I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: UI-Sidelong (1996).

I mentioned this band in my review of The New Yorker because Sasha Frere-Jones writes the music column for the magazine and he’s also the main guy here.

This disc is challenging to describe but certainly not to listen to.  It is a gorgeous smooth/funky/instrumental set.  The band plays with sound effects and time changes, but they are grounded by a fantastic double bass-guitar rhythm.  In some ways they remind me of the bass style from Morphine (that fluid and ultra-cool sound).

There’s a couple of songs with words, although they’re not really anything special (mostly sort of chanting/free verse style).  Stick with the instrumentals which don’t get bogged down with concepts.

This album came out the same year as Tortoise’s Millions Now Living Will Never Die.  Tortoise seems to be a frame of reference for reviewers (like me), although they don’t sound anything alike.   I guess its the whole instrumentals-can-be-cool aesthetic.

If you like your music funky and bass heavy without being dance music (although you can certain groove to Ui) or straight up funk, this is a disc worth seeking out.

[READ: August 24, 2009] Army of Darkness: Ash Saves Obama (Issue 1)

I had a couple of reasons for reviewing this comic before the series was finished.  One, it’s Army of Darkness.  Two, Ash saves President Obama.   Three, It’s Army of Darkness!! And four it’s on a small press, so they can use the publicity.

You need to know some back story to understand just what the hell is going on here.  And if you haven’t seen any of the Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell films (Evil Dead/Army of Darkness) then this probably doesn’t mean much to you.

The first pages give a very brief outline of the proceedings, but not really very much (well, it’s enough to get you to undertsand this book, anyway). So, in a nutshell, The Necronomicon is a book that raises the Evil Dead.  Ash was able to fight them in his various movies.  That’s about as bare bones as you can get for describing this hilarious and yet quite scary series of movies.

And in this issue, the Necronomicon winds up at a Detroit Comic Con.  President Obama is in town, and he pays the comic con a visit (where he is given a bobble head of himself).

But just before Obama arrives, a young kid buys the Necronomicon for a quarter  (no one knows what it is).  But when he reads it aloud.  Dunh Dunh Duh!

Good thing Ash is one-hand (I mean on-hand).  I’m a little unclear why he’s on-hand, he seems to be a delivery boy at the comic con.  But he jumps to the rescue to tell everyone that the book is possessed and it is calling out to the walking evil…oh nevermind, no one believes him anyhow.

This is a 4 part series, and I’m looking forward to what they’re going to do with the rest.

As for the President, they made Obama funny and gregarious (even if the comic owenr didn’t vote for him) and I can’t wait to see what dangers they put him in.  And, in the most meta-idea of all, they make fun of the fact that Obama has been all over comic book covers, at comic conventions and all kinds of tie-ins.

The cover I’ve shown is the variant cover (25% of covers came like this, while 75% came like this one:)

And I randomly got the 25% cover (which I like better).  Whoo hoo!

Yup, I’m a geek.