Review: Storm Thorgerson's 'Mind over Matter: The Images of Pink Floyd' Fifth Edition

Storm Thorgerson belongs to a very exclusive club of well-known album cover artists. Honestly, the only other one I can think of is Roger Dean, and just as Dean is closely associated with one band (Yes), Thorgerson is renowned as the photographer behind the light-refracting prism, the flaming handshake, and the field of hospital beds. Although he created covers for groups as varied as Def Leppard and The Cranberries, Thorgerson will always be remembered as Pink Floyd's favorite coverman.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #200 - 176

 Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's 2000 light years from home from 200 to 176...

200. The Beatles- "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" (1967), in which John Lennon takes full advantage of all the grey areas in circus-poster copyright law.

Review: Vinylphyle Edition of The Band's 'Music from Big Pink'

When I last got my hands on a record in Universal Music's new audiophile series, it was the decidedly lo-fi The Velvet Underground and Nico. Despite the dodgy original recording, the Vinylphyle treatment—all-analog mastering from the original master tapes, pressing at the renowned plant RTI by Joe-Nino Hernes, a mastering engineer with an impressive track record—really brought out the the best in The Velvet's noisy, druggy, mesmerizing debut.  

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #225 - 201

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's bogarting that joint from 225 to 201...

225. The Pretty Things- "Private Sorrow" (1968), in which S.F. Sorrow is drafted into the army and kicks off an adulthood of non-stop trauma.

Review: 'The 7th Voyage of Sinbad' Blu-ray set

In 1958, Ray Harryhausen stretched himself beyond pictures menaced by a single big octopus or space monster for a greater challenge and a huge leap into pure fantasy. With The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, a whole menagerie of stop-motion creatures were required, and the master outdid himself with the film's towering cyclops, horned dragon, two-headed Roc, four-armed cobra lady, and swashbuckling skeleton. Perhaps the work wasn't quite a refined as it would be five years later in Jason and the Argonauts, and one skeleton is no substitute for a whole regiment of them, but with his first stop-motion-showcase mythological swashbuckler, Harryhausen virtually created a new genre of film that he and he alone would continue to master with Jason, Sinbad's two returns in the seventies, and Clash of the Titans.  If 7th is a bit primitive compared to those later entries, it is no less charming. 

Review: 'Dracula Has Risen from the Grave' Blu-ray

A quaint little village is still reeling from Dracula's last rampage, and though the count is dead, the local priest can still feel his evil presence. That's probably because "dead" is a relative term when it comes to vampires, especially one in a long series of Hammer Dracula movies.

So what happens next? The title says it all. Freddie Francis's Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is Hammer's fourth vampire picture, and it's the third with Christopher Lee and the second without Peter Cushing as valiant Van Helsing. Cushing is sorely missed, but a couple of youngsters take up the slack: Barbara Ewing as sexy barmaid Zena and Barry Andrews as refreshing atheist Paul. Because this is a Hammer picture, which always balanced its buckets of re-paint blood and leering close-ups of cleavage with a pretty conservative outlook, you know Paul will see the light by the time the closing credits roll, but it does this with enough subtlety to not be totally off putting. 

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #250 - 226

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's seeing sounds and smelling colors from 250 to 226...

250. Jefferson Airplane- "She Has Funny Cars" (1967), in which Jefferson Airplane express the belief that owning several cars with pop-up chassis is really what makes a lady attractive. 

Review: 'Night of the Living Dead: The Official Story of the Film'

When a scrappy commercial production agency decided to branch out into feature films, the Latent Image team had no idea they would change the face of horror forever. As violent and despairing as Night of the Living Dead would be, the story behind the movie is kind of adorable. Its creation was a true all-hands-on-deck operation, as actors doubled as makeup artists, foley artists, and sound mixers. Pennsylvania locals pitched in to play zombies more than willing to stuff Silly Putty and actual intestines into their mouths. While the job of film-director tends to attract only the most massive of egos, George Romero had to be talked into directing the picture after trying to fob it off on Karl Hardman, who co-produced the film and played surly dad Harry Cooper, among several other behind-the-scenes roles. And everyone dressed up and rode in limos to attend the boozy premier in Pittsburgh, which lavished the film with the local attention it wouldn't really receive nationally until it became a Midnight Movie sensation.