Technically This Means I Have Nowhere to Sleep…

Wow, things went sideways really quickly. So the whole of Europe is, basically, in hibernation until the virus blows over – which would be awesome if I wasn’t desperate to get out in the sand and start work. Getting people to follow me to Spain was a big ask, even without everything else that is going on, and it now seems that I’ll be without a full crew or, more worryingly, my cast.

Which is a pain.

I’m thinking that things escalating thanks to the Corona virus might have something to do with me – every time I try and do something the universe goes all out in trying to fuck me over, so when I attempt my most ambitious project to date…

Yes, the ego. Insufferable, isn’t it?

There are so many reasons that I shouldn’t be happy.

Firstly, there now looks to be very little in the way of cast or crew from Italy, France, or Spain available for the foreseeable future, which is an enormous pressure on an already tight schedule. I have neither the time nor the inclination to rush around securing alternative people, given that so much of the planning was built around three people who are no longer in the running at all. I’m not sure if this is a minor or massive delay as yet, and holding out hope that things get back to normal as soon as possible is my current strategy.

And if I haven’t mentioned it before I really, really dislike lugging a giant bloody camera around. I need a camera operator.

Then there’s the fact that I don’t have access to a vehicle, which was a setback I didn’t see coming. This is one of those problems which, if I could stop freaking out (which had led to my right eye flaring up in protest), would likely be a fixable issue, but at the moment there’s no way around it.

And the amount of money I’m dropping on getting everything together is, quite frankly, obscene. This is the biggie – the single most terrifying, insurmountable, overwhelming aspect of the entire plan. Once the money is gone I’m going to have to bust my ass or figure out what else I’m willing to sell. At present I am of the mindset that it is preferable to sell a kidney rather than any of the comics or books.

I can’t rely on selling more stuff to fund things, and I’m not sure that I can sell more – the British comics are not going to go (they are earmarked for many, many things which require their presence in future), and I can’t imagine getting rid of any of my vintage SF books. They took a ridiculous amount of hunting down, and so few of them regularly come up for sale that I would never be able to rebuild the collection.

Without the footage in hand by the end of the year I’m not sure how things will go.

But…

I. Can’t. Stop. Smiling.

There are moments I catch myself in a reflection and am reminded of Gwynplaine, yet I can’t help myself – there is currently a mountain of stuff I need to sort through properly and pack neater for transportation – I ordered most of this a while back and had put it all to the back of my mind. A significant portion of the costumes are here, a few trinkets and ornamentation, and a lot of equipment – it was all waiting for me at the post office, which explains the pile of “sorry we missed you” cards.

I still haven’t got a bone flute, the bullroarers, or all the fake furs which are going to be needed, but the amount of items to have already been shipped is slightly staggering.

I’m not used to such efficiency.

That bone flute, which needs to be present by the start of shooting no matter what, is giving me problems. Porcelain replicas look awful in comparison to actual bone, and the thought of having to sculpt and paint a prop is giving me the shivers – that, right there, would be at least two or three weeks work, if not more, to get it looking completely right. Then there’s the larger instruments (including a particularly difficult-to-describe horn I want made to look like an antler), which are going to take a lot of money throwing to get right.

Finding people to create things not in general use for thousands of years is a pain.

I’ve been hunting through various strange and obscure corners of the internet looking for people who have non-standard fabrics in an attempt to get some of the costumes rounded out, but that’s proving to be as frustrating as everything else. Mammoth-fur wraps, for example, aren’t a thing. Not even close to being a thing. I’m fairly certain that someone, at some point, has attempted to recreate what they would look like, but all of the photographs, and the ones mocked up for museums, aren’t doing it for me.

Costumes are incredibly important to get right, and nothing can appear on-screen which remotely looks modern. I’m keeping as far from the look of 1981’s Caveman as possible.

Already acquired in preparation is:

• A monitor that was on offer, and so beautiful I couldn’t help myself. One of the most expensive items, but which can be calibrated to reproduce exactly the footage fed into it. As I’m not completely sold on using digital after the last week’s fiasco, and as the temptation to shoot on film is so strong, this input might be from a small secondary camera, or for use shooting inserts.
• Old glass lenses, some still having yellowing stickers attached from when they were originally bought / last used. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind to use as much traditional things as possible – looking specifically at the way some all-time classics were shot – and I’ve noticed the lenses in behind-the-scenes footage. Even if I only get to use them with some incidental footage they will be worth it.
• Awesome headphones which, I’m sad to say, cost about the same as my laptop.
• A clapperboard – and seriously, when did these get so damn expensive? It was one of the items I wanted to get quickly, so I wouldn’t overlook it in the rush, and goddamn, is it ever the most expensive thing per square inch. For its size it is remarkably loud, and the LED letters are certainly attractive, but I’ve questioned how much it is really worth since dropping coin on it.
• A light meter. Actually there are two, as I decided the first was good enough when I saw it, and it didn’t cost too much money (a concern that isn’t going to disappear), but then saw an amazing one that I couldn’t pass up. It looks like it belongs in a SF film, and it feels more comfortable in my hand – the slight expense incurred here is worth it.
• A tripod. I’m not completely convinced it’s suitable – I nevertheless picked it up because it was old extending tripod with really neat little feet, probably from the fifties or sixties. It looks slightly underwhelming, and there’s serious doubt in my mind as to its ability to take the weight of a full camera rig, but it was so adorable (and somehow sad looking) that I had to buy it. I’ll find a use for it.
• A bounce board I was gifted from a lovely chap who shot a bunch of fan films back in the day, and who has since upgraded much of his equipment. Free stuff is better than nothing, and I’m not going to pass up anything at the moment.
• Three cases in which all the equipment needs to be crammed. These were sized according to space aboard the yacht I had expected to be available, although at present the cases are holding a disturbing number of books. The shipping cost was a lot more than anticipated though, which makes them decidedly not a bargain.

There is also a weird wooden handle in the box that the filters arrived in, and I’m not completely certain what it is for, but it is with the rest of the equipment at the moment. Actually, there are a few things which are a slight mystery to me, though I’m trusting that all of the things I’ve decided might be important will come in handy, so I’m not going to start culling them from the equipment list as yet. I’m certain that once things get rolling they will find their role.

There’s also a small stack of folders so I can organize everything obsessively up until the last moment. And stationary. Lots and lots of stationary, because. C’mon, who doesn’t love reams of paper, shiny new pencils, gel pens, and note paper?

I don’t know, for sure, how much that little stack came to, but it seemed like I needed it given how much planning and information dissemination was on the cards.

Although there’s no need to splash out as yet, I’ve also been looking at top-of-the-range computers on which to edit everything, and which I can utilize in the FX process – it will be a few months before I need to make a decision on how I’ll approach this, but I desperately need to upgrade this computer already. Having only had it for the blink of the eye it is already starting to show signs of not being up to the task of coping with me. The bottom corner of the track pad is slightly warped, and there is a slight depression on a few keys.

But… the stuff – the amassed “things needed for the film.”

That’s taking up a lot of room.

The stuff is taking up a lot of room, and even adding italics to that sentence doesn’t do justice to how much space it is consuming. I only realized this when I took everything out of their boxes and had a look-see at what I actually had. There would be more room if I had been able to keep my curiosity at bay and left them as they were packed, but this is me – I had to check out everything to see if the deliveries were right. It is all good, as far as an initial inspection goes, though there was no room to move once it was all spread out.

Until I hit on an ingenious solution.

The bedroom – or, at any rate, the room which had a bed in it – is now the equipment store and clothes department for the film. It is scary crazy how many things I need for this, and there are two outstanding items that are going to require careful consideration on storage, or else I’ll run out of space completely. I’m not sure how to proceed from here, but there are a couple of solutions which aren’t horrendously expensive: either I get another storage space to keep everything in, or I get a little office space somewhere. There’s bound to be a few units available.

I am holding back on the traditional storage unit option given how much everything has cost me so far. There’s insurance to consider as well, and I haven’t got back in touch to clarify any conditions which might be in the small print. I may not be allowed to let some of this out of sight…

For the foreseeable future I’m sleeping on the floor.

Don’t ask me how I’m going to shoot a film without a complete cast and crew – I haven’t planned this out again, minus all those absent due to various restrictions which might or might not be in place – but I’m damned if I’m going to let things fall apart completely. I can always use the equipment for other (smaller) shoots.

I’ll likely get hell for suggesting this, and it is admittedly a very dark notion, but…

This is the perfect time to grab a camera and get stock footage of deserted streets and businesses. There are precious few times when these shots can be accomplished sans a large crew asking people to stay back for a moment when the footage is being captured, and as long as there are abandoned areas already present I can see no problem making good of what is available.

Yes, I’m probably slipping towards the dark side there…

Simultaneously with other plans, I’ve begun putting together the basis for sound design with a ridiculous list of do’s and dont’s. Building off all my complaints with what others are doing, or have done (I contend that 13 Eerie was ruined by poor music choices), I’m taking control of as much of this as I can without spending a fortune. At some point I’m going to need to get in a studio, but for now I’m content to do things in a decidedly low-fi manner. It merely needs to be “good enough” until I have footage.

The other extreme from 13 Eerie is what Nolan has been playing around with, mixing down sounds and speech to an impenetrable level – subtlety is better than bombast, and having every utterance audible (and each sound distinct yet not overbearing) is the only approach which would appeal to my perfectionist tendencies. It is a tad harsh to state this but the movement away from proper music to digitally generated tracks is one of the worst things to happen to music in the history of music.

Digitally created soundtracks are bloody awful. There, I said it. Where are the sweeping melodies, the softly rising and falling themes, and the heart?

A great deal of what I am doing has never been done before, which is the most exciting aspect of the entire process. I’m getting to break new ground. One specific problem I’ve noticed with music described as being Paleolithic is that there are sounds which would never have been achievable with the tools at hand forty-something thousand years ago. I can completely understand the need for people to use digital tools in creating (not recreating) sounds from prehistory, but synth has a distinct feel which interrupts my enjoyment of these tracks. By using only sounds that can be justified, a different nature to the soundtrack will evolve naturally.

And I’m completely ignoring all modern music theory – there is a beautiful Japanese logic, wherein music should conform to breath rather than beats, which feels better. There are other things I’m adopting as I work through this, mostly listening to various old recordings of peoples whose contact with the modern world were limited. I’ve noticed that most mainstream tracks seem to promote a more meditative, relaxing nature, but this gives me a whole world of problems – that calming sound isn’t what would spontaneously occur.

There’s a crazy-old CD of Native American tracks (probably manufactured in the late eighties or early 90s) which I picked up on my wanderings. A plain jewel case, with the CD only containing the name of tracks, as simplistic a packaging as I have ever seen. Despite looking like a cheap knock-off, it always sounded far fresher, more vibrant, and really alive when compared to the beautifully packaged, high-value releases such as Sacred Spirit. There are numerous shouts, overlapping chants, random noises, and laughter mixed in, and that makes it far, far more realistic than the smoothed out, clean, and ultimately rather disappointing, studio-bound material.

Chaos, and unpredictability, must be built into the sound of a world before civilization took root. It only popped into mind in the last couple of weeks, but any music needs to include the sound of wildlife in the background. It’ll likely need the crackling and popping of a fire in the sound mix as well.

I have started painting the poster (which is massively presumptuous, but which is a relatively free step on this journey) although the specific tone is hard to judge. Too funny and it looks like a knockabout comedy (which it isn’t), too dramatic and it looks like Quest for Fire (which is so isn’t), too scary and it looks like another fantasy knock-off of Conan (which… okay I’ll allow that to stand). I can’t paint any facial features in, as that’s still a question mark, but I can at least try to figure out the layering of costumes with this.

And I’m writing the novelization (technically an adaptation of the script at this point), which is another leap of faith.

Because budget isn’t a concern I’m going to reinstate a couple of things omitted from other versions, streamlining it in places where the visual-led story elements don’t make sense, and generally making it slightly deeper – things which can’t be done on film, like really getting into the characters’ heads, is the main requirement. While it is tempting to include a massive lecture on the reams and reams of research done in preparing the script I’m doing my best to restrain myself.

Maybe a ‘Making Of’ book would be another way to make some money out of this… At least it would be cheap therapy.

When I decided I wanted to do this I concluded that the film should be released before my 45th birthday as a statement. Mostly “I’m still alive,” which is an awful statement. I need a better one, but lack of sleep and all the stress is making me slightly (okay, massively) useless at the… brain use. Uh… Cognitivation. No, ratiocination.

Thinking – “thinking” was the word I was thinking of.

It makes sense that this would be a later release, rather than falling in the first quarter, so September or October 2022 would be about right – as the nights are still warm enough, when a stoner comedy with hints of dark fantasy would be most appreciated.

That hopefully gives me enough time to get everything up and running in the allotted time. It isn’t a brilliant strategy to work back from an unknown date two years hence, but as long as that is at the back of my mind I have the momentum to keep pushing through all of the delays, external forces, and obviously the mistakes I’ll inevitably make.

Once the novel is done and dusted I’m going to start penciling the comic. No need to tackle everything at once …then I can work out the script for an audio adaptation, plan out a fun little game based on the characters, and see if there is anything else I can knock out in anticipation of this being moderately successful.

So… That Happened?

The car you buy when you have given up on ever having sex again. And given up on life in general. Via Eco Car Blog.

While I was otherwise occupied, with things that don’t really relate to this post, a lot has gone on in my absence that doesn’t really make any sense. I’m gonna raise my hand right off the bat and admit that there is a lot which doesn’t make any sense to me anyway (the proliferation of stupid little cars being one – smart cars? Ugh, please…) but everyone should be really proud of themselves. While I was offline you guys raised the bar. The level of crazy really went off the scale, and coming to it after the fact makes it no less mad.

I’m still completely at a loss to comprehend the Sad Puppies, even though a fair few posts written over the last couple of years mentioned the fools those people. I’ve a few guesses at what’s making them sad, though to the best of my knowledge there’s no known cure for distemper. Also, nobody mentioned whether the puppies who were attempting to fix the Hugo Awards have themselves been fixed. Something to ponder, I suppose…

Then there is the mess which is being made of current politicians, policies and political parties, which probably deserves more words here, but I can’t bring myself to watch more than a few seconds of footage at a time. I honestly don’t know what the point of Nigel Farage is, other than to be a perfect character in some revived Spitting Image series, and there isn’t a single member of the SNP who doesn’t make my skin crawl. The US is, thankfully, much worse, so at least I can say “Guys, chill – we don’t have it so bad.”

I apologize to US readers, and suggest you start, y’know, calling out the racist, sexist, homophobic, isolationist bigots who are being ridiculous. Or take up rifle practice. Just sayin’. Any other time I would have found a perfect song to accompany that, but I’m really busy at the moment and Googling “Delaney Plaza comedy theme tune” is too much like hard work.

Despite not having the internet, I have been hearing some of the new songs being put out, and I can happily say that there isn’t anything ground-breaking there. Where is this generation’s Great Big Moment tunes? Hell, the sixties and seventies brought us a wealth of songs which continue, year in and year out, to be used in films, television and radio as great songs. It isn’t just nostalgia (though that is a part of their success), but the unity of lyrics, accompaniment and imagery. I’m saddened at the prospect of a disposable musical heritage being cultivated by people whose concept of “timeless” lasts just long enough until the next album gets squeezed out.

What little television I’ve seen has been punctuated by my feeling like I would rather read, or take a long walk, or anything other than being insulted by rehashed versions of things I never missed in the first place. The first show I saw – from the first episode – since getting back to a semi-stable situation was The Aliens, which isn’t exactly original. Actually, the word “original” shouldn’t even be used in the same paragraph as that show, so diluted is the plot. And the shell suits make me think of The Scousers. Harry Enfield is probably waiting on the call to make a guest appearance.

The biggest mystery to me is Gogglebox. People have talked about it as if television had a massive shift in ideology, and NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN. I don’t get it. I mean… I watched an episode on the Channel 4 website, and I read some of the reviews people have written, but the idea makes no sense to be at all. Why do I want to watch a bunch of people I don’t know, who are watching television shows I don’t watch? The fact that such a series can get greenlit is probably a sign that nothing will ever be the same again… We have, as a people, given up on television as a medium. Thanks.

There are more ugly magazine covers than ever in the shops, with logos that are somehow worse with each passing iteration, and – presumably – revamped interiors which are just as aesthetically challenged. I can’t bring myself to look. Actually, I have glanced at some of the material on the shelves and I am glad to see the intellectually vapid “lads mags” have finally imploded in the critical mass of their own egos. Took long enough, mind you.

I completely missed everything that the BBC was going through, and I can’t say – with a straight face – that it was worth sticking through everything to watch. BBC3 is gone? Meh. Maybe if, y’know, the shows weren’t skewed so hard to the twentysomething market I may have raised an eyebrow, but it is no great loss. Letting go of Clarkson, however, is more of a quandary. I know he’s an asshole on the show, but it is largely a character he is playing. The new show seems to be making an effort to be as bland and unwatchable as possible, so it may not last the year. Here’s hoping…

Something else happened during my time away, and I’m not sure if it is completely pointless or only marginally stupid. In any event: Gotham. I know there are probably a thousand things that matter more in the world right now, but the very concept of a series which sets out the prehistory of Batman seems, to me, to be a colossal waste of time. The only thing I can foresee enjoying is the parallels the show will bring between Bruce Wayne and Wrath. As long as it doesn’t go all Watchmen and weird…

To be continued.

Lit List: Harsh Realm

The short-live FOX series Harsh Realm doesn’t have a lot of literary elements, and as it is a rather brief affair there are videos (of music from the series) at the end of the post to make up for the lack of material.

Pilot

The main character, Thomas Hobbes is named for the philosopher of the same name (05 Apr 1588 – 04 Dec 1679).
Pinocchio is named for the main character in the 1883 Carlo Collodi novel The Adventures of Pinocchio.
Le Morte D’Arthur – Thomas Malory (part 1, part 2) the seat Hobbes enters Harsh Realm through has “seige” / “perilous” carved in the armrests

Leviathan

The episode title is named after Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.

Camera Obscura

The Bible

Circe (unproduced)

Episode named after a character from The Odyssey by Homer.

Lit Lists

This is the start of a semi-regular feature – every time I have nothing else urgently requiring my attention, I’ll put up a list of books seen in films and television shows. It is, of course, based on the Rory List which Abby featured on her blog. To open with I wanted to pick a film I really love, but I could probably have planned this better. For Fight Club, the list of books is staggeringly small – Anger Kills by Redford Williams, M.D. & Virginia Williams, PH.D. is the only book whose cover clearly seen, and there are a couple of quick flashes of a dictionary when the Narrator is having the skin on the back of his hand burned away. It isn’t a lost cause for magazines as the Fürni furniture catalog (which I’m pretty sure is fictitious) and Movieline (Jul 1995) are shown. Also, the Narrator reads from Annotated Reader (which I would Google to find out the deal behind it, but I was kinda disheartened by the lack of a juicy list to put together and didn’t bother. In addition, the line “You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world” is inspired by Also Sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, for those of you who need to know this kind of stuff. As I pointed out, I could have planned this better.

Console yourself with Chuck Palahniuk’s bibliography.

So… What about some other film? Children Of Men, perhaps… There are a lot of books used as background filler, though actually displaying them on-screen is rarer than it could have been. Man, everyone else seems to be either waaay better at this shit than I am, or they are picking the easy films and television shows to do this with. I couldn’t make out any of the titles in the damn film, even though Theo walks past stacks of books during the course of the film. Maybe “boy films” are the problem. Possibly looking at the books in comedies would throw up more examples of what I am looking for. C’mon, it can’t be that hard to find characters reading on film.

Miss Congeniality

The Invisible Intruder by Carolyn Keene (Harriet Stratmeyer Adams)
Essentials Of Russian Grammar by Nicholas Maltzoff.

Dear gods, Miss Congeniality has more books visible than Fight Club – am I in Bizarro World? Maybe I’ll have better luck with a television show…

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this.

Just because.

London Prevails

I’m still writing about London, and thinking about London, and the news is too depressing to speak of. The best way to celebrate the grandest city in the world seems to be to take a moment to bring you the things I have been watching and listening to so I can get into the mood for the London cycle of stories.

Preparing For The Inevitable

There are always threads on forums about which music people would like played at their funeral. It’s a universal constant, and – as sure as night follows day – someone bringing up Robbie Williams’ Angels as a perfect song for a funeral is similarly predictable. It’s kind of a game, waiting to see how many posts it will take before it gets mentioned, and at the same time is so very, very uninspiring. I get depressed when someone mentions it now, because it has become the song by which so many people think is suitable for matches and dispatches. You’re only gonna get one funeral, so you might as well have something invested in the occasion.

Me? I’ve been planning my funeral since I was sixteen. Seriously. Women, stereotypically, spend a large part of their adolescence preparing for their big day, but I’ve while they were picking the perfect dress and choosing the absolutely best meals possible, I’ve been thinking about the kind of send-off I would like. It’s not, as some might think, as morbid and sombre as occasion as it is represented in some cultures, and should be a day when the real personality of the departed should shine through like a beacon. Being so serious about the day would go against everything I do, and it would be hollow and fake to present myself (in death) as if I was a saint.

There have been many funerals I’ve attended where I wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. The kind of funerals where the speeches are delivered in a robotic monotone, and where people weep in near-silence. Gimme a fuckin’ break. Those are horrible. Those are the kind of funerals where I wish I was dead, just so I didn’t have to be there, and getting drunk is rarely a sensible option. Which is the entire thinking behind my plans for the perfect funeral. It’s simply a matter of wanting people to enjoy a day out, rather than be forced to confront the possibility that one day they too might have a boring-ass funeral where people checked their watches every three or four minutes.

I want there to be theatre, I want there to be music, I want there to be fun. I’ll lay out a brief glimpse of my (current) draft, in the hopes that the funeral of the next person I have to attend isn’t as suck-ass as most.

First off there has to be a procession. I don’t care if they are seen as old-fashioned, because I like the idea of a bunch of people walking to the grave. Maybe a hundred people, dressed in long black robes with their heads bowed. A slow, steady pace. From out of nowhere, near the back of the crowd, a harlequin-dressed dwarf will run through the mourners to the front of the procession, where he will do a dance. This is going to be the cue for a bunch of trumpeters mixed in with the procession to begin playing Entrance Of The Gladiators by Julius Fučík. Yes, the circus song. At the same time, fire-eaters would throw off their robes to reveal bright multicolored costumes and fill the sky with flame.

I’ve thought about this a lot. There should be stilt-walkers, clowns, and acrobats. There should be fun. There should also be readings of literature in the mix as well. I’m particularly fond of the following piece, taken from Wordsworth:

What a shock
For eyes and ears! what anarchy and din,
Barbarian and infernal,–a phantasma,
Monstrous in colour, motion, shape, sight, sound!
Below, the open space, through every nook
Of the wide area, twinkles, is alive
With heads; the midway region, and above,
Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls,
Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies;
With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles,
And children whirling in their roundabouts;
With those that stretch the neck and strain the eyes,
And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd
Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons
Grimacing, writhing, screaming,–him who grinds
The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves,
Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum,
And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks,
The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel,
Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys,
Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes.–
All moveables of wonder, from all parts,
Are here–Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs,
The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig,
The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire,
Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl,
The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,
The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft
Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows,
All out-o’-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things,
All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts
Of man, his dulness, madness, and their feats
All jumbled up together, to compose
A Parliament of Monsters. Tents and Booths
Meanwhile, as if the whole were one vast mill,
Are vomiting, receiving on all sides,
Men, Women, three-years’ Children, Babes in arms.

If you’ve got to go out, at least go out in style… Right?

Good Listenin’

Because I can, and for no better reason, I’m going to list what I’m listening to at the moment. There’s a lot of chit-chat about music as a writing tool, but this is more of a general ‘mood’ music than the “Inspire me, please… for the love of Cthulhu…” kind.

I’m not above kick-starting the little gray cells with aural input, but I’m not obsessed with coming up with more material than I already have at the moment. These are simply my favorite listening material, nothin’ more…

The Rolling Stones

The ongoing “Are you a Beatles man or a Stones man?” debate is a complete no-brainer for me. Can’t Get No (Satisfaction), Start Me Up and Sympathy For The Devil are among the greatest songs I have ever heard. Of course, they aren’t bulletproof, and there’s a lot of output that I don’t really like. The Sympathy For The Devil film is overlong and pointlessly interrupted by a string of scenes which take away from the actual music, which is what the film should be about.

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

With two songs (I Put A Spell On You and Itty Bitty Pretty One) that I constantly return to, Hawkins might not seem like he belongs in a favourites list, but the quality of those two songs is so great that I must include him. I can’t remember when I first heard his music, but the coughing, spluttering, muttering and theatrics of his albums is amazing. It’s less pantomime than some reviewers have suggested, and likening him to Vincent Price seems forced.

Houdou themes keep returning in his songs, and Feast Of The Mau Mau is scarily authentic-sounding.

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Freebird and Sweet Home Alabama may get all of the attention, but I like Gimme Three Steps, which I’ve listened to endlessly since I first found it. There are some great compilations of their music, and yet I still feel like I’m missing out because I never got to see a live concert. Being born to late, and on the wrong side of the Atlantic, means I have to settle for DVDs and CDs… The recorded material is astonishing, and yet something – a spark of magic – is lost through the separation of time.

I so want a time machine, just so I can go back to the early seventies and stand in the crowd at one of their concerts.

Jimi Hendrix

All Along The Watchtower, Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), and Crosstown Traffic are my favorite Hendrix tracks, although the recordings in collaboration with Little Richard are also great. I didn’t think I would have liked the mix of styles, but each performer is so strong that they compliment each other rather than crowd the other out. I found What’d I Say? a few years ago, and while it isn’t one of his better tracks, I still like it as much as the better-known material.

Castles Made Of Sand is epic, while coming in at under three minutes. That is a talent I wished I had.

Bob Dylan

The John Wesley Harding album, with the titular track, All Along The Watchtower, and I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight is one of my favorite Dylan albums, especially because he is so descriptive with so few words. It’s always a treat to listen to him, and the nasal  quality of the vocals – which some complain about – makes the songs less artificial somehow. Modern performers try a little too hard to polish off the rough edges, and manage to sound plastic and fake most of the time.

Camille Saint-Saëns

I can think of few things better to listen to while reading horror stories than Danse Macabre, as the creepiness factor of the violins slowly builds. I’ve picked up a few recordings of this over the years, but very few orchestras really get into the music and relish the strangeness. I guess this is one of the few classical pieces I listen to regularly, despite building up a few stacks of CDs in the hopes that I would come across something else as addictive.

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There are other performers I could add to this, but it seems there is plenty here already. I’m missing The Who, Led Zeppelin, Eminem, The Cure… All of whose CDs are rotated in my collection frequently, but who don’t mean as much to me as the ones listed above. I should probably have added a few words about Night On A Bare Mountain, to show that there are other classical pieces which get aired from time to time.

I’m off to listen to some music now…

I Am Joe Jonas

Yeah. I’m the real Joe Jonas. Who wants to argue?

Only… I have no idea who the whiny, slack-jawed cracker is. I had to do a Google search after Spamwarrior began writing about the Jonas Brothers, a band whose name sounds more or less like they couldn’t have come up with a better name – here ya go, kids: The Fuckups. Feel free to use the name on your new album.

Jeez, this is what passes for a musician these days? The brothers look like characters rejected from a Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel because they look too hillbilly. As for their musical ability… Actually, I have no need whatsoever to permenantly damage whatever hearing I have left. Just looking at photographs of them is enough to make me feel ill. Is this the future of music? Should I shoot myself now, or when they release a ‘Best Of’ compilation…

So… As it turns out, the Dumbass Brothers have actually had a few hits already. I have (mercifully) missed their Alvin & The Chipmunks impersonations so far, though it appears they are being marketed to teenage girls. Why? Are teenage girls easily tricked into spending cold, hard cash on CD’s by Deliverance types who make Billy Ray Cyrus look good in comparison?

It’s the first sign of the Apocalypse. I swear we’re all doomed.

It’s interesting to see how many people are willing to pretend they are, indeed, Joe-Bob Jonas. Why? So they can get into teenage girls’ pants? So they can get free stage passes? So they can… What? I don’t get the fascination with the kid. He’s so far from interesting that his Wikipedia page mentions his appearance in a telemovie called Camp Rock. How camp is he? Hell, I’ll watch it if he’s as camp as the title suggests.

Joey, here’s some free advice:

Throw televisions out of hotel windows. Drive a Rolls Royce into a swimming pool. Take five hookers up to your hotel room.

DO. SOMETHING. INTERESTING.