VHS Suicide Run

Starting today, I'm going to potentially sacrifice 7 VHS tapes. Let me explain - my VCR...

I'm sorry...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vhs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCR

OK, let's go, children of the 21st century...

...my VCR is old and has started to eat tapes at random, possibly in some response to the fact that we have 17 DVD players in a two-bedroom apartment. But I don't feel like spending money to upgrade these until they are no longer playable, so into the kite-eating tree, I mean tape-eating VCR we go!

Here's the festival lineup:

Tequila Sunrise (1988, Robert Towne)
Mystery Train (1989, Jim Jarmusch)
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, Stephen Frears)
Broadcast News (1987, James L. Brooks)
Midnight Run (1988, Martin Brest)
She's Gotta Have It (1986, Spike Lee)
The Spanish Prisoner (1998, David Mamet)

Chimes of memory

As seen on my Twitter feed yesterday, I got the Steely Dan jones thing goin' on and decided that I was going to listen to all of the first wave (1972-1980) of their output. Decided to go alphabetical for a change-up; a little jarring - I've listened to them for a good 6 months out of the year every year since 1987, so at the end of a track, I'm thinking of the next album track. I know, I should have real problems, right?

But anyway, what invariably happens when I set myself a reading/watching/listening project is that something else comes up as a memory sync. This is why I pull my DVDs in 3s (more on that next week.)

So, about halfway through the listen, I start thinking of Pavement, that awesome alt-rock band from the 1990s. Why? At first blush, you'd think that they have nothing in common, right? Well, how about an idiosyncratic lead singer and inscrutable lyrics?

But another way that they chime each other for me is that both acts get a bad rap for being elitist or snobby.

And I just don't get that, especially in the case of Steely Dan. Despite the jazz inflection, the aforementioned lyrical bent, the aversion to feeding the pop machine, everything these guys did was to serve the song.

But the thrust of this post is to ask, what movies/songs/books/comics/etc. chime each other in your mind?

Here's two of mine - let me know yours:

When I watch Soderbergh's sex, lies and videotape, after Peter Gallagher beats up James Spader, throws him out of his own house and starts to watch the tape of Andie MacDowell, watching him stand there, about to have truth revealed to him, I automatically think of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, when Dave Bowman unplugs HAL and the pre-recorded message kicks in, revealing the true nature of their mission.

Also, at the beginning of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, there is an image of flame reflected in someone's eye. That connects to Tony (Ridley's brother, as it turns out) Scott's Revenge when Anthony Quinn burns down Kevin Costner's cabin and the flames are reflected in his sunglasses.

What have you?

Sequencing is the trick

(Don't ask where I've been for the last 3 months. I'm back and you're in for a good summer's worth of posts...)

It's been said that editing and score are post-production procedures that can make or break a movie. I'd like to think that good acting, direction by a storyteller rather than a moneymaker and hey, what about a great script to kick the project off all rank in there somewhere as well.

When comes to albums (collections of songs, folks), sequencing really helps as well. Most people who like The Smiths huzzah The Queen is Dead over the other studio albums, but the pacing doesn't work for me as well as let's say, Meat is Murder. But that's just me.

As I was rummaging through some old albums and box sets, I stumbled upon Paul Simon's 1964-1993 that was put out right around the time he was doing some career retrospective shows at the Paramount Theater in NYC.

The box is a good collection - although, quite sacrilegiously, they offer a live "Still Crazy After All These Years" vastly inferior to the original. But there is a sequence of tracks on Disc One that is simply breathtaking. It's so well done that it can't help but call attenttion to itself and you think on it and say, "Wow - there's the hand of something stronger at work here." And like all good things should, it demands that you review your thoughts on the subject and pay more attention the next time around. If anyone wants me to, I can "get" the tracks to you so you can decide on your own.

"Bridge Over Troubled Water" (demo) - Paul sings this demo - it's got different lyrics. And as the case is when we hear demos retroactively, we can simultaneously see where the official version came from and marvel at the changes production can wring.

"Bridge Over Troubled Water" - the masterwork, from their 1970 swansong album. I believe it's the most covered song from the latter half of the 1960s, though I need citations, please. Garfunkel's voice is angelic, for sure, but Paul coming in to share the final verse puts this one right over the top. The song of healing the 1960s needed after Woodstock begat Altamont.

"The Breakup" - a humorous little piece of studiosity from 1973, this finds Garfunkel (with recording room punch-ins from Simon) attempting to explain the necessity of their dissolved partnership.

"Hey Little Schoolgirl" - and then, we're slammed back to 1957 for the earliest recorded track of their career, when they were known only as 'Tom and Jerry'.

"My Little Town" - hard jump 20 years to the 'comeback' single from 1975, a lyrically dissonant ode to hating the town you come from. Oddly (or maybe not so oddly) not about Queens... Interesting to note how the entire song is sung by the two in unison.

And there you have it, a time-hopping abbreviated history of the duo.

A Quick One from 7-11

Took my little one to 7-11 to get some ice cream and was looking at the Slurpee promotional for the G.I. Joe film coming out in August and was reminded of the fact that someone had said to me a few months back, "What the fuck is Dennis Quaid doing, making a G.I. Joe movie?"

Typically, I'd lob back, "Well, everyone's gotta take one for the mortgage." But I was in a charitable mood and decided to go somewhat the higher road. So, respectfully, I submitted that it looked like it was a fun movie to make and that he probably had a fun time making it. Furthermore (and moreover, to boot), it looked like it was going to make some money, which would in turn make some money for Mr. Quaid.

And I was also reminded that over 20 years ago, when Who Framed Roger Rabbit was about to come out, that I said to myself and all around me, "What the fuck is Bob Hoskins doing, making a half-animated Disney film?" I mean, I had seen him in A Prayer for the Dying with Mickey Rourke, a good drama with some things to think on. And he'd been in Mona Lisa, as good a film as the 1980s British film renaissance produced (you can throw in The Long Good Friday and I won't argue.) Hell, he was in Brazil, one of the best movies EVER. So you can see where I was coming from.

Of course, Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out, did monster business and even better, got great notices for Hoskins' performance, leading him to make some more good movies. (Another "Of course", of course, is that he went on to make Super Mario Brothers, which TOTALLY screws my thesis in more than one way here. Shhhh.)

But it taught me something - Bob Hoskins is smarter than me. That's why he gets to MAKE movies and I just have to WATCH them.

And now we're back to Dennis Quaid. Can't wait to watch this one.

"The Boys of Summer" and that line

Once again, I'd like to take the opportunity to mention that this is the 25th anniversary of 1984, the greatest year for music ever.

One of the many, many great releases from that year was Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" from Building the Perfect Beast. The album has plenty of high points besides this single, although it's not as good as his 1982 debut, I Can't Stand Still. Henley was one of my two first musical heroes (along with Lindsey Buckingham), years before I discovered Springsteen, Prince and the fact that heroes eventually suck almost as much as having heroes (a lesson brought on by most of Henley's post-1984 material among other things)

The linchpin of the single is, of course, the line "Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac", a line so indelibly brilliant, it even eclipses the fact that he needed to explain it in the following line. I invite any of you reading this to produce a line as good or better than that.

Now, in 2003, a band called The Ataris covered the song, changing the key line to "...a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac", which doesn't work the same for me. But what it does achieve is this and follow me 'round the horn here:

• Don Henley rises to fame in a band called the Eagles. Said band comes to represent for many the corporatization of rock music, leading those many to become...
• ...punk rockers! Punk goes through many phases and guises over 15 years until Nirvana breaks through, paving the way for the recombinant bastard called (by me, at least) "corporate punk", epitomized by bands like, well, The Ataris, who pay homage to Don Henley, instead of, I don't know, maybe Joe Strummer, Joey Ramone or even John Lydon.
• Kurt Cobain wonders if he should have pulled the trigger instead of continuing on in the path he opened with Unplugged in New York, which was in 1994 as "punk as fuck" as "punk as fuck" got.

All of this was brought on by driving behind a Hyundai Santa Fe with a Descendants sticker on the back today.

Marc spends over a month away from his blog, and when he returns it's for a stupid joke

There's a playlist on my iPod (which is called "Marc's iPod") called "Marc's Songs", filled with songs that don't fit into other lists. Every once in a while, I'll just think of a whole bunch of songs and load 'em on.

The other day I threw on Snow's "Informer" from 1992 and it's still a great track. But of course, it got me thinking.

The album it came from was called 12 Inches of Snow. That title works on a number of levels - a play on a weather report, a reference to the fact that vinyl albums were 12" in diameter and of course, a brag about the size of his...wedding favors?

That's cool, being that Snow's a hip-hop act and they're usually known for their sexual braggadocio. BUT, the album came out WELL into the CD era...

I guess 5 Inches of Snow wouldn't have helped his street cred.

A different look at 2008 in music

(Been looking through the 'Draft' pile on my blog for stuff that I abandoned. This one's a little overdue, but, as always, I'm looking to get all of you out of your staid 'whatever's-on-the-radio-that's-what-I'll-listen-to'. Remember, the people want what the people get. That's not good - that's not how greatness is revealed to us.

Damnit.)

I've decided that I'm not going to do a traditional "Best of 2008" in music for a simple reason - I didn't buy Dear Science by TV on the Radio and therefore won't have a number one pick.

What I am going to do instead is do a "Top Albums, Acts or Styles" that I became aware of this year, regardless of date of issue. Also, I'm going to do a "Top Albums, Acts or Styles" that I re-acquainted myself with this year.

Things I discovered a love for the first time this year

• Bishop Allen
• African music
• Le mystere des voix bulgares
• Ornette Coleman
• Sonny Rollins
• Off the Coast of Me and Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places- Kid Creole and the Coconuts
• The Style Council
• Mario Biondi and the High Five Quintet
• Forever Breathes the Lonely Word - Felt
• Tommy: The Wedding Present 1985-1987 - The Wedding Present

Things I rediscovered a love for this year

• Off the Wall - Michael Jackson - kicks Thriller's ass any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
  
• The Rolling Stones' 1980s studio work - OK, forget "Start Me Up" (wait, we can't - it's encoded on our DNA) - but the rest of these 4 albums make a case for working waaay past what society might think are your "valid" years.
  
• Radio KAOS - Roger Waters - Waters got the conceptual stuff in the Pink Floyd divorce of the 1980s and Gilmour got the musicality. But this one has a good deal of interesting melodies to go along with the story. If you jumped off (a building) after hearing The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, dust it off and try this overlooked album from 1987, the year closest to the awesomeness that is 1984.
  
• Gold, Volume One - The Bee Gees - my very first vinyl album. Dad got it for me. Dad would go on every year to Jimmy's Music World, then The Wiz and finally Tower Records (4th and Broadway - we miss you, stah!) to bravely ask for the increasingly outlandish shit I would ask for. I owe him huge for 1983, when he had to get me The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Abacab. Hope 2 grandkids are enough.
  
• Mid-period Genesis (as well as Phil Collins' output from that time) - 1976-1982 for the band (stop before 1983's Genesis, please) and the first three solo Phil joints.
  
• Brighten the Corners - Pavement. Along with Yo La Tengo's I Can Feel the Heart Beating as One, the album that brought me back to music with a vengeance in 1997. I will personally guarantee your money on these two.