Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe), the alter ego for actor/director José Mojica Marins, is one bad mamajama. Somewhat of a method actor, he grew out those giant ass fingernails you see above, living the image he created as Coffin Joe. There were little regulations for films in Brazil at the time his career started in the late 60's. The result was a series of gorey, sexually explicit movies all for the sake of 'The Continuity of the Blood!'
I caught one of Marin's films, "This Night I'll Possess your Corpse", not too long ago as it was part of IFC's friday night Grindhouse. I didn't see the whole film, but I caught enough to become interested in its overall aesthetic appeal, as this vampiric-Frida Kahlo-looking creature was given a few redeemable qualities (at one point he saves a child). The ending was phenomenal with Joe accepting Christ as he is sinking in a swamp. There is something so attractive to dark films/music with Christian undertones and morals. I don't find it sacrilegious at all. I find it a hell of a lot more real than half the sterile art in the Christian genre (of any medium).
Last night I went to a show in Honeybrook, a remote farm 30 minutes south-west of Pottstown, called the Crackhouse. I was amazed at the directions Mapquest gave me, as they took me on backroads running along Rt. 100 and 23. I witnessed a crow eating the remains of a possum, a large mansion with a sign on their mailbox reading, "O Lord, how we are poor", and dozens of homes bearing electric candles in their windows- a cliche among Pennsylvanians (my house is no exception). My car is out of commission at the moment, covered in pollen with a missing grill as I am typing this, which is why I've been driving the truck (as seen in friday's adventure). Without any Compact Disc capabilities in this late 80's Ford, and obviously me not having an I-Pod, I trecked the vast distance through the wilderness along the highway listening to Johnnie Ray,as well as a few tracks from his backup band The Four Lads, on the World Cafe. This pre-rock & roll form of music, inspired by Blues and Jazz with more Gospel type vocal harmonies ( yet absent of the grittiness of American Roots music) was a beautiful missing link to modern music, that I have not paid enough attention to. To me, at the time, it sounded so familiar yet so different to/than these influences. I say 'at the time', because I tend to be blown away by some old music on first listen, just to find it much more lackluster when revisited (Not the case with Conway Twitty's, "Hello Darlin'", with its fucking amazing rhythmic wurlitzer bouncing over all the crooning and tear-filled sideburns.)
I pull into the Crackhouse and follow a road-cone lined path on a tractor trail to a small field for parking. I'm wearing paint covered jeans, chucks, and a teal shirt underneath a marroon Thermal sweater. I didn't plan on arriving scrubby, i was just being lazy and didn't want to shower or put on clean clothes (though the thermal sweater might've made the outfit look all the more pretentious, the thing is i have an obsession with thermals). Within a few steps out of the truck I see the crowds of teens smoking around cars, many dressed in flannel or dirty bohemian type clothes. Some people were barefoot, many of the girls didn't brush their hair, and nearly everyone was fascinated by the farm animals residing on the property (chickens and goats mainly). I realized it didn't matter that I was dirty, because everyone else was dirty. It was such a comforting thought. Nobody cared. Nobody seemed to be judging anyone else. The kids were there just to have a good time. Get trashed and dance to the music. It was all that the Pottstown scene was missing (save for the substance abuse), and it all seemed so surreal. Like something I'd drum up in my head and pine about (i know that sounds very teen-girlish). I thought to myself as I watched the blissful red-eyed crowd, that a lot of these kids probably didn't have Myspaces either. In fact I felt uncomfortable pulling out my sexy phone to text, because for the first time in a while I was in a place where the room wasn't full of distant texters. I had found a community of people, I thought didn't exist anymore, because they didn't exist on the internet. None of us existed. We were at a show in the middle of nowhere, exhibiting trends and styles reminiscent from both the late 60's and early 90's. It was all so remote from the 21st century, yet so fresh. It was a step ahead of the snobby Indie hipster music that still has that cutting edge quality.
My friend Boog played first on his beautiful tiny acoustic with a wide fretboard, his large beard which I'm envious of eating the microphone. He was the reason I was fortunate enough to find this magical land. He played phenomenally and made a few healthy bucks from selling merch. Next up was Pantsless, a mostly instrumental band, that I swore had random singing come out of nowhere from what I could tell was not any of the members. But this singing, whether real or cronstructed in my imagination from a series of overtones, blew me away. Meat Rainbow was the last act I caught, for I had to get out of the field when it started raining to avoid being sucked into the ground like Coffin Joe. They reminded me of a poppier version of the Appleseed Cast, with much more discernible singing (given the condition of basement acoustics). Each of these bands sets ended when a guitar player broke a string. It made me miss the days of playing raucous punk rock, and jumping off of shit.
I can't wait to make it out to the crackhouse again; the drive itself is worth it, I swear. Despite my constant anxiety, and deteriorating social skills I had a fucking blast in this world, where I'm older than most of the people, but look so much younger.
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