HONG KONG CONFIDENTIAL (1958, directed by Edward L. Cahn)

One of the many low-budget genre films made in the 1958-61 period by the team of director Edward L. Cahn and producer Robert E. Kent, HONG KONG CONFIDENTIAL was an amazing creation, perhaps the ultimate B-movie, bottom of the bill programmer. It’s now available on DVD and via Netflix, so perhaps it’s a good time to re-visit my 2002 review of it:

HONG KONG CONFIDENTIAL

US 1958, director Edward L. Cahn, starring Gene Barry, rating 8/10

GENE BARRY AS LOUNGE-SINGING COLD WAR SPY!

Those who like hard-boiled cold-war spy films, especially those made on a super-low budget, should love this 1958 classic, which features Gene Barry as a US intelligence agent whose “cover” is that of a mediocre lounge singer! Barry’s character is intentionally smarmy and funny, and he contrasts well with the hard-boiled spy action, set in backlot versions of Hong Kong and Macao, with a lot of tight shots of characters standing in front of Asian-looking signs and sections of buildings, often only six or eight feet wide. And of course, an alley is an alley and a warehouse is a warehouse, whether it be in Macao or Atlanta. Put a few Asian details in a dark alley, have a few Asian characters, and voila, you’ve got a film set in the Orient! Like many 1950s spy/crime films, this features a hard-boiled dragnet-esque narration telling you things you just observed on the screen (as well as events they can’t afford to film). Still, they don’t make films like this anymore, and clearly the filmmakers (and Mr. Barry, who is brilliant in the part!)were “in on the joke” so HONG KONG CONFIDENTIAL should appeal to fans of films such as RED ZONE CUBA, ROCKET ATTACK USA, INVASION USA, and OPERATION CIA. As always, director Edward Cahn is a master of pacing. Highly recommended!

new poetry chapbook, “TONALIST FURY” (KSE #232), from Bill Shute, now available

BILL  SHUTE

KSE #232 (poetry chapbook)

TONALIST  FURY (Sound Library Series, Volume 70)

Inspired by both Johnny Mandel’s twelve-tone score to the film POINT BLANK (1967) and by an exhibition of lesser-known American impressionist painters (hence the title), TONALIST FURY was composed in April 2012. This is a five-section poem, the first section of which was read as a “prologue” to the performance of  ”FASCINATION” that I did w/ Daniel Hipolito and Eva Kelly at the KSE 6th Anniversary Concert on April 29th.

The weeds are now being called  ”grass,”  the returning warriors are spending their blood money on designer baby clothes,  cancer survivors are being sent to debtor’s prison for medical expenses, the governor’s cronies are making money off prison labor…while we find fresh vision in the beyondness, grasp for chestnut echoes of epiphanies we did not stop to savor as they were unspooling, carry the weight of cover-stories we’ve memorized, and steep ourselves in the kind of thought that blossoms in the Mountain Time Zone at the jazz corner of the world, a world of online classes and astral initiation. I was reading a lot of Pasolini when I was writing this, and I’m sure Pier Paolo has crept in somehow…

Hand-assembled, hand-numbered edition of 49 copies (over a dozen gone already), 10 random copies of which are printed on the backs of Daytona Beach Kennel Club dog-racing programs!

Only $5 postpaid anywhere…payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

get your copy now, before it’s just a memory…

 

Bill Shute’s poetry discussed on New Hampshire Public Radio

thanks to Marc Masters for discussing my poetry in a radio piece on contemporary spoken-word, for National Poetry Month, on New Hampshire Public Radio…an honor to be mentioned alongside Richard Meltzer! Here’s a link to the podcast…

http://nhpr.org/post/poetry-you-can-hear

 

there’s also a brief excerpt from  ”Marion, Texas”  from the JUNK SCULPTURE FROM THE NEW GILDED AGE spoken-word album…

KSE 6th Anniversary Concert a smashing success….thanks to all!

KENDRA STEINER EDITIONS  6th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

part of 2012 Fusebox Festival

presented by Church of the Friendly Ghost

Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin, TX           29 April 2012

RICK REED (r) and BRENT FARISS (l)

SOUTHWESTERN FREE w/ Jonathan Horne (pictured, on sax and guitar) and Matt Armistead (percussion)

Daniel Hipolito (tapes, electronics), Eva Kelly (guitar, electronics), Bill Shute (poetry)

Ernesto Diaz-Infante, our featured guest artist who came in from San Francisco, did a solo set of material from his EMILIO album

for the final set, Ernesto was joined by Lee Dockery (l, bass) and Lisa Cameron (r, percussion w/ cookie tins) for a beautiful trio exploration, with the audience silent and attentive, on the edge of their chairs…

also a fine visual artist, Daniel Hipolito provided distinctive wall hangings (he’s putting them up here, before the show) that perfectly complemented the music…

L-R  Matt Armistead, Lee Dockery, Jonathan Horne, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Lisa Cameron, Eva Kelly

Bill Shute and Lisa Cameron, before the show….Lisa has been featured at all three KSE concerts in 2011-2012, and we’d never think of doing one without asking her to be involved!

thanks also to Matt Burnett who did his usual fantastic job w/ sound and visuals and logistics! 

KSE will probably take a break from label/press-sponsored concerts for a while as we put our attention into other projects, but we had a great and responsive crowd at this one and it couldn’t have been better, IMHO…

Justin Boyle of Austin Culture Map did a nice review of the show a few days after…you can read it here:

http://austin.culturemap.com/newsdetail/05-01-12-16-10-fusebox-2012-improv-grandeur-at-the-kendra-steiner-editions-party/

also, the esteemed new-music/free-jazz writer Clifford Allen was kind enough to provide a nice advance piece on the concert at The Austinist, which also includes reviews of Ernesto Diaz-Infante’s EMILIO album and Alfred 23 Harth/Carl Stone’s GIFT FIG album:

http://austinist.com/2012/04/27/church_of_the_friendly_ghost_presen_6.php

again, thanks to all…and don’t let me forget COTFG’s Henna Chou, who was a pleasure to work with in organizing the evening!

 

METAL ROUGE, “let us pretend that we have no place to go” (KSE #211), available now!

METAL  ROUGE

“let us pretend that we have no place to go”

(KSE #211, CDR)

$8.00 postpaid (please add $2 extra for postage outside the US, if ordering only one item, see our other cdr offerings below and order a few to save money–it now costs almost $5 to send ONE cdr to many countries!)

 payment via paypal to django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

Originally from New Zealand, now resident in Los Angeles where they operate the Emerald Cocoon arts collective and label, METAL ROUGE (Helga Fassonaki and Andrew Scott) are a band in a class of their own. With roots in Angus Maclise, Ya Ho Wa 13, Yoko Ono, Faust, the EPI-era Velvets, and Jandek,  METAL ROUGE have developed into the band that somehow bridges, unifies, and transcends all the categories created by music journalists and underground music dealers. Their five-volume late 2000′s release EPHEMEROPTERA was, to me, one of the handful of most significant releases of that period…one of the works that will still be as vital and as rich when it’s being savored 30 years from now. Tribal, higher-key, mind-expanding, it’s music that fulfills all the senses and suggests such a synesthesia that you’ll think you have 9 senses.

The brand-new release from METAL ROUGE, “let us pretend that we have no place to go” (KSE #211) which we are proud to present on the KSE imprint, is dedicated to the late film-maker/poet/artist/shaman Ira Cohen, and if you’re familiar with any of his work, you know where this work will take you. In the tradition of THE FAUST TAPES or Sonic Youth’s SONIC DEATH or some unlabelled Velvets bootleg, this is a collage-based work…because only a collage-based work can let as much light escape from its seams and broken places, can create an infinitely open work of possibility where the pieces continue to bleed meaning into each other differently with each listen. And the many shimmering shards of textured sound all come together in the end as the album closes with a recent live performance excerpt, landing the craft back on Earth…

From the emerald cocoon onto the sun-baked streets of Los Angeles with stops in Tibet, Joujouka, and New Zealand…out of the frying-pan and into the aluminum fire…echoes of new post-apocalypse creation, almond-tinged and coming forth from the chalky deserts of psychedelic sorcery…follow the lightning into the world of METAL ROUGE..

Thanks to Andrew and Helga for allowing KSE to offer this music to a thirsty world…

You can read an informative interview with Helga and Andrew at this link:  http://emeraldcocoon.blogspot.com/2011/07/metal-rouge-interview-january-2011.html

and don’t forget our much-praised series of experimental music on CDR, also $8 each postpaid:

KSE #220 (CDR), MATT KREFTING, “Sweet Days of Discipline”

KSE #223 (CDR), ALISTAIR CROSBIE, “A Campfire In The Snow”

KSE #225 (CDR), XANTHOCEPHALUS, “3 W B” REISSUE (full-sized CDR reissue of KSE #204, which was a 3″ mini-cdr, this reissue is limited to 35 copies)

KSE #224 (CDR), MASSIMO MAGEE & TIM GREEN, “Direct To Tape” REISSUE (full-sized CDR reissue of KSE #191, which was a 3″ mini-cdr, this reissue is limited to 40 numbered copies)

KSE #221 (CDR), DEREK ROGERS, “circum_navigate” REISSUE (full-sized CDR reissue of KSE #170, which was a 3″ mini-cdr, this reissue is limited to 30 numbered copies)

KSE #211 (CDR), METAL ROUGE, “let us pretend that we have no place to go”

KSE # 210 (CDR), HEATHER LEIGH, “Empire”

KSE #214 (CDR), SABRINA SIEGEL,”Bottlecaps”

KSE #207 (CDR), ALFRED HARTH & CARL STONE, “Gift Fig”

KSE #206  (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Emilio”

limited reprint of KSE #118, “Venetian Sage,” now available

BILL  SHUTE

“Venetian Sage”

limited May 2012 reprint of KSE #118, originally published in a 29-copy edition in January 2009

Composed on my front porch, mornings before sun-up,  during the Christmas/New Year’s holiday week in December 2008, this was a favorite of many readers when it came out in January 2009. However, since that was a prolific period, it may have gotten lost in the shuffle. We  issued only 29 copies of this, which sold out in about 2 weeks. It remains one of my favorites. An ode to Salvia, a skewering of Ezra Pound, a lampooning of academic poets, a phenomenology of the pre-dawn world on Pat Booker Rd., VENETIAN SAGE also foreshadows the kind of work I’m doing now, 3+ years later. Which of course I did not know at the time.

I was also working on a collaborative poetry project with the amazing poet Zachary C. Bush at this time, as I remember, which may or may not have influenced this. I know that the Pound references were intended on one level as a poke to Zachary (and a poke to Uncle Ez,  if he’s finished his time in Purgatory by now).

VENETIAN SAGE—the kind of poetry chapbook that could be written only in Texas, where life is cheap!

Special reprint only $5 with any other KSE purchase…while they last…

payable via paypal to  django5722(at)yahoo(dot)com

and what else do we have available now?

want more poetry? we also have other fine chapbooks available, each one hand-numbered and hand-cut and assembled in an inexact manner…the hand of the artisan is always visible at KSE!

poetry chapbooks ($5 each, ppd.):

KSE #218, BILL SHUTE, “Florentine Dictations” Sound Library Series, Volume 64

KSE #217, BILL SHUTE, “Fascination” Sound Library Series, Volume 67

KSE #215, BILL SHUTE, “Outfake”   Sound Library Series, Volume 66

KSE #212  ADRIAN MANNING, “These Hands of Mine”

KSE #197, A.J. KAUFMANN, “Love Lions of Paris” 

KSE #193, MICHAEL CASEY, “The Wall Board Knife”

KSE #185, Michael Layne Heath, “Jazzbo Wind.”

KSE #181, John Sweet, “Continuum.”

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Is reading too much of an effort? Why not try our spoken-word poetry albums, only $8 each , postpaid:

KSE #213 (CDR), Bill Shute, “Junk Sculpture from the New Gilded Age.” (2nd spoken-word poetry album)

KSE #208 (CDR), ANTHONY GUERRA & BILL SHUTE, “subtraction” (limited USA re-press of CD originally issued on Black Petal Records, Australia)

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and don’t forget our much-praised series of experimental music on CDR, also $8 each postpaid:

KSE #220 (CDR), MATT KREFTING, “Sweet Days of Discipline”

KSE #223 (CDR), ALISTAIR CROSBIE, “A Campfire In The Snow”

KSE #225 (CDR), XANTHOCEPHALUS, “3 W B” REISSUE (full-sized CDR reissue of KSE #204, which was a 3″ mini-cdr, this reissue is limited to 35 copies)

KSE #224 (CDR), MASSIMO MAGEE & TIM GREEN, “Direct To Tape” REISSUE (full-sized CDR reissue of KSE #191, which was a 3″ mini-cdr, this reissue is limited to 40 numbered copies)

KSE #221 (CDR), DEREK ROGERS, “circum_navigate” REISSUE (full-sized CDR reissue of KSE #170, which was a 3″ mini-cdr, this reissue is limited to 30 numbered copies)

KSE #211 (CDR), METAL ROUGE, “let us pretend that we have no place to go”

KSE # 210 (CDR), HEATHER LEIGH, “Empire”

KSE #214 (CDR), SABRINA SIEGEL,”Bottlecaps”

KSE #207 (CDR), ALFRED HARTH & CARL STONE, “Gift Fig”

KSE #206  (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “Emilio”