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Archive for the ‘Mad Scientists’ Category

Jeff Kinney–Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel [#7] (2012)

Posted in Babies, Children's Books, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Holidays, Jeff Kinney, Mad Scientists, Marriage (Happy), Memoirs, Phineas and Ferb, Set at School, Short Books on December 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

3rdSOUNDTRACK: PHINEAS AND FERB-“I Really Don’t Hate Christmas” (2009).

doofenI have grown to love Phineas and Ferb ever so much  in the past year.  Holy cow it makes me laugh so much  that I would totally watch  it even without the kids around.

This song, sung by the evil Dr Doofenshmirtz, explains how he has a backstory that makes him hate every holiday except Christmas–he just has a burning indifference to it.  The song is catchy and funny.

Of course since he is an evil scientist, he finds a reason to hate Christmas and launch his naughtyinator.  When carolers come to his door and repeat over and over that they want figgy pudding, he begins to get quite annoyed.  And we get this hilarious exchange:

CAROLERS: (singing) We won’t go until we get some, we won’t go until we get some….

DR. DOOFENSHMIRTZ: What? Are you threatening me? How dare you! No one barges into my home and demands desserts! What sort of plan is that anyway? “Let’s go to a stranger’s house, sing songs to him, and refuse to leave unless he hands us a food dish no one’s prepared since the 16th century!”

Just in time for the holidays:

[READ: December 20, 2012] Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel

Clark was more excited for this book than I was!  As soon as he saw it, he grabbed it and ran into his room to read it (for which I was both proud and a little annoyed as I wanted to read it).  I’m not sure how much he could have enjoyed it as it is all about going on a date, but he seemed to like it.

It’s not all about a date though.  It begins with Greg reminiscing about his time in the womb (a very odd thing for Clark to read, I’m sure).  rtHis mom listening to Mozart and just how much he could hear while in there.  Then he talks about his life as a wee one, which is very funny–he learned how to take the batteries out of the remote so his mom couldn’t put the educational shows back on (he’s also annoyed that Manny gets to watch whatever he wants now–no educational TV for him).

But Manny doesn’t come out on top all the time–there’s the boy who acts like a vampire at Sunday School and scares Manny to bits.  This may be why Manny only has imaginary friends (well, that and the fact that their mom reads Manny the children’s book she wrote about the boy who used to bite Greg–it  terrifies Manny).  Of course, the imaginary friends get in trouble for all the things Manny does (maybe Manny does come out on top all the time after all).

One of the funnier aspects of the Wimpy Kid series is the locations that they go to.  Like Corny’s, the family restaurant where the key is fun (not food), and the first time they went Greg almost sat on a PB&J sandwich that was never cleared away.  (And wait till you see what the family next to them are doing!). (more…)

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Tony Abbott–Time Surfers series (1996-1997)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, C., Children's Books, End of the World, Fantasy, History, Mad Scientists, NASA, Phineas and Ferb, Technology, Tony Abbott, Waffles on December 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHINEAS AND FERB-The Twelve Days of Christmas (2009).

12daysTo get you in the mood for the holidays, I present The Phineas and Ferb Twelve Days of Christmas.  Each character gets a wish, even Perry.  And of course, Ferb’s wish on the 12th day is great.

Obviously, Doofenschmirtz is the comic relief of the song (although most of the wishes are funny in themselves).  Doofenshmirtz hilariously wishes for the entire tri-state area and then slowly backs down to one state, admitting he was overreaching at the beginning.

I can’t find a video from the show, but there are plenty cobbled together on YouTube.  Like this one.  Enjoy!

 

[READ: July 2012] Time Surfers series

We’re still working through all of the different Tony Abbott series.  And this series, Time Surfers, is another early collection of eight books about young kids going on adventures.  This series was also difficult to find (although it has recently come back into print (with much better illustrations).  The think I have yet been able to figure out about Abbott’s earlier series–they seem like he planned to do more.  Or more specifically, they seem unfinished.  I wonder if he gave up or if the publishers gave up on him.

So this series seems to have a few arcs in it.  New villains emerge, which is interesting, although as C. pointed out, what happened to Vorg from the first four books, he just seemed to go away.

Book #1, Space Bingo starts the series in an interesting way (Tony Abbott’s exposition is always interesting–indeed all of th ebooks open up with a scene the seems to be one thing but is revealed to be something else).  Ned Banks has moved to a new city far away from his home and his best friend.  He has to start a new school and he’s not too happy about it.  His sister has been calling him Nerd instead of Ned and the nickname is starting to spread, especially since such bad luck things are happening to him in school.  So he does what any clever kid would do–he creates a communicator (and tells his best friend Ernie how to make one) so that they can talk to each other whenever they want (and not have phone charges!).  When Ned turns the communicator on, however, it opens a time portal in his closet and two kids from the year 2099 come flying out. (more…)

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Terry Moore–Echo #27-30 [end] (2011)

Posted in Adventure, Death, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Mad Scientists, Military, Smarty Pants, Strangers in Paradise, Supernatural, Technology, Terry Moore, The English Beat, Threats, Violence on November 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE ENGLISH BEAT-Live at Bumbershoot, September 6, 2010 (2010).

I’ve always loved ska.  So to see that the (English) Beat were playing shows and playing them for download on KEXP was  a pretty grand thing.

I’m still trying to figure out if these short sets from Bumbershoot were KEXP-only shows (in which the band plays a brief set and then they play the actual show later), but I believe so. Anyhow, the band sounds great, singer Dave Wakeling is a great frontman, telling amusing stories about the songs and generally charming everyone (his singing voice still sounds great, too).

Wakeling has a nice little diatribe about Target.  It begins with him saying how he never was asked to be in a commercial before Target asked him for “Tenderness.”  And now it’s everywhere.  But he’s upset that Target supported the  anti-gay candidate in Minnesota.  He promises that if he ever gets the money from the ads, it will go to support the candidate’s opponent.  He also says that “Mirror in the Bathroom” was not about cocaine–they couldn’t afford it bcak then.

I’m not really sure who is in the band on this tour.  Ranking Roger is apparently running another English Beat band in the U.K.  Sigh.  But regardless, this was like a wonderful flashback to the long lost art of ska.  The set is a collection of highlights from their 80s career.  I mean look at all the great songs they wrote: “I’ll Take You There,” “I Confess,” “Save It for Later,” “Never You  Done That,” “Tenderness,” and “Mirror in the Bathroom.”

Listen for yourself here.

[READ: November 27, 2012] Echo #27-30

The problem with a comic book that comes out every six weeks (especially if you stopped going to the comic books store) is that it’s easily forgotten, no matter how much you like it (my rave of issues 25 and 26 leave me stunned that it has been almost two years since I last read the story).  But I recently went to my local shoppe and scored these last few issues (#30 even signed by Terry himself).  And I immediately got back into the story.

So as #27 picks up, we see that the climax is almost at hand.  Ivy, the hardened agent is growing younger and younger and is forgetting more.  Meanwhile, Julie is almost completely covered by the alloy and is now a giant.  And Annie is surfacing more and more in Julie (Annie is in the alloy’s DNA) which means Dillon is allowed a degree of closeness and closure.

#28 was awesome because it tied this universe back to the Strangers in Paradise world even more.  They are still using Tambi, the bodyguard, (from SiP) who worked for Darcy.  In this issue she interrogates another member of Darcy’s team (with the telltale tattoo).  By the end of the book Ivy is a mere child (the fact that Moore can draw this–keeping her Ivy and yet now looking like a little kid with such few lines is amazing). (more…)

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Tony Abbott–Danger Guys series (1994-1996)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, C., Children's Books, Chris Rock, Fantasy, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Mad Scientists, Madagascar, Star Wars, Technology, Tony Abbott, Waffles on August 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: “Neverending Afro Circus” (2012).

If you’ve seen the movie Madagascar 3, you’ll recognize this song as the earworm that you will be singing all the way home.  And that your kids will no doubt be singing for days.

I actually want to jump in and say that I saw Madagascar 3 without seeing Madagascar 2 and I was quite lost (and missed a lot of in-jokes, apparently) for the first 20 or so minutes.  Who would have guessed that a kids movie could do that to you?

Anyhow, back to this song.  C. and T. love it.  And it turns out that YouTube loves it too.  There are dozens of different videos of varying lengths (from 10 seconds to 59 minutes!!) repeating this wonderful nonsense.  But for real neverending Afro Circus, please visit AfroCircus.com and see how much you can stand.

For a measly ten minute loop, please enjoy this:

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aELcXyjpts%5D

[READ: July 2012] Danger Guys series

We loved Droon so much we had to see what else Tony Abbott had written.

Turns out that he has written a lot of books and a bunch of series.  In addition to Droon he has written four books that are not part of any series, a series called The Haunting of Derek Stone and a brand new series called UnderWorlds.  UnderWorlds looks like a great series for C., although Haunting and the stand alone books seem like they might be a little too old for him.  He also has some older series like Don’t Touch That Remote!, Goofballs, Time Surfers and The Weird Zone.  (I think that’s all of them).

He also has this Danger Guys series, which I believe comprised his first novels.

My major complaint about the series is…why is it out of print?  Why was it so hard for me to find?  I had to do an Inter Library Loan and the copies I received were so beat up that we may wind up being the last people to read them!  This is a real shame because these books were fantastic!  The series is about two boys Noodle (the smart one) and Zeke (the athletic one).  They are best friends and do everything together.  I’m not exactly sure how old they are…I’m guessing middle school?  In each book they get into an escalating series of adventures which can be resolved by logic, brains, strength and sometimes a little luck.  The books are mildly scary (the Halloween one is the most scary but even that…not really), they’re not violent or gross, but they are full of adventure and they’re very funny (an Abbott specialty).  There were several moments that C. was laughing very hard at these.

There are six books in total in the series.  And because the books aren’t radically different from each other, I’m only going to say a few lines about each. (more…)

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Max Barry–Machine Man (2011)

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Better Off Ted, Corporate skewering, Death, Fears, Foo Fighters, Mad Scientists, Max Barry, Military, Norah Jones, OutKast, Robots, Supernatural, Technology, The Beautiful South, The Who, Threats, Violence on January 10, 2012| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BELLE & SEBASTIAN-Write About Love (2010).

I’ve enjoyed Belle and Sebastian’s music since their debut album all those years ago.  For some reason I didn’t get into this album as much as previous releases.  In part it’s because the band has morphed quite a lot from what they used to do.  It’s true that I have really enjoyed their more rocking songs on their more recent albums, and this one is full of them.  It’s also true that a band needs to evolve, but somehow this album just never really gripped me.  I think it’s because the album takes so long to start.  The fade in is like 20 seconds!  But I’ve listened again with renewed interest recently and I’m changing my mind a bit about it.  There are plenty of great songs on this disc. 

“I Didn’t See It Coming” is a classic B&S song (after that awful delay).  It’s a wonderful duet with Sarah Martin (this is how to do a duet, guys–the ending is fantastic!).  “Come on Sister” is one of the great faster B&S songs.  The “gotta have a little FAITH” line is great and then the unexpected shift into the third part of the sing is just stunning.  I also love “Calculating Bimbo” first because who would every have thought there’d be a song with that title but also because Murdoch sings it so wonderfully.  I generally don’t like slow music, but there’s something about slow B&S song that I find myself leaning in instead of tuning out.

“I Want the World to Stop” is another wonderful “rocker.”  It’s a fast paced little ditty with great backing vocals (and it always makes me go “two, three, four” before the chorus kicks in–always the sign of a great song).

“Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John” slows things down really far.  Possibly too far for me. It’s a duet and it reminds me just a little too much of a Beautiful South duet (not a particular song, just their style).  And I have to say that The Beautiful South would have done it better.  After looking at the liner notes I realized that Norah Jones is the duettist here.  I like that Jones has been providing her services across a wide spectrum of music (Foo Fighters, OutKast etc) but I really just don’t have anything good to say about her.  The melody is nice though.  I also didn’t realize that the sing came out on Norah’s disc before the B&S disc.

The album quickly redeems itself with “Write About Love,” a great keyboard fueled rocker (with backing vocals from Carey Mulligan who I don’t know, but who nails the song “I haaate my job”).  “I’m Not Living in the Real World” has lots more keyboards and oooh vocals (it reminds me of a Who songs from Sell Out) and it’s sung by Stevie. 

From the there, the disc kind of slows down.  “The Ghost of Rockschool” is the least memorable song on the disc for me (although the horn section is nice).  “Read the Blessed Pages” is so quiet (even for B&S) that it kind of gets lost on the disc.  (The instrumental break is pretty though).  “I Can See Your Future” opens with a catchy horn blast that kind of wakes you from the slumber of the previous song.  “Sunday’s Pretty Icons” opens with a cool guitar riff, but it’s not all that memorable either.   While these last few songs are fine, they’re not as strong as the beginning of the album.  They kind of meld together. 

So I guess what I’m saying is that the first half of the disc is great and the second half is okay.  The  good songs are worth it though.  I’ll stop being so hard on the disc.

[READ: January 5, 2012] Machine Man

Don’t worry if you’re suffering from Barry blog overload, this post is about Barry’s new novel, which I just finished.

I have enjoyed Barry’s previous novels quite a lot.  They typically deal with corporate skewering and this book is no exception.  Except that the corporate skewering takes a back seat to the major sci-fi elements of the story.  Before I mention the story itself, I wanted to mention the origin of the story.  In the Acknowledgements at the end of the book, Barry explains that his fans had been nudging him to write something.  And while he had been doing projects, he hadn’t written a book in a while.  So he decided to write the book online.  He wrote a few hundred words a day and posted them online.  And then he sat back and waited for the comments to come in.

He talks about how he’s basically showing everyone his rough draft of a story and letting people tear it apart.  But he found that his fans were supportive and even offered ideas (which he then callously stole, muhahaha).  And so the story online is actually rather different from what appeared as the final draft.  (No, I’m not going to read the online version, but you can.  It’s available here).

Anyhow, as the story opens, Dr Charlie Neumann (I just got the bad pun of that name, shame on him and shame on me for not seeing it sooner) loses his phone.  He feels totally cut off without his phone.  The scene seems a little over the top (he checks his car while wearing only a towel) but it shows how technologically dependent he (and we) feel most of the time.  This kind of mild slapstick scene resolves itself in a shockingly brutal way.  When Dr Neumann gets to his office (he’s an engineer at Better Future) he finally sees where he left his phone.  Unfortunately, he has already started an industrial vice and he’s distracted by his phone long enough to have his leg crushed by said vice.

When he wakes up in the hospital, he is surrounded by people trying to help him–nurses, doctors, therapists, but he’s really just distraught about the loss of his leg.  And then he sees Lola Banks, who is bringing him a pile of artificial legs.  Lola is quite possibly the first woman who Charlie has ever spoken to who seems in any way empathetic to him (Charlie is, admittedly a pretty cold and cerebral individual). She shows him some prosthetics which he’s not too thrilled by.  But when Lola reveals that Better Future is paying for top of the line stuff for him, she shows him the highest end of the high end legs.  And Charlie falls in love (with Lola and the legs). 

Lola Banks proves to be an interesting person.  Not ony does she not recoil from Charlie and his handicap (it is her job), but she seems to almost admire Charlie for seeing the beauty in the prostheses.  Lola proves to be the kind of woman who falls for certain kinds of men, but with Charlie it’s different.  Really, it is.  Shut up, it is.

Although Charlie does see the beauty in the prostheses, he can’t help but see how they can be improved (he is an engineer after all).  And so, he sets out to make the artificial legs not just replacements but better than their human counterpart.  Better Future is on board with helping Charlie recover (which is quite nice, and somewhat unexpected coming from corporation hater Barry), but we see that Better Future knows what it has with Charlie–a single-minded, focused engineer. A man who only wants things to be more efficient.  So when Charlie starts outfitting the prosthetics with motors (and considers putting in wifi) the company is kind of impressed.  And so is Charlie.  The leg is heavy and a little unwieldy, and it’s not very pretty (it has hooves), but it sure works. 

The problem, as Charlie sees it, is that his intact leg is holding back his new invention.  How can he fully test the artificial legs if his human leg is less than the prosthetic? (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Babymouse: Mad Scientist [#14] (2011)

Posted in Cats, Children's Books, Cupcakes, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jennifer L. Holm, Mad Scientists, Matthew Holm, Mice, NASA, Sci-fi, Science, Set at School, Short Books, Star Trek, They Might Be Giants on December 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS-“Science is Real” (2009).

Indeed, I do love They Might Be Giants.  I love how their Here Comes series went from letters to numbers to science.  When you hear news of science being questioned from all sorts of places, it’s nice to have some super catchy songs to reinforce science fact.

“Science is real. From the Big Bang to DNA.”  It’s a great way to open an entire album full of interesting scientific knowledge (from the band who covered “The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas,” which gets updated here into a more accurate lyrical song).  My kids love this album, and it makes me proud when they sing along to the great catchy, short songs contained within.  I especially love that the lyrics don’t eschew fun for truth:

I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like those stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science.

This is a rocking guitar song, fun for the whole family.  Sing it with me…  “Science is real!”

[READ: December 4, 2011] Babymouse: Mad Scientist

I’m almost caught up to the Babymouse series!  This one even came out this year!!  There’s only the Christmas one left–wonder if I’ll be able to get it from the library in time.

This book also introduces a new character, Squish.  I actually found out about Squish before Babymouse, because I received a prepub of the first Squish book.  And now I get to see Squish’s origin story.

This was a really enjoyable book.  After reading the two music-themes ones, I was wondering if the Holms could keep up the interest for 14 books, but they really brought it back with this one.

After some funny jokes about science experiments (and the state of her room) we get a good fantasy sequence set aboard the USS Cupcake (with an unexpectedy funny Star Trek joke from the homeroom teacher).

And now they have a new science teacher (after the experiment went awry with their previous science teacher).  Mr Shelldon is obsessed, and I mean obsessed with molds.  He wants the class to enter the science fair (and encourages them to do research on molds!) (more…)

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Terry Moore–Echo #25 & #26 (2010)

Posted in Adventure, Death, Los Campesinos!, Mad Scientists, Military, Smarty Pants, Strangers in Paradise, Supernatural, Technology, Terry Moore, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Yuck! on January 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LOS CAMPESINOS!-Tiny Desk Concert #67 (July 5, 2010).

This Tiny Desk show really accentuates what fun can be had with the Tiny Desk format. Los Campesinos! are an eight piece band, but only four of them could come (or could fit, anyhow) in the tiny office.  And so we get a hugely stripped down set from the wonderful Welsh band.

One of the real benefits of these Tiny Desk shows is that it really highlights the songs themselves.  I enjoy Los Campesinos!, but sometimes I feel like their songs are so busy it’s not always easy to know exactly what’s going on.  This set shows how cool and interesting these three songs are underneath all the wild sounds and effects.

It’s also fascinating to watch these four folks perform in this room with nothing to hide behind.  The singer doesn’t even have a microphone, he’s just standing there with his arms behind his back singing to a small room.  And how odd it must be to sing to a dozen or strangers the a capella ending of “Straight in at 101.”

The three tracks all come from Romance is Boring and include the wonderfully titled: “A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State; Or, Letters From Me To Charlotte”, “Straight In At 101” and “The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future.”

As you might be able to guess from the titles, the band is wordy and articulate.  What you might not be able to guess is just how sexually explicit their lyrics are.  Not dirty (well, a little dirty) just unabashedly frank (and its made even more so in this quiet setting).

You can watch (and download here).

[READ: December 15, 2010] Echo #25 & #26

These next two books in the series are really fantastic.  Issue #25 brings the confrontation with Cain to a head.  It almost comes too quickly–there has been so much lead-up to it that when they finally meet the confrontation is (necessarily) brief and explosive.  They finally meet at the top of a mountain (where yet another really gruesome act is done to someone–although really it pales to what happened to the guy who was practically a skeleton).  The intensity of the confrontation, and the excitement of the denouement made me think that the series was just about to end.

But them comes Issue #26 in which the final panel changes the entire game!  (more…)

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Terry Moore–Echo #21 & #22 (2010)

Posted in Death, End of the World, Graphic Novel, Mad Scientists, Technology, Terry Moore, The Prodigy, The Shining, Violence on June 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE PRODIGY-Experience (1993).

Before Prodigy sang “Smack My Bitch Up” and Keith Flint had devil horns and pierced everything, Prodigy were a dancey techno act. This was their first album, and allmusic calls it “One of the few noncompilation rave albums of any worth.”  High praise indeed.

I love that this disc still has the price sticker on it and that I can see that I bought it some time around May 1993 from Ralph’s Record City in Scranton (RIP).

I popped this on because I was listening to Moby and it reminded me of this early 90s dance disc.  Sarah said that it made her want to work faster (some of the beats are crazy fast).  As with most dance records, this one works for dancing and for background music.  But it does have some standout tracks.

“Hyperspeed” which has more than a few words as lyrics is super catchy, as is “Fire” which samples “I am the god of hell fire!”  What I’m learning here is that you pretty much need some kind of words for a song to be more interesting than 4/4 beats at breakneck speed.

The best track on the disc is “Out of Space” which opens up with some twinkly keyboards before the drums kick in.  But rather than just a straight heavy beat, the song slows down (with a great “boing”) into a sort of reggae vibe.

The album is full of sped up vocals (who even knows what the originals sound like).  As well as crazy fast dance songs.  It even features a “live” track.  I’m not a huge fan of dancey techno music, although I know it has its place and some of it is quite good.  This disc is definitely better than most, although I much prefer when they get into their darker stuff starting with their next disc.

[READ: June 7, 2010] Echo #21 & #22

One of the difficult things about writing sequential comics (as if I know from experience) is that each issue needs a certain arc which propels the main story but which is also satisfying in itself.  And so the story arcs in these two issues are very exciting in themselves but serve as something of a detour from the main story.

And that’s all well and good.  But it’s so frustrating when you’re only getting single issues!  The story is so good, and you get to the end of the book and ack, six weeks before the next panel! (more…)

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Gitty Danesharvi–School of Fear (2009)

Posted in Children's Books, Culture Shock, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Gitty Danesharvi, Kiss, Mad Scientists, Neurotics, Ozzy Osbourne, Set at School, Smarty Pants on March 31, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Sonic Boom (2009).

Kiss has been kicking around in one incarnation or another for the last few years: original line up with make up, another line up with no make up and now this new line up: original makeup with two new people in the Peter and Ace positions (I wonder what happened to Bruce Kulick?).

There’s something disingenuous about having a fake Ace and a fake Peter, because in the past they always changed makeup for new members. So, this gives the impression that the original members are here (even though you can see that they are different men under the makeup).

But, Gene says it’s about the band, not the people.  So, whatever.  The first song, “Modern Day Delilah” is as good as any song they’ve done in two decades.  It’s heavy and catchy and the band sounds great.  But I feel like each song produces diminishing returns.  “Russian Roulette” loses me because the lyrics are seemingly for two different songs: one in the verses, one in the chorus (not that one should ever look too deeply at Kiss lyrics).

“Never Enough” sounds like a pretty typical 90’s Kiss song (except the melody is totally Ozzy’s “Flying High Again.”  “Nobody’s Perfect” is one of those poppy Gene songs that’s kind of throwaway but works well as a light-metal song.

The most egregious errors on this disc are the two anthems.  If ever there was a band who thrives on anthems, it’s Kiss.  But their best anthems are about partying and rocking.  These anthems are about standing united together (and we’ll ask the former members of Kiss about that).  “Stand” is about being there when you’re down. “All for the Glory” is a similar theme (we’re all for one), but it fares better musically.  It is weird though that fake Peter sings it in  voice that sounds a little bit like real Peter.  It’s also weird that “When the Lightning Strikes” features fake Ace that sounds a wee bit like real Ace.

On some better notes, I rather like the silly pun of “Danger You, Danger Me, Dangerous.”  And, “I’m an Animal” sounds a like Creatures of the Night era Kiss, which is a good thing.  The final song is an anthem that they got right.  It’s about partying and features a silly “Say Yeah!” chorus.  And that’s what Kiss does best.

The bonus disc is this new lineup re-recording classic Kiss songs. It’s a weird thing and  number of  bands seem to be doing it lately. I’m not entirely sure why.  Most of the songs sound exactly the same, but where they deviate from the original I don’t think they work as well (yes, I’m  traditionalist).  Although I like the less disco-ey version of “I Was Made for Lovin’ You.”  But if you’re not going to radically change anything, then why bother?

And to hear the by now 60-something year-old Gene Simmons singing about a 16-year-old is just majorly creepy (before it was statutory, now it’s statutory and gross) if he keeps going, he’ll be living the lyrics of “Goin’ Blind,” “I’m 93, you’re 16.”

So, this is a good effort from the band.  It has received pretty rave reviews, which I don’t think it quite deserves.  But it’s better than a lot of their middle period discs.

[READ: March 20, 2010] School of Fear

I ordered this book for our library’s Spanish collection.  When it arrived it looked intriguing, so I found an English copy and set out to read it.  I enjoy this sort of children’s book: adventure, schooling, fears, books that don’t insult kids’ intelligence.

And this book doesn’t.  I’m not even sure exactly what the age range is supposed to be because some of the jokes are quite sophisticated.  However, as I will get to shortly, the older the reader is, the less likely that she will fall for the “surprise” of the book.

But let’s start at the beginning.  The premise of the book is that if you have a terrifying, crippling fear, The School of Fear will cure you of it.  But the school is incredibly secretive, so secretive, in fact, that no one knows about it (except for the precious few who can help you get help there). (more…)

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Jim Massey & Robbi Rodriguez–Maintenance, Vol. 3: Fighting Occupants of Interstellar Craft (2008)

Posted in Canadian Music, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Jim Massey, Kathleen Edwards, Mad Scientists, Outer Space, Robbi Rodriguez, Supernatural, Technology, Threats, YA Books on January 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATHLEEN EDWARDS-Live from the Bowery Ballroom (2003).

This is a live EP released just after Failer.  I assumed that the Bowery was the New York one, but I just leaned that it is a Ballroom in Vancouver.  The CD has three live tracks, two from Failer and a cover of an AC/DC song (!).

She sounds great, her band sounds great, and the quality of the recording is great.

Side two of the disc is a DVD.  It contains two videos: “Six O’Clock News” and “One More Song the Radio Won’t Like.”  Both videos are okay at best.  They are fairly pedestrian clips of her singing, close-ups of her face, shots of her singing standing in the street etc.  “Radio” is slightly more inventive in that there’s a vague sort of plot, but she gets to wear some wigs.  But the overlays of her in various wigs come about half way through and seem like an afterthought.  The songs are great, but the videos are just so so.

So, if you’re a fan, this might be worth finding.  But it’s not an essential addition by any means.

[READ: January 15, 2010] Maintenance Vol 3.

This is the latest (and possibly last?) volume in the Maintenance series.  Unlike the previous collections, this volume contains an entire story arc.  And it’s a good one.

The evil-looking creature from the final page of volume 2 has kidnapped the gorgeous TerrorMax secretary Mendy (just as Manny was about to ask her out!).  And Doug and Manny, janitors extraordinaire, are determined to get her back.  When they learn that a spacecraft will be required, they’re quite happy to know that a certain grumpy alien has one that he’s pretending not to remember how to start.  And the adventure begins. (more…)

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