1. n. a wretched and disgusting person. (Rude and derogatory.) : “If this douche bag filibusters health reform, strip him of his seniority, boot him from the Democratic caucus and yank his committee chairmanship.”
“Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
“It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
—Robert F. Kennedy
Download ZIP file (63 MB):
DANGER MOUSE AND SPARKLEHORSE PRESENT: DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL [Visuals by David Lynch]
A legal dispute has led one of pop music’s most exciting artists to take a novel approach to the release of his latest work: the album is a blank recordable CD on to which buyers can record versions of the album downloaded from leaked copies on the internet.
Fans of Danger Mouse can buy a luxurious package of a poster 
and a book of photographs by cult film director David Lynch for $50. It includes a blank recordable CD, which is being seen as a signal that fans should download copies of the album, which has been leaked online.
“Due to an ongoing dispute with [record label] EMI, Danger Mouse is unable to include music on the CD without fear of legal entanglement,” said a statement on the project’s website. “Therefore, he has included a blank CD-R as an artefact to use however you see fit.”
The project is called Dark Night Of The Soul and is a collaboration with dark Americana one-man-band Sparklehorse. Most of its tracks involve contributions from some of alternative music’s biggest names, including Iggy Pop and Frank Black as well as members of Super Furry Animals and The Strokes.
According to Rolling Stone magazine a spokesperson for Danger Mouse recognised that the music is available through non-official channels. 
“Danger Mouse remains hugely proud of Dark Night Of The Soul and hopes that people lucky enough to hear the music, by whatever means, are as excited by it as he is,” the spokesperson told the magazine.
The album is being legally streamed by US radio station NPR, though it is not clear for how long that stream will stay live.
The project is not explaining what the nature of the legal dispute is, though some have speculated that EMI, which releases Sparklehorse records, may have a long-standing dispute with Danger Mouse.
Danger Mouse made his name with an innovative, illegal mash-up called The Grey Album which fused material from rapper Jay Z’s The Black Album and The Beatles’ The White Album. It was an underground phenomenon but was illegal and was objected to by The Beatles’ record label, EMI.
EMI releases Sparklehorse’s records and may have control over the output of the man behind Sparklehorse, Mark Linkous.
Other records with Danger Mouse involvement have been released by EMI since the Grey Album controversy, though. Danger Mouse, whose real name is Brian Burton, produced two albums by Blur frontman Damon Albarn’s side projects, Gorillaz and The Good, The Bad and The Queen. Both were released by labels owned by EMI.
Danger Mouse also had chart success as one half of Gnarls Barkley.
The Dark Night Of The Soul package is available as a book, poster and blank CD set for $50 or as just a poster and blank CD set for $10.
Download the album (in ZIP format) here and cover art here
The album can be heard here on a legal stream from NPR
The project’s official website is here
Melody (1971)
_______________
Directed by Jean-Christophe Averty
Screenplay by Serge Gainsbourg
Music by Serge Gainsbourg, Jean-Claude Vannier
Cast: Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin
_____________________________________
Although Serge Gainsbourg and love Jane Birkin had appeared in a string of films since their magnetic collision in Pierre Grimblat’s ‘Slogan’ (1969), ‘Melody’ was a bit of diversion from their feature and music collaborations, since it’s a series of interwoven videos inspired by Gainsbourg’s album ‘Histoire de Melody Nelson’ (1971).
For 1971, it’s a novel concept to bring visual life to an LP, but even more surprising are the short film’s amazing visuals that director Jean-Christophe Averty crafted using a wealth of video filters, overlays, camera movements, and chroma key effects. Averty applies his visuals in tandem with the increasing tone of Gainsbourg’s songs, which more or less chronicle an older man who has an affair with a young girl.
Clearly drawing from his real-life relationship with Birkin, each song is comprised of steady, sometimes brooding poetic delivery, with refrains timed to the phrase repeats of each song, while Alan Parker’s buzzing guitar accompanies and wiggles around Gainsbourg’s resonant voice. The bass is fat and groovy, the drums easy but steady, and the periodic use of strings or rich vibrato makes this short a sultry little gem.
The vignettes for the LP’s seven songs are hypnotic, and one doesn’t need to understand French to get into the short’s narrative; the visuals are so strong that they perhaps give the prose an overwhelming trippiness.
“Melody,” the first song, has Gainsbourg driving his Rolls Royce at night, and stopping when he realizes he’s knocked over a pretty leggy waif riding her bike. “Like a doll who’s lost her equilibrium,” he picks her up and takes her to the car, where he asks her name (“Melody,” says an enamoured Birkin, “Melody Nelson”) and rides off with him into the darkness.
Averty dramatizes the story through a mesh of pans across the Rolls, portrait close-ups, and blobs of iridescent lights that streak across the screen like fireflies, whereas the next song, “Ballade de Melody Nelson,” has Gainsbourg strutting back and forth over a kaleidoscope of op-art heart rings that pulse from black and white to red and black and blue, while the refrain, “Melody Nelson,” has the camera zooming in and out of Birkin as she headcocks to her name, and hip swings between poses. It’s the cheesiest of the videos, but because the pair perform the song with such earnestness, one is somewhat compelled to reign in the giggling.
“Valse de Melody” is the first sign where Averty starts to play with layered textures, and has the dancing over famous paintings (including Dali’s ‘melting watches’), with periodic overlays of the two in the Rolls Royce.
“Ah! Melody” is striking for its simplicity: two rows of block letters spelling M-E-L-O-D-Y and an array of abstract patterns in black, red, and blue wafting between each other over a white background. Gainsbourg and Birkin appear separately over the block letters, sometimes spread over two letters, as when Birkin dances.
“L’hôtel Particulier” is even more impressive in the way Averty has the couple walking and wandering through more paintings, with sections overlaid to give their positioning a 2-D feel. Birkin remains silent, but her fans will probably enjoy her bird-like poses and swinging in an absurd outfit that mostly consists of a long shirt, a belt, and skimpy unmentionables. The video closes with the couple kissing, and a return to the large numbers and heart silhouettes that opened the video over a black background.
“En Melody,” the album’s funkiest tune, is mostly instrumental, with fat bass, electric guitar, and drums driving the piece while Birkin’s giggles and shrieks pop up between the guitar licks. Averty’s use of moving patterns, textures, art, stills, and overlays is jaw-dropping.
The final tune, “Cargo Culte,” has Gainsbourg describing his turmoil after finding out Melody’s plane crashed, and the brooding piece, with its eerie guitar, tympani hits, and unsettling bass are enhanced by extremely complex visuals. The overlays are beautifully coordinated with the song’s meandering mood, and Averty literally conjures up all of Gainsbourg’s memories (moments from prior videos), but with extreme artistic discretion.
The moving collage is like an Adobe Photoshop reel, with multiple layers becoming increasingly dense, particularly during the song’s short choral bursts which accentuate visions of a dancing Melody until she curls up and freezes, closing the piece with Birkin’s final restatement of her name.
The critical praise for Gainsbourg’s album has endured for several decades, but perhaps more than when it was broadcast, Averty’s short should be regarded as a milestone in the artistic use of then-primal video effects. There’s the overlay of psychedelic patterns for an aggressive trippy experience (as in Tony Palmers’ ‘Tangerine Dream – Live at Coventry Cathedral 1975’) that we recognize as cheesy, dated, and quaint, but Averty’s ‘Melody’ is very, very modern. The only mind-blowing moment comes in realizing all those beautiful visuals are pre-CGI.
An important time capsule as well as a major reference for early videotape effects, Melody’ is available as part of the Region 2 PAL set, ‘Serge Gainsbourg - D’Autres Nouvelles Des Etoiles (2005). Averty’s prior short, ‘Salvador Dali: A Soft Self-Portrait’ (1970), was previously available on VHS.
Gainsbourg and Birkin’s filmic appearances include ‘Slogan’ (1969), ‘Les chemins de Katmandou’ (1969), ‘Cannabis’ (1970), ‘19 djevojaka i Mornar’ (1971), ‘La Morte negli occhi del gatto / Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye’ (1973), as well as the TV productions ‘Melody’ (1971) and ‘Bons baisers de Tarzan’ (1974).
