#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.”

[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.

[roxysretrodrive-in]

Retro Trailer: The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)

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

[sergeant-macho-nacho]

One of CERNs plasma wakefield accelerators.

[kekwcomics]

Luchadores del espacio #205: "Los Vampiros de la Muerte"

( Editorial Valenciana, 1962)

Art: Vicente Ibáñez Sanchís?

[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)

[atomic-chronoscaph]

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

[technicallyclassyperfection]

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

[fanofspooky]

The Twilight Zone S3E24

To Serve Man

“Respectfully submitted for your perusal - a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin: unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment, we're going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Zone.”

[tyger-land]

ғʀᴀɴᴋ ғʀᴀᴢᴇᴛᴛᴀ Wolf Moon. 1965.

[videoreligion]

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

[arconinternet]

Space Patrol - British series (Videos, Roberta Leigh, produced 1962, aired 1963)

You can watch them here. From the Wikipedia article:

"The humanoids in his crew consist of the elfin Slim from Venus, and the stocky, ravenously sausage-mad Husky from the Red Planet, Mars. The imperfect Slavic accent variants and six-pointed star chest emblems of these two may have been a sly nod to the Jewish-Russian heritage of the English series creator/writer."

"The show reflected sex roles characteristic of the culture and era which produced it, but blonde and brainy Marla would often explicitly point out that "There are no dumb blondes on Venus." Indeed, the series was created and written by the prolific polymath artist Roberta Leigh, the first woman producer in Britain to have her own film company."

[roxysretrodrive-in]

Retro Trailer: Queen of Blood (1966)

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

[sergeant-macho-nacho]

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