I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-Dark Side of the Moon live at Hangout Music Festival, May 2012 (2012).

Recently, the Flaming Lips and friends released a version of Dark Side of the Moon that was noisy and chaotic and resembled the original in some  ways but departed from it radically in others.  When Palladia aired this concert of the band performing the album in its entirety I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised that their rendition of the album is quite faithful to the original.  There’s plenty of Flaming Lips-isms in it, but it sounds a lot closer to the Pink Floyd version than The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches version.  And that’s a good thing.

I have to admit the audio wasn’t as clear as I would have expected (which is surprising for the Lips)–it was very hard to hear Wayne when he was talking.  That may have worked well for the singing though as he sounded almost exactly like David Gilmour on most of the songs.  The stage was also filled with people.  In addition to the four band members, there was a cast of dancers dressed like Swiss maids, there were some extra musicians  and two women.  One, dressed in a gold lame body suit (with wings) sang all of the wailing vocals on the album (and did a very good job) and the other I’m not sure what she did–neither woman was introduced during the aired set so I don’t know who they were.

Many bands throw things out into the crowd during a set, well, during “Money,” Wayne Coyne tossed out giant confetti balloons that were filled with actual money, allegedly $10,000 donated by none other than Dave Matthews.  That’s pretty intense and hopefully didn’t cause any damage.

Check Palladia for when they’re going to air it again.  I just learned that there is a You Tube video of the whole concert (more than just Dark Side of the Moon) and you can watch it here:

It’s a good fun set and shows just how much Stephen Drodz does on stage (I mean, seriously, check out the guitar he plays in “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”) and that Wayne’s hands must be either very cold or have no sensation.

[READ: September 24, 2012] Between Time and Timbuktu

I have been reading a lot of Vonnegut lately. I had it in my head that I would just blow through all of his books.  But I admit I’m getting a little burnt out.  Deadeye Dick and Galàpagos were kind of numbing and Bluebeard which I’m working through now is fun, but a little exhausting.  There’s no reason I should be ordering new Vonnegut books to read now, but I saw that the library had a copy of Between Time and Timbuktu (which is hard to find) and since I won’t be using that library for much longer, I decided to order it.

And I’m glad I did.  Between Time and Timbuktu was a TV movie made by compiling a bunch of scenes from Vonnegut’s first few books.  The basic script was by David O’Dell and Vonnegut himself had a hand in working on it (like “grafting the head of a box turtle onto the neck of a giraffe”).  And as the story progresses you can see some of the best set pieces from his novels.

But the framing device is new.  A man, Stony Stephenson has won a jingle contest for Blast-Off Space Food.  The TV crew appear at his house (and meet his mother in a dressing gown (she’s a funny character)) to break the news.  He gets dragged away and a few months later we see the blast off of the rocket.  When he gets into space, Stony will launch into the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum (the Infundibulum comes from Sirens of Titan).

He lands on San Lorenzo and meets Bokonon (from Cat’s Cradle).  Then we shift to Ilium where Dr. Paul Proteus (from Player Piano) is on trial for fomenting dissent.  There’s an animation (based on Player Piano) in the film, a newly created version of which you can see here:

Then he meets Dr. Hoenikker who considers using Ice-nine (from Cat’s Cradle).  Then he shifts in time to the situation in the short story “Harrison Bergeron” where everyone has handicaps applied to him or her to make everyone equal.  And then, he jumps into an Ethical Suicide Booth (as in the story “Welcome to the Monkey House”).  Nothing from this story is included in the film except the basic idea, which is pretty neat.  Indeed, because of the framing device (Stony is not in any of the books), the writers (and actors) manipulated the scenes so that they are no replicas from the books–again, the basic idea is there, but not in exactly the same way.

As the story draws to a close he meets Wanda June, from Happy Birthday Wanda June.  He is in heaven where Hitler is holding forth, and there’s a cool scene in which he and Hitler debate about who is real.  The movie ends with Stephenson in a graveyard, wondering just what happened.

The book is absolutely chock full of pictures (all black and white, which is a bit of a shame).  And it’s all written in screenplay form.  So the story is readable in about 45 minutes.  The pictures are quite helpful (the story seems to be rather visual–with scenes echoing 2001, I gather).

If you like Vonnegut’s early work, this is worth checking out.  There’s not a lot “new” in it, but it’s interesting to see his ideas used in a new way.  And, of course, since Vonnegut was on board from the start, it is fully his idea at work.

The movie was made by WGBH in Boston.  Running through the cast, I don’t recognize anyone, although Vonnegut says that he loves the casting.  The video seems very hard to come by.  As stated it was made by PBS in 1972, and they seem to have been bad at archiving their stuff.  I see that one or two libraries have it on DVD, so maybe it is possible to track down.  I’ll bet it’s better (and trippier) to watch than to read.  But it’s fun to read too.

For ease of searching, I include Galapagos.