I drove back from Melbourne on Thursday. One hit. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. At least one hopes that no one will be collecting $200... Overtaking semi-trailers on hills becomes so addictive after a while that it becomes all too easy to forget about those pesky 'radar used in this area' signs.
Anyhoo, I dragged my sorry ass through the door to find a cheery Irishman in my kitchen. What's that, a gig at the Annandale? Garage rock is just what I need! And so after showering away three days worth of grease and travel dust and resuming my regular odour, off we plunged.
There's been murmurings of late about the continued viability of the Annandale - the lawyers seem to be growing fat off the stream of noise complaints that persistently flow down Nelson St. It wouldn't be hugely surprising if it went the way of the Hopetoun sometime in the near future, which would make it the largest scalp to be claimed by the city's culturally inflexible residents. Ten years time: Sorry? Live music? And what might that be?
Not that such concerns seem to be bothering the management of course who are pushing ahead with another round of hefty renovations that look set to open out the venue considerably, through the addition of a new entrance on Parramatta Rd and an expansion of the outdoor seating area out the back. All to the good.
In the meantime though it's the same dense, occasionally claustrophobic hellhole*, and so perfectly suited to a civilised evening of garage rock. Touring Texans Thee Oh Sees revved things up suitably with a noise injection somewhat in the vein of the Black Lips. Although nowhere near as experimental as fellow-lone-star-staters White Denim or even the joyfully slap-dash Times New Viking, the OCs generated some solid energy, only dissipating somewhat towards the end with some proggy inflections that began to outstay their welcome.
After some entertaining shadow puppetry on the requisite pull-down cinema screen from the folks up the front - silhouettes of various well-loved farm animals such as ducks, dogs and cows were popular as well as of course the Bill Clinton - Melbournites the Eddy Current Suppression Ring got stuck into it. Unlike approximately 90% of the crowd I hadn't had the pleasure before and so was gratified to find that, despite some pretty dreadful decisions being made on the mixing desk, they kick some serious buttock.
The main draw card of course is former vinyl factory work experience boy Brendan Suppression's convulsive vocals. He's mad as a cut snake but then so was the entire front of the crowd - it's been a while since I've seen actual crowd surfing**. Suppression worked past the aforementioned issues with the vocal mix however, maintaining an intense rapport with part time Dave Hughes impersonator Eddy Current, the pair of them winding each other up to ever more spastic eruptions.
Or at least I thought so, being subsequently told that compared to previous gigs the band seemed to be running on about three-quarter capacity. Perhaps it was just the niggling sound issues - it was certainly bloody difficult to make out what Suppression was babbling about half the time, particularly the semi-spoken word declamations delivered from atop the bar - but the band did seem to be having some difficulty in busting things up a notch. Who knows. Perhaps they traveled from the garden state on the blacktop.
Random things to pass the time: Latest pitchfork rubber stamped uber-group; Sufjan Stevens musing on the existential absurdity of doing anything let alone making music. Heh; Ali Smith's The Accidental - I love books that force you to have an opinion.
* I have yet to see a bathroom more disgusting than the men's room at the Annandale, and that includes the dungeon beneath the biker bar off Tottenham Court Road in London where I could almost *see* the hepatitis dripping off the walls.
** I particularly liked the girl who pulled off her shoe whilst in midair and promptly began beating the bloke beneath her with it who had apparently stuck his finger where he shouldn't.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Number 9, Number 9, Number 9
Animation has developed in leaps and bounds since the advent of CG. It was the release of Pixar’s Toy Story back in 1995 that marked the dawn of the new era however, a combination of revolutionary visuals, memorable characters, and a warm, witty and wise script laced with a profoundly humanist subtext (it’s there! really!) resulting in one of the best films of all time*.
Since then of course, very little has reached or even tried to reach similar heights of storytelling magic, the only films coming close being Toy Story II (funnily enough), as well as other Pixar efforts such as Finding Nemo or the magnificent WALL-E. Rival studios such as Dreamworks have achieved reasonable commercial success with flicks like Shrek, but these have generally lacked comparable depth.
9 began life as a short-film created by Shane Acker, one of the CG wizards brought in to work on The Return of the King, and has since been expanded into a feature-length animation with the aid of Tim Burton who receives a production credit for his efforts.
At some point in the future, man has been brought to extinction by all-powerful machines of his own invention – kind of a la Terminator but with a smattering of The War of the Worlds thrown in for good measure.
Into this nightmarish post-apocalyptic landscape awakes 9 (Elijah Wood), a small Pinocchio-esque doll about six inches tall, made of hessian and hand-carved wood with a zipper conveniently running down his middle. Nearby lies the body of a white-haired scientific sort, presumably the genius who managed to animate (haw haw) him, as well as a small amulet covered in mysterious markings.
Venturing into the blasted outside world, he soon meets cheery old-timer 2 (Martin Landau), kindly one-eyed 5 (John C Reilly), action woman 7 (Jennifer Connelly), and the devious 1 (Christopher Plummer, whose animated alter-ego bears a striking resemblance to his gaunt features, as it did in Pixar’s wonderful Up!). Although they’ve polished off humanity, the machines aren’t resting on their laurels however, and soon turn their attention to the above-mentioned dolls.**
Although the animation is generally excellent, the attention to detail does not quite come up to Pixar’s high standards – for example, one is unable to discern the individual fibres of hessian that make up our hero’s body – a challenge that Pixar overcame back with Monster’s Inc. What sets 9 apart however is its darkly unusual setting, the dolls vs machines setup proving to be a remarkably fresh twist on an otherwise tired scenario, with technology in its various forms battling over the earth's depleted reserves of life.
However this isn’t enough to make up for an incredibly cliché-ridden script. The story feels stripped to its skeleton, the bare bones of its archetypal plot acting as an adequate frame over which to stretch the film’s visual skin, but without breathing much in the way of soul into the proceedings. This isn’t helped by the seemingly endless chase sequences which merely succeed in exhausting one’s attention, rather than gripping it. Sadly, despite its beautiful wrapping, 9 ultimately feels hollow, like a doll lifelessly lying on the workbench.
Distractions from the heat: Next weekend - huzzah! New White Denim album Fits now out at a store near you! This recipe. Its the shit.
* as good as Citizen Kane and Casablanca? Yes, absolutely!
** duh duh DUUUUUHHHH!!!!
Since then of course, very little has reached or even tried to reach similar heights of storytelling magic, the only films coming close being Toy Story II (funnily enough), as well as other Pixar efforts such as Finding Nemo or the magnificent WALL-E. Rival studios such as Dreamworks have achieved reasonable commercial success with flicks like Shrek, but these have generally lacked comparable depth.
9 began life as a short-film created by Shane Acker, one of the CG wizards brought in to work on The Return of the King, and has since been expanded into a feature-length animation with the aid of Tim Burton who receives a production credit for his efforts.
At some point in the future, man has been brought to extinction by all-powerful machines of his own invention – kind of a la Terminator but with a smattering of The War of the Worlds thrown in for good measure.
Into this nightmarish post-apocalyptic landscape awakes 9 (Elijah Wood), a small Pinocchio-esque doll about six inches tall, made of hessian and hand-carved wood with a zipper conveniently running down his middle. Nearby lies the body of a white-haired scientific sort, presumably the genius who managed to animate (haw haw) him, as well as a small amulet covered in mysterious markings.
Venturing into the blasted outside world, he soon meets cheery old-timer 2 (Martin Landau), kindly one-eyed 5 (John C Reilly), action woman 7 (Jennifer Connelly), and the devious 1 (Christopher Plummer, whose animated alter-ego bears a striking resemblance to his gaunt features, as it did in Pixar’s wonderful Up!). Although they’ve polished off humanity, the machines aren’t resting on their laurels however, and soon turn their attention to the above-mentioned dolls.**
Although the animation is generally excellent, the attention to detail does not quite come up to Pixar’s high standards – for example, one is unable to discern the individual fibres of hessian that make up our hero’s body – a challenge that Pixar overcame back with Monster’s Inc. What sets 9 apart however is its darkly unusual setting, the dolls vs machines setup proving to be a remarkably fresh twist on an otherwise tired scenario, with technology in its various forms battling over the earth's depleted reserves of life.
However this isn’t enough to make up for an incredibly cliché-ridden script. The story feels stripped to its skeleton, the bare bones of its archetypal plot acting as an adequate frame over which to stretch the film’s visual skin, but without breathing much in the way of soul into the proceedings. This isn’t helped by the seemingly endless chase sequences which merely succeed in exhausting one’s attention, rather than gripping it. Sadly, despite its beautiful wrapping, 9 ultimately feels hollow, like a doll lifelessly lying on the workbench.
Distractions from the heat: Next weekend - huzzah! New White Denim album Fits now out at a store near you! This recipe. Its the shit.
* as good as Citizen Kane and Casablanca? Yes, absolutely!
** duh duh DUUUUUHHHH!!!!
Friday, November 13, 2009
oh thank god for Auntie!
I'm up to my neck in nanowrimo at the moment - 18,000 words down, 32,000 to go. Writing a 50K word novel in November is great fun, but there's one thing that is of course even better - procrastinating. In which spirit, thank god for the ABC!
David Hare is the distinguished gentleman who wrote the screen adaptation of Bernard Schlink's novel The Reader that became the award-winning but perhaps slightly underwhelming film starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. He gave this performance quite recently as part of the events marking the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is *very funny* and should be listened to by anyone who has ever been to Berlin, wanted to go to Berlin or eaten a doughnut. Mmm... doughnuts.
Meanwhile, that time of year has rolled round when all the little journalistic sorts scamper out of their burrows, go to a big fuck-off hall, drink a moderate amount of white wine, journalists of course tending to be temperate sorts, and listen to one of their own lecture them about the state of the media. My highlight from years past was listening to John Doyle AKA Ragin' Roy Slaven* but I think that this year's effort by that lovable runaway from Wombledon Common**, Julian Morrow may have given him a run for his money. Check it out - It's important stuff.
In other news, bacon and mushroom risotto is the stuff of kings, Cormac McCarthy is a gloomy old bugger and I'd quite like to meet the man who drew this.
* I've got the recording of it floating around if anyone's interested
** And executive producer of The Chaser
David Hare is the distinguished gentleman who wrote the screen adaptation of Bernard Schlink's novel The Reader that became the award-winning but perhaps slightly underwhelming film starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. He gave this performance quite recently as part of the events marking the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is *very funny* and should be listened to by anyone who has ever been to Berlin, wanted to go to Berlin or eaten a doughnut. Mmm... doughnuts.
Meanwhile, that time of year has rolled round when all the little journalistic sorts scamper out of their burrows, go to a big fuck-off hall, drink a moderate amount of white wine, journalists of course tending to be temperate sorts, and listen to one of their own lecture them about the state of the media. My highlight from years past was listening to John Doyle AKA Ragin' Roy Slaven* but I think that this year's effort by that lovable runaway from Wombledon Common**, Julian Morrow may have given him a run for his money. Check it out - It's important stuff.
In other news, bacon and mushroom risotto is the stuff of kings, Cormac McCarthy is a gloomy old bugger and I'd quite like to meet the man who drew this.
* I've got the recording of it floating around if anyone's interested
** And executive producer of The Chaser
Monday, November 9, 2009
When in Genova, do as the Genovans do - go to the beach and smoke lotsa dope
Michael Winterbottom is one of those directors who seems to make one dud for every bright and shiny gem. I use the term 'dud' loosely of course as even his most gratuitously pointless films - I'm thinking of 9 Songs and Tristram Shandy* here - were at least self-conscious in their gratuitous pointlessness, the humble director trying to stretch the boundaries of gratuitous pointlessness to break through to whole new levels, no, glorious shining vistas of gratuitous pointlessness.
Anyhoo. My point is that when he's at the top of his game, it's usually because the film feeds into some larger socio-political narrative - hence the success of Welcome to Sarajevo, Code 46, and especially The Road to Guantanamo.
His latest, the claustrophobic family drama Genova doesn't come close to either of these extremes. Indeed it at times veers dangerously close towards being something that would normally be unthinkable in conjunction with Winterbottom's name: formulaic. Duh duh DUUUUUHHHHH.
After his wife (Hope Davis) dies in a horrific car accident, Joe (Colin Firth) decides that a year in Italy will be just the thing to help his daughters Kelly (Willa Holland) and Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) recover from the tragedy. With assistance from old flame Barbara (Catherine Keener), the family is soon settled in Genova, Joe lecturing at the university, waifish teen Kelly drawn into easy distractions of the beach, dope and bronzed male bodies, while little Mary, traumatised by her mother's death, begins to withdraw on herself, haunted by possible visitations by her mother.
There is nothing wrong with the performances here - Colin Firth effectively plays on his ruddy, fresh-faced Englishness as the buttoned down widower, while Catherine Keener gives Barbara just the right edge of desperation in her efforts to reignite things with Joe. Perla Haney-Jardine is meanwhile brilliant as the child Mary, heartbreakingly conveying the little girl's helpless entanglement in a labyrinth of guilt, grief and confusion.
Typically of Winterbottom** Genova is shot in very naturalistic manner, the handheld effect dragging the viewer along with the characters at street level. This is particularly effective in the first half of the film, the high-walled alleys in the mess of the old part of the city closing in oppressively on the two girls, the soundtrack lending such scenes a touch of menace.
As the film progresses however the tension established earlier on so successfully begins to ebb, the climax in which the grief-stricken family is drawn together falling flat in a way that doesn't quite resolve the cadence. As a naturalistic portrayal of a particularly painful period in the lives of a middle class family, Genova succeeds in a limited way - there is eventually a path out of the maze, grief and loss are eventually overcome.
The problem is that it doesn't really say that much - in comparison to his other work, there is none of the delightful post-modern gymnastics of 24 Hour Party People, nor the burning anger of his documentary work. It simply feels pointless. Not gratuitously so - just pointless.
On the upside though, at least his adaptations of The Shock Doctrine and Murder in Samarkand aren't too far off - now THOSE will be meaty. Torture? Cover ups? You betcha!
And here's some cunning diversions: This one's about drugs and hypocrisy. Mmmm... drugs; this one's about tragedy and hypocrisy; and this one's about confronting hypocrisy wherever it may lie - including that nice Mr Obama.
* Yes, I realise that gratuitous pointlessness is part of the point of Tristram Shandy. I read it, OK? Well, most of it. I just think that Winterbottom's adaptation, although incredibly courageous, merely managed to suck one into a veritable vortex of gratuitous pointlessness with the force of Sterne's humanism being to some extent lost in translation, not even the few laughs on offer being enough to save it from a blackhole of self-reflexive bullshit. Gillian Anderson was hot though - MW gets brownie points for that. Mmm...
** Not to mention folks like Loach, Leigh and Meadows. What is it about the English and social realism? Bless their dear 'earts.
Anyhoo. My point is that when he's at the top of his game, it's usually because the film feeds into some larger socio-political narrative - hence the success of Welcome to Sarajevo, Code 46, and especially The Road to Guantanamo.
His latest, the claustrophobic family drama Genova doesn't come close to either of these extremes. Indeed it at times veers dangerously close towards being something that would normally be unthinkable in conjunction with Winterbottom's name: formulaic. Duh duh DUUUUUHHHHH.
After his wife (Hope Davis) dies in a horrific car accident, Joe (Colin Firth) decides that a year in Italy will be just the thing to help his daughters Kelly (Willa Holland) and Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) recover from the tragedy. With assistance from old flame Barbara (Catherine Keener), the family is soon settled in Genova, Joe lecturing at the university, waifish teen Kelly drawn into easy distractions of the beach, dope and bronzed male bodies, while little Mary, traumatised by her mother's death, begins to withdraw on herself, haunted by possible visitations by her mother.
There is nothing wrong with the performances here - Colin Firth effectively plays on his ruddy, fresh-faced Englishness as the buttoned down widower, while Catherine Keener gives Barbara just the right edge of desperation in her efforts to reignite things with Joe. Perla Haney-Jardine is meanwhile brilliant as the child Mary, heartbreakingly conveying the little girl's helpless entanglement in a labyrinth of guilt, grief and confusion.
Typically of Winterbottom** Genova is shot in very naturalistic manner, the handheld effect dragging the viewer along with the characters at street level. This is particularly effective in the first half of the film, the high-walled alleys in the mess of the old part of the city closing in oppressively on the two girls, the soundtrack lending such scenes a touch of menace.
As the film progresses however the tension established earlier on so successfully begins to ebb, the climax in which the grief-stricken family is drawn together falling flat in a way that doesn't quite resolve the cadence. As a naturalistic portrayal of a particularly painful period in the lives of a middle class family, Genova succeeds in a limited way - there is eventually a path out of the maze, grief and loss are eventually overcome.
The problem is that it doesn't really say that much - in comparison to his other work, there is none of the delightful post-modern gymnastics of 24 Hour Party People, nor the burning anger of his documentary work. It simply feels pointless. Not gratuitously so - just pointless.
On the upside though, at least his adaptations of The Shock Doctrine and Murder in Samarkand aren't too far off - now THOSE will be meaty. Torture? Cover ups? You betcha!
And here's some cunning diversions: This one's about drugs and hypocrisy. Mmmm... drugs; this one's about tragedy and hypocrisy; and this one's about confronting hypocrisy wherever it may lie - including that nice Mr Obama.
* Yes, I realise that gratuitous pointlessness is part of the point of Tristram Shandy. I read it, OK? Well, most of it. I just think that Winterbottom's adaptation, although incredibly courageous, merely managed to suck one into a veritable vortex of gratuitous pointlessness with the force of Sterne's humanism being to some extent lost in translation, not even the few laughs on offer being enough to save it from a blackhole of self-reflexive bullshit. Gillian Anderson was hot though - MW gets brownie points for that. Mmm...
** Not to mention folks like Loach, Leigh and Meadows. What is it about the English and social realism? Bless their dear 'earts.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Those in the know Loop the Loop
My most cherished childhood TV watching experience (we all have one), was sitting with my Dad in front of the fire chuckling away at Sir Humphrey Appleby's scheming antics in Yes Minister*. Not that I actually understood any of the jokes of course - they all went completely over my head - but it exposed me to the existence of this thing called 'politics', which to my childish mind seemed as though it was generally taken much more seriously by lots of men in suits than was actually warranted.
It's a principle which has held out well of the intervening years. The BBC certainly seems to think so. In 2005 they premiered the first season of The Thick Of It, a satirical political comedy that self-consciously sought to apply the Yes Minister model to Blair's New Labour. The results were superb, creator Armando Iannucci and his crack team of writing ninjas producing scripts that combined farcical plotlines that were sadly all too believeable**, incisive and strangely affecting examinations of moral weakness, all propelled along by a script that crackled with colourful use of the language.
With In The Loop, the world of The Thick Of It has hit the big screen, Iannucci and Co. using the larger form to launch an all out attack on the confusion, false evidence, war-mongering and out-right lies that led to the US led invasion of Iraq. In a courageous but ill-advised moment of expansiveness, fretful British MP Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) tells a Radio 4 interviewer that war in the Middle East is 'unforseeable'.
He is immediately swooped upon by the PM's permanently belligerent, overbearing enforcer Malcolm Tucker (played with ferocious relish by Peter Capaldi), who blasts him for not towing the company... sorry, government's line. Things become more complicated quite quickly however after a group of visiting American officials latch onto Foster's gaffe, drawing the hapless MP into a behind the scenes Anglo-American tug of war.
Hollander is by turns hilarious and pathetic as Foster, a basically good but ineffectual man, distracted by polls, fixated on appearances and uncaring about his own constituents. In one wonderful running gag Foster is hectored by an angry council flat dweller whose garden wall is falling down, New Labour having long since reached the point of being unable to fulfil basic functions of government, let alone deliver on the lofty promises that got it elected. As Foster dithers along, indecisiveness veers into moral equivocation, before morphing into actual support for the war, the bumbling spinelessness of people like him allowing Bush and Blair to charge ahead.
Capaldi meanwhile excels as the Alaistar Campbell caricature Tucker, who dominates his every scene with volatile displays of the labour machine's ugly face, his performance combining the political wheedling of Sir Humphrey with a gutter-whore's tongue, straight from the streets of Glasgow. Mention should also go to Chris Addison as Foster's rather gormless aide Toby and James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano himself) as the practical and hardheaded anti-war US General Miller.
In The Loop goes far beyond its shared preoccupations with the BBC classic however. Sure there is a similar fascination with governmental procedure, low level nod-and-a-wink corruption, and pop cultural minitae. At the same time the film is much more completely an ensemble effort, reliant on the largely brilliant performances of a large professional cast to immerse the viewer in the culture of those 'in the know', the underlings in a political machine rolling unstoppably towards war.
The film is perhaps limited by the Iannucci's apparent inability to follow the chain of command beyond a certain level, or interrogate the liaisons between the upper echelon of the political establishment and the dominant commercial interests that ultimately drove the push for war. This is a quibble though when weighed against the searing insights that fly out of every scene. In The Loop is a powerful piece of satire - although the fact that it contains the brilliantly creative uses of swearing this side of The Wire is enough reason to see it in itself.
Happy things for happy people: The Lovetones have started work on an as yet unnamed 5th album; the trailer for new Blair Witch Project ripoff Paranormal Activity must be seen to believed. Not because it looks like it'll be any good of course, but because it's hilarious; even better is this little blast from the past.
* also high on the list was Get Smart, for which Dad would literally speed home to catch at 5.30 after he finished work. It was serious business - I think that there were times when he wished that I was the one in the Cone of Silence.
** see the MP expense account scandal that has all but obliterated the Brown government.
It's a principle which has held out well of the intervening years. The BBC certainly seems to think so. In 2005 they premiered the first season of The Thick Of It, a satirical political comedy that self-consciously sought to apply the Yes Minister model to Blair's New Labour. The results were superb, creator Armando Iannucci and his crack team of writing ninjas producing scripts that combined farcical plotlines that were sadly all too believeable**, incisive and strangely affecting examinations of moral weakness, all propelled along by a script that crackled with colourful use of the language.
With In The Loop, the world of The Thick Of It has hit the big screen, Iannucci and Co. using the larger form to launch an all out attack on the confusion, false evidence, war-mongering and out-right lies that led to the US led invasion of Iraq. In a courageous but ill-advised moment of expansiveness, fretful British MP Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) tells a Radio 4 interviewer that war in the Middle East is 'unforseeable'.
He is immediately swooped upon by the PM's permanently belligerent, overbearing enforcer Malcolm Tucker (played with ferocious relish by Peter Capaldi), who blasts him for not towing the company... sorry, government's line. Things become more complicated quite quickly however after a group of visiting American officials latch onto Foster's gaffe, drawing the hapless MP into a behind the scenes Anglo-American tug of war.
Hollander is by turns hilarious and pathetic as Foster, a basically good but ineffectual man, distracted by polls, fixated on appearances and uncaring about his own constituents. In one wonderful running gag Foster is hectored by an angry council flat dweller whose garden wall is falling down, New Labour having long since reached the point of being unable to fulfil basic functions of government, let alone deliver on the lofty promises that got it elected. As Foster dithers along, indecisiveness veers into moral equivocation, before morphing into actual support for the war, the bumbling spinelessness of people like him allowing Bush and Blair to charge ahead.
Capaldi meanwhile excels as the Alaistar Campbell caricature Tucker, who dominates his every scene with volatile displays of the labour machine's ugly face, his performance combining the political wheedling of Sir Humphrey with a gutter-whore's tongue, straight from the streets of Glasgow. Mention should also go to Chris Addison as Foster's rather gormless aide Toby and James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano himself) as the practical and hardheaded anti-war US General Miller.
In The Loop goes far beyond its shared preoccupations with the BBC classic however. Sure there is a similar fascination with governmental procedure, low level nod-and-a-wink corruption, and pop cultural minitae. At the same time the film is much more completely an ensemble effort, reliant on the largely brilliant performances of a large professional cast to immerse the viewer in the culture of those 'in the know', the underlings in a political machine rolling unstoppably towards war.
The film is perhaps limited by the Iannucci's apparent inability to follow the chain of command beyond a certain level, or interrogate the liaisons between the upper echelon of the political establishment and the dominant commercial interests that ultimately drove the push for war. This is a quibble though when weighed against the searing insights that fly out of every scene. In The Loop is a powerful piece of satire - although the fact that it contains the brilliantly creative uses of swearing this side of The Wire is enough reason to see it in itself.
Happy things for happy people: The Lovetones have started work on an as yet unnamed 5th album; the trailer for new Blair Witch Project ripoff Paranormal Activity must be seen to believed. Not because it looks like it'll be any good of course, but because it's hilarious; even better is this little blast from the past.
* also high on the list was Get Smart, for which Dad would literally speed home to catch at 5.30 after he finished work. It was serious business - I think that there were times when he wished that I was the one in the Cone of Silence.
** see the MP expense account scandal that has all but obliterated the Brown government.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Happy Thoughts with Atlas Sound
Around this time last year on a rather bleak autumn night, I was sent along to an unrenovated dance hall above a gently mouldering pub quite close to Kentish Town tube station to check out what was then the latest in the never ending succession of groups to bear the title ‘emerging American rock band’. The venue was awful, all elbows and spilt Carling; the band was Deerhunter and was sublime.
Since then I’ve had a bit of a fixation on Bradford Cox, the band's inimitable frontman. On the above mentioned night he was a riveting presence, obsessively fiddling with his amp and telling an amusing story about how he didn’t meet Lou Reed*, in between ripping the utter shit out of his guitar. It was fun. Which is what rock music should be.
Not long after that I discovered that Cox had this whole other project happening by the name of Atlas Sound**. Wistful, ghostly and disaffected electronica-hued pop probably sums it up. Oh, and deeply catchy, though more in a ‘gets under your skin without you really realising it’ than a ‘I can’t get this freaking song outta my head’ sort of way.
I liked, but wasn’t blown away by Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, his elaborately titled solo debut – it possesses a kind of quiet, rambling, pent-up angst, like a child locked in a large empty house on a rainy day, suggesting a richly detailed but closely guarded interior universe. It’s a difficult album to love, its insularity acting to repel the casual listener; similarly it’s hard to grow tired of, its many small joys emerging with repeated listens.
So anyway, Atlas Sound has a new album. It’s called Logos. Whether this is in ironic reference to the late Jacques Derrida’s rippingly fun demolition of the foundations of western thought is open for debate. What is certain is that it is something quite special indeed. It’s a pop record. While not exactly sunny, it’s certainly more expansive and generous than Cox’s previous effort****, and even includes a couple of collaborative efforts with other nice people.
Anxiety is still the order of the day however, Cox being more interested in creating a certain ambiance and mood than expressing his dissatisfaction more directly. Take opener The Light That Failed for instance, its gentle murmurings conjuring a golden sunset framing waves lapping at a quiet shore, an image tinged with disquiet. An Orchid, which immediately follows is a masterful exercise of evocation, Cox’s breathily indistinct vocals echoing blurrily over a whimsical little pop song laced with despondency, a model used on such subsequent tracks as Criminals and My Halo.
It is perhaps unsurprising in this context that the most interesting and invigorating material on the album comes in the form of the two tracks written in partnership with Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear of Animal Collective and Laeticia Sadier of Stereolab, Cox rising to the challenge of working with people intent on dragging him out of himself.
Walkabout, the track with Lennox is a jaunty ditty, the pair’s morning-after blood-shot chant being punctuated by the occasional eruption of kaleidoscopic electric euphoria that is Lennox’ specialty. In fact, it could almost be called *gasp* optimistic. Such could also be said of Sheila, which leapfrogs over its burdensome verse (‘no one wants to die alone’) with a heady and insanely catchy chorus (‘we’ll die alone, together’). Ok, so maybe optimistic is the wrong word.
By contrast Sadier’s contribution, Quick Canal, is a very different beast to the rest, synths tracing lazy arcs over a driving beat that unstoppably propels things forward for nearly nine minutes. Meanwhile Sadier’s beatific voice issues forth with disappointed reproach against a figure who’s ‘wasting his life’, perhaps pandering to Cox’s self-flagellating, masochistic, confess-uncomfortably-intimate-details-in-public streak, but in context functioning as a breath of fresh, external air.
Which is not to say that Logos is stuffy. On the contrary, it's the work of an extremely talented individual who is only just beginning to stretch his creative wings. Who knows, next time he might fly right out the window and take off into the clouds.
Stuff to do when it's raining: Cox's emaciated frame adorning the cover of the album couldn't help but remind me of Rubber Johnny. Sorry Brad; Giggle your way through A Case of Exploding Mangoes; read things such as this. I do not envy that nice Mr Obama one little bit.
* he was buying a book about Lou Reed at the time, thus missing his chance to make the acquaintance of the genuine article. Poor bugger.
** the man’s blog is well worth checking out, his cheerful proclamations on the state of music usually being insightful, controversial and amusing.
*** he regularly make available Atlas Sound singles free to download, also compiling ‘Micromixes’ which are quite wonderfully packaged little mixtapes of eclectic goodies.
**** or at least displays expansive and generous tendencies.
Since then I’ve had a bit of a fixation on Bradford Cox, the band's inimitable frontman. On the above mentioned night he was a riveting presence, obsessively fiddling with his amp and telling an amusing story about how he didn’t meet Lou Reed*, in between ripping the utter shit out of his guitar. It was fun. Which is what rock music should be.
Not long after that I discovered that Cox had this whole other project happening by the name of Atlas Sound**. Wistful, ghostly and disaffected electronica-hued pop probably sums it up. Oh, and deeply catchy, though more in a ‘gets under your skin without you really realising it’ than a ‘I can’t get this freaking song outta my head’ sort of way.
I liked, but wasn’t blown away by Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, his elaborately titled solo debut – it possesses a kind of quiet, rambling, pent-up angst, like a child locked in a large empty house on a rainy day, suggesting a richly detailed but closely guarded interior universe. It’s a difficult album to love, its insularity acting to repel the casual listener; similarly it’s hard to grow tired of, its many small joys emerging with repeated listens.
So anyway, Atlas Sound has a new album. It’s called Logos. Whether this is in ironic reference to the late Jacques Derrida’s rippingly fun demolition of the foundations of western thought is open for debate. What is certain is that it is something quite special indeed. It’s a pop record. While not exactly sunny, it’s certainly more expansive and generous than Cox’s previous effort****, and even includes a couple of collaborative efforts with other nice people.
Anxiety is still the order of the day however, Cox being more interested in creating a certain ambiance and mood than expressing his dissatisfaction more directly. Take opener The Light That Failed for instance, its gentle murmurings conjuring a golden sunset framing waves lapping at a quiet shore, an image tinged with disquiet. An Orchid, which immediately follows is a masterful exercise of evocation, Cox’s breathily indistinct vocals echoing blurrily over a whimsical little pop song laced with despondency, a model used on such subsequent tracks as Criminals and My Halo.
It is perhaps unsurprising in this context that the most interesting and invigorating material on the album comes in the form of the two tracks written in partnership with Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear of Animal Collective and Laeticia Sadier of Stereolab, Cox rising to the challenge of working with people intent on dragging him out of himself.
Walkabout, the track with Lennox is a jaunty ditty, the pair’s morning-after blood-shot chant being punctuated by the occasional eruption of kaleidoscopic electric euphoria that is Lennox’ specialty. In fact, it could almost be called *gasp* optimistic. Such could also be said of Sheila, which leapfrogs over its burdensome verse (‘no one wants to die alone’) with a heady and insanely catchy chorus (‘we’ll die alone, together’). Ok, so maybe optimistic is the wrong word.
By contrast Sadier’s contribution, Quick Canal, is a very different beast to the rest, synths tracing lazy arcs over a driving beat that unstoppably propels things forward for nearly nine minutes. Meanwhile Sadier’s beatific voice issues forth with disappointed reproach against a figure who’s ‘wasting his life’, perhaps pandering to Cox’s self-flagellating, masochistic, confess-uncomfortably-intimate-details-in-public streak, but in context functioning as a breath of fresh, external air.
Which is not to say that Logos is stuffy. On the contrary, it's the work of an extremely talented individual who is only just beginning to stretch his creative wings. Who knows, next time he might fly right out the window and take off into the clouds.
Stuff to do when it's raining: Cox's emaciated frame adorning the cover of the album couldn't help but remind me of Rubber Johnny. Sorry Brad; Giggle your way through A Case of Exploding Mangoes; read things such as this. I do not envy that nice Mr Obama one little bit.
* he was buying a book about Lou Reed at the time, thus missing his chance to make the acquaintance of the genuine article. Poor bugger.
** the man’s blog is well worth checking out, his cheerful proclamations on the state of music usually being insightful, controversial and amusing.
*** he regularly make available Atlas Sound singles free to download, also compiling ‘Micromixes’ which are quite wonderfully packaged little mixtapes of eclectic goodies.
**** or at least displays expansive and generous tendencies.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Lunar escapades
It must run in the family. Astrophilia that is. As most people who've bothered to google it have by now realised, 'Duncan Jones', although being the gentleman's legal name, is not in fact the one by which he is most well known*. That of course is Zowie Bowie**. His dear Papa went through his own star-gazing phase, a period in which he produced what is generally recognised as his strongest and most memorable music, so it's not necessarily any bad thing for the son to have launched himself*** by looking skywards.
Jones' directorial debut is the lo-fi sci-fi slow-burn zinger Moon. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is the sole inhabitant of a large lunar base established some years in the future after a powerful fuel is discovered in refined moon rock, thus 'solving' civilisation's addiction to cheap energy. Hurrah!
As the operation is almost completely mechanised, Bell leads a quiet life, finishing up his three year contract with Lunar Corp tending to his pot plants, whittling wood, watching recorded messages from his wife back on Earth or chatting to the base computer Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), only occasionally being called upon when there's a hitch with the machinery. As he enters the final two weeks of his tenure however, poor old Sam begins to feel a bit peculiar and things start to go awry. Could he be going loony?****
Jones is quite happy to invoke the great cliches of space-bound sci-fi - creepy chicks that may or may not be hallucinations for example, or empty gung-ho rhetoric ('rock 'n roll and God Bless America!'), or an apparently benign omnipresent computer that possibly harbours nefarious directives - only for them to be subverted after the core event of the story occurs and the plot kicks into gear. For this he should be bought a nice bottle of wine and clapped heartily on the back.
Although the film is hampered by a number of niggling inconsistencies in its premise - that its lunar setting seems to have been chosen for its metaphorical and cultural resonances rather than for its believability for instance - these are minor when balanced against the extent of Jones' achievement.
Like the heavenly body for which it is named, Moon unfolds with unhurried poise, its myriad secrets calmly revealed one by one. Unlike so many movies that bear the tag 'sci-fi', the film follows its central problem through to its logical conclusion without resorting to fantasy or excessive action sequences to resolve or obscure the knotty questions raised. Sam Rockwell meanwhile gives a superb performance as the hapless Bell, anchoring the film in his complex emotional reality. Moon is a fantastic piece of cinema and because of its awesomeness should be seen by everyone.
Things of interest: Toy Story 3 - in JUNE NEXT YEAR! *sits on hands*; Reading Remembering Babylon for the first time; Baked Greek sausages. Yum.
* not that he's been particularly well-known up until this point by, well... anyone.
** check out the family resemblance - it's all in the teeth
*** ba dum ching
**** ba dum dum ching
Jones' directorial debut is the lo-fi sci-fi slow-burn zinger Moon. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is the sole inhabitant of a large lunar base established some years in the future after a powerful fuel is discovered in refined moon rock, thus 'solving' civilisation's addiction to cheap energy. Hurrah!
As the operation is almost completely mechanised, Bell leads a quiet life, finishing up his three year contract with Lunar Corp tending to his pot plants, whittling wood, watching recorded messages from his wife back on Earth or chatting to the base computer Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), only occasionally being called upon when there's a hitch with the machinery. As he enters the final two weeks of his tenure however, poor old Sam begins to feel a bit peculiar and things start to go awry. Could he be going loony?****
Jones is quite happy to invoke the great cliches of space-bound sci-fi - creepy chicks that may or may not be hallucinations for example, or empty gung-ho rhetoric ('rock 'n roll and God Bless America!'), or an apparently benign omnipresent computer that possibly harbours nefarious directives - only for them to be subverted after the core event of the story occurs and the plot kicks into gear. For this he should be bought a nice bottle of wine and clapped heartily on the back.
Although the film is hampered by a number of niggling inconsistencies in its premise - that its lunar setting seems to have been chosen for its metaphorical and cultural resonances rather than for its believability for instance - these are minor when balanced against the extent of Jones' achievement.
Like the heavenly body for which it is named, Moon unfolds with unhurried poise, its myriad secrets calmly revealed one by one. Unlike so many movies that bear the tag 'sci-fi', the film follows its central problem through to its logical conclusion without resorting to fantasy or excessive action sequences to resolve or obscure the knotty questions raised. Sam Rockwell meanwhile gives a superb performance as the hapless Bell, anchoring the film in his complex emotional reality. Moon is a fantastic piece of cinema and because of its awesomeness should be seen by everyone.
Things of interest: Toy Story 3 - in JUNE NEXT YEAR! *sits on hands*; Reading Remembering Babylon for the first time; Baked Greek sausages. Yum.
* not that he's been particularly well-known up until this point by, well... anyone.
** check out the family resemblance - it's all in the teeth
*** ba dum ching
**** ba dum dum ching
Friday, October 16, 2009
unemployment is capitalism's way of making you plant a garden
I never saw Sicko, Michael Moore’s apparently excoriating piece on the American health care system. In one sense I haven’t needed to, what with not being a sick American and so forth – it’s not immediately relevant to my life, so who cares*? I was also tentative because since Bowling for Columbine, I’ve become more and more disenchanted with Moore’s populist style of documentary, with its simplistic glosses and emotionally manipulative sentimentality.
In one sense I can’t really blame him for this – after all he’s actively attempting to influence American political life, and the only way to do that these days it seems (unless you’re Barack Obama of course) is to couch the message in a form that the television addicted masses might understand**. At the same time I find his condescension grating, his ‘everyman’ persona disingenuous and am irritated by the gaping holes left unacknowledged in his arguments. He may be diametrically opposed to Rush Limbaugh, but that just makes him sane, not a latter day left-wing prophet.
Don’t tell him that though. His new film, Capitalism: A Love Story (brilliant title by the way there Mike), sees the erstwhile documentarian taking on the entire American financial establishment and the system which has allowed it to achieve international power***. His argument is simple: Capitalism has produced in America totalitarian conditions. Rather than functioning to guarantee individual freedom, it has instead succeeded in oppressing the vast majority of people.
This is hardly a new insight, but the film does provide an extensive catalogue of some of the more grotesque injustices that the American financial system has produced in recent times. Take a visit with the aptly named Condo Vultures for example, a company that accesses bank databases for lists of foreclosed homes, before buying them up and reselling them at a profit. As the superbly cynical smooth-talking rep says, ‘it’s all about taking right now.’
Similarly, Moore chats with the families of deceased employees of large companies such as Walmart, who secretly take out life insurance policies – charmingly dubbed ‘Dead Peasant’ policies – on their entire workforce. The odds are that in any given year a sufficient percentage will cark it, thus guaranteeing a return – the fact that such a scheme is not illegal in a supposedly first world country beggars the mind.
And so it goes, Moore using period ads, movies, public announcements, and news reels to selectively trace the history of American capitalism since the Second World War. From the birth of the middle class in the neatly ordered consumerism of the 50s, he quickly moves to the alliance between corporate and banking interests, the evangelical right and the conservative political establishment under Reagan. Ronnie is presented (quite reasonably I might add) as an empty-headed puppet, with the dismantling of American manufacturing and industry undertaken by people such as Don Regan, former CEO of Merrill Lynch and Reagan’s Treasury Secretary, later Chief of Staff, as a means of and maximising profits within the corporate sector by breaking the unions and utilising cheap labour in the developing world.
From here, Moore leap-frogs over Bush I & Clinton, to land slap bang in Dubya’s first term and the ‘greatest wave of white collar crime in American History’ over which he presided, culminating in the sub-prime mortgage bonanza and the Global Financial Crisis of last year. This is where the meat of the film lies, in the shots of boarded up homes, the tears of those whose houses have been repossessed, the testimony of pilots forced to live off food stamps and credit cards to supplement their meagre salaries, the horror stories of teenagers sentenced en masse to privatised juvenile penitentiaries for minor misdemeanours, the tragedy of several generations of graduates, the nation’s intellectual capital, migrating from the best universities in America to self-consciously destructive professions in the ‘insane casino’ of the financial sector and the corruption of the federal regulatory bodies that made it all possible.
Into this volatile situation the bailout plan for the GFC put forward by Treasury Secretary Paulson (former CEO of banking giant Goldman Sachs) in Moore’s reasoning was little more than an old school grift, a con-job on a scale that lends weight to his description of it as constituting a ‘financial coup d’état.’
Again, this is not revolutionary stuff. Then again, what is bleedingly obvious to some can be difficult to see for many. The film’s strength is in Moore’s adeptness at caging his arguments in entertaining and inventive ways, his use of easily relatable references to popular culture, and his ability to elicit undeniably moving stories and statements from his interviewees.
The flipside to this of course is that he often simplifies complex ideas to the extent that it could reasonably be called ‘dumbing down’ while his style of narration and penchant for lingering on tears betrays his distasteful fondness for emotional manipulation and soppiness, as does his insistence on including the occasional rather lame stunt.
The real question is really whether all this makes the film more effective in raising people’s political awareness, or whether Moore is somehow acting in bad faith towards his audience, be it conscious or not. His ability to produce eminently quotable grand pronouncements – ‘capitalism is an evil and you cannot regulate evil’ – ultimately smacks of impotence, while his uncritical acceptance of Obama – at a time when Obama’s slavish adherence to the principle of bi-partisanship is slowly suffocating the chance for genuine reform of the American health care system – further diminishes his opinion’s currency.
And now that that's out of the way: Go and see Capitalism: A Love Story!! In spite of its numerous defects, it is a strident indictment of American capitalism and by extension the global financial system – and that effects everyone.
Hip happenings for a Friday Night: the return of the Flaming Lips; Cooper's Red; A walk along the harbour of a warm, windy evening.
* Actually, the state of the American health care system is vastly important to many more lives than those directly affected by it at the moment. Obama’s ability or otherwise to pass a reform bill with some measure of muscle on it, as he is currently attempting to, will establish the tenor for the rest of his first term and shape his chances of achieving subsequent reforms in other areas of global significance such as Climate Change. For a fair summation of the stakes involved in the health care debate that is currently raging in the States, check out Keith Olbermann in this episode of Countdown.
** Please note the irony – I think that the American public is far too often measured by its lowest common denominators by people on all sides of politics, both explicitly and by implication.
*** Sorry, ‘hegemony’.
In one sense I can’t really blame him for this – after all he’s actively attempting to influence American political life, and the only way to do that these days it seems (unless you’re Barack Obama of course) is to couch the message in a form that the television addicted masses might understand**. At the same time I find his condescension grating, his ‘everyman’ persona disingenuous and am irritated by the gaping holes left unacknowledged in his arguments. He may be diametrically opposed to Rush Limbaugh, but that just makes him sane, not a latter day left-wing prophet.
Don’t tell him that though. His new film, Capitalism: A Love Story (brilliant title by the way there Mike), sees the erstwhile documentarian taking on the entire American financial establishment and the system which has allowed it to achieve international power***. His argument is simple: Capitalism has produced in America totalitarian conditions. Rather than functioning to guarantee individual freedom, it has instead succeeded in oppressing the vast majority of people.
This is hardly a new insight, but the film does provide an extensive catalogue of some of the more grotesque injustices that the American financial system has produced in recent times. Take a visit with the aptly named Condo Vultures for example, a company that accesses bank databases for lists of foreclosed homes, before buying them up and reselling them at a profit. As the superbly cynical smooth-talking rep says, ‘it’s all about taking right now.’
Similarly, Moore chats with the families of deceased employees of large companies such as Walmart, who secretly take out life insurance policies – charmingly dubbed ‘Dead Peasant’ policies – on their entire workforce. The odds are that in any given year a sufficient percentage will cark it, thus guaranteeing a return – the fact that such a scheme is not illegal in a supposedly first world country beggars the mind.
And so it goes, Moore using period ads, movies, public announcements, and news reels to selectively trace the history of American capitalism since the Second World War. From the birth of the middle class in the neatly ordered consumerism of the 50s, he quickly moves to the alliance between corporate and banking interests, the evangelical right and the conservative political establishment under Reagan. Ronnie is presented (quite reasonably I might add) as an empty-headed puppet, with the dismantling of American manufacturing and industry undertaken by people such as Don Regan, former CEO of Merrill Lynch and Reagan’s Treasury Secretary, later Chief of Staff, as a means of and maximising profits within the corporate sector by breaking the unions and utilising cheap labour in the developing world.
From here, Moore leap-frogs over Bush I & Clinton, to land slap bang in Dubya’s first term and the ‘greatest wave of white collar crime in American History’ over which he presided, culminating in the sub-prime mortgage bonanza and the Global Financial Crisis of last year. This is where the meat of the film lies, in the shots of boarded up homes, the tears of those whose houses have been repossessed, the testimony of pilots forced to live off food stamps and credit cards to supplement their meagre salaries, the horror stories of teenagers sentenced en masse to privatised juvenile penitentiaries for minor misdemeanours, the tragedy of several generations of graduates, the nation’s intellectual capital, migrating from the best universities in America to self-consciously destructive professions in the ‘insane casino’ of the financial sector and the corruption of the federal regulatory bodies that made it all possible.
Into this volatile situation the bailout plan for the GFC put forward by Treasury Secretary Paulson (former CEO of banking giant Goldman Sachs) in Moore’s reasoning was little more than an old school grift, a con-job on a scale that lends weight to his description of it as constituting a ‘financial coup d’état.’
Again, this is not revolutionary stuff. Then again, what is bleedingly obvious to some can be difficult to see for many. The film’s strength is in Moore’s adeptness at caging his arguments in entertaining and inventive ways, his use of easily relatable references to popular culture, and his ability to elicit undeniably moving stories and statements from his interviewees.
The flipside to this of course is that he often simplifies complex ideas to the extent that it could reasonably be called ‘dumbing down’ while his style of narration and penchant for lingering on tears betrays his distasteful fondness for emotional manipulation and soppiness, as does his insistence on including the occasional rather lame stunt.
The real question is really whether all this makes the film more effective in raising people’s political awareness, or whether Moore is somehow acting in bad faith towards his audience, be it conscious or not. His ability to produce eminently quotable grand pronouncements – ‘capitalism is an evil and you cannot regulate evil’ – ultimately smacks of impotence, while his uncritical acceptance of Obama – at a time when Obama’s slavish adherence to the principle of bi-partisanship is slowly suffocating the chance for genuine reform of the American health care system – further diminishes his opinion’s currency.
And now that that's out of the way: Go and see Capitalism: A Love Story!! In spite of its numerous defects, it is a strident indictment of American capitalism and by extension the global financial system – and that effects everyone.
Hip happenings for a Friday Night: the return of the Flaming Lips; Cooper's Red; A walk along the harbour of a warm, windy evening.
* Actually, the state of the American health care system is vastly important to many more lives than those directly affected by it at the moment. Obama’s ability or otherwise to pass a reform bill with some measure of muscle on it, as he is currently attempting to, will establish the tenor for the rest of his first term and shape his chances of achieving subsequent reforms in other areas of global significance such as Climate Change. For a fair summation of the stakes involved in the health care debate that is currently raging in the States, check out Keith Olbermann in this episode of Countdown.
** Please note the irony – I think that the American public is far too often measured by its lowest common denominators by people on all sides of politics, both explicitly and by implication.
*** Sorry, ‘hegemony’.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Fun and Games with Esoterica and Funky Gadgets
Fuck Buttons’ peculiarly titled Street Horrrsing was one of my albums of choice last year to accompany afternoons lazily wiled away in the company of a decent book and an ample supply of substances of dubious repute. This wasn’t due to its surprising freshness nor because of its sophisticated experimentation between the interplay between the duo’s electronic whiz-bangery and the hoots and hollers of Andy Fung nor even because of the mesmerising, seemingly effortless emergence of sloppy supernovas of synthesised ecstasy on tracks such as Sweet Love For Planet Earth.
Actually, it was because of all of these things. But more to the point, I liked it because for a couple of months there it became very cool to like the Fuck Buttons and when we get right down to it sometimes there’s nothing I like more than to follow the crowd.
So a year and an apparent age of touring, festivals, features, interviews and empty-headed buzz later and the FB’s have coughed up another album. This second outing may well have pushed through the barrage of hyperbole and the aura of sleek of-the-momentness to enter into some deeper layer of jungle-howling off-the-wallness. As it were. However, such was not to be, Tarot Sport being a stronger, more coherent but ultimately far less imageresting* effort.
Things start well with Surf Solar opening with barrages of exploding wind chimes breaking across the ether, a grim beat soon kicking in accompanied by an edgy, chittering motif that badgers at one like a demanding child or some obsequious guest at a party. And so it goes for the subsequent ten minutes, a synthesized theme suggesting star-bound glory fleshing things out in a manner that makes the ideal soundtrack to accompany digesting anything ever written by Peter F Hamilton.
Rough Steez is a coarser, shaggier, jowly beast – more of a break-dancing orang-utan than a pilgrimage across the stars – while The Lisbon Maru suggests greener climes, pleasant views of rolling green hills being afforded from one’s accelerating vantage point on the motor way. So far so good, each track having been ground and polished to a fine sheen. However one might suggest that the choice of stones** exhibits some lapse in ambition. Perhaps it’s the sheer euphoria of it all, the sense that the darkly unique potential previously exhibited has crumbled into some brightly glowing fantasy, irrevocably severed from anything real, to be forgotten and disposed of afterwards.
The next track, Olympians, forms the album centrepiece and is the case in point. Fung has said that it was named because ‘we thought it sounds like... the Olympics!’. This is apt, washes of warm golden consonance tracing a clear take off down an endless runway towards an all-knowing oneness. That’s the fantasy version. The hard headed version is that it is Fuck Buttons’ do Vangelis, and have thus provided Sky Sports with the perfect soundtrack to the London games.
After a diversion down into the whirring gears and pistons of Phantom Limb, another climb is sighted, this time up Space Mountain. It’s a gleeful ascent, a soaring guitar sound questing into the clouds above a dynamic mass of tinkling fairy lights far in the valley below, and makes for probably the most well-sculpted and compelling song on the album. Then with the Flight of the Feathered Serpent, Tarot Sport concludes on an extended, almost nostalgic drum-machine-fuelled glide into the distance.
It’s difficult not to discuss the album in rather imagistic descriptive terms. Unlike Street Horrrsing, it is bereft of vocals, a fact which apparently wasn’t originally planned, but which combines with the unrelenting dance-beats to lend the album an air of being mired in the machinery. I suppose that it's a matter of expectations: if one is content with being treated to invigorating constructions of ecstatic visions, to the point of becoming lost in a greened-out dream-world, then this is it.
Fun ways to wile away the evening hours: Samarkand by Amin Maalouf, looking at disturbingly vivid colour photographs of Nazi Germany, Mr Pickwick's Camera by Cuthbert and the Night Walkers
* imageresting: a slightly pat compound word formed by jamming 'imaginative' and 'interesting' together as hard as possible
** in this metaphor the Fuck Buttons are wizened old gemologists, hunched laboriously over a glittering array of precious stones
Actually, it was because of all of these things. But more to the point, I liked it because for a couple of months there it became very cool to like the Fuck Buttons and when we get right down to it sometimes there’s nothing I like more than to follow the crowd.
So a year and an apparent age of touring, festivals, features, interviews and empty-headed buzz later and the FB’s have coughed up another album. This second outing may well have pushed through the barrage of hyperbole and the aura of sleek of-the-momentness to enter into some deeper layer of jungle-howling off-the-wallness. As it were. However, such was not to be, Tarot Sport being a stronger, more coherent but ultimately far less imageresting* effort.
Things start well with Surf Solar opening with barrages of exploding wind chimes breaking across the ether, a grim beat soon kicking in accompanied by an edgy, chittering motif that badgers at one like a demanding child or some obsequious guest at a party. And so it goes for the subsequent ten minutes, a synthesized theme suggesting star-bound glory fleshing things out in a manner that makes the ideal soundtrack to accompany digesting anything ever written by Peter F Hamilton.
Rough Steez is a coarser, shaggier, jowly beast – more of a break-dancing orang-utan than a pilgrimage across the stars – while The Lisbon Maru suggests greener climes, pleasant views of rolling green hills being afforded from one’s accelerating vantage point on the motor way. So far so good, each track having been ground and polished to a fine sheen. However one might suggest that the choice of stones** exhibits some lapse in ambition. Perhaps it’s the sheer euphoria of it all, the sense that the darkly unique potential previously exhibited has crumbled into some brightly glowing fantasy, irrevocably severed from anything real, to be forgotten and disposed of afterwards.
The next track, Olympians, forms the album centrepiece and is the case in point. Fung has said that it was named because ‘we thought it sounds like... the Olympics!’. This is apt, washes of warm golden consonance tracing a clear take off down an endless runway towards an all-knowing oneness. That’s the fantasy version. The hard headed version is that it is Fuck Buttons’ do Vangelis, and have thus provided Sky Sports with the perfect soundtrack to the London games.
After a diversion down into the whirring gears and pistons of Phantom Limb, another climb is sighted, this time up Space Mountain. It’s a gleeful ascent, a soaring guitar sound questing into the clouds above a dynamic mass of tinkling fairy lights far in the valley below, and makes for probably the most well-sculpted and compelling song on the album. Then with the Flight of the Feathered Serpent, Tarot Sport concludes on an extended, almost nostalgic drum-machine-fuelled glide into the distance.
It’s difficult not to discuss the album in rather imagistic descriptive terms. Unlike Street Horrrsing, it is bereft of vocals, a fact which apparently wasn’t originally planned, but which combines with the unrelenting dance-beats to lend the album an air of being mired in the machinery. I suppose that it's a matter of expectations: if one is content with being treated to invigorating constructions of ecstatic visions, to the point of becoming lost in a greened-out dream-world, then this is it.
Fun ways to wile away the evening hours: Samarkand by Amin Maalouf, looking at disturbingly vivid colour photographs of Nazi Germany, Mr Pickwick's Camera by Cuthbert and the Night Walkers
* imageresting: a slightly pat compound word formed by jamming 'imaginative' and 'interesting' together as hard as possible
** in this metaphor the Fuck Buttons are wizened old gemologists, hunched laboriously over a glittering array of precious stones
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
LF+EJ+GC=HHFT*
Liam Finn is a doer. ‘Precocious’ springs to mind. After three missed opportunities in the last year, I was lucky enough to hunker down amidst a sparkly crowd of bright young things with the odd douchebag thrown in for good measure (bless their dear ‘earts!), and catch him live at the Gaelic Club on Friday night. He’s an energetic bloke – other apt adjectives include: ‘chipper’, ‘zesty’ and ‘more twitchy than a sack of snakes’ – a talented songwriter and, with his trusty cohort Eliza Jane, put on a highly entertaining show. Which is unsurprising really, considering his pedigree.
Mr Finn is a man in the midst of a love affair. The object of his affections: the humble loop pedal. Having heard live recordings of the plucky lad in the past, I wasn’t hugely surprised by this, but was more than a little impressed by the skill and sophistication with which he and EJ manipulated the technology at their disposal. Seamless textures were the order of the evening, overlaid with some beautifully executed harmonisation between the pair, Gather To The Chapel being a case in point.
An epic rendition of I’ll Be Lightning was another highlight, Finn’s drumming becoming so frenetic in the song’s tail that he ‘broke the fucking loop pedal!’ – he hadn’t, but in some ways it would’ve been nice if he had. The songs are certainly strong enough to withstand the exposure of an acoustic treatment.
I understand the urge to approach things differently, especially in a scene that knows no shortage of talented male singer songwriters, and the whole ‘one-man-band’ aspect of his act is certainly an attractive one. It must certainly help cut down on tour costs not to have three other blokes in tow. On this occasion however it seemed as though the techno-gimmickry was a touch counterproductive beyond a certain point, serving to obscure the music rather than enhancing it. This was underscored by those few instances when things went wrong, including a failed attempt at audience participation, as well as the fact that the drums sounded absolutely piss-weak when looped.
Not to worry. Liam Finn is a consummate performer, his playing filled with irrepressible manic energy which is coupled a great sense of showmanship. Aside from playing around with a Theremin as well as his ‘birthday present’, a toy megaphone artlessly decorated with flashy red lights, he did a great impersonation of the sort of angry rocker who utterly destroys his guitar on stage by completely destroying his guitar on stage. Twas hilarious. Meanwhile on stage right EJ proved a quiet but effective foil to his antics. Give them another year or two and they’ll be a force to be reckoned with.
Smile raisers: rediscovering Bughouse; the possibility of Bela Fleck hitting Australian shores in the new year; riding one’s bike along Botany Bay of a Sunday afternoon. It was most splendid.
* Happy Happy Fun Times
Mr Finn is a man in the midst of a love affair. The object of his affections: the humble loop pedal. Having heard live recordings of the plucky lad in the past, I wasn’t hugely surprised by this, but was more than a little impressed by the skill and sophistication with which he and EJ manipulated the technology at their disposal. Seamless textures were the order of the evening, overlaid with some beautifully executed harmonisation between the pair, Gather To The Chapel being a case in point.
An epic rendition of I’ll Be Lightning was another highlight, Finn’s drumming becoming so frenetic in the song’s tail that he ‘broke the fucking loop pedal!’ – he hadn’t, but in some ways it would’ve been nice if he had. The songs are certainly strong enough to withstand the exposure of an acoustic treatment.
I understand the urge to approach things differently, especially in a scene that knows no shortage of talented male singer songwriters, and the whole ‘one-man-band’ aspect of his act is certainly an attractive one. It must certainly help cut down on tour costs not to have three other blokes in tow. On this occasion however it seemed as though the techno-gimmickry was a touch counterproductive beyond a certain point, serving to obscure the music rather than enhancing it. This was underscored by those few instances when things went wrong, including a failed attempt at audience participation, as well as the fact that the drums sounded absolutely piss-weak when looped.
Not to worry. Liam Finn is a consummate performer, his playing filled with irrepressible manic energy which is coupled a great sense of showmanship. Aside from playing around with a Theremin as well as his ‘birthday present’, a toy megaphone artlessly decorated with flashy red lights, he did a great impersonation of the sort of angry rocker who utterly destroys his guitar on stage by completely destroying his guitar on stage. Twas hilarious. Meanwhile on stage right EJ proved a quiet but effective foil to his antics. Give them another year or two and they’ll be a force to be reckoned with.
Smile raisers: rediscovering Bughouse; the possibility of Bela Fleck hitting Australian shores in the new year; riding one’s bike along Botany Bay of a Sunday afternoon. It was most splendid.
* Happy Happy Fun Times
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The only way is
My lungs hurt. This of course has absolutely nothing to do with various weekend indulgences and everything to do with the end of the world. Not that it's the apocalypse of course, merely a highly sophisticated conspiracy between the Australian Window Washers' Union and CarLovers. And they would have got away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids!
Ahem. My regular movie-going buddy has been in a foul mood of late, so late last week in an attempt to shake him from a burdensome glower and spite, we forwent our more regular combination of wild rides, explosions and cheerful brainlessness and treated ourselves to the new Pixar flick. Up! is a rare beast: colourful, captivating and utterly unique. Chubby, hyper-imaginative Carl and scrawney hyper-energetic Ellie dream of traveling to Paradise Falls, a forgotten valley in South America, thus emulating its discoverer, intrepid explorer Charles Muntz who vanished, never to return.
Fast forward seventy years and grouchy retiree Carl (Edward Asner), bereft after Ellie's death, shows what can be done with helium and several thousand balloons to make a final gesture of defiance towards a city whose approach to caring for the elderly is to swindle them with one hand while subjecting them to infantilising 'care' with the other, launching his hokey little house into an atmosphere noticeably free of superfine red dust and away in search of Paradise Falls. Along for the ride is Russel (Jordan Nagai), an overtalkative eight year old 'wilderness explorer' in need of some fatherly attention, an 'assisting the elderly' badge and large quantities of ritalin.
Needless to say that they reach Paradise Falls far more quickly than their unconventional mode of transport might seem to allow. While it is of course a foregone conclusion that Carl will eventually learn how to put up with hyperactive children, the film is far from predictable, the story unfolding in a series of delightful, often can't-stop-laughing-gasping-for-breath surprises, each new element being adroitly woven into the simple tale its the core. Any concerns that Pixar might have become prone to Disnification (an irreversible and grotesque process whereby one develops an overwhelming thirst for cliches, cheese and cuban children) after its 2006 merger with said company should have been laid to rest after last year's brilliant WALL-E - with Up! such thoughts have been shown to be so much hot air.
Just try not to think about how much money Steve Jobs is making off of it.
Tasty treats: The Ruminant Band by the Fruit Bats; Grim Reaper Blues by The Entrance Band; ham and cheese jaffles for afternoon tea.
Ahem. My regular movie-going buddy has been in a foul mood of late, so late last week in an attempt to shake him from a burdensome glower and spite, we forwent our more regular combination of wild rides, explosions and cheerful brainlessness and treated ourselves to the new Pixar flick. Up! is a rare beast: colourful, captivating and utterly unique. Chubby, hyper-imaginative Carl and scrawney hyper-energetic Ellie dream of traveling to Paradise Falls, a forgotten valley in South America, thus emulating its discoverer, intrepid explorer Charles Muntz who vanished, never to return.
Fast forward seventy years and grouchy retiree Carl (Edward Asner), bereft after Ellie's death, shows what can be done with helium and several thousand balloons to make a final gesture of defiance towards a city whose approach to caring for the elderly is to swindle them with one hand while subjecting them to infantilising 'care' with the other, launching his hokey little house into an atmosphere noticeably free of superfine red dust and away in search of Paradise Falls. Along for the ride is Russel (Jordan Nagai), an overtalkative eight year old 'wilderness explorer' in need of some fatherly attention, an 'assisting the elderly' badge and large quantities of ritalin.
Needless to say that they reach Paradise Falls far more quickly than their unconventional mode of transport might seem to allow. While it is of course a foregone conclusion that Carl will eventually learn how to put up with hyperactive children, the film is far from predictable, the story unfolding in a series of delightful, often can't-stop-laughing-gasping-for-breath surprises, each new element being adroitly woven into the simple tale its the core. Any concerns that Pixar might have become prone to Disnification (an irreversible and grotesque process whereby one develops an overwhelming thirst for cliches, cheese and cuban children) after its 2006 merger with said company should have been laid to rest after last year's brilliant WALL-E - with Up! such thoughts have been shown to be so much hot air.
Just try not to think about how much money Steve Jobs is making off of it.
Tasty treats: The Ruminant Band by the Fruit Bats; Grim Reaper Blues by The Entrance Band; ham and cheese jaffles for afternoon tea.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Cannibal Capers in Colonial Tassie
Van Diemen’s Land is the latest in a long series of painfully earnest, artistically spineless and ultimately pointless Australian films. It is 1823 and the isolated island colony that eventually became Tasmania is not a hugely fun place to be. Conceived by the British as a place of permanent banishment for reoffending convicts it is, as the Gaelic-speaking narrator muses, for all intents and purposes ‘the end of the world – a fine prison.’ The speaker is Alexander Pearce (played by co-writer/producer Oscar Redding), a ‘quiet man’ who, along with seven other convicts, escapes the grinding brutality of internment by fleeing into the island’s mountainous wilderness.
Meticulous attention has been paid to establishing an authentic sense of the period; the actors are all scraggily hirsute, sporting clothing stitched together from possum skins with the backs of some riven with scars from old floggings. Aside from their shared desperation, lust for freedom and longing for women the men have little in common. They quickly segment along ethnic lines, the English around presumptive leader Robert Greenhill (Arthur Angel), the Irish around Pearce and his friend, the young, hot-blooded Alexander Dalton (Mark Leonard Winter).
Although it is initially difficult to work out who’s who (not helped by the occasional dodgy accent), there are some nice establishing scenes depicting both the tension between these cliques as well as moments of camaraderie. However as conditions become more unendurable and the provisions run out, these ties prove to be all too easily broken as the groups’ hunger takes a bloody turn.
From here the plot moves with wearing inevitability towards its last-man-standing denouement. Richard Flanagan, author of arguably the most stunning fictional treatment of the early days of the Tasmanian colony, Gould’s Book of Fish, has commented that the film is ‘spare, compelling and poetic.’ Although the first and last are certainly true, the script being characterised by terse, evocative language, the film can hardly be called compelling. Violent action gives way to long, long stretches of silence, the filmmakers filling the void with shots that slowly pan across the lush wilderness that succeed only in sapping any dramatic momentum.
The film is unrelenting in its realism, first time director Jonathan auf der Heide depicting Pearce’s descent into cannibalism with unsensationalised detachment. The problem with this approach is that rather than simply providing the viewer with critical distance, the film begins to seem as though it is avoiding its own subject matter. This amounts either to a lack of artistic imagination on the filmmakers’ part, or simple squeamishness, unwilling to directly confront the questions raised by the extreme, abject acts that lie at the heart of the story. Ultimately, Van Diemen’s Land seems to be a victim of its own lofty pretensions, the filmmakers’ timidity allowing it to slide into nihilistic meaninglessness.
Local release 24th September
Things to warm the heart: Fantastic Mr Fox is imminent (hooray!); xkcd is releasing a book (hooray!); despite how it may seem at the time, hangovers DO eventually evaporate. Thank christ.
Meticulous attention has been paid to establishing an authentic sense of the period; the actors are all scraggily hirsute, sporting clothing stitched together from possum skins with the backs of some riven with scars from old floggings. Aside from their shared desperation, lust for freedom and longing for women the men have little in common. They quickly segment along ethnic lines, the English around presumptive leader Robert Greenhill (Arthur Angel), the Irish around Pearce and his friend, the young, hot-blooded Alexander Dalton (Mark Leonard Winter).
Although it is initially difficult to work out who’s who (not helped by the occasional dodgy accent), there are some nice establishing scenes depicting both the tension between these cliques as well as moments of camaraderie. However as conditions become more unendurable and the provisions run out, these ties prove to be all too easily broken as the groups’ hunger takes a bloody turn.
From here the plot moves with wearing inevitability towards its last-man-standing denouement. Richard Flanagan, author of arguably the most stunning fictional treatment of the early days of the Tasmanian colony, Gould’s Book of Fish, has commented that the film is ‘spare, compelling and poetic.’ Although the first and last are certainly true, the script being characterised by terse, evocative language, the film can hardly be called compelling. Violent action gives way to long, long stretches of silence, the filmmakers filling the void with shots that slowly pan across the lush wilderness that succeed only in sapping any dramatic momentum.
The film is unrelenting in its realism, first time director Jonathan auf der Heide depicting Pearce’s descent into cannibalism with unsensationalised detachment. The problem with this approach is that rather than simply providing the viewer with critical distance, the film begins to seem as though it is avoiding its own subject matter. This amounts either to a lack of artistic imagination on the filmmakers’ part, or simple squeamishness, unwilling to directly confront the questions raised by the extreme, abject acts that lie at the heart of the story. Ultimately, Van Diemen’s Land seems to be a victim of its own lofty pretensions, the filmmakers’ timidity allowing it to slide into nihilistic meaninglessness.
Local release 24th September
Things to warm the heart: Fantastic Mr Fox is imminent (hooray!); xkcd is releasing a book (hooray!); despite how it may seem at the time, hangovers DO eventually evaporate. Thank christ.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The Beasts be Feelin' their Oats
I've been revisiting the Dirty Three back catalogue over the last few days, Master Ellis and Co acting as, amongst other things, a highly effective sleep aid. The veteren trio's set on the final day of this year's Green Man festival in the misty climes of the Welsh countryside had, by all accounts, a touch of magic about it. Sigh.
Fortunately, I've had some tip top music around to help soothe this unaccountable yearning for ye olde land of uk. Wild Beasts to be precise, a band whose singular debut Limbo Panto emerged last year as a sharp rebuttal to those who had* grown disenchanted with the state of British rock. Although singer Hayden Thorpe’s idiosyncratic style (read: raging falsetto) turned off as many as it attracted**, everyone pretty much agreed that this was a band that held in abundance that most elusive of musical attributes: originality.
The lads seem to have benefited enormously from the intervening year of touring, riding the wave of creative energy to produce with their second album a trimmer, darker and sleeker beast. Two Dancers dispels any anxiety that Limbo may have been a simple aberration from business as usual (i.e. Muse), fizzing with creative bouyancy.
Much of the theatricality that characterised the debut has been toned down, resulting in a leaner record that benefits from a more focused sense of purpose. Which for Wild Beasts simply means that the high drama of say ‘Woeboegone Wanderers’ has been shed in favour of the clear hooks and shimmering mesh of guitars of ‘The Devil’s Crayon’.
This isn’t to say that they’ve lost their sense of humour, opener ‘The Fun Powder Plot’ setting the tone with teasingly nonchalant irony. The band’s lyrical sensibility has continued to develop in a direction that is socially aware as well as being unequivocally English – the kind of Englishness that combines pills, lads and… well, Essex, with green fields, historical references and Marmite. Take this from the stellar ‘Hooting and Howling’ for instance:
We’re just brutes bored in our bovver boots, we’re just brutes clowning round in cahoots
We’re just brutes looking for shops to loot, we’re just brutes hopin’ to have a hoot
Thorpe’s at times almost agonised cry at once expressing helplessly detached observation and intimate identification, while enjoying a sly dig at the tabloids.
It’s also a fine example of the increased danceability quotient on display this time round, thanks to the unyielding, yet strangely buoyant, propulsion provided by the watertight unit of drummer Chris Talbot, guitarist Ben Little and bassist Tom Fleming. The latter again shares vocal duties with the effervescent Thorpe, his resonant baritone providing an almost welcome respite on the charming ‘All The King’s Men’, as well as on the bleak couplet ‘Two Dancers I’ and ‘II’ that form the thematic core of the album.
The band’s theatrical side is given room to breathe on ‘Underbelly’, while the sole line of ‘When I’m Sleepy’ is inflated into a simmering, lascivious groove, complete with a guitar scrunch that mimics with surprising authenticity the sound an adult giraffe produces during the heat of coitus***.
Ahem. In summary, Two Dancers is quite grand: joyful, sober and a little bit cheeky, it bubbles with musical creativity and as such, should be listened to by everyone.
Other nice things include: 'Exposure' – Peasant; 'The Kirwan Song' – The Amazing; avocado on rye toast with salt, pepper and a dribbling of balsamic vinegar
* justly
** not unlike gorgonzola
*** do not enquire as to how I know this
Fortunately, I've had some tip top music around to help soothe this unaccountable yearning for ye olde land of uk. Wild Beasts to be precise, a band whose singular debut Limbo Panto emerged last year as a sharp rebuttal to those who had* grown disenchanted with the state of British rock. Although singer Hayden Thorpe’s idiosyncratic style (read: raging falsetto) turned off as many as it attracted**, everyone pretty much agreed that this was a band that held in abundance that most elusive of musical attributes: originality.
The lads seem to have benefited enormously from the intervening year of touring, riding the wave of creative energy to produce with their second album a trimmer, darker and sleeker beast. Two Dancers dispels any anxiety that Limbo may have been a simple aberration from business as usual (i.e. Muse), fizzing with creative bouyancy.
Much of the theatricality that characterised the debut has been toned down, resulting in a leaner record that benefits from a more focused sense of purpose. Which for Wild Beasts simply means that the high drama of say ‘Woeboegone Wanderers’ has been shed in favour of the clear hooks and shimmering mesh of guitars of ‘The Devil’s Crayon’.
This isn’t to say that they’ve lost their sense of humour, opener ‘The Fun Powder Plot’ setting the tone with teasingly nonchalant irony. The band’s lyrical sensibility has continued to develop in a direction that is socially aware as well as being unequivocally English – the kind of Englishness that combines pills, lads and… well, Essex, with green fields, historical references and Marmite. Take this from the stellar ‘Hooting and Howling’ for instance:
We’re just brutes bored in our bovver boots, we’re just brutes clowning round in cahoots
We’re just brutes looking for shops to loot, we’re just brutes hopin’ to have a hoot
Thorpe’s at times almost agonised cry at once expressing helplessly detached observation and intimate identification, while enjoying a sly dig at the tabloids.
It’s also a fine example of the increased danceability quotient on display this time round, thanks to the unyielding, yet strangely buoyant, propulsion provided by the watertight unit of drummer Chris Talbot, guitarist Ben Little and bassist Tom Fleming. The latter again shares vocal duties with the effervescent Thorpe, his resonant baritone providing an almost welcome respite on the charming ‘All The King’s Men’, as well as on the bleak couplet ‘Two Dancers I’ and ‘II’ that form the thematic core of the album.
The band’s theatrical side is given room to breathe on ‘Underbelly’, while the sole line of ‘When I’m Sleepy’ is inflated into a simmering, lascivious groove, complete with a guitar scrunch that mimics with surprising authenticity the sound an adult giraffe produces during the heat of coitus***.
Ahem. In summary, Two Dancers is quite grand: joyful, sober and a little bit cheeky, it bubbles with musical creativity and as such, should be listened to by everyone.
Other nice things include: 'Exposure' – Peasant; 'The Kirwan Song' – The Amazing; avocado on rye toast with salt, pepper and a dribbling of balsamic vinegar
* justly
** not unlike gorgonzola
*** do not enquire as to how I know this
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Up Start
Let's keep this simple and short: this is a blog about film and music. Books might get a look-in too. Who knows.
There are many others like it. Some are better than others. Some are worse. Some should never have been made.
My hope is that with time this might become one of the better ones. Fingers crossed. Here goes!
There are many others like it. Some are better than others. Some are worse. Some should never have been made.
My hope is that with time this might become one of the better ones. Fingers crossed. Here goes!
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