Posts

Posted on // 0 Comments

Lords Of Synth

Fictionalized versions of Vangelis, Giorgio Moroder and Wendy Carlos compete for synth dominance as they score the return of Halley’s Comet. This is some weird shit.

Posted on // 2 Comments

Puppet Show And Spinal Tap

Glad to see these guys still get along.

The cast of the cult classic “This Is Spinal Tap” reunited at the Tribeca Film Festival 35 years after the release of their project and chatted with TODAY’s Harry Smith to discuss the origins of the film, its impact on “mockumentary” style cinema and how they built a 17-year history of the characters before filming.

Posted on // 2 Comments

My Thoughts Exactly

Some guy on the Internet, regarding last night’s Game of Thrones episode …

As a stand-alone piece of entertainment it was excellent. As a piece of the narrative of a long running show, it was trash.

Pretty much.

Also, this guy’s comment with SPOILERS …

Okay, see, what I thought they were building to with Dany was “Her desire to retake the throne ultimately overshadows her noble ideals and brings out her tyrannical side.”

Not “Well, we already won, but guess I’m the Mad Queen now, time to burn everything!”

It’s just so clumsy. They wanted a Big Moment and raced to get there, but there’s no real sense of interiority with the character anymore. The moral of the story is “Some people are just crazy!”

Everything felt just very rote and lifeless. All the actors look bored. The same generic looking peasant woman gets horribly brutalized about 5 different times. Arya finds a horse. The whole thing stinks of the kind of edgy nihilism people accused the show of being, but which I don’t think it actually slid into before. Until now.

Posted on // 4 Comments

New Morning Edition Theme Blows

https://youtu.be/otGmpQpiVjw

The outgoing 40-year old theme is like a comfortable pair of old shoes. It’s reassuring. This new theme is … not.

From an article in The Atlantic …

The old theme—known for its inquisitive guitar and jazz piano—went off the air last week after 40 years of service. It was replaced on Monday with a new one that churns through dozens of ideas in 58 seconds: There’s a trip-hop remix of the old melody, a synthesized set of chimes conveying either urgency or the imminent arrival of an elevator, and a clatter of percussion that sounds “global” without evoking any one country in particular.

“For me, it was so reminiscent of childhood, of car rides to school,” [classical composer Timo] Andres told me later of the old theme. “Even though, objectively, it sounds like an artifact from a universe where Steely Dan was co-opted into writing state-propaganda music.”

The new theme, meanwhile, was summarized more pithily by [jazz singer Theo] Bleckmann. “Yeah, it sucks,” he said.

https://youtu.be/cwEDfzMfNHo

What say you bastards?

Posted on // 0 Comments

Hell Yes

Judging from this trailer, IT Chapter 2 looks to be another faithful adaptation of the book.

I’m fired up!

Posted on // 3 Comments

I Sort Of Like It

A freind whose opinion I sometimes trust saw this duo of rock royalty at Music Fest last weekend and liked what he heard.  The first song I listened to was pretty bad, but this one has some things going for it: good melodies, harmonies, and chording.   It’s too long and proggy in places, and perhaps owes too much to the White Album and Pink Floyd.  Whoever made the video has worshipped too long at Terry Gilliam’s altar.  It mostly just makes me want to go back and watch the real thing.