CARD TREK

Star Trek Primrose Confectionery Cards, 1971.

DRONE DIDDLEY

As far as I am concerned, there are three types of people: those who love Bo Diddley, those who haven't heard him yet, and idiots. On their album Dawn of..., The Double play a classic Diddley Daddy-esque riff for forty minutes, and all sorts of strange stuff emerges as you listen. If you've ever wanted a soundtrack for driving into the sun, you need look no further. 

SCI FI OF OLD TIMES

A RÉGI IDÖK SCI-FIJE is a 1982 Hungarian television tribute to the golden age of Science Fiction, soundtracked by music from the Human League and Kraftwerk amongst others. It gets quite trippy, but that's outer space for you. 

BREAK ON THROUGH

ON THE WAY OUT (2016)

THE BLACK MAN IN THE COSMOS

Space Is The Place, d. John Coney (1974) 

I could never really love anyone who doesn’t think Sun Ra is cool. I don’t mean that you have to have all his records, or be able to present a short documentary on him. You might even think that some of his music is atonal skronk, or a bit daft. But to watch the middle aged, slightly tubby Sun Ra, in his ornamental Egyptian headdress, his hands a blur, transported by the joyful noise (or terrible racket) he’s making, and not think ‘that’s cool’? Nah, we’re not destined to be best friends. 

Ra grew up in hard times and in a hard place. He was an outsider all his life. To survive, he constructed a story about himself that placed him in a better, kinder world, a world where he was just visiting, bringing a message of love and friendship and equality. In this story it didn’t matter that he was black, or gay (or however he identified, if he even did), or a dreamer: he came from Saturn, they were all like that there. 

Space Is The Place is an uneven attempt to blend some of Ra’s philosophy and otherworldly charm with elements of a Blaxploitation narrative. The resulting film fluctuates between boring and brilliant, but Ra and his band shine throughout like stars. Hearing Sonny talk, fluently, eloquently, utterly immersed in his 'role', is a wonderful experience. I was reminded that, in 1971, he gave a series of talks at Berkeley University. The subject? ‘The Black Man in the Cosmos’. 

NIA UNIVERSO