I've been spending the holidays with my girlfriend and her friends and family in Northern Italy, in the city of Merano.
I went to a local book shop and picked up a few CD's, the selection is a bit limited, so I picked up a few things I probably would have skipped over in a huge record shop like Amoeba...
I have to say beforehand, that I don't know a lot about "classical" music.
I originally picked up a CD for my mom, A deluxe 50th anniversary edition of Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations, recorded in 1955. Of course, it looked so nice I had to open it up and listen to it myself.
The music is intriguing, simply Gould on solo piano playing one of Bach's lesser known pieces (which, apparently, Gould made famous!) (Listening to the music, it makes me wonder if Glenn Gould's stripped down style, influenced later minimalists such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich.) There are some outtakes, and extra songs, some interesting unreleased pieces, which just add to the overall package.
But the packaging is what's so great about it.
The CD comes with a nice book, in a sturdy slipcase, and the CD itself comes in a sleeve that is a replica of the original album. The original album artwork is pretty nice, although it is classical music, the sleeve is more reminiscent of Blue Note style jazz LPs. And what's cool is the actual disc is a CD that resembles a 5" record. It has the vintage label, with grooves, and is an all black CD. Just holding it and looking at it, the cd itself is such a nice art object.
The book is a 165 page hardbound book, with EXTENSIVE notes (in English, German and French), an interview with the original producer, Columbia's original press material, relevant news articles from the era, and photos galore. Looking through the book it reminds me about the movie Twenty Two Films about Glenn Gould, I saw it a long time ago on PBS and thought it was interesting, but I barely remember it, I'm gonna have to watch it again one of these days. (It also makes me think how our neighbors up north, Canada, do such a better job at preserving their cultural legacy, but that's another subject!)
I like to see when a record label tries a little bit harder, and makes their product a little bit nicer, maybe they could get the hint and make the music come in nicer packaging, and turn the whole thing into a kind of special object, maybe people would want to buy the CD.
And the whole package cost $18, the cost of a regular CD nowadays.
I'm thinking about a few anniversary reissues that could use this treatment.
John Coltrane's Blue Train and/or A Love Supreme.
Steve Reich's Music for 18 musicians and or Drumming (although Steve Reich's gotten the Box Set treatment)
Elvis Presley's Sun sessions, Johnny Cash as well.
All the recordings by Buddy Holly (including the "Apartment" tapes, c'mon it's about time!)
The Beatles' Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (I'm not even a big Beatles fan but this would be interesting)
I think the Beach Boys Pet Sounds would have been better served with this treatment, than a whole box set dedicated to one record!
Friday, December 30, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Bif! Bam! Pow!
Long overdue.
Since moving to Austria I've started reading comic books again. I am trying to learn some German by reading comics, it's much easier to follow a story with text and visual narrative. But slowly I've been picking up a few new superhero comics. Yes, superhero comics. Why? I picked up a copy of Seth's "It's a good life, if you don't weaken." And was bored silly. The protagonist (the Author) was so self-absorbed, uptight, and unlikable, I sort of gave up on "indie" comics right then and there. And the last issue of Eightball was a superhero comic, which leads me to believe that most of the people doing "indies" grew up on a steady diet of Marvel and DC.
I recently picked up DC's Jonah Hex Showcase, which reprints a bazillion stories from the 70's. There is some fantastic artwork and some great stories with a weird and almost supernatural twist. Jonah Hex is pretty closely based on the Clint Eastwood character from the Sergio Leone "Man with no name" trilogy. But Jonax Hex is mean, I mean, he's really nasty and mean. I think the basic definition of an Anti-hero is a character who's both bad and good, but the good they do outweighs the bad. (Usually the Anti hero tries to do good but has some serious personality flaws) Jonah Hex's good deeds barely overtake his bad, by a very slim margin. D.C. has recently relaunched a new Jonah Hex series that is every bit as weird and crazy as the original, from reading the first issue, it looks like a winner.
The 80's Justice League was my favorite comic book of all time. The writers turned second stringers into some really strong and compelling characters, and the artwork was always top-notch. They managed to blend humor with action, and always had smart and witty dialogue that would put Quentin Tarantino to shame. I still find myself using some of their lines in my own conversations. Recently the creative team (Keith Giffen, J.M. Dematties, and Kevin Mcguire) reunited and brought back some members of the team and made two brilliant books, "Formerly Known as the Justice League," and "I Can't Believe Its Not the Justice League." I like the fact that the characters acknowledge the fact that time has passed since their tenure in the Justice League International, and their new team (The Super-Buddies) isn't anywhere near as grand as the Justice League.
The same creative team have recently done a few other projects, a "Defenders" mini-series for Marvel, and although I am less familiar with Marvel Comics, I have to say it's pretty darn good. I was laughing out-loud reading the first issue. And they have creayed the highly-acclaimed Hero-Squared, which looks pretty interesting: a superhero meets his secret indentity in a parallel universe, a parallel universe without superheroes (I can't find this in Europe, so I'm gonna have to get in in the USA.) Bwwahahahahaha!
Of course, after the two reunion books, D.C. would then take three of the main J.L.I. characters and kill them off. First, Sue Dibney (the wife of longtime Justice second-stringer Elongated Man) was killed off in the almost-great "Identity Crisis." (Written by mystery novelist Brad Meltzer) and Blue Beetle and Max Lord both have been killed off in D.C.'s newest crossover fiasco, "Infinite Crisis."
To be fair, Infinite Crisis has started out pretty well, it's a sequel to "Crisis on Infinite Earths," and it reads like a meta-narrative about what has happened to the D.C. universe and comics in general since the mid 80's. It mentions how "dark" everything has become in comics, and how the characters have lost a lot of their heroic appeal. There is a great line; Batman tells Superman, "The last time you inspired anyone, was when you were dead!"
Which, at least to me, seems to acknowledge the way in which a lot of readers feel about how the characters have been treated (and how bad a lot of comics had gotten in the 90's.) It will be interesting to see how this plays out. And I like a lot of the dark comics that have come out since then, like The Dark Knight Returns, Batman:Year One, and Kingdom Come. And it was sad to see the Blue Beetle get killed, sure, he was a second stringer, but if you ever read the JLI you know he was the heart of the team. At least the character went out in a blaze of glory, and his last story was one of the best he ever had.
And I'm not just reading D.C. One of my new favorites is Alan Moore's TOM STRONG. Alan Moore is considered one of the best comics writers around, and he certainly has done some great work in the past. Tom Strong is Alan Moore's idea of what an archetypical superhero should be. Alan Moore borrows heavily from the very first Superman comics, and early heroes like Doc Savage to come up with an interesting and compelling hero. Tom Strong does have super-strength and some high-tech gadgetry, but (and this is what's great about Alan Moore) Tom Strong's real superpower is his incredible intellect, he usually manages to get out of a situation by using his brain but usually not before a few punches are thrown. Alan Moore has envisioned a utopian world which is filled with what he calls "Science Heroes" (and of course you would have evil geniuses which are the science-villains) and Tom Strong happens to be Millenium City's number one hero. Alan Moore uses a lot of references to comics history (who else would have a story featuring a life size Sea Monkey?), bizarre cutting edge science, and some really clever narrative techniques to keep the readers interested and on their toes.
There are many more discoveries I have made, and some new comics that I still want to read, and I wanted to talk about the mythological aspects of a lot of characters, but for now that's enough! Excelsior!
Since moving to Austria I've started reading comic books again. I am trying to learn some German by reading comics, it's much easier to follow a story with text and visual narrative. But slowly I've been picking up a few new superhero comics. Yes, superhero comics. Why? I picked up a copy of Seth's "It's a good life, if you don't weaken." And was bored silly. The protagonist (the Author) was so self-absorbed, uptight, and unlikable, I sort of gave up on "indie" comics right then and there. And the last issue of Eightball was a superhero comic, which leads me to believe that most of the people doing "indies" grew up on a steady diet of Marvel and DC.
I recently picked up DC's Jonah Hex Showcase, which reprints a bazillion stories from the 70's. There is some fantastic artwork and some great stories with a weird and almost supernatural twist. Jonah Hex is pretty closely based on the Clint Eastwood character from the Sergio Leone "Man with no name" trilogy. But Jonax Hex is mean, I mean, he's really nasty and mean. I think the basic definition of an Anti-hero is a character who's both bad and good, but the good they do outweighs the bad. (Usually the Anti hero tries to do good but has some serious personality flaws) Jonah Hex's good deeds barely overtake his bad, by a very slim margin. D.C. has recently relaunched a new Jonah Hex series that is every bit as weird and crazy as the original, from reading the first issue, it looks like a winner.
The 80's Justice League was my favorite comic book of all time. The writers turned second stringers into some really strong and compelling characters, and the artwork was always top-notch. They managed to blend humor with action, and always had smart and witty dialogue that would put Quentin Tarantino to shame. I still find myself using some of their lines in my own conversations. Recently the creative team (Keith Giffen, J.M. Dematties, and Kevin Mcguire) reunited and brought back some members of the team and made two brilliant books, "Formerly Known as the Justice League," and "I Can't Believe Its Not the Justice League." I like the fact that the characters acknowledge the fact that time has passed since their tenure in the Justice League International, and their new team (The Super-Buddies) isn't anywhere near as grand as the Justice League.
The same creative team have recently done a few other projects, a "Defenders" mini-series for Marvel, and although I am less familiar with Marvel Comics, I have to say it's pretty darn good. I was laughing out-loud reading the first issue. And they have creayed the highly-acclaimed Hero-Squared, which looks pretty interesting: a superhero meets his secret indentity in a parallel universe, a parallel universe without superheroes (I can't find this in Europe, so I'm gonna have to get in in the USA.) Bwwahahahahaha!
Of course, after the two reunion books, D.C. would then take three of the main J.L.I. characters and kill them off. First, Sue Dibney (the wife of longtime Justice second-stringer Elongated Man) was killed off in the almost-great "Identity Crisis." (Written by mystery novelist Brad Meltzer) and Blue Beetle and Max Lord both have been killed off in D.C.'s newest crossover fiasco, "Infinite Crisis."
To be fair, Infinite Crisis has started out pretty well, it's a sequel to "Crisis on Infinite Earths," and it reads like a meta-narrative about what has happened to the D.C. universe and comics in general since the mid 80's. It mentions how "dark" everything has become in comics, and how the characters have lost a lot of their heroic appeal. There is a great line; Batman tells Superman, "The last time you inspired anyone, was when you were dead!"
Which, at least to me, seems to acknowledge the way in which a lot of readers feel about how the characters have been treated (and how bad a lot of comics had gotten in the 90's.) It will be interesting to see how this plays out. And I like a lot of the dark comics that have come out since then, like The Dark Knight Returns, Batman:Year One, and Kingdom Come. And it was sad to see the Blue Beetle get killed, sure, he was a second stringer, but if you ever read the JLI you know he was the heart of the team. At least the character went out in a blaze of glory, and his last story was one of the best he ever had.
And I'm not just reading D.C. One of my new favorites is Alan Moore's TOM STRONG. Alan Moore is considered one of the best comics writers around, and he certainly has done some great work in the past. Tom Strong is Alan Moore's idea of what an archetypical superhero should be. Alan Moore borrows heavily from the very first Superman comics, and early heroes like Doc Savage to come up with an interesting and compelling hero. Tom Strong does have super-strength and some high-tech gadgetry, but (and this is what's great about Alan Moore) Tom Strong's real superpower is his incredible intellect, he usually manages to get out of a situation by using his brain but usually not before a few punches are thrown. Alan Moore has envisioned a utopian world which is filled with what he calls "Science Heroes" (and of course you would have evil geniuses which are the science-villains) and Tom Strong happens to be Millenium City's number one hero. Alan Moore uses a lot of references to comics history (who else would have a story featuring a life size Sea Monkey?), bizarre cutting edge science, and some really clever narrative techniques to keep the readers interested and on their toes.
There are many more discoveries I have made, and some new comics that I still want to read, and I wanted to talk about the mythological aspects of a lot of characters, but for now that's enough! Excelsior!
Monday, December 12, 2005
Ring a bell
I am so overdue, I am way too overdone for posting an update.
It's been so long, I've just been really busy with the MOTMOT shop, the web-store should be up and running any day now, just in time for after X-mas. I wanted to write about comics, but instead this has turned into a music entry.
I managed to catch the Constantines live and they were fantastic! They had one of the best guitar sounds I have ever heard, with rented equipment nonetheless! The triple tambourine assault! I could say that recorded their live show doesn't quite translate. But after seeing them I think their records somehow make sense.
A band that are still making good "indie" post-hardcore-whatever. They have a Jawbox/Drive Like Jehu guitar dynamic thrown in with some AC/DC and The Replacements.
Great sounds, great energy live!
Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt of the Sea and Cake also played here recently, it was cool to see how they toured, they walked with their guitars to the club. No backing band, just two guitars. It was great to hear the simplicity, and to realize what a weird variety of sounds they can make with just two guitars. Afterwards I was talking to Archer about comics, and the current state of comic booking, and of course the big exhibition at MOCA.. All of you living in Los Angeles and surrounding areas, should go, Now!
I would do a top 10 list except that I wouldn't have a top 10 from this year, and 10 is such an arbitrary number.
Here's what I've been spinning.
1. The Harder They Come sound track. The best reggae cd, ever, hear where the Clash got their sound.
2. Later period Husker Du, stuff off of Candy Apple Grey, and Warehouse. (Which incidentally were some of the first punk records I ever heard, getting them from the Cerritos Public Library, ages ago. I remember being way too young to go see them on their farewell tour. I think I still owe the Cerritos Library something like $17 in overdue fines!)
3. The Constantines: see above. I should add that when they played, I bought a couple of Cds from them. I try to support bands when they come to town, and it's usually cheaper than the record store here.
4. The Marked Men, play some great punk rock. They have all the good things I like about punk music, and none of the bad stuff, that is now associated with "punk." I hear that Swami records is releasing their next record, and the Swami himself is recording their next long player. Should be awesome.
5. Volcano Suns. Hey the Volcano Suns are on Myspace! They're posting MP3's of some of their songs, they look like they have more myspace friends than they had fans the first time around,(just kidding, sort of!) And alot of their new fans are beautiful 19 year old girls! The Volcano Suns are a sort of missing link between early 80's punk, and later-noisy-post-hardcore-whatever.
6. Despite all the hype, and despite the fact that the singer sounds a little bit like the guy from Modest Mouse, I'm digging what I'm hearing from Wolf Parade.
7. This guy has a crazy record collection, he has some impossibly rare, obscure, and out of print punk and hardcore records. It just reveals that there is a whole other world of stuff you've never heard of.
8. Nuggets 2 Box Set. I actually bought this nearly a year ago, when I was in So-Cal. It's taken me nearly a year to digest this four disk juggernaut of a box set. Some great 60's punk, psych, and pop. But it's highly unlikely you've heard of more than a handfull of the bands on this set. You probably know about the Small Faces, and you might know about The Creation or the Pretty Things, but who's heard of the Winston's Fumbs or Q' 65? A great thing about this set is that it features bands from the U.K. and around the world, who would have thought someone was making great 60's garage punk... In New Zealand?
O.K. I only made it to 8, but I left out new books, comics, art, radio, etc... If I would have included all that stuff, I would have made it to 10 no problem, maybe even 11!
Rock on folks!
It's been so long, I've just been really busy with the MOTMOT shop, the web-store should be up and running any day now, just in time for after X-mas. I wanted to write about comics, but instead this has turned into a music entry.
I managed to catch the Constantines live and they were fantastic! They had one of the best guitar sounds I have ever heard, with rented equipment nonetheless! The triple tambourine assault! I could say that recorded their live show doesn't quite translate. But after seeing them I think their records somehow make sense.
A band that are still making good "indie" post-hardcore-whatever. They have a Jawbox/Drive Like Jehu guitar dynamic thrown in with some AC/DC and The Replacements.
Great sounds, great energy live!
Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt of the Sea and Cake also played here recently, it was cool to see how they toured, they walked with their guitars to the club. No backing band, just two guitars. It was great to hear the simplicity, and to realize what a weird variety of sounds they can make with just two guitars. Afterwards I was talking to Archer about comics, and the current state of comic booking, and of course the big exhibition at MOCA.. All of you living in Los Angeles and surrounding areas, should go, Now!
I would do a top 10 list except that I wouldn't have a top 10 from this year, and 10 is such an arbitrary number.
Here's what I've been spinning.
1. The Harder They Come sound track. The best reggae cd, ever, hear where the Clash got their sound.
2. Later period Husker Du, stuff off of Candy Apple Grey, and Warehouse. (Which incidentally were some of the first punk records I ever heard, getting them from the Cerritos Public Library, ages ago. I remember being way too young to go see them on their farewell tour. I think I still owe the Cerritos Library something like $17 in overdue fines!)
3. The Constantines: see above. I should add that when they played, I bought a couple of Cds from them. I try to support bands when they come to town, and it's usually cheaper than the record store here.
4. The Marked Men, play some great punk rock. They have all the good things I like about punk music, and none of the bad stuff, that is now associated with "punk." I hear that Swami records is releasing their next record, and the Swami himself is recording their next long player. Should be awesome.
5. Volcano Suns. Hey the Volcano Suns are on Myspace! They're posting MP3's of some of their songs, they look like they have more myspace friends than they had fans the first time around,(just kidding, sort of!) And alot of their new fans are beautiful 19 year old girls! The Volcano Suns are a sort of missing link between early 80's punk, and later-noisy-post-hardcore-whatever.
6. Despite all the hype, and despite the fact that the singer sounds a little bit like the guy from Modest Mouse, I'm digging what I'm hearing from Wolf Parade.
7. This guy has a crazy record collection, he has some impossibly rare, obscure, and out of print punk and hardcore records. It just reveals that there is a whole other world of stuff you've never heard of.
8. Nuggets 2 Box Set. I actually bought this nearly a year ago, when I was in So-Cal. It's taken me nearly a year to digest this four disk juggernaut of a box set. Some great 60's punk, psych, and pop. But it's highly unlikely you've heard of more than a handfull of the bands on this set. You probably know about the Small Faces, and you might know about The Creation or the Pretty Things, but who's heard of the Winston's Fumbs or Q' 65? A great thing about this set is that it features bands from the U.K. and around the world, who would have thought someone was making great 60's garage punk... In New Zealand?
O.K. I only made it to 8, but I left out new books, comics, art, radio, etc... If I would have included all that stuff, I would have made it to 10 no problem, maybe even 11!
Rock on folks!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
