I'm afraid that now that I know I will be moving away from Seattle in July that all these great opportunities will happen in Seattle just after I leave. Case in point, yesterday they announced a "teaser" list of performers at this year's Bumbershoot which happens each year over Labor Day weekend. Of course, two of my favorite performers/groups, Beck and Stone Temple Pilots [on a reunion tour], are playing...
Forget the Olympics, it's Radiohead's Greatest Hits that you need to boycott!
For background, you can read this article. In a nutshell, Radiohead's former record label, EMI, has determined what Radiohead's greatest hits are and packaged them up without any input from the band. Of course, no In Rainbows songs are included. Never mind that they have thrown "2 + 2 = 5" on the standard disk and "True Love Waits" on the Special Edition Only version. How dare they!
If there is one area of news that living in Seattle has kept me abreast of more than I should be [besides Bigfoot news] is aviation news and specifically the ups and downs of Boeing. It's been a pretty bad few months for Boeing...first they delay the 787 Dreamliner once, loose a 25 billion dollar refueling-plan contract, and now the Dreamliner is delayed again [this time until early 2009].
I came upon this CD the other day and seeing that it was an import, I thought it was one of those Greatest Hits collections done in the middle of a career to up record sales or maybe get out of a record contract...like this collection [it doesn't even have their cover of "Ms. Jackson" on it!]: But investigating a little further, the set came out in 2005 which means the good folks at Bush, Inc. are abandoning the Golden State album as not worthy of inclusion in their best work. It is a shame that the song "The People That We Love" [formerly called "Speed Kills"...the title was changed shortly after the album was released and ranks as the 2nd stupidest rock title change that happened following September 11th. The 1st being the changing of Jimmy Eat World's album Bleed American to just Jimmy Eat World.] isn't included as the album would really include everything you would ever need from Bush.
Though "The People That We Love" was cut, they don't blink from including three songs from The Science of Things album, especially the song "Warm Machine" which is my favorite Bush song.
The new video channel, Pitchfork TV, started today and their "Video Killed the Radio Star" moment was a live video of "Bangers & Mash" by Radiohead...with Thom on drums!
You can read more about the video venture by Pitchfork Media in a nice little article with Wired.
They don't let you embed videos [yet], so I had to turn to YouTube for help:
[I guess I should mention that in this post I talk about the endings of The French Connection 1 & 2, so if you don't want them ruined for you, don't read on.]
Maybe it is just because I wasn't around when the films came out, but I don't know of many sequels to Academy Award winning films that is so buried and ignored as The French Connection 2. I've seen the first film five or six times and it has (among other things) the best car chase scene ever...see for yourself:
Technically speaking, it really isn't a car chase is it?...The best train chase ever...
But I digress, the mere existence of the FC2 was something I didn't know about until a few weeks ago and I was a little scared at the idea there was more to the story because in my mind, the first movie ends perfectly...which by that I mean the viewer has four different ways to interpret it:
1. Popeye Doyle kills "Beard-O" [the name I've given the antagonist] 2. Beard-O shoots Doyle 3. Doyle shoots his gun in anger 4. Doyle kills himself after shooting Office Mulderig.
This moment of uncertainty is ended with a Dragnet-style rundown of who got how much time in prison and the fate of our two heroes is revealed.
Now on to FC2, or as I call it "Popeye Doyle's European Vacation." Doyle heads to France to catch Beard-O and as he says at one point "hit him in the stomach so hard it breaks his spine." Unfortunately, there is no sign of the late Roy Scheider who played good-cop to Gene Hackman's bad cop. The film ends satisfyingly with Beard-O getting what's coming to him.
The soundtrack to both French Connections was done by jazz composer Don Ellis. Both soundtracks are currently not available on CD, so I have been trolling the local record stores for a copy but no luck so far...iTunes does have one track from a collection of songs from Academy Award winning films by an orchestra called L'Orchestra Cinematique.
I've never been in a band but if I was I would imagine that I would hate it if my band was always compared to another no matter what we put out. In every review inevitably the same comparison would appear...I don't know if I could stand it.
"That's great for the Keys, who are often obscured by the shadow of fellow Midwestern drums-and-guitar duo the White Stripes. Sure, minimalist stompers like "I Got Mine" and "Remember When (Side B)," all raw rock riffs and cymbal sizzles, echo early Jack 'n' Meg. But "Psychotic Girl" is something else, with its banjo opening and spook-house choir. Ditto the Memphis soul of "Lies" and "Oceans and Streams," which show vocalist Dan Auerbach as a first-rate updater of old-school tradition."
"All blues-punk duos, the Black Keys included, start with a reverence for the source material and the thrill of ruled composition. They get ragged for a while (in the Keys' case, for four albums), eventually establishing bona fides. Then comes the futzing around (see the thick thrum of the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army")."
I generally try to make it a rule to not disparage something just for the sake of disparaging it [notable exception: John McCain’s presidential campaign].But last week I watched a movie called On the Beach [made in 1959] and on the surface the description of the movie sounds intriguing.The film is set a few months after a nuclear apocalypse between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and follows the story of a nuclear submarine [captained by Gregory Peck] that survived the attack and is now stationed in Australia where the only surviving humans live.They don’t so much live as really wait for the radiation in the air to inevitably flow to them and have them die of radiation poisoning. And by the end, I was hoping for radiation poisoning to come for me too.
Besides Peck, this gem has Anthony Perkins [pre-Psycho days], Ava Gardner [post-The Killers and pre-The Night of the Iguana], and, would you believe it, a race-car driving Fred Astaire [post-"White Christmas"].
The plot isn't much more than sitting around waiting for the radiation to come...oh please, won't it come???
Last week on eBay, they tried again to sell the world's largest record collection [the winner of February's auction didn't pay the over $3,000,000 winning bid]... and again it seems to have failed with no one bidding on the item...
As a person who is a reformed-hoarder I am even more impressed by the organizational structure than the sheer mass of music...
I am a little sad that I won't be in Seattle on Saturday because I would go to see one of my favorite bands, What Made Milwaukee Famous. They are playing down at Chop Suey on Saturday with Louis XIV at 9pm.
WMMF have a new album out, What Doesn't Kill Us, and I think it is just as good as their debut, if not a hair better.
This entry in my "Haven't I Heard That Before?" series is a little different than usual...this time we have a movie clip that was included in a song.
George Lucas' THX 1138 is a must see for any Star Wars fan. Think of it as the what the world would look like if the Empire had won. One of the more disturbing scenes has Robert Duvall [a.k.a. THX 1138] watching the TV shows of the future...which is essentially robot cops beating a human at first slowly and then faster and faster:
This must have got the creative juices flowing in Nine Inch Nails leader Trent Reznor as he took this clip and tacked it onto the beginning of "Mr. Self Destruct", the first song on The Downward Spiral.
I graduate from the University of Washington in June and today I found out who my commencement speaker will be...let me give you some hints:
1. He has been nominated for 79 Grammys. 2. He has won 29 Grammys. 3. He was the producer for the largest selling album of all time [worldwide totals]. 4. He is tied as the most nominated African-American in the history of the Academy Awards [seven nominations]. 5. Wrote songs for Sarah Vaughn, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, and Ray Charles. 6. Discovered Lesley Gore and produced "It's My Party." 7. Organized and produced "We Are The World." and most importantly... 8. He wrote the Sanford & Son theme song...
Quincy Jones, a distinguished musician, composer, producer, arranger and conductor for more than six decades, will be the University of Washington commencement speaker June 14 in Husky Stadium.
Jones, who was raised in Seattle, also will receive an honorary doctorate from the UW. The awarding of this degree was approved today by the board of regents.
They always have the best news in Seattle when I'm not there:
AMBOY, Wash. -- A parachute that could belong to famous hijacker D.B. Cooper has been found and is being analyzed by the FBI in Seattle.The Cooper case has been surrounded by mystery since 1971, when he jumped from a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 727 with a bag of money containing $200,000 ransom.
The parachute, which the FBI said is the same type that was used by Cooper, was found between the Clark County towns of Ariel and Amboy, near the center of the original jump zone, according to KOIN News 6.The parachute was unearthed in a field that was being plowed by the property owner and was found by the man’s children while they were playing. The children pulled the cloth until the chute’s shroud lines appeared and their father recognized it as a parachute.
The man notified the FBI in Seattle. Part of the chute, which is white and conical shaped, remains buried in the field.Seattle Agent Larry Carr said he will analyze the parachute and look for a label, which could match it to a reserve chute left behind by Cooper on the plane.
More information on D.B. Cooper can her found here, here, here, and here.
For those of you not up to date with Beach Boys news, founding members Mike Love [the Wilson brothers’ cousin] and Al Jardine [the Brian Wilson’s friend] have been involved in a lawsuit for years over who has the right to tour under the name “The Beach Boys.”Love argued that he held the license to use the name and wanted the money Jardine made from touring as “The Beach Boys.”They settled the lawsuit on Friday but no details were given as to who gets to use The Beach Boys name in the future.
Any Beach Boys fan has to have severe mixed emotions about Mike Love.Without Love’s vocals on the Boys’ earliest hits, they may never have “made it” yet many biographies of Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys in general have Mike Love as the catalyst for the internal trouble the Beach Boys had and most notably the abandonment of the Pet Sounds follow up album SMiLE.The great song “Hang On To Your Ego” had to be changed to “I Know There’s an Answer” due to Love’s protests.Looking back, one can only guess where Wilson would have taken the group if his work had been embraced and supported by the entire band.
Mike Love on lead vocals songs: Surfin’ Safari Surfin’ USA Little Deuce Coupe Be True To Your School Fun, Fun, Fun I Get Around When I Grow Up (To Be a Man) California Girls I Can Hear Music
Al Jardine on lead vocals songs: Help Me, Rhonda Vegetables Transcendental Meditation I Know There’s An Answer (co-)
