319 WATCH BATTERY

David is the co-creator and editor of Headpress (now releasing it's 27th bumper edition), the journal dedicated to sex, religion and death. Headpress boasts an incredible catalogue of film and counterculture book titles and has recently moved its offices to London.

These pictures were taken in Manchester, England on a cold Autumn night.

Here is the original interview from Naked - Magazine of the Weird and Wonderful:

THE POUND OF THE UNDERGROUND
The year is 1991. You are standing in your favourite, dusty comic shop. You know the one. It’s the place the council is trying to close down because of all those “strange characters” which frequent the establishment. They’re odd, morose folk who like nothing more than wading through poorly printed kids comics that deprave the mind. And let’s not mention those magazines they have for sale. Ohmygod, have you ever seen anything like it? Of course, it’s also rumoured that the sweaty bloke that works on the weekends sells certain types of horror movies (and ‘other’ sorts of films too) if you ask him surreptitiously. You just haven’t got the nerve though.

So you are there again, but sadly this Saturday afternoon’s excursion has so far proved fruitless. You are in desperate need of a good read…something different than the usual fare. You’ve already bought all the regulars this month and you’re just bored of the usual fare. But wait! What’s this? Something tucked behind that smutty looking men’s magazine. You give the corner of its blood-red cover a tug…

“Headpress…hmm…curious…” You continue to read the cover. “Bizarre culture, deviant conceptions...” Sounds interesting.

Realising the potential for depravity you hold in your hands, you quickly glance left and right to check you aren’t being watched. That sweaty bloke behind the counter is looking more and more like Jack Elam in Once Upon A Time In The West.

You turn the page. Inside…something strange.

Can this be real? An article discussing Mr. Punch as a “sex-killer puppet.” And here, an interview with Deborah Ryder, a publisher of bondage books. Strange sado-erotic illustrations are dotted around. This thing looks so seedy and odd! You flick through the coarse-toothed paper with photocopied typewriter text and find a piece on some Finnish detective series next to a discussion of cafe culture. Your mind is boggling! If all this eclecticism isn’t enough to start you salivating with delight, you turn to the back page (home of all good things) to find that Headpress are selling VHS copies of Jorg Buttgereit’s Der Todesking on mail order, the director that made the infamous nastie Nekromanitic.

You smile smugly as you walk over to Jack Elam. He looks you up and down like he’s about to spit his tobacco in your face. You place the copy of Headpress issue one on the table, pushing aside the Judge Dread movie standee. You don’t have to shit yourself anymore about asking this guy about his video tape collection. You’ve found your sole source for an underground tap of filth, depravity and weirdness. There’s never been anything like it on the shelves before. Its name is Headpress.

Headpress was the brainchild of three misanthrope individuals with oddly the same first name; David Kerekes, David Flynt and David Slater. The only remainng member of this triumphant at the magazine is Kerekes, shaven-headed and bizarrely mild-mannered . We are sat talking in his Manchester home. He explains the creation of the magazine:

“We were all into films and decided to put Jorg Buttgereit’s Der Todesking through the BBFC, because he was the director of Nekromantic which was pretty infamous at the time. We thought his new film could legitimately come out without being too battered by the BBFC. So we got it through and did a limited edition of about five hundred on VHS, the quantity we could afford to do. It took a long, long time but we sold those and thought, ‘well, what are we going to do now? We’ve got our money back, do we split the profits three ways or do we put it together and do something else?’ The magazine was for all of us, the logical thing to do. That was how Headpress came about.”

With no desire to launch yet another film magazine into the market, the three David’s fell upon the idea of a journal which, “encourages people to write anything they want to write about.” If the editorial team felt the subject matter was interesting enough, they would print it. Of course, if this seems a little vague to you, don’t worry, because the three David’s found the same response too. And so, they came up with the idea of giving the magazine a subtitle that would point people in the right direction. Sort of. First it was ‘Bizarre Culture, Deviant Conception, Cinematic Extremes’ on the early issues just to let people know that it wasn’t just about films, then more successfully ‘The Journal of Sex, Religion and Death’:

“I kind of liked the idea that Headpress should be about something. I kind of stole it from Fortean

This is Liz: PloesiePoesie #042. She was named after Liz Mitchell, who was a member of Boney M.! Cat’s cannot be any sweeter than Liz. She wants to hug and be hugged forever. She’s made of brown fleece and has a tiger patch on her belly. Liz is 14” tall.

Each PloesiePoesie is 100% handmade and 100% unique. There are no 2 alike. And... just like real cats each PloesiePoesie has a unique name and a unique character. Every PloesiePoesie is tagged with it’s unique number and comes with a personal behavioral guide. In this guide you will find 10 tips, favorites and character features of your own PloesiePoesie. It’s very important that you check these guidelines carefully to see if you and this PloesiePoesie are a good match.

These are the 10 tips, favorites and character features of Liz:

1. Please don’t wash me. I’m scared of water.

2. Since I was named after Liz, I love listening to songs of Boney M.! My favorite song is ‘Rivers of Babylon’. “By the rivers of Babylon / there we sat down / Ye-eah we wept / when we remembered zion. By the rivers of Babylon / There we sat down / Ye-eah we wept / when we remembered zion!”

3. I like wearing flip-flops. The sound of the flipping and flopping always makes me happy and think of the summer.

4. I’m into yoga. I can stretch and bend my body in very awkward positions.

5. My favorite food are ‘frikadellen’. It’s a typical Dutch meat thing that gets fried. They say it has a lot of different sorts of meat in it, mostly leftovers.

6. I like rubbing my face to yours and lick your eyebrows and forehead.

7. The loveliest flowers in the world must be forget-me-nots.

8. I enjoy reading romantic novels and watching romantic movies.

9. The thing I love most is hugging and hugging and more hugging. I can do that all day. Sometimes I forget to eat while I’m busy hugging.

10. My biggest dream is to visit Kenia on day and go on a safari and meet some real tigers. I hope they don’t bite.

For more information about this or other PloesiePoesies, please send me an e-mail.