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Archive for the ‘Film & TV’ Category

Jeff Kinney–Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School [#10] (2015)

Posted in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Children's Books, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Jeff Kinney, Khaira Arby, Nostalgia, Parenting, Poo, Short Books, Technology, Tiny Desk Concert, Toilets, Yuck! on November 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

 schoololsSOUNDTRACK: KHAIRA ARBY-Tiny Desk Concert #94 (November 29, 2010).

khairaA year ago I would have said I know nothing about music from Mali, but the shows at NPR have given me a greater appreciation of it.  And, while I wouldn’t say I’d have been able to pick this out as music from Mali, I definitely recognized the style of the what I’m going to call fiddly guitar that seems to be prominent in Mali music.

You can really hear how good guitarist Drahmane Toure is with the way he keeps up the constant soloing and fiddly bits.  It brings a cool distinctive sound to the otherwise steady rhythm from the bass and percussion (which looks like a beautifully carved salad bowl covered in duct tape).

The rest of the band includes an acoustic guitar, a bass backing singers and some other instrument that i can’t figure out.

Of course, this show is meant to celebrate singer Khaira Arby, the queen of desert rock.  And she is fine.  I don’t really have much to say about her.  She sings perfectly for this music, and sounds almost more like a prayerful singer than a professional one.

[READ: December 27, 2013] Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School

Clark said that this book was the best Wimpy Kid yet (a claim he has made before, so this must be really great).  My story about this book is that I knew the cover was black and I know basically what the back cover looks like, so when we saw Age of Ultron this summer, imagine my surprise to see that the boy was reading this book (which didn’t come out until last week).  Movies are magic.

Anyhow, this book begins in September with some hilarious snark about “the good old days.”  I love Greg’s reaction, “I think they’re just jealous because MY generation has all this fancy technology and stuff they didn’t have growing up.”  And now Greg’s mom’s big kick is to get everyone to unplug.  To unplug and reconnect with the community. (more…)

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Dave Bidini–Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs (2013)

Posted in Airbag, Ben Folds Five, Bob Log III, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Celtic Blue, Chris Brown, Cleaning Women, Culture Shock, Dave Bidini, Dirt Star, Everclear, Forever, History, Hockey, Hockey Night in Canada, Ice Fire and Rain, Jane Siberry, Jordan Cook, Kate Fenner, Kingston Wall, Morganfields, Radiohead, Regrets, Rheostatics, Rush, Russia, Shuffle Demons, Sirkus Kosmonautti, Sons of Maxwell, Sophie B. Hawkins, Stompin' Tom Connors, Stradio, Super Girls, The Diodes, The Quitters, Tim Horton's, Travel, Wendel Clark, tagged on November 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »

S57OUNDTRACK: DAVE BIDINI-The Upstairs, Sydney, Nova Scotia (July 26, 2007).

sydneyAfter the Rheostatics broke up, Dave Bidini did a solo tour and then wrote a book about it.  This is that book.  And this show is from the mini-tour he did as promotion for the book.  I don’t know too many details about this tour.

I wrote notes about these shows before I read the book (which I recently found and tread).  But I’m going to leave in some of the notes I took about the audio portion for posterity.

I gather he was in town to promote his book and was invited to do a few shows as well.  So these three shows from the Rheostaticslive site include a short reading from the book and then many songs.  This show has two readings and 8 songs (and runs over an hour).

He opens with a description of the book and the tour of china with a band they called the Rheos Not Rheos.  They were asked over and over to play The Beatles.  They played at the Sculpting in Time café.  Dave hung out with the Chinese singers Dirt Star and Airbag (who were also in a cover band that played Radiohead).

For the music, it is just Dave an his acoustic guitar (and a tuner). He plays three Rheos songs “My First Rock Show,” “Me and Stupid” and “Horses” (to much applause).

He plays four new, solo songs “Song Ain’t Good,” “The List” “The Land is Wild” and “The Ballad of Zeke Roberts.”  All of these would appear on the debut Bidiniband album which would come out in 2009.

“The List” is a diatribe against Canada: Tim Horton’s, Stephen Harper,  Zack Werner, and Chad Kroeger.  He says that it was inspired by taking a close look Tim Horton’s bacon and wondering just what it was.  And the mention of Chad Krueger gets a big reaction from the crowd.  The Zeke Roberts song is about a Liberian singer who was killed.  “The Land is Wild” is about Bryan Fogarty, a hockey played who died (it’s not the most upbeat concert I’ve heard).

There’s an extra song “Moncton Hellraisers” (you can watch a video of this one).

He ends the show with second reading and there’s a drunk guy who keeps shouting and interrupting.  I feel bad for Dave, but he handles it well—different than a rock show obviously.  This section involves meeting a TV show producer (of a show called Super Girls) and the Chinese version of the Spice Girls (who sing for them).  He also mentions going to an all night record shop and finding a copy of the Toronto band The Diodes.  He plays their song “Tired of Waking up Tired” for the employees.

If nothing else, this book will introduce you to a lot of little-known bands.

It’s interesting to hear him in such a casual setting.  He sounds good and the audience is really responsive.

[READ: November 5, 2015] Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs

This book chronicles Dave Bidini’s solo tour after the Rheostatics broke up.  He explains that it was Tim Vesely who wanted to break up the band (no doubt inspired somewhat by Dave and Martin’s harsh critiquing of the songs Tim wanted to submit to their final album 2067).  Nevertheless, Dave was devastated and angry and unsure what to do, especially since they were planning to gig China for the first time.  So he decided to do it himself.  A world tour unlike any other.

disc_baladesqueHe scheduled a few gigs in Finland.  And he decided to invite his friend Alun Piggins along.  Piggins has been in a number of bands and has released several solo albums.  He seems notable for being a little crazy (with wild hair).  And I automatically respect him for making this album cover.  When Dave asked Alun what to do about being a solo artist (Dave hadn’t really played solo before).  Alun gave him some comforting advice and then said that with his band The Quitters, they would play “our loudest song then tell the crowd, “‘Thank you and fuck off.'”

The two would play separate shows on a double bill and occasionally duet on Rheos songs. They decided to tour Finland.  They flew into London and were only staying for 24 hours.  He wanted to try to get a gig before they left for Finland.  They scored one at the last minute in the Maple Leaf Tavern (which had never staged a live show before) and was themed in Canadian kitsch.  He talks about one man bands like Bob Log III “probably the superstar of all one man bands” (his song “Boob Scotch” is surprisingly straightforward).  He says he spent most of his 35 minute set worrying an doesn’t recall too much about it.

Then they set out for Finland.  First stop Hämeenlinna ( enjoyed typing out all these Finnish towns). (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1961-1962: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2006)

Posted in A Charlie Brown Christmas, Angst, Baseball, Brinsley Schwarz, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Diana Krall, Elvis Costello, Fantagraphics, Football, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Nick Lowe, Peanuts, Rachel Carson, Rick Astley, Tiny Desk Concert, Vince Guaraldi, Willie McCovey on November 6, 2015| Leave a Comment »

1961SOUNDTRACK: NICK LOWE-Tiny Desk Concert #87 (November 1, 2010).

lowe Nick Lowe is legendary.  And yet I don’t really know that much about him.  I knew he did “Cruel to be Kind” which is very dated sounding but still great.  I didn’t know that he wrote my favorite Elvis Costello song “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?” (which he first recorded with his band Brinsley Schwarz).  He also produced a bunch of Costello’s albums.

This Tiny Desk is a mellow affair, with Lowe gently playing acoustic guitar and his low, smooth vocals singing interesting lyrics: “His heart’s a prune / when it once was a plum / If you know him / that’s the kind of man that I’ve become” (from “Man That I’ve Become”).

“Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day” is done in the same vein.  Cathy, mellow pop, with an almost countryish feel.

“All Men Are Liars” is a pretty typical song about lying men, until you get this fascinating lyric: “Do you remember Rick Astley?  He had a big fat it.  It was ghastly.  He said I’m never gonna give you up or let you down.  Well, I’m here to tell you that rick’s a clown.”

“House for Sale” was a then new song.  And it’s just as sharp and strign as the rest.

At the time of this recording, Lowe was 61 and he sounds great.  His voice has changed, but it hasn’t lost anything.

[READ: October 29, 2015] The Complete Peanuts 1961-1962

By this book, Peanuts had been in print for nearly 12 years.  And the core group has remained Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy, Schroeder, and now Sally.  And to a smaller extent Shermie, Patty and Pig-Pen are still around.   But in 1961 he added a new character: Frieda, the girl with naturally curly hair.

One thing I hadn’t noticed so much in previous books is that he has been getting some very funny “jokey” punchlines.  Most of the Peanuts punchlines have been funny/thoughtful/amusing.  But I felt like this book had a few that were really funny.  Like Lucy saying in response to beauty being only skin deep “I have a very thick beauty.”  Or this funny groaner: Linus: “Do they always bring the cows in from the pasture at night?” Lucy: “Of course you blockhead, if they leave them out over night they get pasteurized.” I especially like that it isn’t even the final panel.  And in 1962, Charlie asks this question when he turns on the TV and sees reruns: “What would happen if comic strips had nothing but re-runs all summer?”

And of course, there’s a lot of baseball strips.  Including this one with a great set up and punchline.  Charlie is talking about the game and how “For one brief moment victory was within our grasp.”  To which Linus says, “And then the game started.” (more…)

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Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical (Academy of Music, Philadelphia, PA, October 28, 2015

Posted in Bullets Over Broadway, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Jennifer Tilly, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, The Academy of Music, The Sopranos, Vincent Pastore, Violence, Woody Allen, Zach Braff on October 31, 2015| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 28, 2015] Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical

bobI have been a fan of Woody Allen’s movies since I took a class on him in college circa 1991. I loved the movie of Bullets Over Broadway which was a fun period piece (1920s) that starred John Cusack and Dianne Wiest among others.  The script was punchy and funny and addressed issues of morality and art.  And there were gangsters too.

Who would have guessed that the 1994 movie would have been turned into a musical twenty years later.  Evidently Allen did not want it turned into a musical until the idea of using songs from the period was introduced (with modified lyrics) and then he agreed.

The show ran on Broadway for about five months, which seems like it must not have been well received.  And yet, it did garner 6 Tony nominations and there were many positive reviews.  I don’t know enough about Broadway to know if a five month run means anything.  The Broadway version starred Zach Braff and Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy from The Sopranos).

The touring version of the musical is listed as Non-equity (I had to look up to see what that meant).  The long and short of it is that it means that you won’t have heard of anyone in the performance.  The director is also different.  I don’t know if that means things are very different from the original production.  I had read that typically a non-equity show has a lower budget, but I was quite impressed with the sets in this one.  The “train” was amazing, and I really liked the way they created the rooftop and the car and several other scenes. (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1959-1960: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2006)

Posted in A Charlie Brown Christmas, Angst, Baseball, Butterflies, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Fantagraphics, Football, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Peanuts, Talking Heads, The Franks, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Tom Club, Whoopi Goldberg on October 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »

1959SOUNDTRACK: TOM TOM CLUB-Tiny Desk Concert #82 (October 6, 2010).

tomtom Tom Tom Club were a side project of the rhythm section of the Talking Heads.  They had a hit with their song “Genius of Love” (you’d know the melody instantly).  I’ll be honest–I thought they only had one album out, but I see they had quite a few out and had recently re-formed and put out new records.

This set contains three songs.  “Wordy Rappington” which was on their debut, but which I’d never heard of.  I am shocked to see that it was a double A side with “Genius of Love.”  The song is a kind of amusing rap with a chorus of the children’s song “A Ram Sam Sam.” It is very kid friendly.

I will also be honest that I didn’t like The Tom Tom Club when they came out.  So even though I know the melody of “Genius of Love” I don’t know the song very well.  It’s kind of amusing though in that it name checks all kinds of musicians.  At one point they repeat “James Brown” over and over and then climax with “hit me!”

The music is surprisingly spare: an acoustic guitar or two, some bongos and an accordion (which plays the “Genius of Love” melody).

“Only the Strong Survive” is a cover of song by zydeco band The Franks.  Lead vocals and washboard are supplied by Mystic Bowie.

The band is having a ton of fun.  Considering Talking Heads were always kind of serious it’s nice to see Chris and Tina being silly..

[READ: September 29, 2015] The Complete Peanuts 1959-1960

This book marks more or less the ten-year anniversary of the first Peanuts strip.  Even though Patty (not Peppermint Patty) is on the cover, she gets very little time in the book.

The big news in this book is the arrival of Charlie’s little sister Sally!  In May of 1959 Charlie’s mom goes to the hospital for a few days.  And then Charlie is a proud big brother.  For a time, Snoopy is jealous and acts like a “fuzzy baby.”  However much Charlie talks about Sally, we don’t actually see her until August!  On a random Sunday Charlie is seen pushing her in her stroller (and missing out on baseball because of it).  There’s no really babyness for Sally.  She has a bottle, but while we saw a lot of baby time for Linus, there’s hardly any for Sally.  In fact, in October Snoopy gets her to dance.  And much later she gives Schroeder a hard time when he won’t play a lullaby for her.

She doesn’t really come into the picture all that much.  But by August of 1960, Sally thinks (still no speaking) that Linus is the cutest thing and has hearts floating around her when she sees him.  Charlie even has to wonder what’s going on here.  But Linus says, “I’m almost five years older than she.” (more…)

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Jorge Luis Borges–The Last Interview and Other Conversations (2013)

Posted in Almafuerte, Almaz, Artful Dodger, Arturo Capdevila, Baldomero Fernández Moreno, Biography, Blindness, Book Reviews, Books about writers, Charles Silver, Daniel Bourne, David Bowie, Funny (ha ha), Gloria Lopez Lecube, Herman Melville, History, Interviews, James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, Kit Maude, La Isla FM Radio Argentina, Michael Jackson, Old Age, Paul-François Groussac, Pedro Bonifacto Palacios (Almafuerte), Poetry, Poets, Richard Burgin, Seu Jorge, Short Books, Stephen Cape, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Tiny Desk Concert, Walt Whitman, War, Wes Anderson on October 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

borgesSOUNDTRACK: SEU JORGE-Tiny Desk Concert #79 (September 13, 2010).

seuSeu Jorge was the melancholy singer in Wes Anderson’s movie The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. He sang the David Bowie songs and was amazingly soulful and brought a completely unexpected quality to the Bowie songs.

He plays these five songs with his band Almaz.  For reasons unclear to me only one of the songs is on the video, but the other four are available in audio format.

He sings three songs in Portuguese, and his voice is husky and passionate, so even if you don’t know what he’s singing about, you can feel the emotion.

The first song in English “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” has a cool trippy 70s vibe, with some cool keyboards.  Although I don’t love his version of “Rock with You” which I imagine was super fun to sing, but it’s so different from the Michael Jackson version that it’s hard to reconcile the tow.

  • Cirandar” (Audio Only)
  • “Saudosa Bahia” (Audio Only)
  • “Everybody Loves The Sunshine” (Audio Only)
  • “Pai Joao”
  • “Rock With You” (Audio Only)

[READ: October 19, 2015] The Last Interview and Other Conversations

I have never really read any Borges (a piece here and there sure, but I have his Collected Fictions waiting for me and just haven’t gotten to it. However, when I saw this book at work I decided to give it a read. I have very much enjoyed the other books in The Last Interview series (there are ten and I have read four) so I thought I’d like this too, and I did.

Borges is a fascinating individual. He was legally blind from a youngish age and was completely blind by the time of the last interview. He was humble (but not exactly humble—he genuinely didn’t think he was that great of an author). He was a pacifist (remaining neutral even in WWII) and basically spent his whole life immersed in books.

This book contains three interviews

“Original Mythology” by Richard Burgin (from Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges, 1968)

“Borges and I” by Daniel Bourne, Stephen Cape, Charles Silver (Artful Dodger 1980)

“The Last Interview” by Gloria Lopez Lecube (La Isla FM Radio, Argentina, 1985) [translated by Kit Maude] (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1957-1958: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2005)

Posted in A Charlie Brown Christmas, Angst, Baseball, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Fantagraphics, Football, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Jonathan Franzen, Peanuts, Tiny Desk Concert on October 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »

peanuts4SOUNDTRACK: BRIAN COURTNEY WILSON-Tiny Desk Concert #76 (August 25, 2010).

bcwBrian Courtney Wilson is not Brian Wilson. Rather, this Wilson sings  lovely religious songs.

This is an overtly Christian performance and as such I did not really enjoy it. Having said that, his voice is terrific and his backing vocalists are subtle and uplifting without overpowering the music.

He sings three songs: “All I Need” “Believe” and “Already Here.”  For some reason, there’s no video for “Believe” so you have to listen to the audio only track to hear it.

[READ: September 29, 2015] The Complete Peanuts 1957-1958

Some new themes emerge in this, the fourth volume of the Complete Peanuts.  Charlie seems to get branded with the “wishy-washy” curse a lot more (except when it’s raining and he’s not willing to give up his baseball game).

The angst is getting heavier now too with Charlie Brown saying “sometimes I think my soul is full of weeds).   Then in April 1958 he says “It always rains on the unloved.”   Even the normally chipper Snoopy (who at one point says “to live is to dance, to dance is to live”) gets a little mopey and introspective “when I was a puppy every day was a happy day suddenly bang, and I’m in my declining years.”

I feel like Lucy and Linus are showing up a lot more.  And Pig-Pen, really a one-joke character is appearing less but has not been forgotten.

I particularly enjoyed the concern that the earth was overpopulated (from Lucy).  And after she says “The earth can’t feed this many people” Linus replies “Why Don’t You Leave?” (more…)

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Berkeley Breathed–Academia Waltz and other profound transgressions (2010)

Posted in Berkeley Breathed, Bloom County, Bob Dylan, Dave Bidini music, Doonesbury, Earl Campbell, Fantasy, Fears, Feminism, Football, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Gender, Gods, Greed, Guided By Voices, Humiliation, Kevin Hearn, LGBTQ, Martin Tielli, Nature, Neil Young, Political Humor, Punks, Racism, Religion, Rush, Scott Walker, Selina Martin, Set at School, Sex, Sexism, Smarty Pants, Star Trek on October 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

academiaSOUNDTRACK: MARTIN TIELLI-“We didn’t even suspect that he was the poppy salesman.” (2001).

popptI wrote about this album once before, and while I made notes about it after listening to it again, I found out that they were pretty much exactly what I thought of the record four years ago.  So I’m going to simply repost the review here, but I’m going to add some new notes seamlessly intermingled.

Martin Tielli’s first solo disc is a proper solo release: it’s almost all him on acoustic guitar and his gorgeous alto voice.  I hadn’t listened to this disc in a while and I was delighted by how much of the disc I knew so well.

The opening track, “I’ll Never Tear Your Apart” is deceptively simple: beautiful harmonic’d guitars and his gentle voice.  There’s a great video to go with it here.  That is followed by the wonderful “My Sweet Relief” which sounds like a great Neil Young folk song: great verses an a strong chorus.  Lyrically, though, it is all Tielli.  “Double X” highlights Tielli’s beautiful acoustic guitar work.  It’s another great story song, this one about a destitute person hanging under a superstore with a K and an M.

“Voices in the Wilderness” is a simply beautiful song, a lovely guitar melody and Tielli’s high voice singing along.. I also love that the lyric  (mis)quotes Rush very nicely: “‘If you choose not to be free you still have made a choice,’ said a high and squeaky voice.”

“Farmer in the City” is the only track that Tielli didn’t write.  It’s a nearly 8-minute song by Scott Walker.  I had never listened to the original, but having now done so, I find the Walker version to be far superior.  Walker’s voice is so eccentric and wonderful.  So even though I love Martin’s voice, he just can’t compare to the original.   Also find Martin’s version to be just a little spare (the Walker version has lovely strings. Kevin Hearn plays celeste and Selina Martin plays wine glasses on the track.

It’s followed by the delightful “World in a Wall” which uses mice in the wall as a metaphor for a broken relationship (with wonderful detailed lines like: She’s like a mouse, I know she’s around It’s a gnawing sound. Leaves little brown poohs from a little pink bum.”

This is followed by “That’s How They Do It in Warsaw” which is the first really rocking song (it has bass and drums) and a voiceover in Polish by Kasia Zaton.

It’s coupled with a slightly less rocky but still loud track “How Can You Sleep?” (which makes another fun musical allusion, this time about Guided by Voices). It has a co-songwriting credit from Dave Bidini and has a kind of vocal allusion to Bob Dylan, although I doubt it is about him.

“She Said ‘We’re On Our Way Down’” is a song that I really want to enjoy more.  But It is so spare and Martin’s vocal line is so abstract, that I can never really get int it. But the guitar riff is really powerful and cool.  And yet, the song seems to eschew melody but then a gorgeous guitar or vocal line shines through and really sounds brilliant.  “From the Reel” is a beautiful, aching acoustic ballad.

The disc ends with the odd, seven minute “Wetbrain/Your War.”  The first part (wet brain) is kind of slow but it builds into a beautiful dark song about addiction.

This is a really beautiful album, although there are moments when I fell like Martin gets too delicate, it’s amazing to hear just what he can do when he’s on his own.

[READ: October 19, 2015] Academia Waltz

Way back a long time ago I was pretty excited to read all of the Bloom County reissue books.  Somehow I only got through Books 1 and 2, although I see now that five volumes were released in total.

Presumably at the end of that run, (which technically ended in 2011) comes this volume.  Academia Waltz is the strip that Breathed wrote back in college.  This book collects some (but apparently not all) of the strips.  It’s odd to not collect them all since there is also an art gallery with all kinds of original pieces (complete with edits and scribbled notes) that duplicate many of the earlier strips.

The first part collects pieces from Academia Waltz the 1979 collection.  The second part comes from Bowing Out, the 1980 Collection. (more…)

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Jack Hunter–Tokyo Grindhouse: volume one: pinky violence bad girl cinema (2012)

Posted in Bad Angel, Delinquent Boss, Delinquent Girl Boss, Female Gambler, Female Prison Scorpion, Gambling, Girl's Junior High School, Jack Hunter, Kill Bill, Meiko Kaji, Quentin Tarantino, Reiko Oshida, Sex, Sexism, Stray Cat Rock, The Doors, The Mops, The Red Peony, Violence, Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs on October 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

tokyoSOUNDTRACK: THE MOPS-“Goiken Muyo (Ilja Naika)” (1971)

mopsThe Mops were a Japanese psychedelic band who were inspired by American psychedelia.  They appear in one of the films below (Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo from 1971) in a really weird scene in which the band is playing on the back of a flatbed truck (in the middle of another scene that has nothing to do with them).  They play their song and then drive away.  Weird.

Anyway, the song is pretty great.  There’s all kinds of interesting percussion (the film clip shows them playing stuff which most likely is not what they are playing).  But the studio version (linked to below) has great audio quality and a lot of depth in the bass and cool screaming guitars.

The band released possibly 9 albums (it’s a little hard to tell from their Wikipedia page).  With their first album being pretty psychedelic and this one (I assume their third) being much heavier and fuller sounding.

I had found a clip of the band from the movie.  Then I lost it and cannot find it anywhere.  But here’s the studio version dubbed over the movie clip

But really, check out the whole album, it’s pretty great.

[READ: October 10, 2015] Tokyo Grindhouse

The life cycle of a book at my work is pretty straightforward.  If I see it at all, I usually catalog it or send it on its way to someone else.  But for some reason this book came back to my desk three times.

I didn’t know a thing about Tokyo Grindhouse, I’d never heard of pinky movies, but if something keeps coming back you gotta check it out.  So it turns out that this book has about ten pages of text and the rest is pictures.

And the book is about “classic” exploitation films made in Tokyo from 1960-1970 (or so).  The text by Jack Hunter explains that women and violence have been in Japanese exploitation films since the 1950s.  Evidently there were some landmark films in the mid-fifties about topless pearl divers that set off a craze for topless women in films.  This morphed into movies where women were the victims of violence with translated titles such as Nude Actress Murder Case: Five Criminals. (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1955-1956: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2005)

Posted in A Charlie Brown Christmas, Baseball, Built to Spill, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Ding Dong School, Fantagraphics, Figure Skating, Football, Funny (ha ha), Matt Groening, Peanuts, Walter Cronkite on October 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

1955SOUNDTRACK: BUILT TO SPILL-Perfect from Now On (1997).

330px-Perfect_From_Now_OnBuilt to Spill moved to the major labels and everything changed. No that’s not true. The band (well, Doug mostly) just sounds more serious about their music. What’s impressive is that there are no obvious  singles since each song is over 5 minutes long (except for one).

This is considered a classic 90s album but fans of the band and others.  And while I like it, it’s not my favorite.  A few of the songs are a little too drifty and anticlimactic.  But at he same time there’s some really amazing stuff here.

It opens with “Randy Describing Eternity” a cool song with a great riff and an interesting lyrics.  My favorite song (most days) on this record is “I would Hurt a Fly.” It has a fairly quiet intro with more intriguing lyrics: “I can’t get that sound you make out of my head/ I can’t even figure out what’s making it.”  The song waxes and wanes and even adds some cello. And then at 4 minutes, the song shifts gears entirely, stopping to add a brand new fast section with some great guitar work and wild noisy soloing.

“Stop the Show” is another favorite.  It opens with a slow meandering guitar section and then jumps to a great, frenetic set of verses. After about 5 and a half minutes the song turns into a crazy noisy fest and then switches to an amazingly catchy guitar instrumental solo outro, which could frankly go for five more hours. “Made Up Dreams” has several different elements in it. And even though it’s only 4:52, it still packs in a lot of music.

“Velvet Waltz” is over 8 minutes long. It has slow parts, and a lengthy middle section with strings (in waltz time of course). It builds slowly adding some cool guitar sections and a great long solo at the end. “Out of Site” is one of the shorter songs on the disc.  It has an immediate, fast section that is very catchy. It then mellows out to a slow cello-filled section. “Kicked it in the Sun” is kind of trippy.  At four and a half minutes a noisy section overtakes the music, but behind the noise is a beautiful, pretty guitar/keyboard melody.  Then it shifts out of the noise into a more rocking catchy section.

The final song is the nearly 9 minute “Untrustable/Part 2.”  It begins loud with great lyrics “You can’t trust anyone because you’re untrustable.”  Like the other songs it has several parts.  Around 4 minutes it turns into another song altogether. This continues for a bit and then at 7 minutes it shifts gears entirely into a keyboard dominated romp.

There’s so many interesting melodies and changes in this album, and it clear that it was completely influential on late 90s indie rock.  But I think what’s even more impressive is that each album get a little bit better.

[READ: September 29, 2015] The Complete Peanuts 1955-1956

Moving on to volume 3 of the Complete Peanuts.  Stylistically things are advancing towards the Peanuts characters we know now.  Yet they haven’t quite gotten there.  I think the kids’ faces (not their heads, just features) are still much smaller.  And Snoopy still looks like a real dog, although his nose grows year by year.

In the beginning of the year, there’s a funny line from Lucy, attacking commericalism. Charlie is reading her a book.  He says “Once upon a time they lived happily ever after.  The end”  And Lucy says “What’s on the rest of these pages, Advertising?”  Much later there a joke in which Lucy asks Schroeder how much a musician makes, and he relies “Money?  Who cares about money?  This is art. You Blockhead.”  It is ironic of course that Schulz went on to become so staggeringly wealthy–but maybe that just shows what good art can achieve.

Another one of my favorite sophisticated jokes comes when Lucy is flying a kite.  The joke is all about perspective. It’s hilarious. (more…)

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