He’s also authored similar treatises on southern rock and the top 500 heavy metal songs of all time and while all of them are meant to be used as reference volumes, I read ‘em like novels so maybe I’m as sick as he is. I’d praise him for the research behind his writing, but something tells me it’s all stored upstairs, his knowledge of his subject transcending the adjective “encyclopedic.” Here’s a guy who loves his job. Color me green with envy…
7. “Sleazoid Express: A Mind-Twisting Tour Through The Grindhouse Cinema Of Times Square” – by Bill Landis & Michelle Clifford The single-minded devotion Landis and Clifford pay to New York’s notorious 42nd Street grindhouses. “Sleazoid Express,” named after the magazine founded by Landis in 1980, takes an unflinching, disturbing, and downright fascinating look at the mildewed, downtrodden, and mostly filthy theaters in Times Square whose stock in trade was screening sub-B films, the pond scum yin to Hollywood’s yang.
Exhibiting a fountain of expertise on the subject as well as an unbelievably rich prose style, the authors manage to accomplish the seemingly impossible – make gore epics, women-in-prison films, shockumentaries, race-hate movies, roughies, Orientalia, and Eurosleaze seem almost savory. Sections of this book may make you feel unclean (much like listening to an Ian Dury album) and, like the films it so joyously celebrates, is probably best enjoyed with a bongful of dope and a quart of warm, stale beer.
8. “Real Wild Child: Video Anthology” DVD – Joan Jett & The Blackhearts OK, guilty pleasure time…well, not really. Don’t laugh, but long before she shaved her head and became some sort of figurehead/icon for the lesbian nation, Joan Jett chewed gum, kicked ass, and took names, trafficking in crunchy glam, Stones, and AC/DC-influenced wedges of star-spangled noise and, uh, albums containing a lot of covers.
For a girl with an electric guitar, Jett was the real deal, coming into her own long about the time of 1983’s “Album,” despite hitting big a few years previous with “I Love Rock N’ Roll,” armed with an arsenal of Les Paul Juniors, clad in tight black leather or spandex, Converse high-tops, long raven tresses and oh, those eyes – she was truly dazzling (sigh)… Anyway, this double-disc collection gathers most of the ex-Runaway’s videos, concert clips, and TV ads, as well as preview interview segments with Dame Jett and musical partner Kenny Laguna.
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