Flaming Pablum

More NYC on Film

Just a little cinematic nostalgia for a Saturday morning.

News I Can't Use

The Good:
- This story is just completely awesome.
- And this review-of-a-review is entirely hilarious.

The Bad:
- First Indiana Jones, now Axel Foley?
- Condi joins Kiss Army. I become a conscientious objector.

The Ugly:
- This is just embarassing.
- This story is just way too depressing.

Rest in Peace, Harvey Korman

The Skills To Pay The Bills

Here's an article that started a lively debate around my office this morning, The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master. For what it's worth, I can only claim to have mastered 34 of them. Clearly, I have some catching up to do.

My Fergie Fatwa

 

As has been well-documented, I have a lot of hang-ups when it comes to band t-shirt etiquette. As a forty-year-old father or two, I should probably get over it (especially when I outfit my own children in Motorhead and Devo shirts). But if Fergie can name – let alone hum -- a single Sisters of Mercy song (apart from maybe "This Corrosion"), I'd be damn surprised. Thus, for wearing a shirt with the "Body & Soul" single art on it, she earns my eternal hatred. Honestly, she'd already won that honor for blighting the world with "My Humps," but for dishonoring the mighty Sisters with her insipid vileness, I must now officially condemn her.

Vexed at the Shitty

My office is adjacent to Radio City Music Hall. Right now -- this very moment -- the U.S. premier of "Sex and the City" is happening. The streets are summarily filled with morons who are cheering every five seconds. One can only imagine that Miranda or Carrie or whomever has appeared brandishing a cosmo or a Magnolia cupcake. The movie itself doesn't open until Friday.


This is going to be a long week.

Nigel Tufnel on Stonehenge

Bending Sound, Dredging the Ocean, Lost in my Circle

It's Monday morning, Memorial day. The kids were up early and are being especially demanding today. The wife's feeling ill. I've already been to K Mart. Next up is the playground. Normally, I'd earnestly ask for someone to please come and kill me, but I have tickets to go see Firewater again tonight. 

In the interim, I'm still on my Bowie kick. Herewith the `Duke from Uli Edel's notorious underage-junkie-prostitute epic from 1981, "Christiane F." 

Shine, Electric City, Shine

So, I caught the first of two homecoming shows by Firewater last night. Saturday's show found them at Southpaw in scenic Park Slope, Brooklyn. I'd never been to this venue before, but it's amazing. Great space, very roomy, nice sight-lines. Very nice.

The band was completely on fire, pardon the pun. Along with Erik Sanko of Skeleton Key filling on bass detail, Tod was flanked by a female trombonist (nothing adds mystique to a band like a female trombone player), a Sikh Londoner who played this massive drum (the name of which escapes me -- see picture above), a French drummer and a shit-hot guitarist. The set list was mostly stuff of the new record, The Golden Hour, along with some radically re-arranged renditions of a few old faves. The crowd was hugely into it. They're playing tomorrow night as well at the Bowery Ballroom (with Skeleton Key opening). If you have the opportunity, you shouldn't miss them. 

This is another of my favorite tracks of the new records. They played it last night and the room just came alive. The solo that closes out the song is so goddamn great I can't stand it. 

Play it loud.

mog.com

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Dann Sind Wir Helden

TITLE: "Helden"

ARTIST: David Bowie

ALBUM: Sound + Vision 

RELEASE DATE: 1989

Around midnight last night, one child threw up. At 6 am, the other one had a disquieting bout of diarrhea (aren't you glad I'm here to share these things with you? You're welcome!) As such, the day has started much earlier than anyone would have preferred. Being that I'm ostensibly supposed to be going out tonight (to see the triumphant return of Firewater to Brooklyn), I volunteered to get up with the kids and let Peg catch a few more Z's. Such is my Dadly duty.

So, we're up. Both kids are irritable, and I'm not far behind them in that capacity. Unable to think of any activities for my little testy two, I begrudgingly flicked on the tube. Charlotte sniffily asked for the Disney Channel as opposed to my usual go-to choice, Noggin. I winced and obliged. The room soon filled with the sickly strains of Johnny & the Sprites, a show that makes me want to unfreeze Walt Disney from his secret cryogenic chamber just so I can brain him with a tire iron. The air in the apartment is still rife with the faint but distinctive whiff of unhappy toddler bodily fluids. I've accordingly thrown open all the windows. The kids, for the moment, are glued to the television and neither puking nor pooping. Detente has momentarily been achieved, but this looks like it might be a long weekend in the not-so-good way.

In an attempt to find my inner happy place, I've fired up my iTunes and am grooving to some vintage Bowie of the coke n' smack-addled, occult-bothering, worryingly paranoid and possibly Nazi-sympathizing variety. I'm currently ankle deep into Thomas Jerome Seabrook's surprisingly well-written rock tome, "Bowie in Berlin," a sprawling account of the Thin White and thoroughly fucked up Duke's sojourn to Germany in the mid-to-late 70s wherein he recorded arguably the finest albums of his illustrious career (I'm still partial to the doomy dystopia of Diamond Dogs, myself). Even if you're only a passive fan of ol' Dave's, it's a fun read.

In any case, I first heard this version of "Heroes" in the very early 90s upon the release of the then-seemingly ambitious and garishly packaged box set, Sound + Vision. On the tour to promote same, Bowie infamously stated that he'd never perform these songs again -- a claim he unsurprisingly later reneged on. Regardless, "Helden" is a mix of "Heroes" sung entirely in the native tongue of Bowie's adopted city. Bowie's pronunciation is suitably phlegmy and guttural, perfectly complementing those Velvet Underground-cribbing hammered pianos and Robert Fripp's otherworldly guitars. In retrospect, I much prefer it to the original. The bass line alone is to die for.

Emboldened by a sense of Teutonic discipline, I'm now ready for the next onslaught. ACHTUNG!

mog.com

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