We are High Decibels Podcast and we're a few jerks in Brooklyn who are passionate about live music. We talk about a wide variety of concerts in venues throughout New York City, in the hopes of getting more people out to concerts to support artists and share in the live music experience with others.
Our latest episode is on a free show we caught at Venus in Furs in Bushwick December 19th. We like to post to different subreddits in the hopes of getting some streams and starting some discussion. This isn't the typical show we talk about, but we wanted to give some exposure to a venue we'd never been to before, and talk about some underground acts just starting to get their footing.
This ran the gamut from folksy singer-songwriter, to artsy Avant Garde noise rock. Something for everyone maybe? Probably not, most of these acts weren't all that great. But Peppermint might have some legs, and Irrevery will appeal to a certain crowd at least. Either way, the venue is cool as hell and that place comes with a stamp of recommendation. Does anyone know of other really small venues that do cheap or free shows with unknown acts? What's your hidden gem for that?
Here's the link to the episode on Spotify , and you can also find us on Apple Podcasts and SoundCloud. If you like this one, be sure to check out our earlier episodes as well, we cover all kinds of music from rock and indie, to EDM, to underground local acts that need some love.
We really hope you enjoy, and would love to get some discussion going!
Sunday nights always made me sad. Even moreso with Joe gone. One year after his death and I still hadn’t recovered. I still missed him. Hell, I needed him. The world wasn’t the same without my baby. Gone was the excitement. The thrills. My purpose. We were a team that could’ve changed the world. And for the last year, I was doing what I could to keep our goals alive. To finish our plan.
Tonight, I was alone again in my Atlanta apartment. Sitting in my home office. The Beatles posters and my struggling sketches the only company I had. The Velvet Underground’s “Venus In Furs” the only break from the solemn silence. This was the song Joe and I bonded to. Our song.
October wind burst through the curtains, battering my red pajamas and blue jean jacket. Crashing straight into my soul. God, what an awful year it’d been... Never had I felt so alone.
As I took another sip of crimson wine, I couldn’t help but reflect on the isolation. My desolate despair. This anguished anniversary marred my October. To think, this used to be my favorite time of the year. Halloween once Joe and I’s favorite holiday.
Fighting back tears, I looked out the window. Out toward the glowing jack-o’lanterns watching me. “Venus In Furs” kept sending chills down my spine.
To be honest, I had a dark past. A real dark past. Not because I was evil or sick in the head. But because of what I believed in. What we believed in.
At one point, I was just Zee. Just your average college girl. Back then, I was ambitious. I just wanted to change the world through my art and graphic novels. Only I was so quiet. Insecure. I was one of those geeky black girls most people considered a freak or creepy.
I was scrawny. Pretty behind the stringy hair and huge glasses. Tall without having any poise. My wardrobe nothing more than flannel shirts and jeans. My deep voice a portal to a most dark sarcasm. I suppose my interests in 1960s rock and extreme horror movies were a bit different than most of my classmates...
Like a 9-to-5 slave, I led a stagnant existence at Agnes Scott College. Not once did I ever even leave the apartment to explore the Atlanta, Georgia nightlife. Not until I met Joe, that is.
Our age difference may have been close to ten years, but I loved Joe. He got me. He understood me. He was older but confident. Charismatic. And like me, he too appreciated art. Which is how I met Joe Glenn in the first place...
When I wasn’t drawing, horror stories a
... keep reading on reddit ➡I'm not sure of the date on this recording, but I think it's November 2011. Does anyone have recordings of this production on other dates?
https://me g a.nz/#!1gQkjSoB!b-6BkUA-95KgLHKaaebC1ghEfioRi3I2uDqw5e2Tdls
I don’t know what I was expecting, putting this on last night purely because it was from 1970 and named after a Velvet Underground song. I had no context. My Amazon Prime app didn’t even display a cover image; just the bold gray text “Venus in Furs” over a rectangle where the image should be. But something compelled me and I am so happy I took the leap.
Two things struck me as the credits rolled over a still image of a smoky-eyed, half naked temptress: “Written and Directed by Jess Franco” and “Music by Manfred Mann.” I’m a big fan of exploitation films, and Jesus Franco is right up there with Jean Rollin for me when it comes to Eurohorror, so I was already thrilled, but pairing the creator of “Vampyros Lesbos’” with the guy who wrote “Quinn the Eskimo”? Well, hot salmon pie this is going to be great.
The opening scenes play out like a psychedelic film noir, complete with burned out trumpet player, protagonist voice over exposition, a dead body washed up on the shores of the Black Sea, a black-tie cocktail party, Klaus Kinski, and a back alley BDSM orgy murder. I’m not even taking elements out of context to sensationalize them. This is exactly the way this movie begins.
What develops through the next hour and twenty minutes is a surprisingly socially-progressive, tender ghost story/murder mystery that is strikingly compelling.
Franco loves jazz, and many of his films even feature him playing in the soundtrack. Here, as two of the lead roles are musicians, Manfred Mann’s trippy, jazzy soundtrack is not only a focus of the film, but enhances everything that Franco does. It’s one of the coolest soundtracks I never heard before. I spent about a half hour, spelunking through Spotify, until I finally found a cut of the soundtrack (Manfred Mann “Radio Days Vol. 3” for the curious) because I enjoyed it so much.
This movie isn’t going to be for everyone. As a 2019 audience, I found a lot of the character interactions (and lack of interactions) not very intuitive or natural, and a few times got frustrated that certain characters didn’t just confront one another and talk it out. There are a lot of progressive-for-it’s-time assertions about sexual identity, kink and interracial relationships that may come off as dated or not as impressive (and in the case of the BDSM, downright problematic). But this is a ghost story murder mystery, and a 1969 psychedelic Giallo allegory, so many sins were forgiven for me as I watched - and enjoyed - every minute.
This was the first Jesus Franco film I saw and probably my favorite. Like his French contemporary, Jean Rollin, Franco was a more than competent, low-budget filmmaker who was capable of packing his movies with stunning visuals, exciting action, and beautiful, naked women.
Like Rollin, Franco's pacing sometimes slowed to a glacial level, the plots seemed to meander and overall, didn't quite make a whole lot of sense. Personally, I also feel that Franco depiction of women is based on how an adolescent boy who has never actually spoken to a female might imagine they would behave.
Venus in Furs is a slow, dreamy film about a jazz trumpeter who pulls the naked corpse of Wanda fro. The ocean in Istanbul. She may have been killed buy a trio of rich psychopaths during a party he was performing at the previous night. Or maybe she wasn't murdered because she turns up two years later in Rio to take her revenge on her murderers and Chris. Her revenge on Chris involves lots of sex.The fact that Chris consistently has sex with a dead woman does not seem to bother him, I guess he's got that going for him!
The movie is worth watching just for the out-of-this-world, psychedelic visuals and the fantastic Jazz soundtrack featuring Manfred Mann.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064789/
I noticed this new live single of Venus In Furs released on Spotify recently. It's really excellent! But I'm unable to find any other useful info on it from any articles, discogs, etc, besides the spotify copyright 2019 Warner Music Group - X5 Music Group.
Does anyone recognize it or know when/where this was recorded?
All of Villanelle's outfits in this episode were exquisite (especially her suit, dear g o d). But the outrageous red fur coat she wore (paired with black leather pants and black blouse) piqued my interest because it immediately made me think of the novella Venus In Furs.
Given Killing Eve's brilliant (pop) culture references and the intelligence of our fandom, I'm certain that Villanelle wearing a red fur coat was quite an intentional reference.
The three most prominent themes in Venus In Furs are obsession, female dominance, and sadomasochism. Killing Eve is not shy of overtly exploring these themes (including in this very episode, S2x06).
According to Wikipedia:
The framing story concerns a man who dreams of speaking to Venus about love while she wears furs. The unnamed narrator tells his dreams to a friend, Severin, who tells him how to break himself of his fascination with cruel women by reading a manuscript, Memoirs of a Suprasensual Man.
This manuscript tells of a man, Severin von Kusiemski, who is so infatuated with a woman, Wanda von Dunajew, that he asks to be her slave, and encourages her to treat him in progressively more degrading ways. At first Wanda does not understand or accede to the request, but after humouring Severin a bit she finds the advantages of the method to be interesting and enthusiastically embraces the idea, although at the same time she disdains Severin for allowing her to do so.
Severin describes his feelings during these experiences as suprasensuality. Severin and Wanda travel to Florence. Along the way, Severin takes the generic Russian servant's name of "Gregor" and the role of Wanda's servant. In Florence, Wanda treats him brutally as a servant, and recruits a trio of African women to dominate him.
The relationship arrives at a crisis when Wanda meets a man to whom she would like to submit, a Byronic hero known as Alexis Papadopolis. At the end of the book, Severin, humiliated by Wanda's new lover, loses the desire to submit. He says of Wanda:
>That woman, as nature has created her, and man at present is educating her, is man's enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he and is his equal in education and work.
Also, consider the fascinating opening conversation between the narrator, and Venus:
The Man:
"I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman,
... keep reading on reddit ➡
I just saw Venus in Fur for the second time. (two different productions) I've heard several different interpretations of the script, and I'm curious what you all think particularly about Vanda.
Replaying the D1 story and The Stranger (Elsie) radios in to someone and the last line is "kill the engines and don't let them find you." Do we know who that is?
I haven't seen anything about this yet and it might be nothing but idk.
In the Moon lost sector K1 Communion there is a pillar like thing at the back of the final room(near where the boss spawns), on the right side of it is a console, this has always been there, however, it used to say nothing at all, and now it has something new on the screen, I checked old videos of the lost sector to make sure I wasn't crazy and I'm not, it wasn't there before.
There is an image of what looks like a vaporwave sunset, with the word "Venus" underneath it, under that in smaller text is "Aphrodite Terra - Maxwell Montes - Ishtar Cliffs" and at the very top right in tiny text is "Off World Transit" followed by a star/flower looking icon that I can assume to be the Off World Transit logo
I have no idea how to link images in here so feel free to run to the LS yourself to have a look (grab some bounties while you're at it). It might be nothing but I find it strange that they'd add a new screen texture to a single console in a year old lost sector, and since VoG is coming back, the fact that it's a Venus Off World Transit console is all the more curious.
Idk what to make of it, you can't interact or anything that I can tell. This honestly might just be like the SIVA symbols popping up in some Tangled Shore lost sectors, which of course lead to nothing, other than maybe a nod to Outbreak coming back. So maybe this is a similar thing in regards to VoG coming back soon. Anyways I figured I'd point out that it's there, and I'll keep my eyes out for more in the other lost sectors in the meantime.
