MeFi Projects

object: murder is a light-hearted view of the dark secrets hidden in the hearts of the objects around us. Hand-drawn in five minutes or less; no take-backs. I've been doodling for as long as I can remember, alongside more serious pursuits — and sillier ones. I'm committed to maintaining some sort of hand craft in the digital age, and so object: murder is my attempt to keep my doodling muscles limber while bringing a little bit of lightness to other people's days. [more inside]
posted by obliquicity on Jun 29, 2021 - 0 comments

Uniontown’s Dukes/Nutt affair has all the elements of a lurid daytime soap: the sexually explicit letter calling a beloved daughter’s honour into question; the outraged father gunned down while challenging his daughter’s despoiler; his killer walking free from court; lynch mobs baying in the streets; riots and a fleeing jury; the dead man’s son taking deadly revenge; high rhetoric at the boy’s trial and a determined bending of the law to ensure he escaped punishment; an innocent woman shot in the violent aftermath; and a prison sentence cut short by friends in the governor’s mansion. All this played out in Pennsylvania and Kansas between 1882 and 1903. It’s the subject of PlanetSlade’s first major essay for over two years, and you can read the full story here. [more inside]
posted by Paul Slade on Mar 10, 2017 - 0 comments

This is a teaser for a new show I'm producing. We're in the funding stage, so more views = better chance of money to make an 8-episode series. I would love to hear your thoughts...would you watch this show?
posted by lizifer on Mar 5, 2017 - 3 comments

I've mentioned The Gallows Ballads Project on Metafilter previously. These sheets were sold at public hangings in Victorian London, and each contains a set of verses describing the condemned man's crime and punishment. Now, I've made an hour-long radio documentary on the project, which London's Resonance FM put out as a Halloween Special last night. In the programme, I tell the true crime stories behind eight of the goriest ballad sheets I've collected and play some great new performances of these century-old songs by modern musicians like The Jetsonics, Pete Morton and Elsa "Bride of Frankenstein" Lanchester. I think you'll like it.
posted by Paul Slade on Nov 1, 2016 - 0 comments

Some years ago, I heard that Sweeney Todd was based on a true story and I began setting out to do more research on the matter. I quickly discovered that the source which claimed the story was true was highly questionable, but it led me into my own historical search, finding ultimately that the story of Sweeney Todd began as a French story -- and possibly as an urban legend relating to some early 19th century city planning.
posted by Peregrine Pickle on May 9, 2016 - 0 comments

Many of the good folk here on Metafilter have enjoyed PlanetSlade.com's Murder Ballads essays in the past (previously: 1, 2, 3, 4). Now Soundcheck Books is publishing a collection of them, which contains two brand new exclusive essays (covering Poor Ellen Smith and Murder of the Lawson Family), plus a host of fresh musician interviews about songs already discussed on PlanetSlade. I hope you'll consider buying a copy (Amazon US / UK), but in the meantime, please feel free to enjoy its free "DVD Extras" section on PlanetSlade itself. There you'll find some out-takes from my new interviews with Billy Bragg, The Bad Seeds' Mick Harvey, Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family, Snakefarm's Anna Domino, Dave Alvin from The Blasters, Laura Cantrell, The Mekons' Jon Langford, Bob Shane from The Kingston Trio, Angela Correa and Ralph Stanley II. I've also included a couple of sidebar stories which got squeezed out of the book for reasons of space, including an introduction to the OTHER Charlie Lawson (who also murdered a member of his own family at Christmas time) and an account of my long-delayed trip to Tom Dula and Laura Foster's graves. Finally, you'll find some links to my own curated playlists for the book's eight songs. Please spread the word.
posted by Paul Slade on Sep 30, 2015 - 0 comments

My look at the early days of Omaha theater, back when it was a frontier town, its amusements were questionable, and vice was rampant, with occasional forays into more recent performing arts misbehavior. [more inside]
posted by Bunny Ultramod on Jun 2, 2014 - 0 comments

For the past couple of months, I've been researching the final hours of Dr William Kirwan, a Victorian doctor strangled to death as he wandered the slums of London's notorious Southwark. Kirwan turned up there in the small hours with an alcoholic street whore one October morning in 1892, seeming barely to know who he was. He'd left a Canning Town pub perfectly sober the previous night, but never made it home. We don’t know what happened to him during that missing night, but we do know it got him murdered just a few hours later. [more inside]
posted by Paul Slade on Feb 25, 2013 - 2 comments

Well, it’s taken me over a year to do it, but I’ve now managed to persuade modern rock, folk and blues musicians to record all 16 of the genuine Victorian gallows ballads which I started researching back in 2011 (Projects previously). You’ll find a Soundcloud set compiling the whole "album" linked above, and details of the individual songs below. Each track is a collaboration across more than 100 years, as singers and bands from Britain, America and Australia add their own music to the original 19th century lyrics. Each track's Soundcloud entry has a link taking you to the true story behind that particular ballad. [more inside]
posted by Paul Slade on Jan 5, 2013 - 3 comments

PlanetSlade's been writing about Murder Ballads for quite some time now (previously 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Now I've placed the site's first book-length offering on the Kindle store, where you'll find it at the link above. If by any chance you'd like to buy a copy, that would make me very happy. Robert Wilhelm at Murder By Gaslight called the book "very impressive", and the crime scene's local paper rated it "truly a fascinating read". British readers should go to this Amazon.co.uk page instead.
posted by Paul Slade on Aug 24, 2012 - 0 comments

"She went a little further and what did she spy? / A newly-dug grave with a spade lying by." Pretty Polly is one of America's most chilling murder ballads, but did you know every key scene and image in the song first appeared in an English ballad of the early 18th century? PlanetSlade's latest essay traces Polly's roots back to The Gosport Tragedy, visits her last resting place and names the guilty - or perhaps not so guilty - man. Includes interviews with Kristin Hersh and many other singers who've performed the song.
posted by Paul Slade on Feb 9, 2012 - 1 comment

You may not know the song covered in PlanetSlade’s latest Murder Ballads essay, but I guarantee you’ll never forget the story behind it. On February 1, 1896, Pearl’s decapitated body was found in a Kentucky orchard. She was pregnant, and she’d been struggling when the killer began cutting off her head. That head has never been found, but we do know that the murderer carried it round Cincinnati’s bars with him. The police investigation which followed used a crucial clue from Pearl’s shoes and America’s first bugged cell. There was a thriving souvenir trade surrounding the case and lynch mobs roamed the streets. Two men – one of them Pearl’s lover – eventually hanged for the crime, which inspired a ballad still sung (and danced) today. Read all about it at the link above.
posted by Paul Slade on Aug 23, 2011 - 0 comments

Since May 2009, PlanetSlade has been bringing you the true stories behind classic murder ballads like Stagger Lee, Knoxville Girl and Hattie Carroll. The site’s latest essay details my efforts to write a fresh set of lyrics in this old tradition, describing a real 2004 murder near my home in North London. The victim was a young Somali prostitute, picked up by her killer while working the streets around King’s Cross. Her death was barely reported at the time, which is one reason I decided to try and commemorate her in song. The folk singer Pete Morton liked my first set of lyrics enough to add some music and record them for me (free download here), and Iowa’s own Scott Riley shot some YouTube footage of himself performing my second version of the song – again, with his own music. PlanetSlade previously: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
posted by Paul Slade on Jan 1, 2011 - 0 comments