R.I.P. JANINE REYNAUD, 1930 - 2018

Word has come our way that Janine Reynaud, the iconic actress of Jess Franco's "Succubus" and "Kiss me Monster", has passed away. She also acted in several European cult faves of mine including the spy film "Ypotron", Max Pecas's "I Am A Nymphomaniac" and José Bénazéraf's "Frustration". Reynaud acted in about 30 movies total, her untypically striking appearance will remain a staple in my mind of the Euro cult movie world. R.I.P. Janine Reynaud, 1930 - 2018.

TRAILER OF THE MOMENT: "LORNA: THE EXORCIST" AKA "LINDA"

The theatrical trailer for Jess Franco's Lorna: The Exorcist also released under the title Linda, 1974. Starring Lina Romay, Pamela Stanford, Guy Delorme, Jacqueline Laurent, Richard Bigotini, Catherine Lafferière and Howard Vernon.

The trailer surfaced on Nucleus Films' "Grindhouse Trailer Classics 3" DVD. The entire series is excellent and can be purchased at
http://www.nucleusfilms.com/grindhouse-trailer-classics-3.html

The movie itself was released by Mondo Macabro.
http://www.mondomacabrodvd.com/mod147.html

More info on this title at
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072019/combined

TUNE OF THE MOMENT: "VENUS IN FURS" THEME BY SYD DALE

JESS FRANCO R.I.P.

We've received the sad news today that our beloved Jess Franco has passed early this morning. Last Wednesday Jess was admitted into a hospital in Malaga, Spain after suffering a bad stroke and has been in intensive care treatment since. Now that he is at peace, we can only hope that he's gone on to meet his beloved Lina (who unexpectedly passed on February 15th, 2012) in Heaven.

In memory of Jess Franco we invite you to listen to our free playlist of select music from his films, "Jess Franco at the Movies" on Spotify. Freaturing tracks by Bruno Nicolai, Jerry Van Rooyen, Daniel J. White, Gerhard Heinz, Killer Barbies and others.

LINA ROMAY R.I.P.

All of my heroes are dying. I heard the sad news yesterday that Lina had passed away on February 15th, 2012 due to cancer. My prayers go out to Jess Franco who surely must feel lost now without her.


I had the pleasure to work with them both 10 years ago for 1 month. I can tell you that when Lina was away from the acting lights she was very warm and intelligent with a smart sense of humor. It was nice to learn how down-to-Earth she was and that she did not take all of the movie madness too seriously. Having said that, I've never seen anyone so professional. When I first met her in 1996 she seemed to know very little English (and my Spanish was non-existant). By the time I worked with her in 2000 she was acting entirely in English. Not only did she have all of her lines memorized in English, but she seemed to know everyone else's as well! Lina was also an excellent camera person and editor and not too many people are aware of these facts. If you've ever seen the "Killer Barbies" promotional music video that she cobbled together using clips from the movie you can tell that she knew what she was doing. And when I went back over the raw footage that was shot for the "Antena Criminal" documentary I had forgotten just how much of it was shot by her because her photography blended so smoothly.




I never expected her to go this soon. Lina was always sweet, always professional and a pure joy to be around. And, of course, I don't have to tell you how beautiful she was. Rest in peace Lina.

TUNE OF THE MOMENT: "NEEDLE CHILL" by SEXY SADIE

In 1996 Date Bait, one of the 2 bands I was in at the time, performed at the Chiller Theatre convention in New Jersey. 2 of the guests that weekend were director Jess Franco and his actress wife Lina Romay. I was already a big fan of theirs but this was the time that I first actually got to meet them. Also performing that weekend were the bands Killer Barbies and Sexy Sadie. Not long after that, as I started getting involved with Jess Franco via the Brooklyn based One Shot Productions, I was sent some different CDs by various Spanish bands whom at that time were on the Spanish indie label Subterfuge Records. Subterfuge had released the soundtrack for Franco's "Killer Barbies" movie on CD and LP and eventually would go on to release the "Tender Flesh" soundtrack on CD. "Killer Barbies", Franco's horror-punk film starring the female-lead Ramones-esque band of the same name, also included music by Sexy Sadie. At the time, I hadn't paid much attention to Sexy Sadie's 2 tracks on the "Killer Barbies" soundtrack, I just sort of wrote them off as an okay Nirvana clone. In fact the night we had performed with them I was doubling over from the flu and didn't really know what was going on so pretty much I didn't remember what they sounded like. But later, the more I listened to the 2 full length CDs they had out at the time, the more they grew on me and I could tell they really had their own special thing going on and were not a copycat band at all. By their second CD the band was finding it's own sound even more than it's debut. But it was their third full-lengther, the 1998 release "It's Beautiful, it's Love", that really knocked me out. Overall they had adopted a more pop sound although with some very heavy bursts of distorted guitar mixed in. The general tone of the songs is what I would term "bitter-sweet", quite beautiful indeed but with a strong sad undercurrent.

Those couple of years, late 1996 to early 2000, was a great time for me as I was just getting more and more involved with One Shot Productions and Franco and everything just kind of melded together wonderfully. Discovering the old Jess Franco movies as they'd start to turn up more and more on VHS, the '60s and '70s soundtracks being released on CD, these groups and the other new bands from Spain I had never heard before, getting to travel to Spain to start working with Jess... the music, the movies... everything just really came together in a kind of groovy synchronicity. And this particular Sexy Sadie CD is one of the releases that really brings all that back for me.

Sexy Sadie released several other CDs later on, some singles, a live DVD and several hits / rarities collections. It seems they became rather quite popular in Spain before eventually breaking up in 2006. But outside of Spain, and certainly in the USA, it seems as though not many people have heard of them. Apparently at some point between their second CD and this one a member of the group reportedly suffered a heroin overdose and, from what I heard, pretty much had to learn to speak again. The band continued on without him and so I have always imagined that the song "Needle Chill", from this CD, was possibly written about the unfortunate guy although I could be totally wrong about that. Sexy Sadie, like a lot of the Spanish bands on Subterfuge, sing in a kind of broken English that is quite endearing. (Certainly their English is a LOT better than my Spanish though!) This track is one of the faster tunes on the CD, which is not to suggest that the other tracks are any less intense. In fact "It's Beautiful..." is such an overall solid release, there is not 1 weak song on it. So give a listen and discover a new old group that the US seems to have criminally ignored.


LINKS:
Sexy Sadie's MySpace Page is at http://www.myspace.com/translatesexysadie
Subterfuge Records website is at http://www.subterfuge.com/

VAMPYROS COMPLETOS

My close friend Dr. Penis has recently posted a blog about the 1996 "3 Films By Jess Franco" CD release, it's original 1969 source LPs and the subsequent re-releases under the "Vampyros Lesbos" title. Unfortunately the complete version of the CD featuring all of the music has been out of circulation for many years now. But if you check out the article over at his Purple Zombie DJ blog you can download it there for free! This psyche-pop music composed and released on 2 LPs in Germany circa 1969 by Manfred Hübler and Siegfried Schwab was a surprise indie hit when re-released on LP and CD in 1996 and pretty much then jump-started the entire Euro-trash soundtrack / pop / lounge music craze! I myself remember being given a cassette of this back then by my buddy Joe Johnson (creator of the ahead-of-it's-time way-cool fanzine "3:AM"). At first listen I didn't really know how to take it. It had rock elements but wasn't really rock. There was a psychedelic / experimental side to it but then it had a pop sound as well. After 2 or 3 listenings I was hooked! It became one of my fave soundtracks ever and I never get tired of listening to it. I remember tracking down fuzzy looking VHS bootlegs of the 3 Jess Franco German movies that the music was used for ("She Killed in Ecstasy", "Vampyros Lesbos" and "The Devil Came From Akasava"). None of these movies were subtitled and despite my lack of understanding most of the German dialogue I probably watched those tapes 10 times each! A big part of the appeal was finally seeing / hearing how the music was used in each film. Franco was always pretty progressive when it came to sometimes mixing in modern music with his movie scores. Somehow using these prog-ish and at the time modern sounds worked for those movies and set a whole new flavor to the way Euro-exploitation movies sounded. Franco had already used music by Manfred Mann in his "Venus In Furs" (aka "Paroxismus", 1970) and would go on to direct "Killer Barbys" (1996), a gothic horror flick featuring music by and starring the titular Spanish garage punkers of the same name, as well as "Tender Flesh" (1997) which featured music by the heavily under rated Spanish rock band Sexy Sadie. Not to mention "Vampire Blues" which was scored by my band The Ubangis. "Vampire Blues", like "Vampyros Lesbos", was another lesbian re-telling of the Dracula story. Only Jess Franco could have come up with the idea of telling these kinds of stories using rock music as a sonic backdrop!

If you have any interest in movie soundtracks, psychedelia, strange pop music, Jess Franco or Euro-trash films then the original complete "3 Films by Jess Franco" CD is required listening folks! GO GET IT NOW while you can!

LINKS:
The Purple Zombie DJ blog is at http://purplezombiedj.blogspot.com/
The "3 Films by Jess Franco" ("Vampyros Lesbos") article is at http://purplezombiedj.blogspot.com/2009/02/3-films-by-jess-franco-vampyros-lesbos.html