Tales From the Mystic East (An Occasional Series)

From sometime between 2004 and now, please enjoy Japanese power popsters Tokyo Jihen and their Hello Budokan! smash "Atarashii Bunmei-kaika PV."

Apparently, there are huge areas of the world where these folks were household words. Deservedly, I'd say, but I really wish I'd gotten the memo before yesterday.



I mean, I really like the song, but Jeebus -- this is like watching Lisa Loeb front the Jonas Brothers in a performance of a Marilyn Manson album. Or something.

Words fail me, in any case.

[h/t Tommy Stewart]

(Post) Holiday Video Gaggle: Attack of the Killer Criterions (and One More)

Okay, this roundup of memorable DVD and Blu-rays that have crossed my desk recently was supposed to go up before the holidays as a buying guide; unfortunately, between my over-indulgence in Egg Nog and a series of unexpected reversals in my mail-order gefilte fish business, I couldn't quite get around to writing it.

Mea culpa, obviously.

In the meantime, the following all make lovely birthday gifts for the discriminating cineastes on your list, so no harm done, right?

And of course, if you're so moved, they can all be ordered over at Amazon or -- save for number 3 -- over at the Criterion website.

You're welcome.

And in no particular order, here we go.

1. Quadrophenia (Criterion)



Here's a film that asks the cinematic question -- "What the hell ever happened to director Franc Roddam?" Seriously, the sadly unprolific Roddam's 1979 film, based on The Who's double album of the same name, is an absolutely brilliant evocation of a milieu and place -- the Mod/Rocker era of Brit pop culture, circa 1963 -- that seems as remote and exotic as the Pleistocene. It's also a quite astounding meditation on the erotic nature of violence and one of the best rock-and-roll flicks ever made; a pre-Tantric Sting makes a memorable cameo as the heppest cat on the dance floor. Just about every previous video version of this has, not to put too fine a point on it, sucked; Criterion's new DVD and Blu-ray versions, fortunately, do not. In fact, they look great (in a new transfer of the original director's cut, supervised by cinematographer Brian Tufano), and the 5.1 surround remix of the Who's music is guaranteed to rattle your plaster. Essential.

2. Purple Noon (Criterion)



This is the first -- and for my money, the far superior -- filming of sui generis psychological thriller novelist Patricia Highsmith's perversely intriguing The Talented Mr. Ripley, with the impossibly beautiful Alain Delon in the role that made him an international star in 1960; let's just say that Matt Damon, in the 1999 remake, lacks a certain je ne sais quoi by comparison. It's also a ravishingly beautiful film, visually; director René Clément made gorgeous use of his Italian locations, and Criterion's new widescreen transfer (from a newly restored print) renders them to perfection. Bonuses include archival interviews with both Delon and Highsmith.

3. Peter Gunn: The Complete Series (Timeless Media)



Blake Edwards' groundbreaking private eye show (which ran from 1958 to 1961) was the last gasp of authentic film noir (great b&w; cinematography, and evocative sets from the backlots at Universal and MGM), and its familiar Henry Mancini music launched a thousand twangy guitars and the teenagers who played them. How does it hold up today? Pretty well, actually; the plotting is not always believable, but it has atmosphere to burn, the supporting cast is a veritable Who's Who of film and TV character actors of the era, and the chemistry between stars Craig Stevens and Lola Albright is great; they were the only couple on TV at the time who were obviously sleeping together, and the banter between them still sizzles. This new set features all 114 episodes of the series on 12 DVDs, and almost all of them have been transferred from prints that are in pristine shape or reasonably close. Terrific nostalgic fun, in other words, and you'll probably watch it like most people eat popcorn, which is to say compulsively and in spurts.

4. Heaven's Gate (Criterion)



I have long been a member of that small subset of humanity which has always insisted Michael Cimino's epic and legendarily reviled 1980 western was a misunderstood masterpiece.

Or as I said back in 2008:

This isn't the time or the place to go into a longwinded defense of the thing, which in any case, speaks for itself, but the short version is that the reason the critics went after it back in the day had little to do with the film per se or the fact that Cimino went over budget (you can see every goddamn dollar on screen, BTW), but rather with its defiantly left-wing politics (the story is about dirt poor farmers being murdered by greedy Ogligarchs,a deliberate parallel with what was going on in Central America in the Age of Reagan). The irony, of course, is that Cimino had earlier drawn the ire of the Left with his unflattering portrayal of the Vietcong in "The Deer Hunter," but that too is a story for another time and place.

In any case, the film -- gorgeously shot by the great Vilmos Zsigmond in an approximation of period sepia tone -- has been mostly butchered for home video.

I based that last assessment on what was then the most recent DVD version (2000), which apparently derived from the same crappy transfer familiar from the early 90s laserdisc edition; both were hideously washed out and all but unwatchable.

Criterion's new version, however, is all but perfection; a gloriously restored version of the director's cut (which is actually a minute or two shorter than the original theatrical version, since the intermission has now been excised at Cimino's request), and presented in as visually gorgeous a transfer as I've ever seen of anything. Trust me -- you need to get this. Both the DVD and Blu-ray versions feature new interviews with star Kris Kristofferson and an audio interview with Cimino, and I can now die happy.

5. Children of Paradise (Criterion)



This is often referred to as the Gone With the Wind of France, which is to say it's a sweeping and much beloved historical costume drama with a romantic triangle at the heart of it, although its milieu -- the theater world of early 19th century Paris -- is obviously way different from the antebellum South. In any event, it's a great film on every level, and this new version -- I lucked into the Blu-ray -- is a stunner. (By comparison, I pulled out my old Criterion laserdisc version from 1991, which was absolutely state of the art back then, and this is an improvement on every level, beginning with the transfer based on a gorgeous restoration job from 2011). Tons of great bonuses, including a brace of making-of documentaries, in particular one from 1967 featuring interviews with director Marcel Carné and stars Arletty (swoon), Jean-Louis Barrault and Pierre Brasseur.

Department of "Words Fail Me" (An Occasional Series)

And speaking as we were yesterday of Los Shakers (the Beatles of Uruguay) and their absolutely gorgeous 1965 Latino-Meets-Merseybeat classic "Always You," please enjoy this absolutely astounding modern (from last January) almost one-man band (everything but the drums) remake by the heretofore unknown to me and the larger world Nick Martellaro.



Found this over at YouTube the other day, and it frankly blew my tiny mind. Martellaro is, apparently, a twenty-something kid obsessed with 60s pop, and he's been posting covers like this one, of rather less obscure songs, for a while now (he also has an album available over at CD Baby here).

I've haven't heard them all, but most of the ones I have heard are simultaneously impressively faithful to their sources and a little lacking in...something. Which is to say they have a certain K-Tel quality to them, if you know what I mean, although to be fair, that may have more to do with the over-familiarity of the originals than with Martellaro's impressively played and sung recreations.

This one, however, is just great; the twelve-string stuff actually improves on the Los Shakers record, and the song shines through as nature intended.

If words were not to fail me, I think the one I'd come up with is "wow."

Okay -- So Does This Make the Guy in the Tux the Ed Sullivan of Latin America?

Still a little bit overwhelmed by my sudden career change -- I am now acting as Kato, Oriental Houseboy™ for a convalescing shady dame of my acquaintance -- so here's yet another re-post about a subject dear to my heart.

From 1965 and the motion picture La Escala Musical, please enjoy the absolutely brilliant Los Shakers and their sublimely Beatles-esque (specifically, the Fabs from the Help! album period) "Always You.



These guys really were the Beatles of Uruguay, BTW. I mean, they were really that good, and really that popular. (Although apparently they were even bigger in Argentina.)

I should add that of all the songs heretofore unknown to me that I've discovered as a result of the blog you're perusing, this is the one that has meant the most to me.

Seriously -- when that 12-string guitar comes in at the top of the second verse, I absolutely lose it. Still.

Where's Casey Kasem When You Need Him?

Well, as you may know, I've been kind of busy for the last couple of days, so I'm just catching up with some interesting and/or alarming news items; perhaps you've been out of the loop as well, so I'll share them with you.

1. On Friday, the world learned -- via a full-page ad in the New York Times -- that Cigar Aficionado (a magazine whose cover has been graced by the cherubic visage of Rush Limbaugh, among other worthies) had announced the winner of it's coveted 2012 Cigar of the Year award. I am not making this up, obviously.

2. And on Saturday, via the intertubes, I (along with many others) was reminded that it was the 40th anniversary of the release of Bruce Springsteen's debut album "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J."

This, of course, did not make me feel in any way old. At all.

In any case, I'm still kinda busy, so in celebration of that anniversary, I thought I'd repost a piece I did about Springsteen for the Barnes & Noble website back in the late 90s (the occasion was the release of that huge coffee table book of Bruce's collected lyrics).

Enjoy, if at all possible.

THE WILD, THE INNOCENT, THE E STREET SHUFFLE AND ME

That Bruce Springsteen changed a lot of lives is both a truism and a cliché, although at this moment, if one is feeling uncharitable, it may be a rather naive and adolescent cliché. After all, 25 years after his first album, "Greetings from Asbury Park," Bruce is an institution (he's now eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, if you can believe it), and his music has changed in ways few of us expected (although we probably shouldn't be surprised about it). Springsteen now resembles a plainspoken populist like Merle Haggard far more than a generational spokesperson/poster boy like, say, Kurt Cobain. And the people whose lives Bruce most radically affected are, of course, now comfortably middle-aged, with more on their minds, understandably, than rock dreams. Face it: To paraphrase an early Springsteen song, it's hard to be a saint in the city when you're worried about making your mortgage payments or finding a good preschool.

Still, cliché or not, Bruce did impact more than a few lives, and if you want to know why, at least part of the reason can be found in the just-published Bruce Springsteen: Songs, a massive coffee-table tome featuring the complete lyrics to every song found on every one of his albums (save the simultaneously released "Tracks"—more about that later) as well as Bruce's reflections on what he was thinking at the time. What's most surprising about Songs—for me, at least—is just how well the stuff holds up on the page. It's a given, of course, that Springsteen is a great storyteller. Back in 1981, I noted, in a review of his "Nebraska" album, that the song "Highway Patrolman" would probably make an interesting film someday, so I was not exactly shocked when Sean Penn adapted it as "The Indian Runner" a decade later. Still, given Springsteen's penchant for overheated, fuel-injected romanticism, I was pleasantly struck, seeing these lyrics in cold type after all this time, by how even the least of them are redeemed by flashes of humor and wordplay. I was particularly taken reading "Thunder Road" (from "Born to Run"): Bruce has gotten a fair bit of feminist flak over the years for the line, "You ain't a beauty but hey, you're alright," but such complaints seem misguided in light of the line that immediately follows: "Oh," he adds, in what strikes me as an ineffably funny, apologetic attempt to deflect that very criticism, "and that's alright with me." What a gentleman.

But we were speaking of life changes. My own Springsteen moment was in early 1973. At the time, I was a baby rock critic at the old Stereo Review, and "Greetings from Asbury Park" had just come out, accompanied by reams of Columbia hype, the gist of which was that Bruce was (what were they thinking?) the latest New Dylan. Little did I know, of course, that for the rest of the more jaded rock press, this tag had the sort of negative connotations associated with phrases like "serial killer" or "record company weasel." In any case, in my naïveté I gave the disc a spin, and sure enough Bruce was spewing the sort of freely associative lyrics that could most charitably be described as Dylanesque (if not, more accurately, verbose and in need of a good editor), and I recall being mildly unimpressed. And then suddenly: Boom! A drum beat and Clarence Clemons's near-mystic sax wail announced "Spirit in the Night," and I was a goner.



The music was perfect, like much of Bruce's stuff to come: a sort of Proustian mix of half-remembered licks from rock and R&B; oldies that may or may not have actually ever existed, the whole thing sounding simultaneously sublime and absurd, like Van Morrison at his most uplifting, jamming at a South Jersey pizzeria. And the song's lyrics were—and are—the most dead-on evocation ever of what it felt like to be a post-Woodstock 20-something with no direction home. I personally had the eerie feeling that Bruce had been reading my mail, and I later found I was far from alone in that perception.

As it happened, Bruce was making his semiofficial New York debut that week, on a double bill with the similarly debuting original Wailers. (To put this in perspective: This was at Max's Kansas City, a club that sat fewer than 200 people. I don't want to say, "Those were the days," but frankly, they were.) Every rock critic in New York showed up for what would be their first exposure to live reggae, and yes, the Wailers' opening set was rapturously received by all (few bands have ever had two front men as charismatic as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh). After intermission, however, I realized that the aforementioned highly jaded press contingent, having already had their tiny minds blown by a bunch of Rastas turning the beat around, were not about to fall for any "New Dylan" hype and had beaten a hasty exit. This left me in the odd position of being alone in the back of Max's with 30 or 40 of Bruce's buddies from the Jersey Shore. I was, literally, the only stranger there.

And the show was everything I'd hoped for, and more. Bruce and his E Street Band opened with a version of "Spirit..." that made the album take sound anemic. He went on to preview the far richer material he had already written for what became his sophomore masterpiece, "The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle," going so far as to use a mellotron on a gorgeous "New York City Serenade" that sounded like a Phil Spector record made flesh. Most memorably, though, I got to witness an early incarnation of the sort of interactive, fan-friendly stagecraft that would soon establish the Cult of Bruce. "Any requests?" Springsteen asked at one point. "It don't have to be one of ours." I blurted out "Route 66," having been listening to a lot of early Stones that week, and to my amazement, Bruce and band immediately launched into the best rendition of that chestnut I had ever heard. Who'd have thunk it: On top of everything, these guys were the bar band of my dreams.

You know the rest of the story, of course. Bruce's live show became legendary, his fans became famous for their missionary zeal (the sort of people who bought tickets for unbelieving friends), and eventually the kid from Asbury Park made "Born to Run" and wound up, simultaneously, on the covers of Time and Newsweek. Around this time, Bruce also became the second most widely bootlegged solo artist in the history of recorded music; most of those fan favorites are now, finally, officially available on the four-CD "Tracks" box set, with the conspicuous and peculiar omission of "The Fever," perhaps the most mesmerizing performance Bruce ever committed to tape. So what's the bottom line? Even if you're a lapsed fan like me (mortgage payments and all that), Songs is going to remind you that, yeah, you weren't crazy. Maybe the guy didn't literally change your life, but he sure as hell enriched it. Thanks, Boss.

I should add that I've become a Born Again Bruce fan in the years since I wrote that.

I Don't Need No Doctor...

...but unfortunately, a certain shady dame of my acquaintance does.



In fact, she's going into the hospital for routine (or as routine as these things get, more accurately) surgery on the morrow, and I'll be pretty much occupied in waiting rooms and such for the next couple of days.

Which means that I probably won't be posting here again till Tuesday.

Wang Chung in my absence, obviously.

If It's Thursday, It's an Obscure In-Joke That Only Me and a Certain Shady Dame Will Get!!!

The North Mississippi Allstars.

"I Want to Be a Hippy."

Heh. Sometimes I really crack myself up.

Our Talented Readers (An Occasional Series)

Jeebus, this is good.

From England -- and please don't hold that against him -- please enjoy Ballard and his stunningly low-fi "Pretty Colours."

This crossed my desk (my e-mail, actually) last week and it kinda got lost in the New Years shuffle until I read this self-description...

I'm a one-man lo-fi bedroom outfit and am inspired by the British Mod sound of the Sixties - The Who, The Kinks, The Move (probably my favourites).

...which obviously piqued my interest. Especially after it turned out the music actually lived up to the billing.

If you'd like to hear more -- and you definitely should -- head over to his official website here.

Have I mentioned that Jeebus, this is good?

Happy New Year's Day: Special Kiss What's Left of My Street Cred Goodbye Edition!!!!

This is, as I have been wont to say here on many previous occasions, a very sad story, so please try not to laugh.

It also has a certain relevance to today's festivities, which will be revealed later in the narrative. Please be patient.

Anyway, so the other day I was in a cab heading down the West Side Highway in a snowstorm, and the driver had the radio tuned to whatever soft-rock Lite FM station they inevitably have on when they don't have WINS News Radio blasting or some guy from Queens yelling about sports.

I wasn't particularly paying attention, but suddenly some soft-rock Lite FM staple song came on, and immediately I knew three things.

1. I had definitely heard it before.

2. It was probably from the 70s or the 80s, although I couldn't rule out the possibility that it might have been more recent, and it had that whole California soft-rock vibe, which I usually detest, in spades.

3. I had no idea who the guy or the group singing it was, although I was painfully aware that when and if I found out I was gonna kick myself. Because pretty much everybody in the world, at least of a certain age, would have been able to recognize it instantly.

The truly insidious part was that there was something about the damn thing that grabbed me. Yes, the vocals had that laid-back L.A. Mr. Sensitive shtick that usually makes my gorge rise. But the tune was charming, the voicings of the harmony parts in the chorus were really quite lovely, and -- try as I might to deny it -- it was getting under my skin.

Fortunately, because of the roar of traffic, I couldn't really hear the lyrics, although one word -- "architect" -- jumped out. "Hmm," I thought. "There's a word you don't hear in a pop song everyday."

Anyway, I then went about the rest of my weekend, but I knew with an absolutely dread certainty that I was gonna break down sooner or later and look the song up on the Intertubes.

So, late on Monday, I googled "Soft Rock song with the word architect in it" and up it popped.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...and my fingers are shaking as I type these words....Dan Fogelberg (the horror, the horror!) and his 1980 smash (which I had apparently put out of my mind, probably deliberately, ever since its original vogue) "Same Old Lang Syne."