The Dailies 3/29/09: Zombies, Depression and Bromances!

Welcome back to the Dailies. We’re actually going to get balls deep into four films/documentaries today, so buckle in!

Planet Terror (2007) – originally released as one-half of Grindhouse
Dir: Robert Rodriguez
Principle Actors: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Josh Brolin, Mary Shelton

Planet Terror is a classic example of a movie in limbo; one that’s too funny to be scary and too scary to be funny. Because of this, it’s not really effective as a horror movie or a comedy. It simply exists as a bloody spectacle that’s mildly engrossing and ultimately forgettable.

In Planet Terror, like in quite a few horror movies, the plotline is simple and direct. Poisonous, zombie-creating gases are “accidentally” released into the atmosphere at a secret military base, zombies summarily ensue from the gas leak, and they wreak havoc on the surrounding area. Planet Terror isn’t exactly breaking new ground, plot-wise, though this plotline has been intact in zombie movies for over forty years now.

We follow a cadre of survivors who are seemingly impervious to the zombie gases. One is Cherry, played by former Marilyn Manson-fiancé Rose McGowan. She is a local stripper who loses one of her legs in a zombie attack towards the beginning of the film (how she does not turn into a zombie due to the attack is not explained). The other is Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), a gunslinging hombre whose mannerisms would place him more at home in a Sergio Leone film than a George Romero one. Cherry and Wray are the de-facto leaders of the surviving populace and spend the movie trying to fight off hordes of zombies who wish to eat their delicious brains.

McGowan and Rodriguez carry the film nicely, and they get some support from Josh Brolin, a vengeful doctor, and his wife Mary Shelton, a closet-lesbian housewife and mother who also works at the local hospital. Some of the best scenes in the film are the tension-filled exchanges between these two. Rodriguez does well to have some of the film set in the local hospital, where schools of patients are being treated for mysterious zombie bites. It provides a nice touch of realism to look at the practical side of zombie infestation; what would a local hospital look like with something like this going on?

The film has some major problems, however, most having to do with the zombies themselves. This is a zombie picture, after all, but the film only presents the zombies as a threat when it needs them to be. Part of what makes a zombie film work is their sheer numbers, and your empathy with the heroes in the face of overwhelming odds.

Here, the zombies are terrifying forces when the scene calls for it, and they’re easily dispatched nuisances when it doesn’t. By the end of the film, the zombies are easily destroyed, and we start to feel like they’re not really a threat to the surviving humans. In a way, they almost resemble the Mario Bros. koopa-troopas; sure, they can conceivable kill you, but as long as you have your wits about you they won’t be a problem. By its end, Planet Terror trades the zombie terror story for the Wray and Cherry love story. When the zombies fail to be a threat in a zombie movie, we’ve got significant problems.

Planet Terror was released along with Death Proof in a 2007 double-bill called Grindhouse, a notorious flop despite the involvement of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Grindhouse featured two full gory flicks with a running time a little over three hours. To top that off, it was released on Easter weekend, which isn’t a time most people want to watch films like this.

But the point of Grindhouse was to create a feeling of watching a low-rent mid 70s brutal slasher, with wooden acting and a predictable story. It really doesn’t work. The Planet Terror section of Grindhouse does the easy things (choppy film, missing reels), but it doesn’t feel old at all. There’s an unmistakable sheen of money and contemporaneousness that undermines the entire concept, so truthfully, it even fails at achieving its stated main goal.

There are good scenes in Planet Terror, and competent people at the helm. But too often, the movie stops to look in the mirror without getting to the business of being scary. If it stuck to its guns and went all out we’d have a better movie.

C

Magnolia (1999)
Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson
Principle Actors: Tom Cruise, Phillip Baker Hall, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly

Sometimes writing a review of a truly great film can be a serious burden, because one’s words have trouble articulating its greatness. At points like that, I just want to write a one-sentence review: “See this movie”. I feel like such a review would be appropriate here.

Magnolia is a fascinating, touching, emotional study of human fragility; about people at their wits end and what they do to cope with their situations. Its characters are amazingly self-aware; they realize their problems and ineptitudes. How they deal with them and react to them serve as the basis for the film.

And what characters Magnolia has! This is one of the finest ensemble casts I’ve ever seen. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Phillip Baker Hall, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Melinda Dillon, Jason Robards, Melora Walters, William H. Macy and Tom Cruise perform brilliantly and together create a web of life, death, redemption and rebirth. Every performance in this movie is excellent.

Each character is involved in a plot line and most of them intersect in one way or the other. A brief overview of them all: Hoffman is caring for a dying Jason Robards, whose son, Tom Cruise, is a “how to get laid” motivational speaker. Hoffman is tasked with getting in touch with Cruise to compel him to visit his dying father, whom he hasn’t spoken to in years. Julianne Moore plays Robards’ young trophy wife, who is struggling with the situation. Elsewhere, desperately lonely cocaine-dependent Walters forms an unlikely love with bumbling, lovable cop Reilly. Phillip Baker Hall, a game show host, is battling cancer but forces himself through a live edition of the show. A young contestant, Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) is near setting a record on the show, but rebels against his father and the other adults forcing him to participate live on the air. Meanwhile, a former participant of that same show, Donnie Smith (Macy) is also desperately alone and trying to find someone to love. Their stories all tie together in various ways. Does this make sense? There are a lot of little alleys and crevices the film ventures into as well, but I swear it makes sense while viewing it.

Though the story lines often tie together, that’s not crucial to the plot. Everyone is dealing with their own situations and their own problems; it just so happens, like in real life, that one’s problems often intersect with another’s. The movie is one long narrative that continues to build on itself for its three hour run time. It’s like a soap opera, in a way. The story cuts from character to character, and once you think, “I haven’t seen William H. Macy in a while”, that’s the point when the film cuts back to him. Unlike soap operas, Magnolia is endearing and truthful, and not cheesy and predictable.

Magnolia, on the surface, is actually a simple movie. It simply follows these characters through the course of one day. The characters are what provide the suspense and the complexity. We see them change throughout the movie and we know why they change. We understand and appreciate what they are going through. This is due to the ingenious plotline and great acting.

Explaining individual scenes is largely pointless, because they build on each other and each one is predicated on the previous scene and the next scene. Nearly every character has a breaking point in this film, and those points are so well acted and seem so organic (though we’ve been witnessing a slow burn towards them for hours) that they reach a point of sublimity.

Magnolia proves that you don’t need big locations or big stunts to make an epic film. Life itself is epic enough.

SPOILERZ AND ASIDES

One topic that has come up quite a bit in a negative way is Magnolia’s ending. At the conclusion, it starts raining frogs on the characters and actually affects the action in a few cases. People have said that the frogs ruin what had been a fundamentally human film to that point, and while I understand that viewpoint, I don’t agree with it.

Despite such an abrupt fantastical ending to the film, I feel like it’s a perfect way to end. I’ve read about the frogs being a religious allegory and so on, but I don’t look at it that way. The frogs provide such a release from the tension and emotion we’ve been following for three hours. I don’t mean to say they’re comic relief; they simply provide a feeling of closure and cleansing to the proceedings. I think the frogs are also meant to show the characters in the film that life is unpredictable, but also ridiculous, and they shouldn’t spend so much time worrying about it all. The frogs show the characters, in this way, not to be so hard on themselves.

Finally, I want to state that I’m not a big Tom Cruise guy. Most of his movies are lame dogshit. In Magnolia, he was brilliant. I have no idea why he doesn’t take challenging roles like this more often, because even amongst all of the talent in this film, he was the best part of it. Hopefully, despite the Scientology, he’ll take a few more roles that will show his acting chops and not how fast he can motorcycle away from explosions.

A

Nominated: Supporting Actor (Cruise), Original Song, Original Screenplay

I Love You, Man (2009)
Dir: John Hamburg
Principle Actors: Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg

Since Judd Apatow took the world by storm with The 40 Year Old Virgin in 2005, he and his cadre of comedic actors have been a box-office force. Though Apatow has only directed The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, he has been associated with a number of other projects and his work has had the side-effect of launching several movie careers. Any comedy that Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Jonah Hill, and Seth Rogen are in at this point I choose to lump in with the Apatow-helmed films, which is not a knock at all. Nearly every movie since and including The 40 Year Old Virgin that these players have been involved in is hilarious, including last year’s Role Models. I preface the review this way because I Love You, Man presents a rare misfire from this group, and hopefully they can find their Midas touch again with their next project.

The film stars Paul Rudd as a newly-engaged real estate agent. He has no real guy friends, and one night he overhears his fiancé and her girlfriends talking about how Rudd will probably be clingy and needy because he has no one else to spend time with. Rudd decides he needs to start a “bromance” and goes looking for platonic guy friends.

After a few misfires (gay guys, geriatrics, soccer fanatics) he meets Jason Segel, who seems like a nice guy. The two start hanging out all the time and become best of friends. The movie is largely about the relationship between Rudd and Segel and its effect on Rudd’s impending marriage.

I Love You, Man has decent gags. The omnipresent one-liners which are often the best part of these films are here in spades. Most of them are very funny. There are very few guffaws; most of the comedic power is provided by Rudd, who is perfectly awkward and timid in his pursuit of male friends. Segel is competent as Rudd’s man-child buddy, though the script should have allowed him to let loose and be a bit more biting and sarcastic.

The story of I Love You, Man is unbelievably predictable, to the point of laziness. Other aforementioned films like Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin may be predictable as well, but they arrive at their predictabilities in new and interesting ways. That is, standard movie conventions may be present, but the film takes a new approach to them.

Here we don’t get that. Rudd meets Segel, slowly begins spending too much time with him, his fiancé gets upset about it, Rudd’s relationships with both Segel and Jones begin to deteriorate, and the relationships are both repaired in the end. We even get the uber-cliché confrontation of Rudd by Jones, where she calls him out for hanging out with Segel too much and then leaves in a huff. There were no surprises about it, and to be honest, it was boring. Not even an appearance from Canadian power-trio Rush could get me back into it.

Rudd and Segel hit mostly the right notes in the film. The problems here aren’t really their fault. Unfortunately, the film is very vanilla, the storyline is easy, and big laughs are too few and far between. This is a disappointing outing from these guys, and hopefully they can get back on track with their next picture.

C

The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made (2004)
Writer: Brandon Christopher

I won’t go into too much detail on this documentary, The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made. The idea is self-explanatory. This hour long documentary briefly summarizes what it terms the fifty worst movies ever created, complete with narration and clips from the offending films.

It was only an hour, and no documentary that really wants to cover its subject can be done in an hour. I wish it could have been a bit longer, because what was included was very funny and interesting. These movies look truly wretched, with the fifty entries combining both Hollywood bombs and self-produced shit that Mystery Science Theater 3000 wouldn’t even touch.

I’d like to see a documentary like this that goes into the makings of these films and why they were made in the first place. All I can say about The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made is that it was an entertaining way to spend an hour and it made me run to Wikipedia immediately after viewing to look up every single one of its entries.

B-

John Lacey

The Random Ten #7

In Flames - “Jotun” - Whoracle (1997)

The opening track from what is my all-time favorite In Flames album (depending on the day, other times it’s Colony or The Jester Race), “Jotun” is a mid-paced, melodic metal masterpiece. This song deviated from their faster, more death metal-oriented material on previous albums, yet it’s no less crushing or intense. This is also Anders’ first attempt at “singing” during the verses (even though it’s more like talking), which may or may not have set the band downhill, depending on who you ask. The riffs and guitar melodies in this song are, like most early IF-material, flat-out great, and this is definitely one of the best album openers in metal history. This is the epitome of “Gothenburg Metal,” which is not quite Swedish Death Metal (i.e. Dismember, Entombed) but distinctly Swedish in its melody and riffing style.

Testament - “Over the Wall (Live)” - Return to the Apocalyptic City (1993)

A live version of a thrash classic from their debut album The Legacy, this “Over the Wall” was recorded on the tour for Testament’s 1992 The Ritual album. Recorded in front of what sounds like a pretty massive Hollywood, CA crowd, this performance is tight and full of energy, like any Testament live show. The production and mastering are a bit lacking, as it’s not quite full of volume or intensity like their Live at the Fillmore album, released in 1995. This was also back when Chuck Billy would still attempt his high screams like he did on the earlier albums, so that’s an added bonus for old-school Testament fans. When I saw Testament back in September of ’08, they actually opened with this song that night too. Great live version of a Testament classic. If you want to see another great version of this song, I suggest typing Testament and Alcatraz in YouTube, to find a clip of the band playing this song acoustically in Alcatraz, filmed for a series of MTV vignettes that aired last year.

The Year of Our Lord - “Nightlark” - The Year of Our Lord (2002)

The Year of Our Lord was a MA-based black/death metal band that emerged from the hardcore/metal scene of the late 1990s. They released a stellar EP, The Frozen Divide, in 1999, and followed up with a full-length, self-titled album in 2000, that was not quite as stellar. Produced by Today is the Day’s Steve Austin, The Year of Our Lord had some songs that were run-of-the-mill, European-influenced blackened death metal, and others that really stood out above the bunch. “Nightlark” is one of the stand-outs. Opening with a fantastic keyboard intro that is accompanied by Maiden-ish twin guitars, the song keeps things interesting with tempo changes, melodic refrains, and great riffing all around. I saw a MySpace had been created for this band late last year, and they have even announced plans to record material that they never completed back when the band first split up in 2002. I’m not holding my breath for it, but I hope they can release something different and have fun doing it. Good song from a decent, forgotten band.

Nirvana - “Been a Son” - From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah (1996)

A pop-punky number from Incesticide, “Been a Son” is a short, catchy rock song that definitely shows Kurt Cobain’s fascination with all things Beatles. The live version sounds pretty much exactly like the studio version, with a little more energy. Just a good little rock song from Nirvana, nothing more, nothing less.

Blur - “Coffee & TV” - 13 (1999)

I discovered this song my freshman year of college, and it has to be my favorite Blur song by far. Sung by guitarist Graham Coxon, “Coffee & TV” is a low-key, melodic rock song that has an inherent sadness to it. Featuring some loud, noisy lead guitar work, this was a combination of the pop-sensibilities that Blur had always shown, paired with the angst that always seemed to lurk under the surface in their earlier material. This song also was accompanied by one of the greatest music videos of the late 1990s (you know, the one with the walking milk carton looking for his long lost love, only to find Blur jamming in a loft, before eventually being stepped on and crushed by the clip’s end). Coxon left the band after this album, and I have no idea what he’s been up to since, because I’m not that big of a Blur fan, but I absolutely love this song.

Kiss - “I Want You” - Rock and Roll Over (1976)

From the title and artist alone, you’d expect this to be a cheesy-as-fuck ballad, but it’s surprisingly one of Kiss’ darkest, heaviest songs. Basically Paul Stanley sings like he’s going to hunt you down and have sex with you, whether you like it or not… especially if you’re a man. Okay, that’s a joke; supposedly Paul Stanley has had sex with many, many women. I still don’t buy it. Anyways, what was I saying? Oh yeah, this song actually kicks ass, and it’s from a criminally underrated album, Rock and Roll Over, which blows the shit out of Love Gun and is just as good as Destroyer, if you ask me.

Lamb of God - “In the Absence of the Sacred” - New American Gospel (2000)

From Lamb of God’s “debut” album (they released a self-titled album when the band was still named Burn the Priest), I first heard this song 3 years after it was released. Lamb of God were just about to release their second album, As the Palaces Burn, when I decided to investigate some of their earlier material. I didn’t like their “hit” song “Black Label” all that much, as it just sounded like Pantera-light. “In the Absence…” seemed a lot more inventive with the riffing, and also it was a lot darker and heavier. I bought Palaces shortly after hearing this song, and was blown away. I don’t think Gospel is as good as Palaces, but it’s still a solid album, and this is probably the best song on it, aside from “Terror and Hubris in the House of Frank Pollard”. I could never have predicted that Lamb of God would become the biggest metal band in America within 6 years, but they did that with the release of 2006’s Sacrament, and have held onto that momentum with this year’s Wrath.

AC/DC - “Givin’ the Dog a Bone” - Back in Black (1980)

I’ve listened to this song countless times, and I can only gather from the song’s lyrics that it’s about a young woman and her beloved canine companion. Brian Johnson sings of the young woman “goin’ down to her knees” and “using her head again,” while “givin’ the dog a bone.” Immediately, one pictures a purely innocent, sweet young girl getting on her knees to be at eye-level with her pet, while feeding the dog his treat by perhaps balancing it on her nose or even her upper lip, and therefore she is giving the dog his treat. I really can’t imagine what else this song would be about. AC/DC have never been big on innuendos, at least I’ve never picked up on them, so I think it’s really touching that Brian Johnson would write lyrics innocently depicting the pet/owner relationship with a dog and a young girl. This song is so not about oral sex, which is what I’ve read in countless lewd, inappropriate reviews of the album. Some people just have dirty minds, I suppose.

Public Enemy - “Welcome to the Terrordome” - 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection (2001)

“I got so much trouble on my mind, refuse to lose, here’s your ticket, hear the drummer get wicked…” opens Chuck D on this P.E. classic. Public Enemy’s inventive beats, supplied by Terminator X, and the incredible flow of Chuck D. are hard to beat, especially on their early material. Flavor Flav pretty much perfected the role of the “hype man,” and while most hype men since have sucked, but he always was that added mixture of humor and variety that set P.E. apart. Sometimes their songs were dense – after all, most of their beats just repeated over and over again throughout the entire song, usually with no choruses or hooks – but Chuck D’s lyrics were always captivating and thought-provoking. This song epitomizes early Public Enemy. “Fight the Power” might get more recognition because of Do the Right Thing, but this is the superior track.

Down - “On March the Saints” - III: Over the Under (2007)

Following the death of Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell, former Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo went on a downhill slide, and that’s an understatement. Anyone who saw the band’s Behind the Music special could have predicted death by OD for the frontman at any moment. He looked so out of it during that special, slurring his speech, on the verge of tears nearly the entire time, it was painful to watch as a die-hard Pantera and Down fan. I did not expect Phil to be able to pull out of such a slump, and thankfully, he proved me very, very wrong. I saw Down in NYC in March of 2007, while they were putting the finishing touches on what would be their 3rd album, III: Over the Under. Down’s first two albums are all-time favorites of mine, and I did not think the band would be able to top those two masterpieces. Well, they didn’t top them, but they lived up to the Down standard, for sure. Their performance that night in NYC was a revelation, as Phil spoke with strength and confidence from the stage, and seemed 100% clean and sober, something I’d never seen him on stage, whether with Pantera or Down. “On March the Saints” was the first single from III, and it’s a mid-paced, melodic hard rock song, with Anselmo sounding as clear and powerful as he’d sounded in years. This is one of my favorite tracks from III, as Kirk Windstein and Pepper Keenan’s riffs are just crushing and melodic all at once, and Rex Brown and Jimmy Bower lay down that typical Down groove as only they can. Awesome song from the best side-project band in metal history.

Matt Steele

Shit from the 90's #1: Talkboy!

Welcome to a new feature here at Dr. P’s, Shit from the 90’s! In this column, we take a look at, yes, shit from the 90’s. That sounds like a broad criterion, so let’s narrow it down. It helps if the product, event or personality took the world by storm for a few fleeting weeks (or days) and was quickly forgotten, only to be brought up in drunken conversations or unfunny Family Guy references. Good candidates for this column also include things that were shamelessly promoted (like this column’s entry, the Talkboy) in films or were otherwise pushed down our unwilling throats.

With that said, Shit from the 90’s is happy to accept suggestions. Leave a comment. I think you either need to click “Anonymous” (if you’re a pussy) or “Name/URL”.

The Talkboy was devised by the fine minds that put together Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992). You see, Macaulay Culkin, the film’s protagonist, becomes lost in New York City. Culkin’s character is only eight years old, so he needs to devise various witty and clever ways to gain shelter and trick/confuse adults who wish to do him harm. Culkin slides around on hotel floors, sets up a death maze in his uncle’s abandoned Manhattan apartment, befriends homeless people and ingeniously pauses and unpauses an old film-noir to make this happen. He also uses his trusty Talkboy, which, I don’t mind telling you, gets him out of a lot of jams!

Talkboy is a recording device, but it ain’t your run of the mill tape recorder. For one, the shit’s portable, so Culkin can take it anywhere. Secondly, it slows down or speeds up your voice, so you can totally disguise yourself (or, in Culkin’s case, pretend to be an adult so he can use a credit card to get a hotel room). Never mind that the slowed down voice sounds like some sort of mutant pedophile; every adult in the film, including perennial effeminate villain Tim Curry, fall for the gag. And, if movies have taught us anything, it’s that what works on the screen works in real life.

So a bunch of brain dead children, probably helped by their parents, wrote various electronic companies demanding a real Talkboy that they could play with so they could be just like Mac. A bidding war ensued, and Tiger Electronics, best known as the maker of those god-awful handheld games that are also a candidate for this column, won out. Tiger released the real-life Talkboy to coincide with the VHS release of Home Alone 2.

Perhaps the Talkboy is best known for adding the phrase, “Hi kids, we’re home early” to the American lexicon. A television commercial that aired ad-nauseum for the next several years showed a young boy being babysat by his older sister. Of course, he’s armed with a Talkboy, and hilarity ensues. The sister is fooling around with her boyfriend, and the little brat uses the Talkboy to foil their good times. In a stroke of pure genius, he says the aforementioned phrase into the Talkboy, slows down the volume, and plays it right when the sister and her boyfriend are about to start necking! They both freak out and it’s all crazy and so on and so forth. He later bangs her in the backseat of his car.

Home Alone 2 didn’t stay fresh forever, and people soon stopped caring about the Talkboy. New products were soon introduced, including a pink Talkgirl (because the original is so masculine) and a Talkpen that was basically a Talkboy fit into an ordinary writing pen. No one cared. The Talkboy and its spawn were banished to a lifetime of “hey, remember that?” references and columns like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hoz0vbm3Vss: Talkboy commercial from the early 90s mentioned above.

John Lacey

Shooting the Breeze - Solitary Confinement

Hi everyone! Welcome to the newest feature at Dr. P’s, Shooting the Breeze. In this column we pose a question to our esteemed panel and a brief response, usually two or three paragraphs, ensues. And now, without further Apu (“I have been zinged and I love it!”), here is today’s question:

If you were convicted of a rather horrible crime (God forbid) and placed in solitary confinement, which three albums would you want to have with you?

John Lacey

In coming up with my picks for this question, I briefly considered just picking one of my favorite bands and going all Pink Floyd. I soon realized, however, in a dark cell by myself for years on end, that I would eventually go insane that way even faster than I would otherwise. So I thought a little bit and came up with some better examples.

The first record I’d want is Talib Kweli & DJ HiTek’s Train of Thought. I figure that in a cold, damp cell I’d need a little rhythm to break up the monotony. HiTek’s beats are infectious and Kweli’s lyrics are direct and sober, but very hopeful. And hope is something I imagine you can’t get enough of if you’re facing a stretch in the big house. This would be my “life-affirming” pick.

Next, I’d pick the Black Crowes’ Amorica, because it’s a kick-ass rock record where every song is fantastic and I could just sit back and enjoy it. It’s one of my favorite albums anyway, and I see no reason why I wouldn’t like it just the same in the can.

Finally, I’d take Sun Kil Moon’s Ghosts of the Great Highway. I’d hope that if I was guilty of some heinous act, I’d want to reflect on it and figure out where it all went wrong. There’s no better record for reflection and regrets than this. Not only that, but at times it’s incredibly beautiful, and what prisoner couldn’t use a few rays of sunshine?

Sean Stak

Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti. Yes, I know this is a double-album but it has far less than the typical number of tracks one would find on your average double-album. This 1975 offering provides the listener with the full range of Led Zeppelin adjectives: dark, bluesy, heavy, and, most importantly, genuine. All of this is accomplished while remaining incredibly accessible and thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. Side three’s (or Disc 2, whichever you prefer) “Down by the Seaside” is a perfect representation of later-Zeppelin blues offerings and it remains upbeat and positive (see: solitary confinement) as the tempo bounces back and forth.

Jay-Z – The Black Album. Not The Blueprint? Not Reasonable Doubt? While the aforementioned records are obviously classics, I feel as though this hip-hop masterpiece is better suited for solitary confinement as it is a celebration of Mr. Carter’s life & career (As you all know this was supposed to be his last record before taking over as CEO & President of Def Jam. This obviously did not happen and I am incredibly thankful for that.) This album is ridiculously good in terms of both lyrical delivery and production. What I enjoy so much about this record is that Jay employed a wide range of producers – including but not limited to Rick Rubin, Just Blaze, The Neptunes, Kanye West – and this gives the record a breath of fresh air with every track.

The White Stripes – De Stijl. While Jay-Z is certainly my favorite rapper, Jack White is, by far, my favorite musician of all time and to me, this record showcases him in all of his guitar glory (Get Behind Me Satan show cases Jack in all of his glory as he plays more instruments than I can count throughout the course of the album). De Stijl is stripped down, raw, heavy, bluesy, shredding, rock and roll. "Little Bird" features one of the dirtiest guitar parts in Jack’s entire catalogue while the lyrics stay surprisingly even-keel. Even though Meg White has the easiest job in rock and roll, I love Jack White so much and this is my personal favorite recording he has ever put out and that is why it is on my list.

Honorable mentions: Blind Melon – Soup; Neil Young – MTV Unplugged; Phish – Farmhouse; Wilco – Being There; Lupe Fiasco – The Cool; Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique

Danny Baxter

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

If I were to be devoid of human contact, I would want some "pretty" rock. Singer Jeff Tweedy's songwriting was particularly helmed in at this point in Wilco's storied career. There is a great juxtaposition of beauty (the violins in "Jesus, etc.") and noise (the beginning of "I am Trying to Break your Heart") on this album. I think that the music is balanced out by Tweedy's particularly human delivery. I mean human in that he truly conveys the emotions he is singing about - without coming across as forced or corny. It is a deep record...it may make you nod your head, but you mostly are using your head to think when listening to it. I think this would be a great record to have if I was going to be alone for a long time because repeated listens greatly reward the listener.

The National - Alligator

Being by yourself can be lonely. Especially if you are being FORCED to be alone due to some heinous crime. I think that I would want some "bouncy" rock. I would want something that would keep my feet tapping, yet still keeping the gears turning like they were for YHF. The album is laden with memorable melodies and infectious rhythms. Matt Berninger's Lyrics convey a beautiful sense of blue collar depression in a white collar job. If I was going to be alone and depressed, I would want to be alone and listening to The National. Their music has a quality of redemption that would keep spirits high during this alone time.

They Might Be Giants - Flood

This is an album that makes me happy. I heard it for the first time when i was nine years old. Listening to it now, I hear a lot more depth in the lyrics than when i was a child. Whenever I hear anything from this album, I instantly begin to sing along and feel better. This would be a clutch album to have in solitary confinement. It takes the "bouncy" quality of national and provides more playful lyrics. This album would be the drunken ying to YHF's sobering yang.

Jon “Hoss” Pitts

Wilco
Being There
1996

Before they became diet-coke dad-rockers and were penning the score to the Volkswagen Spring 2008 TV Ad Campaign, Wilco's studio work meant something. Serving as Tweedy’s greatest musical foil since the Tupelo days, Jay Bennett makes his Wilco debut and helps balance the band create a pleasant balance where Americana meets psychedelia. No song better epitomizes this juxtaposition then opener “Misunderstood”, where Tweedy has finally gotten over his Farrar-complex and has reached a new level of maturity in his writing. I’ve been known to stomp my fight to a “Monday” encore and a Nels Cline solo, but this record is almost like A.M. if it contained any introspection, or Sky Blue Sky with a set of balls. It is the first great Wilco record and the only one I need.

Sun Kil Moon
Ghosts Of The Great Highway
2003

Sun Kil Moon, aka the Red House Painters on opiates, released 2003s Ghosts of the Great Highway to much underground acclaim, and for good reason. Inspiring a new generation of college-radio listeners to wear flannel, this record is the best thing to carry Ohio since Eddie George. Crazy Horse inspired guitar fuzz meets contemplative lyrical musings to create Americana bliss. Frontman and primary member Mark Kozelek is at his best on “Glen Tipton”, mixing melancholy words and minor chords over images of English glam-metal and 1950s boxing legends. “Salvador Sanchez” is best listened to alone and on a cloudy day, so this album works for my confinement.

Okkervil River
Black Sheep Boy
2005

An ambitious and sprawling concept album about a 1960’s cult folk-heroes trials and tribulations with heroin addiction, Black Sheep Boy is the album that convinced the world that Will Sheff was something more than just another whiny prep-school English major from New England writing songs on an acoustic guitar. Death, love, rape, and addiction all collide into a mixture of emotional chaos that makes for one turbulent record. Whether Sheff is personifying love as a fortress of stone or substance abuse in a sheep’s reliance on the herd, Black Sheep Boy is an adventure that you can’t resist coming back to.

Mike Keefe

Thinking about solitary confinement is an odd thing. On the one hand, I’d like to believe that I’d be clever enough to avoid incarceration should I ever resolve to commit some sort of serious crime. On the other hand, if I found myself behind bars, you can rest assured that I would do something so preposterous that the warden would have no choice but to stick me in the hole, far away from the hoi polloi, their improvised toothbrush-shanks and unsupervised gang showers. [Although I shudder to think about what exactly that unspeakable act would be, I envision something along the lines of a cell-size, shit-on-concrete rendering of Guernica.] Anywho, my three albums: The Band- Music from Big Pink (1968); Johnny Cash- At Folsom Prison (1968); and Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track (1977).

There are few albums as close to my heart as Music from Big Pink. The first time my ears were saturated in the dripping melancholia of Robbie Robertson’s Tele-via-Leslie in the opening of “Tears of Rage, I was hooked. I have come back to the first two Band albums countless times, and that’s because they are perfect albums. There is an inexplicable intermingling of the earthy and the ethereal in every moment of every song; an elegance so refined in every arrangement, vocal and instrumental. While The Band is more representative of that sepia-toned Americana that is their trademark, Big Pink is the album upon which I built my admiration for the group, and is the one I’d want with me in my cell. In a mere eleven songs, the Band shines a light on the many nooks and crannies intrinsic in the range of complex human emotions—everything from existential despair (“The Weight”) to do-or-die insistence (“This Wheel’s On Fire”), from parental dejection (“Tears of Rage”) to near-inscrutable inanity (“We Can Talk”). Robertson gives one of his two recorded vocal performances and Richard Manuel contributes three tunes. Not to mention that it concludes with the greatest song ever written for a man hoping to transcend his environment: the Dylan-penned, Manuel-sung “I Shall Be Released.”

For better or worse, I associate Johnny Cash with jail because of At Folsom Prison. Maybe this seems like a lame choice—like I’m being too thematic—but really, what better “friend” to have on the inside than the Man In Black when you’re daydreaming about “rich folk in their fancy dinin’ cars” who are “probably drinkin’ coffee and smokin’ big cigars”? The morbid sense of humor that pervades many of the songs is precisely the type of humor you’d have to indulge to stay sane whilst in solitary, and the “boom-chicka-boom” of the Tennessee Three could steamroll you out of any depression. I had initially considered including an album by a female artist in my list, thinking that I’d probably want to be able to at least hear a woman’s voice if I couldn’t actually be with a woman. Ultimately, I just couldn’t settle on an album. The ever-endearing June Carter appears twice on this album, singing with Johnny on “Jackson” and “Give My Love to Rose.” I think those two performances would be enough to sustain me in even the darkest of times.

Sigh, grouse, roll your eyes, mutter expletives. Yeah, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. The Brothers Gibb. Because when I’m on the brink of going absofuckinglutelybatshitcrazy I’m going to throw on the Trammps and crank the dirtiest groove known to man: “Disco Inferno.” Then I’ll drive the guards nuts with “Boogies Shoes” and “Jive Talkin.” And I’ll enjoy every second of it.

Matt Steele

If I had to take 3 albums with me to solitary confinement, I'd start with Opeth's My Arms, Your Hearse. I've never heard a better mix of death metal intensity, goth-rock melancholy, and progressive rock instrumentation in my life. This album is an amazing journey, and while it might not even be my favorite Opeth album, it was the first one that I owned and one that always holds a special place for me, and I never get sick of it. Sure, it might make me want to hang myself with a shoelace if I'm in a solitary confinement cell, but this is all hypothetical, right?

Number two, I'd have to go with Metallica's Live Shit: Binge & Purge, which is 3 CDs full of Metallica's classics from 1983-1991, in front of a raucous Mexico City crowd, at the peak of the band's game. This is probably cheating, because it's about the length of 3 albums (and it could have had a lot more songs if they didn't include a boring 18-minute version of "Seek & Destroy" with some awful crowd participation), but it spans most of their classic albums so I'd probably have to choose it.

My third album (another cheat, I suppose) is the Death Row Greatest Hits compilation from 1996. This album has a great span of Dre, Snoop, Pac, and others, and although it could have contained many more hits from the label (no "Regulators"? No "California Love"?), it's a great, diverse span of rap songs from my favorite era in the genre, and it always makes me want to party. Then again, that would probably make me want to hang myself with a shoelace, knowing that I was stuck in a cell by myself and couldn't actually party any more...

Honorable Mentions: Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Gone Down, Cave In - Jupiter, In Flames - The Jester Race, Iron Maiden - Powerslave

Nintend'oh! #1 - Paperboy

(Ed. Note: The following is written by Danny Baxter, a longtime associate and well-wisher who will be writing a column called Nintend'oh!, among other things. Dan is a resident of the "City with Broad Shoulders", Chicago, by way of New Jersey and Providence.)

Hello and welcome to the first installment of Nintend’oh! - the newest (and best) section of Jackie Boy’s blog! Mr. Lacey has really been on my keister about contributing to his Wontabulous Musicarium and I am not one to disappoint. This friendly little column will provide fresh perspectives on the finest entertainment of yesteryear – games that were released for the Nintendo Entertainment System!

This past Sunday, March 8th 2009, was one of the most important days of my life. No, it has nothing to do with the birth of my first god-daughter Lilly. Besides, she was born on March 9th. What happened on Sunday was far more important; I successfully beat Paperboy for the first time in my life! In order to truly convey how significant an occasion this is, I’d like to take a little journey back in time. Listen carefully and my words will shape images as clear as any TV show…

The year was 1988; America’s love affair with Australians was slowly dying with the release of Crocodile Dundee II. George Michael’s Faith was the top selling album of the year in the United States. The Wonder Years premiered on primetime television and made every boy ask his mom for a cool New York Jets jacket. Okay, maybe that last part was made up – but you get the point. It was a momentous time for our nation. The “golden age” of video arcades had officially started to wane in early 1986, but video game systems for the home were steadily on the rise. And Nintendo, a company once dedicated to selling their unique brand of playing cards, was becoming a house-hold name for its popular Nintendo Entertainment System (hereafter referred to as NES).

Many classic titles that were released for the NES were, in fact, originally released as video arcade games in the early 80s. That little nugget of wisdom is true of Paperboy, which first saw the light of day at video arcades across America in 1984. Actually, the only light it probably saw was the brief moment when the arcade cabinet was physically being wheeled out of a truck on a dolly by some slovenly-looking overweight chain-smoking truck driver. The video arcade version of Paperboy experienced heightened popularity in 1987, so the game was “ported” to the NES in 1988.

Paperboy was developed and published by Atari Games, but it was released on the NES through Atari’s subsidiary company Tengen. It is a 1 or 2 player (alternating) game where the player controls a paperboy on a bicycle delivering newspapers along a suburban street. The directional pad maneuvers the paperboy through his paper route. Pressing either the A or B button will throw the newspapers toward the left side of the screen. The player attempts to deliver a week of daily newspapers to subscribing customers while simultaneously avoiding hazards encountered along the way. The game play gets increasingly difficult as you progress through the week of deliveries. The primary objectives of the game are to keep as many subscribers as possible and to stay alive. Secondary objectives include vandalizing homes and hitting nuisances with newspapers.

Paperboy is one of the all time classics for the NES. While the controls are somewhat obtuse at times, they are good enough for continued game-play. Like many NES games, you simply have to play it a lot to get the “feel.” Paperboy also has plenty of what I like to call WTF? instances; a moment when you laugh out loud due to the completely random action taking place on screen. For example, some of the obstacles in Paperboy include tornados, break-dancers and even the Grim-Reaper himself. One of the most entertaining parts of the game is the obstacle course that appears at the end of the street. If the player successfully completes a respective day’s delivery, he gets to traverse an obstacle course. This is a great little memorable gem included by the wizards over there at Atari Games.

For some reason, there are bleachers at the end of the obstacle course. I guess that delivering papers is really exciting in this fictional American town. Perched on the bleachers are three guys who frantically wave their arms and cheer our paperboy on – every morning!! I’ve thought about this quite a bit. Either those guys are members of NAMBLA or they are town drunks. There is no other reason why any one would be up that early to watch a kid sit on a bicycle.

Another negative aspect of the NES port of Paperboy, aside from the difficult controls, is that it is repetitive. The street that you deliver on never changes, whereas the arcade version had three different levels; easy street, medium road, and hard way. While I was playing this game on Sunday, I thought that the game designers should have given more extra lives to the player. I could regularly get through three or even four days with style, but I was never rewarded for my hard work. However, once I finally beat the game this past Sunday night…I realized that they can’t give out extra guys; the game would be instantly beat-able. Perhaps that is the very reason why I’ve come back to this game day-after-day and literally year-after-year (twenty to be exact). Although the game is not without its flaws, Paperboy truly delivers!

B+

Danny Baxter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66LM6LbMaQ8 - Paperboy commercial originally aired in the 80s

The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

The Hold Steady
Stay Positive (2008)
Vagrant

I’ll readily admit that I never really liked these guys before. I was previously given their second album, Separation Sunday, a few years back and I just couldn’t get into it. There wasn’t any mystery as to why; vocalist/guitarist Craig Finn’s voice is a very acquired taste, and it just turned me off. The music was always there, but his voice grated on me so much that it ruined all good will the other players had built up.

On Stay Positive, things are a bit different. Finn has actually learned how to sing a little bit, which helps the songs to no end. There are only a few moments of the snarling punkish Finn vocals of old, and they’re thankfully few and far between. With this improvement, the band became instantly more palatable to me, which I’m thankful for, because this album kicks all kinds of ass.

Stay Positive doesn’t tinker around too much. It doesn’t go down too many different avenues, and it isn’t very subtle. Most of the songs are bludgeoning-ly straightforward and upfront. Awesome riff follows awesome riff, and every song is solid.

There’s nothing shameful about producing a no-frills, straight ahead rock album. Some of the greatest albums in rock history, both universal and personal, are albums like this. At points The Hold Steady invoke the great Led Zeppelin (the riff and outro of “Navy Sheets”), and even mention them in “Joke About Jamaica”. In other moments there is a strong parallel to the Black Crowes. Stay Positive isn’t necessarily changing the world, but when a power rock album as strong as this is put together, it really doesn’t matter too much.

One of the qualities of this album that differentiates it from the other aforementioned bands is the lyrics. Whereas Led Zeppelin, the Black Crowes and other bands sing their tried-and-true “Baby I need you” drug fueled banter, the Hold Steady is a little denser. They sing about relationships, stories, and the passing of time without resorting to clichés. Sometimes Finn’s lyrics can be a bit repetitive (I don’t know how many times I heard the word “bloodshed” on this album), but in general, they work, and once in a while they stand out. Finn sings about downtrodden and down on their luck folks, with a sarcastic edge. Imagine Bruce Springsteen’s vocals if he worked at a record store for a few years and watched nothing but Mystery Science Theater 3000.

At one point, while listening to the opening riff to penultimate track “Slapped Actress”, I realized that the riffs are so good and so catchy on this album that they create a double-edged sword. The riffs and verses are nearly universally great, but the choruses that follow seem boring by comparison. I found this happen in a few songs, where the parts that were supposed to be catchy really weren’t, and vice versa.

I’ve grown to appreciate subtlety, but sometimes there’s nothing like being hit with a wall of sound, and getting everything thrown into your face. It’s simple, but who cares? Stay Positive isn’t covering new ground, but the ground it does cover is covered well. I’m now a believer.

B+

John Lacey

The Dailies 3/8/09: You Only Get Reincarnated Twice!

Howdy, gangsters! Yes, I’ve watched more films recently, so you get treated to another episode of the Dailies! I recently took in best picture winner Slumdog Millionaire and seminal James Bond flick You Only Live Twice, so let’s take a look. Please, I implore you, if you have anything to say, however negative or crass, please add a comment. It’s really not a big deal, it takes seconds, and it would help me sleep better at night knowing someone is reading, even if they hate it. End communication.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Director: Danny Boyle
Principle Actors: Dev Patel, Madhur Mittal, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Frieda Pinto

While watching Slumdog Millionaire, I couldn’t help but draw some parallels to City of God (2002), the beautifully brutal and raw Brazilian film about life in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. I imagine I made the comparison because both films depict what life is like in the slums of foreign cities. Whereas City of God focuses on the criminal enterprises and underworld of Rio de Janeiro, Slumdog Millionaire really focuses on the circumstances of living in the slums of Mumbai, India, and what life is like in them. Slumdog Millionaire isn’t as “hard” as City of God is, but it does provide a thoroughly enjoyable look at life as a “slumdog” in India through the lives of two brothers, Jamal and Salim.

Slumdog Millionaire follows Jamal and Salim Malik from their lives as little boys running around the overcrowded and filthy slums of Mumbai up to their lives as grown men in the present day. I’ve always appreciated films with narratives that follow characters over many years and recount their affiliations, relationships and decisions. Some films can’t handle the burden of an intricate and generations-long storyline and collapse under its pressure (see: Robert DeNiro flicks 1900 and Once Upon a Time in America). Slumdog Millionaire, however, does a fantastic job of relaying the story to us, and its best scenes are of the two brothers as pre-teen homeless scamps trying to eke out an existence. All of the flashbacks tie in seamlessly to the present day characters and everything is very easy to follow.

The plot device that brings us back into the history of the characters is the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? You see, Jamal Malik, a man who grew up in the slums, is one question away from becoming the first person in the history of the show to win 20 million rupees. Of course, since he is a slumdog, the host of the show and the police don’t believe he could possibly know these answers without cheating, and the film opens with Jamal being tortured and interrogated as to how he knew the answers to the questions.

Each question Jamal was asked on the show tied into some seminal moment in his life, and each time the police chief asks, “How did you get X question right,” we’re treated to a flashback that relays how Jamal came to know that information while at the same time fleshing out the characters and setting up the story. Though Who Wants to be a Millionaire may be a bit passé and not have much relevance to modern-day America (is the Meredith Viera version even on anymore?), it’s amazing how well the show works as a vehicle to relay this information. At points while watching the film I marveled about how well done this was.

Jamal’s rationale for knowing the answers to the questions on the game show takes us to a sadistic orphanage, panhandling in front of the Taj Mahal, and a hilarious scatological story involving the most famous actor in India. The young versions of Jamal and Salim are played with gusto by Ayush Mahesh Khedekar and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, respectively, and the admirable performances by these children provide the backbone of the film.

Slumdog Millionaire includes a love story, which I found to be a bit cliché and borderline unnecessary. While at the aforementioned orphanage, Jamal meets Latika, and immediately an unspoken love brews between the two. Due to a series of fairly contrived mishaps and occurrences, the two are perennially prevented from reuniting. Latika is always just out of his grasp. She becomes involved with gangsters (seemingly against her will) who keep her under lock and key. In one scene, they arrange to meet at a train station and run away together, and right before they’re about to reunited she is captured and wrestled into a waiting car right in front of Jamal. The love story wasn’t offensive, and didn’t really take anything away from the picture, but I though the film would have worked without it fine, and it didn’t really add anything for me.

Slumdog Millionaire is a very impressive, engrossing and entertaining film. Was it worth the best picture award? The only other nominee I have seen is Milk, and this film was certainly better. The story is brilliant and fun, the acting is well done, and the direction is top-notch. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether it deserved the Oscar or not.

A-

Won: Cinematography, Director, Editing, Music-Original Score, Music-Original Song, Sound, Writing-Adapted Screenplay, Picture
Nominated: Music-Original Song, Sound Editing

You Only Live Twice (1967)
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Principle Actors: Sean Connery, Tetsuro Tamba, Donald Pleasance, Akiko Wakabayashi

I’ll be honest; my James Bond experience is fairly limited. The only Bond films I had seen before this were Goldfinger, Dr. No, and Thunderball, and I watched all of those within the past year or so. Despite my naiveté, I know what I’m going to see when I watch a Bond film long before I put the DVD into the player. Chances are, I’ll see Bond cool and in control of the situation, Bond being smooth with the ladies, various laborious and unsuccessful attempts on Bond’s life, a colorful villain, an even more colorful plotline, Bond saving the day, and Bond and his female accomplice dashing to escape as the supervillain’s compound explodes around them (followed by a smooch as the credits begin to roll).

Not that I’m complaining! That’s why we watch James Bond films, and that’s why there have been 22 official (and one unofficial) Bond movies to date. Everyone knows what they’re in store for when they’re watching the Empire’s top secret agent, and sometimes, when you have a character like Bond, its better that way.

When it comes down to it, plotlines in James Bond films, especially the Connery editions, are largely interchangeable and irrelevant, and serve only to give Bond a locale in which to operate and a villain in which to fight. You Only Live Twice is no different. In this installment, villainous mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld is capturing American and Russian spacecraft in an attempt to make each nation think that the other is responsible. His goal is to create war between the two superpowers, so that in the ensuing chaos the world will be ripe for the picking and he’ll be able to take over. Of course, James Bond is tasked with stopping the calculating Blofeld and saving the world.

Like in every Bond film, our protagonist is always in control, no matter how dire the situation may be. I touched upon this type of character in my review of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and it applies here as well. James Bond knows what he has to do to complete his assigned task, and he does it. I admire James Bond and I like watching these films not because he gets laid all the time, but because of how he handles himself. We all wish we could act how he does. He always makes the right move and nothing is too big for him to handle.

There are a few cheesy scenes and plot points in You Only Live Twice, as it seems there are in all 23 of these films. Though we’ve already discussed the relative pointlessness of the plot, it’s still incredibly flimsy. The most egregiously ridiculous part of You Only Live Twice is when Bond confidante Tiger Tanaka works to make Bond a “Japanese” person. Apparently, that only involves giving him a short-cut black wig and a kimono, and at that point he goes undetected amongst the surrounding villagers. Of course I can overlook this ridiculousness, because this is a Bond film, after all, but I still wanted to point it out.

I apologize if this review sounds like it could fit any Bond movie, but I think that’s part of the point. Each one is very similar and yet independently enjoyable. It’s a testimonial to the Bond character that he can make us care about these films even though pretty much the same things happen every time. There’s a comfort in brushing off ridiculous plot points and basking in the coolness and calmness of the main character. You don’t have to question these movies, because you can just think to yourself, “So what? It’s Bond!” and just ride the wave. Though it might sound like a mindless pursuit, once in a while it can be a fun and exhilarating undertaking.


B

John Lacey

The Random Ten #6

Vital Remains - “Dechristianize” - Dechristianize (Olympic, 2003)

I consider myself a fan of death metal, but I tend to listen to bands on the more “mainstream” side of death metal (Entombed, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, etc.). I have never been a big fan of Deicide, although their first two albums are definitely ground-breaking and influential. I remember hearing an mp3 of this Vital Remains track, with Deicide’s Glen Benton on lead vocals, and being blown away. This is some of the fastest drumming I’ve ever heard, and Benton’s vocals seemed more powerful and inspired than anything he’d done on any Deicide album in a long, long time. The thing that really drew me in were some of the melodic guitar leads and melodies. This song (as well as most of the songs on this album) is too long for its own good, however. If they didn’t essentially repeat the entire song twice (Intro/Verse/Solo/Pre-Chorus/Chorus/Verse/Solo/Pre-Chorus/Chorus/Outro/Intro), they would have a concise death metal masterpiece. Instead, they have made a very good song that is just a bit too long at 8:56.

God Dethroned - “Swallow the Spikes” - Ravenous (Metal Blade, 2001)

I had heard a few God Dethroned songs from their first two Metal Blade albums and was never too impressed, but I heard they really kicked up the speed and intensity on their third album for the label, due in no small part to the acquisition of Nile drummer Tony Laureano. “Swallow the Spikes,” the album’s leadoff track, is a speedy, melodic death-thrash song that features some great dual guitar solos, and some awesome riffing. Tony Laureano is an animal on the drums, but in Nile he only really got to show off his speed. The solo breakdowns in this song show his ability to slow things down and get creative on the toms and cymbals. Not the most groundbreaking band by any means, but if you’re into solid, speedy death/thrash metal, this is the album I’d recommend by these Dutchmen.

Faith No More - “From Out of Nowhere” - The Real Thing (Slash, 1989)

One of the three “hits” from this album (along with “Epic” and “Falling to Pieces”), “From Out of Nowhere” is a mid-paced rocker with a pretty straight-ahead beat that’s not as funky as some of the other tracks from this album. I used to love this song, but the over-reliance on the keyboards and lack of any sort of clever riffing has turned me off of it recently. It’s not a bad song by any means, but the more I got into mid-period Faith No More (Angel Dust, King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime) the more I kind of soured on their earlier, gimmicky-sounding material. Still better than 90% of today’s modern rock, just not FNM at their best.

Stuck Mojo - “Back in the Saddle” - HVY 1 (Century Media, 1999)

This is a live performance of one of Stuck Mojo’s heaviest (and best) songs. Originally off their album Rising, this version slows things down just a bit, making Rich Ward’s main riff all the more heavy. The original chorus had Chuck Billy doing the backing vocal, but here Ward handles it himself, although he sounds not quite as demonic (pun!) as Billy. I’m not a fan of most rap-metal, but Stuck Mojo did it quite well because they had riffs and solos that were classic metal all the way, while Bonz was actually a pretty good MC and frontman, too. I haven’t heard any of their 2 latest albums with their new vocalist, but Decibel gave their latest album a ZERO, due in part to them making a rap-metal-country cover of a god damn John Denver song. I can still enjoy their earlier material like this, but I’m sure as shit glad that rap-metal died.

Ryan Adams - “Shakedown on 9th Street” - Heartbreaker (Bloodshot, 2000)

An up-tempo, bluesy shuffle from Ryan Adams’ debut solo album, “Shakedown” is a live staple that I’ve seen Ryan and the Cardinals perform 3 times, and it never disappoints. I tend to like the Cardinals’ backing vocals on the live performances a bit more than the stiff vocals we get on this version, but still, it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a great song. It’s amazing how diverse Adams can be from song-to-song, and this was one of the first songs I heard from him that really rocked. Having become more of a fan of his in the past year, I still find this one of his best songs.

Machine Head - “The Burning Red” - The Burning Red (Roadrunner, 1999)

Yuck. This is the attempt at a “power ballad” that Machine Head never should have done. Come to think of it, they shouldn’t have done about 90% of the material they recorded from The Burning Red through Supercharger, two absolutely horrendous, nu-metally albums. This song is just so slow, and tries so hard to be an atmospheric ballad. The melodies suck, Robb Flynn’s “singing” is so hollow and weak, it still amazes me that this band was able to record a near-masterpiece of modern thrash metal with The Blackening in 2007. Avoid at all costs.

Celtic Frost - “Into the Crypts of Rays” - Morbid Tales (Metal Blade, 1984)

The first proper track from their debut album Morbid Tales, “Crypts” is a fast, thrashy song that kicks all kinds of ass. Writing about notorious child murderer Gilles de Railles, Celtic Frost became quickly one of thrash/death/black metal’s most influential bands. Their guitar tone was thick, sludgy, and heavy-as-fuck. Tom G. Warrior’s vocals were just downright nasty and dirty, but still decipherable. Ryan Adams himself has listed this as one of his top 10 metal songs of all time, which I find hilarious but also awesome. A great leadoff track from an incredible debut album and a metal classic.

Metallica - “The Shortest Straw” - …And Justice for All (Elektra, 1988)

A heavy, staccato-infused number from Metallica’s fourth album, “The Shortest Straw” is one of the weaker songs on Justice, but there’s not really a bad song on the album. There are definitely some great riffs in this song, such as the pre-chorus riff, and the chorus is pretty damn catchy, but this song never really grabbed me that much when compared to classics like “Blackened,” “One” and the title track. The melodic break before the first solo is pure greatness, but the second guitar solo near the end of the song just sounds off, and not in a good way. Kirk Hammett sounds like he’s trying to squeeze out an on-key note and can’t quite do it, and not in that so-chaotic-it-sounds-good way that Slayer do for every fucking solo. I’ve noticed on live recordings that Hammett pretty much made up a more melodic, fitting solo on the outro, leading me to believe that he was too drunk or high on coke to really care what the last solo sounded like. Still, a decent thrash song from Metallica’s career heyday, but not really essential to their entire catalogue.

Metallica - “Thorn Within” - Load (Elektra, 1996)

I’ll admit it, I kind of like Load. I think there are some great songs on this album. However, “Thorn Within” is not one of them. It’s too slow, too simple, and doesn’t really contain anything captivating, aside from a main riff that sounds a lot like “Twist of Cain” by Danzig. The first 2 minutes of this song just seem a little all over the place. The lyrics and vocals are also near-embarrassing, with Hetfield trying to be soulful and almost country-ish, with some really lame harmonies in the verses, and it just doesn’t work at all. One good riff does not a good song make, and this song is full proof of that.

Pantera - “Cemetery Gates” - Official Live: 101 Proof (East/West, 1997)

This version of this song made me a full-on Pantera convert. I had been into Metallica and a little Slayer, but was under the impression that Pantera were “too heavy” because they screamed. I heard this song on WAAF when I was typing a paper for Miss Erickson’s class, and it honestly blew me away. Dimebag Darrell’s guitar playing was just out of this world, and the “ballad” formula of the song probably eased me into the heavy parts a little. The riffs were just great, but Phil Anselmo’s vocal delivery, much dirtier and sleazier than the crisp, clean perfection of the studio version, was really impressive to me. Parts of this song are melodic and beautiful, but that “chorus” riff is downright evil, with all the bending pinch-harmonics. The solo is also one of Dime’s best, and this was probably Pantera at their peak, career-wise. I had heard “Cowboys From Hell” before, and liked that song, but never thought the band was anything special until I listened to this song. I’m glad I did, because from there I only went on to listening to heavier (and better) metal bands, but I’ll never forget what Pantera did for me and my tastes in music. I still love this version of the song, and wish Dimebag Darrell was still around to shred like only he could.

Matt Steele

The Simpsons Project #4

Simpsons Project Case #4 (Season 1, Episode 4)
There’s No Disgrace Like Home
Original airdate: 1/28/90

The last two Simpsons episodes we discussed, “Bart the Genius” and “Homer’s Odyssey”, served to begin fleshing out the male characters in the Simpsons family. In the series’ fourth episode, “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”, we take a look at the state of the family at large.

If you were around for these episodes when they first aired, you may remember that the Simpsons was actually quite edgy and controversial for its time. President George Bush (the first) famously declared that America needed more families like the Waltons and fewer families like the Simpsons. My grade school teacher forbade us from watching the program (even though I did anyway), and several child advocacy groups railed against the Simpsons for providing negative role models for children and encouraging foul language. One of the biggest taglines for these anti-Simpsons groups was that the family was too “dysfunctional”. This term became the rallying cry for concerned parents and groups during the first few years of the Simpsons’ life. Today’s episode, “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”, contains one of the most famous scenes from the history of the series, and also helped to create the furor that followed the show’s first episodes.

The episode starts by giving us our first glimpse of Burns Manor (called “Heaven on earth” by Homer). The Springfield Nuclear Power Plant company picnic is being held there, and Homer desperately needs everyone to be on their best behavior or he could lose his job. Burns fires another employee on his way in because his son complains about being at the picnic, so the stakes are high for Homer and his family to conduct themselves appropriately (impossible) or he could get the ax as well.

The picnic does provide some classic C. Montgomery Burns. As he toasts his employees, he’s unable to greet them without cue cards (cue card 1: “Thank you all…”; cue card 2: “For coming!”). He also mixes in numerous hilarious insults and dismayed sighs with his usual aplomb.

The picnic serves to show us just how messed up and in trouble the family is. Bart and Lisa immediately begin running around and causing a nuisance. Homer desperately tries to keep them in line, using his trademark stern disciplinary tactics. Marge is embarrassed of the decorum and appearance of her family and decides to heavily imbibe in order to make the day more tolerable. Throughout the series, though the family always seems like they’re one problem away from disintegrating, we can usually sense genuine love between the characters. In “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”, we get the sense that they’re merely putting up with each other. As we begin, there’s no deep-seeded love for one another, just constant annoyance as they get in each other’s way.

When Homer sees another employee get a kiss from his son on the way out of the picnic (and a promise of a promotion from Mr. Burns due to the gesture), he implores Bart to follow suit. Bart refuses, saying, “But dad, I’m your kid!”. Homer later sees that employee in the parking lot and chastises him for sucking up to the boss. Of course, it wasn’t an act. The employee genuinely loves his family, and they love him, and Homer feels embarrassed and jealous of the feelings they have for each other. He then decides he needs to fix his family because he wants to experience those same feelings.

Homer goes about this in his usual half-assed way. He first drags the family to various houses in the neighborhood, and they watch “normal” families eating dinner and conversing to get an idea of how they measure up and what goes into having a loving family (apparently they have a long way to go, as Bart marvels that “the dad has a shirt on” during one of the visits). When this doesn’t work, Homer goes to Moe’s to booze away the pain. He gets into a fight with Barney due to a disparaging remark Barney makes about Homer’s family, and is soon knocked to the floor. While in a half-conscious stupor, he sees an ad for Dr. Marvin Monroe’s Family Therapy Center and thinks he finds the answer to their problems. After all, with a phone number like (800) 555-HUGS, it has to work!

Marge’s behavior in this particular episode is perplexing. Usually, especially in the earlier seasons, Marge takes pride in her family no matter what, and is constantly working to make sure that the family improves as a loving and cohesive unit. Here, she seems resigned to the fact that the family is barely getting by. She gets drunk at Burns’ party due to her embarrassment of them, and she later brushes off Homer’s genuine concerns about the family’s welfare. It’s odd to see Homer as the parent trying to fix things (however horribly) and not Marge.

Dr. Monroe’s therapy is $250, and the family simply doesn’t have that, so Homer pawns the television in order to pay for it (another moment where you realize just how bad things are for them). Monroe’s therapy is nouveaux and semi-sophisticated, so of course it goes right over the Simpsons’ heads. In the first therapy session, they draw pictures of their fears and anxieties, which lead Bart, Lisa and Marge to draw pictures of Homer, and Homer to draw a picture of an airplane dropping bombs (because he wasn’t paying attention). In the next session, they whack each other with rubber mallets until Bart realizes that the mallets work a lot better when you take the padding off.

Finally, in a famous scene, the family is hooked up to an electric generator. Each has the ability to shock the others by pressing a button. Of course, they begin shocking each other incessantly, causing Monroe’s patients to vacate the building and creating a power outage in the town. Outraged, Monroe boots them from his practice, but Homer reminds him that he promised double their money back if they were not cured. Monroe resists, but eventually pays them $500 to leave and never come back. The family feels like they’ve earned the money by failing at the therapy and become closer for it. The episode ends with the redeemed family going to buy a new TV with the money.

In watching this episode, I can actually kind of see why some teachers and parents became so upset with the show. There really isn’t any crass language and the storyline and attitudes are tame by today’s standards, but the Simpsons really were portrayed as a nightmare family here. To this point, cartoons were meant to be fun and mindless romps aimed at young children (even though they were often horribly violent; see: Tom, Jerry). People hadn’t seen anything like this at the time, and reacted negatively.

The episode isn’t fantastic, but it’s historically important and useful for taking a more in-depth look at the family. There aren’t many great one-liners or guffaws, but it is thoroughly entertaining throughout.

B

John Lacey

While saying grace: “Dear Lord, thank you for this microwaved bounty, even though we don’t deserve it. I mean, our kids are uncontrollable hellions, pardon my French. But they act like savages! Did you see them at the picnic? Of, of course you did, you’re everywhere. You’re omnivorous. Oh, Lord, why did you spite me with this family?” – Homer