Category: Reviews

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

the death of mr lazarescu poster

Poor Mr. Lazarescu, his wife has left him, his daughter has moved across the ocean to Canada, and his sister and brother-in-law lecture him about the money he has borrowed. He’s been having massive headaches and throwing up since morning, and the ambulance never seems to come.

And everybody chastises him for the drink.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is billed as a comedy, but if it is such then it is so black that I couldn’t see it. Really it is just sad, very sad, possibly the saddest movie I have ever seen.

The movie starts with Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu) calling for an ambulance. We then see him call his sister, who promptly, along with her husband, yells at Lazarescu for drinking too much and asking for the return of the money he has borrowed.

Then he waits and waits for the ambulance. Eventually, he finds his way into the hall, knocking on the door of the neighbors requesting medicine.

He is chastised for the drink.

The neighbors have mercy and nurse him to the couch where he pukes up blood. They call the ambulance again and note its more serious nature. When the nurse, Mioara Avram (Luminita Gheorghiu), arrives she finds Lazarescu in the tub, where he has fallen. She takes his vitals and tries to determine what is wrong with him.

And yells at him for the drink.

They take him to the hospital, where the doctor is extremely rude.

He chastises Lazarescu for the drink. He abuses the hospital staff, Mioara, and Lazarescu mercilessly. There is no bedside manner. Lazarescu is completely belittled for not taking care of himself properly, for the drink, for everything. The diagnosis is that it is liver failure due to the drink and tests are ordered from another hospital.

Lazarescu is abumulanced to hospital number two.

He is chastised for the drink.

The doctors there are much kinder and run a series of tests which result in serious complications for Lazarescu. Because of a bus accident, this hospital is completely full and unable to perform the immediate surgery needed to keep Lazarescu alive.

He is taken to a third hospital.

He is chastised for the drink.

The staff here is worse than the staff at hospital number one. Mioara tries to explain the urgency of the situation, but the doctors want to reexamine Lazarescu and spend most of their time arguing with Mioara. They then refuse to operate because a now near comatose Lazarescu doesn’t understand he needs to sign the release forms.

He is taken to a fourth hospital.

They do not chastise him for the drink and get him ready for surgery.

It is nothing short of heartbreaking.

It is shot in a documentary style. It uses natural light and lots of handheld cameras giving the film a very realistic feel.

Though it is a Romanian film, it asks plenty of questions about the state of healthcare systems around the world. It is a film that physically angers me. When doctors are more concerned about being sued and filing the proper paperwork than about caring for the ill what has gone wrong with the world?

Even the nice doctors and nurses look haggard. Long hours and extra work due to the bus accident leave them all exhausted. I’ve never thought about tired doctors, but it makes sense, they work long, hard hours and should be exhausted by the end of their shift. The healthcare workers also spend their downtime between tests and examinations chatting about personal things as if they weren’t involved in matters of life and death. It is an intimate look into the chaos, madness, and complications of caring for people.

It is a difficult film to watch. The pacing is languid and the subject matter is dark. Despite being a “comedy” there are few if any light-hearted moments. At a 153 minutes it is a large dose to swallow. Yet it is an important look at healthcare, loneliness, growing old, and how we take care of our fellow man. One that shouldn’t be missed.

Random Shuffle (09/05/06) – Billy Bragg, Merle Haggard, The Muppets, The Wallflowers & Warren Zevon

Originally posted on September 05, 2006

“New England” – Billy Bragg
From 10-14-96

Billy Bragg is an old-school folkie who wears his politics on his sleeve. He often allows his political ideas to take over his music and his songs come out like platforms rather than carrying a tune. But when he nails it he creates a wonderful collaboration between ideas and killer folkiness.

This is a great example of his cleverness. In its original form, it’s a bit of a break-up song by way of a single guy looking for fun and not love. Live, and many years after it was originally written, he has changed many of the lyrics to reflect his own life now. Having settled down with a girl and a son, lines about singlehood have morphed into lines about fatherhood. It’s all in good fun, and the audience gets a kick out of it and sings out the final chorus.

Good stuff.

“Theme From Dukes of Hazzard” – Merle Haggard
From Ladies Love Outlaws

As a kid, my mother would never let me watch the Dukes of Hazzard on TV. She was concerned that it depicted cops as being bumbling crooks and ex-convicts as the good guys. This, it seems, would have corrupted my own morals. Fair enough, Mom, but I often slipped over to the neighbors and watched it.

The theme song remains a classic. It always reminds me of a guy named Adam who would play this song over and over in college, right along with anything Lynard Skynard.

“Moving Right Along” – The Muppets
From the Muppet Movie

I went to see Muppets from Space with a carload of friends in a little, tiny, dinky theatre in Prattville, Alabama. It had originally been a one-screen theatre and they cut it in half to create two screens. The door into the theatre was one of those swinging bar things and the hinges made obnoxious screeching noises when they swung.

Worst movie experience ever.

Except that I sat by Julie Austin, whom I had the biggest crush on. Nothing came of it, she married Mr. Knapp and I moved to Texas.

That has nothing to do with the wonderful first Muppet Movie or this song from it, but that’s what I always think of when I think of Muppets.

This is a great little song that’s full of humor and grace, much like the Muppets themselves.

“I’m Looking Through You” – the Wallflowers
From the I Am Sam soundtrack

The idea of filling a soundtrack with covers of Beatles songs sounds like a good one to me. On the I Am Sam disk it works about half the time. Some of the covers are just too close to the original to make any impression, others try to reinvent the psychedelic madness of their later albums but just don’t get it. The Wallflowers manage to do very little new with the song, but it still comes out all right.

They’ve pepped it up a little, and Jakob Dylan’s vocals have enough of a rock edge to make it interesting. It is really a testament to the power of the Beatles song than anything. I wouldn’t exchange this for the original, but it’s fun and something slightly different, and sometimes that’s alright too.

“Werewolves of London” – Warren Zevon
From Excitable Boy

I have to admit that I don’t actually own this album, but I did download the single. I also have to admit this is the only Zevon song I know. They say he was a good guy who wrote great songs, and I’m sorry I don’t know him better.

This is a great freaking song. I always wonder if it has anything to do with the movie and I’m always too lazy to look it up. I love the light-hearted feel, and the great sing-along quality to lyrics about a murderous rampage. It makes me think of Teen Wolf too (Not Teen Wolf Too) with Michael J Fox as a cool werewolf.

29 Palms (2002)

29 palms

About 3/4ths of the way through 29 Palms an inept security guard (Jon Polito) says, “Nobody thought I’d do that, did they?” In a way, this line could sum up the entire plot structure of the film, for it seems the filmmakers want nothing more than to surprise the viewer at every turn. They seem to be wearing a smirking smile knowing they are coming up with something different, something no one would expect. Yet, in spite of all the twists, turns, and quirkiness, it all feels like something I’ve seen before.

It is as if, while attending film school all of the filmmakers heard over and over again to avoid clichés and then skipped class the day originality was discussed. As if the avoidance of redundancy is all that it takes to be interesting.

To say something nice, it is filled with lots of great character actors like Michael Lerner, Michael Rapaport, and Jeremy Davies and they do manage to rise above the lackluster material.

Barely.

Davies plays an unnamed drifter who starts the film as a clerk for a corrupt judge (Michael Lerner) and may or may not be an FBI agent. The judge is about to make an important decision on whether or not an Indian Casino can expand. The judge hips the Native Americans onto the drifter and they promptly kill his girlfriend. A hired killer (Chris O’Donnell) is turned loose to do the same to the drifter.

The killer contract includes a bag of money and a severed hand (which is apparently from an enemy of the Native Americans and is to be used to frame someone, but it’s all fairly vague and unclear.)

The inept security guard steals the bag which is in turn stolen by a corrupt cop (Michael Rapaport) and then again stolen by the drifter (who somehow knows about the bag, though this too is also vague and unclear).

The remainder of the film centers on all of these characters (and more!) trying to get their hands on the bag. There are quite a few plot turns and the characters are all quirky and indie-friendly, but honestly, by the midpoint I stopped caring enough to write it all down.

If the filmmakers had stopped trying to make everything so original and quirky for a second and worked on their stories, and maybe developed a couple of their oddball characters, it might have worked. But instead, we get a film that may be “different” but it never makes me interested enough to care.

Bootleg Country: Gillian Welch – Grand Rapids, MI (09/17/03)

I have a long history of not going to a concert and then regretting it for years to come. The reasons for not going usually involve not having anyone to go with/not wanting to go alone, and not being familiar enough with the artist to convince me that the show is a must-see.

That and I’m a cheap bastard.

A few months down the road I usually become more familiar with the artist and begin cursing myself for not seeing them. This happens often in the city where I currently live. It is a college town and large enough to nab artists just before they hit the big time, but too small, and too close to Indianapolis to carry them after that. So usually it is once missed, never see again.

Gillian Welch came to town a few years back and I thought about seeing her. I liked the few songs I had heard of hers, but the voice in the back of my head got to nagging me – you don’t know her songs, you won’t be able to sing along, you should be saving your hard-earned dough – and I didn’t go.

Oh, how I have cursed my ever-loving name for that. How I’ve yearned for her to come back to no avail.

09/17/03
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, MI

Quite simply, Gillian Welch’s voice is nothing short of heavenly.

If there really are angels, and they really do sing, then they must sound like Gillian Welch.

She has some of the most haunting, achingly beautiful songs ever sung. I am reminded of Alison Krauss in that the two have similarly beautiful voices, yet where Alison’s choice of songs often makes no impression on me, Gillian’s own songs and her choice of covers are perfect for her style and often get stuck in my head for days on end. I have been singing “Look at Miss Ohio” for a week now.

This show starts with a triple play of my favorite Gillian Welch songs. “Look at Miss Ohio” starts off the show and it often gets a repeat play around these parts. It is followed by “Elvis Presley Blues” which is the first Gillian Welch song I ever knew, and remains one of my favorites. It speaks of nostalgia, the deep mysterious ache of loss, and the magic of music. It is a perfect song and Gillian Welch sings it like it’s the only song in the world.

My holy trinity is concluded with “Rock of Ages” which is one of Gillian Welch’s rocking-out songs, and by that I mean it has a tempo other than a slow dirge.

Before I go any further, I really must mention David Rawlings, Gillian’s musical partner for many years. David often gets overlooked in writings about Gillian but is very much an important player in her musicality. On stage, he sings harmony and plays guitar, and gives the music a layered and more dense quality.

She follows her trio of excellence with an entire show of great music. It is a show that reaches spiritual proportions. The music is so soft and warm and kind it wraps around me like a blanket near a fire while the cold wind and rain whip about outside.

This is an audience recording and as such we hear the crowd scream and shout between songs at a louder volume than preferable. However, they do keep quiet during the song performances allowing the music to filter in untouched and unmarred.

My only complaint is that the show runs just a tad long. While the music is always beautiful, Gillian’s penchant for playing slow, sad songs starts to be too much by the middle of the second disk. I find myself fully ready for it to be over a few songs before it actually is. I suspect as an audience member I would have begged for more, but as it is, on CD I’m ready for the closure.

It is a great disk by a overlooked performer, whose music really matters. In a world full of dizzying pop songs, flashy lights, and fast-edited videos, Gillian Welch seems more of the past, like some ancient hieroglyph pulled from the very dust of America. It is old, real music that should last another millennium.

Night Watch (2004)

night watch poster

“One side is in Russian, the other side is in English,” the girl behind the counter noted about the DVD I was renting. “So if you play it and it is in Russian, just turn it over,” she continued. I wanted to glare at her and snidely question her about her movie appreciation skills. Shouldn’t girls, who work in the movie industry, freaking appreciate films as God intended them? But I’ve had that argument one too many times. If Blockbuster wanted their employees to have a clue, I guess they’d pay them more.

Night Watch lives in the same world that we do, but in a different kind of dimension if you get my meaning. It is a dimension filled with vampires, shapeshifters, and seers. They live alongside humans, but secretly without being understood by the likes of you or me.

These creatures, or Others as they are called, were once engaged in a brutal war, but being evenly matched signed a truce many years ago. Much like in our own Cold War, the Others have set up watchmen for both the light and dark sides to ensure each side keeps up with their side of the truce. Part of this bargain is that when new others are formed; neither side will interfere with them until they have chosen a side. For the Others are actually born of human seed, and do not know they are different until something extreme occurs and their powers come out.

Our movie lies in a time in which a cursed virgin proclaims the nearing Armageddon, and a chosen child will throw the balance of good and evil to one side.

The film sets up its universe and mythology extremely well. In a prologue, Lord of the Rings style, we learn about the others and the war and the truce, it is just enough to allow us to gain understanding without bogging down in the mythos. As the story unfolds we gain a better understanding of the rules and still feel that there is a deeper story. That it is based on a series of books only adds to that mythos.

Visually the story lives in a Fight Club world where digital animation moves alongside live action. There are lots of extreme close-ups of machinery and metro tubes that transition smoothly into the real.

I’m not sure if the subtitles were created by the filmmakers or were a later addition, but they become a part of the film. Sometimes they are swatted away by a character, zoom out like the cars on a highway, or are underlined for emphasis becoming more like characters than simple translations.

The characters are well developed and often give hints at deeper backgrounds, which again, may come from their literary counterparts. Sometimes the main character is treated like more of an officer in the others than he actually seems to be, all to move the story along.

It is a slick, MTV generation movie. A glossy popcorn piece of cinema with a cool mythology, and some killer visuals. It is not great cinema, but a darn fine piece of science-fiction/horror.

While watching it I kept thinking there was great material for a sequel or sequels. Turns out it is the first part of a trilogy, the second of which is already playing in Russia. I’ll be keeping an eye out, for sure.

Random Shuffle – Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Pat Carrell, & Sam More with Conway Twitty

Originally written on August 31, 2006.

“Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” – Lucinda Williams
From Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Lucinda has a voice that is country, earthy, sad, and beautiful all at the same time. She writes lonely songs about country roads, failed love, and all the pain and hurt that make up a life. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, the album, is about as perfect as an album can be. There simply isn’t a bad song on it.

The song is just exactly the kind of song I love. It has jangly guitars, a nice little rhythm section to it, it is country without being too country, it rocks without really being rock, and it has a great sing-along little chorus.

If it was socially acceptable, if my wife wouldn’t kill me, and my God wouldn’t damn me, I’d ask Lucinda Williams to be my mistress and ask her to sing this song to me.

“Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings” – Lucinda Williams
From 05/16/03

Originally this is off of Lucinda’s World Without Tears album, an album I have never found myself getting into all that much. There are some good songs there for sure, but overall it never really catches me, not like Car Wheels anyway.

Upon listening to this live version I may have to reconsider the whole album again. The bootleg itself is exceptionally good, which is tremendous considering the other Lucinda boots I own sound like crap. A terrible thing, in my opinion, to get a bootleg of an awesome live artist only to be let down by the sound quality.

This is the show closer of that boot, and I get a couple of minutes worth of crowd noise before, presumably, she comes out for the encore. An interesting thing that comes from listening to a bootleg that is still on the computer in a random order. You get every note and every pause.

“May This Be Love” – Emmylou Harris
From Wrecking Ball.

Emmylou Harris has a gorgeous, moving voice, but to be honest many of her songs leave me with little impression. This is doubly strange when I consider that she does convey a great deal of emotion in her songs. They just don’t tend to stick with me.

This is from her second album, I believe, with producer Daniel Lanois. There are lots of his trademark ethereal sounds throughout, but to be honest, once again, most of the album doesn’t leave a mark.

Take this song for instance, it is four minutes of guitar fuzz and Emmylou singing what must surely be a great, tragic song, but while listening I keep wondering when it will end. It is moving in its own little way, and perhaps if I had the headphones plugged in and a starry sky to look upon, I would be moved. But as is, it seems nice, but it is nothing I’ll remember.

“Single Girl” – Pat Carrell
From Songcatcher

Songcatcher, the movie always seemed like a way to cash in on the whole O Brother, Where Art Thou? buzz. The soundtrack carries several lovely songs and a number of irritatingly country songs.

“Single Girl” is a funny, very country little ditty that reminds me of both my grandma and a lady who tells stories on the local radio station on Saturday mornings. At just over a minute it isn’t much more than a snippet, but one that sticks with me.

“Rainy Night in Georgia” – Sam Moore and Conway Twitty
From Rhythm, Country and Blues

This is a great old, sad, soul song made famous by Book Benton. Here it is covered by Sam Moore of Sam and Dave fame and country legend Conway Twitty. It is from an album that coupled country singers with their soul-singing counterparts. Mostly, it stinks but this and a version of “Ain’t It Funny How Time Slips Away” by Lyle Lovett and Al Green make the album worth any money you might spend.

Sam and Conway are obviously having a lot of fun singing this old song, and they even throw a little banter midway through that sounds natural and fun.

Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

unfaithfully yours

While trying to explain the type of film we were about to watch to my in-laws, my wife said it was a Rex Harrison film. I immediately began thinking that I would explain that it was a Preston Sturges film, starring Rex Harrison. Not really much difference there, when you think about it, especially since the in-laws have probably never heard of Preston Sturges or Rex Harrison, not being much for film watching.

It’s not that they are opposed to film, but rather they don’t ever go to watch movies, being too expensive, or read up on them, or study weekend grosses or any such thing. They don’t really go to rent them either. They are just not that type of folk.

I mean they still watch regular TV, no cable or satellite, and still use the internet via dial-up. They only have a DVD player because I bought them one, and only then because I was tired of watching the same old VHS tapes when we came down. And that’s just it, when we come down we watch movies, and they enjoy them. So, they aren’t opposed to movie watching, they just don’t go about seeking them out.

Anyways, I would have said it was a Preston Sturges film because when I think about movies I think more about directors than stars. Directors, it seems to me, have more of an effect on the final outcome of a film than an actor. If I had to choose, I’d go for a film with a bad actor and a great director, then a great actor and a bad director. Odds are a director can elevate a bad actor’s performance, more than an actor will elevate bad direction.

This isn’t always true, especially in older films, say starring Humphrey Bogart. I might be able to tell you who directed Casablanca if I thought about it (it’s Michael Curtiz right?) and I know that Howard Hawks directed The Big Sleep and John Huston did the Maltese Falcon. But still all of those pictures, and pretty much everything starring Humphrey Bogart is a Bogart picture to me.

This is all a convoluted way to say that I picked up a copy of Unfaithfully Yours at the library (man you’ve got to love a public library with a massive collection of excellent films) on the basis that it was a Preston Sturges film. Really, I only know Sturges because of the Coen Brothers. Their hilarious film, O’Brother, Where Art Thou? Gets its title from Sturges’s film, Sullivan’s Travels. Loving the brothers Coen and wanting to see their inspiration I rented Sullivan’s Travels and found it to be beautiful.

Preston Sturges is now on my list of directors to watch.

Unfaithfully Yours is an odd little picture. It starts out like a fast-paced comedy in the style of Bringing up Baby or His Girl Friday and then heads into surrealistic art territory before slipping over to a slapstick farce.

The plotting involves Rex Harrison starring as a celebrated English conductor, Sir Alfred De Carter, living in New York with his beautiful bride. Things are going pretty well for the old man, too. He has fame, fortune, success at something he loves, and a beautiful woman to fawn over. Sure he must put up with his petulant brother-in-law, but he’s got his wits and they are enough to take care of him.

Things turn upside down after he gets back from a trip abroad and finds out that when he told his brother-in-law to “look after” his wife, he was taken quite literally. The brother-in-law hired a private detective to look after the wife and the detective found out a few things. Mainly, that said wife spent some time in her negligee late one evening in Sir Alfred’s secretary’s bedroom.

This information naturally outrages Sir Alfred and moves our film into the surreal. During an evening concert, Sir Alfred begins to fantasize about what he will do. The camera moves into his eyeball, and into his mind.

Three fantasies of revenge, remorse, and self-loathing play out during the course of three songs that the actual Sir Alfred is conducting. During the interlude between each song, the real audience goes mad as if the music performed is the best Sir Alfred has ever conducted. Giving us some commentary on the passions and art.

When the concert is over, Sir Alfred rushes home to implement his first, and most devious fantasy – that of killing his wife and framing his secretary. But all does not go as well as the fantasy and we move into the final act, which is pure slapstick.

Nothing goes right for poor Sir Alfred, he cannot find anything, breaks everything, and is too inept to work a recording machine.  It is all perfectly paced and consists of the funniest parts of the movie.

In the end, misunderstandings are worked out and everything becomes a happy ending.

Unfaithfully Yours is an odd little film and not for everyone, as can be seen from a fairly dismal box office at the time of its release. The ever-changing tone of the film may turn some people off, but for those willing to stick it through and enjoy a film that is experimental but well made, the payoff is worth it.

Random Shuffle: Louis Armstrong, Bruce Hornsby, The Libertines, The Rolling Stones, The Blues Brothers

Originally posted on August 26, 2006.

“Kiss to Build a Dream On” – Louis Armstrong
From Sleepless in Seattle

I periodically think of myself as a great jazz lover. In fits and spurts, I try to be. Back about ten years or so I was with a friend at his friend’s house and the subject went naturally to music. Well, it went naturally there because I was checking out his CD collection. The discussion turned to jazz and I mentioned I liked Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan. Condescending with a whisper he said, “Oh so you like vocal jazz?”

I had never thought about it like that. Isn’t jazz jazz? I had just begun to listen to the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and by that, I mean I had heard talk about their frenetic awesomeness amongst deadheads. I got the knock of vocal jazz not being real jazz and split. I have since dug what this guy would dub real jazz, but it is a moderated digging. I whip out all that cosmic jazz once in a while, but I can’t take in more than smaller doses.

Louis Armstrong started in the real jazz category, being a trailblazing blower, but in the latter days became the unique voice singing such family hits as “Wonderful World” and “Hello Dolly.” This song falls straight in that camp, being off of the soundtrack to Sleepless in Seattle of all things. It’s a darn fine song though, and one I stuck on my wedding CD.

Most days I’ll take this version of jazz over the real stuff, hands down.

“Rainbow’s Cadillac” – Bruce Hornsby
From 11/06/98

There is a video on YouTube, but the embed has been disabled, you can watch it by clicking here.

I didn’t really get into bootleg trading until just after I graduated college. I had moved to Abilene, TX to start graduate school – start over really, as I didn’t know a soul. Actually I never really got to know many people and left after a semester. But while I was there my refuge was bootlegging.

During this time Bruce Hornsby played a long run at Yoshi’s in Oakland California to promote his album, Spirit Trail. The tour was highlighted by guitar work from Steve Kimock, and a couple of guest spots from Phil Lesh and Bob Weir. This was one of the few performances Lesh had given since Jerry Garcia’s death a few years back and really marked his return to music.

This run came out on tape quickly and with a fantastic sound quality. In those days we were still using analog tapes and the sound quality often degenerated quickly through each generation of recording (unlike CDs where you can get an exact copy of the music, with analog the quality of a recording digressed every time you recorded it). This was an amazing thing to me to have so much high-quality music so quickly after it had been performed.

Now that I’ve moved to the CD world and almost everything is high quality, such recordings are no longer rare. In fact, I’ve only got a couple of these shows on CD and the tapes have long since been given away. But it still brings fond memories. Some of the only ones from that small chunk of time I spent in Texas.

It’s a great performance too. “Rainbow’s Cadillac” is one of Bruce’s finest songs, and an excellent jamming song done live. He pretty much nails the sucker. The sound is great and there is an energy at these shows that this was a new Bruce. Great stuff folks.

“Can’t Stand Me Now” – Libertines
From the Libertines

Peter Doherty, lead singer of the Libertines, and now Babyshambles, is a pretty danged good musician/songwriter but has so thoroughly screwed up his life that it’s all kinds of sad. We don’t hear much about him on this side of the ocean, but in England, he’s all sorts of tabloid fodder, what with the heroin addiction, the multiple arrests, and his off-and-on relationship with Kate Moss.

The Libertines were an excellent British, indie rock outfit, that broke up in, well, tabloid fodder. This is a really great upbeat, heavy drum, pop song. Maybe that’s not very indie rock of them, but a good pop song is a good pop song. And 9 times out of 10 I’ll take a good pop song over a great classical, jazz, or obscure rock song.

“Dead Flowers” – The Rolling Stones
From Sticky Fingers

The first time I ever heard this song was through a live performance by Townes Van Zandt over the closing credits of The Big Lebowski. I hunted the song down and eventually got the Rolling Stones album. Yeah, I know I’m a little behind on the Stones, but I’m slowly catching up with them.

Great freaking song. What more can be said? One of my all-time favorites. It’s a favorite daydream to learn to play this song (when I learn to play an instrument) and please the crowd (for of course I’ll make it big as a musician) when I whip it out.

“Turn On Your Lovelight” – Blues Brothers
From Blues Brothers 2000

This is an old blues number, but I know it mainly through the Grateful Dead. Pig Pen used to do these half-hour rave-ups to it. He’d rap along about women and drinking and whatever while the Dead freaking took off behind him. If I could go back in time I’d go back to 1968-69 San Francisco and groove to Pig taking off on this song. The tapes simply can’t do him justice.

The Blues Brothers don’t do the song justice. Man I dig the Brothers, and the original movie is a classic. The sequel had some good moments but sorely missed John Belushi. I miss Pig Pen on this song. It’s got all kinds of cool bluesmen playing along, but it ain’t got no soul.

RIP Ron “Pig Pen” McKernan

Bootleg Country: REM – 06/09/84

I have somewhere around 1,000 CDs in my bootleg collection. I usually get one or two new shows a week. I simply don’t have the time to listen to all of this music. Because of this, a lot of bootlegs get lost in the cracks.

From time to time when I am fingering my way through my collection I am completely surprised by something. Either I have forgotten that I owned a certain bootleg or the music contained therein, while previously dismissed, kicks the tongue to the back of my head.

One of the great things about this series is that I am forced to look closer at the music I may have previously ignored. I am a musical creature of habit. Even though I have thousands of CDs in my collection, there are maybe a few dozen that actually get any type of heavy rotation.

It’s not that I’m opposed to new music, for there is plenty of that rolls across my eardrums every week, but for certain moods or events, I have a select set of music that meets my needs. When I’m feeling sad or introspective I grab Willie Nelson’s Stardust. Or if I want something a little off-kilter that makes me smile I’ll grab some Wilco. In the mood? How about Norah Jones.

This rotation changes over time. New stuff finds its way in, while other music slips away to collect dust until I rediscover it.

With Bootleg Country, I’m continually walking outside my normal musical boundaries to find something different. One of my initial goals in this series was to show the diversity that can be found in the bootleg community. It’s not just a bunch of hippie, jam-band music, but jazz, folk, punk, and every other genre you can think of.

06/09/84
Capital Theatre
Passaic, NJ

My first full-length memory of REM is coming out of play practice in the eighth grade. It was well into dark and I was looking for my brother amongst all the headlights. A moment later he rolled up in his K-Car and as I opened the door “Stand” blaringly filled up the night air. I jumped in singing along at the top of my lungs.

I was not a popular kid in junior high and by singing along with such a cool song I felt that, I too, was cool. As by simply knowing the music, it’s popularity might somehow rub off on me. It was a perfect moment and I savored every minute of it.

It didn’t last, of course, the next day I went to school and I was the same pimply-faced shy kid. No one had even noticed, or cared that I dug REM.

Dig I did that band, for many years. They were one of my first true musical loves and I remained faithful up until a few years ago when they become so maudlin as to nauseate.

I’ve had this show now for many months and not given it much attention. When I would see it I would skip past it feeling it wasn’t worth any more listens. Thinking about that now I’m not sure if this is because of a general distaste I have for the band, or because I have another bootleg from 1995 that’s not very good at all. Whatever the reasons, I haven’t given it a spin in a long time.

Actually listening to it now, I don’t think I ever gave it a spin. The music is completely new to me, so it must have been something that was acquired and immediately put into my collection.

What a shame because the music contained here is as fresh and vital as it must have been when it was originally performed some 22 years ago. Wow, if that doesn’t make me feel old.

This is a band on a mission; they are on fire playing like Greek Gods before the Vestal Virgins. This is well before they become the biggest rock band on the planet, and a few years before “alternative” became an overused buzz word. This is indie rock at its finest.

They open with a sweet cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes” which isn’t as pretty as the Velvet’s version but a lot tighter than REM’s drunken version on Dead Letter Office. Anytime you hear a band cover the Velvet’s first thing, you know you’re in for a good night.

Like a lot of early REM, the music is heavy on the lower end, and light on the high-end levels. Mike Mill’s bass trudges, and thumps along like a Chihuahua on sugar tablets, while Peter Buck’s guitar slithers like a snake. Michael Stipe’s vocals are as muddled as ever, but it all assimilates into a growling, beautiful piece of rock music.

Highlights include a howling “Hyena” that reverberates into my jowls and“Gardening at Night” for the ages.

It is a great bootleg, and one that I’m knocked out to have found again, for the first time.

 

You can grab a download of this show here.

TV Review: Vanished

vanished tv

Originally written on August 22, 2006. I have absolutely no memory of watching this show. I don’t think I watched another episode and it was cancelled not very long after. – Mat

Fox has been hyping their new mystery series Vanished for weeks. Hoping for something like 24 meets The Fugitive I stopped watching Italian maestro Dario Argento’s slasher epic Deep Red to watch.

The first episode of any series is difficult, double for an ongoing mystery series where presumably each episode will lead in the next without any loose ends being tied up until much, much later. With all of that introduction of characters and establishment of plot, it’s hard to really get into the meat of the show at first and create enough suspense to keep everyone tuned in next week.

By the midway point of the first episode of Vanished, I was ready to write the show-off and was missing my Italian blood bath.

We are quickly introduced to Senator Jeffrey Collins (John Allen Nelson), his wife Sara (Joanne Kelly), and son Max (John Patrick Amedori) before Sara gets a phone call and just like that, disappears. Just as fast an investigation is brought down and the poor Senator’s wife is suspected of being kidnapped.

FBI agent Graham Kelton (Gale Harold) is running the show and is, of course, as brash as he is awesome. He’s introduced with a flashback of doing some type of ransom cash handoff for a small boy. A sniper shoots the bad guy but not before the boy is blown to bits by the bomb planted on his body. This is supposed to give Agent Kelton a dark, somber side and an attitude that says ‘let me do it my way’ because he didn’t actually want the sniper there, and without the sniper, the boy would have been in one piece, not a thousand.

The problem, midway, was that we’d been introduced to the characters and the core problem, but I didn’t actually care about any of them. The show rests upon the fate of Sara Collins, yet we only actually see her for about 10 seconds, not long enough to develop any emotional attachment to her. The senator and his family are more developed, but in an attempt to make everything more mysterious (and presumably to add more plot twists later on) they don’t come off as too sympathetic. The agent’s back story was just kind of dumb, and there are so many obnoxious but genius crime fighters on TV these days that it’s hard to notice one more.

Ah, but in the back half of the episode, things got more interesting. It seems young Sara was previously kidnapped 12 years ago but the media coverage was covered up. She also apparently had another name as some stranger in a bar tells us after seeing her picture on the television.

The past is even more mysterious as Agent Kelton uncovers the body of a woman who was also kidnapped at the same time as Sara. Her body had been frozen since then and has now been thawing in the house registered to a man who happens to own the same type of gun that shot the waiter who told Sara about her disappearing phone call.

And the body has a card on it bearing the number 9:29. The number nine was also tattooed, post-mortem, on the waiter’s hand.

That’s suspense and has me interested in next week’s show.

While not exactly 24 meets The Fugitive, it’s more like a poor man’s Lost meets Matlock, it has enough juice to make me want to turn in next week. Unless Blockbuster sends me Dario Argento’s Suspira, then all bets are off.