Supplemental

 

Happy Birthday Dad

 Here's my dad's birthday "card"

 

It makes me feel better #10 Lush up until Spooky

 The Scar mini-LP was a gem and pretty much everything up until Spooky was fantastic. Spooky itself wasn't so bad either... but nothing subsequently worked quite so beautifully...

Etheriel/Leaves me Cold (on Snub TV)

De Luxe

For Love


 

Count-ins (supplement) (and Spinning #4) - Jonathan Richman - Roadrunner

 Very annoyed I missed this one from my previous post so here it gets a post all of its own...

Jonathan Richman - Roadrunner -"1 2 3 4 5 6"

 

It makes me feel better #10 - songs with count-ins...

I threw together a playlist of songs that are counted in - here's what I listened to...

  • I Saw Her Standing There - The Beatles - "1 2 3 4"
  • California Sun - The Ramones - "1 2 3 4"
  • (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais - The Clash "1 2 1 2 3 4"
  • Shake Appeal - Iggy & The Stooges - "1 2 3 4"
  • David Watts - The Kinks - "This is the master (five). Nice and smooth 1 2 3 4"
  • Griselda - Yo La Tengo - "1 2 1 2 3 4"
  • The New Style - Beastie Boys - "and on the cool check in, centre stage on the mic, and we're puttin' it on wax. It's the new style 4 and 3 and 2 and 1"
  • Foggy Eyes - Beat Happening - "1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4"
  • Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel - "2 1 2 3 4"
  • Tear Ya Down - Motorhead - "Ein zwei drei vier"
  • Warsaw - Joy Division - "3 5 0 1 2 5 go"
  • Blitzkrieg Bop - Newtown Neurotics - "1 2 3 4"
  • Weird at My School - Pixies - "1 2 3 4"
  • Modesty Piece - Pastels Tenniscoats - "1 2 3 4"
Blitzkrieg Bop (live) - The Ramones - "Ein zwei drei vier"

 

It makes me feel better #9 Pixies... back then

 Damn if Pixies weren't just amazing back then... I saw them quite a few times between 89 and whenever they called it a day and (and saw Black Francis do a slightly rubbish - and insanely packed - solo show at The Borderline). Remember some great shows... even that last one at the Crystal Palace Bowl when it felt like it might have been all over...

Here's the proof... and they all look so young... (and skinny!)


 

Just dug this one out #36 : 'Til Tuesday - Everything's Different Now

I love Aimee Mann, I don't listen to her too much, I find a little goes a long way but I love her all the same. I love her rich voice, and that she's funny and clever and potty-mouthed - but I've never listened to anything this early in her career... partly because I just didn't feel a need and partly because there's a nagging worry that I know that it's going to have the sound that damaged a lot of the more mainstream late 80s pop... that "shine" and "twang".

Media_httpimagesuulyr_aigae


A first listen through of 'Til Tuesday's Everything's Different Now and my fears are pretty much affirmed - there's a little  too much production and arrangement, too much polish and too many instruments throw into the pot. I find myself listening to that more than the songs... which is a shame because the songs are mostly pretty good.

Only mostly mind. This was described as being "the first Aimee Mann solo album" and I do get that with some songs but "(Believed You Were) Lucky" and "Long Gone Buddy" sound just wrong. Hearing Aimee's voice singing on a couple of these tracks is actually a little distressing.

But there are some real gems here "Limits to Love" is great. The awful backing vocals on "The Other End (of The Telescope)" manage to not ruin it completely - probably because of the strength of the lyric (can't not love a miserable/bitter lyric)...

And in time, I could only believe in one thing
The sky was just phosphorous stars hung on strings
And you swore that they'd always be mine
When you can pull them down anytime


All in, I quite enjoyed this dip into Aimee's past but am likely to call on The Forgotten Arm or Bachelor No. 2 or Live at St. Ann's Warehouse when I need a fix...

Here's The Other End (of The Telescope) without it being damaged by 80s arrangement and awful backing vocals


 

Pay them, pay them double and pay them now
Henry Rollins politely tells you that your fave band isn't selling out when it gets used in commercials...

... and here's my fave band not selling out...


 

It makes me feel better #7 The Pleasure Seekers

 Had never heard of The Pleasure Seekers until about 10 mins ago when @randomrecs blipped/tweeted this song - but it's a sensational bit of 60s garage rock and features a pre-Devil Gate Drive Suzi Quatro...

and this is how I'll always remember Suzi...

or maybe like this...

Media_httpwwwisleofwi_lvivr

 

Whatever happened to... venue webcams

 I remember watching videos of shows on crappy webcams 10 years ago - but that doesn't seem to happen anymore... which is a shame. The Knitting Factory in New York had a webcam and I mentioned to Dean in an email in 2001 that I'd be getting up early to watch Luna's New Year's Eve show. That was (to my knowledge) the only time I ever got name-checked from the stage at a Luna show... unfortunately the webcam was broken and I crawled back to bed and only (and barely) heard my name check on a recording of the show months later...

And now you can too... here's the recording of the last song from Luna's 2001 new year's show - it's California (All The Way) and if you listen very carefully to the intro you might, just hear my one Luna name-check...

011231_11pm_luna_01

Luna @ The Knitting Factory 2001-12-31 (late show)

(download)

 

White Heat... not so hot

 This afternoon Hazel and I watched White Heat. It's the first time I've seen it for years, probably more than 10 and possibly closer to 15. I remember seeing it at the NFT in the late 80s. I'm sure that using whatever rating system I used back then it would have scored very highly. It's a classic of course so why wouldn't it? This time around however using my current dlicious/wikipedia rating system I've given it just six out of ten. Somehow this seems to require explanation because that's pretty low by my standards and a fair way short of the 8.1 it gets on IMDB and the 100% on Fresh Tomatoes.

Media_http4bpblogspot_xrmwg


First off Cagney is great. Of course he's great, the role is made for him and he knows it. He owns the picture and most of those six points belong to him... although maybe his totally overpowering the picture is part of what weakens it. A closer look at the relationships around Cody Jarrett would help, particularly those with his mother and his wife. Given how important these relationships are there is very little insight into them. The scenes with his mother are fine but they go nowhere in explaining the man, and her death is treated so carelessly that it only emphasises that the existence of the relationship is considered more important than understanding it.

Virginia Mayo was great in the little she had to do, but again we don't really get to know her.

Tracking the tanker using radio signals was a quaint look at the use of current technology in fighting crime, but looked terribly shoehorned in. I imagine it may have been jaw-dropping in 1949 but it just slowed the plot and actually made the "chase" sequence awfully clunky (as did the use of radio communication in the earlier chase) and removed any edge-of-the-seat excitement that should have been there.

And there's that ending. It is almost a great, great ending until:
"Cody Jarrett, he finally got to the top of the world and it blew right up in his face" that's the way to take the shine of a great ending - I guess it was trying to have the impact that the comparable "beauty killed the beast" speech at the end of King Kong except it really didn't say anything about Cody and just seemed plain silly.



I wondered when I started writing this whether my 6 was really justified, and suspected that I'd be adjustiung upwards by now - but no - I've just convinced myself that I'm right.
Filed under: film
19
To Posterous, Love Metalab