#60s science fiction

[fanofspooky]

The Twilight Zone S5E17

Number 12 Looks Just Like You

“Given the chance, what young girl wouldn't happily exchange a plain face for a lovely one? What girl could refuse the opportunity to be beautiful? For want of a better estimate, let's call it the year 2000. At any rate, imagine a time in the future where science has developed the means of giving everyone the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow, but it happens now, in The Twilight Zone.”

[catgirl-kaiju]

i want post-apoc to be weird again. Fallout's the weirdest thing we still have in mainstream post-apoc and i love Fallout, but it's no Planet of the Apes. hell, even Planet of the Apes isn't weird anymore. give us some Logan's Run or Zardoz type shit, i neeeed esoteric nonsense and the kind of scifi concepts you talk about when you're high. that's what makes new wave scifi post-apoc so good!

[videoreligion]

X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)

[stuckasmain]

I invite you over to my house and show you my “rescues” it’s just a tub full of 2001: a space odyssey DVD’s.

[sergeant-macho-nacho]

One of CERNs plasma wakefield accelerators.

[kekwcomics]

REALITY FORBIDDEN (Ace, 1967)

Art: Jack Gaughan

God, he was so great, wasn't he?

[roxysretrodrive-in]

Retro Trailer: Queen of Blood (1966)

Disclaimer: I am not associated with the uploader nor the creators of this trailer.

[schlock-luster-video]

On April 15, 1965, Crack in the World debuted in the United States.

[marginalia-music]

The British seemed to have gotten the head-start on bedroom pop. If you believe Todd in the Shadows, it came from the DIY, lofi but tight and catchy Your Woman by White Town (1997). But by sifting through the historical record, Solid Space seems like a solid antecedent a full fifteen years prior. 

Formed in 1980 by childhood friends Dan Goldstein (keyboards, vocals) and Maf Vosburgh (guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals), they released their only album, Space Museum, in 1982 through In Phaze Records. While bootlegs have circulated throughout the years, Space Museum finally got its first official vinyl release in 2017 by reissue label Dark Entries. 

What I’ve always loved about digging through any early obscurities of a particular genre is seeing how it places itself within the genre’s history, at the fork in the road between an (older) genre and a newly-emergent one. Space Museum is right at the apex between late 70s post-punk and synth-inspired new wave. It’s far too dark and dreary to be new wave, but too experimental to be firmly rooted in the more recognized post-punk scene of the time. It sounds like nothing; a hazy dream, intoxicated by BBC reruns and pubescent troubles finally etched into the physical world. It’s not hard for me to imagine Dan & Maf on a gloomy, rainy day messing around with their Wasp synthesizer and Casio MT-30 in their room, seeing what sounds would come out and trying to replicate what they had just seen on the TV.  

(Source)

It’s bedroom pop at its weirdest, creating eerie, cold, and lonely landscapes paired with monotone vocals, representing their sci-fi source material in a wholly transformative way. Destination Moon and Tenth Planet are the real stars of the record: the former encapsulating the loneliness and ennui of space travel, and the latter duly recounting the plot of a Doctor Who episode of the same name where the narrator destroys an entire species and their planet but “didn’t really care”.  I also really love Radio France. It’s less gloomy and electronic than the rest of the album, being a more grounded stab at a post-punk song. It talks about getting over a cruel ex-girlfriend, but still featuring fun synth rhythms, being reminiscent of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop at times.  The opening track,  Afghan Dance, is also really interesting, being “warmer” than many of the tracks on the album. There’s still some distance though, each note awkwardly jerking from the last in a mysterious, alien rhythm, unable to decipher the music’s source. (I would love to know if this is actually based on a traditional Afghan song.)

Defining “pop” is a difficult challenge. Is two guys’ weird experimental album that only ever got circulated on a couple hundred cassettes really “pop”? I’d say so. The DIY, lofi aesthetics of Space Museum are equally reminiscent of old 60s sci-fi shows, 70s-80s punks, and 2010s lofi indie musicians. It’s punk filtered through the BBC Radiophonic; two guys reliving 60s sci-fi right when such works were becoming old enough to be seen as “classic”. It mends a fracture in time, with the original “spirit of 76” punk fading out in favor of its offspring, going off in a million wild directions.  (You can see more photos & vids on the Instagram)

[howslifeinabiggerprison]

Story continued in next post.

Artist - Mike Noble

[i-am-trans-gwender]

Is it because you have no mouth?

Fun Fact: I can't scream :)

[fanofspooky]

The Twilight Zone S5E3

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

“Portrait of a frightened man: Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father, and salesman on sick leave. Mr. Wilson has just been discharged from a sanitarium where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, the onset of which took place on an evening not dissimilar to this one, on an airliner very much like the one in which Mr. Wilson is about to be flown home - the difference being that, on that evening half a year ago, Mr. Wilson's flight was terminated by the onslaught of his mental breakdown. Tonight, he's travelling all the way to his appointed destination, which, contrary to Mr. Wilson's plan, happens to be in the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone.”

[atomic-chronoscaph]

The War of the Worlds - art by Edward Gorey (1960)

[videoreligion]

X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)

[technicallyclassyperfection]

Steinar Lund, Morris Scott Dollens, Ray Feibush, and Robert McCall.

[sergeant-macho-nacho]

What if Black holes are man made and astronomers are just cavemen looking at a nuclear powerplant?