The January Man (1989)

There's a reason why some films are left behind in the decades they were released, never to be remembered, recalled, or reminisced over in the years to come. One such film is 1989's The January Man, originally released twenty one years ago today, on January 13, 1989. Really, the film is only of note because it was the first film of Kevin Kline's to be released after 1988's A Fish Called Wanda (for which he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor) and the last film of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's to be released before The Abyss, released in August of 1989. Kline plays a Beatnik former cop whose more by-the-book police commissioner brother, played by Harvey Keitel, of all people, lures him back to the force to catch an elusive serial killer. Mastrantonio, of course, played a love interest of Kline. (We, as viewers, are clearly meant to sympathize with Kline's offbeat character, who remains unappreciated by the law enforcement establishment despite his great skill as a detective.). Heightening the tension between the two brothers is the fact that Keitel's character's wife, played by Susan Sarandon, was once the true love of Kline's character. Ah, romance. What's curious about The January Man is that it is a very 1980s film, in style and tone, but as a would-be suspense thriller about police officers and their politics, it produces only boredom. (Compare that to the thriller Sea of Love, released just eight months later and starring Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, and John Goodman, which maintained a sense of suspense and plot development. Both films feature a New York detective attempting to catch a serial killer, but Pacino and Goodman work so much better together in that film than do Kline and Keitel here.). One good bit about The January Man: Alan Rickman plays against type; usually, he portrays sinister villains, but here, he is the effervescent artist roommate of Kline's character. Whatever the case, yawn.

Verdict: Watch it only as a cultural relic and wonder why Kline chose this project.

The film does prompt the question: What ever became of Mastrantonio? She was in Scarface, she was in The Color of Money, she was in The Abyss, she was in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and very little after that. (Let's not count the forgettable 1992 sexual thriller, Consenting Adults, which reunited her with Kline, who played her husband.). Wikipedia tells us that in 2005-06 she appeared in nine episodes of the procedural television series, "Without A Trace." But if anything has vanished without a trace, it was her from mainstream popular culture. But I speak too soon: She has apparently been cast in the upcoming season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Actors from the 1980s and early 1990s ultimately end up on episodic cop procedurals. Alas.

From NBC to TNT: Southland

When NBC suddenly canceled the police drama "Southland" last year, before it had even aired the first episode of its second season, I was a bit disappointed. The series, though flawed, showed some promise. It told the story of a cadre of police officers working in, you guessed it, Los Angeles. The best part: It wasn't a lousy procedural with lame cases of the week; it was a serial drama which focused on character development. (Imagine that.). The cast included Benjamin McKenzie (who you know as Ryan Atwood from "The O.C."), the underrated character actor Michael Cudlitz, Regina King, and Tom Everett Scott (who has appeared once or twice on "Sons of Anarchy."). It wasn't a bad show, and NBC renewed it for a second season, postponed its second season premiere, and then abruptly canceled it before a single episode of that second season had a chance to air. There was no meaningful explanation for NBC's shenanigans.

Well, NBC's loss may be TNT's gain. Starting tonight, the cable network will begin airing episodes of "Southland," starting with the pilot. It will air the seven episodes from its abbreviated first season (all of which NBC showed in early 2009) and then the six unaired episodes from what would have been its second season on NBC. It's possible that if TNT does well with the show that it will put new episodes into production. So give it a shot tonight. It's certainly better than watching the latest incarnation of American Idol, also returning tonight.

Jungle Girl (Dynamite Comics)

Let's just say it. Some comic book writers and artists probably need to get out more. Really. Jungle Girl, from comic book published Dynamite Entertainment, is perhaps the best (or at least, the most recent) example of that clear need. (Well, as evidenced here, here, and here, the author of the now defunct The League of Melbotis, might disagree, but what to do?).

Here's what Dynamite Entertainment's character biography of Jungle Girl has to say about her:

While Jana has no superhuman powers, she does have several abilities that have helped her survive in the jungle. She's a strong fighter, a skilled acrobat, and a skilled hunter and tracker. Jana is familiar with most of the plant and animal species in the jungle and is fully aware of what they can do. According to the adventurers, she also has amazing reflexes.

Jana carries several weapons with her at all times, such as her spear, her hunting knife, and a vine rope. Jana also seems to be able to communicate with several of the animals in the jungle, including the woolly mammoth, which she rides in order to fight a finback.

"According to the adventurers, she also has amazing reflexes"? Wow. Did they really say that? It's also not clear from her outfit where she actually carries those several weapons, though.


Alas, Jungle Girl does not have much of a Wikipedia entry; much of it appears to have been pilfered from the aforementioned character biography. You'd think that someone would have come along by now and noted the implications of the character or the fact that it is not an example of attempts by the comics industry to broaden its base of readers. Oh, well.

On a related note are these recent thoughts on the portrayal of women in comics offered by Sleestak of the blog Lady, That's My Skull.

"Bang and Blame," R.E.M. (1995)

Fifteen years ago today, on January 10, 1995, R.E.M. released "Bang and Blame," the second single from their 1994 album, Monster. The CD maxi-single included the following tracks:

1. "Bang and Blame"
2. "Losing My Religion" (live)
3. "Country Feedback" (live)
4. "Begin the Begin" (live)

Interestingly enough, the three live tracks were recorded at the often bootlegged November 19, 1992 charity concert R.E.M. performed at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia. (There is much, much more about that show at this previous Chronological Snobbery post from October 2007).

Reevaluating Watchmen

Tonight, the much maligned 2009 film Watchmen premieres on HBO. There has been ample discussion of its faults, in tone, in casting, and in concept. Based upon the much admired graphic novel by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins, the film, by the alleged "visionary" director Zack Snyder, was a mess. (The adaptation should have been done as an 8 to 10 episode miniseries on HBO, not unlike Band of Brothers.). Whatever the case, the only fun part of the film was imagining how it could have been better cast. My dream roster:

Silk Spectre I: Susan Sarandon or Helen Mirren
Silk Spectre II: Kate Winslet
Nite Owl I: Clint Eastwood
Nite Owl II: Phillip Seymour Hoffman
The Comedian: Mickey Rourke
Ozymandias: Brad Pitt or Chiwetel Ejiofor
Dr. Manhattan: Viggo Mortensen
Rorschach: Jackie Earle Haley, Sam Rockwell or Gary Oldman
President Richard Nixon: Anthony Hopkins
Moloch the Mystic: Sean Penn or William H. Macy

Obviously, Snyder decided to cast younger actors in the role, perhaps because it would have been easier to age them in the film than too make older actors look younger in flashbacks. That was a mistake, as it turns out. Of his original cast, I would only have kept Haley as Rorschach, although my two other alternatives would likely have been as good, if not better. Carla Gugino was not bad as Silk Spectre I, but again, she was just too young to play that role. Hoffman is far more in line with the Nite Owl II of the graphic novel than the fit Patrick Wilson. Just about anyone would have been better than Matthew Goode as Ozymandias. Just think: If Pitt had been cast in that role, perhaps Angelina Jolie could have done the micro cameo as Silhouette. And how could Anthony Hopkins not return to play Richard Nixon, after playing the same role in Oliver Stone's 1996 film?

Speaking of Oliver Stone, say what you will about him, but he would have made a stellar director for this film. Watchmen covers a lot of ground and flashes back many decades to establish the complex back story. With JFK and Nixon, he illustrated that he can cover a lot of history in a short amount of time using a number of cinematic techniques and camera types.

For further reading on this subject, check out the March 2009 review of Watchmen done by now defunct pop culture blog, The League of Melbotis, and then venture back to the summer of 2004 and read The League's prescient thoughts on the perils of adapting Watchmen to the big screen.

The Week That Was (1/3 - 1/8)

"A quick aside on [Timothy] Dalton: I think he gets a bad rap for his stint as James Bond. I thought he was actually a very strong 007, but stranded in two fairly awful Bond films. (Living Daylights had one of the drippiest love interests of the series, while License to Kill was an embarrassing attempt to modernize the series by taking its cues from "Miami Vice.") Stick him into Goldeneye or Casino Royale as his introduction, and his tenure goes very differently." - TV critic Alan Sepinwall, writing in this review of the recent Doctor Who episode "The End of Time," which featured the last appearance of David Tennant in the title role and Dalton as a villainous Time Lord bent on the destruction of all good things (1/3/10).

First, Sepinwall is correct that Dalton is underrated as James Bond. Though cinema history may judge him a placeholder to occupy the role in between the time that Pierce Brosnan was initially offered the role and the time that he could ultimately accept it, Dalton did fine in the two Bond installments in which he appeared, 1987's The Living Daylights and 1989's License to Kill. It's difficult to compare those two films to the later entries with Daniel Craig, simply because the films are products of very different eras. But by 1980s standards, Dalton did more than well.

However, to characterize the actress Maryam D'Abo as "one of the drippiest love interests of the series?" D'Abo played opposite Dalton's Bond as Kara Milovy, a cellist and would-be assassin. Alas, Mr. Sepinwall provides no support for his comment that Ms. D'Abo was drippy, much less one of the most drippy Bond girls of all times. (Considering the fact that both Halle Berry and Denise Richards are in the running for their awful roles, it is a curious statement.).

As for D'Abo, behold:


D'Abo also starred in the 1988 NBC science fiction mini-series, "Something Is Out There," alongside Joe Cortese. D'Abo played Ta'Ra, the medical officer of an alien vessel who teams up with a local cop, played by Cortese, to catch a xenomorph which escaped from her ship. (I don't remember enough about the series to tell you what exactly a "xenomorph" is.). The miniseries became a short lived weekly series, which lasted an additional eight episodes, although according to Wikipedia, the final two were not aired during the original run of the series.

Readers probably know D'Abo's cousin, Olivia D'Abo, better. She played Karen, the older sister on TV's "The Wonder Years" and appeared in a number of films in the 1990s, including 1995's Kicking and Screaming, which this blog previously profiled in 2007. She has also done a fair amount of voice work in animated films and series based upon comic books, including Justice League Unlimited, Batman Beyond, and Ultimate Avengers. Who knew?

For a photo collage of both D'Abos, click here for the blog Starlet Showcase's entry on them.

Don't forget "Chuck" This Weekend.

It's perfectly acceptable for a nostalgia blog to herald the new season of a new program when that program itself is fully immersed in 1980s nostalgia. NBC's "Chuck" struggled to be renewed, but NBC, in an uncharacteristic display of good sense, did renew it, and will be airing three episodes over the course of several days. The network is airing two hours this coming Sunday, and then an additional hour this coming Monday, which will become the usual air date for the weekly show. But don't take my word for it; watch this brief scene from the second season finale last year which sets an action sequence to a live cover of Styx's "Mr. Roboto," of all things:

Texas Fight!

Best of luck to Colt McCoy and the Texas Longhorns tonight as they take on Alabama in the BCS National Championship game in Pasadena, California. Hook 'Em!

UPDATE (1/8/10): Get well soon, Colt.

Modern Family (2009)

I had heard good things about ABC's "Modern Family," a non-traditional sitcom which avoids a laugh track and utilizes the same types of talking head interviews as "The Office" and "Parks and Recreation." It's always tough to build an interest in new shows, so slowly, a huge backlog of episodes built up on my DVR's hard drive. During the holiday break, I began to watch the show and was immediately surprised that I was actually laughing aloud at something on network television. Imagine that: a sitcom which provokes laughter. Unheard of, these days. In addition to being funny, it's also quirky and offbeat, but not annoyingly so. Whatever the case, after a few weeks off the air due to the holidays, the show returns tonight. Be sure to watch.

Seinfeld Watch: Costanza's Dementia (1995)

It was fifteen years ago tonight that George Costanza, after successfully formulating how Jerry Seinfeld could attempt the fabled "roommate switch," asked of his friend: "Do you ever just get down on your knees and thank God that you know me and have access to my dementia?" - George Costanza (Jason Alexader), in the Seinfeld episode, "The Switch" (Original Airdate: January 5, 1995). Although my favorite Costanza episode is "The Opposite" (the fifth season finale which aired May 19, 1994), this is perhaps one of my favorite Costanza moments.

Life After People

Don't forget: "Life After People" returns for its second season tonight on The History Channel. An impressive, if depressing series, it explores what would happen to the world, and how nature would reclaim it, if all of the people in the world simultaneously vanished. It's a popular topic these days: In 2007, Alan Weisman published The World Without Us, a non fiction book dedicated to exploring this impossibility. In January 2007, the original two hour "Life Without People" documentary aired on The History Channel; it became its own weekly series in 2009.

They Might Be Giants - Flood (1990)

Released twenty years ago today was Flood, the third album by They Might Be Giants, then an offbeat alternative pop group, now, from what I understand, a band making children's records. At 19 tracks and 43 minutes, it's perhaps the most well known TMBG album. The band was certainly in my consciousness in 1990, with song's like "Birdhouse in Your Soul" (the album's first single), "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," "Particle Man," and a favorite of mine, "Dead." The album holds up well two decades later, due both to its quality and place in my memory.

It's always fun to revisit original record reviews, particularly when an album later become popular or garnered a cult following. So what was said at the time? Twenty years ago, Chris Willman of The Los Angeles Times described the album as "quite like the iconoclastic, independent gems that preceded it, full of socio-romantic musings disguised as absurdist, minimalist, Dada demo-rock, not to mention ample, accordion-accompanied power pop helpings of humorously opaque symbolism . . . sorta like Joseph Campbell meets Weird Al Yankovic," ultimately concluding that "[p]ublic radio programmers, repentant intellectuals and very small children should all love it."¹ (Based on his verbiage, we must assume that Willman received his student loan statement that day and reminded himself he needed to justify having spent all of that money on liberal arts courses. That, or he consciously disregarded Ferris Bueller's advice that a person shouldn't believe in an -ism but instead should believe in himself.).

Meanwhile, Jon Pareles of The New York Times was a bit more skeptical of the effort:

Musicians who are smart enough to know better still put out albums like "Flood" by They Might Be Giants, the duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell. Its 19 songs and fragments riffle through so many styles and pile up so many non sequiturs - or are they? - that it could well overload ordinary pop-music receptors. It's mentally hyperactive and proud of it.

They Might Be Giants crack jokes in "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," get serious in "Your Racist Friend," envision a population explosion in "Women & Men" and free associate elsewhere about terminated romances, human duplicity and cosmogony; they pour out catchy tunes but switch arranging gambits in mid-song, lurching from currently hip styles like organ-driven garage-rock to the corniest movie music. After working too hard to prove they weren't just zanies on their previous album, "Lincoln," They Might Be Giants shrug off most typecasting - emotional, musical, rhetorical - on "Flood"; they flaunt their multiplicity. And they're bound to draw flak for packing too much into their songs, for revealing that they're clever in too many ways at once.

....

Rock has always prized honest excess over artificial restraint, and in their own way, groups like They Might Be Giants join rock's tradition of excess. Where rock's founding fathers were happily hormone-crazed, They Might Be Giants are intoxicated with allusions and associations and ideas, both musical and verbal, and they've got to let them out. In fact, records are too slow an outlet for them; They Might Be Giants have an answering machine called Dial-a-Song, 718-387-6962, with a new song daily.²

Ouch. (Although was Pareles suggesting that ordinary listeners could not process the craziness of TMBG, but that he, as a critic, could humbly do so on behalf of the less sophisticated record buying public?) One wonders what these particular writers would say if they were given a second chance to review the album two decades later. Equipped with the knowledge that many of its songs became a part of the soundtrack of the lives of many young Generation Xers, would they offer more positive - or more straightforward - assessments? Would they be influenced by all this later acquired knowledge? Or would they stick to their guns?

Perhaps coming closest to the mark was Forrest Rogers of The Atlanta Journal Constitution, who wrote that the band had not:

. . . sacrificed any of the loopy humor and herky-jerky sound that charmed fans of their two previous indie-label LPs.

The latest from The Two Johns - Linnell (accordion) and Flansburgh (guitar) - contains songs every bit as quirky and clever as college radio favorites "Don't Let's Start" and "Ana Ng." These two masters of the mixed metaphor continue to write with a sense of humor and clarity that is never condescending. They always let you in on the joke.³

Indeed.

You can thank the YouTubes for the below, the video for "Birdhouse in Your Soul":




1 Willman, Chris. "They Might Be Giants "Flood." The Los Angeles Times, January 28, 1990.
2. Pareles, Jon. "Pop View; Mentally Hyperactive and Proud Of It," The New York Times, January 28, 1990.
3. Rogers, Forrest. "Reviews Records Pop," Atlanta Journal and Constitution, January 27, 1990.

Jodie Foster's Little Man Tate (1991)

October 14, 1991 issue of Time.

You may or may not recall 1991's Little Man Tate, the directorial debut of actress Jodie Foster (that is, is you don't count the episode of TV's "Tales from the Darkside" that she directed in 1988, which for our purposes here, we will not). But even if you remember the film, do you remember the wonderfully depressing poem recited by Little Man Tate's title character?

In the film, the young actor Adam Hann-Byrd portrays Fred Tate, the genius son of Foster's working class character, Dede. Much of the film profiles the conflict between Dede and Jane Grierson (Dianne Wiest), an educator who feels that Fred's gifts could only be squandered in the environment fostered by, well, Foster's character. (You can imagine that Fred, with his intellectual capabilities, has some difficulties getting along with the other children at a regular public school.). In one scene, he recites for his classmates a poem he wrote: "Here stands Death; A bluish distallate in a cup without a saucer; Such a strange place to find a cup; Standing on the back of a hand; Oh shooting star that fell into my eyes; And through my body; Not to forget you; To endure." Far from agog, his classmates are simply left confused. Oh, well.

Hann-Byrd went on to appear in 1995's Jumanji and 1997's The Ice Storm, among other films. In later years, Hann-Byrd blogged for a bit; his site was called Two Cent Cinema, although he apparently abandoned the enterprise in 2007. I can relate, so I can't blame him.

A bit of trivia: This film also inspired the name of an indie band from England: Little Man Tate. After two studio albums in the late 2000s, the members of the band parted ways in late 2009.

Johnny Cash on Austin City Limits (January 3, 1987)

Twenty three years ago today, on January 3, 1987, Johnny Cash performed on "Austin City Limits," the DVD of which is available here. I've written about Johnny Cash in Austin before, specifically his December 1994 performance at the Frank Erwin Center, but that was after Cash had linked up with producer Rick Rubin and began the great and final resurgence of his career.

Cash was a revolutionary in many ways, but most of what we as listeners know of his career occurred long before 1987: the hits, the drama, the marriage to June Carter. (There's a reason why the biopic Walk the Line stopped its narrative long before 1987). The ACL performance prompts the question: What would have become of Cash had Rubin not produced his next few albums? Would he have done as the DVD's set list suggests and performed a series of greatest hits victory laps until he was ready to retire? Although Cash was certainly a musical treasure prior to 1994, it could not be said that in the late 1980s his most recent output was well known or recognized as among his best. (In the late 1980s, Cash was signed to Mercury Records.).

But when Cash and Rubin collaborated in 1994 to release American Recordings (and several more similar albums over the following years), he reinvented himself in a way that few 62 year old musicians receive an opportunity to do. Listening to the 1987 set list, it's difficult to imagine that in less than a decade he would become a darling of the indie community and that hipsters a third his age would be wearing his t-shirts and buying his most recent albums. Ah, the fates.

The culmination of Cash's long time collaboration with Rubin was, of course, the cover of "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails. Listeners already knew the trial and travails of Cash, which were public knowledge long before Joaquin Phoenix brought them to the screen. This working knowledge of Cash's life serves as its own preface to his rendition of "Hurt," and, accordingly, it touches the listener in a far more powerful fashion than the the original version of the song written by Trent Reznor. Although Reznor's lyrics remain powerful, it is when his words are coupled with Cash's vocals that their significance is truly felt. Cash's voice strains, and almost fails, as he sings the song, and the result is astonishing: we believe him when he sings those words. He is "Hurt."

The track list for the 1987 show is as follows:

1. "Ring of Fire"
2. "Folsom Prison Blues"
3. "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down"
4. "I Walk the Line"
5. "The Wall"
6. "Long Black Veil"
7. "Big River"
8. "I'll Go Somewhere and Sing My Songs Again"
9. "Let Him Roll"
10. "Ballad of Barbara"
11. "Sam Stone"
12. "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky"
13. "Where Did We Go Right" w/ June Carter Cash
14. "I Walk the Line" (outro)
15. "Big Light"
16. "Wonderful Time Up There"
17. "Fourth Man"

Happy Birthday, Palmolive.

Today is the 55th birthday of Palmolive (real name: Paloma Romero), drummer for the punk rock groups, The Slits and The Raincoats. The Slits opened for The Clash during their 1977 tour and recorded a rather upbeat version of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" on their 1979 debut album, Cut (although Palmolive had already left the band before that album was recorded). (The Kaiser Chief's essentially covered The Slits' cover on the 2005 charity compilation, Help: A Day in the Life.). The Raincoats gained a modicum of mainstream attention when Kurt Cobain professed a fondness for their music. The far better nostalgia blog Slicing Up Eyeballs recently reported here and here upon the interesting strategy The Raincoats employed when they reissued their late 1970s self-titled debut album (pictured above) last year. Their plan? Vinyl only. Why?

Resquiat in pacem: Alan Hale, Jr. (1918 - 1990)

Alan Hale, Jr., known to most as the Skipper from the television series, "Gilligan's Island," died twenty years ago today, on January 2, 1990. That show originally aired from 1964 to 1967, but I remember it in reruns during the 1980s, two decades after its original run. Rest in Peace.

The New Year's Day Mix

Ah, the New Year, and its accompanying portents of doom. I was amused enough by my recently unearthed Christmas playlist to attempt one for the occasion of the New Year. Here goes:

1. "A Long December" - Counting Crows
2. "New Year" - The Breeders
3. "New Year's Day" - Caesars
4. "Last Year's Man" - Leonard Cohen
5. "Year of the Tiger" - Sufjan Stevens
6. "1999" - Prince
7. "In the New Year" - The Walkmen
8. "This Will Be My Year" - Semisonic
9. "Next Year" - Foo Fighters
10. "The New Year" - Death Cab for Cutie
11. "New Year's Prayer" - Jeff Buckley
12. "Blankest Year" - Nada Surf
13. "New Year's Resolution" - Roy Milton and His Solid Senders
14. "Doomsday" - Elvis Perkins in Dearland
15. "The Holiday Song" - Pixies
16. "December 1999" - Jolie Holland
17. "New Year's Eve" - The Walkmen
18. "Forgotten Years - Midnight Oil
19. "New Year's Day (USA Remix)" - U2
20. "It Was A Very Good Year" - The Flaming Lips

The two songs referencing 1999 recognize the tenth anniversary of the last New Year's Eve of the 1990s. Ah, Y2K, how far we've come since you loomed over us. To preserve my indie street cred, I had to use The Flaming Lips version of "It Was A Very Good Year," rather than the more recognizable, far superior version by Frank Sinatra. "Year of the Tiger" by Sufjan Stevens is appropriate, because 2010 brings with it that year under the Chinese calendar. Including the original version of U2's "New Year's Day" seemed a bit too obvious, so I used the remix from the 1983 "Two Hearts Beat As One" single. Finally, it's interesting to note that both the Christmas mix and the New Year's mix both include not one but two songs by The Walkmen, who evidently like to recognize the holidays on their albums. Finally, for a New Year's Day mix, I was tempted to include the Black Eyed Peas, but I just could not do it. O tempora, o mores.

Please take note of my prior New Year's Day entry, posted two years ago today, on January 1, 2008. That post was sufficiently ominous in tone, and of course, 2008 vindicated those early predictions of doom. Speaking of ominous things, I discovered the wonderfully eerie photograph at the top of this page on this January 2007 blog post by Some Audio Guy, author of, oddly enough, the blog called The Ramblings of Some Audio Guy. There is no indication of whether Some Audio Guy actually took the photograph in question, or if he, like me, scoured the Internets to find a sufficiently macabre image to complement the tone of the post in question.

2010 - The Year We Make Contact?

Twenty five years ago, the poster for the 1984 film, 2010 (based on the novel, 2010: Odyssey Two, by Arthur C. Clarke), advised cinema goers that "[i]n the very near future a small group of Americans and Russians set out on the greatest adventure of them all . . . to see if there is life beyond the stars." That "very near future" has now arrived. What's in store for us this year?

Welcome, 2010.

"And it's been a long December, and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last."

- Counting Crows, "Long December," Recovering the Satellites (1996).

Happy New Year.

Party well, but not too well, tonight, as we enter a new year. Remember how far we've come since that fateful night, ten years ago, December 31, 1999, when we all worried about Y2K.

See you in 2010.

Best Music of 2000 - 2009

In addition to concocting a list of my favorite songs of this year, I did the same for the decade. I offer the same caveat in my immediately preceding post regarding the best songs of 2009. Really, these are just some of my favorite songs, or ones that have stuck with me, since 2000. The rules were one song per year, though as you'll see, I cheated twice, for 2007 and 2008.

"Everything In Its Right Place," Radiohead (2000)
"Moment in the Sun," Clem Snide (2001)
"The Golden Age," Beck (2002)
"Maps," Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2003)
"Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)," Arcade Fire (2004)
"Mr. November," The National (2005)
"O Mary Don't You Weep," Bruce Springsteen (2006)
"Nude," Radiohead and "Intervention," Arcade Fire (2007)
"Bible Days," Jessica Lea Mayfield and "Skinny Love," Bon Iver (2008)
"She Watches Over Me," Elvis Perkins (2009)

You'll note that I even made a change or two from My Life's Playlist, posted in December 2007, which features one song for every year I've lived. Honorable mention would have to go to Ray LaMontagne, whose 2004 album, Trouble, and 2006 album, Till The Sun Turns Black, were phenomenal, but songs from which did not make the list. Sorry, Ray.

Best Music of '09

How can a blog dedicated to wistful reviews of pop culture artifacts publish a best of 2009 list? Well, what else could I possibly publish on December 31, 2009? Y2K nostalgia? I think not.

Far be it from me to declare these the "best" songs of 2009, but they certainly are some of my favorites from this year. I limited the list to 22 selections, if only because the combined length of these songs would fill a CD were I making a mix CD (had I anyone to make a mix CD for).

Here goes:

1. "Marrow" - St. Vincent
2. "Blood Bank" - Bon Iver
3. "All for the Best" - Thom Yorke
4. "The Right" - Lou Barlow
5. "Rave On" - M. Ward
6. " I And Love And You" - The Avett Brothers
7. "Heads Will Roll" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
8. "Last Dance" - The Raveonettes
9. When the Night Comes - Dan Auerbach
10. "People Got A Lotta Nerve" - Neko Case
11. "Sing Sang Sung" - Air
12. "No Line On The Horizon" - U2
13. "Singing the Joy To The World" - Fruit Bats
14. "Words of Love" - Jessica Lea Mayfield
15. "She Watches Over Me" - Elvis Perkins
16. "Daniel" - Bat for Lashes
17. "While You Wait For The Others" - Grizzly Bear
18. "Velvet" - The Big Pink
19. "All Is Love" - Karen O and The Kids
20. "You and I" - Wilco
21. "1901" - Phoenix
22. "Black Cloud" - Morrissey

Interestingly, fifty years after the death of Buddy Holly, two covers of his songs (by M. Ward and Jessica Lea Mayfield) make the list. Technically, Yeah Yeah Yeahs appear twice, first with its "Heads Will Roll" from the It's Blitz album, and again in the form of Karen O and The Kids (which included both of Ms. O's bandmates from the YYYs). Morrissey earns a spot on the list, despite the fact that (a) his best work remains 1986's The Queen Is Dead (with the Smiths, of course) and (b) he is an insufferably pretentious tool. Thom Yorke, who would of course make the list, actually had three new tracks out this year, the other two being "Hearing Damage" from the New Moon soundtrack and Radiohead's "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)," released online. Really, Muse would have, should have made the list, but Glenn Beck's professed fondness for "Uprising," the first track off their 2009 album, "The Resistance," killed it for me. Alas.

The Time Tunnel v. Sherlock Holmes

Back in February of 2006, Frank Decaro of The New York Times reported on the DVD release of the 1960s sci-fi television show "The Time Tunnel" (a series about which I know little, though I suspect that it has not aged well.). In profiling the series, Decaro described the philosophy of the show's creator and producer, Irwin Allen, which pretty well encapsulates that of director Guy Ritchie, whose new Sherlock Holmes flick starring Robert Downey, Jr. is now in theatres.

Decaro writes:

Later known as the master of such disaster films as "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno," Mr. Allen infamously considered his TV series "running and jumping" shows. To his mind, the stories didn't need to make sense as long as those screens were packed with action, smoke and flying sparks. "Time Tunnel" embraced substantially less science and considerably more fiction than its competition that season, NBC's "Star Trek."

(Emphasis added).

I saw Sherlock Holmes on Christmas Day, its opening day, and I was underwhelmed. Although there has been some critical commentary noting the chemistry between Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law), I saw nothing of the sort of screen. We are thrown into the dying days of the detective pair's working relationship, and action flicks with lazy back stories are dangerous animals, indeed. (To boot, we are instructed to take note of the past relationship between Holmes and Irene Dalton (the vacant Rachel McAdams), although there is little interesting there, either.). Essentially, what Ritchie has produced is a steam punk procedural cop show, a CSI: 1891 London, in which Holmes and Watson solve one relatively boring case - which may or may not have supernatural implications - over the course of two hours. There are the requisite number of explosions and fisticuffs for a movie of this sort, but nothing visually innovative. Ritchie throws at the viewer the action, smoke, and flying sparks, thrown in with some soot to suit the era, just as Irwin Allen would have done. Downey is given the unenviable task of carrying the film and distracting the viewers from the various plot holes and inconsistencies in the screenplay. (Was the thinking that because he was so fun to watch in Iron Man that he could play any quirky anti-hero and audiences will show up to the theatre in droves?) Big budget Hollywood films based upon larger than life characters should be a joy to watch, not an exhausting afternoon of forgiving narrative mistakes and omissions. Yawn.

Of course, I was greatly amused to see one reviewer on Twitter, David Hogarty a/k/a The Lexiphane, remark that Downey's portrayal "owe[d] more to Bill Pullman's Daryl Zero in 'The Zero Effect' than Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes." He's got a point there.

El DeBarge - The Ultimate Collection?

Question One: Is El DeBarge really the type of performer who deserves a compilation billed as an "Ultimate Collection"? (Wow; the album even has its own Wikipedia entry.). Question Two: What songs would need to be missing from this disc for it to lose its status as "ultimate"? Question Three: Surely, if "Who's Johnny" was not included, the record could not maintain this distinction? Question Four: How can the compilation truly be considered "ultimate" without "Rhythm of the Night," the biggest hit for DeBarge, the group in which El DeBarge once sang with his siblings? Question Five: How might the record buying public resolve this dilemma?

The answer: Purchase both the El DeBarge Ultimate Collection, and the entirely separate and distinct Ultimate Collection by DeBarge, the band of which El DeBarge was once a member.


Problem solved.

Resquiat in pacem: Sam Peckinpah (1925 - 1984)

Peckinpah, pictured above with the actor William Holden.

Famed Hollywood director Sam Peckinpah, known as "Bloody Sam" for his violent films of the 1960s and 1970s, died twenty five years ago today, on December 28, 1984. Perhaps his most famous work is 1969's The Wild Bunch, featuring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine in one of the best representatives of the revisionist Western genre. If you've not seen it, do so promptly. Other stellar works include 1975's "The Killer Elite," 1973's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," and the disturbing 1971 film, "Straw Dogs." Most of his work is on DVD, and some, including The Wild Bunch, is now on Blu-Ray. He would not live to see how much of an influence he had on Quentin Tarantino, whose first heist film was released eight years after Peckinpah's death. Tarantino's rise to fame in the early 1990s brought Peckinpah's work to a new generation of eyes, including many who are now making films themselves. Rest in Peace.

Nostalgia for My Bloody Valentine

The far better nostalgia blog Slicing Up Eyeballs has written about the coming reissues of My Bloody Valentine's albums from days of yore. (That's right, shoegazing fans, you'll have to shell out your hard earned cash yet again in January to obtain these newly remastered versions of records you've probably bought at least twice by now. Maybe even once on cassette.). As I begin the enterprise of this blog anew, I think to myself, my goodness, if only I could have seen the MBV reunion shows back in 2008. That would have been something, no?

The Christmas Playlist

Nostalgic pop culture writers have made it a cliche to lament the death of the mix tape. Oh, well. Whatever the case, I recently stumbled across this Christmas "playlist" I made a few years back for a friend. It's actually heavy on modern rock, making it somewhat inappropriate for a site dedicated to earlier years, but I offer it to you, dear readers, for your amusement:

1. F__k Christmas - Fear
2. Christmas - Beat Happening
3. It's Christmas Time - Yo La Tengo
4. That Was the Worst Christmas Ever - Sufjan Stevens
5. Christmas at the Zoo - The Flaming Lips
6. The Christmas Party - The Walkmen
7. Christmas Song - Mogwai
8. Happy Christmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon
9. Christmas Bop - T. Rex
10. Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis - Neko Case
11. Christmas - Leona Naess
12. Merry Christmas from the Family (Live) - Robert Earl Keen
13. No Christmas While I'm Talking - The Walkmen
14. A Change at Christmas (Say It Isn't So) - The Flaming Lips
15. What Child Is This Anyway - Sufjan Stevens
16. Christmas Steps - Mogwai

Please know that I listened to it yesterday, on our most commercial of holidays.

Christmas with the Devil

Judith Owen and Harry Shearer perform the immortal Spinal Tap classic holiday tune, "Christmas with the Devil." Shearer, of course, plays in Spinal Tap under the name Derek Smalls. The original version of the song appeared on Spinal Tap's 1992 album, "Break Like The Wind."

Happy holidays from Chronological Snobbery.

So This is Christmas II

SAD CLOWN CHRISTMAS 2007: Two years ago today, Christmas Day 2007, Horus Kemwer posted on his blog, Against the Modern World, an entry that one commenter described as "perhaps the greatest blog entry [the] site [had] ever seen." See it here.

SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS II: Also two years ago, today, this blog was in its infancy and it had not yet lapsed into the lengthy coma that has characterized its last 18 months. But on that day, Christmas Day 2007, this site explored the immortal punk band, Fear, and its 46 second song, "F_ck Christmas." Ah, Christmas. You can access that 2007 post here.

LEAGUE OF MELBOTIS CHRISTMAS POSTS: As previously reported, the six year old blog, The League of Melbotis, closed its doors last week, just a few days before Christmas. If you feel you must recognize the yuletide season (or if you are being forced to against your will), then you can peruse his Christmas posts from these years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. Alas, readers of The League of Melbotis will not get to see a Christmas 2010 post.

David Lee Roth's "A Little Ain't Enough" (1991)

It is possible to calculate the exact moment in the career of David Lee Roth when he sank from puerile hard rock showman to utterly irrelevant self parody. It was January of 1991, when his new album, A Little Ain't Enough, hit record stores. Perhaps it's unfair to opine that the record suggests a total lack of self awareness; perhaps Roth, even at his most silly, knew exactly what he was and how he was to be perceived by the ages. But it is startling to note that this record, released in the first month of 1991, arrived only eight months before Nirvana's Nevermind. According to Wikipedia, the video for the title track was banned from MTV, but nearly 19 years later, surely no one remembers that fact, or much else, about this record.

By 1991, six years had passed since Roth had left the mighty hard rock outfit, Van Halen. But even after that, he showed some promise as a rock star. In the mid to late 1980s, he had pieced together a respectable hard rock band, with guitarist Steve Vai and bassist Billy Sheehan, (both of whom played with Roth on his 1986 album, Eat 'Em and Smile, as well as its 1988 follow-up, Skyscraper). But by 1991, Vai and Sheehan were no longer a part of Roth's band, and neither appeared on this, his third solo record (his fourth, actually, if you count the 1985 EP, Crazy from the Heat, which for these purposes, we shall not).

On paper, A Little Ain't Enough might have seemed like a good idea when it was planned and recorded in 1990. In that year, after all, heavy metal and hard rock were still dominating both the airwaves and MTV, and few foresaw the rise of grunge. Produced by Bob Rock (who had produced two popular 1989 albums, Motley Crue's Dr. Feelgood and the Cult's Sonic Temple, and who would later produce Metallica's 1991 self tittled album, to be released in August of 1991), and featuring up and coming, but ultimately ill-fated, hard rock guitarist Jason Becker, there might have been at least some reason to be optimistic. But in the end, it was Roth's last attempt at relevance, and it failed, in part, because 1991 was, as they say, the year punk broke.

Listening to this record in 2009 is like watching awful exploitation flicks from the 1970s; it's difficult to look away at something that is so representative of a dying genre. Certainly, it is characterized by the excess of hard rock, with loud riffs, huge amps, and, of all things, horns. Some of the songs remain catchy, but they can only be the guiltiest of guilty pleasures.

The Internets alert me that there were three singles from the album that charted, those being "A Lil Ain't Enough" (which can't really be called the title track if one word is spelled differently), "Sensible Shoes," and "Tell the Truth," but I can only recall the first two. Surely only the most devout fans of Roth can identify anything he did after 1991 (with the possible exception of the two new tracks he contributed to the Van Halen greatest hits album in 1996). And so it was.

A sad footnote: Becker, the young guitarist, would be diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease shortly after joining Roth's band and was unable to tour in support of the album.

Resquiat in pacem: The League of Melbotis (2003-2009)

From 2003 to 2009, the League of Melbotis offered commentary on popular culture, music, comic books, and even, occasionally, the social issues of the day. Its author retired this past week, and thankfully, he elected to leave the site's seven year archive online. It was a good run, and that blog shall be missed.

Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Philadelphia Single (1994)

This single for Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia," promoted as featuring "Music from the Motion Picture," features the studio version of that song and three live performances from his 1992 appearance on MTV. Although the film Philadelphia was released in late 1993 (as was the official soundtrack), the Springsteen single was not released until February of 1994.

The track list is as follows:

1. Streets of Philadelphia
2. If I Should Fall Behind (Live)
3. Growing Up (Live)
4. Light of Day (Live)

The three live tracks were recorded on September 22, 1992. Of these, only two were made available on his In Concert/MTV Plugged disc, while the absent performance ("Growing Up") was available on the VHS and DVD releases of that concert. The studio version of "Philadelphia" would appear a year later on Springsteen's Greatest Hits album, released on February 27, 1995.

Most of the concert is available on YouTube:

Above: Springsteen performs "Growing Up" in 1992 on MTV.


Above: Springsteen performs "Light of Day" in 1992 on MTV.


Above: Springsteen performs "Streets of Philadelphia" in 1994 at the Oscars.