Category: 80’s Catastrophes

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The Best Memphis Punk Band You’ve Never Heard Of

Happy Friday, you bastards, you.

In 2012, the documentary I directed about the Antenna club and the vibrant music scene which sprang up around it premiered at the Indie Memphis Film Festival. It had a successful festival run, but a commercial release of Antenna has been repeatedly delayed by music rights issues. With the help of J.D. Reager, we managed to convince Bob Holmes, who had become something of a recluse, to do an interview for the film. For three hours, he regaled us with some of the wildest Memphis music stories I have ever had the good fortune to hear. In order to honor the passing of a Memphis musical genius, I have uploaded the Modifiers segments from Antenna to YouTube and present it here for the first time since 2012.

Thus speaketh documentary director Chris McCoy.

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Wipers, The

Never heard of these Portland screamers from the late 70s – early 80s. Apparently they were very influential on the whole PNW grunge movement, but we won’t hold that against them.

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CATS!

… looks terrible.

I saw Cats on Broadway and thought it was about the dumbest thing I’d ever seen.

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Turbocharged: The Unauthorized Story Of The Cars

On Amazon Prime (for rental, though, $1.99). Completely ridiculous, and I have no idea how accurate it tracks to the band’s actual history. A better writer describes it as

Exaggerated personalities, terrible wigs, and an unorthodox plot make this hilarious film the breath of fresh air the genre needs. Narrated by a snowman a la Rankin/Bass, Turbocharge revolves around The Cars’ reputation for being robotic and boring during live shows, and their supposed determination to correct that perception with the fans. Running alongside that thread is the assertion that bassist Ben Orr was secretly plotting to wrest the control of the group from co-founder and songwriter Ric Ocasek. In an unexpected twist, Phil Collins is delightfully in the middle of it all.

Very low budget, obviously doesn’t have any cars songs in it, and is funnier than it should be.

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Heartwarming Pseudo-Sequel Or Cynical Corporate Bullshit?

I submit to you that it can be both. Here’s the full version of the commercial that aired during yesterday’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

From io9 …

Xfinity, if you are scratching your head for the connection here, is the digital cable, internet, phone, etc. provider owned by Comcast. Comcast owns NBC, which aired the parade. It also owns Universal Pictures, which owns E.T. So, basically what you’re looking at is major corporation dipping into a considerable bag of tricks labeled “Nostalgic Intellectual Property” and throwing Super Bowl commercial money at it.

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Um …

This is either the best or worst thing I’ve ever seen.

EDIT: Video won’t embed because they want you to watch it on YouTube so they can try to talk you into buying the song on iTunes. Diabolical.

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Finally

Only took me 38 years to get around to it. One lunchtime Target run and Wired YouTube video later, I solved a Rubik’s Cube. Twice. With this method, solving the bottom two layers is pretty easy. The top layer is where it gets complicated, with different algorithms for different scenarios. Will I actually memorize those? Doubtful.