October 2010
26 posts
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
I watched Friday the 13th Part 2 right after the first, so hopefully I don’t confuse anything here with the earlier, similar film. This time it’s Steve Miner directing, as Sean S. Cunningham opted out, though, as with a lot of early successes, eventually he would think differently and direct another film in the series. Miner sets the story just two months after the events of the first film, with...
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Tom Jones - Praise & Blame (2010)
Tom Jones has been plying his trade for over 40 years at this point, but apparently he felt he had something to prove. As viewers of Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues can attest, Jones’ love of blue music runs deep. But unlike his friend Van Morrison, he really hasn’t shone that love much until now, with this collection of primarily blues covers produced by Ethan (Ray LaMontagne, Kings of Leon)...
My Buddy Alan's Rent Emergency Comics Sale
Not sure how many people read this blog who don’t already read Trouble With Comics, but my bestest buddy Alan is selling a number of comics for some quick and much-needed cash, and there are some very good deals to be had. I just talked to him this evening for easily a couple hours, and there are very few people with whom I can do that. We covered at least three Beatles, Jim Lee, James...
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Kings of Leon - Come Around Sundown (2010)
Being a big rock band in 2010 is a rare and precarious proposition. Assuming even Death Cab or Shins levels of production sheen risks losing a chunk of the fanbase that were with you in your four-track, vinyl 7” single days. Commercial ambitions are for pop stars like Lady GaGa, and it’s only the pop stars that are allowed questionable lyrics to go with the increasingly grand scale of...
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Friday the 13th (1980)
AMC has been building up to their Halloween premiere of the new series, The Walking Dead, with a raft of old horror movies, most of which were probably cheap to license for air (I’m guessing The Brain Eaters was thrown in with something else). But while there’s a lot of stuff I’m not interested in, or already familiar with, I noticed they were running a lot of the Friday the 13th series, and it...
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New John Lennon Box Set
This isn’t my review at all, but rather just a comment on an Interesting, helpful Douglas Wolk review at Pitchfork. Very odd that they would reissue some of these albums with fewer bonus tracks than prior reissues. Even if they’re negligible, how annoying! I still only have a two-disc best of from a few years ago, and it’s probably all I need from Lennon’s solo catalog, but still, you’d like...
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The Jam - In The City (1977)
The late-’70s punk movement in Britain encouraged every angry youth to pick up an instrument and start banging away, regardless of actual musical ability. But it came as no surprise that the artists and bands that could play, and had ambition beyond shouted, two minute blasts at authority, ended up having greater influence over time. In the first album from the Jam, we find...
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Dire Straits - Making Movies (1980)
I’ve been exploring a lot of ‘70s and early ‘80s music that’s a) already important to me or b) I feel might be worth a listen to gain a better understanding of the musical landscape of the time. I hadn’t even really thought of Dire Straits, but a buddy recommended this album, their third, as a good place to start. And admittedly, most of what I’ve been reviewing falls under punk, New Wave,...
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Roxy Music - Stranded (1973)
With Stranded, Bryan Ferry & Co lose the x-factor of Brian Eno’s synth treatments, becoming fully Ferry’s band. That’s not a bad thing at all. As unconventional and playful as, say, Pink Floyd was with Syd Barrett, they produced stronger music when it was written by Roger Waters. Not that he wasn’t giving his all on the previous two albums, but here Ferry seems to take his role as the guiding...
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The Slits - Cut (1979)
The Slits were a short-lived (but reformed in the late Aughts) but influential band, influential mainly due to gender, as they were one of the few all-girl punk bands in 1979, when this was recorded. Originally a much cruder affair, they’re helped immeasurably on this album by veteran reggae producer Dennis Bovell, and so the album alternates punk with ska and reggae. Sometimes, all three genres...
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Duran Duran - Arena (1984)(2004 Remaster)
I never owned this album. I remember Christmas of 1984 at my grandparents’ house, my cousin getting the cassette as a present, and I was somewhat envious, but I never bought it. I made sure to get the single of “The Wild Boys,” a new recording to goose sales of this live album, and to me that meant I was current. Growing up, I was never much interested in live albums, the only...
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Duran Duran - Seven and the Ragged Tiger...
Simon LeBon, frontman and lyricist for Duran Duran, described the theme of the album as “ambition.” The “Seven” were the Fab Five and their two managers, chasing the “Ragged Tiger” of success. And it’s a good thing he explained that, because it would be hard for most people to equate success or ambition as any kind of tiger, nor do the lyrics of the album provide a whole lot of clues in that...
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Eric Clapton - Clapton (2010)
I wish I could treat this review with the unhurried approach Clapton takes with this album, his first in five years. But there’s not that much to say about it. It’s primarily a collection of covers and a few originals, only one of which Clapton has a hand in writing, but that’s fine. Clapton is a musician first and songwriter second; his best songs have been written when he has...
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Neil Young - Le Noise (2010)
Now that I’m in my middle age, I really appreciate the veteran artists who just keep at it, doing what feels right to them at the time, through good times and bad, coming up with the best they can despite the vagaries of trends and fickle fans. How can you not have some respect for a Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton or Tom Jones, all of whom have albums out this year and none of whom (aside from...
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Rubicon - Season One (2010)
So, AMC’s second original ongoing series has concluded its first season tonight. It was a good episode, and the series has continued to improve since it started, and yet it’s still not anywhere near the level of Mad Men or the acclaimed dramas from HBO or Showtime. Note: SPOILERS ahead.
After a righteous penultimate episode last week that moved the proceedings outside NYC, as...
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Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure (1973)
Roxy Music reportedly had more time to work on this album than their debut, and it’s evident, with not only more elaborate arrangements and strong production but a wider range of themes from Bryan Ferry. He’s still looking for the eternal girl, or losing her, but there’s a more mature contemplation of the end of a relationship in “Beauty Queen,” as if Ferry had been...
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Haircut 100 - Pelican West Plus (1982)
Haircut 100 is one of those quintessential ’80s bands, a pretty boy band with a quickly dated and yet somehow timeless sound, who came and went quickly. I think they were effectively over before I even heard them.
Pelican West is essentially their only album. Lead singer/guitarist/heartthrob Nick Heyward would hightail it for an ill-advised solo career shortly afterwards, and the band put...
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Roxy Music - Roxy Music (1972)
Roxy Music was already broken up when I was in high school and listening to a lot of the music that would really imprint itself on me. I knew Bryan Ferry’s “Slave to Love” and somehow there was never any doubt he was cool, but I don’t really remember listening to anything by his former band until about 1991, in the backseat with some music store coworkers, male and female,...
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Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Hawk (2010)
My first exposure to the acclaimed duo of former Belle & Sebastian and Gentle Waves member Campbell with former Screaming Trees frontman Lanegan was a frustratingly pleasant experience. This is their third teaming, and it’s heavy on atmosphere and reverb in service of songs as simple and solidly constructed as Johnny Cash or Townes Van Zandt, though without really coming close to either...
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Blondie - Plastic Letters (1977)
I’ve seen this album labeled with the dreaded, “sophomore slump,” but I don’t think that quite applies. For one thing, the first album wasn’t very good aside from the singles. And in some ways, Plastic Letters is an improvement, but a rather bloodless and perhaps cynical one.
Blondie got over, or close to over, with a good deal of variety to the songs, though they only gelled when they could match...
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Duran Duran - Rio (1982)(2009 Remaster)
Rio is about, among other things, Fire. Only fire to blame. Heat beneath your Winter, and a moment behind you. Steam in the subway. Burning stars.
Rio is about Earth. The sand lane and the tar plain. The ground burning, Earth afire.
Rio is about Air. Danger on the wind. You know, the wind that doesn’t have a name but still blows down the lane.
Rio is about Water, or at least, liquids....
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Blondie - Blondie (1976)
The cover of their 1976 debut album shows that at least the marketing guys at the label recognized the strengths of this band, even if the band hadn’t quite figured them all out yet. Deborah Harry is upfront, looking straight ahead with icy blue-eyed detachment, while the rest of the band cascades behind her, half-seen mopheads in black suits.
The album is a hodgepodge of styles, probably...
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Duran Duran - Duran Duran (1981)(2009 Remaster)
I have author and Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield to thank for pushing me to publicly embrace an important, formative band for me here. Sheffield’s excellent new book, Talking to Girls about Duran Duran, places stories of his youth and romantic awakening in the context of how Duran Duran and other artists formed his views on romance. Ironically, Duran Duran should have been my first...
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The Runaways (2010)
I had a short fling with Joan Jett. Well, her music. I was only about twelve years old, which is when music was first starting to influence me in a big way. This was a time (1980, 1981), when most kids listened to music on a small transistor radio, the kind about the size of a couple of digital cameras taped together now, with a little wrist strap so you didn’t drop it. Eventually, you would...
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A History of Violence (2005)
Comics fan though I am, hopefully I can be forgiven for never reading the John Wagner-written graphic novel that inspired this film, as it came from one of many failed DC Comics imprints and did not stay in print very long.
The film is directed by David Cronenberg, famous for cerebral grossouts like Videodrome and Dead Ringers. I’ve never really studied his work, just watched some movies,...
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Seefeel - Faults (2010)
I’ve never been very good at following or identifying subgenres of music, especially electronic music. Sure, I could try something, and if I like it, iTunes or Amazon or some other etailer can do the work of suggesting a number of similar artists, but that doesn’t mean I know the type of music to which I’m listening.
I couldn’t tell you what Seefeel does aside from they...
