True confession – and not one that I’m comfortable sharing: the first time I ever found myself even barely appreciating the music of Pink Floyd was when a friend dragged me along to see the movie The Wall. Maybe I’d heard “See Emily Play” and liked that song, but I had not yet bought Relics and spent any time contemplating how much more I liked Syd Barrett-era Floyd than the stuff that The In Crowd at both my school and in my neighborhood were digging on their hi-fi systems with 5-foot high speakers and all kinds of fancy components I was still years away from owning myself. Continue reading »
Years ago, when hot artists like Madonna, Prince, and Cher were first pushing the boundaries of MTV with daring videos that incorporated the artists’ own sexuality into their art, I used to think that MTV needed to create a premium channel that would allow these artists to see through their visions to their – and our – complete edification.
Remember when Madonna was crawling cat-like across the floor in that green dress to lick milk out of a bowl? And then, as the video faded, she was sitting on a bed, her brazenly artistic nude body nearly fully revealed while some buff guy walks into the room? Smokin’! The video for that song, “Expose Yourself”, was so close to perfection.
Later, Madonna tried to push it another step further in that “Justify My Love” video with the guys writhing around in doorways wearing Danskins and the harsh chicks with riding crops. She was boldly speaking for a broader, sexually liberated audience, but there wasn’t enough of the artist herself. It was provocative, surely, but was it was a retreat from the more personal art she had previously been working toward, art that did not fear to fully expose the artist herself. Later videos, in which she sat pimped out in the back of a limo and one in which she donned Danskins herself and made like Travolta’s dance partner from Saturday Night Fever signaled a further retreat from a completely personal form of expression.
I don’t want to belabor the background here, because what I really want to talk about is the work of modern-day rapper Spank Rock, who is doing groundbreaking work in bringing his sexuality to the fore in his music, sometime to the extent of obscuring the music altogether, but Prince’s video for “Cream” was another example of an artist embedding his personal vision of sensuality as deeply as any of the grooves provided by the crack backing musicians. There were some truly expressive moments in that video, moments as essential to that song as, say, any key lick in a Beatles song.
Cher is another artist who rarely gets credit for her merging of a unique, personal sensuality with hot, rockin’ grooves. I’m not talking about her work with Sonny, in which she had to submerge her sexuality so as to limit her natural dominance over her man, but her solo work. A little-discussed running theme of her Cher’s revolves around the sort of issues French director Louis Malle explored, of innocent incestual and otherwise sexual relationships between children and their mothers. Remember that video with her wearing little but a leather jacket and thong as she paced across a ship’s deck with her son (the spawn of her and Gregg Allman) wailing on lead guitar? Better yet is the opening shots from her forgotten, X-rated, 1969 film, Chastity. The plot is pretty twisted – and hot – and right off the bat, as the opening credits roll, she parades her slender, bra-less body in front of some young boys. No joke: check out this clip and watch closely around the 7-minute mark for the acting debut of one of our Townspeople. It’s no wonder the flaxen-haired youth of the video grew up as comfortable in his skin as he is today.
I am fascinated by movies that are huge, ambitious, and completely unwatchable. But that’s not the same as enjoying seeing these movies, mind you. Most of the time, I prefer to wait for detailed descriptions show up on Wikipedia, or, better yet, Nathan Rabin’s awesome My Year of Flops column on The AV Club.
It looks like this week, the epitome of the big-budget, overwritten trainwreck genre is released. I refer, of course, to Southland Tales, writer-director Richard Kelly’s reportedly incomprehensible, multi-character follow-up to his overrated-but-interesting Donnie Darko. This is one bloody, firey mess that I know I will have to see at some point in my life. But will I actually pay money for the experience? God, no.
My question for everyone today is: What is the rock equivalent of these kinds of films? Some candidates: This year, Of Montreal released Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? a bizarre cut-and-paste electro-pop album filled with jittery melodies, meaningless song titles, and embarrassingly personal lyrics. I love it. Also, there are those first few post-Big Star solo albums from Alex Chilton, Bach’s Bottom and Like Flies on Sherbert. But those albums are shambling and deliberately underdone, not overdone. How about one of my favorite albums, Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk? Or perhaps Sandinista by The Clash? What do you think?
Townswoman Citizen Mom sends us the following review of the new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers collection, Running Down a Dream.
The booklet included in the four-disc DVD set of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream, calls them “America’s truest rock band,” and after some consideration and more than seven hours of watching and listening last weekend, I am not inclined to disagree.
Though it’s worth noting that, whether ironically or accidentally on purpose, the very best moment in the whole package comes near the very end of Peter Bogdanovich‘s superb documentary, as the band winds down a one-off, one-take version of Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway”.
“Isn’t that a great fuckin’ song? It’s just a great fuckin’ song!” Petty exclaims, giddy like he’s just hearing it for the first time. If you plow through the entire four-hour movie, plus the two-hour 30th anniversary concert DVD, plus the hour-or-so long bonus soundtrack cd, you’re pretty much guaranteed a handful of those moments. Go back and listen to “Here Comes My Girl” or “The Waiting”, and thank the Rock Gods for rhythm guitar and men who fall in love. Continue reading »
You might recall the glee with which I posted a YouTube video of Pere Ubu performing “Birdies” live from the Urgh! A Music War film. Thanks to Townsman Berlyant for pointing out that tracks to Urgh! A Music War have been posted at Lost Turntable.
In The Beatles’ song “Across The Universe”, the chorus relates to us: “Nothing’s gonna change my world”. In the verses, everything seems to be swaying and moving, (words are flying/endless rain/drifting through/restless wind/limitless, etc.). Julie Taymor’s second big film as a director (her first being the movie Frida), is about the world changing also. Changing around its characters, and in a big way. Depicting another Vietnam-era epic fictionalizing a storyline sadly paralleling our own generation’s current events–and possibly making this picture just a little more poignant in the process for its timing, even if it is a romanticized version using Broadway-esque Beatles’ songs to tell the story.
Each scene in the film is practically bridged together by song, which is one of a few negative things that I will note about Across The Universe. The storyline seems abrupt, and bumpy at times, fed to us song by song, as if they had glued a huge music video together to make a movie out of it, which is –I’m assuming, in making a movie using all Beatles’ songs –how I imagine they envisioned it (perhaps). A scene about The Detroit Riots, although matching the time period, seems pulled out of nowhere, and added in simply to make more use of a song, because the film’s story mostly takes place in NYC.
Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen, Running With Scissors) and newcomer Jim Sturgess (UK TV sitcom and series mostly) play “Lucy” and “Jude”; two star-crossed kids who fall in love. Jim, fresh off the boat from Ireland, and Lucy (whose boyfriend *spoiler alert* gets killed earlier on in the film during a tour of duty in Vietnam), who plays the pat younger doe-eyed sister of big brother “Max”–incidentally new best-friend to Jude, are stuck between the politics of war, and the youthfulness of being in love in a turbulent time (sounds cheesy, right?). Like Jude and Lucy, most characters in the film do have a Beatles-related name: Sadie (sexy modern cougar/singer/landlady), JoJo (sexy guitarist/Jimi Hendrix-type character), Prudence (yes, they sing “Dear Prudence” to Prudence), Dr. Robert (played oddly by Bono; weirdest quote award ‘masturbating crocodile tears’ or something of the sort) and UK comedian Eddie Izzard as Mr. Kite – which is actually one of the more interesting parts of the film beside the major scene where Lucy’s brother Max is inducted into the army to the tune of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”.
MIAMI, FL — Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club movie producer Robert Stigwood and the surviving Bee Gees, Barry and Robin Gibb, have announced plans to produce a full-length feature remake of The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. The original made-for-television film will be expanded for theatrical release. The surviving brothers Gibb, who starred along with since-deceased brother Maurice and Peter Frampton as the fictional Lonely Hearts Club Band, do not plan to star in the Magical Mystery Tour film, but they will produce the soundtrack and do expect to make a cameo appearance.
“We expect to interest a contemporary band to portray The Beatles,” said Robin Gibb, stopped outside the brothers’ Miami headquarters. It was suggested Maroon 5 would be a strong candidate for the parts. “Yes, they’ve been bandied about,” confirmed Gibb, “but we’re concerned about finding a role for the fifth member.” Continue reading »
Years ago, when hot artists like Madonna, Prince, and Cher were first pushing the boundaries of MTV with daring videos that incorporated the artists’ own sexuality into their art, I used to think that MTV needed to create a premium channel that would allow these artists to see through their visions to their – and our – complete edification.
