

Today's easy breezy post is a quick spin 'round YouTube. The Train of Thought, easily turned off course and occasionally derailed - I was looking for groovy library music LPs and the sidebar pulled me off into les merveilles du sexe français. Amazing grooves, tinged with funk and a hint of danger. And the pacing of Jungle Trumpet is rather spirited. To hell with the candles and wine. 


7" reissue and artist write-up here.



More about this amazing track here.



The man needs no introduction, but just in case....



My goodness, this is tasty. I can find almost no information on Pierre Dutour, other than plentiful affirmations that he was a hidden genius lurking in French library music. In case you wanted to lose yourself in the sound for a day or two, try here.


Et voilà!

What better way to start a blog than begin with an entry on Jim Simon?

I'm riding the euphoric wave of an epiphany - for decades I've wondered who created the seminal Sesame Street clip alternately referred to as "A Loaf of Bread, a Container of Milk, and a stick of Butter" or "I Can Remember":



A friend assisted me by locating the Sesame Street episode guide. Seems it was featured in Episode 0988, and was made by the artist Jim Simon. From here, I grabbed this long sought-after information and ran like hell, figuratively pushing down old ladies in the street in my excitement, like a violent Charlie with the Golden Ticket. Now I had it in my hands.

Off to Google. The search '"Jim Simon" animator' resulted in this lovely bio on the Michael Sporn Animation, Inc. Splog, which is how I discovered Wantu Enterprises (alternately referred to as Wantu Animation). Simon's sense of design was very unique, and is one of the reasons his clips are so very, very memorable to so many of us. The Sporn site makes it sound as though he's dropped out; I found this biographical write-up, which indicates he had no end of trouble whilst an animator (up to and including a toy company allegedly taking one of his designs for their own). So he stopped creating cartoons, and now creates still art. The Sporn bio's intro mentions that he moved from the Sesame Street and Electric Company clips to Yogi's Space Race, The Smurfs and X-men, which seems massively subpar compared to his Wantu work. There's an excellent YouTube playlist dedicated to Wantu here, including this killer clip I'd nearly forgotten about, "Hey Diddle Diddle":




As an aside, Sesame Street and Electric Company raised me, and Jim Simon's clips took my hand and helped me along. The multi-culti urban swirl of the shows helped a little country mouse on her way. There's been a huge sentimental return to the shows - released on dvd and some fuss about editing and ratings. But that's a discussion for another day. The most monumental memory I have involving Jim Simon is a childish adoration, combined with fear, of his show "Vegetable Soup" (so many people say this, I feel like an ass for repeating it). There was something about it that mesmerized me and yet scared me at the same time. The Wikipedia entry for Vegetable Soup states:

"The purpose of the program was to be a television series for children to help counter the negative, destructive effects of racial prejudice and racial isolation and to reinforce and dramatize the positive, life-enhancing value of human diversity in entertaining and affective presentations that children could understand and relate to. Vegetable Soup used an interdisciplinary approach to entertain and educate elementary age children in the value of human diversity."

And tv.com gives me the theme song lyrics (even if it can't provide any other information); said song vaguely remembered, hazy at the edges and middle:

Come on along and join us
Come on along
We're gonna have some fun
Come on along and join us
In a little bowl of Vegetable Soup
It takes all


imdb.com is as clueless. And no DVD release seems imminent. According to the wiki, James Earl Jones, Daniel Stern and Bette Midler provided some of the voice talent. And the show supposedly ran from 1975 to 1978. I sure would like to see it again. And, after typing that, I found the ovguide.com set of clips! Which led me to a spate of YouTube clips, including this:



and this:



and this!




According to his biography and home site, Jim Simon was in the process of developing an animated show called "The Lil' Soul Train and the Soul Kids". If this ever saw the light of day, I would surely like to know. Speaking of Soul Train, the excellent blog StereoTyped has a great entry on Simon entitled "James Simon, AKA "The Black Walt Disney" With Soooouuuullllll!!!!!", which lets me know he was the creator of that magificent choo-choo in the Soul Train intro:



It seems a dead shame that Wantu Enterprises was (from the sounds of it) pushed around and pressured and messed with; multiple award-winning, and a preeminent presence in art and animation, Simon's work has stuck with me all this time....even though I didn't know his name until today.


'"Wantu" is Swahili for "beautiful" and the symbol used for the logo means "new birth". That's the theme of the company, the New Birth of Beautiful Animation, and Wantu hasn't stopped growing since.'"