Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

howls moving castle poster

Originally written on Mary 12, 2006

It seems Japan is the country of mention when it comes to film these days. Not only have they produced some of the best horror films of the last decade (see Ichi the Killer and Ringu) but they’ve made some incredibly imaginative animated films as well.

The most well-known animated director is a man named Hayao Miyazaki. A few of his films to make it over the pond are Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and most recently Howl’s Moving Castle.

Most of his films live in a fantasy world where mysterious, enchanting creatures roam freely with humans in a land where time seems to have escaped. People use modern conveniences along with ancient methods of living. There is usually a small, weaker protagonist up against massive odds.

In Howl’s Moving Castle, a young, unconfident girl, named Sofi has a spell cast upon her by an evil witch causing her to appear as an old woman. As this woman, Sofi gains some confidence and takes off for the moving castle which wanders through the countryside.

In it, she meets up with a young boy, a demon living in the body of a constant fire, and Howl himself. Howl is a wizard, who has nearly slipped into oblivion over self-doubt. He does, however, slip out of his castle to help stop a war going on between his own country’s land and another.

It is a moving story of characters finding their own character and becoming strong humans. It is told in a creative, beautiful way and is truly a cartoon that means just as much to adults as children.

Miyazaki creates animated features that are fit for the whole family in a way that is entirely different than those films from American companies like Pixar. Films like Toy Story appeal to all ages in that they are hilarious to everybody. The jokes hit on kid levels and adult levels without ever becoming saccharine or too mature. I love Pixar films, but Miyazaki films are so incredibly different.

There is humor in his films, but it comes from a very human place. In Howl’s Moving Castle, the only really jokey character is the demon fire, and that mainly comes from the fact that Billy Crystal does the English voice for the character. Mostly, there aren’t a lot of jokes as much as humor that comes from the situations.

It is more of a fantasy than a comedy, with fantastic characters and mesmerizing animation. Fully and highly recommended for anyone.

Bootleg Country: Frank Sinatra – Oakland, CA (05/22/68)

With the advent of inexpensive, high-speed, broadband internet, actual tape trading has almost died out. There is no longer any need to look up tape lists, find good traders, and go through the hassle of mailing packages. Now all you have to do is point, click and wait while the internet brings you a new concert recording.

Bootleg collectors are a notoriously cranky bunch. They also have the ears of an audiophile. Back in my trading days I had to adhere to numerous rules to make the serious collector happy. Before CDR, all music had to be recorded on Maxwell XLII tapes, anything else was sub par in terms of quality. I had to write down source material and what generation of tape I had. Each recording from tape to tape reduced the quality of the actual sound.

Even in this new world of exact digital copies, and easy downloads; one still has to be precise as to where ones bootleg collection comes from. Serious collectors will collect several versions of a particularly fine concert to get the best possible source material.

The problem with downloading concerts is that they are often very large files. A Grateful Dead concert often went for three sets, lasting into the wee hours of the morning. Three or four compact disks worth of music can add up to several gigs for a download.

Though the rest of the digital community has converted entire music collections to the .mp3 format, bootleg collectors of stature, cannot stand the degradation in quality that comes from such a compression. Yet, .wav files are much, much too big for a conceivable download.

There are a couple of formats that are now used to compress sound files into something downloadable, without causing any compromise in the sound quality. Both SHN and FLAC are acceptable compression files.

Both types of files come with their own software to decode the compressions (or compress .wav files). Each also creates special signals that can be read by the software to ensure the compression still contains exact data. You can find SHN software at the immensely informative Etree site and flac software is available at their own website.

There are numerous websites out there in which to download new and old bootlegs. One of the most useful, and expansive is archive.org. The archive has thousands of concerts available in a myriad of compressed and uncompressed files.

One of the most popular formats in which to download bootleg concerts today is BitTorrent. This format has gotten a lot of flack lately in the media because it has also become the primary source of illegal downloads as well.

BitTorrent is kind of an evolution of the peer-to-peer download software as developed by Napster and Gnutella. BitTorrent’s ability to allow everyone to download small parts of the shared file from everyone allows for simple and fast downloads.

There are torrent sites out there for nearly every band that has ever played a concert. One of my favorites is bt.etree.org. It’s very jam band friendly, but well, so am I.

If Wilco is your band of choice then let me introduce you to Via Chicago Torrents.

Is bluegrass your thing? Then check out the Bluegrass Box.

If none of this suits your fancy, then drop on down to Pure Live Gigs, where they torrent everything from the Rolling Stones to Frank Zappa to Stevie Wonder. With a few searches, you can find just about anything you would ever want. It’s a big bootleg world out there, so come on in, the music’s just fine.

Frank Sinatra
05/22/68
Oakland, CA

One of the interesting things that have happened to my collection since going broadband is my ability to collect a myriad of bootlegs from a variety of genres. In my tape trading days, I generally stuck to the Grateful Dead and other jam bands. The trading scene consisted mostly of bands that actively allowed tapers into their midst and legally allowed their concerts to be traded, freely amongst fans. Where a lot of your big-name acts actively pursue punishment for concert recorders, most jam bands, following in the footsteps of the Grateful Dead, accept and encourage the sharing of their concerts.

However, as my horizons expanded with each available download, I found live concerts of nearly every type. While Frank Sinatra may not sing “Fly Me to the Moon” in 50 different ways, it is still interesting to hear how he sounded in a live setting. At under a quarter per blank disk, and only a few bucks a month for the internet connection, the price was completely right to find out.

This show is a lovely-sounding soundboard of Sinatra singing many of his standards and fan favorites. The backing band is swinging and his voice is in full form.

Apparently, there were some hecklers at this show, for a few times Sinatra cuts his singing off to take a crack right back at them. Just before he sings “Nancy (With the Laughing Face)” he jibes, “Oh the back the back…” obviously frustrated with the hecklers. Yet, through it all, he is the ultimate professional, never breaking the rhythm of the song.

Sinatra has such a fluid, real voice that many of the songs sound almost exactly like the studio versions. It is a voice so strong that it doesn’t need the digital clean-up of the studio to make the girls swoon.

More than once I’ve gotten a few queer looks from other drives as I buzz down the road singing at the top of my lungs with Frank on “Fly Me to the Moon.”

Sinatra seems to love all the songs he sings. To introduce them he announces this is one of the greatest songs ever written. Towards the end, he nearly runs out of adjectives to describe the songs (the greatest/sweetest/loveliest American/folk/contemporary songs ever written by a left-footed Bulgarian ballerina, etc.)

Personally, I could do without some of the slower ballads like “It Was a Very Good Year,” and the very rich, and very white Sinatra really can’t pull off the powerful slave song “Ol’ Man River,” even if it was written by two very white men.

But this is Sinatra, and to complain over a few song choices is trivial. The voice is there and that’s enough to win points with any lover, playing over a candlelit dinner.

Random Shuffle (05/08/06) – Gene Autry, Otis Redding, Prince, Jeff Tweedy & Guns N Roses

sleepless in seattle

“Back in the Saddle Again” – Gene Autry
From the Sleeping in Seattle soundtrack

Though a bit of a cheesy romantic comedy, Sleepless in Seattle sports a very nice soundtrack consisting of great vocal jazz, old country, and classic standards. This Gene Autry number is the kind of country music I love. Before country music was bastardized by slick production and the anti-Christ named Shania Twain it was full of old cowboy songs and blues-inspired cheatin’ songs.

It is music with a heart. Everyone’s heard the old joke about what you get if you play a country song backward – you get your wife back, your house, back, your dog back… – but there is a sincerity and a joy to that music not felt in Nashville proper for years.

otis blue

“You Don’t Miss Your Water” – Otis Redding
from Otis Blue

Nobody sings soul music like Otis Redding. There is so much heartache in his voice he could make a statue of Hitler cry. Yet he could jump out of his soul with some rhythm and blues.

He does a version of “Satisfaction” that even Keith Richards says sounds more like what he wanted than the Stones version.

This is a slow, soulful number with heartbreaking lyrics, but it’s not my favorite Otis tune. It’s just a tad too slow for my liking, without a great melody to back it.

It’s still powerful Otis soul, but if I was recommending Otis Redding sad songs, I’d head for “These Arms Of Mine” or “Pain in My Heart” before I led anyone to this song.

purple rain

“When Doves Cry” – Prince
from Purple Rain

Ah, Prince when he was just Prince. They say his last album was pretty smokin’ but I have to admit I haven’t given it a spin. Judging from his appearance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a couple of years back, he’s still got it though.

This song reminds me of my sophomore year at college. There was a social club on campus that were nicknamed the Doves. Pledges had to sing this song at will, or maybe they had it on a t-shirt. Anyways this was their song.

A great freaking song it is. Killer guitar, a sweet backbeat, and Prince doing his Prince thing like no other.

“I’m the Man Who Loves You” – Jeff Tweedy
from 3/05/05

From a live acoustic solo gig, he did in Chicago. Well, later he was joined by most of Wilco, but the first set is nothing but Tweedy and his guitar. He does some old Tupelo numbers and lots of Wilco favorites.

This version suffers a little without the band, but it’s cool to hear these songs stripped down to just the basic melody and Tweedy’s oddball lyrics. He actually manages some pretty good fast picking on his little acoustic.

I keep expecting to hear the crowd really sing along since it must have been an intimate show, but I never do. I guess they had respect for the man and the song and didn’t want to disturb him.

“Paradise City” – Guns N Roses
from (10/2/87)

There has been a lot of brouhaha over Axl Rose and the new Guns N Roses album that has supposedly been coming out for several years now. This is the stuff that keeps people talking about a band that really hasn’t done anything since the early 1990s.

The sound quality on this live performance is a little muddled, but the blazing, explosion coming from the band is enough to blow out the speakers and make the neighbors call the cops.

Axl is all over the place screaming like a mad chimpanzee on fire. Slash tears the mutha up with his solo. The rest of the band blazes like a blind demon on Judgment Day. I just got this bootleg in the mail yesterday, so I can’t say much about the rest of the disk, but if this version is anything like the rest, then sign me up for the reunion tour.

Bootleg Country: Alison Krauss + Union Station – Woodstown, NJ (09/02/05)

I first started collecting bootlegs in 1997. The internet had really just come into its own, exploding all over the place, including my little apartment. I had recovered from the staggering amount of boobies available and had begun looking for other interests, including music.

With my 2800 kps modem, there wasn’t much use in looking at graphic-intensive sites so I quickly made a place for myself on Usenet groups. One of my favorite places was rec.music.gdead, a land of plenty for Grateful Deadheads.

Patiently I read through months of messages about trading live bootleg tapes. It seemed to be a secret society thriving on the edge of this international, public network. They even used secret code words like B+P*, SBD**, and GDTRFB***. I had been chatting long enough to understand the basics of internet speech, I could LOL with the best of them, but these deadheads had a language all to themselves.

There were agreements going on all the time, special music and tapes being passed back and forth all carrying their own specific rules. Rules which if you broke, you were forever labeled with words like “bad trader,” marked like the beast to be banished from this secret world.

After several months of deciphering the code words and understanding the secret rules to this society, I finally decided I wanted to enter into this world.

With the help of a buddy who had a few bootlegs (which he had obtained by giving out hamburgers to a local trader, which is a story in itself) I posted a message to the board asking for trades to help a newbie out.

I was overwhelmed with responses. Numerous folks said they would dub some shows for me if I would send them blank tapes and the price of the postage to get them to me. A couple of kind folks sent me freebies, including one guy who sent me a stack of tapes from every decade the Grateful Dead played.

Quickly I turned around and asked for more trades, passing around my little list. Others, just like me, with small lists, gave me lists of their own, and trades were made, and more music was obtained.

It was addictive. I kept a list of what tapes I had, who I had traded with, to whom I was currently trading, and who was a bad trader. Though most folks in the scene were very cool and kind, there were a few folks who would set up a trade, receive the tapes I had sent, and then never send anything back. This was more of a hassle than an actual loss.

To set up a trade in those days, I would spend hours on websites that contained thousands of tape lists. I’d search those lists looking for shows I didn’t have and that sounded interesting. Then I’d search another website to get the set lists and reviews of that particular show. When I found some things I wanted, I’d email the owner and ask for a trade.

Half the folks never responded, either they were too busy or I had nothing they wanted. After sending out 10-20 requests a few responses would come in. Multiple emails would pass setting up all the requirements for the trade. There would be discussions of the quality of the material, what type of tapes we each used, and whether we wanted to send the cases or not. On and on we worked out the details until finally all was settled and nothing was left to do but start recording. It might take a week to get everything settled upon and a trade officially made.

So, it was extremely disappointing to go through all that work and receive nothing in return because of a bad trader.

But when a trade went through there was nothing sweeter. Seeing that bubble mailer lying next to the door when I got home was paradise. Opening the package, reading over the tapes received, and then sliding them into the tape deck to fill the room full of beautiful new music was nothing short of awesome.

Some of the best music I’ve ever heard comes from these bootlegs.

Alison Krauss and Union Station
09/02/95
Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival
Woodstown, NJ

Alison Krauss has a lovely voice, smooth as silk pie. It’s the kind of voice that makes your loins weep. It’s the kind of voice that will make atheists believe, and the faithful renounce their calling for there can be no god, but Alison. She’s not a bad fiddle player either. With the Union Station, Alison sports one of the finest bluegrass units playing music today. This particular show has everything you could want from an Alison Krauss concert — well, except the masterful dobro picking of Jerry Douglass, who didn’t join the band until 1998. Even so, the music sported here in both the early and late shows is full of fast-picking and soulful ballads.

With songs like “Baby, Now that I’ve Found You,” I suspect that if you followed up with audience members you would find more than a few children who have birthdays nine months after this show.

Dan Tyminski, most famously known as George Clooney’s singing voice in O Brother, Where Art Thou? adds the perfect harmony to Alison’s lead. The entire band aptly plays along during the slow songs and tears it up for the faster ones.

If I have a complaint it is about the quality of the actual songs. I’ve never heard a studio album from these guys that I’ve really enjoyed. They seem to choose songs written by friends, which should be great for the friendship, but not necessarily a good choice for the band. There is generally very little to latch on to and remember after the music is over. I rarely find myself humming one of their tunes, or singing a remembered lyric.

This is easily overlooked, for the entire band members excel with their musicianship and Alison sings like the heavens above. Listening to them live I forget that the songs themselves aren’t necessarily awe-inspiring. This is surely a case where the band performs well beyond the songs themselves.

*B+P – Blanks and Postage, one-sided trades where somebody with a bootleg will record it for another if that person sends the blank tapes and enough postage to ship the tapes back.

**SBD – Soundboard tapes, used to signify bootlegs recorded directly off of a soundboard feed.

*** GDTRFB – “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” title of a traditional song covered many times by the Grateful Dead

Calendar Movies: North by Northwest (1959)

This was originally written and posted on April 27, 2006.

Recently, I had lunch with the human resources director at my place of employment. Both she and the chief operations officer were down to my office for the day and I invited them out to Cracker Barrel (it was a cheap maneuver as my boss was out of town, and I knew they’d pay for the food.) I needed the COO as a buffer between me and HR because last time I had lunch with Human Resources I got drilled on my opinion on everything from our company values to how the janitorial staff is doing.

It worked perfectly, I got a good meal paid for, and the COO kept us distracted by trying to win that little triangle peg game all Cracker Barrels leave on the table. It’s quite a thing to see your boss’s boss’s boss cursing at a children’s game because it says he’s an “ignoramous.”

The toughest question I had to field from HR was about my favorite movie. I chose Casablanca much to the surprise of my questioner. Now, at 30, I’m not anywhere near a young whippersnapper, but I guess I’m still pretty far removed from an ancient classic like that.

The thing is, I really dig the old movies. I’m the kind of guy who goes to Blockbuster and heads for the center rows, not the outside aisles with new releases. I suppose this is a strange thing, where kids today haven’t even seen Star Wars much less The Third Man.

Seriously, the first time I found out someone at work had never seen Star Wars I nearly fell out of my comfy office chair. It is as bewildering to realize that a film that means so much to me and my generation could be a relic to a new generation.

But maybe this is just me. I prefer Turner Classic Movies to HBO. I’d rather watch Humphrey Bogart than Tom Cruise. Black and white is much sexier then high definition super color.

Watching a movie like this month’s Calendar Movie, North by Northwest I’m struck by the notion that it’s not so different from your summer Hollywood blockbuster these days.

You’ve got one of the biggest stars working at the time, Cary Grant, working with an A-list director, Alfred Hitchcock; that’s like Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg working together. The story is full of big action, lots of laughs and brimming with sexuality. It would play perfectly in today’s multiplexes

It’s the sex that struck me in this viewing. No, there isn’t any nudity, or hard core action. There isn’t even any soft core action, or anything more than some kissing. But the dialogue is boiling over with innuendo and double entendres. And if you’re going to have double entendres, who better than Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint to do it?

Beyond the sex there is more action and twists than a porno staring Gumby and Pokey. The famous crop duster scene still excites beyond what most CGI adventures can muster in an entire film.

So I ask myself again, why do brilliant, solid pieces of filmmaking like this get left on dusty shelves to be replaced by boring, repetitive, unimaginative showcases of mediocrity? Is the movie going public so stuck on adrenaline pumping, computer generated eye candy, that the classics are above their threshold of understanding?

Partially I think that it is part of our cultural existence to get the newest, freshest product. We buy the new models of cars even though our old one rides just fine. We purchase the top of the line, brand new computer products because our 6 month old lap top is “outdated.”

No one stands around the water cooler talking about Hitchcock or Billy Wilder. We talk about box office receipts, and the new weekend releases. Hollywood asks us to. They can’t afford for an audience to sit around watching worn out VHS copies of Ninotchka when they just spend 100 million dollars on the new Vin Diesel picture.

Kids don’t get hip credibility by wearing t-shirts with Peter Lorre on them. That’s not the kids fault, for if they had the chance to watch Lorre in M his picture would be right out there like Al Pacino in Scarface.

I can’t help but think if more people were exposed to classics like North by Northwest there would be no surprise when a young man stated his favorite movie was Casablanca.

Bootleg Country: The Rolling Stones – Perth, Australia (02/24/73)

Sound quality is always an issue with bootlegs. We’re not dealing with official studio recordings here. The music isn’t mixed separately, onto individual tracks. A record producer isn’t standing over a mix board going through the music note by note painstakingly manipulating the sound to produce the optimal sound.

This is in the moment, live music. A singer’s voice is unfiltered and raw. Guitarists hit wrong notes, strings break, and a myriad of other problems can affect the final product. Soundboard engineers must make decisions on the fly to get the best possible product to an audience.

Bootleg sound comes in all shapes and sizes. The best come straight from the soundboard, mixed for the band. Many bands record their concerts so they can be played back later, and the performance can be reviewed by the musicians – much like a sports team will watch game tapes.

Other times concerts will be recorded with the intention of a later, official release. These tapes are sometimes leaked into the fan base, or stolen and slipped into trading circles. The sound quality is pristine and the tapes are treasured by fans and collectors.

FM radio is a treasure trove of concert recordings. Live music has been a staple of radio since the first transmitter released its madness. It is also an easy method for fans to get their first bootlegs. Landing a pre FM version of the same show makes it even more stellar for the sound must be compressed a great deal before it makes the airwaves.

Taper-friendly bands will often allow their fans to patch straight into the soundboard allowing phenomenal recordings of the show, recorded on DAT machines and then traded to the masses.

The worst sound comes from audience recordings. These come from microphones set up by fans smack dab in the middle of the audience. Depending on the equipment used, and the ability of the recorder these tapes can either give an excellent feel of what it was like to actually be there, or give an intimate portrait of the stoned-out, screaming fan sitting next to the taper.

There are also mixes between audience and soundboard recordings called matrix recordings. This usually consists of a soundboard patch with an audience mike filtered in. When done right this can produce the remarkable sound of a soundboard tape with the live feel of being there on the ground with the rest of the audience.

The Rolling Stones
02/24/73
Perth, Australia

I only recently started considering myself a fan of the Rolling Stones. All I ever really knew of them were the radio hits. Tunes like “Honky Tonk Women,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” are classics songs and I would never have knocked them (though for my buck, Otis Redding blows the Stones out of their own water on “Satisfaction”). But, they are so overplayed by classic rock and oldies stations as to make them tired and old.

For reasons I can’t remember I started making my way through their catalog and was blown away by the sheer magnitude of their collection. I’ve still not found an album that I love all the way through, but there is enough incredible music on albums like Exile on Main Street to make me put them on a Beatles-like level. I’m amazed that the radio only plays a handful of hits when songs like “Rocks Off” and “Dead Flowers” are rolling out there all by their lonesome.

Watching the Stones at the Superbowl at what must be their twelfth final tour makes me roll my eyes in disgust. Mick Jagger working the crowd like a teenager in his 60-year-old body just isn’t a pleasant sight. Keith Richards can still pack a power punch, but I still want to scream “Retire!” over and over.

This concert from 1973 shows the boys at what they could once do. This is a band at the top of their game, knocking the rocks off our collective socks. It is balls out thick and dirty sex rock. You can hear the lust oozing out of every pore of Richards’ proud lips.

They produce a rumble straight out of Thor’s gut.

The sound is from a soundboard, but you can tell it’s passed through a few generations. It’s a bit muddled in the mix and some external tape hiss is present, but what it lacks in sonic quality is made up for in the ferocity of the playing.

My copy is actually a liberated bootleg. Which is basically an illegal bootleg that has been released from its illegal bonds and passed through trading circles. Some punks got a hold of this music, threw a cheap cover on it, and sold it for way too many dollars. Smart traders, and self-appointed police of the legal bootleg world, took the recording out of the thieves’ hands and passed it along freely through trading circles.

Because of this, it is only a partial show, official set lists include four songs not included in my bootleg. What is included are scorching renditions of some hits and those that should have been.

Concert Review – Wilco – Bloomington, IN (07/17/06)

The last and first time I saw Wilco in concert I walked out. That’s right, walked right out the door on one of the best bands playing rock and roll today. This was just after A Ghost is Born came out, so it was well into all the hoopla over Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Frankly, at the time I wasn’t much of a fan, I had only heard the Being There album and attended the show more out of something to do, than any real relationship to the band or their music.

They were playing a club way too small for them at the time. It was standing room only, and within a few songs into their set, the place was swelling. Everyone was jostling for position, pushing, squishing, and elbowing in every direction. It was more than my wife, and our friend could take.

The final poke was from an enormous young man who was not only pushing for the front row, but talking obnoxiously loud on his cell phone right in front of us. My two companions moved way to the back of the small club. I moved to a friendly section of the crowd but knew my time was coming. After a few more songs I found my people and we decided to walk out. The band was good, but not knowing any songs and the rotten crowd overruled anything our ears were hearing.

Fast forward to last night, I have since become a convert to the Wilco idolatry religion, and am very excited to see them again. Hoping to finally rid myself of the stigma of having once walked out.

This time the venue is much larger and more fitting to the band’s status. The IU Auditorium is a medium sized auditorium with lots of seats and space.

The opening band was local and an odd mix of the Meat Puppets, “Space Oddity” era David Bowie and Radiohead. They started promptly at 8:00 to a crowd at less than half capacity.

Opening acts are an odd thing to me. They say they are there to get the crowd jazzed and loosened up, but the crowds I’ve seen are usually bored by an opener and keep looking at their watches hoping those fools will get off the stage so the headliners will appear.

I guess it’s a good opportunity to hear bands you might not have heard before.

The opening band played a good 40 minute set. After a long 40 minute pause, Wilco finally took the stage at 9:20.

The crowd now at full capacity gave the auditorium a good holler.

They opened with a rumbling version of “Airline to Heaven” followed by a scorching “Kingpen.”

The crowd was pretty tame. My section of the balcony was half standing, half still in their seats. Songs from Yankee Foxtrot Hotel got the biggest cheers of the night, but songs from all of their other albums got noticeably less participation in the sing-alongs.

Actually my realization for the night is that Wilco has very little in terms of sing along lyrics. Sure, they have a few good belters such as the hillbilly bluegrass chanter “Forget the Flowers” and the nonsensicalness of “I’m a Wheel” is a hoot to scream a long with, but so much of their music has these sorts of odd tempos and changes that render any typical sing-along too difficult to enjoy.

They more than make up for this with the music. There are so many great hooks in their songs as to get lost in them trying to count. The quiet beginning of “At Least That’s What You Said” followed by the loud, pounding rhythm which is then followed by a louder, more pounding rhythm is a slice of pure rock and roll heaven.

More than once I reached the point of ecstasy where my body shook to the beat as only a white boy can, my eyes closed and my smile took over my whole person. Surely the sign of a great rock concert.

Lead singer/guitarist/primary song writer Jeff Tweedy goaded the audience by saying we were acting rather mild for an audience he had been pre-warned would be rowdy. This was the beginning of Little 500 week at Indiana University, the loudest, most party-rific week at a school which has often won the title of “#1 Party School.”

The audience responded by jumping over the rails at the front row and cramming right up against the stage.

The band closed a second encore with “California Stars” and we walked out into the cool spring night under lovely Indiana ones.

Setlist:
1. Airline To Heaven
2. Kingpin
3. Handshake Drugs
4. A Shot In The Arm
5. At Least That’s What You Said
6. Hell Is Chrome
7. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
8. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
9. Forget The Flowers
10. War On War
11. Jesus, Etc.
12. Hummingbird
13. The Good Part
14. Walken
15. Heavy Metal Drummer
16. Theologians
17. I’m The Man Who Loves You
18. Monday

Encore 1:
19. The Late Greats
20. I’m Always In Love
21. I’m A Wheel

Encore 2:
22. California Stars

Millions (2004)

Millions Movie Poster

In many of the reviews for Millions, critics have discussed how director Danny Boyle has departed from his usual violent, bloody, adult fair into a whimsical children’s story. It is a fair discussion since Boyle’s other work includes stories of greed and murder, heroin addiction, and a modern take on the zombie movie (and yes I know the villains in 28 Days Later weren’t technically zombies, they were infected. But if you look like a zombie, eat flesh like a zombie, and smell like a zombie, then you’re a zombie in my book).

That’s a far cry from your normal kids’ flick.

Upon closer look at this film, Boyle has not stretched that far from his normal themes as you might suspect. He is still dealing with greed, the darkness of the human soul, and the things that make us human, only in a manner more childlike and full of wonder than usual.

The story involves two young brothers, Damian (Alexander Nathan Etel) and Anthony (Lewis Owen McGibbon), who chance upon a bag full of British Pounds when it literally falls from the sky and onto Damian’s playhouse. The boys must quickly spend the money for Britain is only days away from converting to the Euro, thus making the Pound worthless.

Boyle creates a fantasy world that is effervescent and joyous. It is a joyful film that is alive with buoyant colors and so unique in its ability to remain enjoyable to children as well as adults as to render it uncommon in today’s everything-must-be-a-blockbuster world.

The two brothers differ greatly in how they see fit to spend the money. Anthony, being a bit older and perhaps more world-wise, spends it at his new school bribing his classmates into a kind of mini-mafia, purchases the coolest new toys for tikes, and looks to invest in real estate to parlay his fortune a little further.

Damian is something of a dreamer and often is visited by famous saints such as St. Peter and St. Francis of Assisi. The saints point Damian to a different road where the money can be put to better use than selfish gain. So he sets about giving the money to a homeless man, a group of Mormons, and other charitable organizations — much to the chagrin of Anthony.

This sets up the moral of the tale, where nearly everyone is affected by greed. The boy’s father finds himself trying to spend the money even after he has learned it is stolen property. Boyle tends to wear his morals on his sleeve a bit too much — especially at the end — but it is told with such jubilation it is hard to knock him for it.

It is a lovely family film, one that is well made and neither panders to the kids, nor is too insipid for adults.

Random Shuffle – (04/10/06)

heart like a wheel album

“Willin’” – Linda Ronstadt
From Heart Like a Wheel

My perception of this Little Feat ode to truck drivers comes from the James Cameron underwater sci-fi flick, The Abyss. It is the Linda Ronstadt version that plays when the underwater oil rig crew is shown doing their blue-collar work. The song plays as background music to the scene, but is also part of the action, being lip-synched by nearly everyone in a joyful montage that defies explanation.

It is a great sing-along song. The lyrics are all about being on the road for too long, with nothing but drugs and alcohol to keep you moving to that next stop, that next destination somewhere down the road.

The music is pure outlaw country. Ronstadt has that rock n roll vibe, with the country girl twang that just fits the song perfectly.

tom waits one from the heart

“One From the Heart” – Tom Waits/Crystal Gail
From One From the Heart

This is from the soundtrack to an unseen (by me) Francis Ford Coppola movie of the same name. Waits actually sings with a croon, rather than the drunken hobo ran over by a train voice he usually sings with. He’s accompanied by the sweet voice of Crystal Gail.

It’s all soft porn smooth piano and saxophone musically. It’s slow and sad, and probably romantic, but I’d have to see the movie before I let my vote out on that one. There isn’t much to it for me, honestly. It’s Waits with a better voice, but not much of his lyrical poignancy. At least that’s what I get from the casual listen I gave it.

“I’m Gonna Live Forever” – Highwaymen
From 06/04/96

The Highwaymen were country music’s version of Mount Rushmore. With Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings in their own supergroup, it’s too bad that most of their albums were only just ok.

It’s like the Beatles effect in reverse. Where John and Paul continually pushed each other to strive harder and create an even more perfect song, the Highwaymen seem to play yes men to each other creating music that while not bad, isn’t up to any expectation they create. Instead of Abbey Road, we get something more akin to McCartney’s post-Beatles solo work.

This is a pleasant Billy Joe Shaver tune, performed quite nicely with all of the Highwaymen trading verses and harmonizing on the chorus.

the cure wish “Wendy Time” – The Cure
From Wish

A lively, upbeat song from the masters of gloom. Well the music is fun and frilly, but being the Cure the lyrics are all sad and depressing. It is the story of a well-meaning lass trying to cheer up the gloomy singer by offering to be a friend or sister. Being Robert Smith, the singer continues to push her away to mingle and drown in his own misery.

I mentioned in a previous Random Shuffle how this album reminds me of a specific time and place. It is amazing how music can transport us to places. I would never call my high school years happy ones, and yet I am often drawn to that time, filled with nostalgia.

The intensity of emotion I felt during those years is something I’ve never come close to in the 10-odd years afterward. Those days it seems like every moment was filled with incredible highs of joy or immensely lows of sadness. The perpetual word days of drudgery keep me on a pretty even keel in these times. Oh, I’m not nearly as depressed as I was then, but I rarely feel as completely free or happy as I did on those good days either.

Wish reminds me specifically of a girl named Elise who I used to sing songs from this album to. It reminds me of sitting in my room (having lived in 20 odd houses as a kid, it is a very specific room, but one I am unable to describe here) and arguing with my sister about whose month it was to get the TV in their room and feeling all those emotions on my sleeve.

“Ride Into the Sun” – Velvet Underground
From Acetate Demos – 1969

Speaking of nostalgic memories the Velvets always remind me of my first love, Candy. If my feelings were worn on my sleeve, if I felt things with more passion then, she felt them 100 times more.

She was a lovely girl who taught me it was ok to believe in God and listen to wild music and live outside the cookie-cutter. We used to write long, passionate letters to each other with the margins filled with song lyrics.

She loved the Velvet Underground. We spent many an hour lying on a bed listening to Lou Reed sing about love, drugs and the underground. We’d play “Heroin” over and over and see who could get every lyric, every note exactly perfect.

This is a sloppy, loose demo version of “Ride into the Sun” off of their Another View album. It’s really for completists only, of which I am not. I got this along with other demos and live tracks from a download a few weeks back. I’m addicted to downloading perfectly legal live music and the like and so when I see a Velvet Underground set, I simply have to have it, even if I haven’t been much of a fan since high school.

Bootleg Country: David Nelson Band – Honeydew, CA (07/21/01)

Originally posted on April 9, 2006.

For years I have been collecting what I’ll call bootleg CDs. Though the term bootleg gives all kinds of wrong impressions as if I’m selling cases of scotch under the table during Prohibition.

The bootlegs I am referring to are not only legal but highly condoned in some circles. I’m talking about live concert recordings unreleased by the studios or the bands.

People have been recording concerts since there have been portable recording equipment. Alan Lomax was traipsing around the country recording folk and blues artists in the 1930s. Today, some bands allow fans to patch directly into the soundboard with pristine, lossless DAT machines.

The Grateful Dead were pioneers of bootleg trading. Instead of spending thousands of dollars trying to hunt down thieves and bootleggers selling live recordings of their performances, they killed the opportunity by giving their live recordings away. They set up a special taper’s section in the audience allowing anyone with a portable mike to set up shop and record every note. On many nights they would allow fans to patch directly into their soundboard. They always recorded their own shows, and often “leaked” copies to fans and allowed everyone to make copies, as long as it wasn’t sold for profit.

It became a profitable marketing adventure. Fans would turn on others to the band by sharing the live music, thus creating other fans who would then buy the band’s albums and pay to see their concerts in person. Through the years other bands have seen the wisdom in this policy and have followed suit.

There is a whole underground movement of fans trading live concert recordings. It is quite an addicting hobby, let me tell you. I’ve been trading for about 8 years now and have well over 800 hours of live music CDs.

My collection is more live music than I could ever listen to, and yet I am continually in search of more. With the advent of cheap, fast broadband connections there is more live music available than ever before.

Live music feeds weary ears. With the decline of actual music on the radio and the rising prices of studio albums, finding mind-moving, completely legal music available for the price of your time to download is an absolutely beautiful thing.

In Bootleg Country, I will attempt to go through my collection of live music and review every note.

David Nelson Band
07/21/01
Honeydew, CA

A few years back I worked with a guy named Bob. Bob was somewhere in his middle fifties, with a nice beer gut hanging over his belt loop and long, curly gray hair. He was a throwback from the 1960s Summer of love. He was a genuine hippy and remained true to those ideals even into the year 2000.

The David Nelson Band reminds me of Bob. They are still waving their freak flags, and playing music as if it could save our souls.

A David Nelson Band show is like a picnic on a sunny day. They mix old-time country music with the folk wisdom of 1960s San Francisco and sprinkle it with psychedelic jams.

You can picture yourself sitting in a city park, spread out on a blanket, belly full of fried chicken while listening to this band. They have the homely feel of any small-town local band playing songs that you’d sing to your kids. Although they have the chops to blow any local players through the roof, they maintain that intimate, down-home feel to their concerts.

It’s a band that can make a medley of “All You Need is Love” and “Put a Little Love In Your Heart” and play it without a twinge of irony.

Songs like “Panama Red” and “Ragged But Right” start off the show and they are just the type of songs I’m talking about. They are blue-collar songs with the kind of lyrics that truck drivers, hippies, and grandmothers could all sing along with and smile. The music is a country swing that would feel at home anywhere the grass is green and the sun is shining.

As the set carried on, some of the songs mixed in tried way too hard to be meaningful. Songs like “Last Lonely Eagle” just have cringe-inducing lyrics like

If you go down where the lights push the nighttime
Back far enough so you can’t feel the fear
Remember the boy who you left on the mountain
Who’s sitting alone with the stars and his tears

The second set really scorches it up with some very stellar improvisational jams. The music jumps into interstellar overdrive with a sweet instrumental jam of the Grateful Dead’s “Fire on the Mountain,” sending the grandmas to the snack shack and the rest of us into twirling heaven.

The third set brings us back down to earth with the aforementioned “Love Medley” and some more silly, hokey hippy music.

I don’t suspect the David Nelson Band will ever make it onto MTV, or Billboard’s Top 40 list. You won’t see them headlining a worldwide stadium tour in this lifetime. But as they continue to travel the country, small venue tour at a time, they’ll continue to play real music from the heart, with the chops to back them up and keep audiences of all sizes smiling and dancing through the night.

If you’d like a copy of this show, leave me a comment, and I’ll try to work something out for you.