Today we celebrate the birthday of one of rock ‘n’roll’s original madmen: Gene Vincent embodied sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll about a decade before the emergence of an American generation that would take hold of those values and recreate world culture in a new era of freedom and expression.

By 1969 Vincent was a wounded demon, exiled from the U.S. and touring Europe to adoring fans who might not have noticed that he his bright burning candle was about to fade. Here’s the story of this documentary film at Video Beat…

U.K. documentary. A rare film chronicling the first four days of Gene Vincent’s 1969 U.K. tour. Teddy boys welcome Gene at the airport as he gets off the plane in London. Gene rehearses with the group The Wild Angels for a TV show appearance and live club gigs. Terrific rockin’ performances including “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” “Say Mama,” “Baby Blue,” and more! Unbelievably, the promoters actually try to rip him off!

Gene was suffering debilitating pain from his 1955 motorcycle accident and the 1960 taxicab collision that killed his fellow passenger and friend Eddie Cochran. As Gene performs for his adoring fans, you can practically feel his exhaustion and see the pain behind his determined smile. Less than two years after filming this documentary, Gene died of a burst ulcer. He was only 36 years old.

It’s better to burn out than to fade away. Gene Vincent was born today…

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This week, the Frist will open Real/Surreal: Selections from the Whitney Museum of American Art — it’s an exhibition of paintings, photos and prints that examine the way 1920′s European Surrealists like Dalí and Magritte influenced the American artists of the 1930′s, 40′s and 50′s.

Even if you’re not in Nashville, the questions the show raises are curious ones — the most important being “What are we talking about when we talk about the surreal?” Antonia found an old episode of the BBC show Arena that offers a great little primer on the subject: “Memoirs of a Self-Confessed Surrealist” features British critic/singer George Melly recounting his own surrealist roots and name-checking the other U.K. artists whom he counted among his comrades in arms. Along the way he traces European Surrealism from the nihilism of Dada through the shock of Duchamp. Melly died in 2007, but not before he gave us these eloquent lines about dreams, freedom and poetry:

Surrealism is the spirit of the dream coupled with reality. It’s reality as it might be. It’s reality infused with poetry. It’s not mystical — it relies only on what is there, but it combines these two to produce a world totally free.

Here is “Memoirs of a Self-Confessed Surrealist”…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Art posts.