Category Archives: Movies

LINK: The Boyhood Soundtrack

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I finally saw the Richard Linklater movie over the weekend, though not in a theater, unfortunately. Which meant that living room distractions crept in, and we stopped a couple of times to eat dinner, and then later to eat dessert.

The movie has a shambling narrative that is anything but slack, but doesn’t turn on the classic arc. This is a movie about a boy becoming an older boy, tweaked by the healthy and impressive gimmick of being shot over the course of the 12 years it takes to get from there to here.

Linklater is a rock ‘n’ roll fan, of course. His second movie is named after a Led Zeppelin song, and his first movie became the name of a music streaming service. And as you might expect, there is music all over the place in Boyhood. For one thing, the boy’s dad is a musician, at least he is at the start, and lots of time is spent in bedrooms and cars, places where music plays.

What struck me after seeing the movie, however, was how little of the music I knew. Some of that is because the opening song was by Coldplay, who i’ve never really listened to much, and some is because I didn’t listen to that much indie rock and rap in the aughts. But the music is an important part of the film anyway, and I wasn’t bothered by it’s general unfamiliarity to me.

blackalbumJack Hamilton has a story in Slate today that, while somewhat pretentious, I think really gets to what’s so excellent about the Boyhood soundtrack. If you get past some of his “oooh-critical!” language, he comes to describe the scene where dad gives boy a copy of the Beatles’ Black Album powerfully and gets it exactly right.

If you haven’t seen the movie and that doesn’t make sense to you, you only have one option. Go see the movie. In a theater, if you can.

Movies: Frank

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Screenshot 2015-02-11 12.45.30I remember reading about this movie last year, when it was released in theaters. It seemed crazy, one of our greatest actors, Michael Fassbender, spending the whole movie in a giant baseball of a mask, as well as a movie about a guy in a rock band who wears a mask all the time (not just on stage).

It turns out, after seeing the movie on Netflix, that this is a music movie about integrity and relationships and ambition, like most music movies, but this one has an arch humor and a steady intelligence guiding it. The music is emblematic, each tune meant to show something in the context of the film (rather than as a song in its own right), and there aren’t too many songs. Instead we have characters who seethe with passion, jammed and jamming together in a somewhat challenging situation, which is where tempers and ardor and hatred flare.

Recommended to those who generally like Sundance hits, or at least who don’t hate them.

It seems that Frank’s head is derived from a comic character from UK TV in the 1980s named Frank Sidebottom.

Frank Sidebottom was the creation of a comic artist named Chris Sievey, now deceased, about whom a documentary has been made. Frank, the movie, was obviously inspired by Sievey’s creation, but seems to be a reimagining of Sievey, rather than a rehash. All very weird and wonderful. This is a trailer for Being Frank, the Chris Sievey story.

TV: “Mr. Pickles”

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Indulge me a little bit here, as this entry has virtually nothing to do with music.

However, like my mate Peter, this site, though primarily focused on music–specifically rock’n’roll–is also about art and culture.

Hence this entry, which involves my favorite TV show at present, Mr. Pickles, which appears on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.

In contextualizing Mr. Pickles, it is important to note the brilliant concept Adult Swim has for a lot of their shows, not all of which are cartoons, but all of which represent some of the truly original and creative work anywhere.

A lot of the network’s (Adult Swim operates from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M. EST, daily, after which some very creative younger humans programming takes back over) brilliance comes from packaging. Shows generally run about 11 minutes, so, a Mr. Pickles that begins at say 9:30 P.M. will run for that time span, without commercials, and then be followed by three-to-four minutes of breaks, followed by another 15-minute program running under the same format.

Mr. Pickles, specifically, is about the Goodman family, their community (“Old Town”) and their “lovable” dog, Mr. Pickles. Mr. Pickles is beyond loyal to his owner, Tommy (who legs are inexplicably in braces) and the Goodman family, but Mr. Pickles also has a satanic streak, where he has some magic dominion over other animals, and can control them accordingly.

Mr. Pickles also has a serious sense of justice to go with that evil, if you will, streak. The thing is no one knows about Mr. Pickles’ dark side save the Goodman’s grandpa, who is always maintaining the dog is indeed evil, but is always disproved by the episode’s end, leaving the elder man with a wild tale that makes everyone know he is crazy.

I tend to describe the show as Leave it to Beaver, meets Scooby Doo, meets Dexter. The storylines get complex, but by the end of the 11 minutes, all the crazy loose ends are indeed tied up. But, in addition to the wild plots, there are all kinds of great things the creators have tossed in.

For example, Mr. Goodman is always reading the paper and the news of the story is often reflected in the headlines of his daily news, or within the sherrif’s office, the same can be said about the wanted posters.

Similarly, there is a lot happening in the background, with a lot of very off-the-wall stuff–particularly sex, as Mr. Pickles does indeed like to hump and grope almost anything, especially Mrs. Goodman–going on all over the place.

Mind you, this is a cartoon, but don’t let your kids watch, at least not without checking it out first, because this show is hysterical and as creative as it gets, but it could also be disturbing.

There are 10 episodes available (my favorite is The Lair) but what I linked to below is the Pilot as it gives a pretty good overview of the whole melange of craziness. But, if you go to the Adult Swim website, you can stream all of them (yay, they have been renewed for a second season!).

Lunch Break: Tangerine Dream, “Betrayal”

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Peter’s Edgar Froese obituary reminded me of not just the band Tangerine Dream, but the film Sorcerer, by William Friedkin.

At the time Tangerine Dream was new, I had already owned Autobahn (by Kraftwerk) and the samples I heard of Tangerine Dream sort of sounded the same to me, so I was not that interested.

And, then I went to see Friedkin’s wonderful film from 1977 Sorcerer, a remake of Henri-George Cluzot’s 1953 movie The Wages of Fear, which featured a very young Yves Montand (who also is in the Friedkin remake).

Tangerine Dream was responsible for the soundtrack to Sorcerer, and basically composed the whole score just based upon notes supplied by Friedkin, as opposed to even seeing daily rushes of the movie. Which is amazing when you hear the haunting and dreamy score the band delivered.

But, the film is also so good, and unfortunately, because the movie followed Friedkin’s treatment of The Exorist, Sorcerer was dismissed as another super natural film by many.

Which was hardly the case. Sorcerer is the name of one of the trucks the principles of the film use to deliver volatile nitro glycerin to an oil fire, with hopes of blowing over the top soil, and thus suffocating the flames.

The results are fantastic all around: visually, musically, emotionally.

Sorcerer also featured the late Roy Scheider, and this treatment of Betrayal features clips from the film.

OBIT: Edgar Froese

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When I heard that Tangerine Dream’s Edgar Froese had died I immediately thought of Michael Mann’s first movie, Thief, which starred James Caan. I may have heard of Tangerine Dream before that, but I wasn’t a fan of synth-driven atmospherics and certainly didn’t follow them.

But Thief grabs you with a terrific opening scene that propels into the story with terse visuals, no dialogue, and Tangerine Dream’s immersive and propulsive score. It makes me want to watch the whole movie again.

Night Music: Hoagy Carmichael (w/Lauren Bacall), “Am I Blue?”

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Friday night, and as I was making dinner (this time cayenne fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy) this great song from To Have and To Have Not jumped the synapses.

Directed by the equally great Howard Hawks (Bringing Up Baby, The Big Sleep, Red River, and Ball of Fire to name a few), with a screenplay by Ernest Hemmingway, To Have and To Have Not is in fact based upon a Hemmingway short story. But, rumor has it, there is very little in the film that has anything to do with the story.

Which doesn’t mean the film isn’t just great. It was Lauren Bacall’s and Humphrey Bogart’s first film together (in fact this was Bacall’s firgst film, period, and she was 19 at the time) and the chemistry is undeniable.

This is the film where Bacall suggestively tells Bogart he knows how to whistle (“you just put your lips together, and blow”).

The film also features Walter Brennan as a tookothless rummy sidekick named Eddie, and a joke of mixed-up names, for Bogart’s name is Harry Morgan, but Bacall always calls him Steve, while Bacall’s name is Marie Browning, but Bogart calls her Slim.

Anyway, the equally wonderful Hoagy Carmichael (as Cricket) plays throughout (remember, this is a 40’s movie, and music and song were part of the equation), including this cool number where he starts solo, and where Slide m helps him finish up.

Tres cool for a Friday night.

Night Music: Dave Davies/The Kinks, “Strangers”

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Timing is such an odd thing.

A few weeks back, my friend Les Ogilby, who has chimed in on the site and also contributed Top 10 Beatles and Stones lists, was up in the Bay Area.

Part of the reason is that Les, who is a killer blues harmonica player, agreed to come up north (Les and his wife Janet live in Seal Beach, Ca.) and join the BileTones when we played our holiday set at our fave dive bar, Roosters Roadhouse.

A couple of evenings before the gig Les, and his long time bud (and mine for a shorter time) Mike Volk came over to play some music and eat some pizza and play some records and have some fun together.

Well, the last album to take a spin on the turntable was the very same Lola versus Powerman and the Money-Go-Round (Part 1), the very same album that Peter grabbed the Powerman track from last night.

The spin here is Les wanted to hear the cut written by Ray’s brother, Dave, Strangers, which is indeed a lovely song.

Not to mention Dave, lead guitar player for the band, is largely credited with inventing feedback and the power chord. Go Dave!

The clip I copped is actually the album track, but it is also on the soundtrack of Anderson’s film, The Darjeeling Limited.

Link: Danny Says…

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NY Times photo by Joshua Bright.

Danny Fields holding a book with a photo of Nico he took.

Danny Fields was the manager of the Ramones, but he also signed Iggy and the Stooges and the MC5 to Elektra records (on the same day), and published the story in which John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, which caused a ruckus. A story in the New York Times visits Fields as he packs his trove of recordings and papers (and maybe some home made porn) for the Beinecke Library at Yale, which has acquired it.

One highlight is a clip from one of Fields’ audio cassettes of Lou Reed after first hearing a recording of the Ramones (even though he is bleeped).

Oh, and there’s a movie about Fields coming out this March.

And there is this song.

Night Music: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, “Everybody’s Doing It”

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Alan Arkush’s first feature film was a Corman spoof of low-budget exploitation filmmaking called “Hollywood Boulevard.” Arkush later went on to semi-stardom, directing Rock ‘n’ Roll High School with the Ramones, a few years later.

But Commander Cody and crew was his debut, and the result was exuberant and as ragged as you would expect. Ramones fans may want to note that the Commander and his Airmen were reportedly (by Rolling Stone) busted in Nice, trying to get to the Hollywood Boulevard screening at the Cannes Film Festival, for having too much airplane glue on them when they tried to clear customs. Crazy, and clearly they didn’t know about carbona.