Dig it!

The ever-industrious Classic Horror Campaign have a gravedigga-themed double bill coming up on Saturday June 1st. Held at their usual venue of the Roxy Bar and Screen, London, the films will be The Flesh and the Fiends (1960) and Burke and Hare (the 1972 version, not the recent John Landis mess), and their special guest will be star of the latter movie and Bedabbled! fave Francoise Pascal. You dig?

For more on the Classic Horror Campaign, go here.

Out now: GHOST OF A HURT Hex edition

To celebrate the official birth of B!rpm, our music division, Bedabbled! art editor and all-round B! handyman Rik Rawling has designed and created a very, very special limited edition of Ghost of a Hurt, which, in its original format, can be counted as our first music release. Assembled by the collective known as The Sinister Insult, Ghost... combined music, found objects, text, field visits and art to make a heady brew of murder, mystery and true crime. A lot of hard work went into its creation, but perhaps not as much as Rik has put into this 'Hex' edition: for these are truly individual works of art. Not only has Rik painted a new cover, but he has also assembled each book from scratch, cutting, pasting and designing. Each edition comes with a text booklet, a hand-drawn CD-R (with around sixty minutes of guitar-orientated ambient madness held within) and a unique art print. No two editions are the same, and there are only TEN copies of this in existence, so once they're gone, etc.

Price: £20 (including p+p). To reserve a copy please email us first: bedabbled@hotmail.co.uk. We'll sort out payment options from there.

More details on this project can be found from the man himself here.

The original edition of Ghost of a Hurt is still in stock. More details here.

The next release on B!rpm in 2013 will be Kathy Crowned From Blood's The Haunted Beehive e.p. Again, this will be a limited edition CD-R, capturing perfectly the vision of this particular (or peculiar) duo's music: dark instrumental delights from an alternative Albionic horror universe... More details as and when, and keep 'em peeled for other surprise B!rpm announcements.

**UPDATE! WE NOW HAVE ONE COPY BACK IN STOCK!**

Whatever happened to Moscovitch Music?

Watching Terror (1978) over the weekend - Norman J. Warren's demented 'homage' to Suspiria - I thought about how great Ivor Slaney's music was for the film, and what a smashing CD Moscovitch Music put out in 2009, comprising of Slaney's scores for Terror and Warren's bizarre masterpiece, Prey (1978). And then I got to thinking: whatever happened to Moscovitch Music? There seems to be no recent mention of them, or head honcho Joel Martin, on the internet. Myspace pages for both appear to have had no activity/comments for a couple of years, and a blog hasn't been updated since 2010. Soundtrack lovers are spoilt for choice nowadays, what with the likes of Trunk, Finders Keepers and the sadistic wallet-emptying empire of wonder that is Death Waltz, and it seems a shame that MM didn't keep up the pace, for whatever reason. Terror/Prey was the second MM release, and I'm sure that I read somewhere about something else being prepared... so, any information on whereabouts/what happened would be appreciated!

Beat Kneale Dead

Just a few moments of your time, please, to point you in the direction of some items of interest that have come the way of B! H.Q. recently. First up is Offbeat: British Cinema's Curiousities, Obscurities and Forgotten Gems (above), which sold out of its initial hardback run damn fast last year. Luckily, there is now a mass-market paperback edition out, which you can buy here. This book was a real labour of love for editor and Bedabbled! chum Julian Upton and, again, I can't stress how vital this tome is for the shelf of any lover of Brit horror and exploitation films...

Next! The Twilight Language of Nigel Kneale is the physical result of this event from last year. A Risograph-printed book, it's a fitting addition to the sparse amount of literature on NK out there. Of the many contributions within, my favourites are a highly personal piece by Drew Mulholland, a.k.a. Mount Vernon Arts Lab (whose The Seance at Hobs Lane album is the finest aural tribute to date of Kneale's philosophy) and Welcome to Mars author Ken Hollings, who provides an excellent essay which, I suspect, acts as a summery-in-part of his forthcoming book, The Bright Labyrinth. Both writers touch on Kneale's relationship with music and sound and, fittingly, initial copies of Twilight Language came with its very own 'stone tape', consisting of atmospheric tracks by various artists. Sadly, the cassette is no longer availible, but the book can still be ordered here.

Finally, Eric McNaughton's much-missed classic horror magazine We Belong Dead is now back in print, with a new issue for the first time in sixteen years. Packed full of informative articles and rare photos, WBD continues its quest to cover all ages of horror, from the black-and-whites to Hammer to 70s Euro Gothics and beyond. You can buy a copy here.

Out now: THE DEMETER 'de luxe' edition

Finally! A special 'de luxe' editon of The Demeter is now here. Limited to ten numbered copies, it's signed by author Martin Jones and artist Derek Gray, and is housed in a handmade crimson card slipcase created by local artist Phil Glasier. Also included is the four-track The Demeter CD-R e.p. by ambient loners Maelstrom (a.k.a. Rik Rawling), with CD art by Derek Gray and hand-stencilled track-listing:

Of particular interest to this release is the 'stamp' featured on the slipcase, as each is an original - and different - piece of art by Derek: 

Two examples:

The price for the 'de luxe' edition is £13.00 (includes P+P). Payment by the usual route via Paypal using our email address. Please get in contact if you wish to pay by another method. But hurry, as FIVE copies have already been sold and at the time of writing this post, FIVE are left!

The standard edition (numbered) of The Demeter is still available. More details here.

Subverse Britannia

If you're in Sheffield on the Sundays of the 13th, 20th and 27th of January you could do a lot worse than pop along to its splendid Showroom cinema to indulge in 'Subverse Britannia', a series of screenings and workshops based around classic/cult British movies. Of particular interest to us here at B! is the fact that Bedabbled! contributor, Island of Terror honcho and all-round enthusiast of Forgotten British Culture (both good and shit) Paul Bareham* will be hosting two of these events: on the 20th it's The Damned**, the 1963 Joseph Losey/Hammer marriage of Kneale, Wyndham and modish Apocalyptic suggestion (and also starring  a peak-form Oliver Reed and minxy Shirley Anne Field, above); on the 27th there's two documentaries set in that place-we-all-love-to-visit-then-leave: London.We Are the Lambeth Boys (1959) and Primitive London (1965). More details here.

* And if you get to talk to Paul, don't forget to ask him distressing questions as to why he finds Mike Raven so funny.
** A film also covered by Sarah Morgan in the forthcoming Bedabbled!#1: Redux Edition.

Kristmas Kontinental X

A quick post to point you in the direction of Kontinental X magazine. Cranston McMillan's homemade 'zine promises "Euro Sleaze and British Trash" and it never fails to deliver. Obscure (and I mean obscure) movies, pulp fiction, tawdry comics and forgotten starlets are covered in every issue, and this seasonal edition is perhaps the perfect starting place for a glimpse into Cranston's obsessions, featuring as it does German film director Jurgen Goslar, (maker of Whispering Death and Slavers), Boris Karloff's outings as Mr Wong, The Pocket Chiller Library, a profile of that bird with the crystal plumage, Suzy Kendall, and a jaw-dropping look at two French comics done in the best possible taste: Hitler and Kennedy. Yes, you read that right.

Our chums at Strange Vice have copies here, as well as a few back issues. Get yr skates on!