Maybe one of the reasons why actor Robert Mitchum looked so comfortable and at home in western movies, was the fact that he bred horses, preferred the casual cowboy outfit off the film set, and seemingly simply played himself, whenever he took the part of the cowboy, the Sheriff, the outlaw or the weather-beaten stranger […]
You are browsing archives for
Tag: 1960s United States
Heart Full of Soul. Keith Relf of the Yardbirds by David French (2020)
In the southwest of London, in 1962 a young Richmond band called The Metropolis Blues Quartet was staring to become England’s probably most innovative rock band. This band would become the nucleus of a guitar based outfit that later significantly altered music history and start, among other things, the American psychedelic and garage rock period. […]
Crime and Spy Jazz on Screen 1950-1970: A History and Discography by Derrick Bang (2020)
The brief period of American sound film until roughly the mid-1940s was dominated by soundtracks and extradiegetic audio based on mostly sweet string orchestras, allusions to classical compositions and ballads. Then, in the 1950s and 60s, soundtrack composers increasingly used popular music of the decades before for police/detective/spy action productions, which would be in large […]
Robots in American Popular Culture by Steve Carper (2019)
The idea of building, commanding and using artificial creatures, based on mechanical components that would assist mankind doing anything from work, transportation or pleasure goes back to very early stories of creation such as the Gilgamesh epic. And mythology from ancient Greece and other regions. That idea also demonstrates man’s wish to become the creator […]
Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and … by Iain McIntyre and Andrew Nette (eds.) (2019)
The latest work edited by Iain McIntyre and Andrew Nette has the focus on pulp fiction published in English and connected to and influenced by the Counterculture and ideas of revolution. The emphasis is on “the long sixties,” meaning the aftermath of that truly revolutionary decade that was at work long into the 1970s, in […]
Five Years Ahead of My Time: Garage Rock from the 1950s to the Present by Seth Bovey (2019)
The Third Bardo’s 1967 song “Five Years Ahead of My Time,” a musical gem by the psychedelic garage band from New York is the eponym for this book, as the many garage bands of the 1960s laid the foundations for American Rock music. The word “garage” in this context actually describes their foremost place of […]
Limiting Outer Space: Astroculture After Apollo by Alexander C. T. Geppert (ed.) (2018)
Introducing the second volume of the European view on space programs and the sociocultural effects of current and future space travel and planet colonization plans, Limiting Outer Space continues the Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology series. The title is strongly linked to Vol. 1 Imagining Outer Space: European Astroculture in the […]
Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, And Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction … by Iain Mcintyre and Andrew Nette (eds.) (2017)
The development and the origins of pulp fiction books are both well-documented and naturally before there was a market for those products, there was a demand for it. Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, however, starts not at the beginning of this genre, but dives deep into the phenomenon of the pulp books that dealt with subcultures […]
Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s by Alan Nadel (2017)
Alan Nadel, probably best known for his expert writings on the Atomic Age and American everyday life in the 1950s, has come up with another study of that period. A time when not just the permanent fears of a hot war or Soviet invasion were present, but also strange (or possibly communist) activities from your […]