Saturday, May 21, 2005
What Can I Do?
The new CD's being re-mastered a third time.. mostly due to my pickiness about EQ on some of the songs.. and another's been dropped from the lineup.. I'll post it sometime over the next month or so. So it's looking more likely to be July or August rather than June for a release date. Isn't this always how things work in the record "industry"?
In the meantime, here's a nugget from the live tape collections, a version of What Can I Do?, one of the more "underrated" and fun to play (for me at least) songs from Taller, recorded in 1989 just prior to the band's first European Tour. Chris Burgess plays the bass, Scott Pickering the drums.
In the meantime, here's a nugget from the live tape collections, a version of What Can I Do?, one of the more "underrated" and fun to play (for me at least) songs from Taller, recorded in 1989 just prior to the band's first European Tour. Chris Burgess plays the bass, Scott Pickering the drums.
Star Bores
Ok, I fully realize this header may be sacrilege in some corners..
My wife and I took 3 1/2 hours (if you include the approximately 10 previews shown) out of a beautiful afternoon today to take in the latest (and last, technically third - who can keep it all straight?) Lucas lovefest, and while I have heard many people spouting the "return to form", and "best of the series" hype, we both found it pretty boring. As with so so many Hollywood movies these days, the special effects overwhelm the story, and there's only so much of these computer generated scenescapes you can absorb in the context of a 2 or 3 second scene. I'm sure the programmers and designers are thrilled with the detail in the battle scenes, but they fly by so fast that it's often impossible to discern what the heck is going on. We rented Return of the Jedi just for comparison's sake, and maybe I'm just gettin' old, but we both thought that the older 3 movies just had a lot more "fun" in them. Where was the comic relief? The fuzzy cutesy aliens? The bumbling antics of C3PO? The sense of optimism and adventure amidst the fighting?
Further, neither of us found Anakin Skywalker's "conversion" to Darth Vader particularly believable nor particularly interesting. He is promised the ability to save his wife's life if only he surrenders his soul to the "dark side". However, he never seems to spend much time with her, and seems too focused on what others think about him to really care about her or what she thinks. He's obviously also not that hot on having kids with her, based on his reaction to hearing the news. It doesn't seem like enough motivation to start killing kids and anyone else the master wishes, with little sign of regret other than the occasional sob-less tear on the cheek. Meanwhile the movie jumped from battle scene to battle scene without spending any time on character development, often lingering on special effects laden scenes absent of dialogue.
Oh, and the whole supposed "anti-Bush" thing was totally overrated. A few lines here and there that could be stretched into a reference with the current administration, but if you aren't looking for them you'll miss them. I think Republicans have a paper thin skin about this stuff, they can't take any criticism of Dear Leader from any corner, even if vaguely in a scifi blockbuster, the majority of whose viewers don't give 2 shits about politics anyway.
We did notice one plot flaw watching both movies in the same day.. During Return of the Jedi, Luke and Leia have a conversation in which Luke asks her if she remembers her mother, and Leia says she does have some memories, "she died when I was young". In the latest and greatest, she dies in childbirth. Tsk Tsk.
Details details details.
For Sci-fi, my money's on the current Battlestar Galactica series on SCI-FI channel. Better writing, more interesting plot twists. Although I could do without the shaky camera space scenes that make it feel like you dropped in on an NPYD Blue episode.
My wife and I took 3 1/2 hours (if you include the approximately 10 previews shown) out of a beautiful afternoon today to take in the latest (and last, technically third - who can keep it all straight?) Lucas lovefest, and while I have heard many people spouting the "return to form", and "best of the series" hype, we both found it pretty boring. As with so so many Hollywood movies these days, the special effects overwhelm the story, and there's only so much of these computer generated scenescapes you can absorb in the context of a 2 or 3 second scene. I'm sure the programmers and designers are thrilled with the detail in the battle scenes, but they fly by so fast that it's often impossible to discern what the heck is going on. We rented Return of the Jedi just for comparison's sake, and maybe I'm just gettin' old, but we both thought that the older 3 movies just had a lot more "fun" in them. Where was the comic relief? The fuzzy cutesy aliens? The bumbling antics of C3PO? The sense of optimism and adventure amidst the fighting?
Further, neither of us found Anakin Skywalker's "conversion" to Darth Vader particularly believable nor particularly interesting. He is promised the ability to save his wife's life if only he surrenders his soul to the "dark side". However, he never seems to spend much time with her, and seems too focused on what others think about him to really care about her or what she thinks. He's obviously also not that hot on having kids with her, based on his reaction to hearing the news. It doesn't seem like enough motivation to start killing kids and anyone else the master wishes, with little sign of regret other than the occasional sob-less tear on the cheek. Meanwhile the movie jumped from battle scene to battle scene without spending any time on character development, often lingering on special effects laden scenes absent of dialogue.
Oh, and the whole supposed "anti-Bush" thing was totally overrated. A few lines here and there that could be stretched into a reference with the current administration, but if you aren't looking for them you'll miss them. I think Republicans have a paper thin skin about this stuff, they can't take any criticism of Dear Leader from any corner, even if vaguely in a scifi blockbuster, the majority of whose viewers don't give 2 shits about politics anyway.
We did notice one plot flaw watching both movies in the same day.. During Return of the Jedi, Luke and Leia have a conversation in which Luke asks her if she remembers her mother, and Leia says she does have some memories, "she died when I was young". In the latest and greatest, she dies in childbirth. Tsk Tsk.
Details details details.
For Sci-fi, my money's on the current Battlestar Galactica series on SCI-FI channel. Better writing, more interesting plot twists. Although I could do without the shaky camera space scenes that make it feel like you dropped in on an NPYD Blue episode.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
New Dancehall
Technology problems prevented the posting of last week's show, unless you would have enjoyed listening to 2 hours of silence. It's a shame, really, because I played all this really rare and special stuff (not really-though you did miss the opportunity to hear a couple Cruel Cruel Moon songs. Don't worry, you can still check them out here. , Click on the Psykick Dancehall link over on the left for yesterday's goods...The show starts a minute or so into the stream.
My Dad is Dead has _0_ friends
Let me just say the whole notion of having to email people to ask them to become your "friends" seems a little strange, but after hearing the NPR story the other morning on My Space.com, I thought, what the hell.. the world needs at least one more web page dedicated to MDID does it not, and if it's good enough for Mudvayne, who currently have 22,070 more friends than My Dad Is Dead....... Scroll down for the unintentionally hilarious bit, to the "My Dad is Dead's Friend Space" to see the forlorn message. The best thing about this is you'll get to hear a lofi mp3 of one of the more uptempo songs from the new record, Consequences.
