Favorite Films: Martin Atkins (Ministry, Pigface) ‘Bedazzles’ Us by Picking a Comedy With Dudley Moore, Peter Cook
If you want to get properly schooled in the history of post-punk and industrial music – and the music industry machinery that has both helped and harmed it over the decades – don’t read a music blog or turn to some know-it-all bottom-feeding on social media for information. Instead, seek out a revered guru like Martin Atkins, he of Pigface, Ministry, Killing Joke, Public Image Ltd and Nine Inch Nails note.
Atkins is a prolific author of books concerning the music industry; the studies coordinator on the very subject at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois; and owner and operator of the Museum of Post Punk and Industrial Music in Chicago. If you’re more inclined to enjoy Atkins making music instead of reading his tomes, look no further than The Howler: An English Breakfast, a record he issued on vinyl for the first time about three weeks ago.
Atkins, along with Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV), created their collaborative project from 1996 to the following year. Also featuring Adam Yoffe and Mick Harris (Scorn, Napalm Death), The Howler has become regarded as a must-have item for fans of industrial music in particular.
As luck would have it, The Bad Penny recently found itself in a position to cover Atkins’ project. Adhering to our practice of nourishing you with often-times norms-breaking, unconventional articles that value creative and intellectual stimulation over blandness and convention, we asked Atkins to open up not about music but rather film. He spoke at length about one movie that considerably impacted him. Released in 1967, the movie starred two of the top five (may 10) British comic actors in history, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Still haven’t guessed it? Let Atkins solve the puzzle for you – and share a bit more about himself than he may have done in past rote interviews:
My favourite movies change over time, depending on whatever is going on, but Bedazzled (1967) has always struck a chord with me. It feels like it was asking questions before punk made it normal to criticize the establishment, religion, glamour, fame and all of the machinery around pop culture. It takes the old Faustian bargain and turns it into something very 1960s: a lonely store clerk sells his soul to the Devil for stardom, sex, status and a way out of himself. (I wonder if Bad Bunny has seen this?)
On the surface, it has this glossy Hollywood feel — Raquel Welch appearing as the love interest Lust, FFS — but underneath, it is much stranger and more anti-authoritarian. It seems to foreshadow punk’s suspicion of glamour and fame, and the idea that pop stardom might be a trap rather than an escape. The pop-show scenes, where Dudley Moore performs and is then completely upstaged by Peter Cook’s deadpan Drimble Wedge, have this perfect boredom and blank delivery that feels almost post-punk before post-punk existed.
That clearly spoke to Nick Cave, who later appeared on Anita Lane’s song “Bedazzled” (Mute, 1995). And it spoke to me and Chris Connelly too when we covered the song in early 1993 at Chicago Trax Recording Studio. Chris’ delivery is spectacular! Plus we had David Wm. Sims (Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid) on bass and Michael Balch (Front Line Assembly, Ministry) on programming.
Peter Cook’s later appearance on ITV’s Revolver makes the connection even clearer. He wasn’t a normal music-show host. He was more like an anti-host, sneering at bands, disrupting the format and reportedly handing out porn magazines to the audience to try to distract the artists. So there’s this odd line running from Bedazzled through punk television: Cook was not just commenting on pop culture, but messing with it from the inside.
I haven’t watched this movie on a decade or two – thank you for prompting a revisit!
Buy the recently released The Howler: An English Breakfast (Overdrive/ Invisible Records) here.
For more Favorite Films edition, check out these:
• The New Loud Pick Their Favorite David Lynch Films
• Dummy Give Thumbs-Up to ‘Psycho Goreman,’ ‘Megan,’ ‘Creep,’ ‘Nosferatu’
• Jacob the Horse Singer Digs Russ Meyer, Nolan, Tarsem Singh, William Friedkin
• Dying Remains’ Frontman Treasures ‘The Thing,’ ‘Suspiria,’ ‘City of the Living Dead,’ ‘Wounded Fawn’
• Heavy Heavy Low Low Vocalist Lists His Favorite Flicks as Halloween Creeps Closer
• Avant-Garde Trio Kilter Get Off on ‘Stalker,’ ‘Annihilation,’ ‘Street Trash’
• Napalm Death’s Shane Embury Picks ‘2001,’ ‘Inception,’ ‘Forbidden Planet’
• Point Break 2 Frontman Cops to His Guilty-Pleasure Movies: ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Terror,’ ‘Elvis,’ More
• Oathbound Swear ‘Alien,’ ‘Big Lebowski,’ ‘Interstellar,’ ‘Cabin in the Woods’ Are the Bomb
• Did You Catch These Easter Eggs in ‘One Battle After Another’?
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