Author: Makerbot

I am not an animal! I am a human being. I am a man.
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Guess What?

Okay, I’ll tell you. According to Ars Technica …

Peter Jackson’s next six-hour epic is finally coming out this year—and in a first for the acclaimed director, the film will launch directly to a streaming service. It will also be broken up into episodes.

The Beatles: Get Back, an expansive documentary originally announced for a theatrical run this August, has had its release strategy tweaked. On Thursday, Jackson and Disney confirmed that the entire project will launch exclusively on Disney+ during this year’s American Thanksgiving holiday. Each third of the documentary will launch on the streaming service on November 25, 26, and 27. As of press time, Disney hasn’t said how the film will reach audiences outside of Disney+’s supported territories. Neither Jackson nor Disney clarified how the original theatrical run might have worked or whether the global pandemic forced anyone’s hand.

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I’m Back!

And I brought some old Buzzcocks with me. So old that Howard Devoto was still in the band and Pete Shelley was just the guitarist. This is “Breakdown,” off their DIY EP Spiral Scratch. W. says …

Buzzcocks recorded the tracks on 28 December 1976 at Dave Kent-Watson’s Indigo Sound Studios in Manchester on 16-track Ampex tape. According to Devoto, “It took three hours [to record the tracks], with another two for mixing.” Produced by Martin Hannett (credited as “Martin Zero”), the music was roughly recorded, insistently repetitive and energetic.

The band, having no record label support, had to borrow £500 from their friends and families to pay for the record’s production and manufacture. The EP was released on 29 January 1977 on the band’s own New Hormones label, making Buzzcocks the first English punk group to establish an independent record label. Despite this, the disc quickly sold out its initial run of 1,000 copies, and went on to sell 16,000 copies, initially by mail order, but also with the help of the Manchester branch of the music chain store Virgin, whose manager took some copies and persuaded other regional branch managers to follow suit.

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With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?

June 10th! According to Louder Than War …

When we lost one of the UK’s most remarkable singer/songwriters Pete Shelley of Buzzcocks in 2018, we also lost the chance to hear him tell the stories behind some of the songs we love so well, or so it appeared.

However, in 2020, recordings surfaced of a series of long, personal and in-depth interviews between Pete and close friend Louie Shelley. The two had spent hours discussing details of Pete’s life, moving song-by-song through Buzzcocks’ output to reveal his memories of the punk explosion and how he came to write songs such as ‘Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)’ and ‘What Do I Get?’.

Now, to be published in print for the first time and with the blessing of Pete’s estate, these conversations offer us the chance to hear one of the finest songwriters of a generation in his own words at last.

FUN FACT: That cover is based on the 45’s cover art, which is based on Duchamp’s Fluttering Hearts, as described over the phone to the art director!

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Anyone Who’s Ever Been Lonely

Miley Cyrus & The Social Distancers perform “Sweet Jane” unplugged on Miley Cyrus Backyard Sessions.

Holy sheep shit, she’s got some pipes.

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Anybody Remember Dig!?

https://youtu.be/JvWcfD5cW7k

It’s Ondi Timoner’s 2004 rockumentary featuring The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dandy Warhols, and the love-hate relationship these bands developed over a seven-year period. (2,500 hours of raw footage!) According to Wicked-pedia, it “won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art for their permanent collection.”

No big surprise, band members hated it. (SPOILERS: It makes them all look like a bunch of fucked up, pretentious morons.)

Taylor-Taylor, Newcombe and Warhols guitarist Peter Holmstrom have all criticized the film as being unfair in its portrayal of Newcombe and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. On The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s official website the film was denounced as reducing several years of hard work to “at best a series of punch-ups and mishaps taken out of context, and at worst bold faced lies and misrepresentation of fact.” Courtney Taylor-Taylor said in an interview: “It’s a movie, not a documentary […] She worked her ass off and forged a plot when there was no plot. She crafted the thing to swell and ebb by taking eight years of us and a year and a half of the Brian Jonestown Massacre”. Holmstrom was generally displeased with the film initially, citing Timoner’s use of footage that he claims “was not to be used” as a reason, but has maintained that “it’s still a good film”, though one “I would have done differently”. Dandy Warhols drummer Brent DeBoer noted the film could have easily been a “feel-good story”, but instead a few rare moments were specifically chosen to give the film a “Jerry Springer”-type storyline.

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Pretty Much, Yeah

Directed by Zack King-of-Plot-Holes Snyder, cribbed from Escape From New York, American Werewolf In London, Aliens, Ocean’s 11, and Raider’s Of The Lost Ark. And probably others I missed.