Did you want more Meltzer, or another surprise guest? This is taken from Art Fein’s cable access show. There are hundreds of episodes. Really.

This French new wave track from 1981 is decent enough, I suppose (they’re no Stinky Toys), but the video’s fantastic for its colourful backdrop, which consists entirely of images from one of my all-time favourite music books (memorably described in a 2004 article by Nick Coleman as “the pornography of rock” as well as its “stained glass window”).

On the eve of Todd Haynes’s Dylan flick, come a couple great new pieces worth highlighting:

• The Ten Most Incomprehensible Bob Dylan Interviews of All Time (New York magazine)… Note: If you press play on all the YouTube clips at the same time, Bob actually starts to make a little more sense (not to mention that it sounds like a lost demo from the White Light White Heat recording sessions).

• Mystic Nights: The Making of Blonde on Blonde in Nashville. By Sean Wilentz in Oxford American.

Two clips of various directors and critics discussing the auteur theory. Featuring Robert Mitchum, Frank Capra, Pauline Kael, John Frankenheimer, Peter Biskind, Peter Bogdanovich, Elwy Yost, et al. A fairly intelligently edited piece (cf. the back and forth sequence between Capra and Phillip Dunne), though no strong critical proponents of auteurism could apparently be bothered to chime in: the closest you get to Andrew Sarris is a dazzling shot of his book!

File under “Lightly Likable.”

• Part 1
• Part 2

I swear I’m not trying to turn this into YouTube central, but some of these clips are irresistible. David Aron in the comments box for the Ben Fong-Torres post a few days ago pointed me to another early ’70s gem from his YouTube channel: Ralph J. Gleason. In the first clip Gleason talks briefly about the “effect on American society of rock ‘n’ roll”; in the second clip he talks briefly about drugs.

• Part 1
• Part 2

[David notes that the interviews on his YouTube channel are "from a 4 part Danish documentary on the American counter culture revolution aired in Europe in the early 70’s."]

Pretty great interview, despite both interviewer and interviewee looking a bit ghostly. Marsh is best in part one, talking about the credentials of mall girls (though of course he’d have been wiser to say that it’s “their music” as well as “guys with pencils music” rather than suggesting instead of).

• Part 1
• Part 2 
• Part 3

Watch here…

Footage taken from a seventies British documentary called All You Need is Love.

Ben Fong-Torres talks about the origins and circulation figures of Rolling Stone magazine, circa 1972. Scintillating stuff. (No idea where this is from–some Danish TV documentary?)

Watch here…

Folks who lived in North Carolina during the pre-glory days of college rock and beyond, will remember John Swain of The Record Hole in Raleigh. The man who exemplified the classic record collector is shown here moving about the boxes of discs, talking with fellow buyers and sellers. Psst.. dig the kid in the Scientists t-shirt. Whatever became of him?

With Vom! “I’m in Love With Your Mom.” (Who knew he was such a good dancer?)