Late last summer a DVD of the movie August, which features David Bowie in a cameo, showed up at the office where I used to work. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone: it was released in one theater in New York City last July before making a quick exit to video the following month. If it hadn’t been for that promo DVD, I doubt I would’ve heard of it either.
Directed by Austin Chick, August isn’t a terribly compelling film, due in large part to Josh Hartnett’s emotionally distant yet gratuitously beefcakey lead performance, i.e. “Don’t look at me! I mean, check out the six-pack, of course, but don’t look look at me.” (Is it just me, or do you get the feeling Hartnett tortured small woodland creatures as a child? Somebody needs to cast this brooding hunk as a serial killer — or at least a young Tommy Lee Jones — ASAP.) Howard A. Rodman’s script has some clever touches, though, like how it never explains what dot-com guru wannabe Tom Sterling’s (Hartnett) company actually does. I worked for a start-up for just three months in 2000 before being laid off, and during that brief time I had trouble justifying the company’s existence to my friends and family.
The press release that came with the August DVD said that the film “follows Josh Hartnett as a young dot-com entrepreneur who fights to regain control of his company from Ogilvie (David Bowie).” Based on that description you’d think Ogilvie is a major character in the movie, but as I said, the part-time actor only has a cameo. His single scene — at the film’s climax — is an important one, but he’s in and out of August in less than six minutes.
There’s a scene near the beginning of The Woman in Red, the 1984 film written and directed by and starring Gene Wilder (it’s a remake of a French film whose title translates to “An Elephant Can Be Extremely Deceptive,” though it’s also known as “Pardon My Affair”), in which his character meets his daughter’s new boyfriend, who’s sporting a multicolored Mohawk. The daughter explains that they’re going to a David Bowie concert together. Wilder then mispronounces the singer’s last name as “Boo-ee.”
Implying that teenage “punks” with Mohawks in the mid-’80s were big fans of Let’s Dance-era Bowie doesn’t quite approach the old-white-guy ignorance of Quincy’s “Next Stop, Nowhere” episode, but there is a blip on the radar, so to speak. Glam rock in the ’70s did influence punk rock, of course, just as proto-punks like Lou Reed influenced Bowie, so it’s not inconceivable that you’d find some androgynous fans still dressing like Ziggy Stardust at Bowie’s concerts in ‘84. But the leather-jacket-and-safety-pins kind of punk? Only if he’s misinformed about what’s “punk” and what’s not, or if he’s experiencing a teenage identity crisis.
That may have been Wilder’s aim when he came up with the idea of the boyfriend character having a Mohawk, but he was 50 when he shot The Woman in Red. Therefore I’m going to go with a little from column A (”I want to make a subtle point about insecure teenagers and parents who feel like they’re behind the times in my character-based comedy”) and a little bit more from column B (”Let me tell you, these kids today with their crazy music …”).
Let us now praise famous do-rag-wearing guitarist/songwriter/deejay/record execs. Now, unless Clive Davis has a couple side gigs or fashion proclivities I’m unaware of, I can think of only one person who fits the bill—Steven Van Zandt. Call him Miami Steve, Little Steven, Silvio Dante, or Steven Lento, his main nom de rock should be “Almighty Savior of Garage Rock”—that soul-stirring mongrel amalgam of rock, soul, surf, folk, blues, punk, and the kitchen sink. Progenitors and practitioners of the three-chord stomp owe the recent interest in their work to Van Zandt’s radio program Little Steven’s Underground Garage and its various offshoots, including festival concerts, the show’s Web site, its satellite radio channel, and the wonderful Wicked Cool Records, the label through which Van Zandt has released a stack of loud and proud albums by the likes of the Chesterfield Kings, the Cocktail Slippers, and the Grip Weeds.
Wicked Cool is also responsible for a series of bitchin’ compilations named after Underground Garage’s weekly “Coolest Song in the World” feature. The eighth volume of the series has just seen wide release (after a four-month exclusive period with f.y.e., which sponsors the show), and it is a keeper. With its focus on new and young bands, the album shows garage as a living, thriving endeavor.
Palmyra Delran of the girl group the Friggs kicks off the comp with “Baby Should Have Known Better,” locking into a punky groove and spiking her cautionary tale with the kind of repetitive chorus that lodges itself in the listener’s head for years. It’s a fitting start to the record—the song was selected by Underground Garage listeners as the “Coolest Song of 2008″ and, well, it rocks.
“Terminal Boredom” finds the awesomely named Cute Lepers rocking a tune that could have been a Clash outtake. The Lepers are currently signed to Joan Jett’s Blackheart Records—a fitting connection, as Jett’s influence can be felt on a number of tracks led by female singers, like the Downbeat 5’s “Dum Dum Ditty,” which channels the Crystals through a Bad Reputation filter. That track would have made a an equally great Phil Spector single or deep cut on the Ramones’ first record, as would a number of old and recent Joan Jett tracks. (more…)
Eight children, two working parents, limited income — who was going to watch the kids after school? Daycare and nannies were out of the question, as were babysitters who would charge the going rate, so four days a week my mother depended on her niece, my Aunt Jackie.
Jackie was in her late teens/early 20s. She had long, straight black hair parted right down the middle, with stray flyaways here and there, like Janis Joplin. She was a child of the ’60s, absorbing as much hippie culture and flower power as she could in our small midwestern town, miles away from the communes of San Francisco and the sounds of Woodstock. Her manner of dress reflected her youth — long, colorful beads and smock tops over blue bell-bottoms. While Aunt Jackie may have looked like she was trapped in the ’60s, she kept herself current with the music of the ’70s.
It’s no secret that tribute albums and charity compilations can be hit-or-miss affairs at best. In the case of the latter, all you can really do is be happy that you’re supporting a good cause, and hope that the music is more hit than miss. Two important charity albums have recently appeared, and when I say important, I don’t just mean for the causes they’re helping, but also for the virtual who’s who of contemporary indie artists that has contributed tracks to them. If you could somehow assemble all of the buzz that these artists have collected, you could light the universe. In other words, to the naked eye, it’s a music blogger’s dream.
The Red Hot Organization has been using pop culture to fight the good fight against AIDS since 1989. They have released 14 albums together with related television shows and media events, and have raised $7 million to date. Their most recent project is called Dark Was the Night (4AD Records). It’s an enormous 30-song effort that has been curated by brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner of the National. In addition to a track from the National, contributors include Bon Iver, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Grizzly Bear, Andrew Bird, Feist, and a host of others.
Let me say right up front that apparently Bon Iver can do no wrong. From Justin Vernon’s nearly perfect debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, to his recently released Blood Bank EP, and now, this album’s best track “Brackett, WI,” there have been few, if any, missteps. Vernon is also involved here in an intriguing collaboration with Aaron Dessner called “Big Red Machine.”
Sufjan Stevens’ contribution, “You Are the Blood,” reminds me that it’s been too long since we’ve had new music from him. Antony and Bryce Dessner duet on a beautiful version of the traditional “I Was Young When I Left Home.” Yes, Feist is here, combining with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie on “Train Song,” and with Grizzly Bear on “Service Bell.” (more…)
Tin Machine was flat-out great, featuring fierce guitars, edgy lyrics and even edgier production. The world thought it stunk, and threw stuff at David Bowie and his noisy bandmates when they took the stage and played its songs. For this critic’s CD-buying money, the two records Tin Machine did—this 1989 debut and the 1991 Tin Machine II followup—are still the finest post-Let’s Dance material Bowie’s made.
Tin Machine’s main fault was that it refused to pump out another tired Ziggy Stardust nostalgia cruise on stage—with some Low, Lodger, and Young Americans stuff interspersed to keep it real—that hardcore Bowiephiles wanted. Instead, Bowie forsook his brand and Tin Machine played originals like [video embedding prohibited—so we link] the cut after which the band was named, “Tin Machine.”
How dare he play dissonant songs, charged with aggressively political and at times angrily anti-religious lyrical content? The words were a good-news, bad-news proposition: Popdose colleague David Medsker claims that a couplet from “Crack City”—”They’re just a bunch of assholes, with buttholes for their brains”—is one of the worst couplets in rock history.* Hard to disagree with that. Some of Tin Machine’s lyrics, and for that matter, the feedback, seem gratuitous.
The point is, we remember those words two decades later. Can anyone give me any couplet, good or bad, from Black Tie White Noise? Or from 1. Outside? Does anyone even remember those Bowie album titles? Nobody? The prosecution rests, your honor. (more…)
You never know when your college friends may become useful professional contacts. One night 17 years ago, Lev Skwatzenschitz and I found ourselves stumbling down College Avenue at Rutgers, trading verses of “I’m a Little Bumblebee” and praying aloud for the grease truck with the good cheeseburgers to still be open at 3:00 in the morning. By 3:05, we were seated on the sidewalk, empty-handed, discussing our impending graduation and our dreams of life thereafter. Lev actually told me, “I’m gonna make my dreams come true, Smitty. I’ll be a star, and I’m going to take you along with me!”
Lev works in sanitation now, but his uncle, Donnie Skwatzenschitz, is some sort of representative for one or another music industry entity (he’s held a lot of jobs over the years). He hobnobs with the rich and famous and keeps trying to get Lev into “the family business.” As part of that effort, Uncle Donnie sends Lev copies of his correspondence with musicians, to inspire him, I suppose. Recently, Lev gave me a whole box of these things, with instructions to “do whatever you want with them.” Every couple weeks, I’ll share one of Uncle Donnie’s missives, in the hope that we may all be just slightly more inspired than Lev. —RS
TO: David Bowie
FROM: Don Skwatzenschitz
RE: Career advice
David, Mitzi and I are just back from a week in Vale, and I gotta tell you, I feel energized. Nothing like a couple days on the slopes to clear the mind. You should come out with us sometime. Bring your wife, Yvonne (or whatever) and see for yourself. Bundle up, though—thin white dukes can turn blue very easily out there. Ha!
I was thinking of you, though, while I was on the K-3. David, as you know, the music business sucks. Record companies suck. We missed out on so much by not getting the Feds to tax downloading. Fellas like you, who’ve been around the block a while but who might not necessarily be technologically savvy or business-smart, can get lost in the shuffle. I don’t want you and Yvonne to wind up selling off your possessions for beer money, you know? So I’m going to give you some advice: (more…)
I will dispense with the usual bullshit “Let’s take a look back…” year-end review. USA Today will have that shit in spades for the next four to six weeks. Nothing is ever truly over. There is no true end. Nor is there a true beginning.
Dramatic music swells in the background
In these past twelve months I have seen horror and I have seen wonder. I have seen triumphs
Cymbals crash
and I have seen the agony of defeat
Trumpets
and no doubt we shall see more. The utter collapse of our financial institutions and increasing aggression and war. I have seen the naked face of evil…
photo montage now strikes up of Sarah Palin and Ashley Todd shooting at wolves from a helicopter, Dick Cheney strangling a rosy-cheeked orphan with a telephone cord, John McCain eating a big greasy cheeseburger while his wife does a line of coke off of a small mirror, George W. Bush with a jet pack…
and I have seen images of hope…
Barack Obama and Joe Biden riding on a soaring magical eagle over a beautiful stretch of California coastline as the music comes to a soaring peak…
But enough of all that. Let’s get to the music, shall we?
Say what you will about the mighty Sunn O))) — at their fundamental core, deep beneath the waves of feedback and within their black robes, O’Malley, Anderson and company are a live band. Part performance, part transcendental experience. This limited edition double-vinyl set documents a performance by the band at a Gothic cathedral in Bergen, Norway. If that wasn’t perfect already, the band composed an actual piece of music specifically for the performance. Church organs, horns, strange electronics, vocals both sublime and guttural, soar within the old cathedral like a medieval plague. Haunting, intense, (beautifully packaged) and definitely my favorite Sunn O))) release thus far. (more…)
Live albums have been a staple of the music business for ages, and even if you’re someone who loudly proclaims to have no interest in them whatsoever, it’s probable that you have at least one or two buried somewhere in your collection, even if it’s stretching back to your vinyl or cassette days. I’m pretty sure the first live album I ever purchased was Wings Over America, which served as my transition from the Beatles into Paul McCartney’s ’70s solo output – to this day, attempts to sing along to the studio versions of the songs from that record never fail to throw me – but there are quite a few other live records that I’ll spin with regularity, from the Smiths’ Rank to Robyn Hitchcock’s Storefront Hitchcock to Howard Jones’ The Peaceful Tour Live. (Yeah, I know, that last one might sound like a bit of a head-scratcher, but my wife and I saw HoJo in concert while on honeymoon in the UK in 2001, and that disc is a solid representation of the set he performed.)
On the whole, however, I must admit that I tend to prefer those live albums where the artists reinvent their songs by placing them in an acoustic setting. Nowadays, it’s something that everyone does…and more often than not, when they do so, it’s with an attitude generally reserved for someone who’s just reinvented the wheel. It’s as if they’re saying, “I am so awesome because I could take my song and de-rock-ify it,” when the reality is that they probably just figured, “Hey, here’s a way I can make a few more bucks off my old hits!” I’m not saying that I don’t still tend to enjoy them, anyway, but…okay, look, here’s the deal with acoustic live albums: the last one that truly mattered was Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York. Now, as far as the best acoustic live albums that mattered before Nirvana, you can vote for Clapton or Tesla or even McCartney, but I only ever think of one: Richard Barone’s Cool Blue Halo.
Now, if you’re a regular NPR listener or find yourself scouring their website, you may be saying, “Hey, this guy is totally jumping on the bandwagon started by Tom Moon in March 2007!” Not true. I picked up my copy of Cool Blue Halo on cassette in a cut-out bin way back in 1990, and I’ve loved it ever since. The reasons I picked it up were threefold: 1) I’d seen his name in my copy of the Trouser Press Record Guide and remembered the write-up as being favorable, 2) it included a cover of the Beatles’ “Cry Baby Cry,” and 3) it was less than $2.00. (C’mon, gimme a break: I was a poor college student at the time!)
As it turned out, I found myself in love with the album long before I ever hit that Beatles cover.
Things have been hectic at the Test of the Boomerang headquarters: I just became a father, and things have been understandably hectic. I took a break from changing nappies, though, to put together a little mix. It’s a real mixed bag today, folks — I have Jarboe’s sweet cover of Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home” from Swans’ out-of-print classic The Burning World, brooding folk from Neurosis guitarist Steve Von Till, King Crimson’s full “Providence” improv jam from the fantastic Great Deceiver live set, and a little taste of Merl Saunders (rest in peace, brother Merl) and Jerry Garcia. As well as some other musical goodies. Enjoy with some Fordham Scotch Ale and I’ll meet you back here in the New Year. (more…)
Late last summer a DVD of the movie August, which features David Bowie in a cameo, showed up at the office where I used to work. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone: it was released in one theater in New York City last July before making a quick exit to video the following month. If it hadn’t been for that promo DVD, I doubt I would’ve heard of it either.
Eight children, four each from different families, puréed Brady Bunch style in a $250-a-month, four-bedroom apartment in mid-’70s Elyria, Ohio. Inflation squeezed the wallets and coin purses dry, forcing both mother and stepfather to work full-time to keep Swanson’s frozen dinners, soup beans, and cornbread on the table, along with new clothes for the oldest son and daughter to pass down as they grew.
David, Mitzi and I are just back from a week in Vale, and I gotta tell you, I feel energized. Nothing like a couple days on the slopes to clear the mind. You should come out with us sometime. Bring your wife, Yvonne (or whatever) and see for yourself. Bundle up, though—thin white dukes can turn blue very easily out there. Ha!
