REVIEW: Ukulele Land III (Saturday, Sept. 23, Newtown)

Cameron Murray

IF YOU'D told me a few short weeks ago that Helen and I would spend four hours on a Saturday night in St Stephens Church Hall, Newtown listening to ukulele music........then you wouldn't have surprised me in the least. After all, we'd been to Ukulele Land 1 back in 2004, so we knew what to expect.

And here we were again at Ukulele Land III. Why? 'Cos my good friend and long-time work colleague Cameron Murray had invited us to see him and a bunch of other talented musos stretch the accepted definition of what ukulele playing is all about.

Hosted by the legendary Mic Conway - he of Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band fame from the 70s - the night featured more than 15 solo artists and groups who played an eclectic mix of music, the only link between them all being the fact there was a ukulele involved somewhere in their act. Personal highlights from the evening included:

* Cameron - maybe it was the Hawaiian shirt, maybe it was his dazzling smile, but this master player grabbed the capacity crowd's attention with his frenetic fingerwork

* Rose Turtle Ertler, the Melbourne singer/songwriter didn't bring her electric uke and stuck with the more traditional version as she burned through a couple of tracks off her Lady Birds Of Crick Creek CD. I must admit I got caught up in the swing of things and wound up buying the CD during the interval. It's okay...got a lot of ukulele on it. Ah well, you do these things sometimes

* Edgee And Performing Brazil: the Sydney-based combo played exquisite-sounding choro (Brazilian jazz) music and it was damn good. The highlight of the evening

* Tyrone Shoelaces: more art than music, but still a fascinating performance from the Brisbane artist, combining songs, slideshow, comedy and, of course, uke, AND

* Azo Bell from Byron Bay, who did things with a ukulele that doesn't seem possible or plausible. An artist's artist - if he hadn't come on so late in the evening when I was physically and mentally exhausted, I might have appreciated his skills more.

All in all, a great evening...even if it did go a bit longer than we anticipated.

And will I be back next year for Ukulele Land IV? Most likely...but I need to buy a Hawaiian shirt first.

Rose Turtle Ertler

Not everybody likes BP...

I RECEIVED issue 22 of editor/publisher Jerianne’s always informative and entertaining Zine World last September and eagerly flicked to the reviews section to see what had been said about BP. I was somewhat taken aback to read the scathing comments from volunteer reviewer Ryan Mishap:

Betty Paginated #28: I’m insulted that they think anyone would want to read this, but apparently it has quite a following, judging by the number of readers voting in the theme of this issue: Bad Girls Suvey. With its “I’d do her” mentality and reduction of women to body parts, this zine is terrible before you even get to the long section on professional wrestling. There’s the aforementioned survey (with pictures, mostly celebrities and porn stars), obituaries, an ode to Russ Meyer, a look at Australia’s witch artist Rosaleen Norton, a piece on comic artist Keith Chatto and a reprint from his 1940s comic Bunny Allen, and more. About the only emotion in here that wasn’t creepy was the obituary for their dog, Bongo. Sad.

Which, I have to say, is possibly the most deliciously vicious, negative review this zine has received in the past 15 years.
Nice to know I can still ruffle a few PC feathers.
If you’re interested in securing the latest issue or back issues of Zine World: A Reader’s Guide To The Underground Press, e-mail Jerianne at Jerianne@undergroundpress.org or go to www.undergroundpress.org.

La Venganza De Los Punks: punks gone wild!!

Olga Rios is the half-naked leader of the Intrepidos Punks

FOLLOWING the success of Intrepidos Punks (which IMDb.com lists as being made in 1980, although it seems to be mid-80s by my reckoning), sequel La Venganza De Los Punks was a no-brainer. Again, IMDb.com lists it as being filmed in 1991, but I suspect it came out not long after the first flick – it certainly features most of the original cast and they don’t seem to have aged the alleged 11 years between flicks.
El Fantasma’s back as the villainous Tarzan and his new “Queen Of The Intrepidos Punks” is Olga Rios (who was one of La Princesa Lea’s underlings in the first film).

El Fantasma and Olga are about to extract some bloody revenge

The plot pretty much mirrors Intrepidos Punks, but ups the ante when it comes to ultra-violence and sexy nudity.

'Cos nothing says sexy like a bloke wearing aluminium foil cones on his head

Tarzan and his cronies are back raping and pillaging – they’ve also got a bone to pick with one of the cops (Juan Gallardo, I think) who put them away in the first place. Their revenge? They rape and murder all of Juan’s family and friends at a big party, while forcing the poor bastard to watch it all.
Not surprisingly, he goes a tad insane, quits the police force and goes off seeking revenge, Charles “Death Wish” Bronson style.

'Cos nothing says revenge like a middle-aged Mexican wearing a Michael Jackson-style leather jacket

The rest of the film shows Juan slowly, methodically (and some viewers might say, boringly) wipe out the gang, individually. Despite their all-round badness, the punks are completely helpess against this one-man onslaught and are easy prey to the copper’s crazy genius as he uses stakes in the anus, snakepits, acid to the face and good old guns to kill everyone…except for Tarzan, who he strings upside down from a post and gouges out his eyes. The cop then wakes up and it’s – GASP – been a dream all along. I think. Maybe.
’Cos the closing credits go up and we see the cop walking off in the distance after his wholesale slaughter of the punks. So…um…was it a dream? Was it real? Hell, who knows when there are no subtitles on the damn movie and my Spanish vocabulary consists of the menu at Taco Bell and not much else
I went to the source – the guy who sent me both Punks movies in the first place – Keith Rainville of From Parts Unknown fame (www.frompartsunknown.com) and asked him to explain what the fuck had just happened. His reply?
“HAH! You're looking for logic in the wrong place, amigo!”
Okaaaaay. Well, what about the mystery about when the movies were made anyway?
“I’ve read that Intrepidos was shot in the late 80s but not released until five years later because of some government content-squashing effort,” wrote Keith. “When it came out there was a big to-do to the tune of ‘finally, the banned film sees the light of day’ hoo-haa. Venganza seems to have been put out later, after a lot of bans were relaxed, because the gore, violence and sexual content is more intense.
“All the IMDB dates are way off. I’ve seen it credited everywhere from 1971 to 1980 to 1986. My guess would be 1986 or later for the actual production of Intrepidos, with a 1991 release, could be ’94 though. Venganza seems to be ’94. Perhaps Venganza was shot and never finished until the first film was released from its ban?
“The Frazetta-esque brunette’s name escapes me, but I love her, even with the horrid implants. Her lower half is a miracle.”

Combine a dead sacrificial goat, Olga's awesome arse, El Fantasma dressed as a psychedelic Klan member and a guy with a Pomeranian glued to his skull and what do you get? Mexi-cinematic magic!

Keith is, of course, talking about the delightful Olga Rios.
So tell me more about El Fantasma.
“Fantasma is a BIG beefy luchador, and currently the president of the Box y Lucha Comission that governs the sport [in Mexico]. Basically made a career wrestling in an
unauthorised knock-off costume of Lee Falk’s Phantom comic strip. I hear he’s a real dick. He shows up in movies once in a while as himself or in bit parts.”

So thanks, Keith, for clearing up most (if not all) my queries.

As for Intrepidos Punks and La Venganza De Los Punks, I heartily recommend you track them down. Watching Mexican men in their mid-30s wearing multi-coloured poodles on their heads will melt your brains, my friends, your braaaaaaaaaaaains...

Laugh at their silly haircuts...IF YOU DARE!!!

REVIEW: Luchadors, bad 80s hair and Mexican strippers = Intrepidos Punks

Because everyone knows punk chicks look like Tina Turner in Mad Max 3

and all villains wear an eye-patch and a bad toupee

FROM the moment we see the opening titles graffitied on a bunch of walls, hear the strains of the killer punk theme by Three Souls In My Mind ("Intrepidos punks! Intrepidos puu-uunks!") and watch a punch of punk chicks rob a bank while dressed up as nuns, you know you're in for an insane slice of Mexican mid-80s cinematic madness.

A bit of topless nun-sense

Sure, Intrepidos Punks is in Spanish and has no subtitles, but you don't need to understand the dialogue to work out what the hell's going on.

A bunch of 30-year-old biker punks - wearing ridiculously high mohawk wigs and outdated "hip" clothing - rob, rape, murder and generally terrorise the Mexican countryside. They're led by supreme masked luchador rudo El Fantasma and the buxom stripper La Princesa Lea.

"Do you wanna be in my gang? My gang? My gang?"
Mexican punk biker gangs led by rudos and strippers are the best!

Titty action occurs regularly during the gang's nightly orgies, as does "wild" dancing, ill-fated games of Russian roulette and other delinquent behaviour.

At one point, the punks invade an outback mining camp and kill a bunch of miners (I assume for their gold/diamonds/bauxite/whatever). Fantasma breaks out some wicked lucha moves including the dreaded tombstone piledriver (banned in Mexico!) on one hapless schlub.

Oooooh! Diabolical!

Despite their seeming ability to do anything they like without consequence, the gang are actually being tracked down by two hard-working cops. They've eventually kidnapped and tortured by the gang, but are eventually saved by their fellow officers and a massive shoot-out follows.

This can only end in tears for the intrepidos punks

In the rather anticlimactic final battle, La Princesa Lea is shot in the head and the rest of the gang are rounded up by the cops...except for our man El Fantasma who makes a speedy getaway in his car. However, our two hero coppers chase after him, force his car to pull over, beat him up and arrest the masked mongrol.

However, the final scene seems to hint that El Fantasma either escaped from jail or somehow beat the many charges he faced (damn my poor Spanish language skills).

Either way, Mexi-film lovers...I smell SEQUEL!