my inner geekdom

so...

2012-01-16T10:36:00.000-05:00

So I haven't posted since 2010, before I was even married? hmmph...

A few blog ideas forming, one basically ready to go.

more soon. i promise...

just checkin in. more blogging soon....

2010-08-30T08:23:00.000-04:00

a few things:

1. my fiance and I have started a food/cooking blog here. check it out!

2. I currently live in new jersey.

3. Robert plant has a new album coming out. normally this wouldn't matter much to me, but he's covering Low. And this is sort of amazing....

4. I'm way behind on my comics... I know there's only a couple i need to check up on (buffy and amazing spiderman... maybe whatever's going on in the batman books, or at least the return of bruce wayne) but... it's funny, I originally envisioned this as sort of a comics blog but have maybe only posted 4 or 5 entries about comics... so we'll see how that goes...

posting from my droid

2010-08-02T21:13:00.001-04:00

yep

so this might mean I will blog more, since I can prettymuch just get to this on my phone whenever...

dangerous.

this guy at this open mic sounds like he could be playing guitar parts of explosions in the sky songs....

should I also twitter?

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.9

iron man 2 review

2010-05-10T13:40:00.002-04:00

iron man 2.

the good:

- robert downey jr. incredible. seriously. again, i have to give major credit to the people who cast him as stark/iron man. he was perfect note for note from beginning to end.

- sam rockwell as justin hammer. despite the lack of real development of the rivalry, sam rockwell also proves that he really is as good an actor as he always seems to be.

- visually. like the first one, a stunning movie. some overdone (the scene where black widow breaks into Hammer's offices felt too showy, as if to say "hey teenage boys, here's a hot woman in a cat suit kicking ass") but mostly fantastic.

- the nods. mostly the captain america shield. agent coulson's reaction was pretty much priceless.

the bad:

- lack of development, plot and character wise. even of the characters you knew from the first one, it felt like there was a lot just sort of thrown at you.

- shoehorned together plot. too many story lines put together with various levels of success - tying Whiplash to Hammer was good and made sense. black widow being tied to shield, eh (yes, she should be, but i think a major point was missed in both her and the villain were Russian). the whole war machine plot, while it did work, felt a little rushed as well.

anyway. so was it as good as the first one, which was completely brilliant and amazing? no. and i don't think it really could have expected to be. it really felt like, in some respects, they were saying "this movie is a stop-gap between the first one and the entire future of the marvel film universe - we're not positive if we're going to get another movie out of iron man alone, so we need to hit you with this, this, and this." it will be interesting to see where this leads once the rest of the avengers are put into place. how it SHOULD go is something like this:

at the end of the captain america movie - maybe after the credits, where we know he has been frozen in ice, we see a block of ice with a vaguely human form in it on a table, surrounded by tony stark (in or out of costume), thor, bruce banner (or hulk), and maybe some others that we will not have seen yet (wasp? pym? maybe we only vaguely identify them in this scene, just to set people up for the avengers movie, which this will then lead into). of course, i don't write for marvel studios so...

it's a blogapalooza

2010-05-05T22:27:00.003-04:00

- back to the ramona books, for a second. i know her family was supposed to be relatively poor (after her dad lost his job, especially) but it always bothered me how they would talk about going out for fast food like it was going out for a gourmet meal. i do get how, to some kids, even those with money, it is. but that just always bothered me.

- henry huggins. still the bomb. paper drives and all of that. really, i love me some beverly cleary. she rarely talked about that puberty stuff that judy blume threw into everything she wrote, even stuff like Freckle Juice.

- wednesday = comics. comics = sometimes good. sometimes frustrating.

- the good. the boys. seriously. the boys, is just a great book. sometimes too dirty, but i'd expect that from anything Garth Ennis writes. his satiric take on super heroes is just... brutal. and... yeah.

- Also good: Batman and Robin #12. the reveal at the end, very unexpected. Morrison still wins.

- the frustrating. Brightest Day. after Blackest Night, i would want a really strong follow up (ie 52 following up the mostly readable Infinite Crisis). brightest day, so far, is a lot of navel gazing. more setup than necessary. it's great that these characters are back from the dead and conflicted about it. where's it going to go? (the only really good bits were the Aquaman calling dead fish part and the return of Black Manta).

- also good. but even better because it was a buck. I Zombie. mike allred's art can pretty much make me like anything. and hey, a book whose plot revolves a zombie (who has to eat the brains of the recently dead once a month to keep from becoming "totally night of the living dead") whose best friends are a ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf? how can that be bad?? (seriously, check out the prequel!)

- also, they killed nightcrawler in x-men. for what? who knows. is x-men going to do that thing to me where it makes me really not want to read them for a while?? best bit: beast yelling at cyclops at nightcrawler's funeral. kind of brilliant, really.

- my blog lacks focus. just random thoughts. i hope people don't mind.

random thoughts part deux

2010-05-04T22:55:00.003-04:00

- man, that last entry formatted really weird. i blame the video embedding.

- i grew up reading the ramona books. loved them, though i never read the ones that came out after "ramona quimby age 8" (kind of like Judy Blume's "Fudge" books, i didn't care for the characters after I and they reached a certain age). i am incredibly troubled by the upcoming movie:

Ramona And Beezus Trailer

now, the casting actually seems good/right (even selina gomez), so i don't have a problem there. i think my issue is with what Walden media does to kids books when turning them into movies: add ridiculous looking "fantasy" elements. yeah, it's great to see what Ramona is imagining, but is it really necessary to have THAT much detail. that ruined their "Bridge to Terabithia" for me - by turning the Terabithia scenes into "lord of the rings light," they sort of missed the entire point. and really, the books are better when it's just ramona being mischievous honestly, i was too big a fan of the uber cool, sarah polley before Avonlea (and then awesome goto indie actress), Canadian tv series that pbs showed for about a year to accept any other live action version of the books.

also, that kid beezus is talking to had better be henry huggins! they left him out of the tv show. henry huggins is the bomb.

- i'm also not terribly thrilled about the tron sequel. i think they are doing some pretty cool things with it, but i just don't see it as necessary. my memories of tron will always revolve around when the Disney channel was fairly new, so all they seemed to show was Tron, Ozzie and Harriet, and Mr Boogedy. i love mr boogedy.

- is curious why Marvel has to revisit the 90's so much. first onslaught, then the clone wars, then "x-men forever" and "x-factor forever"... now a new look at the Infinity Gauntlet? I do like that it will be through Marvel's "all ages" Marvel Adventures line but... still. that said, i do think it's great that Marvel is bringing back Thanos, even if it's just in the cosmic books. if i had to pick a favorite Marvel villain list, he'd be up there...

- i think, as much as the whole "brand new day" spiderman stuff has kind of made a nice niche for itself, and has had some really great moment's story telling wise, for them to go back and remind us of the bullshit that started it all - apparently they are going to have us see the new version of what happened at peter parker and mary jane's wedding that caused them to not get married... i have heard some rumor that it might ultimately lead to an undoing of it all, which might not be bad (as long as it's not done in some ham fisted "okay, other reality restored" kind of way...). i, for one, really didn't have a problem with spider man getting married. who cares if it "aged" him - he is supposed to be an adult, after all. and if people really are into the single peter parker, i would think part of that is because they want to see him develop into the no-longer-single peter parker.

okay. that's all for now. maybe more coherence later?

back

2010-05-03T15:34:00.004-04:00

has it been that long since i last posted... seeing how there's more action coming from spammer "commenting" on an old post of mine, i figured i'd get back into the blogging game... this will just be a random thoughts post, which i may elaborate on some of later, but for now... these are things i've either wanted to blog about, thought about either recently or for years, or just... wanted to type... so without further ado...

random thoughts:

- i don't really like the Grateful Dead. i actually think they have some okay songs, but i just never got into it. maybe it was because the Dead, to me, were a lot like Jimmy Buffett (at least at my high school where someone would inevitably want "What a Long Strange Trip It's Been" as the end of year senior class song) - not musically, which i think they definitely have a leg up on Buffet with, but in terms of the people they attract. that said, I have known some really passionate Grateful Dead fans, who followed the music not the "atmosphere." I will admit to thinking the video for "Touch of Grey" is completely awesome (and i don't really even mind the song...

- speaking of "the dead," I really enjoyed DC comics recent "Blackest Night" event. Really. A lot.

There were definitely some problems I had with it (the outcome, where certain heroes and villains

were brought back from the dead, was well played, I just wish they had brought back some more than

others...). I'm really interested how this is going to play (mostly i just want to see a new Aquaman ongoing),

but again: the ending was top notch. And really, I have to say that this is where DC comics, i think, really

beats Marvel in their crossovers.

With Marvel, the last few "Major Events" (since civil war) have been kind of ham handed, and really didn't

seem to be interested in "change" - yeah, it looks like some of this upcoming "heroic age" will be a big,

permanent deal... but i still half expect "Seige" to have a huge cop out ending where the key to defeating the

now batshit insane "Sentry" is something they've had all along. With DC, although it has felt like each crossover

has just been serving to lead to the next big event, they actually have impact. (of course, Marvel does a

significantly better job with timing, whereas with a DC book, you can never tell when in relation other books

are taking place to the big event, and sometimes you get events spoiled for you. Marvel definitely is a little more

disciplined, though I think Luke Cage taking over Thunderbolts would have been a better thing to find out

when Seige was all over...

- I still have no real interest in sitting down and seriously watching James Cameron's ~~"The Smurfs"~~ "Avatar."

Similar to my aversion to "Cloverfield" if someone convinces me... but otherwise. I think it's less to do with the movie

itself and more to do with my loathing for most of the work of James Cameron (and, bluntly, the man is a

ridiculous asshole, but i only object to how that seems to come across in his movies). I like the first Terminator

just fine, and Aliens (although it doesn't hold a candle to the first one), but i seriously cannot name another James

Cameron film i truly like (the Abyss might come close, although, hmm, no. not really.) Also, as much as i sort of

like 3D (i think for some movies, like Coraline, it has worked really well), i'm not too terribly into seeing a 3D

movie that, as has been largely pointed out elsewhere, is either stealing the plot from disney's "Pocahontas" or something

else (Dances With Wolves, Fern Gully, etc.) (or, as many critics from various ends of the political spectrum have stated, is

an extremely ham handed political analogy of anti-imperialism/racism/environmentalism/younameitsomepoliticalhackhasfounditsm).

nope. not for me.

(and really, it's the smurfs. sorry.)

- it's sort of awful how bad i want to see iron man 2. i never really liked iron man as a character. even now. even post

movie. even with all the, admitedly very cool, thing they have done to him in the comics (asshole iron man is better than

bland "rich guy uses money for superheroics" iron man any day. and now he's having to redeem himself. a lot.) i just

have little real interest in reading him.

- i don't understand tween pop stars, especially those churned out through the disney or nickelodeon machines. i'm also

a little disconcerted that there's a nickelodeon "tween" machine now. but seriously, all the tv shows are overacted, overly

broad comedy and the music just tries to hard to fit in some popular niche of music, that it all seems really trite and boring.

and i know this is how various elements of the entertainment industry has always worked (a manufactured pop star is a

manufactured pop star. period). but... ugh...

- "true" by spandau ballet is a terrible song. just terrible.

- if Marvel is bringing Jean Grey back, and i sort of hope they are, they had better not do it just to kill her in a few years.

it gets old. fast.

- even though they explain it in Darkest Night, i would have liked to see all of the unnecessary deaths from "Identity Crisis"

undone for brightest day (Firestorm's was a start, but i'm talking sue and ralph dibney). i also think they should have had - or do

as some sort of parody/one shot kind of thing, the dead black lantern versions of all the unnecessarily/ridiculously killed off

characters from the past couple of decades in DC history and have them attack the writers/editors responsible...

- all for now. more to come...

conspiracy proven

2010-01-18T08:47:00.004-05:00

apparently, the moon landing WAS faked as an A.I.M. plot...

the proof?

well, neil armstrong is apparently, actually MODOK!

yep. i knew it.....

sometimes i'm such a tease and sometimes i'm a liar

2009-11-06T10:45:00.003-05:00

yep.

no halloween posts. not even one. one in progress that i'll just say is a regular post. i'll do better for christmas, i swear.

so i'll just leave you with this, because i think it's pretty f-ing amazing...

i'm captain lou and i'm talkin to you!

2009-10-17T01:15:00.002-04:00

RIP captain lou. many childhood memories involve you somehow...

wow. does anyone even remember that "Rock N Wrestling" existed?? i think it came on right before (or maybe after) pee wee's playhouse... man, THAT brings back memories...

(okay, i can't embed the girls just wanna have fun video... weird... but that's likely what most people remember him from....)

blank... now with filler

2009-10-17T00:15:00.000-04:00

i have had bloggers block for weeks.

i have some halloween-ish ideas. but... hmm...

consider this filler:

___________
From High Fidelity
"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up is hard to do – it takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick it off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch -but you don’t wanna blow you wad, so then you gotta to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules…"

so one of the things i spend an awful lot of time doing - or have spent at least, over the past... oh... 15 years or so - is making mix tapes. and cd's. mostly cd's, but it started with tapes...

here's a decent sampling of some of what i have done over the years. not all of them, but quite a few.

now, most of them have been for girls. yes yes, i know... it's almost a cliche, boy making mix tape for girl (granted, many of these were for friends and/or girlfriends, not merely girls i had crushes on, but i certainly made my share of those too). and, for the most part, though certainly not entirely consciously, i have followed Rob Gordon's rules, and certainly agree that it takes ages longer than it might seem (i have really only successfully "thrown together" 1 mix in my entire life. 1. and even it took 3 days instead of the usual 2 or 3 or... well... more weeks).

some other basic rules i follow:

1. don't put their favorite song on it.
they have their "favorite song." they don't need to hear it again. i once made a tape for someone who requested all sorts of stuff be on it. it was awful (and was the one thrown together in a few days). you can definitely sidestep it by putting on a song they might not know by the same artist, or something similar, but if you out their favorite song on, while you might score some points, you might as well be buying them the record. (okay, that assumes you know their favorite song. there's a lot to be said for not knowing what their favorite song is and putting it on inadvertently. that, actually, is awesome).

2. always throw in something fun
unless it's a very serious mix, this shows you're not taking things TOO seriously. also, it's good to make people laugh. this can be anything from outright comedy songs to funny covers ("music of the beatles goes disco," etc.). if nothing else, you make them laugh or create a conversation starter (which, if that was sort of your point...)

3. covers are your best friend
see rule 2 and rule 1 and combine them. covers can be fun or funny. covers can sidestep the favorite song issue by giving them a new version of the song to enjoy. covers have always been a big part of the mixes i have made. i also used to do this thing where i sort of spliced 2 versions of a song together (all very technical. involved creative use of the pause button...)

4. close it off with a bang
some songs are meant to end mixes. you know them when you hear them. yeah, they aren't EXCLUSIVELY end songs, but they just work perfectly. maybe they sum up the purpose of the tape. maybe they just add a fun endpoint (this is sometimes where the fun or funny song comes in well). the closer is definitely just as important as the opening track, so definitely not a place for filler...

5. filler is okay.
with tapes, it was a necessity. you had to fill 45 minutes of side A of a c-90 and you had about 3 minutes left... 3 minutes of dead space just wouldn't do, so this is where you can throw in pretty much anything, as long as it doesn't go against the spirit of the tape (this also is a good place for the fun or funny song...). with cd's it's less of a problem, but really, if you're not filling the 80 minute capacity of the cd-r you just put into your drive, what's the point?

for me, it's a whole process. yeah, you have to grab them with the songs, but it has to be a nice package too. and this can take as long as the mix to make if you really work at it... yeah, you can just write the song titles on a j-card (if you're making a cassette) or cd-booklet, but to me, taking the time to make the artwork, shows as much passion behind the project as the songs you choose...

example, here is the artwork for a mix cd i made for my girlfriend recently:

yes, it's designed to look like a Penguin Classic. Took forever. but this is the kind of detail i'm talking about. it's really an art... i'm certainly not saying everyone should make highly detailed artwork for mixes, but really, why not? even if it's just a weird/funny picture (tons of those online)/ something from a movie... it just shows that you actually put that extra effort into it.

__________
in 2005, thurston moore edited a book all about mix tapes called, appropriately "Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture," where people from different walks of life - DJ's, musicians, artists, actors, etc. talked about mix tapes they've made ranging from love tapes, break up tapes, and "indoctrination" tapes (i once made a friend a series of 3 tapes of musical history/music they should know since at the time the only music they knew was savage garden (eew) and they might be giants. so i suppose it's something like that.) it's a good, fun book. definitely worth the 2o something it costs.

_____________

so, the mix tape. as the website says, it is certainly an art. As thurston moore says (or at least the publisher's product description of his book says), it is a "new way of re-sequencing music to make sense of our most stubbornly inexpressible feelings-a way of explaining ourselves to someone else, or to ourselves".

i make mix tapes.

the end.

(and, included for your reference, a couple of links, one if which i find the existence of hilarious. guess which one!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixtape
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Perfect-Mix-Tape-or-CD

i forgot to turn on my grunge pedal pt 2 (wow, really, this long after the first one?)

2009-09-27T19:36:00.002-04:00

(full disclosure, i am not particularly a big pearl jam fan. i own a couple of their albums, and got the ten reissue for free, but at best you could say they are a band who has done some interesting things that i kind of like, and might even be a "casual" fan, but only barely).

so, honestly, pearl jam's place as "grunge" was always questionable to me. yes, they were from seattle, wore flannel, and members of the band were in proto-grunge bands like green river. but they were also in mother love bone, who were decidedly not grunge (very glam. very very glam).

pearl jam certainly did "grow" from their first album, "10", which recently was reissued, with a bonus "alternate mix" disc and some other junk (really, for a band that really played the anti-corporate rock game for a long time, despite being in some ways the poster boys for it in the beginning, this was an extremely commercial move). they really ended up hitting a more "classic rock" vibe than anything else, fitting very nicely in with their work with neil young. really, they could have fit really easily in the 70's AOR era, along with the eagles, fleetwood mac, etc.

but "10" (or "ten"... whatever)....
'

(the original cover was called the worst album cover of the 90's here, which is pretty much a good assessment - the new version, a wider shot, which I think you could get if you took out the cd booklet and unfolded it, isn't much better. or "grungier" despite the sepia toning...)

really, the re-release of "ten" now - not even for an anniversary, which at least would make more sense, as that's still a couple of years off now - is at best, a masturbatory effort of nostalgia that used to be filled by "classic rock" stations and now we get on games like "rock band" and "guitar hero." and I know, we get this sort of thing a lot these days - everyone's reissuing things, regardless of the point, so I can't completely hold it against them. but, again, the band that took on ticketmaster playing what has become a typical corporate rock game....

just weird (and not as weird as what we'll see in a bit).

my biggest problem with "ten" (and hell, I can even admit to having liked the album back in the day...) now is how poorly it holds up. unlike other albums from the same era, it just feels like an early 90's record. even the remastered disc, which was supposedly meant to make it less of the corporate rock-sounding album than it was then, doesn't really do anything different. it's like watching the first season of friends, where everything looked sort of artificial and plastic-y. this was grunge? the wanky guitar work (something they never truly got rid of), the whole "hell is for children" vibe of most of the songs... yeah, there are some definite "sing along" moments - who can resist the chorus to "alive"? but... ech.

and did anyone ever notice that every song, except for "black" pretty much has the exact same drum pattern? anyone? it's ridiculous.

pearl jam did ultimately redeem themselves a little musically (as I said before). they did help spawn the post grunge revolution (bands from live to creed owe "ten" millions in royalties for how they took vedder's growl and took it platinum heights) - which may be the most unforgivable thing about this album, as once pearl jam move on from their work on "ten" (which really took until "vitalogy" to really happen - "vs." was a decent start, but still... no...) hundreds of other bands jumped in with their deep voiced baritone singers and hard rock riffs, launching a hundred "big man voice" bands (even the singer for the verve pipe developed a vedder like growl for their boring hit "the freshmen" or whatever it was called, which in a lot of ways feels like a bad pearl jam outtake).

__________

the reissue of "ten" seems to be the tip of the iceberg.

pearl jam, after "ten" really became in a lot of ways, paragons of virtue. a little like fugazi (which may be the only time I ever compare fugazi and pearl jam), they really stuck up for their fans (trying to keep ticket prices low, their whole "official bootleg" scheme, which while certainly done with financial interests involved, but also certainly kind of brilliant for fans). yeah, they were with a major label. yeah they were still, in a lot of ways, just another big corporate rock band. but they distanced themselves from everyone else who had come in their wake, and really became a respectable unit.

now...

okay, so they have their reasons. and if the recent spin interview is any indication, their reasons aren't 100% awful. like they say, it's not like they're celine dion or AC/DC. but making Target the exclusive carrier of your new album kind of goes against the entire image you cultivated over the last decade and a half or so.

granted, I do love shopping at Target, but not as a music store (mostly have ever bought food, cleaning stuff, and housewares there). is that what Pearl Jam want to be associated with?

__________

vote for me!

2009-09-27T19:05:00.000-04:00

yeah. so vote for me!

the House of M(ouse)

2009-09-21T10:42:00.002-04:00

yay blog!

so i really am going to blog more.

for real.

just sort of trying to really focus on what this blog should be...

suggestions?

i know with halloween coming, i will likely do something throughout october for that. i'm not sure what, as i know trying to keep up with 31 days of posting was nearly impossible... once a week maybe? (suggestions for topics always welcome - email dave@sleepyrecords.com, subject "halloween blog ideas"

__________

as for other things....

so disney bought marvel (or something like that. is "bought" really the right word?)

truthfully, i don't see a lot of changes, and see a lot of positives (better distribution, especially with the slow death of the direct market; some properties coming to movie screens in bigger and better ways; disney variant covers - okay, maybe not the last one, though i can definitely see it happening). the movie and tv rights issues might get muddled, but overall i think it's a positive for both consumers and both companies. marvel will now have a better output for their younger reader oriented books, especially for girls (think what DC tried to do several years back with their failed Minx line, only with a better media arm).

what i doubt we'll see is like, when in the mid 90's, disney bought ABC, leading to EVERY ABC sitcom (especially the TGIF shows) going to walt disney world for some reason or another... (interestingly, and there may have been a reason such as an anniversary celebration or something which i truly don't recall). some of them made sense (really, shows like full house and family matters almost HAD to go to disney parks, although i think the plots they cooked up were ridiculous).

but Roseanne?

(here is part one of the multi-episode arc...)

okay, so roseanne was in it's downward spiral years, where the show quality was completely falling apart, and the show was jumping the shark left and right... but a multi-part episode where they go to the magic kingdom???? really? and all for the sake of marketing and "synergy." sad...

so no, I don't see a multi part arc of fantastic four where they take Franklin and Valeria to Disney, and Dr. Doom tries to take over the Matterhorn. Nor do I see man-thing (who, after all is based in the swamps of Florida, similar to where Disney World was built originally) popping up on Splash Mountain (though maybe something where the "nexus of all realities" somehow ends up on the Space Mountain ride... hmm...). but there are a lot of great, realistic possibilities, which could really be good if well played...

keep on with the force don't stop

2009-06-26T12:06:00.003-04:00

so.

Michael Jackson is dead.

sort of weird typing it. not that i thought that he was immortal (throw in joke about being made up of lot of nonliving material, then throw it away for being a little too crass), but it definitely was unexpected.

(i won't make a "plastic" joke if you won't!)

my earliest Michael Jackson memories are as follows:

1. his hair catching on fire. this was big big playground news.
2. the Wiz.
3. thriller. more specifically, playing thriller on the playground in kindergarten. somehow assuming - this was also around the time of the Jackson's victory tour -that the other Jackson brothers (and, for some reason, their father Joe). yes, if there's anything to prove that i was a weird little kid, it was that. i knew the whole Vincent Price "rap" by heart. mostly because it was sort of cool to pretend i was a zombie crawling out of the ground. I'm pretty sure i didn't do the "dance" (i tried to learn it a couple of years ago... hard!)

yeah, he was always a bit odd. bubbles? his friendship with Emmanuel Lewis? a love song to a rat?

(oops, that's not Michael Jackson... ::shudders::)

(much better!)

but he was cool. the songs were good. the videos were maybe a little self indulgent, but to some degree that was the only way MTV was going to play a black artist in the early 80's. and really, i always wanted a sidewalk that lit up when i stepped on it...

even when he did the Simpsons - right at the start of the going "off the wall" (hey, nice play on his album title) he was cool (and very self effacing, which you didn't really see much from him afterwards). yeah, the Bartman was actually a pretty awful song. "Bad" wasn't anywhere near as good a record as "Thriller" but certainly tops "Dangerous." (this was also the start of his odd obsession with filling his videos with odd celebrity cameos - the Liberian Girl video had everyone from Paula Abdul to George freaking Jefferson and Theo Huxtable).

and then the downward spiral began... the plastic surgery (sorry, barring some horrible wasting disease, nobody's nose shrinks like that), the "allegations" (which, unfortunately, probably rang a little true...). the absolutely crappy videos from Dangerous (I'm not even going to post remember the time.... ugh... really?? the man who did Thriller and Beat It made that atrocity???)

favorite weirdness after his fall from grace?

1. wanting to play peter pan in Spielberg's "Hook" (the movie which sort of began the hallmark-ization of Robin Williams, but that's another post)
2. the giant statues
3. "Jesus juice"
4. claiming that "Invincible" didn't do as well as he thought it should have, not because it was a really sub par record full of tired, dated production values, but because the head of
Sony (who at the time had darker skin than him) was a racist... yes somehow Michael Jackson was suddenly a spokesman for African American equality...

all this said, it feels a little like my generation has lost it's Elvis. though MJ's fall from grace is a lot different from the latter years of Elvis' life (as far as we know, Jackson wasn't a drug addled mess at the end, but Presley was far less of a punchline at his death). in terms of impact... this is pretty huge. while certainly there is more going on in the world than this - should the death of a man who has become all but washed up really overshadow the crisis in Iran? - this will dominate the news cycle for a few days, with tributes, pictures of people mourning, tabloid magazines talking to "friends close to Jackson," and the inevitable quickie biography or two. which is what we do when celebrities die.

was Jackson still culturally relevant? ask Timberlake. ask the black eyed peas. ask anyone who has mined his style of R&B or aped his dance moves. had he gotten a chance to do his comeback tour, it could have been like Elvis's comeback special, reinvigorating his career. but now we'll never know...

an open letter to Tom Hanks

2009-06-25T11:30:00.001-04:00

Dear Mr Hanks,

first of all, congratulations on your new-sh movie. i hope it is a success (though it seems it's fallen quite short). (say hi to opie for me).

but mr hanks, i am concerned that this movie is just another in a long line of "serious" roles that further distance you from your goofy/nice guy past.

i still remember your first attempt at serious, with bonfire of the vanities. i would have thought that the terrible reception it got, that you got in it, would have shied you away from any attempt to become a "real" actor again.

this is not to dismiss "Philadelphia" which was... well... amazing, honestly. and it's not to say that your oscar winning performances haven't been... well... oscar worthy. and it's not like you became the walking hallmark card that is robin william's carreer (though he did make attempts at recovery, those have largely been incredibly awkward).

but now a new generation of loveable schlubs have stolen your thunder. seth rogen, jason lee, steve carrell... yeah, the humor is cruder (though i remember bachelor party, sir) but in a lot of ways, they play the nice goofball that you used to do so well...

do i have a point here? i don't know. i'm not saying remake the burbs, or the man with one red show (though, wow, please do!) just bring back the tom hanks we all know and love!

(ps. no more stupid haircuts!)

random thursday morning thought...

2009-06-25T10:04:00.004-04:00

what? a blog post??

it's been a while, though the number of half done entries sitting in my drafts folder might suggest i had ideas, just never finished them out.

so i'm flipping through channels and i come across the sci fi network, where i see amber tamblyn. now, i know she's been in a few sci fi type movies, so i think little of it, until i see her talking to mary steenburgen.... then the wheels turn and it clicks....

joan of arcadia? on the same network that brought us mansquito??

≠

yes, the show has "fantasy" elements, which probably earns it placement on scifi. and this was the channel which kept showing reruns of quantum leap, another "fantasy" show which really wasn't. but... i guess it just bothers me....

and that's my thought of the morning...

2009-02-05T13:01:00.002-05:00

why on earth would you remake bonnie and clyde...

with hilary duff, no less?

sigh.

fuck you hollywood. fuck.you.

Amazing Obamaman

2009-01-14T15:11:00.002-05:00

so today was the release of the much touted Amazing Spider-Man featuring Obama.

now, for one, the "Obama cover" was just an incentive cover - a 1 in 100, meaning retailers had to order 100 copies to get this:

otherwise, they got what i got:

now, this obviously will be a problem for some "collectors" and by that i mean obamabilia collectors, rather than comic book collectors. 1, because since it's not a special issue so much as a B story tacked onto the end of a "swinging peter parker - yes, this is what brand new day means" story. and 2, because explaining things like "variant cover" to non comic book people is like expianing string theory to a cow... Marvel kind of bungled it apparently, deciding rather late in the game that this was a) happening at all and b) to tell the the retailers, meaning many had already placed their orders when this happened (way to create demand... seriously, stunts like this are what cause the comic book bubble and collapse in the 90's)...

so tons of confused people, wanting an obama comic (where were they when this
came out? yeah, it didn't have the buzz, and was a straight biography, similar to the awesome Pope comic Marvel did in the early 80's,
but it was an Obama comic book) ended up with a pretty standard Spiderman comic, something i'm sure Obama - who apparently collects Spiderman comic books - would appreciate, but the typical memorabilia hunter wouldn't.

now, the story:

well, the main story is bit of a throwaway. Betty Brant recounting how much a good friend Peter is even though he finds a way to always disappoint her. he's supposed to be planning a birthday party for her, she's trying to hook him up with a girlfriend (gee, had they only kept him married this wouldn't be a problem, would it?). the birthday comes, and no party. betty gets mad and peter, the good friend he is, explains to her that everyone he was trying to invite was mad at her, so he did what he did - rented a movie - to protect her. so... yeah.

the obama story is equally short and sweet. peter parker's at the inauguration taking photos, sees an obama double, and steps in to thwart him (spoiler: it turns out it's the chameleon, wanting to be president... when's the last time we saw HIM?). there's some nice interraction between spidey and obama:

the Biden joke is a nice, cute touch. as is Obama's line "Honestly, I'm more upset by the Chameleon's shockinglu deficient understaning of the electoral process." so all in all, a good story. and a good spiderman comic. just.... not something the obamaphiles are going to really want to spend the soon the be inflated prices for (though they will) - my retailer had it going for $10, as it was a 1 in 100 incentive, and they base their prices for them that way i guess- but a good spiderman story nonetheless.

a better approach might have been having it more like "The Kid who Collects Spiderman" though without the terminal illness part of it. i think Obama telling spiderman he's a huge fan, and then Spiderman revealing his identity (i mean, Obama is the president) would have actually been brilliant...

new year, new geek (wtf! new post?!)

2009-01-09T12:17:00.002-05:00

so it's the new year and while i'm not a fan of new years resolutions per se (i never keep them for more than a few weeks, often falling completely flat by february), i have resolved to blog more...

of course, not this entry. this is just to say, yes, the blog is still alive. and once i think of some good topics... so... yeah...

vote!!!

2008-11-01T23:12:00.001-04:00

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

opie says so!

atp day 2 (mbv, etc)

2008-10-13T23:41:00.011-04:00

yeah. waaay late. oops!

so day 2 of ATP was the day i was most excited about, if only because of My Bloody Valentine.
we started our day with lunch a pizza hut, as we were getting liberty diner fatigue. pizza hut is what pizza hut is - much better than the food court was offering at the show, and less Millers Crossing (or maybe Mulholland Drive) than the diner.

we got there aboud mid day, in time for Gemma Hayes on stage 2.

setlist:
Happy Sad
Nothing Can
Home
In Over My Head
TBTF (Kevin Drew/Broken Social Scene cover)
Oliver
Easy on the Eye
Tear in my Side
Out Of Our Hands
Let A Good Thing Go

so a good mix of all three albums. the crowd was very quiet, as all the stage 2 crowds were, but something about the performance lent itself to the intimacy of it all.
one could ask where she fits in on a bill that, especially sunday's acts, is more identified with noise and volume. well, one, she absolutely was able to bring the noise factor (there had to be a reason kevin shields not only picked her for the concert, but also produced her newest album) - though less like, say, dinosaur jr's wall of feedback, and more like mercury rev's hazey atmosphere of sound. a little bit of a female nick drake crossed with the last few flaming lips records maybe? granted, i only have her first 2 brilliant EP's and the first album - new one has just come out, and the second one - the roads don't love you - was sort of hard to find and hasn't been a huge priority on my shopping list. i downloaded a few tracks and liked them okay, but not as much as the first lp so... the new album is supposed to be more like the first, so i plan to check it out when i get a chance. honestly, part of me wanted to see her because i have a ridiculously schoolboyish crush on her (irish girls do that to me i guess).

then came stage 1 for the rest of the night. which is what i think a lot of people did, ultimately. only act i was sort of regretful about missing was bob mould, who apparently ended his set by tearing through some husker du songs. i assume he's touring, so i'll catch him when i get a chance i guess. but still...

they - they being the atp security - did try the dumb "empty the room" crap after mercury rev (and after yo la tengo), but i think they realized they might have a small riot on their hands, so slowly but eventually gave it up (with a few rules - something about no professional cameras, which was largely ignored, and something about if you left the room, you had to stay out until the doors reopened for the next band).

mercury rev were amazing. period. and they played the dark is rising! yeah, a little theatrical, but that's mercury rev. we did miss a couple of songs, as stage 2 seemed to run a little late (stage 1 would ultimately follow suit), but it was truly... again, and more apt, the flaming lips comparison is obvious. (no setlist. sorry...). easily one of my favorite performances of the day, if not the whole weekend. there's just something ethereal about them which can't really be described adequately without actually seeing them.

yo la tengo's set, next, seemed really short and was heavy on long, drawn out, almost more ambient jams. when i saw them in baltimore... about 5 years ago i guess, they were the headliners, and actually played a lot of songs (though also a lot of feedack).

setlist:
*ambient opener*
Flying Lesson
I Feel Like Going Home
Watch Out For Me Ronnie
The Story of Yo La Tango

they were the last band i felt comfortable during without earplugs, which was pretty much expected. and possibly one of the prettiest sets of the weekend, with their gorgeous beach boyish - and by that comparison, i mean pet sounds/smile era beach boys, not kokomo! - harmonies (musically and a little vocally). i would have liked maybe a longer set, but no complaints.

mogwai. having only seen them before outdoors, i wasn't entirely sure what to expect. other than loud. earplugs? check!

setlist:
precipice
jim morrison
hunted
friend
scotland's shame
satan
space expert
herod
batcat

now, i truly love me some mogwai. and live mogwai makes me love them more.

(not my video, found on youtube while looking for the setlist)

my favorite moment was when they stopped people from clapping in rhythm, as well as stuart's speech about feeling the same way he felt seeing mbv 6 years ago when he saw some of the newer bands that played the festival. sadly - and possibly responsible for some of the rest of the evening's delays, including mbv's:

"We are sad to announce that we have had to cancel our remaining American and Canadian shows due to ill health. Our other dates in Europe and Japan will be going ahead as planned. We will re-schedule the shows in 2009.
I [Martin] was taken into hospital last night almost immediately after the show at ATP. I've been having some problems with my pacemaker for the duration of the tour and it unfortunately culminated in me being sent to the emergency room. The doctors there initially thought i would have to have corrective surgery at a larger hospital nearer NYC but i have been given the all clear to travel home on the understanding that i go straight to my cardiologist on arrival back in Scotland.

Tbh, i'm really bummed about having to go home and feel for the folk who had bought tickets for our upcoming shows but i can honestly say it would be almost impossible for me to carry on at this point as my pacemaker has broken skin and the surrounding area has become infected.

Mogwai

now settled in our spots, we waited while they wheeled out j mascis and lou barlow's giant stacks of speakers, signaling the wall of noise that was to come. lou barlow was especially animated, certainly more than i remember him being the couple of times i saw sebadoh. i never saw this lineup of dinosuar, as by the time i got to see them live, neither lou or murph were with the band anymore. they played a good mix of old and new, including "forget the swan" from the first album (though no repulsion). i unfortunately didn't get the whole setlist comitted to memory, though i know had they not been told to cut their set short, they would have gotten to just like heaven, which might have made their set the non-mbv highlight of the weekend.

honestly, i like the post lou songs better with lou on them, although i guess there's not that much difference (same songs, just a different rhythm section really).

dinosaur jr was the only band i really really noticed the moshers (they were certainly there for YLT and mogwai, but neither of them had stage divers! my only complaint with dinosaur jr is that my ear plugs had the unfortunate effect of muffling the higher tones, making some of their songs sound muddy. of course, taking them out was not an option, so adjusted and stuck it out. but it was annoying...

and then... the room filled.and people waited. and waited. aaand... waited.

and waited.

there was some chanting. and i think some people even walked out (granted, mbv were so loud, they could likely be heard from anywhere in kutshers, if not felt). finally. the lights dimmed. and....

we waited!

was it worth it? yes. when belinda, kevin, colm, and debbie walked on stage, all the waiting seemed like nothing...

the setlist:
01 "I Only Said"
02 "When You Sleep"
03 "You Never Should"
04 "When You Wake"
05 "Cigarette In Your Bed"
06 "Come In Alone"
07 "Only Shallow"
08 "Thorn"
09 "Nothing Much To Lose"
10 "To Here Knows When"
11 "Blown A Wish"
12 "Slow"
13 "Soon"
14 "Feed Me With Your Kiss"
15 "Sue Is Fine"
16 "You Made Me Realise"

basically, it was everything it was supposed to be. too loud? maybe, though unless your ear was stapled to a speaker, earplugs did their job. some reviewers seemed to think it was just noise and that you couldn't tell what songs were being played/hear the vocals/ etc. can you ever really hear the vocals with mbv, especially on loveless? basically, brilliant set, worth the extra hour and a half or so wait. my ears rang... well, no, not really ringing, it was more a weird, spirally, buzzing noise, all the way back to the liberty diner (where i finally found something there i liked more than as just food) and then to bed, as we had a longish drive ahead the next morning.

bands i kind of regret missing:
bob mould, le volume corbe, trail of dead, spectrum

but again, mbv made it all worth it!

atp pt 1 pt 2 - corrections, additions, edits...

2008-10-02T18:38:00.006-04:00

so i made a bunch of errors and omissions in the first post about atp. so i will fix them this way instead of just going in and editing.

1. The biggest being that, for some reason, at least on the two main days (so not the "don't look back" day) the had this weird notion of kicking EVERYONE out of the room where the bands were playing, ostensibly for setup and soundcheck, though there was some speculation that it was also so everyone could get a chance to get up front... they mostly gave this up by the time dinosaur jr went on on the MBV curated day, but still.

should have been clearer. for some reason, between bands, they (the organizers? kutchers?) decided it would be good to have the security folks - who were in their own way kind of awesome, and as alan sparhawk said during low's performance, probably didn't know what to make of all the white people (seriously, the looks on their faces during MBV's 25 minutes of feedback was one of utter bewilderment) - make everyone leave the room and stand outside. when we first had to do this before low, it was sort of like, oh, well... ok... but then after low it just got more crazy. it kind of reached a header on day 2 when, after mercury rev went on and everyone was pushed out to the waiting area, there was a lot of mutinous talk and riotous behavior, ultimately surrendering shortly after and letting the majority of people stay in (though, if you left you had to wait, and there was something about no professional cameras, which also seemed to get mostly ignored). honestly, i have never been to a concert of any sort where they have done this - i'm sure they had reasons, and yes, on stage 2 due to the intimacy of the space and the fact that the audience was two feet from the stage, i can see how maybe letting the bands soundcheck to an empty room made sense. they still did it on stage 2 (we had to wait outside the room for gemma hayes on day 2) so i don't know... seems to be something they could have handled a lot better.

2. also, they really should have had a bigger, more open (ie not a sealed off little room, that smelled of BO, and also... well... actually open during the operating hours of the show).

so the merch area didn't open at all the first day. they had a wooden dividing wall closing off one corner of the main floor of Kutcher's, and a locked door. this befuddled many, including a few bands (thurston moore seemed slightly confused, built to spill seemed practically offended they couldn't get in). it eventually seemed to open, where we each got ATP t shirts, MBV shirts and a neat print. but it was just too small a space for the amount of people going through. the second day, we tried in vain to get some more stuff - we wanted to look at the mogwai shirts and a few other things - but it was too cramped and smelly to really bother.

3. a little about the venue.

i can't believe i forgot to mention the venue, which while certainly not in its heyday (as a lot of artists made reference to, it was once a pretty swinging place, where comedians like jackie mason made the crowds go wild. the village voice seemed to say it best:

Let's start with the Kutsher's Country Club lobby. The walls are the color of salmon. The carpet: salmon catfood. Around one corner, there's an air hockey table. Around another, a department-store-style glass-display counter promises Mary Kay-style make-up demonstrations twice a day. This afternoon, a woman who looked like Delta Burke’s great aunt was seated behind the case, though she had no customers—the art-rock sojourners here are far more interested in stocking up on Budweiser cases for tonight's post-rock summer-camp festivities than discovering the perfect grandmotherly blush. They're also interested in Steve Albini, who last night ran a poker game in the "Executive Card Room" and just now walked by with a small digi-camera crew in tow.

Kutscher's isn't just ATP's lodging—the main stage is just past the make-up counter. ATP founder Barry Hogan wasn't kidding when he described Kutsher's Country ClubThe Shining meets Cocoon. “I keep expecting to walk into one of these rooms and seeing a dude in a bear suit blowing a guy in the bed,” Patton Oswalt joked last night on Stage 2. The hallways seem to go on forever, the adjacent “lake” cries out for Jason Voorhees, and I think I can hear Edith from Grey Gardens voice in the bathroom. “Every room smells like a fart gave up,” said Patton last night. That time, he wasn't kidding. as

some pictures of the "lake"

i'm pretty sure that green blob in the middle is either jason vorhees waiting to strike, or lily pads

or swamp thing. definitely swamp thing.

4. a dissappointing visit to the food court (the food there was another minor complaint. from the undercooked and underseasoned vegetarian on a pita, to the sort of boring ratattoullie... meh... the sweet potato fries were decent enough, but we ended up eating more at the liberty diner, near our hotel, which had a weird coen brothers movie feel to it...

or, as the village voice also stated:

Most deceptive line in the ATP FAQ: "There will be food vendors on-site with several options covering carnivores, vegetarians and vegans." "Vegan options" in this case means "we won't put meat in this gyro."

5. more about the year punk broke.

Dave Mackey, the director, was a really humble, nice guy who generally cared that he was showing his film, plus 40 minutes of extra footage, to a crowd. the moron who acted as if he hadn't directed other things (he has - many music videos, and other short films) in his question was annoying. i had sort of hoped that thurston moore would pop in to ask some odd, funny question, but it didn't happen (though there were artists everywhere at the venue, so it wasn't impossible). i think - much like the crowd at stage 2 - the packed room was just too quiet, which may have seemed like disinterest, but was more likely awe. "1991" is a pretty amazing little film. i sincerely hope that he talked to the criterion folks there, and that we'll soon be hearing of a criterion collection edition (with the bonus "blues scale" footage as a feature). the only pointed remark mackey made was how he had given a bunch of the nirvana footage to the band for free (in particular, in response to a dumb question about courtney love and whether she's possibly what's holding up a DVD release). he didn't seem to be upset by it - he personally stated that it wasn't that courtney was blocking anything, it was that nobody had asked her (he also pointedly remarked how it was he that gave kim gordon Hole's demo tape, so i guess there may have been some bitterness there after all...).
day two review still to come, with more pictures!

atp pt 1.

2008-10-02T11:02:00.016-04:00

finally, an all tomorrow's parties post.

so, first of all, a few minor complaints. and i say minor, although one was certainly a major hassle, because all in all they were not a big deal. the biggest being that, for some reason, at least on the two main days (so not the "don't look back" day) the had this weird notion of kicking EVERYONE out of the room where the bands were playing, ostensibly for setup and soundcheck, though there was some speculation that it was also so everyone could get a chance to get up front... they mostly gave this up by the time dinosaur jr went on on the MBV curated day, but still. also, they really should have had a bigger, more open (ie not a sealed off little room, that smelled of BO, and also... well... actually open during the operating hours of the show). also, letting us know things... such as when the first performances were, at least approximately, and about the whole room clearing thing, etc... would have been nice.

anyway... the lineup (wow, that's largely illegible).

so day 1 was the "don't look back" day, where bands played the entirety of "Classic Albums." we skipped Bardo Pond performing "lapsed" (honestly, i've never been a huge fan. they're good enough, and the album if i recall it isn't awful but...). in the process, i did have my first geeky moment where thurston moore walked by to take stuff to the merch booth (more on this later...). we did walk around the facility, where we had chosen not to stay but i think if we go next year, we will (tickets are already on sale, though i think it's worth waiting to see who's curating, just in case...). then we went to stage 1 for a few of the performances (no pictures ahead, i neglected to bring my camera).

meat puppets performed meat puppets 2. odd how grizzled and old they really look. also, forgot how good that album really was. a large portion of the crowd seemed to be mostly familiar with "plateau" and "lake of fire" (though the harder, faster version from MPII seemed to confuse those who largely knew it from the nirvana unplugged performance). they also played a couple of covers (neither if which i recall the name of right now... ) thankfully, nothing newer (such as backwater... meh... or anything else from too high to die, which is probably the only other meat puppets album people know), as it would have been unnecessary.

tortoise were next and very... spacey, as one would expect. i don't think i've ever heard an entire toroise album, as a few songs in, it seems redundant. not that i dont like tortoise, i just find them to ber very run on and samey. someone compared them to "isis, without words," though i have always kind of felt that... well... no. isis are some scary shit, tortoise are much more chill out music. not necessarily something you'd rock out to. i still don't feel like i need to own "millions now living will never die," and likely never will. i wouldn't mind a few tortoise tracks on my mp3 player, for long drives and the like.

then came the tall, gangly, certainly not youthful but definitely sonic, thurston moore playing"psychic hearts." kim gordon was there, as was kevin shields (and a really dancey, slightly annoying woman, who may or may not have been a VIP but was certainly not bilinda butcher, who we did see throughout the weekend with her lovely family). and so on this, despite being in proximity to many people from several bands - we must have passed members of silver mt zion quite a few times, especially on the day of their performance i'm not really the person who's going to make a scene, and bother them. if i see a lot of people doing so, eh,maybe, or if that's the reason they are there - yeah, i have met members of bands at shows and talked to them in non-fanboyish ways but as a rule, i don't. so i didn't (i did feel really embarassed pointing out that low were walking through the door at one point on day 3, as well as apologized to gemma hayes for almost running into her, but otherwise...) there were a lot of familiarly famous faces there -though a lot i couldn't quite place... but really, i felt it would be rude to bother them. anyway... anyway.so thurston played the album, and did seem to do an encore (or forgot a song from the album. he was using notes and lyric sheets on a music stand throughout the performance, so it is possible he forgot...). we left before built to spill - not a big enough fan of "perfect from now on" to hear it in it's entirety.

day 2. after taking it easy in the daytime, we got there to watch sonic youth's "1991 the year punk broke" at the criterion cinema room (they were playing other movies too, but out of the ones showing when bands we didn't want to see play, this was the only one worth it).
i own it on vhs but it was cool seeing it on a larger screen. there was also a q and a with the director, which was filled with lame questions about courtney love, and nostlagia. dave markey didn't seem to have a lot to say in response to questions, and was sort of annoyed by some. he did seem to indicate a possible dvd release someday (maybe with criterion... hmmm...) it was really entertaining seeing kurt cobain just before stardom (man was funny), and just how... goofy and fun thurston moore is.

then we made our way to stage two, after a dissappointing visit to the food court (the food there was another minor complaint. from the undercooked and underseasoned vegetarian on a pita, to the sort of boring ratattoullie... meh... the sweet potato fries were decent enough, but we ended up eating more at the liberty diner, near our hotel, which had a weird coen brothers movie feel to it...

after they finally let us in (this is where we learned about the room clearing rule)... we saw low. mostly newer stuff, plus a new and sort of creepy new christmas song about santa coming.
setlist (i assume complete, i found it online here):
Candy girl
Murderer
Pretty people
??? (creepy santa song, i think)
Always fade

awesome performance, though lacking my favorite song by them. maybe it was because we were right up front, but it felt like a low performance should feel - very intimate and direct. the really cool chandelier in the room they played helped, as did the stage setup (as we were basically at the same level as the stage, rather than having it raised above us). then, they kicked us out again to wait for silver mt zion...

no setlist, sorry, but it was... possibly my 3rd or 4th favorite performance of the weekend, mbv not inclusive. there's something about seeing silver mt zion live which just blows me away completely. there was a lot of... was it heckling? not really, though a little. banter, mostly people saying dumb things and efrim not hearing them, causing some confusion. the intimacy of the stage setting made it all the more intense, and beautiful. yeah, i can't even do it justice here...

we then made our way to stage one, to catch Shellac, before we called it a night. we got a decent spot in one of the tiered sections of the floor, to the right of the stage. they were just loud enough to not need earplugs, but definitely fast, and brutal. albini is exactly as i would expect him to be live. . bob weston took questions from the crowd, such as their stance on unicorns ("not extinct yet.") and could they name a song worse than kokomo (albini: "i'm sure jimmy buffet has hundreds.") i was more than pleasantly surprised by them, though i expected to enjoy them. definitely a highlight.

bands we missed i wouldn't have minded seeing:
fuck buttons, polvo, autolux, harmonia

band im glad i missed:
les savy fav.

so here's some pictures (sorry if they're a bit dark):

Low

Silver Mt Zion

Shellac

i wonder who this guy was there to see...

(part 2 later, with more mogwai, mbv, and more!)

oooh!

2008-10-02T10:27:00.002-04:00

so i have been talking about hoping for this for.... years now, and now it's official:

(from the B&S myspace page)

BBC Sessions release

..We are pleased to announce the release of the long awaited compilation of BBC recordings spanning the years 1996 – 2001.

The BBC Sessions is released on Jeepster Records, week commencing 17th November in Europe and on Matador Records in the USA.

It is initially available in three formats: as a limited edition double CD which includes a live recording of the Christmas show in Belfast from 2001 as bonus content, and with all the tracks as a download. In addition, the session tracks are also available as a double vinyl edition.

As well as different versions of songs from the first three albums and associated EPs, the album contains four much bootlegged songs recorded for John Peel in 2001, none of which have previously appeared on CD or vinyl.

Among the highlights of the fourteen session tracks are five songs from the two 1996 sessions for The Graveyard Shift (presented by Mark Radcliffe), an alternative version of the single, Lazy Line Painter Jane and a definitive version of Slow Graffiti recorded for The Evening Session, presented by Steve Lamacq. The next appearance on the show yielded an early version of The Wrong Girl when it was still known as Wrong Love.

Despite featuring in John Peel's Festive Fifty every year during the period and being played regularly on his show, the first Maida Vale Peel session did not take place until 2001 – the first of four subsequent Peel appearances which included a visit to Peel Acres and a legendary, sixteen song Christmas gig at Maida Vale, both in 2002.

The four songs from 2001 – The Magic of a Kind Word, Nothing In The Silence, Shoot The Sexual Athlete and (My Girl's Got) Miraculous Technique – never made it on to subsequent albums, and are the last recordings to feature Isobel Campbell. They capture the band at the end of one part of their history and at the start of another.

By the time of the recording of the Christmas show some six months later on 21st December 2001 in Belfast, Bob Kildea had joined on bass and guitar, and playing live had moved much further up the agenda.

The gig is full of relaxed seasonal cheer, with requests, guest vocalists from the crowd, old favourites and three cover versions – Here Comes The Sun (The Beatles), Boys Are Back In Town (Thin Lizzy) and Waiting For The Man (Velvet Underground).

The full track listing is as follows:
Disc 1 – Radio Sessions: The State I Am In, Like Dylan In The Movies, Judy and the Dream of Horses, The Stars of Track and Field, I Could Be Dreaming, Seymour Stein, Lazy Jane, Sleep The Clock Around, Slow Graffiti, Wrong Love, Shoot The Sexual Athlete, The Magic of a Kind Word, (My Girls Got) Miraculous Technique

Disc 2 – Live in Belfast: Here Comes The Sun, Theres Too Much Love, The Magic of a Kind Word, Me and the Major, Wandering Alone, The Model, Im Waiting For The Man, The Boy With the Arab Strap, The Wrong Girl, Dirty Dream 2, Boys Are Back in Town, Legal Man

needless to say, i will be getting this sucker... the amazon.com entries for it are very confusing, as it seems to be listed several times for the same thing (2 entries for the deluxe, one with bbc spelled bcc. a listing for the regular edition and one for the vinyl... the "bcc" one actually seems to be the right thing...)

!!

i have a lot of the tracks as bootlegs either on cd or in mp3 form, but it will be nice to get some of them on quality sounding recordings, instead of the more or less spotty ones i have accumulated. the live in belfast gig looks to be a similar setlist to what they played when i saw them on the tour for "fold your hands child..." at the 9:30 club.

unfortuntely despite having songs from that particular date, it seems to lack the actual christmas songs from the christmas show, meaning those will have to live for me as bootlegs... which is kind of sad. since half of them were traditional, i don't think copyright issues kept them all from release (though i can see "Santa Bring my Baby Back to Me" and "Santa Claus go Straight to the Ghetto" being a problem).

overall, it's a pretty complete collection of their various sessions for the BBC, at least as complete as any bbc session cd could be or has been, in lieu of an actual NEW album from them (which, seriously, i guess we were spoiled when it felt like we were getting an album or ep a year from them, but it kind of seems that since the move to rough trade and acting like a band of their talent and stature, they've really become less productive). when they do come out with another studio album, it had better be the best thing since the boy with the arab strap (which sounds like im dissing the last few albums, but i'm not, i just don't think they've topped BWtAS - yes i think i might be the first person to refer to it that way - yet).

mbv

2008-09-23T00:01:00.003-04:00

where was i this weekend?

th ATP festival in new york!

here's some mbv to tide you all over until i recap...

i forgot to turn on my grunge pedal

2008-08-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

first, some fun and maybe a little context i guess, though it only is the first minute or so that's relevant... but it's kind of fun seeing early free kitten footage, plus some mocking of the commercial mess that the subject of this post really was....

yeah. that's right. grunge. everyone's favorite marketing term slash genre slash fashion statement slash meaningless buzzword from the early 90's. even cars were grunge! (sadly, the car commercial which called it's subject grunge seems to be unlocateable on the interwebs).

so i got the new Mojo, and the main feature is on the history of grunge, particularly sub pop records which turns 20 this year and how... umm.. important it was...

ummm...

sure. why not.

i'm not going to pick at the article. it's mostly published history, old friends getting together, some reminiscing, some complaining about the "fall of grunge" and some talk of sub pop's current status...

so okay, i was sort of a "Grunge" person back in middle school/freshman year of high school. i don't deny it. hell, i even had a history of grunge poster from melody maker on my wall - hell, in knew my stuff. but it lost me fast, aside from a few bands who i still like today and a few who i can pick an album or two i think is good (soundgarden only got really shitty after the tour with metallica and guns and roses; pearl jam became listenable to eventually; alice in chains don't count because they were just a glam band wearing flannel...) i still like mudhoney, nirvana, ummm.... ummm.... so it's tough trying to define grunge beyond a few bands that were idnetified with the "genre," since most of the bands labeled as grunge were second generation knock offs of combinations of the aformentioned bands -- yeah, there were a lot of bands from seattle: the melvins, tad, etc etc etc who certainly were "grunge" but... eh... anyway... grunge was the closest thing to a music "phase" i had. while many of my friends and classmates went from metal to hip hop to grunge back to hip hop (snoop and dre, specifically) to "Alternative" i quickly saw through the flannel and realized that "grunge" was as meaningless a word as "punk" or "soul" or, hell, even "alternative."

then we had bands like bush. and stone temple pilots. hell, even ugly kid joe - who were basically a 1978 van halen knock off that wore flannel - were labeled as grunge. it became a joke, something mudhoney satirized in videos and in song (putting a song about how grunge was overblown on a soundtrack for a movie that sort of represented the height of "grunge" as a commercial commodity is kind of genius, really... hmm... no wonder they were never really all that popular...)

anyway. hmm. memories...

so the magazine has a top 20 sub pop releases as well as a nifty cd covering their history... which seems woefully incomplete to me though i can't really say off hand what's missing... maybe i'm mad that there was no velocity girl included (still probably my favorite band to ever have anything to do with sub pop, and not "grunge" in the slightest.). but does Earth's "Earth2" - 3 songs, 73 minutes - really count as essential? i will agree, though the dwarves are entirely un-listenable to me for the most part, with a lot of their list. (interesting seeing a magazine talk about sunny day real estate's "Diary" that doesn't use the word term emo - yet another meaningless "genre" term - though i guess that owes in some part to it being a british magazine).

the cd, titles Sub Pop 300 does a pretty good job of covering the label's history, starting off with green river - who i only ever really had any interest in because they covered bowie's queen bitch and had members of mudhoney in them. then the b-side to mudhoney's most famous single, touch me i'm sick (though sweet young thing ain't sweet no more is a fine song, i don't see why they didn't go for broke with the more famous song...) then Tad's "Wood Goblins." I never really cared for Tad, and this song kind of proves why. L7's "shove" (was that released on sub pop? apparently it was... huh... )still, not a great song by any stretch, and for a band who really didn't have a lot of "great" songs, well, yeah. my favorite L7 moment is their appearance in John Waters' "serial mom" (as "camel lips"). screaming trees... mark lanegan has done some much more interesting stuff since then that it's weird hearing his old band. kind of dull, honestly. afghan whigs... another off choice, with "retarded" from Up In It instead of anything from Congregation (which was the album of theirs picked in the 20 best releases). the whigs were never really "grunge" and are kind of placed at the turning point of the cd's chronological view. red red meat's braindead (who? i have a christmas 7" they did where they cover the who's christmas song from how the grinch stole christmas. umm... obligatory inclusion of postal service (such great heights) and the shins (new slang), the two bands who really saved Sub Pop in this century. and then pissed jeans and eraser, who are in a lot of ways - pissed jeans, especially - a call back to sub pop's roots, with a nice bit of fast, loud, noisy rock.

it also includes the brilliant flight of the concords "bowie" which is such a brilliant parody of both bowie's music, and of the man himself (though i doubt when he travels in space, his nipples really do become antennae...)

the cd also made me feel old. nostalgia for my early teen years is just weird...

hang the dj hang the dj hang the dj

2008-06-23T23:31:00.002-04:00

pile of craft 2.0... or 2008.... or II... or, whatever you wanted to call it cos it was the second one DJ setlists! woo!

Dave:
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - Ennio Morricone
Kites Are Fun - The Free Design
Slash Your Tires - Luna
World Cup Fever - Air Miami
Johnny 99 - Bruce Springsteen
Watercolors - The Postmarks
Ramblin' Man - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
Krafty - New Order
Blue Angels Air Show - Bright Eyes
Joe Hill - Billy Bragg
The Hymn For The Coffee - Hefner
Happy Birthday - Altered Images
Walkin' With Jesus [Sound Of Confusion] - Spacemen 3
Rock & Roll - The Velvet Underground
Don't Go Away - Talulah Gosh

Ann:
Good Vibrations - The Langley Schools Music Project
The Big Guns - Jenny Lewis With The Watson Twins
Another Travelin' Song - Bright Eyes
The Ballad Of Sean Foley - Maria Taylor
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? - She & Him
Isn't It Great to Be Alive - Spearmint
I Love My Jean - Camera Obscura
I Can't Get No Satisfaction (Thank God) - Talulah Gosh
Mission Bells - The Aislers Set
Rainbows In The Dark - Tilly & The Wall
If You Fall - Azure Ray
Solace For Pain - The Gentle Waves
Wouldn't It Be Nice (Stereo Version) - The Beach Boys
The Boy With The Arab Strap - Belle & Sebastian
(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone - The Monkees
Lightness - Death Cab for Cutie
Neon Bible - Arcade Fire

Dave:
Pass the Dutchie - Musical Youth
Wu Tang Clan - The French
Marathon Not a Sprint - Camera Obscura
Billy Liar - The Decemberists
Here Comes The Summer - Fiery Furnaces
The Brown And Red Divide - Ladybirds
Come on! Feel the Illinoise! -Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition -Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream - Sufjan Stevens
Part Time Punks - Television Personalities
Southern Belles In London Sing - The Faint
The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) - They Might Be Giants
Andrew Ridgley - Black Box Recorder
You Want The Candy - The Raveonettes
X-French Tee Shirt - Shudder To Think
Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story) - !!!
dinner with yoda - Kid Koala
Ann:
Straight To Hell - The Clash
(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea - Elvis Costello
Shame For You - Lily Allen
Posed To Death - The Faint
Gangsters - Special AKA
Baggy Trousers - Madness
Dare - Gorillaz
Friendship Station - Le Tigre
Death Goes To The Disco - Pulp
Face Up - New Order
Something Against You - Pixies
Rock the House - Gorillaz
Cartoon Capers - Automator
Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
Pocket Calculator - Kraftwerk

Dave:
Oh My God - Kaiser Chiefs
Munich - Editors
T-Shirt Weather - The Lucksmiths
Spring Came, Rain Fell - Club 8
I Worked Myself Into A Calm - Gemma Hayes
Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out - The Replacements
Summer Here Kids - Grandaddy
waterloo sunset - The Kinks
Sound It Off - Mates Of State
No Depression - Uncle Tupelo
Ashes To Ashes - David Bowie
Slender - Tompaulin
Shoot Out The Lights - Saint Etienne
Closed Captioned - Fugazi
Viet Nam - Minutemen
Metronomic Underground - Stereolab

Ann:
No Love Lost - Joy Division
Tracy Jacks - Blur
You're In A Bad Way - Saint Etienne
Sight Of You - Pale Saints
Crash - The Primitives
Sunday Girl - Blondie
Lips Like Sugar - Echo & The Bunnymen
Some Candy Talking - The Jesus & Mary Chain
Everyday Is Like Sunday - Morrissey
Subterranean Homesick Alien - Radiohead
Waterfall - The Stone Roses
Play For Today - The Cure
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Soon - My Bloody Valentine

Dave:
Add Your Light To Mine, Baby - Lucky Soul
Make Out Club - Unrest
Bang - Blur
Dust - The Faint/Bright Eyes
Star Sign - Teenage Fanclub
Debonair - The Afghan Whigs
Der Kommisar - Falco
Weathershow - The Gentle Waves
Up For Sale - The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush
Les Sucettes A L'anis - France Gall
The First Five Times - Stars
Timorous Me - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
Did You Ever - that dog
I Want To Die In the Hot Summer - I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Don't Stop Believing - Badly Drawn Boy

so, a nice mix of stuff. i'll probably post more about the event itself, later... though i will say i am quite liking my formerly bike intertube now belt.

the plusses of minus

2008-05-04T10:27:00.003-04:00

http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus.html

so this might be one of the cutest, sweetest, and really most wonderful "webcomics" in existence. minus is the story of a girl with magical powers who can grant wishes and basically make whatever she wants to happen happen, though mostly she does what she does for other people - though sometimes, she does things just because, like switching the heads of everyone in a diner or turning herself invisible or into a puddle. it's a little like that twilight zone episode (remade for the movie), and she definitely has some sinister moments, especially early on.

the writer/artist, ryan armand says:

"Each minus strip is painted on a 15x20" piece of Illustration board. With this comic I am
pretending I am making a comic strip for a newspaper in the early 20th century. A special
newspaper that lets me use as much color as I want, because real papers have limitations
on that sort of thing. Or maybe they did in the past I'm not sure! "

most recently in the strip, after bringing some people back to life - which briefly created a zombie outbreak of sorts -, she has caused the entire human race to die (they asked to be reunited with everyone who died).

this is one of my favorite strips:

although there are several that are simply amazing.

new music?

2008-05-03T13:36:00.005-04:00

yeah.

i fail.

seriously, you'd think i'd have learned by now that i just can't keep a regular blogging schedule. it's not like i'm "too busy" or anything. and i have been doing the listening end of things, just the actual blogging about it has lapsed.

that said, a few new things have been taking over my listening recently...

so nevermind that i have a gigantic crush on zooey deschannel, which pretty much guaranteed i'd like this cd no matter what (well, i guess had it been an album of celine dion covers i might have had an issue with it). this cd is completely adorable and brilliant. a nice mix of sun soaked acoustic pop, 50's/60's girl group-esque songs, with a little elliot smith mixed in. the cover of the beatles' "i should've known better" is simply amazing, turning an already pretty brilliant early mid-period beatles song (was it in help? or hard days night? i forget...) into a sunny, Hawaiian tune (slightly silly, as evidenced by Zooey's audible giggle during M.Ward singing the chorus). amazingly, she actually wrote or cowrote all the songs (other than the aforementioned cover, and the covers of "you've really got a hold on me," and "swing lo sweet chariot.") especially amazing considering that usually when most actresses make that attempt into music, they don't (jenny lewis being an exception). i really truly hope the title "volume 1" means there's going to be a volume 2, as it would be wonderful to hear more of what this collaboration might produce.

check them out on their myspace page!

so it's been over a decade since their last poper studio album, and almost as long since their live album. they did pop up a couple of years ago on a serge gainsbourg tribute, but otherwise the past ten years have nee nothing but rumors and silence from the portishead camp (there was a beth gibbons solo album in there too i think...). so the big question is, was it worth the wait?

well... was it???

YES!!!!

a little less sample heavy than the last two (actually, i'm not sure there's any sampling on the record), it continues on their gloomy, noirish, not quite trip-hop sound where we last left it. beth's voice is still amazing - haunting and wavering, but never weak. a comparison can be drawn between this album and some of the better parts of radiohead's last few albums - a mix of electronic beats and krautrock instrumentalism. there's a few tracks that seem to channel joy division ("we carry on" in paticular), though this isn't a bad thing. this is everything this album needed to be (though, really, had it been just a rehash of Dummy or Portishead, it still would have been an amazing record.) apparently you can download the entire album pretty much everywhere online, especially since it leaked about a month early. but it really is worth shelling out the 13 or 14 bucks you'll pay for it to have it in hand.

so possibly back to some of me regularly scheduled blogging later... maybe...

shiny happy Apocolypse!

2008-04-27T11:20:00.003-04:00

ok, never mind why Beast is so tiny (which might just owe to the varying degrees of size that Apocalypse has been depicted over the years). why the hell is the most powerful, evil mutant EVER grinning and waving? he just seems so... friendly... you'd never know that he's probably getting ready to send a new wave of 4 horsemen out to get you! this is almost as bad as the DC Superfriends Batman, with it's knowing smirk. way to blur that line between good and evil Marvel Superhero Squad.... (and looking at their other figures... i mean, if everyone else, good or evil, were grinning all happy and friendly like, it would maybe make sense. but other than a few - and mostly bad guys - other smiles, it's a lot of looks of determination but nothing so overtly... joyful... i mean, this Apocalypse is one i wouldn't mind playing in a tree fort with whereas this Apcolypse:

would probably make me run and hide. (although he does kind of look like he's wearing a puffy sleeved pirate shirt, doesn't he? hmm....))

bootlegs, singles, and new romantics oh my

2008-04-27T01:34:00.000-04:00

another walk through parts of my music collection. hooray.

this entry:
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - the Tyranny of Distance; Jimmy Eat World - bleed american; My Superhero - Solid State 14; Duran Duran - Rio; Mates of State - Bring it Back; Hefner - I Took Her Love For Granted (single); Belle & Sebastian - Une Nuit a Paris (bootleg)

so when i saw ted leo a few years back, opening for belle and sebastian, i had no recollection of actually having this cd, largely because - as evidenced by the big "Add Date" sticker slapped on the front - this was a Radio promo, so i didn't buy it as much as liberated it with my station manager's approval (truthfully, he didn't really give a shit about anything but letting his buddies do whatever they wanted at the station). Ted Leo draws from a wide variety of influences on this cd, from punk to new wave (definite echoes of elvis costello) to 70's rock (specifically Thin Lizzy, especially on the track Timorous Me which has some definite "boys are back in town" like moments). and just, well, damn this record is good!

bleed american - and the copy i have, is also i guess being a radio promo from around the same time the ted leo came in, this i remember actually being a "second copy" so my taking it wasn't so much liberation as it was taking the giveaway copy, since nobody listened to the station enough to have any sot of contest for it. they renamed it after the 9/11 attacks, because "bleed american" was, i suppose, a bit controversial (and they were on major label at this point, so we wouldn't want to offend the big radio markets or anything). the album, anything but. jimmy eat world were, to me, always a sort of weak jawbreaker imitation. so, of course, just like jawbreaker when they released a watered down attempt at some mainstream acceptance, so did jimmy eat world, the biggest difference being that they succeeded (though i don't think the critical reception was as good as Dear You's). unfortunately, jimmy eat world are not jawbeaker - they will not be looked upon fondly in a few years, except maybe on "hits of the 2000's" style compilations. so let's get to the hits - "the middle" and "sweetness". the middle is an innocent enough song . poppy, great hook, no wonder it was a hit single. but so goddamned annoying! i think if it hadn't been as big a hit, it might not seem so terrible in retrospect, but it was and so it does. it's just one of those stupid, motivational songs that seems to always be a hit (see "Rockstar" by... umm... that annoying band that sang rockstar...). "sweetness," on the other hand, is overproduced gabage - jimmy eat world trying to be U2 or something. big verses, big choruses... blech. the rest of the album is largely forgettable, except maybe the third - and less popular - single, "praise chorus" which is actually not a bad song, has the guy from the promise ring on it, and references not just the promise ring, but crimson and clover, our house by madness, and don't let's start by they might be giants. so at least on an "i'm a big music nerd" level, it works (on another song they complain about a dj not having "automatic" by JaMC. but by that point i just wanted the album to end...)

ahh. more ska punk... i guess... is it? hmmm... it has the guitar sound that basically defined the supposed genre, certainly. i don't know. i'll give my superhero a little bit of credit for having an accordion (i really like accordions in pop music i think, it's sort of a problem i have). there are definite highlights - their cover of "groovy kind of love" (just titled "groovy") is actually quite good - and i'll give them a pass on the "obligatory cover" problem, as this isn't really an 80's song, but a 60's song, despite phil collins' brutalization of it. the song "another kind" is also pretty good, with a guitar solo that apes the melody of "kids in america" and "sunday" (which i'm fairly certain is also a cover, or at least an adaptation of another song). then they kind of crap it up with an "intermission" (are they trying to be blur?) and then close the cd with an acoustic love/breakup song that just sounds so much like a bad beach bum tune that it's hard to listen to. mostly, the cd is just too serious. at least a lot of the other ska/punk bands - good or bad - seemed to be making fun music (the supertones aside... man did the supertones suck! jesus ska!! with generic horn lines and even more generic guitars!). it's not a bad cd, it's just too wistful in the sad way to really enjoy much (plus, honestly, there's just no "punch" to most of the songs - it's just very very blah). i think i bought it because of the song "another kind" which was on some ska compilation i picked up somewhere and liked it - yeah, i had a bit of a ska-punk phase, even though i probably would have listened to most of the bands with or without the little trend that happened between pop punk and swing.

in defense of duran duran, if it weren't for mtv highlighting how photogenic they were, i kind of doubt they would be as maligned as they seem to be these days. honestly, they could have easily been another Roxy Music, but instead they became the poster boys for style over substance - did they have to look so good in blush and eyeliner? - which was apparently the only thing the whole new romantic thing had to offer to the music channel. so they went from art/glam rock to teeny bopper music, and then to whatever the Reflex was (one can blame the decline in quality from Rio until their early 90's comeback as to the bloated egos that came with their MTV notoriety, something they couldn't even escape when a few members went to form power station with robert palmer, who also became a style over substance mtv idol with his own flashy videos). but Rio is a great album. yeah it has the singles - "rio" itself is a good song which served it's "let's break america" purpose quite well. "hungry like the wolf" is possibly the best song on the record, with it's background female moaning hinting only slightly what the song is rumored to be about. things get a little darker at the end - most noticeably on "the chauffer" which is all dark, and nervy and sinister sounding - not something you'd expect based solely upon the bright pop of "Rio" and "hold back the rain." and admit it.... you all sing along to any of these songs when they come on, whether it's on the radio in your car, or in a shopping mall. my sister was a huge duran duran fan - as a teenager at the time, it made sense. honestly, i probably never really thought of them as much more than an 80's band until their 90's phase - all glam rock and "hey, we actually are musicians!" attitude (it didn't help that i actually liked the ska/punk heavy tribute album, which renewed my interest quite a bit). i think i may have, at times, passed my liking of duran duran as ironic, but i state with all honesty, that no. it's not. i love duran duran. period.

mates of state do an awesome cover of david bowie's "starman". it's not on this album, but i bring it up because i heard the original "starman" on the radio the other day and realized how awesome that era of bowie really is. and also, how awesome it is to heard bowie on the radio at all (seriously - he doesn't really fit any of the major radio formats anymore: he's not really classic rock, though i guess "ziggy stardust" or "changes" might pop up there periodically, his new music tends to be ignored or terrible, such has his brief flirtation with nine inch nails industrial-light). but this has nothing to do with this review (neither does their awesome cover of nico's "these days", also not on the album). i first heard mates of state on internet radio, downloaded a bunch of stuff from previous albums (team boo being my favorite). it's not "cute" music (though the whole husband and wife/ keyboards and drums angle might seem to some as a bit cute/twee). but they pretty much rock. it's unique. it's fun. their voices meld well together. and... yeah. they kind of fit musically with tilly and the wall - that same variety of indie pop. hence, why i love them, as i happen to love that variety of indie pop (ooh. they have a new record out in may... ).

i own a lot of hefner singles, bought in the uk where they seemed to be pretty easy to get a hold of in the record shops. they cover jonathan richman on one of the b-sides on this one, very well i might add, which makes sense. i actually first got a hole of hefner because of the album this song also appears on, the fidelity wars. it's a single so it's short - hefner singles are always top notch though, a sides and b sides. here's what they wrote on the back of the cd, for what i suppose can be called liner notes:

Granted, Babies, and Thought all recorded by Miti. 'To Hide a
Little Thought' was recorded at the BBC Maida Vale studios for
the Steve Lamacq Show (12th April 1999) where Miti was
assisted by Rupert Flindt (p) BBC 1999. Jack Hayter played the
stylophone and has joined the band, well at least while the sun
is out. John wrote another recipe for you inside. Eat yourself
fitter. antony has bought some congas though he didn't have
them when we recorded this.

which, i think sums it up pretty well...

so i really don't own a lot of bootlegs, and most of the ones i own are belle and sebastian. i was never a fan of the shoddy, by from the crappy dealer at ocean city "live" recordings of various bands - everything from the outcesticide comps people assembled of nirvana rarities to other live shit. i think i have a couple of things on cassette - the pixies in newcastle and the housemartins at glastonbury 83 or 4. but mostly, just the belle and sebastian ones. everything from bowlie weekender to radio sessions (man, they should just put out a peel session comp like every other british band), this was the first one i ever bought, right after telling someone at a record show in Reading that, no, i didn't have enough money to spend 300 pounds on an original vinyl edition of Tigermilk. i believe it's the black session - sort of like a peel session, but longer, done for paris tv (or radio? hmmm). most noteable, it's the first appearance of the song "the wrong girl" which made me very excited for fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant. it's probably also the best quality of the bootlegs i own.

next episode (episode? what??): ska comps, tributes with too much damned irony, and some all time favorites... and yes, it will probably be a long one...

music catch up

2008-04-21T11:26:00.002-04:00

yeah, i'm tad behind on this, aren't i?

so, the breeders and the pixies tribute happened to pop up on the same day (i returned to my randomness method of pulling cd's).

title tk - the breeders

this was the breeders supposed big comeback. and it was, in a sense. the first two breeders albums - when tanya donnelly was in the band and the pixies still existed - were brilliant. noisy, poppy but not TOO poppy. and just... great. then came last splash (i might have the divine hammer single somewhere, but never owned that album) and the annoyingly ubiquitous "cannonball." (catchy bassline + cute video + pot references = hit song!). then, of course, came the inevitable collaps when fame is too much. drugs, personal issues between the deal sisters... it was ridiculously tabloidy, really. there were some other bands and projects, with that vague "hiatus" word bandied about. then, finally, with different band members, came title tk. not catchy, not really, still noisy, very much a steve albini produced record (but, you know, not like when he produced Bush). "off you" nicely echos the velvet underground. it was definitely not meant to be a "hit" album, more a "get some of the aggression and anger from the past few years" album. i remember when i bought it - i ordered it at my work, which sometimes sells cd's, though my store at the time had a very small selection, and was primarily just the "book" part of their name - someone asking me if it had songs like cannonball on it, and me laughing derisively. i'm a jerk.

(7/10)

where is my mind: a tribute to the pixies

so a good tribute album takes bands with a decent amount of debt to the band being paid tribute and has them take the songs people know and love, and then has them not improve on the songs, but pay tribute in their own way. the band maintains their own identity (ie. doesn't just clone the songs verbatim) while also honoring the band in question. here's how where is my mind ranks:

bands who owe a debt: check. yeah, it's a little hard to see where the pixies really influenced some of the late 90's ska/punk scene (reel big fish, teen heroes, siren six) BUT the rest of the bands all really show an obvious influence - weezer, superdrag, nada surf = definitely. but even the host of "emo" bands that make up the majority of the disc pretty obviously owe a debt to frank black and co.
bands maintaining identity: eh. nobody really makes much NEW out of any of the songs, with 4 exceptions. eve 6 makes allison boring and into an eve six song - a mercifully short eve 6 song, since i always found their music kind of draggy. weezer make velouria a weezer song, but still maintain its absolute pixiesness. this was weezer's big comeback - the first recorded material since pinkerton (and the reason i bought the CD), and it went off brilliantly. reel big fish then turn gigantic into a duran duran-esque synth pop song (i have always liked when they covered things, even though they were a definite perpetrator of the mid 90's trend of covering the 80s) and siren six turn holiday song into a nice little reggae tune. everyone else then pretty much just plays pixies songs. maybe a little louder and heavier, but still, nothing really new. i like most of the bands in question just fine, and the songs they choose fit, and it makes perfect sense to have these bands covering the pixies, but... i dunno...

(7/10)

self navigation - crushed stars

where did this cd come from? probably the college radio station, though i have no real memory of grabbing it from there.

there's something very hazey about the cd - maybe something to do with the singer who sounds a little like the guy from stellastar*. musically, it's sort of post rock, sort of space rock, a little bit of jazz. and there's a song about liza minelli (err?). the song titles are possibly the best "descriptive of how the song sounds" titles i have ever seen: liza in silver, letters to munich, ever since autumn, asleep on a bus near lowell, outside the stars are falling, moontears...
one slightly our of place addition is "exit wound" - sounding quite a bit like early REM, or actually more exactly like the band For Squirrels at the moments they sounded like early REM. (actually, some of the rest of the album also evokes early REM, in particular "Camera").

(8/10)

it's a shame about ray - the lemonheads

fact: this is the last truly great lemonheads album. come on feel the... was a drug addled, hippydrippy, mess. car button cloth, which i actually liked some of, was a mess. i guess evan dando has done some other stuff since then, but nothing interesting. but ray is the lemonheads at their most consistent and complete album. early lemonheads - up through lovey, the album that came before this, still straddled their mix of gram parsons and punk, with a bit of dinosaur jr thrown in. Ray is just a nice little collection of 2-3 minute pop songs, backing vocals from julianna hatfield, and a cover of "mrs robinson" which i kind of like more than the original... it's one of those rare gems of an album that's brilliant from start to finish (though, okay, i'm not a big fan of "my drug buddy" but i'll let that one slide). it's sort of too bad that this was the album that made evan dando a pin up celebrity, easily mocked (the zine, evan dando must die, came not long after this), and ultimately a washed out celebrity (drug busts, hanging out with courtney love a little too much, etc.)

(9/10)

It Means Everything - Save Ferris

didn this cd really come out 10... 11 years ago? man, i feel old... honestly, i think the last time i head save ferris anywhere was in some rerun of some late 90's TV show where they used it as a fun, bouncy montage song (the song was "the world is new", i'm pretty sure, and was possibly also chosen because i think it was one of those makeover type montages). and i guess that was kind of typical of what ska had become in the late 90's - montage and movie preview music.

anyway, so when it comes down to it, this cd is pretty inconsequential. light, fluffy, bouncy pop-ska, with some swing thrown in for good measure (because, well, everyone was a swing band in 1997/98). it would be pretty easy to call them generic: obligatory 80's cover, a song about food (spam)... the swingier songs fare a little better, if only because the singer, monique powell has a strong voice, (though i think it was too easily compared to any Gwen Stefani... which was kind of bullshit, if anything she sounds more like one of the Dancehall Crashers, and even that's a stretch). the horn section is probably what's best about the album, though i'm maybe a little partial as a trumpet player. it's not a bad cd, not by a long shot. it's kind of what pop music should be. i saw them live a couple of times and met them once. it was sort of a shame that the follow up album, modified (which i may or may not still own... i don't remember...) was kind of not particularly good.

6/10 (though the nostalgia part of it, because it really reminded me of high school, might knock it up to a 7).

more to come...

day four - top 'o the mornin' to ye

2008-04-17T17:01:00.005-04:00

going to do this in a bit of a new format, because i think it was getting too image heavy and it also got kind of boring just writing reviews, which wasn't entirely the point of this exercise anyway

listened to:

U2- WAR
The Undertones - the Very Best of the Undertones

so i've sort of hit a point on my cd rack where there's some vague alphabetization going on - this probably will happen periodically, though largely any organization i once had has long been forgotten. oddly enough, it may as well have been grouped by country, as i picked two irish bands. this morning.

i may or may not be in a minority here, but War is my favorite U2 album. it has my favorite song by them - "2 hearts beat as one", for whatever it's worth - and just, overall, has the most i like from U2. which is nothing against their other stuff, not at all. joshua tree was probably the album that really got me into U2, but then War made me like them. i guess it might be easy to argue that, oh, well, he likes War better because it's not the "popular" album. - not true, and sort of a dumb argument, as War had as many popular singles as Joshua Tree. and it was this, as well as the unforgettable fire, that got them on live aid. i like War because it captures U2 at an intensity they haven't really matched since. yeah, it doesn't hurt that there are bits that make me think of joy division (a sort of obvious, but generally uncited influence on AT LEAST early U2). and... yeah. it also, probably, is the least pretentious, least self conscious album they ever did (sorry, it is, and sorry, they started to get really pretentious at some point).

okay. i said i hate greatest hits compilations but now i'm about to say how much i like one. the very best of the undertones IS a greatest hits album. however, in the typical way the Rhino records compiles these things, it's not a typical one, and is not only exhaustively complete. full disclosure: i only really knew the undertones for teenage kicks, which is a brilliant song and, to be honest, creates enough of a legacy in and of itself.

25 tracks! holy crap! from punk - though the more melodic variety, in the mode of the buzzcocks - to post punk where you can start to hear their influence on bands like REM (well, early REM) to U2 (hey! how'd they get in here...). 25 tracks, but kinda short still. what i like the most about the undertones is fergal sharkey's voice. that slight vibrato makes even the early punk records of theirs, with the spit and the venom, sound less like the generic spit and venom of all the other early punk records. and they have a song that's an ode to the mars bar! the freaking mars bar!!

i want a mars bar.....

day three music challenge

2008-04-16T23:10:00.003-04:00

4 in one day! 4! man....

The Who - Who's Greatest Hits

or "why i'm not a big fan of greatest hits compilations part at least 1."

i don't really like greatest hits compilations. so i rarely buy them. actually, i didn't buy this one, i sort of inherited it from my brother or maybe my sister or whatever. yep. hand me down who.

which is not to say that MCA records didn't pick good songs. hell, some of the best songs by the who. "substitute," "Pinball wizard," "Magic Bus," "My Generation." all there.

but... well....

where's "baba o'reilley"? where's "the kids are alright"? is "my wife" really a better song. and, yeah, love the blatant, so obvious it's hardly even double, double entendre of "squeeze box," but "pictures of lily's" ode to self love while reading dirty magazines is a better song. yeah, the who are one of the few bands from the 60's i will willingly listen to with much regularity, but this just seems like an excuse to sell a cd (i much prefer my who on vinyl. sadly, that can't really come in the car.)

and, okay, so i might be crazy, but "the relay" sounds like rod stewart. okay, maybe rod stewart singing for the faces but still. hardly sounds like the who to me. and there are some moments in "won't get fooled again"that sound like they could/should be a schoolhouse rock song (the whole "i tip my hat to the new constitution" bit... which i guess shows in reverse how cool schoolhouse rock really was.... but....).

rating 5/10

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Machine

yay for stop gap singles between albums!

so i really like the yeah yeah yeahs. i think it's mostly karen o's voice, and how she's ballsier than pretty much any current "rock" singer out there.

machine is just moe of the same, meaning it's awesome. i mean, it's a yeah yeah yeahs song. that said, today was probably the second time since i bought it that i listened to it... errr... i'm bad with singles i guess. (i have so many, it's sort of weird). i think it's largely due to my time in the UK where i would always brows the singles racks at HMV, at first because it was an anomaly to me, and at second because i managed to find some pretty cool stuff...

the b sides are what they are. a song called graveyeard which is just more of the yeah yeah yeahs i love. and a remix of pin, which completely obliterates the song into an unrecognizable mess that is remarkably listenable to.

rating 9/10 (cos, okay, it is a single).

Maria Taylor - Lynn Teeter Flower

okay. i have a huge crush on maria taylor. have since i first heard (and, okay, saw pictures of) Azure Ray. her first solo album, which i didn't buy, is an amazing piece of folky/artsy goodness. so, when i heard she a second one coming...

it's good. not as good as 11:11 but... good. more diverse songs - a few folksy tunes with obvious debt to her own band and also bright eyes. a beatle-esque organ driven tune ("smile and wave") and then some songs that, while quite good, have a slight feel of something done to try and broaden her appeal, as they wouldn't be terribly out of place on albums by any of the recent crop of female singer/songwriters with acoustic guitars and pianos.

but, when it comes down to it, i love maria taylor. the last song on the cd is something recorded of her when she was little - 5, maybe? and it is so adorable... man...

rating 8/10

The Talking Heads - Little Creatures

cos, well, why can't i pick apart supposedly legendary bands if i wanna...

so i am a fan of the talking heads. i really think myself to be one. but when i listened to this i pretty much only could tolerate the singles. i know this was one of their last albums before the acrimonious split...

i grew up with the talking heads, thanks to my older siblings. however, this cd i think was given to me by a friend from middle school who for some reason always gave me christmas and birthday presents, to the point of embarassment, especially as they were often cd's or something that i didn't particularly want... and i don't remember ever consciously WANTING this cd. i always felt bad taking things from him, especially since i rarely had anything GOOD to give him back.

so yeah, the singles - "and she was", "stay up late", and "road to nowhere" - awesome songs. hell, "road to nowhere" is one if my favorite songs ever but the rest of the album... i hate to think of myself as someone who would only listen to/like the singles from an album but with this one... which doesn't discount their brilliance. david byrne is a genius. etc. etc. but really, this album is just... no...maybe the talking heads are a band where i should have a greatest hits cd?

and that's day 4. so this has so far been kind of fun. i dunno. i think i'll slowly move away from reviews and sort of edging towards making it a little more autobiographical. we'll see...

my inner geekdom music challenge days 1 and 2

2008-04-16T09:30:00.004-04:00

day 1

traveling through the depths of my cd collection, i decided the best way to start was to randomly grab 2 cd's, in the thought that i was more likely to grab something i hadn't listened to in a while. and i was right!

Terris - Learning to Let Go

who??????

who is right. okay, i'll admit that i don't think i even listened to this cd when i bought back when i was living in the UK. they released a couple of singles first (which i am sure i'll get to eventually) which were much better than the album ultimately turned out to be (gotta love those UK bands releasing non-album singles...).

basically, Terris were one of the few bands i ever actually bought completely into the music press induced hype, as NME and others basically said they were the best band EVER! and there's a lot to be said for them in a positive light i guess. they do have more than a passing resemblance to the Manic Street Preachers, before they became stadium rock and were making an angry, intense hybrid of the clash and guns and roses. their gravelly voiced singer, gavin goodwin, has a passing resemblance to james dean bradfield vocally, and they certainly have the intensity. on the album though, they filtered their obvious debt to the manics - and other welsh bands, in particularly and kind of unfortunately, the stereophonics (yawn) - through a slightly blatant mix of post american grunge, or "grunge" since the first thing that came to mind when the track "beneath the belt" started was "candlebox??" the album isn't all bad - it starts off nicely, with "white gold way", and even the second track "fabricated lunacy," is nice. mostly, though, i felt i was trudging my way through it on monday morning. worth keeping for a few of the tracks, but not something i would call a favorite. for a band that was hyped for their intensity, at a time when a lot of british rock was being dominated by sensitive rockers like coldplay and twee popsters like belle and sebastian, the album just falls flat. apparently, Terris didn't make it past then hype, and quietly disbanded not long after this album. it would be interesting to see what happened to them, as they definitely had the talent, i just don't think the album was really what the hype led me to want it to be at the time.

rating: 6/10

Japanic - The Social Disease

whee! this was more like it. boy/girl. vocals. no fabricated intensity. angular guitar lines. aaah. this would have been much better to start the morning with...

when did i get this CD? i don't even remember, other than it was - looking at the release date - something i rescued from the college radio station at the change of management (the incoming station manager told me i could take what i wanted, and i wasn't about to defy a direct order, especially since he might sit on me!) but i'm glad i picked it up. again, i probably haven't listened to this since i first grabbed it.

basically, the cd is a bouncy, giddy, call back to early B-52's. all slightly shouty male vocals with slightly droning girl vocals cutting in periodically. there's also a lot of debt to Gang of Four in the songs (which you can hear some samples of here, on their website). as far as i can tell, this was their second album, and they didn't release anything beyond that. which is kind of a shame, as with bands like the yeah yeah yeahs, be your own pet, and some of the bands riding the dance/indie rock craze of the past few years, Japanic could have made a definite mark.

rating: 9/10

DAY 2

No Doubt - the Beacon Street Collection

Not the Reissue, bitches! the original pressing!!

or: the album i told a million mystfied teenagers was actually better than the no doubt album they knew during my brief tenure as a record store employee, even though i'm not sure that's true anymore, and was probably only saying because they annoyed me.

Ahem. guilty pleasure? check. now, at least, though i certainly was more of a fan at a certain point in my life, even being a regular on an aol music message board (where i actually made a friend or 2, one i still maintain semi-regular contact with through livejournal, another who i actually dated for a period of time when she lived in baltimore). i probably bought this not long after it came out, in 95, probably when i also bought Tragic Kingdom. i had heard a few of the songs before - hell, i saw no doubt live in 93 when i was convinced by some people that there was this band that sounded a little like fishbone and madness, both bands i was very into in 8th/9th grade - so i figured owning them wasn't a bad idea. (confession: i didn't own their first, self titled, album for another year or 2, largely because i couldn't find it. i have a more interesting story about no doubt when i get to listening to tragic kindgom). anyway... the fishbone/madness thing definitely holds, probably a little more on the fishbone side (and also a good sized debt to sublime).

honestly, the cd just made me ridiculously nostalgic. it has a definite mid-90's feel - that slightly odd glossy-plasticness that many things up until 1995 seemed to have. total hate 95 - their duet with sublime's brad nowell - probably holds up the best, and is still possibly one of my favorite songs, if only one my favorite songs by no doubt. it's certainly not bad, and serves as a bridge between their quirky, sort of two-toneish debut and their full on ska/punk meets fleetwood mac breakthrough. i definitely bopped my head a bit while listening to this one. as much as i didn't mind what no doubt progressed into - return of saturn kind of bored me and rock steady seemed to serve more as a prelude to gwen stefani's solo albums than a no doubt album - i probably hold this album in a little higher regard than it deserves, as even with the re-release in 97, it still feels kind of like a secret to me.

rating: 7/10

Self - Gizmodgery

toy instruments and circuit bending goodness before that became vogue!

in a perfect world, self would have been beck. even before this album, there was a chance. i forget the name of the single from subliminal plastic motives, but it certainly had the quirky angle that beck rode to stardom on. however, fate didn't work this way, and matt mahaffey never reached the heights of mr hansen.

which is not to say that self is a beck knock off. not even close. even using toy instruments, as he does on this one, there's a much darker tone to his music than beck. darker, and funkier.

i bought this after we got it in at the radio station, loving it pretty much on first listen. geeky, funky, never twee despite it's slightly cute concept. even the cover of the loggins/messina "classic" what a fool believes is given a slightly dark edge. the last song sounds a bit like weezer, which is also not a bad thing, though after the white indie funk/groove of the rest of the album, it's a little jarring. trunk full of amps, which is reprised in a clean version (essentially adding guitar note bends in place of "motherfucker") seriously could have been a huge single had it been given a chance. but there's not a single track on this album i wouldn't listen to over and over again.

rating: 10/10

more to come....

the challenge

2008-04-13T23:23:00.003-04:00

the challenge:

i am going to go though my oversized cd collection and listen to at least one different cd a day. i will then blog about it, essentially reviewing the cd, but with more... i dunno... personal touches? (like, why i bought it, etc.). not the most exciting blog topic i guess, but i'm sure some will enjoy. and maybe interestingly cathartic.

it starts tomorrow.

johnny 5, alive

2008-04-07T05:54:00.002-04:00

they're remaking short circuit?

they're remaking short circuit?!?!

hot damn!

(can they get gutenberg for it? because the man needs some work...)

for anyone who hasn't seen star wars... (i'm looking at you annie)

2008-02-27T05:56:00.001-05:00

this is about as good of a plot overview as you're gonna get.

obee kenobee!

darcy, darcy, don't look so sad

2008-02-27T00:47:00.003-05:00

so i'm not entiely sure what i think of this:

the song, as one of the commenters mentions, reminds me eerily of something gloria estefan might have done 23 years ago or so. that said, it's not BAD. i'm just not sure what to think. it still gives me the joyful goosebumps that tilly and the wall always do (them, pony up, and mates of state have that affect on me more than anyone i think), and i can't wait for a new album (the single apparently drops march 4th, so i would guess new album some time in april or may? and there does seem to be a tour on the way). the video, honestly, leaves quite a bit to be desired. yeah, it's fun, but it's just too... colorful.

it's nowhere near as fun as this:
with

or without zombies:

i first saw tilly and the wall opening for bright eyes (with whom they were in the wonderful but short lived park ave with in the late 90's) in... 04? i think, at the 9:30 club. and was quite taken with them. if anyone remembers the liner notes from Nirvana's "Insesticide" where kurt talks about crying with joy at Shonen Knife - that's the affect Tilly and the Wall had on me, basically, only not in broken english. (shonen knife = topic for another time).

my favorite tilly and the wall songs:

and

but honestly, i think i just love tilly and the wall. the new single will definitely grown on me (come to think of it, it reminds me a little of mates of state... hmmm....).

2008-02-26T13:26:00.002-05:00

1. i'm still not seeing cloverfield.

2. this is awesome. considering how really unfunny the source material tends to be, this is actually quite hilarious. who knew? granted, when i was a youngun i really liked Garfield. a lot. looking back.... well.... what was wrong with me? (hell, i also liked reading tom clancy books... maybe i had a cerebral blockage or something?)

3. i promise more posts soon. for real.

why i won't be seeing cloverfield

2008-01-21T10:45:00.000-05:00

ok. i get that to some people out there that title might seem a little shocking. (well, not shocking, but, maybe a bit weird?) but it's serious.

i will not be seeing cloverfield.

honestly, i'm sure it's a decent enough movie. i just have no interest.

1. it's godzilla. actually, my first thought when i saw the first previews was that it was a war of the worlds style invasion movie - which would not have been more interesting, or better. but my point is, i've seen godzilla. the original. the sequels. hell, i even saw the awful as all hell remake. okay, so it's a different take on godzilla, from the point of view of the victims (more on this in a second) but it's still, essentially, a godzilla movie. honestly, i had at least hoped it would be something "different" (not a giant reptile that might have come from the sea... maybe a giant bunny rabbit? or the stay puffed marshmallow man, making it actually a remake of ghostbusters told from a different point of view... no i'm not being entirely serious, but i'm trying to illustrate my point that godzilla is just sort of pointless).

2. it's the blair witch project. okay, so i'll admit i got sucked into the blair witch hype of 98 or 99 or whatever summer that was. i did. it was new, sort of. and it was - from a storytelling point of view - not even a terrible movie (though most of the storytelling was told off camera in all of the lead up and various viral marketing). yeah, it quickly became a joke, and is one of those movies that's scary like a scary campfire story is scary - it depends mostly on the environment in which you see it. but that whole "from the point of view of the handheld camera " thing just... ugh. one of the reasons blair witch works is that you NEVER see the witch, or even if there is a witch. the end, where they seem to die in the manner that some of the various townspeople describe how the "witch" killed before does seem ton indicate something, but you still just don't know, which is what makes it "scary." granted, reveals in horror movies can be scary - when you finally see freddy krueger, it's that much scarier because of how little you saw him up to that point. it's sort of a hallmark of the horror genre. but giant monster attacking new york movies DON'T work that way. the fear is not from the surprise, the fear is from the giant thing going to eat you unless you find a way to stop it.

i will throw one exception here, where i can see cloverfield working a little better than blair witch. for a movie like this to work you need to a) suspend your disbelief enough to believe that such clean images can come from a handi-cam with apparently unbelievably long battery life, and to believe that - while it's just a movie - it's "real" enough for you to invest yourself into it (blair witch did a decent job at this, though if you saw the movie in anything other than a dark, relatively quiet movie theater, it worked quite a bit less) and b) you have to give a shit about the characters. blair witch failed at that a bit, as you really kind of hoped - despite her desperate pleas - that the lead character/narrator was going to get it, and soon. if anything, you invested a lot in hating her. cloverfield seems to create characters for you to like and feel for, which, assuming you've suspended your disbelief enough, makes the rest of the movie that much more effective.

3. it's still just torture porn, sort of anyway. the shaky, slightly grainy images. the feeling that the subjects of the film are being brutalized by an unseen force. okay, it's not hostel or saw or anything like that, but it still owes as much to those movies as it does to the above. now, this might seem a bit of a stretch, but at the same time, there's not much else you can really call young, pretty people, being randomly picked off by something or someone. i mean, it doesn't seem to be the unmittigated gore fest or anything but..

4. jj abrams. granted, i like jj abrams. i liked felicity - yes, i LIKED felicity; i liked Alias (at least the first few seasons); i like Lost (what i've seen of it at least). but... there's just seems to be a sense with this movie that since he's behind it, it can't be touched, and therefore must be awesome. a lot of directors/producers fall into this trap, especially after they've had a decent string of successes that are in some way "unconventional." so this might be a slightly cynical/bratty point, but had anyone else been behind a movie like this, would it have been given as much positive hype? MAYBE spielberg (he was certainly given a bit of a pass on his remake of "war of the worlds") but i think that a lot of creators would have gotten far more critical eyes cast in the direction of this movie. would someone else have even gotten this movie greenlit?

5. viral marketing works, but can easily go wrong. truthfully, the days where an advanced campaign like "cloverfield" has had really work are gone. we're hit with so much information now, that the second something becomes part of the entertainment hype machine, it's fucked as every detail gets leaked, whether it's true or not. when cloverfield was first being marketed, it seemed very cool, and interesting (and maybe worth seeing). the best part for me was that it was largely a disinformation campaign - we were told NOTHING, not even if cloverfield was the real title (which a lot of reports had said it wasn't - that this was just another smokescreen meant to give the movie a further air of mystery and disinformation). but ultimately, maybe because of the writers strike - how much do writers have to do with marketing campaigns and movie titles? - or maybe because of something else (that's green with dead presidents on it), this all fell apart and it quickly became just another overhyped monster movie with an "interesting" angle.

maybe i'm just cynical, and i can see all of what i said easily being dismissed as me just disliking a popular movie because of hype. and maybe that's part of it too. granted, i've been known to love movies that have been hyped to death, but something about cloverfield just doesn't fit for me.

so i ask whoever's reading this one thing: convince me. without spoilers if you must, but convince me that this is a movie i should see - if you do and i see it and like it, umm, you'll get a prize. or something (no idea what but i'll come up with something).

saturday morning shenanigans

2008-01-12T08:06:00.000-05:00

why on earth do tom and jerry now have superpowers? (at least that's what the commercial for whatever their new kids WB program seems to indicate)

this is worse than when they started to talk...

i'm sorry if my french was bad

2008-01-10T22:29:00.001-05:00

so i'll probably post later about comics, such as the whole one more day/brand new day fiasco going on with spiderman (brand new day = not such a bad first issue, actually), and the amazingly good "lost annual" from the teen titans (i expected it to be good, it was written by the original writer and had allred doing the inks and such, but i had no idea how awesome. seriously, it's books like this that justify my reading comics!)

no. i'm going to talk about one of my weird, geeky obsessions (which, after all, is what started this blog).

french pop! (warning, this is a little picture and video heavy)

i love me some french pop. serge! francoise hardy! france gall! awesomeness.

i came to it originally - though i was actually familiar with serge gainsbourg for quite a while - through april march, in particular her album "chrominance decoder." half in french, half in english - it was actually one of the english songs that got my attention, thanks to those handy CMJ magazine monthly samplers.

april march - real name elinore blake - actually used to be a production assistant of some sort for pee wee's playhouse (along with rob zombie, which is just one of those odd coincidences in music history) and as an animator for spumco, specifically ren and stimpy.

she has a few albums out, so if you can find them, i recommend them all ("triggers" is the last one i know of).

here's a video:

_____

then came the "pop romantique" album, essentially a "french pop tribute album" with a lot of songs written by serge (plus a bob dylan tune translated into french by lloyd cole), and a few originals (one by air, featuring francoise hardy and the other... i think by ladybug transistor though i don't recall at the moment). i had heard francoise prior to this, doing the french bits on blur's "to the end" (the version from the "country house" single).

the best songs on here are the ones by Ivy (l'anamour), which probably owed something to the fact that their singer is french born. and heavenly's "Nous Ne Somme Pas De Anges" which i had heard before (i forget which album it was on originally) but still loved.

also around this time - early 2000 - i was studying in the UK and picked up a recording of belle and sebastian's "black session" (a french radio show, which a lot of great artists have performed for... a little john peelish, but with longer sessions). which featured a song called "poupee de cire, poupee de son" (probably available for download somewhere, and video of which is on their "fans only" DVD collection). and when my favorite band covers something, i am hooked...

and then there's serge. what can i say about serge. definitely a pervert (i mean, what kind of man writes a song called "lemon incest" for his teenage daughter?) but also a pretty brilliant songwriter. his collaborations with bridgette bardot and jane birkin (and numerous others). this, however, is the serge i know:

before this goes on too long, i'll just talk a little about one more artists, and that's france gall.

the original artist of serge's "poupee de cire, poupee de son," as well as "laisse tomber les filles" (which later April March covered as "chack habit"), she was a very popular artist, even being selected to perform at eurovision for Luxembourg (performing "poupee de cire" for all of europe, and winning!). unfortunately, she didn't get the subtext of the song (or of "sucettes," which was ostensibly about lollipops, but also about oral sex) and ultimately felt that Serge used her (which he may have done).

"poupee de cire, poupee de son" is probably my favorite song of the "genre," not just because of the belle and sebastian cover, but because i truly just enjoy it. twinkle, a british singer from the 60's, did an english version which i haven't been able to find anywhere, but the original, well, the original french is just the best. so to close things off, here a clip of the original france gall eurovision performance:

the belle and sebastian performance (from the fans only DVD):

and just for extra geekery, a marching band performing it:

sucks to your assmer

2008-01-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

and sucks to your regular blogging!

kidding.

first, a holdover from the christmas posts that never happened.

honestly, i think everyone who has a TV and basic cable should watch the brilliant creation that is The Venture Bros. on Adult Swim (on Cartoon Network). a parody of everything from Johnny Quest to The Fantastic Four and other things like that, it's possibly one of the best cartoons on tv (what else can you call a show that has an entire portion of dialogue taken from Bowie's "Space Oddity" and "Ashes to Ashes"?)

well, apparently they recorded some christmas songs, which you can hear here.(apparently, some people can blog about christmas things more regularly than others....). according to wikipedia, there's also a "fairytale of new york" floating around, though it's not on the above linked site. the monarch/dr girlfriend take on "peace on earth/little drummer boy" is especially awesome, as it also keeps the dialogue... sort of... (best to just listen to it, as my description can't do it justice).

____
secondly, comics.

i haven't talked about comics, except for superman and santa teaming up, for ages. i'll probably get back that this year soon enough, but right now i just want to talk about one thing, and that's what's happened in spiderman (because apparently everyone in the comics industry is a buzz about it).

truthfully, i think keeping spiderman married would have been a good thing. and sacrificing that to let aunt may live, well, not so much. not that i hate aunt may, or have any great love for mary jane, but really? cheers to them for making mephisto a relevant force for the first time in a while, but part of me hopes they weasel their way out of it by summer (blame the skrulls? pocket universe?) i mean, to have the marriage just not exist anymore... (and how does them not being married bring harry osborne back to life?) honestly, it all feels too convenient to just be a "change in the status quo" especially since the marriage was such a change, as was the pregnancy, the clone saga , the unmasking... now none of these happened? do we just undo every storyline - good or bad - that revolved even slightly around their being married? and since it was undone by mysticism, shouldn't characters like dr strange sense it? or is everyone who deals in any way with spidey just going to have the portion of their memory lobotomized and retconned out? this isn't like "no more mutants" after all. sigh...

they claim nobody liked the marriage (comic fans seemed to be largely ambivilent, myself it never bothered me though i never felt it made for any great storylines. i never felt it aged the character or anything. and it's not like there aren't tons of married superheroes, many of which HAVE had good stories come out of their being married...). they claimed it was a huge hinderance (which just smacks of a lack of editorial creativity). honestly, i think they just wanted to do something extreme to grab headlines like they did when they killed captain america.

maybe it will last, maybe it won't. i'm leaning towards the latter (can marriage have comic book death?) but who knows...

well, it was gonna be 25 days...

2007-12-23T01:26:00.000-05:00

but i'm lazy. i might do a quickie the lazy 11 days thing, on christmas (assuming a) i bring my laptop to PA to my parents' house and b) i remember....)

but i had to post this link, cos i find it funny, and it ties in very well with.... day 2? the superman one...

http://againwiththecomics.blogspot.com/2007/12/secret-origin-of-santa-claus.html

(i'd just post the images, but i still have presents to wrap and it's late... presents before bloggers.)

day 14a

2007-12-14T14:50:00.000-05:00

this isn't a full post, i just for some reason find this funny. full post will be something more... rodenty.

day 13 - s-a-n-t-a c-l-a-u-s hooray for santa claus!

2007-12-13T12:45:00.000-05:00

ok.

it's often one of those "worst movie" list movies.

mst3k did an episode around it.

it has pia zadora! (as a kid. but still. other than her appearance in hairspray, and the references on mathnet, pia zadora sucks.)

but, come on, this is just one of the best movie plots i have ever seen:
"The story involves the denizens of the planet Mars, including Momar ("Mom Martian") and Kimar ("King Martian") who are worried that their children Girmar ("Girl Martian") and Bomar ("Boy Martian") are watching too much Earth television, most notably station KID's interview with Santa Claus in his workshop at the North Pole. Consulting the ancient 800-year old Martian sage Chochem, they are advised that the children of Mars are growing distracted due to the society's overly rigid structure; from infancy, all their education is fed into their brains through machines, and they are not allowed individuality or freedom of thought. Chochem sadly notes that he had seen this coming "for centuries", and states that the only way to help the children is to allow them to have freedom, to be allowed to have fun. To do this, they need a Santa Claus figure, like on Earth. Leaving the sage's dwelling, the Martian leaders decide to kidnap Santa Claus from Earth and bring him to Mars to make toys for the children of their planet. One warmongering Martian, Voldar, is in constant disagreement with this idea and repeatedly tries to kill Santa Claus, as well as two kidnapped Earth children, as he believes that Santa is corrupting the children of Mars and turning them away from the race's original glory. Throughout the movie, Santa Claus makes several jokes to the kidnapped children, laughing to himself and met with silence. He then slowly laughs in disappointment each time.

When they arrive on Mars, Santa and the children build a factory to make toys for the Martian children. However, Voldar and his assistants, Stobo and Shim, sabotage the factory and change the programming so that it makes the toys incorrectly. Meanwhile, Dropo, a Martian who has been acting silly ever since Santa came to Mars, puts on one of Santa's spare suits and starts talking and acting like Santa Claus. He goes to the toy factory to make toys, but Voldar mistakes him for Santa Claus and kidnaps him. When Santa and the children come back to the factory to make more toys, they discover that the machine has been tampered with. Voldar and Stobo come back to the factory to make a deal with Kimar, but when they see the real Santa Claus in the factory they realize that their plan has been foiled. Dropo, held hostage in a cave, tricks Shim, who was guarding him, and escapes. Kimar then arrests Voldar, Stobo and Shim. Santa notices that Dropo is acting like him, and says that Dropo would make a good Martian Santa Claus. Kimar agrees to make Dropo a Santa Claus on Mars and sends Santa and the children back to earth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_Conquers_The_Martians)"

yes, i am talking about "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!"

ok. it's bad. worse than bad. but this was the early/mid 60's. comic-surrealism in sci-fi was in. best of all, it's a christmas movie that lacks a lot of the sappiness and moralizing that christmas movies do. yeah, it's shit. bad acting. bad effects. bad directing.

but could they make a movie like this good? no. not at all. it's kind of like ed wood at his best/worst (before he sunk into porn and westerns) where it really tries to be a good movie, which probably makes it worse. it's certainly made with good intentions - were there any sci-fi/comedy/christmas movies yet? no. and it was at worst an appeal to its target audience - the kids who were spending a buck or two on a saturday matinee with their friends, looking for dumb, entertaining, cinematic fodder to waste their time and money on, while mom and dad were at home decorating the tree and thinking of nice "good" christmas stories for the kids.

it's absolutely the kind of movie you would expect to see on basic cable/uhf stations during the holiday weekends (see the included video). i particularly love their co-opting of the star wars music for their commercial... and it does include the awesome theme song!

day 12 . well, something is vile...

2007-12-12T12:35:00.000-05:00

the grinch.

awesome. at least the book, and the original animated speciel. boris karloff! the guy who did the voice of tony the tiger! awesome!

the movie with jim carey?

travesty.

why?

(no, not why is it a travesty. why did they even bother? was it nescessary??)

first, why give the grinch a back story? why make his hatred of christmas and the whos a result of some childhood issues? do we live in such a touchy feely age that a grinch can't just be a grinch, with a two sizes two small heart and a nasty disposition? and isn't cindy lou who supposed to be only 2? do we need jim carey's hamming it up in bad makeup?

ugh. ron howard, i know you like money and stuff but why on earth would yo do this? it's ridiculously cynical. not to mention just really poorly done . i'm glad that the horton hears a who movie coming up is animated, so that regardless of what they do with the story, it won't have the weird, awkwardness of live action actors trying to play dr seuss characters (seriously, the animation looks much more dr seussish and even a little like the animation from the original horton animated thing, which is cool).

sadly, this is is the crap that gets shown on tv - i'm looking at you abc family - and pressed on us as a christmas classic (by the cast of kyleXY, no less!). i'm sure these kids have seen the original and are just contractually required to say how awesome the one that the family channel owns the rights to show is...

sigh.

holy shit, what?

2007-12-12T01:39:00.001-05:00

thanks to wikipedia's article on Rankin Bass:

"The company is now in production with a new holiday film scheduled to be released in 2008. The film will be titled "Rudolph vs. Frosty". It is to fall in line with the recent films depicting classic characters from different series facing off with each other such as "Freddy vs. Jason" and "Alien vs. Predator"."

umm...

ummm......

fuck.

day 11- how would they know it's christmas?

2007-12-11T12:20:00.000-05:00

band aid. nice idea - popular recording artists getting together to aid the starving in africa. bob geldof may be a little bit of a sanctimonious cunt (sorry, but he is. lily allen is right.) but it WAS a nice idea. and where/when else would you have bono, sting, simon le bon, george michael, paul young, and boy george all singing lead together? really.

but... umm... don't they see how it's just a little "white man's burden"-esque?

"well tonight thank god it's them instead of you."?
"There will be no snow in Africa this Christmastime"??

well, first line might be meant ironically. maybe. but is so easily taken as serious - after all, bono sings it with such damned passion. and they do talk about saying a "prayer for the other ones."

and of course there will be no snow in Africa. it's AFRICA. except maybe on mt kilamanjaro there IS no snow. especially since, i'm pretty sure it's summer down there at christmastime.

and, really, other than the ones christianized by the brits and the dutch, a lot of Africans wouldn't know it was christmas, or at least wouldn't care much, because they are muslims.

and really, shouldn't we be thinking of them all year, and not just at christmas?

the song, however, is kind of awesome. and both musically, and in it's sentiments, very thatcher-era britain (just as "we are the world" was very reagan-era USA). and really, what else would you expect? this was still before celebrities actually tried earning points by travelling to Africa, including mr bono. and the little synth line? fucking awesome, though for some reason in my head it sometimes morphs into the intro of "the final countdown."

hmm.

mtv get off the air, now! (not christmas)

2007-12-10T23:53:00.000-05:00

everyone write nasty letters to eMpTyV NOW and demand they rectify this (from the State official website):

"* * * NOTE (Nov 1, 2007): We are sorry to report The State DVD is now NOT being released this fall. We worked closely with MTV to make a great DVD set with lots of extras for the show, and the DVDs are completed, but they have chosen not to release the set at this time. We don't know why."

seriously. what is this bullshit? they have chosen not to... what? the time is NOW! while things like reno 911 are hot. while christmas is coming. while...

i want it!

(i'll still want it 3, 6, 9, 12 months from now but....)

day 10

2007-12-10T01:10:00.000-05:00

charles dickens never thought of this badly animated, slightly repulsive, definitely non-christmasy, bit of "holiday special":

"Cricket on the Hearth" is, of course, not charles dickens' best known christmas story (did he like this one better? hmm. don't know. i haven't heard of him having yo get completely plastered in order to read this one to audiences, though my guess is the makers of the animated film might have been...)

quick plot synopsis, of the original:
"John Peerybingle, a carrier, lives with his wife Dot (who is much younger than he), their baby, their nanny Tilly Slowboy, and a mysterious lodger. A cricket constantly chirps on the hearth and acts as a guardian angel to the family, at one point assuming a human voice to warn John that his suspicions that Dot is having an affair with the lodger are wrong.
The life of the Peerybingles frequently intersects with that of Caleb Plummer, a poor toymaker employed by the miser Mr. Tackleton. Caleb has a blind daughter Bertha, and a son Edward, who travelled to South America and seemingly never returned. Tackleton is now on the eve of marrying Edward's sweetheart, May.
In the end, the lodger is revealed to be none other than Edward. Tackleton's heart is melted by the Christmas season, like Ebenezer Scrooge, and surrenders May to marry her true love. It is suggested ambiguously that Bertha regains her sight at the end. It has also been theorized that the ending paragraph is revealing the baby as the narrator of the story, which he would have been shown by the Cricket"

the cartoon casts off much of this story, focusing more on caleb a bertha, and altering their story quite considerable. truthfully, the cartoon resembles the original in that there's a cricket, a hearth, some wacky mistaken identity (edward is now bertha's beau, not brother, whose dissappearance is what makes bertha blind), a bunch of sweet, sappy, and completely unrelated song numbers - with pretty colors! - and danny thomas (who does the voice of caleb) giving is a nice intro, claiming it to be "charles dickens classic" and then also closing the show, in live action, telling us who played who - his daughter played, well, his daughter; roddy mcdowel played the cricket - and a reminder of the true meaning of the holiday.

the character of tackelton is kept, and probably as dickens meant him - a miserly, and very visible "jewish" stereotype (no, tackelton isn't a jewish name, but that didn't seem to stop the animators.) a weird plot point with him is his pet crow, who he has kidnap the cricket with a monkey and a dog (who meet at the bar where the singing burlesque cat performs), though it's ultimately thwarted.

ummm....

honestly, i can't find a lot of info/pictures/footage. it's available as part of a christmas classics boxed set, which also has rudolph and frosty. and... yeah. i don't think i've seen it on tv - abc family aside - since i was a little kid. seeing it now - i watched it again recently - i'm not sure it's as good as i remember it being. it certainly doesn't SUCK, but between the extremely hippy-ish, late 60's songs and animation, it's quite awkward to watch it now.

and the cricket, seriously, looks like a pickle!

day 9

2007-12-09T00:33:00.000-05:00

rankin\/bass gave us the classics. rudolph. frosty. jack frost.

the year without a santa clause.

truthfully, the title is misleading, as santa gets off his arse and decides not to get a well deserved rest. it's overall a great story, really, showing the importance of the christmas spirit of giving, etc. but the whole heat miser/snow miser portion of the plot...

umm...

what?

are they villains? they're certainly set up that way at first, but then when we see them again, they're petulant children, with song and dance numbers too boot...

what's with the mini-them dancing around and singing with them? creepy! and there's something just a little... well... i don't think heat miser's the only one who's "flaming." if you get what i mean (i'm amazed paul lynde didn't do one of the voices) but they're definitely not villains, just minor nuisance/antagonists who get dealt with pretty easily.

so, to help get the south to have christmas spirit (because it's hot! amazingly, though there's not a single colored person in "southland USA", the christmas spirit has nothing to do with jim crow, which given the apparent time period, is definitely in effect), two elves and mrs claus have to get it to snow. so they contact these two brothers, and ultimately their mother -mother nature, of course, the family resemblance completely lacking - to make it happen. and guess what! it doesn't work! well... wait... does it? no, i guess not, because it's not the snow that makes santa believe that people believe again. it's a sappy rendition of "blue christmas" sung by a sad little girl (featuring puppets with huge, disproportionate blobs of glycerine on their eyes) and then, a bunch of racial/ethnic stereotyped children - though i guess it's a little more like the small world ride at disney get together and give santa presents.

they did a tv remake a few years ago, with john goodman playing santa (yeah, goodman taking part in another ruining remake/sequel to a rankin-bass classic!... i'll talk about frosty returns another day). they kept the heatmiser/snowmiser songs sort of - harvey firestein played the heat miser? wtf?!?! was that necessary? ugh.

(i feel sad putting this here, but...)

the dancing girls are unnecessary, though i'm guessing nbc lacked the budget to make mini-michael mckean/harvey feirsteins, but it made me think of the one bad thing about "viva variety" which was the dancing girls thrown into every musical act's number... regardless of the song/act (yeah. viva variety. with the state DVD in limbo, i'm assuming we'll NEVER see that either....)

day 8

2007-12-08T23:56:00.000-05:00

oh the wonders of backdating... not that i would... no.... never...

but anyway.

ahh, mid 80's rap. before bling, puffy, and the benjamins ruined it. before everyone got scowly and serious (ok, i like a lot of the scowly, serious rappers too, but give me almost anything before 1989 or so over most of what gangsta wrought, and especially over all the puffy/ma$e/whatever junk of the mid 90's).

could a modern rap act even get away with this? probably not, at least not one with the kind of mainstream acceptance that got RunDMC on the first "very special christmas" compilation in the first place. maybe some of the more indie minded rappers, but anyone else would just make a mockery of it. not that the song isn't "funny," but it's certainly not a joke.

best lyrics:
It's Christmas time in Hollis Queens
Mom's cooking chicken and collard greens
Rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese
And Santa put gifts under Christmas trees
Decorate the house with lights at night
Snow's on the ground, snow white so bright
In the fireplace is the yule log
Beneath the mistle toe as we drink egg nog
The rhymes that you hear are the rhymes of Darryl's
But each and every year we bust Christmas carols

it's sort of silly, and innocent, and... awesome.

someone - POD, maybe? - did a godawful remake of this a few years ago. they did keep the lyrics but it was unnecessary. nobody can really recapture this. back when Rap was young, and - while still certainly socially conscious - wasn't above just having a simple good time, without everything that would these days be railed against by social commentators as "negative influences."

i definitely count this as one of my favorite christmas songs ever.

day7-chompchompchomp

2007-12-07T23:26:00.000-05:00

ok. there was supposed to be a day 6 but because of car accidents due to stupid high school kids who are late for foorball games...

here's day 7: one of the best memories i have of holiday cartoon goodness from my childhood

Christmas Comes to Pac-Land

i think it really speaks for itself. (and, awesomely, this links to the whole special! thanks aol!)

a few things though: pac man's kind of a jerk. i never really thought of him as being from brooklyn either.... and why are the ghosts singing jingle bells? i mean, why not but... why?

this pops up on cartoon network every once and a while, but when i was a kid it was really a staple of the USA cartoon express. being a little nerd like i was, i loved the pac man cartoon for a lot of reasons (honestly, i'm not sure i played a lot of pac man as a kid. we had it on our Atari, but i think i was more of a "burger time" fan, and "pitfall." that, and our atari burned out when i was 6 so... looking back, i think they took a lot of liberties with the game and such to make the cartoon - all video game cartoons/movie adaptations do this though so i can't blame em, and pac man doesn't really give a ready made backstory - unlike mario or even zelda. in some ways, it feels like more hanna barbera taking classic concepts from old tv and movies (the flintstones as a prehistoric honeymooners, for example) and applying beloved video game characters over it. i'm sure - though nothing rings a bell - that like a lot of animated holiday specials, this is a redone tale with some pac man lingo thrown in.

truthfully, though, i just love that christmas came to pacland. it's up there with santa and superman. and it's just absolutely fucking brilliant.

anyway. tomorrow resumes normal schedule. i'll make up for missing one by making a super post or something, possibly related to the show we didn't see due to the accident, a christmas carol.

day 4 - thin white angel of death vs. bing

2007-12-04T11:20:00.000-05:00

Bing Crosby - Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy

Posted Nov 07, 2006

first of all, it's obvious that david bowie knows exactly who he's talking to when he mentions he "even has a go at white christmas." wink nudge. of course, this was all a planned number, but it completely loses the pretense of sponteneity when he says that. but, at the same time, i doubt the audience would particularly give a damn. i would really not be surprised if bing had no idea who he was talking to, though even that's unlikely - this was when bowie was particularly huge, both in the UK and the US. to assume that he wouldn't know bowie at all...

when bing asks bowie if he likes any of the old stuff, bowie replies he likes john lennon and harry nilsson. ha! wacky way to show the generational difference!

the song itself is my next point of contention. seriously, if "little drummer boy" is david bowie's son's "favorite," why does he end up singing an entirely different song? according to the washington post:

"The original plan had been for Bowie and Crosby to sing just "Little Drummer Boy." But "David came in and said: 'I hate this song. Is there something else I could sing?' " Fraser said. "We didn't know quite what to do."

Fraser, Kohan and Grossman left the set and found a piano in the studios' basement. In about 75 minutes, they wrote "Peace on Earth," an original tune, and worked out an arrangement that weaved together the two songs. Bowie and Crosby nailed the performance with less than an hour of rehearsal."
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901260.html)

not that the "peace on earth" song is BAD. it just, again, makes no sense in the setup. (hell, the setup that "white christmas" is one of the "traditional" things is sort of silly too...)

i guess there's not much more to say about this. bing crosby died not too much later, giving a sort of creepy "angel of death" vibe to david bowie (they also aired a performanc/video of heroes on the special, as they had done for marc bolan. both crosby and bolan died before their respective specials aired).

years later, bob mould and craig kilbourne did a note for note, word for word, remake of this for the daily show before john stewart made it the awesomeness it is today (sadly, i can't find a video of this). thankfully, neither of them died before it aired...

25 days of x-mas day 3

2007-12-03T21:58:00.000-05:00

i posted about this back when i first started my blog, but it being christmas i thought i'd revisit it and all it's "pre-crisis" cheesiness.

so first, the cover. a little misleading when it comes to the story, but really, a lot of cominc book covers are these days (seriously, who ever sees those comic book covers with two heroes "fighting" and thinks that, inside, you'll see a giant superhero battle royale? world war hulk and civil war aside), and were even more in those days. but no, nowhere in this issue is superman going down a chimney or toyman ambushing the big boy scout and the man in the big red suit from the rooftop with an army of toy soldiers.

the issue itself is the kind of story you really won't find anywhere in comics today, except maybe in some indie's homaging of this era. post crisis DC comics are, largely, too "serious" for this type of story (though apparently someone's bringing back bat-mite soon!).

a few things to remember: the fortress of solitude is in the north pole. santa's workshop is in the north pole. it only seems natural that these worlds would collide.

after superman stops timmy from robbing a charity worker, he finds that the kid is under the hypnotic spell of a toy made by the original toyman, so he takes him to the fortress to cure him. suddenly, a beam from the toy hits superman and he falls from the sky - the victim of toyman finding "meteorite laced with White Dwarf-Star matter on sale as a paperweight." (seriously, who writes this stuff?)

superman wakes to find himself surrounded by elves and santa himself. he wonders why he has never seen it, which is apparently the result of magic (superman can't beat magic) because only people who santa wants to see it... blah blah blah... they tour the workshop and superman sees a toy that reminds him of one he had when he was a baby that was destoyed when krypton went kerblooey - a thought projecting device.

superman still too weak to fight toyman, santa offers to help, even giving him a ride on the sleigh. they go down toyman's chimney and... well... santa unleashes his "good toys" to beat toyman's "bad toys" which were all carrying kryptonite making santa's help a necessity.

when all is said - all the evil hypnotic toys are rounded up and everything seems great - another "gravity beam" hits superman. he wakes up in the snow at the fortress with timmy hovering over him, and thinking his entire santa encounter was a dream. then, when he gets home, he finds.... a thought projector! which then projects an image of santa wishing him a happy christmas!

all in all, it's a fun comic. good clean american christmas fun. of course, i wouldn't be me without pointing out a glaring - to me at least - plot point. superman thought the entire santa encounter was a dream, shouldn't he have then immediately thought the entire toyman battle was fake, not return timmy home yet, and go after toyman? granted, it wasn't a dream but still... superman might not be as knee jerk as some superheroes, but he's not methodical or contemplating either.

i'm sure there are other great christmasy comics... i just might have to talk about them sometime.

day 2: holiday heap recap and joy

2007-12-02T21:47:00.000-05:00

so the CCCM's second show, holiday heap, has now come and gone. and let's just say it was AWESOME! seriously, even with the sort of hectic feeling of the last week, it was seriously one of the coolest things i have ever been a part of.

first things first, sleepy records (ie annie and me) DJ set lists:
hour 1:
The Godfather Waltz
Fairytale of New York - The Pogues
No Action - Elvis Costello
Kings Of The Wild Frontier - Adam & The Ants
Johnny 99 - Los Lobos
Comic Strip - Serge Gainsbourg
The Gash - The Flaming Lips
Let Me Go Home - Camera Obscura
Rebellion (Lies) - Arcade Fire
Spanish Bombs - The Clash
Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight) [Single Version] -The
Ramones
No. 5 (Boogie Woogie No. 5) - Puffy AmiYumi
A Little Respect - Erasure
Like a Virgin - Madonna
Kiss - Prince
If She Knew What She Wants - The Bangles

hour 2:
Christmas Time Is Here - Vince Guaraldi Trio
Christmas Time is Here-Ivy
City Morning Song-Sarah Shannon
Postcards From Italy-Beirut
anthems for a seventeen year old girl - Broken Social Scene
The Start of Something-Voxtrot
christmas time is here-capsela
Silver Lining-Beulah
New York Snow-Looper
Frankly, Mr. Shankly-The Smiths
Try A Little Tenderness-Otis Redding
When the curious girl realizes she is under glass - Bright Eyes
Puttin' On The Ritz-Shiny Toy Guns
The Best Days - Softies
Everything And More - Dolly Mixture
Call Me - I Am The World Trade Center
Thanks for Christmas - XTC
The Sun Goes Down And The World Goes Dancing - The Magnetic Fields

hour 3:
Let's Go Crazy - Prince & The Revolution
Party Time (a Womyn's Luv)- Lesbians On Ecstasy
She Bop - Cyndi Lauper
Push It - Salt-N-Pepa
Friendship Station - Le Tigre
Bust a Move -Young MC
Don't You Want Me -The Human League
The Sound Of The Crowd - superheroes
Major Tom (Coming Home) - Peter Schilling
Electric Renaissance - Belle & Sebastian
Ultraviolence - New Order
24 Hour Party People - Happy MondaysM
Do You Want to - Franz Ferdinand
Riot Radio -The Dead 60s

hour 4:
The Christmas song The Raveonettes
Credit In The Straight World Young Marble Giants
Temptation (Original 7-inch) New Order
Dancefloor The Brunettes
St. James Infirmary Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
First Of The Gang To Die Morrissey
Another Girl, Another Planet The Only Ones
Feed The World Richard Davies
Girls & Boys (Pet Shop Boys 7" Mix) Blur
The Fox in the Snow Rasputina
Motorcrash Sugarcubes
Three Girl Rhumba Wire
Tales of Brave Aphrodite Velocity Girl
New England Kirsty MacColl
Christmas In Hollis Run DMC
All The Right Reasons Dressy Bessy
Let's Pretend We're Married Prince

hour 5:
Squance - Plaid
Xtal - Aphex Twin
As Serious As Your Life - FourTet
Risingson - Massive Attack
Death Goes To The Disco - Pulp
Halo - Depeche Mode
Discotraxx - Ladytron
Computer Blue - Prince & The Revolution
Dance 1- Kiss Me Deadly
Sing Songs Along - Tilly & The Wall
Fire In Cairo - The Cure
The Day That Thatcher Dies - Hefner
(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais - The Clash
Dreaming - Blondie

hour 6:
In the Bleak Midwinter - The Pipettes
Round - Lou Barlow
Y Control [ The Faint Remix ]- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Pocket Calculator - Kraftwerk
Crazy Rhythms - The Feelies
Santa, Bring My Baby Back to Me - Belle & Sebastian
Killing - The Rapture
Rock_Me_Amadeus - Falco
Broadway (So Many People) - Low
I Was Born On Christmas Day - Saint Etienne
Chick Habit - April March
Fools Rush In - Bow Wow Wow
Everythings Just Wonderful - Lily Allen
Victoria - The Fall
White Lines - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
White Christmas - Bright Eyes
Sally MacLennane - The Pogues

hour 7:
Creepy Santa
Just Like Christmas - Low
Knee Deep At the National Pop League - Camera Obscura
Sweeping The Nation - Spearmint
The Model - Belle & Sebastian
Talulah Gosh - Talulah Gosh
Waterfall - The Stone Roses
Ask - The Smiths
Tracy and I - Little Name
Spotlight on Christmas - Rufus Wainwright
Silver and Gold - Calla
The Only Moment We Were Alone - Explosions In The Sky
Sea-Microphone - Cake On Cake
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra

we got a lot of great compliments for our sets, which is always nice we're talking of a) getting some real DJing equipment, so we don't run into the issues we had at 2640 with the sound equipment (i mean, it worked but... yikes. plugging a portable cd player into a mixer and then doing some neat wiring and cabling tricks to get sound into the second room just doesn't work so well... i mean, it does, but seriously could have been better managed...)

the sleepy records table was a success as well, though i guess since we were basically giving things away, it really couldn't do anything but. we also got a good bit of donation money for the baltimore sandwhich project and other sleepy records projects, though i think the adorable bear helped:

next time, i think, we'll actually sell stuff (6 months to make product for little mouse vintage and maybe have some cd's/tshirts/etc. for sale from sleepy... yeah... we can do it....). but other vendors who were selling things were also phenominally successful! lots of people! lots of money!

one of my favorite non-mafia vendors - other than karma's cafe which was tres awesome with her cider and deliciousa cookies - was noosed kitty (ok, her work has a morbid end to it, but it's also brilliant - i got a print and some badges). but there were so many good vendors (including the cigar box guitar guy... go here for the complete list of vendors.)

we also had some fun with decorating with dinoboy,

who strangely here is sideways because my camera did something funny when it loaded the picture, and whose santa hat and beard you can't get the full effect of...

as well as with one of the coolest, most exciting movie homages ever:

which got zero outraged comments, despite the presence of children (ann apparently was even warned, while wearing her antlers, that "they're beheading reindeer in the other room").

all in all, exhausting - especially after trying to lug boxes and bags of canned good to my car and then back because we realized the impossibility of carrying and storing them until friday and then found out the the shelter at the church where the even was could take the canned goods - but absolutely bloody brilliant.

now starts the planning for the next show... pile of craft 2!

25 days of X-mas day one

2007-12-01T21:20:00.000-05:00

so what better way to stay a christmasy countdown then with the ultimate in christmasy countdowns, the 12 days of christmas.

on the first...

first, this statement: According to the 23rd annual survey, the cost of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is $19,507 in 2007 (from pnc bank's website on the subject http://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com) .

so, really, who actually calculates this stuff? ok, the website TELLS you that, but has christmas become - as charlie brown so memorably lamented - so commercial?

this song has itself had many versions. bob and doug mackinzies version, replacing the partridge with "a beer... in a tree" is canadian humor at its best. yay canadian jokes!

"Bob: Ok, on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..
beer.

On the 2nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...
2 turtlenecks,
and beer.

On the 3rd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..
3 french toast,
2 turtlenecks,
and beer.
There should be more there, eh?

Where?

On the 4th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..
4lbs of backbacon,
3 french toast,
2 turtlenecks,
and beer in a tree.

Oh. See? ya need more.

On the 5th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..
5 GOLDEN TOQUES!
4lbs of backbacon,
3 french toast,
2 turtlenecks,
and beer in a tree.

On the 6th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..
6 packs of two-four.
5 GOLDEN TOQUES!
4lbs of backbacon,
3 french toast,
2 turtlenecks,
and beer in a tree.

Ok.

On the 7th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..
7 packs of smokes,
6 packs of two-four,
5 GOLDEN TOQUES!
4lbs of backbacon,
3 french toast,
2 turtlenecks,
and beer in a tree.

oh, i keep forgettin'.

whew, this should be just the 2 days of xmas, this is too hard for us!

On the 8th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..
8 comic books,
7 packs of smokes,
6 packs of two-four,
5 GOLDEN TOQUES!
4lbs of backbacon,
3 french toast,
2 turtlenecks,
and beer in a tree.

Wow,That beers empty

Day 12.

G'day and welcome to day 12.

Yeah.

5 GOLDEN TOQUES!
4lbs of backbacon,
3 french toast,
2 turtlenecks,
and beer in a tre-e.

Where did you learn to do that?

Uh, Albums.

Boy, so thats our song merry Christmas, and g'day.

G'day everybody. Happy new years.

Ok, ya know what ya left out?

What?

Donuts. I told you to get me donuts.

Oh no!

Either on the 9th day, or the 10th day or the 11th day. I wanted donuts.

The song is over merry Christmas everybody, or the 12th you coulda gotten me a dozen donuts.

Go to the stores and get some presents. You coulda gone down to the donut shop where you buy a dozen donuts, you get another donut free. Then it coulda been 13 for the 13 days of Christmas.

Next Christmas, get me a chainsaw.

Take off!

Boy that song was a beauty.. it moved me.

Yah , it ranks up there with stairway to heaven."

so there's that...

i dunno. i happen to really like the song, maybe because i grew up with the muppets/john denver version - something which rightfully deserves it's own geekdom post - which is probably the first version that enters my head whenever someone brings up the song.

but back to the price index stuff...

so christmas would have the true love spending almost 20000 dollars, meaning it's more than a years salary of a growing portion of people in this country. the price of gold and the minimum wage hike (milkmaids, also probably pipers and drummers, because i would assume that their musicians unions would ask for a hike to coincide with the min wage hike) have apparently caused this...

but really, who wants these things. a partridge in a pear tree? when i was little we had a pear tree. i think if a partridge had shown up in it it would have freaked us out a bit. it was tiny anyway and probably wouldn't support the partridge's weight. and who gives someone a fruit tree for christmas anyway, with or without a bird already living in it? hell, all the bird gifts seem just a bit ridiculous, unless they're meant for eating, but who eats swan? hell, who eats a turtle dove?

really, the only good "gift" in the bunch is probably the gold rings. but who needs five? are they in love with liz taylor? miss piggy loves them, certainly, but then again, where does she wear them, her tail? (ok, she;'s a muppet and therefore is a pig with fingers... but honestly...). otherwise, all the singer is getting is a ton of birds, and a musical troupe that, really, should all arrive at the same time anyway if they expect to have a cohesive musical performance...

i'd imagine the mackinzie brothers version is far cheaper, even now. hell, in canadian dollars it's even better!

anyway, here's the chart to show what shallow money counters/lenders - like scrooge mcduck! - have been observing about christmas for the last several years:

holiday happenings

2007-11-26T14:51:00.001-05:00

so, i know i said this about halloween, but i think i'm going to do somethinc christmasy here. i think i might even take the stupid abc family channel idea of "25 days" of christmas and run with it.... christmas music, movies, books, etc.

suggestions?

holiday heapster

2007-11-26T14:39:00.000-05:00

so, if yr in baltimore, and need something to do this saturday...
(for more info, see www.charmcitycraftmafia.com)

it's karen black's fault

2007-11-02T13:46:00.000-04:00

yeah.

so i completely dropped the ball on the entire week of horror movie related posts.

anyway.

more. later. or something.

days 2 and 3.... spoooooooky

2007-10-25T10:41:00.001-04:00

well, the WAS going to be daily...

lazy blogger. lazy.

anyway....

so today... errr... yesterday, i am going to talk about one of the more predominant threads in slasher/horror movies: holidays.

of course, duh, there's the entire halloween series - debate its quality all you want (and i will, later) - but holidays and horror really somehow go hand in hand.

probably the next most prolific horror holiday is christmas. now, gremlins aside (yes, it is sometimes considered a horror movie, and is probably one of the better "wink wink nudge nudge" style horror movies, before the whole trend in the mid 90's that "scream" started - yes, another post for another day), there are really two major players on the scene here.

first we have "black christmas." bad, "hot teen" filled remakes aside - as a general rule, i don't see remakes of horror movies, unless they really intrigue me, which they basically never do - black christmas was really the standard bearer for the whole "holiday slasher" film genre (and actually came 4 years BEFORE "halloween"!) it also was one of the first "the killer is in the house" movies. and, honestly, it's kind of a good movie.

the cast: juliette, lois lane, and david bowman! (errr... olivia hussey, margot kidder, and keir dullea). kidder was before her heyday, and was sort of a scream queen at the time - amityville horror, etc; dullea was still probably mostly known for 2001 (i didn't even know that he actually has been in quite a few movies, though none of them particularly great movies); and olivia hussey's career had sort of devolved from zefirelli's "romeo and juliet" - yeah, she played the virgin mary a few years later, and would one day play mother theresa - but she also ended up playing mrs bates in the bad made for Showtime "Psycho" sequel).

it's odd that this one even holds up - few slasher movies do, especially since all the deconstruction done on the genre. i mean, that it even qualified for a remake is testament to that... but yeah.

on the other side of the coin, we have "silent night, deadly night". now, when i was a kid, i actually thought that this movies was just a punchline to some joke told on the gary shandling show (i am pretty sure it was there, at least). little did i know that not only was it for real, but it also had a host of sequels!

plot is basically, kid sees dad murdered and mom raped by guy in a santa suit - after being told that santa punishes those who are naughty by his catatonic grandfather (he even warned his mom, after she said something unkind about santa, that she would be punished). so he's scarred. grows up, dresses as santa one day, and ends up going after "naughty" people - since this was the 80's, it wasn't just revenge that drove him - teenagers having sex, etc all were declared "naughty!" the end then brings us one of the most blatant openings for a sequel ever - when the killer is killed, as all slasher movie killers are, at least apparently, the camera pans to his younger brother - who also witnessed mom and dad getting killed - who says to the camera "naughty."

this one does not hold up. not in the slightest. pure 1984 cheese. seriously, if this movie wasn;t shown on the USA network's saturday midnight movie thing - which the only rule for what they would show was apparently that it had to be shit - i would be surprised. seriously, the best slasher movies are the ones that are somewhat inventive - hell, even sleepaway camp with the whole "female killer who's actually a male!" reveal has a certain quality to it - but this just seemed like someone saying "hey, let's make the killer a guy in a santa suit!" followes by "oooh, let's make a lot of quick, even cheaper, sequels!"

other holiday horror:
"my bloody valentine" and "valentine" for, well, duh.

"leprechaun" - ok, i don't think it takes place on st patrick's day but...

and, for easter (no, giant killer bunnies don't count):
the passion of the christ (zombie!)
the last temptation of christ (zombie! william dafoe!!)

* and yes, the last one was a joke....

week of "horror": day one

2007-10-23T12:15:00.000-04:00

yes, every day for the next week (plus one, because i suppose i'll make an actual post on actual halloween day) i am going to postg about a horror movie. or in some cases, a "horror" movie (y'know, the ones that are supposed to be scary, but are kind of ridiculous...)

which is how i start. with the ridiculous:
Wes Craven's first film, "the last house on the left."

Now, looking at the cover (this is the Canadian edition, apparently, though the US edition of the DVD has the same image) gives you a sort of "psycho/amityville horror/house" vibe. ooooh. scarrrrry!

and incredibly misleading...

basically, the movie is a cheesy, and extremely exploitative "horror" version of Bergman's "The Virgin Spring."

yes, that's right. wes craven adapted bergman into a horror film.

granted, this was the early 70's. the exorcist had just scared the bejeezus out of everyone, so horror was a nice commodty. and craven, who would go on to create the nightmare on elm street series - probably the one thing with his name on it really worth watching, "new nightmare aside" - was just giving the people what they wanted. sort of.

the plot is simple enough. it's mari's birthday. she is going to a concert with her rebellious friend phyllis (to see a band called bloodlust). parents give her a nice necklace. they go to the city, try to score some pot, meet some escaped criminals who proceed to rape phyllis. the next morning, they throw the girls in their trunk and head out of town, with mari's worried parents at home, calling the cops.

criminal's car breaks down right in front of mari's house (ooooh. coincidence.) and they criminals lead the girls through the woods, where a series of exploitative torture happens, including a gratuitous lesbian sex scene:
which really adds nothing to the horror. i mean, it's not even to the quality of russ meyer standards. granted, they could easily remake this movie today as one of those ridiculously annoying "torture porn" style horror movies. but it's really just... ech.

so finally they end up killing the girls (phyills when she tries to escape and mari, after they rape her again, gets shot while swimming/escaping in the nearby lake). the killers "clean themselves up" and then go to...

mari's parents house. where they are welcomed, though the parents are obviously suspicious of them. then, mom sees mari's necklace and the killers' dirty/bloody clothes, which oddly prompts them to run down to the lake where they find mari (who they say is already dead, but oddly is moving and gasping for breath - apparently due to a redubbing of dialogue). they then decide to take revenge....

first the husband sets a bunch of home alone style traps (electric wiring on the doorknobs, shaving cream on the floor to make it slippery, etc). mom then seduces one of the killers - the one who stabbed phyllis - who takes him down to the river where she bites off his penis, apparently killing him - again, this mostly made me think of russ meyer. granted, you don't see anything particularly sexual but... then dad, who is a doctor, comes after the other three more diectly, with a shotgun.

etc. etc. ultimately, the bumbling cops show up just as the good doctor is shoving the business end of a chainsaw into the face of the "leader" of the killers (who has just forced his stepson to blow his own brains out). they tell him to stop but, well, too late. leaving them to contemplate what they have just done....

(for a better plot description, go to the wikipedia entry)

right.

so aside from the crappy cinemtography - stylistically it seems almost like it was done like texas chainsaw massacre would eventually be done - and the incredibly cheesy/sexploitation vibe (film opens up with mari in the shower). the biggest problem with the movie is the tone, which is largely set by the music. apparently, it was an intentional counterpoint to the horrors on the screen or whatever, but any movie where the killers have a theme song that plays while they are driving (called "baddies theme" - and apparently performed by one of the stars of the film) is just... wrong. then there are crappy synthesizer sounds throughout the killing scenes - sort of like music Psycho as performed by tangerine dream.

ug. thankfully, craven would go on to better things. most of the stars of the movie went on to do nothing, or further their careers through more exploitative crap (the girl who played innocent mary, went on to such fine films as "legacy of satan" and "massage parlor hookers"; the actor who played the main killer was in a movie called "nutcracker: an american nightmare")

so was the movie scary? no. there is no real suspense in the movie, as every scene of "horror" is pretty much telegraphed to the audience long before it happens. even the rape scenes lack any "shock" value - which craven seems to be confusing with horror, much like a lot of supposed horror movie directors are doing these days... (yes, eli roth, whoever directed the saw movies, etc, i'm looking right at you guys...)

tomorrow... well... i don't know yet...

book love 10/14

2007-10-14T23:26:00.000-04:00

i am a big fan of silly old ads, cookbooks, etc. (huge fan of lileks.com, though it's probably been a year since i last looked at it, as it seriously was missing things like updates). so this book is pretty much awesome.

best titles:

"the day amanda came"
"the awful disclosures of maria monk"
"cookery for the middle classes"
"totty: the truth about ten mysterious terms"
"what to do if it's catching"

i'm sure a site exists that has some of the covers, which are just as funny, if not funnier...

ok... that's all...

some girly ass shit made be myinnergeekdom

2007-10-14T08:31:00.000-04:00

i made it:

http://www.littlemousevintage.com/item.php?item_id=49&page=3

(there's only 3! omg!! buy one now!!)

ah. geek love.

2007-10-08T21:56:00.000-04:00

full disclosure 1: in high school German class, i once did a skit in which we had to do things said on an airplane/in the airport. a line in ours was "der film ist Howard the Duck, ein film aus America." so...

so marvel has relaunched everyone's favorite anthropomorphic duck in a new series...

now, when they brought him back in the Civil War: Choosing Sides one shot, it was kinda cool. in part because the story made sense: howard pissed off about registering, goes to do so anyway, and is told that he doesn't exist. pissed off duckiness ensues.

so i had some high hopes for the series, or at least was very curious as to exactly what they would do with Howard in the current marvel universe...

well, the art, as seen here, was quite nice. and i have to say, this opening splash page of Howard dreaming he's playing cards with other 70's era marvel monster characters - though the placement of Ben Grimm seems odd. anyway. so yeah, art lovely.

the story....

umm...

granted, i actually think there was a printing error in mine, as the "plot" seemes to start out of nowhere in the middle of what seems more to be the intro. there's no noticable framing device to say it's supposed to be that way so i can only assume it's not.

oddly, that doesn't save anything...

essentially it seems that howard is driving beverly to her rehearsal - actually she's driving, though she doesn't know how - then while he;'s waiting he picks up in his cab two scientists who want to... shoot him. i mean, if the story is going somewhere it hasn't started yet. there are little jokes that work. and again, art = good but... but...

i don't know. i, to be honest, quite love howard the duck. i''ve read - though i don't own - the essential howard the duck.the original run was brilliant. slightly surreal. and just... awesome. it was a sadly underrated - kind of like omega the unknown, the relaunch of which i seem to have missed, despite really wanting to check out jonathan lethem's take on the character (though i hear it, too, was underwhelming) - book from steve gerber. and... yeah.

but my true love for the character comes from this fine piece of cinematic fun. ok, it was ridiculously ill conceived and very poorly executed - so bad that George Lucas actually
dissavowed his involvement in the production. yeah, it's probably one of the worst movies ever made. but it's also fucking brilliant.

full disclosure 2: i used to watch this movie every time it came on TV and quite possibly rented it a few times once we had a VCR. i also remember being 7 or 8 and playing howard the duck with some of the other neighborhood kids. yep. playing. howard the duck.

seriously: tim robbins, leah thompson, geoffrey jones (that's right: thomas jefferson himself... okay, he was also that dad in beetlejuice, and has done numerous other films. but i always seem his as thomas jefferson). all acting with a bunch of different midgets in a duck suit. true, the plot had nothing to do with anything from the comic book - changing beverly to a musician was one thing, making a villain called "the dark lord of the universe" show up which was a badly done, animatronic alien that reminded me a little of the aliens in "explorers" or AT least, like a really badly renderred man-thing... the fact is, Howard the Duck could have, like the original comic, been a brilliant satire. but george lucas is not known for that. so instead we get howard's "fish out of water" observations (duck out of water?) such as, when he is served eggs, or "if god had intended ducks to fly, he wouldn't hava taken away our wings." HA! and then the marty mcfly style jamming with beverly's band? awesomely necessary!

and really, that's where i stand on the new series so far. yeah, we probably don't need a new origin story. i mean, hell, he's a duck, on earth, with humans, one of whom he has a definitely non-platonic relationship with. what more origin do you need? no, he's not an established spiderman type character but, i mean, hell, he got his own video game for crying out loud !

i guess, the fact is that i. love. howard the duck. yeah, the new series could be a waste of time and ink. and yeah, his one time as a hollywood star pretty much sucked, and completely diminished the character. but, still, howard the duck rules. that's all.

pants on my head, pants on my legs

2007-09-30T21:20:00.000-04:00

so today was Crafty Bastards.

what?

yes.

crafty bastards!

which was, predictably, full of people.
lots of people.
some with dogs.

i made a couple of purchases.
- a neat shirt from barry's farm.
- this awesome print from bendependent (mostly for mr pants. holy crap!)
- some cool wooden art things featuring goofus and gallant.(and now for a long aside about G&G)

i grew up reading highlights magazine. i mean, who didn't. (if you didn't, you're pretty fucking sad really. highlights was awesome, and educational. i had a subscription. which came in MY name. fuck yeah!) and goofus and gallant were one of my favorite features. and of course, i wanted to be like gallant. to quote:

(Goofus panel) Goofus climbs up to get his daddy's gun.
(Gallant panel) "That's Daddy's Gun. I Don't touch it."

Seriously. being like goofus would get a man killed. and at 5, just learning how to read and have social skills like a human being... no. i was not about to subject myself to that kind of life, let me tell you. Not that Gallant was cool - he was a little bit like those obnoxiously cloying sweet, "good" children in Dickens who usually ended up getting some ridiculously fatal disease, or at least being horribly crippled. other than, i guess, oliver twist. while the dodger - certainly the Goofus of victorian literature - pretty apparently gets it in the end (him and his buddy master bates), little Oliver gets to live all in one piece (though, maybe asking for MORE qualifies him a little goofus-like quality... yes... little oliver is in a lot of ways like Gallant gone a little wrong here and there. but enough comparing highlights magazine to high victorian literature...

Goofus looks at many of the comic books at the drugstore without buying them.
(Gallant) "My daddy says I must never read books in a store unless I have bought them."

Yes, as a bookstore employee, I am a big fan of Gallant's gallantry. but at the same time, i completely was Goofus as a kid. and really, why does Goofus's abhorent behavior get an omniscient third person narrative, whereas Gallant is speaking for himself? could Goofus obviously anti-social attitudes towards life, his family, and his friends really be the product of a frontal lobotomy? yes, i know there are strips where he talks too but my recollection is that the majority of them go this way, with Gallant showing the good while Goofus is someone's puppet. we see what he does, but is he really doing it because he wants to? or has all of his free will and good decision making been erased for a creepy experiment used to teach children proper behavior? and how do we jump from reading comic books in the drug store to grabbing daddy's gun? is this kid a sociopath in waiting?

mcsweeney's take on the pair is also a distinct possibility.

(and now to our regular scheduled ramblings)

- also, there was a guy with cigar box guitars and amps. i want one. apparently, you can get them online, though the website function seems lacking...

afterwards, we trecked down U street for some cake love/love cafe cupcakes. but, my love for warren brown's buttercream recipe is fodder for another post...

anyway. been a while. won't be one again.

2007-08-02T23:03:00.000-04:00

holy crap!

ok. so i lack houseplants but i want one of these now!

i mean, who wouldn't want to know their houseplants innermost japanese secrets?

http://www.kilian-nakamura.com/catalog/hanakotoba-plant-communicator-p-131.html

2007-07-26T11:33:00.001-04:00

it's been a while....

it's still gonna be....

but yes. i still exist....

pile of craft, future plans, etc...

2007-06-25T23:38:00.000-04:00

so pile of craft was amazing. seriously, one of the most amazing things i've ever been a part of and possibly will be - at least until the holiday show... even just dj-ing it without a booth was just... phenominal... i love how all the vendors have had nothing but wonderful things to say (ok, one called the music loud and annoying... but they're jerkfaces...). anyway. ann and i got there a little later than we wanted though certainly not late and as we had nothing to do for setup... it was so amazing watching people just crowd in. the info booth was hopping! and the smiles on people's faces... when the guy said we were better than squidfire and better than crafty bastards, i swear, i almost screamed with joy...

i got me a cotton monster! and a little crocheted trojan warrior! and a plush egg and a plush strawberry. yes. i'm odd. pictures of them soon... on one blog or another... anyway...

our set lists:

DJ Set #1- Ann

Looper- The Treehouse
The Shins- One By One All Day
Belle & Sebastian- The Gate
April March- No Parachute
Candypants- Dishy
Little Name- I Always See The Sun Rise
Camera Obscura- The Sun On His Back
The Gentle Waves- Sisterwoman
Hefner- I Love Only You
Violent Femmes- Prove My Love
Descendents- Bikeage
stellastarr*- No Weather
Pixies- Gigantic
The Pogues- Turkish Song Of The Damned
Tilly & The Wall- Rainbows In The Dark
The Cure- Fire in Cairo
Public Enemy- Final Count Of The Collision Between Us And The Damned
Lilly Allen- LDN
Le Tigre- Deceptacon

DJ Set #2- Dave

Kid Koala- Nerdball
Metric- I.O.U.
The Divine Comedy- The Pop Singer's Fear Of The Pollen Count
France Gall- Poupee de Circe, Poupee de Son
Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood- Some Velvet Morning
Azure Ray- If You Fall
Rainer Maria- CT Catholic
PiL- Public Image
Heavenly- P.U.N.K. Girl
Gang Of Four- At Home He Feels Like a Tourist
I Am The World Trade Center- California Dreaming Again
Liz Phair- Stratford-On-Guy
The Velvet Underground- All Tomorrow's Parties
All Girl Summer Fun Band- New In Town
Jimmy Cliff- The Harder They Come
Franz Ferdinand- Darts Of Pleasure
The Aislers Set- Mission Bells
Madness- House Of Fun

DJ Set #3- Ann

Belle & Sebastian- Your Cover's Blown
The Rapture- Pieces Of The People We Love
Blur- Girls & Boys
Le Tigre- Hot Topic
Ladytron- Evil
Aluminum Group- Love Action (I Believe)
Baxendale- Keep Feeling (Fascination)
Elvis Costello- Pump It Up
The Clash- Clampdown
Pony Up!- The Truth About Cats And Dogs (Is That They Die)
Kiss Me Deadly- Dance 4
Black Box Recorder- Sex Life
Call And Response- All Night Long
The Stone Roses- I Am The Resurrection

DJ Set #4- Dave

Velocity Girl- Crazy Town
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone- Toby Take A Bow
Dressy Bessy- Flower Jargon
Automator- Cartoon Capers
Beat Happening- Indian Summer
Serge Gainsbourg and Brigit Bardot- Bonnie and Clyde
Tompaulin- My Life At The Movies
Dave Schult- Sullen Girl
Tuscadero- Latex Dominatrix
bis- Eurodisco
Bright Eyes- Drunk Kid Catholic
The Housemartins- The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death
Saint Etienne- Sylvie
Jawbox- Motorist
Steve Burns- What I Do On Saturday
The Dears- The End Of A Hollywood Bedtime Story

DJ Set #5- Ann

Pulp- Mis-Shapes
My Bloody Valentine- Soon
Low- Canada
Mazzy Star- Bells Ring
Lush- Lovelife
Mogwai- Kids Will Be Skeletons
The Magnetic Fields- 100,000 Fireflies
Tommy James & The Shondells- Crimson & Clover
Maria Taylor- Birmingham 1982
Morrissey- Every Day Is Like Sunday
Little Name- Orienteering
The Cure- Grinding Halt
Rondelles- Like A Prayer
Blondie- Atomic
The Ramones- Sheena is a Punk Rocker

DJ Set #6- Dave

Sonic Youth- Teen Age Riot
Dolly Mixture- How Come You're Such a Hit with the Boys, Jane?
Badly Drawn Boy- Disillusion
Francois Hardy- La Mer
Gil Scott Heron- The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Kaiser Chiefs- I Predict a Riot
Electronic- Get The Message
Cub- Pillow Queen
Shudder To Think- Just Really Wanna See You
Kraftwerk- The Robots
Mary Lou Lord- Some Jingle Jangle Morning (When I'm Straight)
They Might Be Giants- Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal
Toots & The Maytals- Pressure Drop
Pretty Girls Make Graves- All Medicated Geniuses
Tender Trap- Face Of 73
Charlatans UK- Weirdo

DJ Set #7- Ann

Joy Division- Digital
New Order- Age of Consent
The Smiths- Still Ill
The Clash- Police & Thieves
The Jesus & Mary Chain- Head On
Pixies- Dead
Pulp- Sorted Out For E's & Wizz
Camera Obscura- Razzle Dazzle Rose

DJ Set #8- Dave

Fishbone- Ugly
Mates Of State- Ha Ha
Adult- Dispassionate Furniture (Reupholstered)
The Buzzcocks- Orgasm Addict
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins- Handle With Care
Hepcat- No Worries
The La's- Timeless Melody
Broadcast- The Book Lovers
Billy Bragg- Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

as for future plans thing, well other than the upcoming "crisis on infinite blogs" crossover event (ok. wtfuck am i talking about? i think this might be me making an elaborate geeky joke relating to the fact i have like a zillion blogs...)...

brains and hearts the bear will be coming full force, once i get some other shit dealt with in my life., it will start with clay versions, but once i get the notion of how or who to get to swe for me, i'm thinking plush! and maybe... i dunno... t shirts? something else... wheee....

2007-05-31T23:56:00.000-04:00

so the fact is, i have 2 readers (well, 2 who get it fed via livejournal... i suppose it's possible people have other ways of reading syndicated feeds).

this really means nothing.

at least not right now.

more later....

ahh. the joys of being a geek

2007-05-27T21:35:00.000-04:00

so comic books comic books comic books.

not this time (that post comes later with a double decker, and much more stream of consciousness comic book day X 2 post). this is for other nerdy things... i mean, i'm not just a comic book geek.

for those of you not in the know, i'm a member of the charm city craft mafia.

doing what, you ask? well, i am a part of the sleepy records/little mouse vintage team. as well, i have my own - under the little mouse vintage heading - thing called...wait for it.... "my inner geekdom." and yes, i;'ve made stuff (no pictures yet, and they're not up on the lmv site yet but soon kids, soon...). mostly i make... well... random stuff. i started out with some "girly" stuff - rainy day pins, tortoise and hare clips (get it? it's a play on words! oh so clever...), turtle rings... a necklace (i'm actually making a few more... i dunno... there's something kinda relaxing and mentally... whatever about it that i like. mostly my inspiration is annie though...

(btw. sleepy records will be DJ'inf the CCCM's "pile of craft" show on june 23rd.

but my next project is something a little more... me. i call them brain the bear and heart the bear (pictures.... eventually). intially, they are going to be polymer clay - my medium of choice - and... yeah. they may have a neighbor named bob the zombie. and, i know, it sounds kinda care bearish...

think, instead, spy vs spy, but with bears (though i don't plan as of yet to make them different colors... though that's an idea...). there will be a "rock em sock em robots" style set, as well as various individual bears. ultimately, i'd like to cast them in resin, handpaint them, and have some sort of mass produced version... but that's ages away... and face it, "one of a kind" is cooler.

and now, randomly, a recent procurement of mine from an antique store:
a pac man bank (it looks cooler with the mouth open). but, is it me, or does pac man look a bit... stoned? ok, more than a bit. those sleepy eyes, that lackadazical grin... what exactly ARE power pellets?

so what does the inner geek do now...

signs off.

the nerd is back

2007-05-26T23:22:00.001-04:00

lots of stuff to talk about, comics and the like... but nothing right now... well... not much....

superman and santa claus totally humiliated toyman in a not terribly violent manner. pre-crisis sillyiness...

they really don't make comics like this anymore.

comic book day, comic book day! 5/9

2007-05-09T23:44:00.000-04:00

ah. so countdown begins. spidey's pissed. thunderbolts has some fighty filler... the recaps, at least of my limited purchases (yes, limited.... i'm certainly not into it as i otherwise might be...)

marvel zomibies: dead days one shot

ok, so the marvel zombies universe needed an... origin story? no. i'm not sure where this fits. it opens with what almost seems to be a continuation of what happened in the army of darkness crossover, with spidey heading home to check on mj and aunt may, only to realize he's been infected and, well, eating them. however, it then seems to lead into the ultimate fantastic 4 which then lead into the actual marvel zombies miniseries in the first place... so... kind of circular? and a lot more characters zombified than i actually remember...

high points:
-gatefold cover "parodying" (i guess being the best word) the big x-men 1 cover from the early 90's x-men series.
-actual... depth to the zombie heroes, at least at first. colonel america actually wanting to cure/stop the problem.
-reed richards of the fantastic 4 being an outright cunt. as in civil war and even as in the fantastic four 1602 miniseries... just a cunt. infecting his wife and friends, so they can become zombies and then so they can turn him, because he wants to "known what it feels like"? what. a cunt.

countdown #51 (counting backwards from 52... umm... clever...)

well, it's a start. a confusing one. where in the newly reformed multiverse are we? jason todd is the red hood, not nightwing... and... yeah.

best part, so far, the mary marvel part. finally out of her coma... well... okay, the best part is when she says SHAZAM! and it starts to rain... (i really like the teaser ad, with what has to be eclipso wearing a "what would mary marvel" do button... intriguing...). but really, to start things off with joker's daughter... and is this the "new earth" joker's daughter or another? the monitor who kills her seems to indicate that it is, but... i don't know. and apparently, darkseid plays "heroclix" (silly role playing-ish superhero game with little figurines and whatever... i've never played it so i'm not sure, but even i got that in my head after seeing the first page of the issue...)

Gen 13 #8 (why, oh why, do i keep buying this book...)

so i like gen 13. i do. and to have "the authority" show up mid issue just... well... neat (i, granted, never was a big "authority" fan. but midnighter's kind of cool... thing that struck me was the end... right before leaving them gen13 kids alone (after what was sort of a fight, but mostly just some silly teen resistance), midnighter tells them that they're not supposed to even exist, and not to destroy the multiverse, sounding suspiciously like what the monitor tells duela dent right before killing her at the end of countdown 51.... so... umm... ok, both under the "DC comics" umbrella (though the wildstorm universe is sort of separate though i guess sort of part of the multiverse.... ) ... is this a tie in? hmmm... or not. maybe they're just going to tie in this version of gen 13 with all the previous ones. or maybe wildstorm has it's own multiverse?

bah...

thunderbolts #114

so, i never liked thunderbolts pre-civil war. not really. but now that they actually have dangerous criminals - well, venom and bullseye, as well as the character formerly known as speedball (who has gone from happy go lucky kinetic powered wuss to self loathing sort of badass....) it's more interesting. but something about this seemed to be just... filler to me.

amazing spiderman #540

aunt may's probably gonna die. spidey's found the shooter. the shooter dies. spidey hunts who payrolled him. finds out it's kingpin, doing his work from prison (which the readers knew), which the whole issue leads up to... so... hmm... as far as episodic story telling, this works great. and it's nice seeing spiderman act solely on emotion and anger - the black suit really works for this as well... yeah...

new avengers #30

still hiding from the mighty avengers. hawkeye shows up. and... big reveal... he's the new ronin. which. well. i called when it first was announced there was a "new" ronin who was going to be revealed as a former major player in the marvel universe, etc. etc. etc. yep. i called it. not daredevil. not steve rogers (cos, well, dead). hawkeye. not dead. not pissed at scarlet witch anymore. now. ronin.

then it's back to japan to rescue the old ronin, who at the end seems to be under the control of elektra (who really seemed at first to be thrown in so we would think daredevil would be the new ronin, and still seems superfluous, though she does lead the Hand now...), though if the cover of #31 is any indication, um, not for long...

but yeah. hawkeye. called it.

new x-men #38

demons. check. mutants. check. belasco's back. some snarky comments about whether the x-men will come save them. and. well. demons. magik makes a brief appearance as darkchild... and... yeah. good issue. yes. but again, a whole lot of stuff prolonging the inevitable... or is it inevitable? apparently, with all the other shit coming into the x-men universe soon, do they need another returning from the dead character?

sigh...
nerd, out.

comic book day, one day later

2007-05-03T11:05:00.000-04:00

so i didn't have time for this yesterday, so here goes:

comic book day! woo! not "free comic book day." just... well... wednesday,.,,

so really, in some ways, it was a miraculous one, for not one... not two... but THREE Joss Whedon books not only out on the same day, but on time! talk about miracles....

so we'll start with them....

Astonishing X-Men 21

now, i'll grant that this current arc of "Astonishing" hasn't really been my favorite, largely because... i don't know... maybe it just hasn't felt like Joss. Now, granted, the man's been busy with other things (and not with Wonder Woman... hmm... maybe that's what the books were all on time this month! though also, i think making Astonishing bi-monthly has also helped...). plot wise, we're further getting confused as to whether these aliens want to kill or honor Colossus, who, as it turns out, they are in part at least responsible for resurrecting, as they have some sort of prophecy involving him. anyway... but then, finally, the issue has it's true moments of zen. kitty pride appearing naked before collossus, after finding out that he's likely some sort of messiah; emma frost and cyclops arguing, before being attacked, with cyclops saying he loves her, and emma offering to sacrifce herself for him (a very Buffy moment, i dare say... though my guess is, our empathic friend who can also turn herself into diamond either has a plan, or some sort of backup in the form of wolverine and the new kid on the team will appear...).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 8 #3

ETHAN RAYNE!
Willow in full on witch battling action!
Zombie fight!
very odd aside between giles and a demon...
very scary image in buffy's dream of her with spike and angel all chained together....
but, then, finally... the big reveal....

see, at the end of the first issue, when amy was revealed, there was an allusion to another "person" found in the rubble of sunnydale, with a lot of question - and no clues - who it could have been... well, finally, at the end of issue 3, we get to see who, along with Amy, the government (in a sort of initiative throwback, though not really the initiative as much) has hired to bring down the slayer and her army (cos, if you all remember how the show ended... well... there's a whole lotta slayers out there....). and it is (icky drum roll please, cos, well, eeew...)
Warren! all skinless and everything! and ready for revenge (though, ok, telling Willow she "really gets under [his] skin." is sort of lame....

and finally, for the Joss Whedon portion of this post....
Runaways #26

For one, you can tell Joss loves writing Molly. The enthusiasim and exuberance he puts in her - though always a part of her character, is just all kinds of extra... fun. and she sucker punches the Punisher, right in the gut! which, frankly, is more fun than when captain america decked him back during Civil War (honestly, he thinks he can take the mantle of Captain America, but he can't even avoid getting the wind knocked out of him by a - granted a mutant one - little girl? i mean, getting clocked by Steve Rogers... makes some sense, and one even wonders if the Punisher had put up a fight in that one... But little molly hayes? awesome!)

best script moment:
runaways walk into Kingpin's office, to deliver what they "stole" for him (which likely was a product of their late evil parents)...

Nico:He said be at his office by first light. We got just enough time to hop out of state till we figure out what we're gonna... ninja. (lights come on, room full of ninjas)
Chase: That's a lot of ninjas.
Nico: It's a bunch.
Chase: More than the usual amount of ninjas.

_______

and now, the rest:

The Avengers: the initiative #2

bah... i'll be honest and say i'm not sure why i'm still going with this - or with the Omega Flight series, though at least that's limited... do we really need a new new warriors? granted, it's a pretty cool seeming team, for the new warriors (and we'll have to see how they deal with the stigma of being the new version of the team that destroyed an entire city, and led to the whole registration mess to begin with... i would imagine that the name alone is going cause some people to have a prejudice against them...).
though, the fact that now tony stark's shield is hiring ex-nazi scientists doesn't bode well, either...

the most intriguing character might be this new kid called "trauma" who, apparently, can read minds and shapeshift... though i'm much more interested to see who his new private tutor from the xavier institute's going to be....

52 #52

ok. the multiverse is back.... kind of anticlimactic, really. the multiverse is back and now countdown starts. ummm... i think that was really the point of the whole issue, though the ghosts of ralph and sue dibny - who apparently play a role in countdown, coming full circle, in a way, since it was sue's death that started identity crisis which led to infinite crisis which begat 52.......... but really. other than booster gold getting to see all the other earths... eh... hopefully countdown will not be a dissapointment, as some of 52 seems to have been (i'm largely been out of the loop on it. i'll have to read the trades when they come out i guess...)

Marvel Zombies vs. Heart of Darkness #3

zombie howard the duck. really all i have to say. but also, zombie power pack!? zombie hulkling? yeah... all in all, good times, with zombies!

Omega Flight #2

now, this actually brings in two interesting ideas... the best being that, well, this new canadian superhero team - in a country that has always had hero registration, but not used it as a weapon against it's own heroes - is being formed with a lot of influence by S.H.I.E.L.D. and this, understandably, has the canadians pissed. now that the US's villains - and fugitive heroes - are causing problems on the other side of the border, we're asking them - by helping them form and fund this new team - to basically, clean up our mess... and the new team:

USAgent... umm.... why? seriously, a wannabe captain america fighting for a wannabe america? (kidding... though i guess that's how he'd look at it...)
Sasquatch (the only survivor from alpha flight)
Talisman (daughter of a dead former alpha flight member, Shaman)
Arachne (Julia Carpenter, like spiderman, also now back in black...)
and Michael Pointer, who had at one point been the vessel for "the collective" (ie, all the mutant powers that were lost in M-Day as one giant energy ball), and who - in that form - was what killed the original alpha flight...

so... yeah... more to come... maybe it will get more interesting once there's a team... but wait... it's only 5 issues....

incredible hulk #106

ok. world war hulk begins now. but, oddly, no actual hulk in this issue (except in flashback)... she hulk's pissed though, and finally decided to take some action... however, it does set up a little bit whose side some characters - namely, Angel and Hercules - are going to be on when banner returns... well... probably anyway...

most importantly, they're finally going to tell a good Hulk story for the first time in forever...

anyway. that's all for now...

speaking of transformers...

2007-04-29T22:06:00.000-04:00

ok, so with the new transformers movie coming, i decided to watch the oh-so-classic, 1986 animated one on dvd.

and oh man... awesome.

the above image is a character hot rod - voiced by judd nelson - with the "autobot matrix of leadership." that's right. matrix. of. leadership. what it really amounts to is a funny little light up sphere wih handles that apparently gives autobot leaders the power to... ummm... lead, and is the only thing that can destroy unicron
(voiced by orson wells, in his last film role... which, on some level is awesome and in another is somewhere along the same lines as the last raul julia's last film to be in theaters having been "street fighter.")

so, awesome plot aside, this movie has some major... well.... things.

1. deaths. lots of them. optimus prime, ironhide.... megatron (though he comes back as "galvatron"), even starscream buys it (disintegrated). and it's all so... violent. megatron shoots ironhide point blank in the head AFTER having already more or less destroyed him. and this was for kids...
2. swearing. just for a second, bumblebee - innocent bumblebee, who always seemed to be a kid on the cartoon, if only due to his size (a role taken up by hotrod, before he becomes "rodimus prime"), on seeing that unicron is on the way to devour the moon their one - yeah, devour... it's sort of a galactus rip off, really... with a bit of death star thrown in for good measure - says "oh shit, what are we going to do now?" why? who knows. was the swearing necessary? it definitely gave it it's pg rating but...
3. awesome 80's "rock" soundtrack (best song: "the touch" later immortalized by mark wahlberg in "boogie nights" (you've got the touch... you've got the power!) yeah, at times it seems sort of pointless and doesn't fit but... really, nothing says "transformers" to me like white lion on the soundtrack. the only non-metal track is weird al's devo homage "dare to be stupid," which also seems to feature a very odd dance party with several of the major characters.

despite everything above, the dinobots walk away with the best fucking thing in the entire movie award. seriously, when in doubt, give Grimlock something to say....

so, michael bay, maker of crappy big budget shite in the mid 90's, the gauntlet is thrown...

2007-04-29T13:31:00.000-04:00

is anyone even reading this?

comment comment comment!

so they finally decided to show a lot of venom - including topher grace becoming venom - in the newsest spidey 3 trailer. and i probably should say something more simple than "awesome" but... no, that's possibly the best word for it. just like the other movies, i'm waiting to see it to actually see if that word applies to more than just the trailer, but it did give the fanboy in me goosebumps.

then i had a look at the transformers trailer... umm... now i'm okay with bumblebee not being a volkswagon beetle. not hip enough (or maybe just a licensing issue? still not sure who the automaker sponsoring the thing is). but the glimpses of the transformers i have seen so far look a bit like... well... somwhere between an erector set and johnny 5 from short circuit. now, i'm all for a short circuit revival (though would gutenberg do it? he rightfully skipped the second one...). granted, i've only seen one trailer, and the official cite has been largely uncooperative so maybe there's more to it...

anyway.

so for my own amusement, and maybe for that of others, though i have to again wonder if anyone is reading this, i'm going to make some lists. since this blog is starting with the nerdy comic book and fanboy stuff before the actual "little mouse vintage"/crafty stuff, i figure it's appropriate.

since that seems to be the theme of this post anyway:

top 10 comic book movies:

1. superman.

wait, what? superman? the overgrown boyscout? mr "truth justice and the american way", a line which make me actually giggle when chris reeve says it? (because, really, and i know he says it in the comics too, but the thought of an alien being coming to earth just to fight for the american way seems a little trite - though i know it was a product of the times, and it has worked for the character for almost 70 years....). but really, the first superman movie is everything a superhero movie should be. it gets through the origin story smoothly, hitting all the important notes - though in the full version, the scene with little lois lane on a train going through smallville is kind of silly - and then keeps the right tone of action and drama throughout. it stays true to the character, while reinventing it for a new audience who likely never picked up an issue. maybe it's just a supreme testament to how great richard donner is - his cut of superman 2 is far superior to the "official" version and certainly beats the richard lester films hands down - though i certainly have a soft spot for 3, with the superman vs superman battle...

2. spiderman

see above comments about origin stories, tone, and character. but add the fact that sam raimi is amazing, and that the cast is quite possibly the most perfect for a superhero movie. ever.

3. spiderman 2

might even be better than the first. might.

4. x men 3.

ok, so this one isn't really superior to the first two, it's just a different movie using the same characters and continuing some plot points from them. that said, it is my favorite of the series. screw keeping true to the characters and the comic book storylines - the first two didn't either, though in a lot of ways stayed truer than this one - x men 3 proved that you have a wealth of characters in the xmen story to deal with and many directions you can take them in. or maybe it was just kelsey grammar, all blue and furry, saying out loud what one had only been able to read before: "oh my stars and garters!"

5. batman begins.

sorry mr burton, but chris nolan edges you out in the how to tell an awesome batman story. the best batman/bruce wayne since michael keaton (clooney was a good wayne, kilmer was a good batman, but they both lost it trying to do both). i'd probably say the katie holmes role was the only pointless one - really could have been played by anyone and really did very little in the way of plot or character devlopment for anyone - but that's such a small thing...

6. batman (1989)

but, tim burton's batman certainly comes close. by reinventing the origin, and having joker being the one responsible for creating batman and vice versa, you had a great, though maybe a little too self contained, story. however, it falls short to batman begins as for an origin story, there's no origin. though batman seems to be a new phenomina in gotham, he gives the appearance of having been at it for a while (and seems a little.... old to be brand new at it). the bestthing about the movie is definitely nicholson's joker, though he also seems a bit too old for the character at times. definitely the best on screen bat until nolan though.

7. superman 2 (donner cut)

kneel before zod! that's all....

8. v for vendetta.

so alan moore had nothing to do with it - quite on purpose. so it changed the ending a bit. it's still a brilliant adaptation.

9. ghost world.

ok. not a superhero movie. but i had to include it. far better than it maybe should have been, but also fantastic due to how it stayed incredibly true to its source material while actually telling a more rounded story than the original had done.

10. x men

ok, maybe it was unfair to put this so far below the third one. maybe.

10.5 mystery men

paul reubens as the spleen. priceless.

10 that could have been worse:
swamp thing, fantastic four, the punisher (the second one), the hulk, constantine, supergirl, howard the duck (no, really. it could have been a lot worse... really...), spawn, the crow, josie and the pussycats (again, no, really! it could have been much much worse)

the shit pile:
league of extraordinary gentlemen, punisher (with dolph lundgren), captain america (with matt salinger... jd salinger's son...), blade trinity, judge dredd,

2007-04-27T22:18:00.000-04:00

a schedule, of sorts:

wednesdays (or thereabouts) will be comic book day, meaning i'll be posting about... well... the comic books i get that day. reviews, observations, etc. lame, no?

other days... who knows.... it depends on how things fall and what else i decide to talk about between product stuff.

right now, i'm reading about comic book characters on wikipedia.

then i might shoot over to wikiHow, cos it's fun.

in honor of the upcoming live action fun, i watched the original animated transformers the movie the other night. more on this later.

welcome

2007-04-27T22:08:00.000-04:00

welcome to my inner geekdom, where i'll be posting not only stuff related to "my inner geekdom" which is a little part of "little mouse vintage" but also a place where i will talk about more geeky things in my life, such as movies, music, and comic books.

yeah.

so....

welcome