Images of Peter: Finding Peter Godwin

Interview and introduction by Emily Carney

Cherchez la femme: “Images of Heaven”

Years ago (it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten what year it was exactly), I was watching one of those late night “alternative” music shows on MTV, looking for videos by my then-favorites, Joy Division and New Order (I regularly bored friends to tears in school gushing about these two bands). I thought it was slightly insulting that the very best musical artists around were only seen on a Sunday night at 12:00 a.m. and later.

I had a crappy circa-1983 VHS recorder I would tape these videos on. . . I remember these tapes were filled with old-wave hits. Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien,” the Psychedelic Furs “Love My Way,” and the Human League’s “Love Action (I Believe in Love)” were just a few of the videos I remember seeing over and over again on extremely grainy videotape.

. . . But I digress. This one particular night a video by a guy called Peter Godwin flickered to life on the Magnavox TV screen. It was called “Images of Heaven” and it straddled the line between being ridiculously 1980s and strangely intriguing. The plot of the video included a man living in a rather sophisticated townhouse (with a spiral staircase!) being tormented by a sexy woman who existed in his television, and in his mind. His apartment was filled with fur, leopard-skin rugs, and silver couch cushions. (I’ll bet it smelled like Opium by Yves Saint Laurent.)
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The Life Of A 21st Century Musician: An Interview With Jim Campilongo

Interviewed by J Howell

To read this article as a single page, please click this link.

Once, longer ago than I care to admit, I was a kid who’d just picked up his first electric guitar. Around that time, Guitar Player seemed to always have this ad in the back, featuring a hilariously startled-looking cat, for a band called “Jim Campilongo and the Ten Gallon Cats.” That very silly image stuck with me. A few years later, Jim was finally featured in the magazine, and though I still hadn’t heard his music, the descriptions of “ghostly wails emanating from a Vibrolux Reverb” also stuck with me.

Fast forward a few more years and, thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I was finally able to hear Jim, and damned if Heaven Is Creepy wasn’t all I’d hoped it would be and then some. Jim’s newest record, Orange, is out in February on his own Blue Hen Records. Campy just may be the best guitarist working today, and he recently took some time out of his very busy schedule to chat with me.
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The Life Of A 21st Century Musician: An Interview With Jim Campilongo (single page)

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Warped Tour in Kansas City: I’m Too Old For This Shit

By Danny R. Phillips

Prior to August 4th, it had been eleven years since I had last joined the tattooed masses as an attendee of The Vans’ Warped Tour. I was younger then in both body and mind. Standing on the boiling pavement this year watching the crowd pass me like a pierced, dyed, rainbow bedazzled tsunami, I saw two distinct classes, scratch that, generations, go by.

One was an older, punk-appreciating culture with fading tattoos and greying hair that grew up on Bad Religion, The Descendents, Fugazi, Bad Brains, The Zero Boys, and the Circle Jerks (I, obviously fall into group A) and the other was the day glo “skittle core kids” who worship The Devil Wears Prada and Attack! Attack! like they were the Dead Milkmen or The Ramones.

Dragging myself between five stages and countless bands, it dawned on me (and my trusty photographer) that at 15, the Vans’ Warped Tour was experiencing a midlife crisis of sorts and was, in fact, no longer the festival of years gone by. It is clear that I am a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit named Hot Topic. Like Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon flicks, “I am too old for this shit!”
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The Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets: An Interview With Toren Atkinson

Interviewed by Megashaun

I first heard of The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets at last year’s Penny Arcade Expo. The band was there and had a booth set up because they were playing at one of the concerts during the convention. Around this time, their song, “Shhh…” was introduced as downloadable content for the video game Rock Band. Although initially drawn to them by the visual aesthetic of their album designs and the scruffy yet handsome appearance of the band’s members, I was pleased to find out upon listening to their album Cthulhu Strikes Back that the band has a great deal of musical talent and that their music has a lot more going for it than catchy hooks and bellowing vocals.

When I later listened to The Shadow Out of Tim, I was even more impressed. The album’s dark undertones are a perfect complement to its catchy, even poppy, foundation. It’s also just a little bit scary, but more importantly it kicks a lot of ass.

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets are known for their energetic live shows. While I’ve sadly never had the opportunity to see them play live, I can tell just from looking at photos that the shows must be a great deal of fun. That, and Toren Atkinson, lead singer of the band, tells a good story about the origins of their live shtick.

Photo from thickets.net
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She Put A Record On: An Interview With Gudrun Gut

Interviewed by Ann Clarke

Gudrun Gut isn’t a household name (not in North America, anyway). You’re not going to hear her on any Top 40 radio stations, but you might hear her whilst shopping in those bath and body stores called The Body Shop (true story, I actually heard a song of hers whilst shopping in there). However, her level of North American obscurity doesn’t make her any less important.
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Commanding Cobra: An Interview With Cobra Commander

Interviewed by Megashaun

After recently finding a blog written by Cobra Commander in which he laments many of his boring day-to-day activities, I thought he would make an interesting interview subject. Getting in touch with him wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. The email address listed on his blog seemed to be to an unattended mailbox. My first attempt at communication with him went something like this:
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Nothing Wrong With Liking A Flashy Man: An Interview With Dick Valentine

Interviewed by Christian Lipski

From the bouncy warning “Danger! High Voltage!”, through the metallic invitation to a “Gay Bar,” to the recent clarinet-laden declaration, “It’s Showtime,” Electric Six has been a band you can count on for high-energy music in a patchwork quilt of styles. Their new album, Flashy, is more of the same only in the sense that it’s utterly rocking. Lead singer Dick Valentine and band have put together a new collection of songs that span the gamut from the upstroke ska of “Your Heat Is Rising” to the electronic vocoder of “Making Progress.” Valentine took time out from the recording of E6′s new CD to talk with Popshifter‘s Christan Lipski about carbon footprints, the music industry, and the worst places in America.
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Toothpaste For Dinner: An Interview With Drew, Humorist

By Adam McIntyre

Drew and Natalie Dee are a husband and wife duo, creators of a handful of well-known webcomics. I discovered them through their joint creation, Married To The Sea, which updates with a new comic at midnight—every night. Their webcomics—and now videos on YouTube—often become viral Internet phenomena. I had a chat with Drew about the nature of their work and where it may be headed.
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A “Very” Exclusive interview with Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

By Danny R. Phillips

Authors’ Note: This piece of fiction is based on a dream I had and is a product of my twisted imagination. Feel free to email me with thoughts relating to this or any of my other work but please, do not state the obvious. I know Hunter Thompson is dead and therefore he is extremely difficult to reach for comment.

On February 20, 2005 the great Doctor of Gonzo journalism, Hunter Stockton Thompson spent the day with his son Juan and his grandson Willie, and after giving Juan some cherished family heirlooms, Hunter put a .44 Magnum to his 67 year-old-head and well, let’s say “checked out of the hotel.”
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