The 1930s Culture Blog

Trondheim's "Little Nothings"

2009-03-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

Today I got Lewis Trondheim's "Little Nothings vol 2: The Prisoner Syndrome" in the mail. I won't hesitate to say that it's even better than the first volume. I already wrote about this series HERE - no need to repeat myself. If you want to read a nice review of the book with lots of well-chosen pages sampled, go HERE.

"King Smurf"

2009-03-26T06:03:00.001-07:00

In the US the Smurfs are mainly known for the mass produced saturday morning cartoon series, but the original comics included a handful of truly classic masterpieces. Here's an article about "King Smurf", which is arguably one of the greatest comic book stories ever created.

Among other things the article says: "I really do truly love that this comic is aimed squarely at kids. There's no respect for anything at all in here. Not military service, not heads of state, not the fundamentals of democracy... it's great! It's awesome, noisy slapstick paired up with bizarre fits of witty sophistication, all in a crispy pretzel cone of rampant anti-authoritarianism. How could the cartoon get so fucking saccharine? Smurfs have teeth! Shit out in the woods? It bites you."

Sadly the book hasn't been published in English since 1978. Go hunt on ebay!

George Lucas Raped My Childhood Part XIV

2009-03-16T10:31:00.001-07:00

So apparently George Lucas original idea was that Indiana Jones had had sex with Marion when she was only eleven years old.

Not one of your better ideas George... well, obviously better than the prequels and the animated Star Wars movie, but still pretty bad. :-(

The "Star Wars" stories by Moore and Gibbons

2009-03-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

Article about the "Star Wars" stories by "Watchmen" creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Lydia Mendoza

2009-03-09T03:28:00.001-07:00

Lydia Mendoza - This tex-mex Tejano legend is just awesome. <3

Article here

My short history of 20th Century music

2009-03-09T02:55:00.000-07:00

I don't know what this list is exactly. I guess it's a bit like that Stephin Merritt list I posted - it's just my roughly chronological view of the weird and wonderful history of 20th century music, as I see it at this point in time. My view will probably have changed in a few months or years. It's such a huge and complex subject.

1. Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky: Petrushka / Le Sacre du Printemps by Igor Stravinsky

2. Anthology Of American Folk Music (Edited By Harry Smith) by Various Artists - Blues - Traditional

3. Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill / Levine, Lenya, Armstrong, Gilford, et al by Kurt Weill
Listen to samples

4. Songs of Irving Berlin by Various Artists

The list author says:
	"An influence on: all popular songwriting in the 20th century."

5. The Complete Recordings by Johnson, Robert

6. Can the Circle Be Unbroken?: Country Music's First Family by Carter Family
Listen to samples

7. Schoenberg: Piano Concerto by Arnold Schoenberg

8. This Land Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1 by Guthrie, Woody
Listen to samples

9. Elvis at Sun by Presley, Elvis
Listen to samples

10. The Shape of Jazz to Come by Coleman, Ornette
Listen to samples

11. Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday by Holiday, Billie

12. A Love Supreme by Coltrane, John

13. Back to Mono (1958-1969) by Spector, Phil

14. Anthology by Simone, Nina

15. His Best : The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection by Diddley, Bo
Listen to samples

16. Pet Sounds by Beach Boys, The

17. James Brown - 20 All-Time Greatest Hits! by Brown, James
Listen to samples

18. Catalogue D'Oseaux / La Fauvette Des Jardins by Messiaen
Listen to samples

19. Bringing It All Back Home by Dylan, Bob
Listen to samples

20. The Essential Ravi Shankar by Shankar, Ravi

21. The Velvet Underground & Nico by Velvet Underground
Listen to samples

22. Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart

23. Revolver [UK] by Beatles, The

24. Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology by Parsons, Gram

25. The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection by Bacharach, Burt

26. Tago Mago by Can

Listen to samples

27. Suicide (First Album) by Suicide
Listen to samples

28. Legend - The Best Of Bob Marley And The Wailers (New Packaging) by Marley, Bob
Listen to samples

29. The Ligeti Project by Asko Ensemble;Schoenberg Ensemble;Nott

30. I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight by Thompson, Richard
Listen to samples

31. Hey! Ho! Let's Go: Ramones Anthology by Ramones

32. Horses by Smith, Patti
Listen to samples

33. The Man-Machine by Kraftwerk

34. Essential Leonard Cohen by Cohen, Leonard
Listen to samples

35. Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division

36. 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong: 39 Golden Greats by Fall, The

37. Concerti Grossi 1 & 5 by Schnittke

38. Pop Art: The Hits by Pet Shop Boys

39. Rain Dogs by Waits, Tom
Listen to samples

40. Richard D. James Album by Aphex Twin
Listen Listen to samples to samples

And the reviews are in... again.

2009-03-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

Oh well. Apparently I sing like Borat!

Youtube Commentary for this clip: Superhelter said: "lol, i found this hilariously rubbish at first but i like how obscure this is! It paints a picture of Borat being blown away by the talents of The Magnetic Fields . He then decides to buy a piano and BANG! This is the result... Well done!"

Yeah, being 'obscure'... at least I know how to do that! :-)

THE DEATH OF FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE

I met Ferdinand de Saussure
On a night like this
On love he said
"I'm not so sure
I even know what it is
No understanding
No closure
It is a nemesis
You can't use a bulldozer
To study orchids"

He said...
So we don't know anything
You don't know anything
I don't know anything
about love
But we are nothing
You are nothing
I am nothing
Without love

I'm just a great composer
And not a violent man
But I lost my composure
And I shot Ferdinand
Crying "it's well and kosher
to say you don't understand
but this is for Holland-Dozier-Holland"

His last words were
We don't know anything [etc]

And the original version, in case you need to get my voice out of your system:

"Beanworld", and The New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller Lists

2009-03-07T06:58:00.000-08:00

The New York Times has introduced three new bestseller lists for comics. One for hardcovers, one for softcovers and one for manga. Read about them here.

I was particularly happy that Larry Marder's legendary "Beanworld", which after fifteen years in limbo is being reprinted and is having new stories created, has made it's way into the list. Along with Gaiman's "Sandman", "Beanworld" is one of the comic book series that truly understands the power of myth. If you haven't read this series you MUST BUY the new edition! This series is difficult to explain, but I think it's truly mind expanding.

Entertainment Weekly: "Like George Lucas, Stan Lee, and J.J. Abrams,  cartoonist Larry Marder is the creator of a deeply imagined alternate world that inspires obsessive fandom and yields glossaries, maps, and  websites. " -Sean Howe

Newsarama: "It’s not the sort of world of imagination you lived in as a child, but it is the sort of world of imagination that Marder must have lived in as a child, and which he reconstructs for you to live in as an adult seeing things as a child again. It’s not exactly a modern work of mythology, but it certainly taps into the same things that mythology does, and works in much the same way mythology does." - J. Caleb Mozzocco

The Village Voice: "Beanworld life is a carefully calibrated blend of the quotidian and magical. Like the best imaginary universes, it provides a constant unfolding of anxious and ecstatic mysteries both sacred and profane. " - Richard Gehr

MTV: "...one of the most original and brilliant comic-book universes ever created."

- Spash Page

"Blueberry Girl"

2009-02-28T02:41:00.000-08:00

Blueberry Girl is a poem originally written for Tori Amos' Daughter. It has now been released as a book. Also available for free on youtube, as an animated video:

"Hello.

You're probably wondering what kind of book this is.

This is the kind of book that comes about when a friend phones you and says, "I'll be having a baby in a month. Would you write her a poem? A sort of prayer, maybe? We call her the Blueberry. . . ." And you think, Yes, actually. I would.

I wrote the poem. When the baby was born, they stopped calling her the Blueberry and started calling her Natashya, but they pinned up the handwritten Blueberry girl poem beside her bed.

I kept a copy at my house, taped to a filing cabinet. And when friends read it, they said things like "Please, can I have a copy for my friend who is going to be giving birth to a daughter?" and I wound up copying it out for people, over and over.
I wasn't going to let it be published, not ever. It was private, and written for one person, even if I did seem to be spending more and more of my time handwriting or printing out nice copies for mothers-to-be and for babies.

Then artist Charles Vess (whom I had collaborated with on Stardust) read it.
And somehow, it all became simple. I made a few phone calls. We decided to make some donations to some charities. And Charles began to draw, and then to paint, taking the poem as a starting point and then making something universal and beautiful.

On his blog he said, "Taking Neil's lovely poetic meditation on the inherent joys of a mother-daughter relationship and developing a compelling narrative impulse without robbing the poem of its highly symbolic nature was an interesting conceptual journey." Which I think is Charles for "It wasn't easy to make that poem into a picture book.” He did an astonishing job, but I still worried. I stopped worrying the day the assistant editor at HarperChildrens, who was herself pregnant, called me to let me know that she'd got the artwork in, and read it, and then started crying in the office.

It's a book for mothers and for mothers-to-be. It's a book for anyone who has, or is, a daughter. It's a prayer and a poem, and now it's a beautiful book.

I hope you enjoy it. I'm really proud of it. And I hope this means I don't have to copy it out any longer….

Neil"

Francis Ford Coppola introduces "Tetro"

2009-02-26T15:39:00.000-08:00

This youtube video of Francis Ford Coppola intruducing his new film is pretty cool, it makes a living legend seem quite human:

Schoenberg: String Quartet no. 3

2009-02-26T06:20:00.000-08:00

Well, this blog started as "The 1930s culture blog", so occasionally I will go back to that subject.

Here's Schoenberg's 3rd string quartet, in a historic recording from the 1930s. It's the Kolisch quartet supervised by Schoenberg himself. he first movement in particular is just awesome.

PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4

I own this quartet in a more recent recording with the New Vienna String Quartet

New Alan Moore interview

2009-02-25T07:34:00.000-08:00

And a new Alan Moore interview, one of the most illuminating in a while. Interesting! The Future's looking bright.

edit: oh, and another one here, from Wired.

New "Watchmen" book covers.

2009-02-25T06:35:00.000-08:00

Look at the cover above. That's the best and most startling of the original covers for the "Watchmen" graphic novel edition. Now look at the two covers below - these are the covers Dave Gibbons have created - 20 years after the book was orignally published - for the new mass market editions of the book that tie in with the movie.

Well, I think it's a bit depressing. I really don't mind Dave Gibbons making money off the Watchmen movie, but I'm upset that he ruins the original book in this way. "It's just the cover of the book", some people might say - "It doesn't matter". Yes, but Watchmen was always a special case. Back from the days when "Watchmen" was published as 12 seperate issues, the cover design was always a part of the story inside. The story would actually start with the image on the cover and then zoom out.

These new covers ruins the original concept for the book. Also, they're just plain ugly. They look like ugly third rate school reunion photos from Facebook. "Hey people... nice to be back together. Let's put costumes on and have a photo session shall we? Oh, and the end of the world is nigh, right, so just for fun let's stand below a doomsdays clock."

Well, I hate to sound like a 19 year old fan of an obscure band that has just signed to a major label... but man, Dave Gibbons is a bit of a sellout these days. :-(

Oh well, at least Alan Moore is 100% uncompromising, and refusing all money from the movie. Ha!

Edit: after writing this post it occurs to me that Gibbons might actually be completely innocent - that these two sub-par images might be used on the cover against his will. Well, shame on DC then. Watchmen's covers were always some of the best looking out there.... well, no more.

Zombi: "Spirit Animal"

2009-02-22T14:10:00.000-08:00

I didn't listen to heavy metal during my teen years, and I hadn't really discovered punk or indie music yet. What I DID listen to was music in the crossover zone between prog rock, cheesy synth music, soundtrack music and new age - and I particularly loved German synth band Tangerine Dream. Which is why I totally 'get' the new Pittsburgh band Zombi, which I was introduced to recently. Man, I thought I had given up this kind of stuff, which is admittedly somewhat cheesy, but Zombi is such a glorious recreation of an era.

You can visit their MYSPACE page and listen to long excerpts from a few tracks.

Here's an Amazon user review, which pretty much sums up this album:

"Allow me to introduce you to the new force in space synth. Hailing from Pittsburgh, the town that brought us the original Night Of The Living Dead from the master of that craft, George Romero. Zombi have taken their name either from the African god rainbow serpent, or more likely from Romero's Dawn Of The Dead which was released in Italy and Spain as Zombi. ZOMBI the "space rock" duo from Pittsburgh have fashioned their music after the likes of Goblin, a 70s Italian prog/synth outfit which wrote many soundtracks for the giallo films of Dario Argento, and in particular, scored Romero's Dawn Of The Dead Italian "Zombi" version. ZOMBI the band here are also influenced by Tangerine Dream and the soundtracks of John Carpenter. If that doesn't pique your interest in this music, move on to other things now.

For those of you who are still reading, this album SPIRIT ANIMAL is Zombi's 3rd full length release (they also have thee EPs, starting from their original demo in 2002), out just last week. Keep in mind ZOMBI is a sort of "post-" outfit, in that they are strictly instrumental. I happened to get lucky enough to see them perform live here in Salt Lake a couple years ago, and these two guys lay down a powerful show, one of my friends described them as "Tangerine Dream with balls". That's not a bad description, as their drummer is on top of their game, striking hard and precisely with a heavy solid beat and dextrous fills. His partner keeps the synthesizer going full-tilt, and for some songs reached over and grabbed a bass guitar, laying in another dimension of groove with that. For two guys, ZOMBI will rock your world into a stunning display of a psychedelic space horror soundtrack for your mind. With SPIRIT ANIMAL, they have added another dimension to their roots by expanding upon the initial "horror soundtrack" inspiration and embarked on something I can only say is wholly their own. The cover of the album is a beautiful image of an African bull elephant charging the viewer head-on in a cloud of stampeded dust amidst a lightning storm. It conjures the spirit of the five songs contained within perfectly. These are long songs, three of which clock in at over 10 minutes, so be prepared to have your mind taken through a virtual odyssey of discovery with the chapters "Spirit Animal", "Spirit Warrior", "Earthly Powers", "Cosmic Powers", and the epic 17-minute "Through Time" as the closer. This time out, Zombi conjure up a stage as vast as the Serengeti. In choosing to focus their cinematic sound upon the themes of the ecology of earth, these guys have truly leapt out of their skins and into something much deeper and more rewarding than their earlier forays. Spirit Animal is a huge step forward for this band, and will easily help them lay claim as the Lich Kings of post-synth, and should bring together disparate fans of these various genres into a mutual audience that is a melting pot of both oldschool and the new. Hail Zombi and long may they reign undead. "

Dr. Manhattan Condom

2009-02-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

"Watchmen" movie promotion goes into bizarre overdrive and gives us... the Dr. Manhattan condom! Sad and funny at the same time.

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra

2009-02-21T05:01:00.000-08:00

'Das erste Wiener Gemüseorchester' - The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra - is a group that make its instruments out of fresh vegetables immediately before concerts.

Here's a clip:

From Wikipedia:

"The group, founded in February 1998, consists of ten musicians, one cook, and one sound technician. The members of the ensemble are all active in various artistic areas (for example trained musicians, sound poets, sculptors, media artists, designers, and architects) and have worked together on conceptualizing and carrying out their project. The interdisciplinary approach is a crucial factor in researching and further developing the vegetable music. The intention is to create a sonorous experience which can be perceived with all senses. Musical concepts of the Fluxus movement, for example compositions from John Cage (Branches, 1976) could be considered as a source of inspiration for this unique orchestra. Their distinctive repertoire also seems to be deeply rooted in sound art and experimental and electronic music because they play unheard-of interpretations of Igor Stravinsky, the German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk or the Austrian band Radian as well as their own compositions. All the pieces feature various forms of graphical notation and are exclusively composed for live performance.

Their instruments, which are all of their own invention, include carrot recorders, clappers made from eggplant, trumpets made from zucchini, and numerous others, which are amplified with the use of special microphones. The instruments are made from scratch just one hour prior to each performance using the freshest vegetables available, then all ninety pounds of vegetables are cooked into a soup following the performance."

Official homepage

New Pet Shop Boys single, "Love Etc"

2009-02-20T01:24:00.000-08:00

Me like, very much. Quite original song. I like the red/purpple colors on the youtube clip.... the song sounds very warm, almost like red and purple colors coming out of the loudspeakers.

You need more (9x)

Well it's tough getting on in the world
When the sun doesn't shine
And a boy needs a girl
It's about getting out of a rut
You need luck
But you're stuck and you don't know how

(Don't have to be)
A big bucks Hollywood star
(Don't have to drive)
A super car to go far
(Don't have to live)
A life of power and wealth
(Don't have to be)
Beautiful but it helps
(Don't have to buy)
A house in Beverly Hills
(Don't have to have)
Your daddy paying the bills
(Don't have to live)
A life of power and wealth
(Don't have to be)
Beautiful but it helps

You need more
Than a big blank check to be a lover, or
A gulf stream jet to fly you door to door
Somewhere chic on another shore
You need more (6x)
You need love

You need love
You need love

Too much of anything is never enough
Too much of everything is never enough

Well it's tough getting on in the world
When the sun doesn't shine
And a boy needs a girl

It's about getting out of a rut
You need luck but you're stuck
and you don't know how

(Don't have to be)
A big bucks Hollywood star
(Don't have to drive)
A super car to get far
(Don't have to wear)
A smile much colder than ice
(Don't have to be)
Beautiful, but it's nice

You need more
Than the Gerhard Richter hanging on your wall
A chauffeur driven limousine encore
To drive your wife and lover to a whiter ball
You need more (6x)
You need love

I believe that we can achieve the love that we need
I believe, call me naive, but love is for free

(Don't have to be)
A big bucks Hollywood star
(Don't have to drive)
A super car to go far
(Don't have to live)
A life of power and wealth
(Don't have to be)
Beautiful but it helps

Beautiful but it helps
Beautiful but it helps

Polish movie posters

2009-02-15T12:06:00.000-08:00

Sooner or later I HAD to have a post about the amazing world of Polish movie posters. But this is a short one, because I can see that someone already selected 50 of the best posters and put them on his site. So just follow this link.

Stephin Merritt's Millennium music list

2009-02-15T06:01:00.000-08:00

More Magnetic Fields stuff: Around the time of the millennium Stephin Merritt selected a list of 100 recordings, one for each year of the 20th century. It's very interesting list, made by a songwriter and former music critic who thinks that Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Abba are much more important than Bob Dylan. It's been removed from the Time out site, but I found it on a Spanish blog. I'll repost it here to make sure it won't disappear from the 'net.

1900 Tosca (Puccini)
1901 Marie Tempest, soprano: "Les filles de Cadix" (Delibes)
1902 "The Entertainer" (Joplin)
1903 Joseph Joachim, violin: "Hungarian Dance No. 2 in D minor" (Brahms)
1904 "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis" (Sterling-Mills)
1905 Suite bergamesque (Debussy)
1906 "Love Is Like a Cigarette" (Victor Herbert)
1907 "Pomp and Circumstance" (Elgar)
1908 "I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now" (Joe Howard)
1909 "Alexander’s Ragtime Band" (Irving Berlin)
1910 Prometheus (Scriabin)
1911 Posthumous debut of Das Lied von der Erde (Mahler)
1912 "That Shakespearian Rag" (Buck-Ruby-Stamper)
1913 Le sacre du printemps (Stravinsky)
1914 "I’ve a Shooting Box in Scotland" (Cole Porter)
1915 "Play a Simple Melody" (Berlin)
1916 The Planets (Holst)
1917 The Original Dixieland Jazz Band: "(Back Home Again in) Indiana"
1918 "The Real American Folk Song (Is a Rag)" (Gershwins)
1919 Al Jolson: "Swanee"
1920 Musique d’ameublement (Satie)
1921 Fanny Brice: "My Man"
1922 114 Songs (Ives)
1923 Eddie Cantor: "Yes, We Have No Bananas"
1924 Ukulele Ike: "Fascinatin’ Rhythm"
1925 "Manhattan" (Rodgers & Hart)
1926 George Gershwin, piano: "Someone to Watch over Me" (Gershwins)
1927 Showboat (Kern & Hammerstein)
1928 Eddie Cantor: "Makin’ Whoopee"
1929 Maurice Chevalier: "Louise"
1930 "Love for Sale" (Porter)
1931 Gracie Fields: "Sally"
1932 "It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing" (Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn)
1933 Ethel Waters: "Stormy Weather"
1934 Goebel Reeves: "Hobo’s Lullaby"
1935 Top Hat score (Berlin)
1936 Peter and the Wolf (Prokofiev)
1937 "My Funny Valentine" (Rodgers & Hart)
1938 Ella Fitzgerald: "A Tisket, a Tasket"
1939 Glenn Miller: "In the Mood"
1940 Wilf Carter: "You Are My Sunshine"
1941 Billie Holiday: "God Bless the Child"
1942 "Be Careful, It’s My Heart" (Berlin)
1943 Vera Lynn: "I’ll Be Seeing You"
1944 Les Brown and His Orchestra with Doris Day: "Sentimental Journey"
1945 Edith Piaf: "La vie en rose"
1946 Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys: "Blue Moon of Kentucky"
1947 "Be a Clown" (Porter)
1948 Four Last Songs (Richard Strauss)
1949 Vaughn Monroe and His Orchestra: "Riders in the Sky (A Cowboy Legend)"
1950 Patti Page with Jack Rael and Orchestra: "The Tennessee Waltz"
1951 "4’33"," a.k.a. the silent piece (John Cage)
1952 Folkways’ Anthology of American Folk Music
1953 Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: "(She Put the) Wamee (On Me)"
1954 Judy Garland: "The Man That Got Away"
1955 Julie London: "Cry Me a River"
1956 Forbidden Planet score (Bebe and Louis Barron)
1957 Black Orpheus score (Jobim)
1958 The Diamonds: "The Stroll"
1959 Gypsy (Styne-Sondheim), starring Ethel Merman
1960 Psycho score (Bernard Herrmann)
1961 The Paris Sisters: "I Love How You Love Me"
1962 The Tornadoes: "Telstar"
1963 The Ronettes: "Be My Baby"
1964 Dionne Warwick: "Walk on By"
1965 Ellie Greenwich: "You Don’t Know"
1966 The Velvet Underground and Nico
1967 The Jefferson Airplane: Surrealistic Pillow
1968 The United States of America: The United States of America
1969 Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin: "Je T’Aime" (Gainsbourg)
1970 I Am Sitting in a Room (Alvin Lucier)
1971 Joni Mitchell: Blue
1972 Michael Jackson: "Ben"
1973 A Little Night Music (Sondheim)
1974 George McCrae: "Rock Your Baby"
1975 Kraftwerk: Radio-activity
1976 ABBA: "Dancing Queen"
1977 Electric Light Orchestra: Out of the Blue
1978 Blondie: Parallel Lines
1979 Gary Numan: "Cars"
1980 Young Marble Giants: Colossal Youth
1981 The Human League: Dare
1982 Roxy Music: Avalon
1983 New Order: "Blue Monday"
1984 Cocteau Twins: Treasure
1985 Les Rita Mitsuko: "Marcia Baila"
1986 The Jesus and Mary Chain: Psychocandy
1987 MARRS: "Pump Up the Volume"
1988 Marc Almond: Mother Fist and Her Five Daughters
1989 Chris Knox: "Not Given Lightly"
1990 Public Enemy: "911 Is a Joke"
1991 Boyd Rice and Friends: Music, Martinis and Misanthropy
1992 Tom Waits, Bone Machine
1993 Pet Shop Boys: "Dreaming of the Queen"
1994 Saint Etienne: "Like a Motorway"
1995 Pulp: Different Class
1996 Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones, Experimental Musical Instruments
1997 White Town: "Your Woman"
1998 Dancing with the Dead, The Music of Global Death Rites
1999 Fox, Inc.: "Obvious Fake"

Neil Gaiman & Claudia Gonson: "Bloody Sunrise", with lyrics

2009-02-15T05:47:00.000-08:00

Claudia Gonson of the Magnetic Fields singing Neil Gaiman's Halloween song "Bloody Sunrise". Click on the "Play" arrow to listen.

lyrics:

"every night when i crawl out of my grave, looking for someone to meet, some way that we'll misbehave. every night when i go out on the prowl, then i fly through the night, with the bats and the owls. every time i meet somebody, i think you might be the one, i've been on my own for too long, when i pull them closer to me, bloody sunrise comes again, leaves me hungry and alone every time, bloody sunrise, and i'm nowhere to be found every time, and you're a memory and gone, something else that i can blame on bloody sunrise.

every night i put on my smartest threads, and i go into the town, and i don't even look dead. every night i smile and i say hi, and no one ever smiles back, and if i could i'd just die. but when i'm lucky i do get lucky, and i think you might be the one. even though the time is flying, when we get to the time of dying, bloody sunrise comes again, leaves me hungry and alone, bloody sunrise comes again, and i'm nowhere to be found every time, and you're a memory and gone, something else that i can blame on bloody sunrise, and you're a memory and gone, something else that i can blame on bloody sunrise."

Iannis Xenakis: "Synaphaï" and "Khoai"

2009-02-15T04:49:00.001-08:00

Try to imagine this picture made into sound:

Until now I'd thought that the works of Iannis Xenakis I'd heard were a bit too 'intellectual' compared to the beautiful and (relatively) accessible compositions of Gyorgy Ligeti. But yesterday I listened to the big orchestral epic "Synaphaï" on headphones, and I suddenly 'got' it. Listening with headphones, it was like I was surrounded by clouds of strange and beautiful fractal shapes made into sound. An overwhelming experience! It's just incredible that he could make an orchestra sound like that, like the biggest and strangest synthesizer in the world. I'd suggest searching out this work, on "Orchestral Works vol. 3", or other discs in the "Orchestral Works" series. This series has proper 'surround'-like sound engineering, making it suitable for immersive headphone listening. Faar out, man! :-D

No, listening in bad sound quality on Youtube will NOT blow your mind, but here's an excerpt anyway:

As a bonus better suited for Youtube listening, here's a really cool - almost 'evil'-sounding Xenakis composition for hapsichord:

"King of Kong"

2009-02-13T15:54:00.000-08:00

Finally got round to watching "King of Kong - a Fistful of Quarters". Good documentary, and certainly a must-see for anyone who grew up on arcade games in the early 80s. But I think I expected a bit more from the movie after reading so much about it.... a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 97% had led me to expect something on the level of "Crumb" or "Grizzly Man", but I didn't really think the movie touched on any deeper subjects, and we didn't really get under the skin of any of the people in it. So... a good and fun documentary about classic video games, nothing more.

Apocalypse in fantasy-land

2009-02-13T08:36:00.000-08:00

Dubai is strangely fascinating... and now it's all coming apart:

Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Sofia, a 34-year-old Frenchwoman, moved here a year ago to take a job in advertising, so confident about Dubai’s fast-growing economy that she bought an apartment for almost $300,000 with a 15-year mortgage.

Now, like many of the foreign workers who make up 90 percent of the population here, she has been laid off and faces the prospect of being forced to leave this Persian Gulf city — or worse.

“I’m really scared of what could happen, because I bought property here,” said Sofia, who asked that her last name be withheld because she is still hunting for a new job. “If I can’t pay it off, I was told I could end up in debtors’ prison.”

With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

Milton Babbitt

2009-02-13T03:50:00.000-08:00

And I'm STILL listening to all that inaccessible avantgarde crap.

Milton Babbitt (born 1916 and still alive) is American, and is noted for his uncompromising 12-tone compositions. After WWII it was mostly European composers like Stockhausen and Boulez who followed on from the 12-tone compositions of Schoenberg and Webern, but Babbitt is an example of an American doing the same.

Now I'm still not 100% sure I actually 'get' 12-tone compositions - to some degree they sound almost random to my untrained ear, because they're too complex for me to grasp the patterns. But I kinda like that, I find it comforting and relaxing. And I think the subconscious me may be able to spot the patterns in there, because part of me find the compositions very beautiful and fascinating.

There's some good Babbitt stuff on Youtube.

"Correspondences" for string orchestra and synthesized tape:

"Composition for guitar":

"All Set" for Jazz Ensemble (1957)

"The Graveyard Book"

2009-02-12T04:15:00.001-08:00

For the record I liked "The Graveyard Book" very much, although I didn't think it was better than "Coraline", which I adore. It was nice to see Gaiman playing a few of his old beloved riffs, like a female Death, and a character which can enter other people's dreams. It's certainly cool that it won that Newbury Award.

I'm re-reading "Coraline" now, because I won't get a chance to see it in the cinemas until may.

The most awesome Soviet propaganda poster

2009-02-11T07:27:00.001-08:00

Red Army soldier, save!, originally uploaded by Freedom Toast.

I'm finally getting round to experimenting a bit with Flickr. Here as a test is this cool WWII Soviet poster.

(I wonder how I post more than one Flickr pic in the same post. Jeff? Oh well, I'll probably figure it out. )

Wolfgang Rihm: "Jagden Und Formen"

2009-02-10T06:23:00.000-08:00

Getting into hardcore modern classical music is a bit like when I started listening to avantgarde electronica acts like The Aphex Twin and Autechre back in the good ol' 90s. At first the music doesn't make sense at all, then your brain slowly starts to be able to make sense of it... just about. It sure keeps you occupied.

Wolfgang Rihm is Germany's leading composer of modern classical music. He studied under Stockhausen in the 1970s. This is the beginning of his work "Jagden und Formen":

"Songs of the Humpback Whale"

2009-02-09T15:27:00.000-08:00

I'm currently listening to "Songs of the Humpback Whale", the original album of whale songs from the 1970s. I remember watching an unforgettable documentary about humpback whale songs when I was a kid. Kind of nice to re-experience that.

I first found this album mentioned on the Avantgarde Music Project - a site which let you download old out of print avantgarde music recordings.... plus a few albums of interesting 'found' sounds. You can download other whale tracks from the for free, but they've had to remove the 5 tracks from the album above because they're now yet again commercially available.

whale song (not from the actual album):

Pet Shop Boys: "London"

2009-02-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

Continuing my Russian/Soviet theme, I think this Pet Shop Boys song about two Russian immigrants in London is a masterpiece. Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant is a big fan of all things Russian, and there have been Russian connections in several of their songs:

We came from the far North summered in Crimea
deserted the armed forces
had to disappear
made it to the free West
on a chartered flight
so we could see
what we trained to fight

Chorus: We were in London
"Let's do it - let's break the law'."
We were in London
Tell it like it is
We were in London
Tell it like it is

Looking for hard work
or credit card fraud
What do you expect from us?
We come from abroad
to get ourselves a new job
on a building-site
They work you so hard
but we trained to fight

Chorus

My father fought in Afghanistan
His widow's pension ain't worth a damn
My mother works and goes home to cry
I want to live before I die

Chorus

Dziga Vertov: "Man With a Movie Camera"

2009-02-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

This Russian silent movie is one of my Favourite movies of all time, and it's on youtube for free! I own the version with the Michael Nyman soundtrack, but this is The Cinematic Orchestra soundtrack, which is more varied and more acclaimed.

The movie is kinda of a Russian precursor to "Koyaanisqatsi" - it has moody footage from daily life in Russian cities in the late 1920s, ind intercuts it with philosophical silent musings about the nature of cinematography.

Wikipedia:

"Vertov's feature film, produced by the Ukrainian film studio VUFKU, presents urban life in Odessa and other Soviet cities. From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be said to have "characters," they are the cameraman of the title and the modern Soviet Union he discovers and presents in the film.

This film is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invents, deploys or develops, such as double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, footage played backwards, animations and a self-reflexive style (at one point it features a split screen tracking shot; the sides have opposite Dutch angles)."

To get more info about the movie, go read the WIKI-entry.

(The first few minutes are completely silent, until the orchestra in the movie starts to play, then the soundtrack music starts)

the rest of the movie:

Constructivist art

2009-02-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

And simply because I mentioned contructivism in my last post, and because Google picture search is so amazing:

Schnittke: "Concerto Grosso no. 1"

2009-02-09T04:54:00.000-08:00

I continue to delve into the world of composer Alfred Schnittke (1934 - 1998). The main attraction in a lot of his music is his use of horror soundtrack-like screaming modernist strings. Really great for an old Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock-score fan like me. I don't know if it's deliberate with those Hitchock-like birds on the cover above, but it would make sense.

That kind of music with screaming dissonant strings... at first it's somewhat annoying, but after you get used to it, it's like really cool guitar distortion in rock music - you can't get enough of it.

Anyway, I already explored his Piano Quintet and his four string quartets, and now I'm getting started on his concerti grossi ('big concerts'). The first one is just amazing, scored for two solo violins (it was comissioned by violinist Gidon Kremer), hapsichord, prepared piano (a piano made to sound 'weird' with various metal parts on the strings) and 21 strings

Here's one of the middle movements of the concerto in good sound quality:

Here's a live recording of the second movement:

The people who comment on the clips on youtube kinda gets it: "This stuff is so evil and dark sounding, but I love all the dissonance", and "It sounds something that came out of the movie "the nightmare before christmas" but much more better than that."

And here's the cover for the old edition of the concerto - couldn't resist posting it, because I love Russian constructivism:

Amanda Palmer "Oasis"

2009-02-04T02:30:00.001-08:00

I already posted this amazing track a few months ago, but now mrs. Palmer has some problems getting air-play in the UK because she's, apparently, making fun of rape and abortions. She writes a blog post about it here: on Abortion, Rape, Art and Humor.

Thought I'd at least give her some 'air-play' here one more time, now they've made a video:

When I got to the party, they gave me a forty
and I must've been thristy 'cause I drank it so quickly
When I got to the bedroom there was somebody waiting
and it isn't my fault that the barbarian raped me
When I went to get tested I brought along my best friend
Melissa Mahoney who had once been molested
And she knew how to get there, she knew all the nurses
they were all very friendly but the test came back positive

Oh I've seen better days but I don't care
Oh I just sent a letter in the mail

When I got my abortion I brought along my boyfriend
we got there an hour before the appointment
And outside the building there were these annoying
fundamentalist Christians we tried to ignore them

Oh, I've had better days but I don't care
Oasis got my letter in the mail

When vacation was over the word was all over
that I was a crack whore Melissa had told them
And so now we're not talking
except we have tickets to see Blur in October
and I think we're still going

Oh, I've seen better days but I don't care
Oh, I just got a letter in the mail
Oasis sent a photograph
It's autographed and everything
Melissa's gonna wet herself I swear

Pruitt-Igoe

2009-02-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Continuing to delve into the "Watchmen" soundtrack, I did a search for the title of the Philip Glass track "Pruit Igoe" used on the soundtrack - a track that's originally from the movie "Koyaanisqatsi". Now "Koyaanisqatsi" is one of my all time favourite movies, but doing the search, I actually learned stuff about the demolition scene in the film that I never knew before. Cool!

From Wikipedia:

Pruitt-Igoe was a large urban housing project first occupied in 1954^[2] and completed in 1955^[3] in the U.S. city of St. Louis, Missouri. Shortly after its completion, living conditions in Pruitt-Igoe began to decay; by the late 1960s, the extreme poverty, crime, and segregation brought the complex a great deal of infamy as it was covered extensively by the international press.

At 3 PM on March 16, 1972^[4] — less than 20 years after construction — the first of the complex's 33 buildings was demolished by the federal government.^[5] The other 32 buildings were destroyed over the next 2 years. The high-profile failure of Pruitt-Igoe has become an emblematic icon often evoked by all sides in public housing policy debate. The Pruitt-Igoe housing project was one of the first demolitions of modernist architecture and its destruction was claimed by postmodern architect Charles Jencks to mark, "the day Modern architecture died."^[6]Footage of the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe was incorporated into the film Koyaanisqatsi.

Read the rest of the WIKI entry here.

So basically Pruitt-Igoe was like real life version of a J.G. Ballard novel?

Watch 9 memorable minutes from the film here:

For other fans of the Koyaanisqatsi film, here's an interesting article from The New Yorker about the music : "Sound and Vision - Glass’s “Koyaanisqatsi” and the art of film scoring."

"...There's a ship, The Black Freighter...."

2009-02-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

The complete track listing for the Watchmen soundtrack has been revealed. It looks like this:

1. Desolation Row (My Chemical Romance)

2. Unforgettable (Nat King Cole)

3. The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bob Dylan)

4. The Sound Of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)

5. Me & Bobby McGee (Janis Joplin)

6. I'm Your Boogie Man (KC & The Sunshine Band)

7. You're My Thrill (Billie Holiday)

8. Pruit Igoe & Prophecies (Philip Glass)

9. Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)

10. All Along The Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix)

11. Ride of the Valkyries (Budapest Symphony Orchestra)

12. Pirate Jenny (Nina Simone)

Now, sidestepping that unfortunate My Chemical Romance Dylan-cover (see previous post), there's actually some really good stuff on it. It's particularly nice to see Brecht and Weill's "Pirate Jenny" on the soundtrack. Of course "Pirate Jenny", with it's harrowing tale of a "Black Freighter", inspired the "Tales of the Black Freighter" comic book being read by a character in the Watchmen graphic novel. And song's storyline, about killing all inhabitants of a town, also thematically mirrors the climax of the story in "Watchmen".

But interesting enough the original German lyric by Brecht doesn't actually refer to a "Black Freighter" - it refers to "ein Schiff mit acht Segeln" - a ship with eight sails. The term The Black Freighter was invented for the - rather excellent - English translation of the song used by Nina Simone. In her version the word 'black' was probably deliberately meant to connect the song with American civil rights issues of the time, symbolizing the coming black revolution.

Here's Kurt Weill's wife Lotte Lenya singing the song in German with literal English subtitles:

Couldn't find the Nina Simone version from the soundtrack on Youtube, but never mind. Here's a great version - Anne Kerry Ford is singing the same translation as Simone - with its Black Freighter bit:

"You people can watch while Im scrubbing these floors
And Im scrubbin the floors while youre gawking
Maybe once ya tip me and it makes ya feel swell
In this crummy southern town

In this crummy old hotel
But youll never guess to who youre talkin.
No. you couldnt ever guess to who youre talkin.

Then one night theres a scream in the night
And youll wonder who could that have been
And you see me kinda grinnin while Im scrubbin
And you say, whats she got to grin?
Ill tell you.

Theres a ship
The black freighter
With a skull on its masthead
Will be coming in

You gentlemen can say, hey gal, finish them floors!
Get upstairs! whats wrong with you! earn your keep here!
You toss me your tips
And look out to the ships
But Im counting your heads
As Im making the beds
Cuz theres nobody gonna sleep here, honey
Nobody
Nobody!

Then one night theres a scream in the night
And you say, whos that kicking up a row?
And ya see me kinda starin out the winda
And you say, whats she got to stare at now?
Ill tell ya.

Theres a ship
The black freighter
Turns around in the harbor
Shootin guns from her bow

Now
You gentlemen can wipe off that smile off your face
Cause every building in town is a flat one
This whole frickin place will be down to the ground
Only this cheap hotel standing up safe and sound
And you yell, why do they spare that one?
Yes.
Thats what you say.
Why do they spare that one?

All the night through, through the noise and to-do
You wonder who is that person that lives up there?
And you see me stepping out in the morning
Looking nice with a ribbon in my hair

And the ship
The black freighter
Runs a flag up its masthead
And a cheer rings the air

By noontime the dock
Is a-swarmin with men
Comin out from the ghostly freighter
They move in the shadows
Where no one can see
And theyre chainin up people
And theyre bringin em to me
Askin me,
Kill them now, or later?
Askin me!
Kill them now, or later?

Noon by the clock
And so still by the dock
You can hear a foghorn miles away
And in that quiet of death
Ill say, right now.
Right now!

Then theyll pile up the bodies
And Ill say,
Thatll learn ya!

And the ship
The black freighter
Disappears out to sea
And
On
It
Is
Me"

(This blog-post was part two in an infrequent series about 'ship songs'. Part one here.)

update: as a footnote, here's a link to a post on another blog discussing the English translation. He concludes that it's not a very good translation. I disagree, but interesting analysis nonetheless.

Monkey Kings

2009-02-03T09:42:00.001-08:00

THE PITCHFORK INTERVIEW: Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn (Gorillaz) talk about their monkey opera and about China and world music and Africa and stuff.

"Google Earth" Goes underwater

2009-02-03T06:02:00.000-08:00

Now you can explore underwater reefs and mountains in Google Earth. The 9 year old me is amazed at this.

My Chemical Romance: "Desolation Row"

2009-01-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

O dearest God no. :-( :-(

It's.... the My Chemical Romance's cover version of Dylan's "Desolation Row", for the Watchmen movie.

I swear we will never forgive.

"The Mingulay Boat Song"

2009-01-30T12:01:00.000-08:00

This stunning Richard Thompson version of "The Mingulay Boat Song" was recorded for the "Rogues Gallery" album. This album was produced by Johnny Depp and Hal Willner, and was a collection of cover versions of sea shanties and pirate songs released in connection with the "Pirates of the Carribian" movies. Hal Willner has also produced tribute albums of Kurt Weill songs, Walt Disney songs, Leonard Cohen songs, Nino Rota tunes, Thelonious Monk tunes etc. Basically a man of great taste.

"The Mingulay Boat Song" is sort of an artificial sea shanty. The tune is an old gaelic tune, but the lyrics were written in 1930. The Island of Mingulay had been abandoned by its population in 1912, so the song had a nostalgic feel already in 1930.

Chorus:

Heel y'ho boys, let her go, boys
Bring her head round now all together
Heel y'ho boys, let her go boys
Sailing homeward to Mingulay!

What care we tho' white the Minch is
What care we for wind and weather?
Let her go boys, every inch is
Wearing homeward to Mingulay!

Chorus

Wives are waiting on the bank, boys, .
Looking seaward from the heather.
Pull her 'round boys, and we'll anchor
'Ere the sun sets at Mingulay!

Chorus

"The Princess and the Frog"

2009-01-30T04:50:00.000-08:00

So this years "The Princess and the Frog" is the first hand drawn Disney movie in 5 years... and it's a New Orleans based musical with songs by Randy Newman. Count me in! According to the Wiki page it was new Disney animation-boss John Lasseter who decided to throw the bland hack composer Alan Menken off the project and get Randy Newman involved. Lasseter is a hero!

(But come to think of it it's a bit sad if the New Orleans of the golden age is now almost becoming like the Baghdad of the famous "Sandman" story "Ramadan" - now it's something out of fairy tales, it doesn't exist in the real world anymore.)

Teaser:

The animation for the frog looks like it's heavily Chuck Jones influenced. Cool!

Mad Magazine Obama cover

2009-01-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

This cover is pretty funny. Source: The beat

Kraftwerk live concert

2009-01-23T08:26:00.001-08:00

How do you top a free Joy Division documentary? Well, how about next week putting on a Kraftwerk live concert... Kraftwerk is one of the few 70s bands that's possibly even more iconic than Joy Division. Well in my world anyway - in global mainstream culture people probably don't particularly care about either band.

Available for one week only from Pitchfork.

it seems to be a cut-down version of the Minimum-Maximum dvd.

Button-Eyes

2009-01-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

This exclusive Neil Gaiman introduction to the new "Coraline" movie is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while.

http://www.bordersmedia.com/backlot/coraline.asp

Usagi Yojimbo

2009-01-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

I'm out of shelf space, and in a somewhat tight spot financially. (yes, I've bought too many comics), so I'm selling piles of my old comics. And... I almost sold my Usagi Yojimbo books... I ALMOST sold them.

well, dunno what I was thinking. Fortunately I thumbed through a couple of volumes and hit upon the Alejandro Jodorowsky introduction to one of the early books. And his words reminded me about how cool this series is. So no, I won't be selling.

There will be a two volume 1.200 page hardcover out this year collecting the first 7 books in one place.

"Created in 1984 as a supporting character for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo is a perennial favorite amongst children, especially boys, and adult fans. Usagi Yojimbo chronicles the action-packed wanderings of a funny-anima; ronin in feudal Japan. In honor of his 25th anniversary, Fantagraphics is releasing a deluxe slipcase set collecting the seven first Usagi books, including the earliest stories; the origin story, "Samurai"; a full graphic novel; and literally dozens more. This is the complete, definitive Special Edition (our third in a line of repacking our most beloved classics). It will also have extra material, some from the long-out-of-print hardcover editions and some brand new: a complete full-color gallery of the more than 50 Usagi covers from that period (never-before-collected); many preparatory sketches; two "non-canon" Usagi stories by Sakai co-starring the TMNT (with whom Usagi also shared screen time in the TMNTs' TV series); and a long career-spanning interview with Sakai."

New "Krazy Kat" web-site

2009-01-18T05:06:00.001-08:00

There's a new site devoted to George Herriman, creator of "Krazy Kat".

"Krazy Kat" was one of the most stunning early comics.

2009-01-18T02:03:00.000-08:00

This acclaimed Joy Division documentary can be streamed from Pitchfork Media until thursday.

"Goodnight Irene"

2009-01-17T03:41:00.000-08:00

I think I'll continue posting about the 1950s. Haven't posted one of my covers for some time. Well, "Goodnight Irene" is a folk song that was originally 'discovered' (or whatever you do with those kinds of songs) by Leadbelly in the 1940s. It was a hit for The Weavers in 1950.

My version:

Leadbelly version:

Verses tend to differ. I sing these threee verses:

CHORUS:
Irene Goodnight Irene,
Irene Goodnight,
Goodnight Irene, Goodnight Irene,
I'll see you in my dreams

Sometimes I live in the country,
Sometimes I lives in town,
Sometimes I have a great notion,
To jump in the river and drown.
[repeat chorus]

Stop your gamblin', Stop your ramblin'
Stop staying out late at night
Go-oo home to your wife and family
And stay by your fireside bright
[repeat chorus ad infinitum]

I loves Irene, God knows I do,
Loves her till the sea runs dry,
If Irene turns her back on me,
I'm gonna take morphine and die.
[repeat chorus]

Andrew Wyeth

2009-01-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

Andrew Wyeth died today. NY Times Orbituary.

hmmm... Ray Bradbury, Charles M. Schulz. Wyeth... I sort of have a 1950s Americana nostalgia theme going by now.

Edit: Oh! Here are a few of his Helga paintings - the story of Helga is mentioned in the obituary.

"Peanuts"

2009-01-16T07:30:00.001-08:00

I didn't grow up with "Peanuts". My local newspaper didn't carry the strip, and when I occasionally read a few strips in other newspapers, I was usually pretty lost because I didn't know the characters, and because the strange dry humour didn't quite connect with me at the time. I think I did bring back a couple of volumes of strips from the library when I was 9 or 10 years old (and was already beginning to seriously appreciate some high level comics book artists like Carl Barks and Hergé) - but they didn't quite connect with me.

Which is why it's nice to now have a girlfriend who's a long time "Peanuts" fan. I can read through her old collections when I visit her, and now that the "Complete Peanuts" collections from Fantagraphics are getting really cheap to order from the British Amazon, I could buy her a couple of volumes for christmas. I even watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on Youtube in december, that legendary TV special which I'd never seen before.

"The Complete Peanuts" is just staggering, and that's even though I've only gotten to volume 3. It starts out somewhat dated and old fashioned in the first volume, but pretty soon Shultz begins to show himself as a modernist genius, injecting that strange dry humour that seems so timeless even today. It's a little bit unsettling to discover exactly HOW much of the good stuff from "Calvin and Hobbes" was copied directly from "Peanuts". "Peanuts" is a fantastic new world for me, and I'm extremely grateful that I can finally experience it. I look forward to reading more of the "Complete" volumes in the next few years.

Here's a recent article from the New York Times about the use of Beethoven music in "Peanuts". Incredible attention to detail!

Ray Bradbury: "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed"

2009-01-15T14:53:00.000-08:00

Apparently there's been some kind of "Life on Mars" story doing the rounds today. Whatever. Who needs reality? Real martians are dark, and they've got golden eyes. And they live on a 1950s version of Mars. For some reason Ray Bradbury's "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" wasn't included in the collection "The Martian Chronicles". But it's a classic, and it shook me to my core when I heard it on the radio when I was 8 years old.
And Here it is, on a Russian server.

Leonard Cohen 2008 tour bootleg

2009-01-11T06:58:00.000-08:00

The Leonard Cohen 2008 tour got rave reviews from all quarters, and I'll probably regret for the rest of my life that I didn't go to any of those concerts. I frankly hadn't expected it to be any good - the last Leonard Cohen album from a few years ago was pretty depressing. The songs were dull and uninspired, and his voice seemed to be almost completely gone. I didn't expect a complete rebirth for this tour. But that's what happened, according to the reviews. And sure enough, now I've downloaded THIS BOOTLEG myself, and it's brilliant. Astonishing. Perfect. The audio quality is excellent, so this will do until there hopefully will be an official DVD out.

The Cohen Tour is apparently coming to the US in 2009.

Schnittke's Piano Quintet

2009-01-11T00:06:00.000-08:00

Russian composer Alfred Schnittke (1934-98) is known as a somewhat difficult modernist composer, but his piano quintet is a great discovery for me... it's got simple, almost childish piano themes, underscored with really sinister strings. The naxos CD, pictured above, is excellent.

Here's the final movement:

The 50 Dumbest Bush Quotes of All Time

2009-01-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

Just staggering.

Xenakis: "Herma"

2009-01-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

Greek composer Iannis Xenakis(1922-2001)'s "Herma" is one of the most difficult piano pieces ever written. Xenakis used complex computer math to compose his music. I still don't quite 'get' his stuff - for all I know "Herma" might be some kind of advanced prank. But you know - I'd swear that it still has some kind of strange beauty to it. And it sure must take some dedication to learn to play it correctly.

Watch Japanese pianist Yuji Takahashi play the piece (with commentary in Japanese):

You can listen to it without commentary if you go HERE. Embedding was disabled so I could not put it in a window on this page.

Japanese "Watchmen" trailer....

2009-01-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

...with new footage and lots of political background stuff.

I know I'm supposed to despise Philip Glass as being a no-good hack now I've turned into a wannabe classical music snob, but I have to admit that hearing Glass' "Koyaanisqatsi" music in those Watchmen trailers is quite chilling. I Wish they'd keep it there for the movie.

I wonder if this can turn the Watchmen graphic novel into a bestseller in Japan.

"Let the Right One In"

2009-01-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

Dear diary. Last week in Copenhagen I missed my chance of seeing Swedish vampire sensation "Let The Right One In". I'll surely get another chance eventually, but I'm still sad.

97% at Rotten Tomatoes

It's on limited release in the US.

I know. This post is somewhat pathetic.

John Cale, Chrissie Hynde, Nick Cave

2009-01-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

The previous clip I posted had a short appearance from Nick Cave, but he didn't actually play on the song. Too bad. Here's another song from the same session, where he DOES play, with Cale and Chrissie Hynde:

John Cale: "The Thoughtless Kind"

2009-01-06T15:01:00.000-08:00

This song makes me feel sad about... stuff. It's one of my favourite songs ever.

If you grow tired of the friends you make
In case you mean to say something else
Say they were the best of times you ever had
The best of times with the thoughtless kind

We dress conservatively at the best of times
Prefer the shadows to the bright lights in the eyes
Of the ones we love, the bright lights in the eyes of the ones we love

What we see, what we imagine the eyes tell us nothing
The bright lights in the eyes of the one we love will tell you
but the scars of imagination
The bright lights in the eyes of the one we love will tell you
Nothing except that you’re the thoughtless kind

If you grow tired of the friends you make
Never ever turn your back on them
Say they were the best of times you ever had
The best of times with the thoughtless kind

Gyorgy Ligeti: "Hungarian Rock"

2009-01-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

I remembered this Ligeti piece while I was walking in the woods. I thought I would create a dummy account on youtube and put it online, but someone had done it before me. No need for doing anything illegal this time, then.

The music is like... I dunno.... like deranged circus music played by a dwarf on speed in a Werner Herzog movie.

It's not being played by a human being - it has been programmed into a mechanical barrel organ. It's from the Ligeti CD "Mechanical Music". The Mechanical music of Ligeti was inspired by the player piano music of Conlon Nancarrow.

(I like the picture on the youtube clip too. It fits the music very well)

DVD Savant's "Best DVD's of 2008" list

2009-01-03T04:27:00.000-08:00

DVD Savant is probably the most interesting reviewer of DVD's in the US. Here's his list of the best DVD's of 2008. Lots of westerns, and Criterion Collection's DVD of Dreyer's "Vampyr" at the top.

Carl Th. Dreyer is a favourite of mine - certainly the best Danish movie director of all time, and I should get round to buying that disc. His movies have never been properly released on DVD here in Denmark, and I'm greateful for the Criterion box-set I own that contains "Ordet", "Gertrud" and "Day of Wrath".

Edit: no wait, I did a little research - I'll buy the UK release of "Vampyr" instead, it's fairly similar to the US Criterion edition, but it also has a commentary track from Guillermo Del Toro.

"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"

2008-12-24T14:26:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to find a rental copy of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" at my local Blockbuster, and it's been my major christmas movie for this year. I'm not going to try to write a proper review. I'll just say that it's long, slow, intense and quite beautiful. It's got a score by Warren Ellis and Nick Cave, and Also a cameo from Cave. Well worth catching on DVD, especially if you've got a proper widescreen television. As a return to 1970s style movie epics it's comparable to "There Will Be Blood". And it's certainly a better Terrence Mallick-style film than what Mallick himself has been doing lately.

Messiaen & "Futurama" & 'Turanga Leela'

2008-12-17T08:13:00.000-08:00

Last week was the centenary of the birth of leading 20th century composer Olivier Messiaen.

And apparently Matt Groening and the "Futurama" crew have joined in on the celebration. In the recent "Futurama" movie "Bender's Game" it's revealed that the character Leela's family name is Turanga, meaning her full name is 'Turanga Leela'. This refers to Messiaen's most well known orchestral piece, The Turangalila Symphony. This symphony features the 'sci fi'-like sounds of the early French synthesizer, the Ondes Martenot. As the clip below reveals, early Hollywood sci fi scores like "The Day The Earth Stood Still" may very well have been inspired by the music of Messiaen, so a tribute in "Futurama" is entirely appropriate.

Clip description: "Scene from The Day the Earth Stood Still rescored with the music of Olivier Messiaen. The original score by Bernard Herrmann is great of course. But it does seem likely that Messiaen's Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine (1942) could have been an influence on Herrmann and other composers of scifi soundtracks in the 50s and 60s. In this case, I felt that the highly contemplative nature of Messiaen's music gave a greater feeling of reverent mystery and made Klaatu seem a higher being, and the light more mysterious, even in B&W. Herrmann's score has a lot of mystery and strangeness and a Javanese style of sound, but nonetheless seems a bit more earthbound in comparison."

thanks to The Beat for pointing the Futurama/Messiaen connection out.

"4 Months 3 Weeks And 2 Days"

2008-12-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

Got around to watching last years Cannes winner, "4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days". Really disturbing movie about illegal abortions in Ceausescu's Romania in the 80s. Completely harrowing. I'm not sure I should actually recommend this one, since it's not going to make anyon e feel particularly well, but if you're up for something truly dark and depressing, then...

trailer:

"Vicky Cristina Barcelona"

2008-12-15T09:01:00.000-08:00

This time it's for real! Woody Allen is back with a GOOD one - probably his best since "Everyone Says I Love You" 12 years ago! I really enjoyed this film. It's funny and sexy. YAY!

Trailer:

The Simpsons porn case

2008-12-11T02:49:00.000-08:00

So now you can go to prison for owning sexual Simpsons cartoons.

The Simpsons child pornography case from Australia is just scary. The western world is slowly turning into weird surreal fascist states. I think it's just completely ridiculous, treating cartoon characters in the legal system as if they were real children.

As someone points out in the discussion when you follow the previous link, The Simpsons were created in the late 80s, so they would all be more than 21 years old today.

And how would a judge deal with a character like Peter Pan (as used in Alan Moore's "Lost Girls") who is ancient, but refuses to grown up? And how would you deal with murders in comics, if you follow this new line of thinking? is watching a murder in a comic book like watching a snuff movie? How about classic literary novels featuring coming-of-age sex scenes with underage characters? Will they soon be outlawed?

The implications of this case are scary and staggering.

(Edit: Sorry. that was just an incoherent ramble. I really should write something more coherent)

Neil Gaiman writes:

I think it's nonsensical in every way that it could possibly be nonsensical. The Simpsons characters aren't real people. They definitely aren't real children. (Given that they first appeared in the late eighties, they're also all over eighteen now...)

The famous 1967 Wally Wood "Disney Memorial Orgy" poster (http://flickr.com/photos/25308024@N08/2509508040/sizes/o/>(possibly not safe for work, might prompt embarrassing questions from small children, do not click on this if a small reproduction of cartoon characters doing softcore filthy things upsets you)is a parody of Disney's image, an attack in cartoon form on the idea of consumerism and the innocence of cartoon characters, as the Disney characters let their hair down and indulge in a memorial orgy for the late Walt Disney. The idea that you could be arrested in the Western World for having that image in your computer is mind-boggling, let alone for owning Lost Girls, or for doodling members of the Peanuts gang doing things they tended not to do in the Schulz comics, or for reading Harry Potter slash, or owning the Brass Eye Paedophilia special. And, I should warn members of the Australian judiciary, fictional characters don't just have sex. Sometimes they murder each other, and take fictional drugs, and are cruel to fictional animals, and throw fictional babies off roofs. Crimes, crime everywhere.

The ability to distinguish between fiction and reality is, I think, an important indicator of sanity, perhaps the most important. And it looks like the Australian legal system has failed on that score.

Another 'best graphic novels of 2008' list

2008-12-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

Here's another list. I think this guy knows what he's talking about, I immediately ordered the first two books on the list, "Gus" and "Bottomless Belly Button". Great covers, anyway. Orange and brown colors - like back in the good ol' 1970s. :)

"The Kite Runner"

2008-12-07T13:17:00.001-08:00

I'm in the mood for sumptuous dramas at the moment, and I'm really glad I watched "The Kite Runner" - well, I know I should read the book, but I'm just too lazy, and I enjoy movies so much. Anyway, I was really moved by this film. And I know it's one of those 'worthy' mainstream Hollywood dramas that manipulate your emotions a little too much. Yes, I could have lived without the not very believeable single action scene towards the end. But on the whole it was very good, particularly the early parts about childhood in Kabul in the 1970s, before the Soviet Invasion. It's really weird that the city that would become the headquarters of the Taliban once was a place where kids would go to the local cinema and watch dubbed versions of "The Magnificent Seven" and "Bullit". I must be getting old when ANYTHING that has to do with childhood in the 70s can make me strangely nostalgic, even if it's in some far away place like Afghanistan.

Sune Rose Wagner solo-album

2008-12-07T08:36:00.001-08:00

Sune Rose Wagner of the group The Raveonettes has just released his first solo-album, recorded in his native language Danish - while his partner in The Raveonettes is off having her baby. It's gotten great reviews in the Danish press. I mainly mention this because I know that Jeff, who reads this blog, likes the Raveonettes, and I thought he might be amused by hearing a few tracks in Danish. There are four tracks up on his myspace page.

His phrasing sounds pretty great in Danish. It's not an easy language to use when singing. The sound reminds me a bit of legendary 1970s band Gasolin, which was (sort of) the Danish Beatles. The lyrics seems to be about girls and drugs - well, no big surprise there, heheh.

"If It Be Your Will"

2008-12-07T05:13:00.001-08:00

Singing this Leonard Cohen song is probably the closest I'll ever come to a true religious experience.

But religous or not, the playing's probably a still completely ramshackle though.

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.

"Sandman" 20 year anniversary interview.

2008-12-05T14:24:00.001-08:00

Neil Gaiman speaks to The LA Times!

Music lists 2008

2008-12-05T13:16:00.000-08:00

And I can't really be bothered to buy expensive music magazines anymore, so here are this years lists from UK Magazines "Mojo" and "Uncut".

For those too lazy to follow the link, top tens look like this:

Uncut:

10 Paul Weller - 22 Dreams
9 Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night
8 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!
7 Neon Neon - Stainless Style
6 Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
5 Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
4 Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
3 TV On The Radio - Dear Science
2 Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
1 Portishead - Third

Mojo:

10 Neil Diamond - Home Before Dark
9 The Bug - London Zoo
8 The Week That Was - The Week That Was
7 Glasvegas - Glasvegas
6 The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
5 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
4 Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
3 Paul Weller - 22 Dreams
2 The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
1 Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

I've heard Nick Cave, Portishead, The Bug and Bon Iver. But mostly I've been too busy listening to classical music this year.

Graphic Novels of 2008

2008-12-05T13:09:00.001-08:00

And one of the first "best graphic novels of 2008" lists here.

It includes "Alan's War" which is on its way to me from the UK.

There's a really cool video on youtube that shows how the art for the book was drawn: By magic, apparently. A must see:

Best book covers of 2008

2008-12-05T13:02:00.000-08:00

We're entering end-of-the-year-list season!

Here's a cool list of some of the best book design of 2008.

Pulp: "Wickerman"

2008-12-03T12:20:00.001-08:00

The lyric to this Pulp song may be my favourite piece of writing in pop music ever. It's about memory, and about the psycho-geography of Jarvis Cocker's hometown Shieffield. With all the psycho-geography stuff, it could almost be out of an experimental Alan Moore comic or a Iain Sinclair book... well except for it being about Sheffield instead of Northampton or London.

When the album was released I was actually living in a disused factory near a small river (uhm, okay, this being Denmark, it was more like a stream), and I was going on long walks along the stream during the nights, like in the song. That may be one of the reasons I love this song so much.

The song is produced by legendary singer Scott Walker. It's named "Wickerman", after the Sheffield Street "The Wicker", but it also features a sample from the classic soundtrack to the horror-movie "Wicker Man".

Just behind the station, before you reach the traffic island, a river runs thru' a concrete channel.
I took you there once; I think it was after the Leadmill.
The water was dirty & smelt of industrialisation
Little mesters coughing their lungs up & globules the colour of tomato ketchup.
But it flows. Yeah, it flows.
Underneath the city thru' dirty brickwork conduits
Connecting white witches on the Moor with pre-raphaelites down in Broomhall.
Beneath the old Trebor factory that burnt down in the early seventies.
Leaving an antiquated sweet-shop smell & caverns of nougat & caramel.
Nougat. Yeah, nougat & caramel.
And the river flows on.
Yeah, the river flows on beneath pudgy fifteen-year olds addicted to coffee whitener
And it finally comes above ground again at Forge Dam: the place where we first met.

I went there again for old time's sake
Hoping to find the child's toy horse ride that played such a ridiculously tragic tune.
It was still there - but none of the kids seemed interested in riding on it.
And the cafe was still there too
The same press-in plastic letters on the price list & scuffed formica-top tables.
I sat as close as possible to the seat where I'd met you that autumn afternoon.
And then, after what seemed like hours of thinking about it
I finally took your face in my hands & I kissed you for the first time
And a feeling like electricity flowed thru' my whole body.
And I immediately knew that I'd entered a completely different world.
And all the time, in the background, the sound of that ridiculously heartbreaking child's ride outside.

At the other end of town the river flows underneath an old railway viaduct
I went there with you once - except you were somebody else -
And we gazed down at the sludgy brown surface of the water together.
Then a passer-by told us that it used to be a local custom to jump off the viaduct into the river
When coming home from the pub on a Saturday night.
But that this custom had died out when someone jumped
Landed too near to the riverbank
Had sunk in the mud there & drowned before anyone could reach them.
I don't know if he'd just made the whole story up, but there's no way you'd get me to jump off that bridge.
No chance. Never in a million years.

Yeah, a river flows underneath this city
I'd like to go there with you now my pretty & follow it on for miles & miles, below other people's ordinary lives.
Occasionally catching a glimpse of the moon, thru' man-hole covers along the route.
Yeah, it's dark sometimes but if you hold my hand, I think I know the way.
Oh, this is as far as we got last time
But if we go just another mile we will surface surrounded by grass & trees & the fly-over that takes the cars to cities.
Buds that explode at the slightest touch, nettles that sting - but not too much.
I've never been past this point, what lies ahead I really could not say.
I used to live just by the river, in a dis-used factory just off the Wicker
The river flowed by day after day
"One day" I thought, "One day I will follow it" but that day never came
I moved away & lost track but tonight I am thinking about making my way back.
I may find you there & float on wherever the river may take me.
Wherever the river may take me.
Wherever the river may take us.
Wherever it wants us to go.
Wherever it wants us to go.

A Lewis Trondheim story

2008-12-03T05:15:00.001-08:00

I like this Lewis Trondheim story very much....

It's not currently in print, but please buy "Mr. O" or "Little Nothings" or "A.L.I.E.E.E.N" or some of his other books.

Jodorowsky talks "King Shot"

2008-12-02T07:28:00.000-08:00

Alejandro Jodorowsky talks about his forthcoming film "King Shot"

The Fall: "Dr. Buck's Letter"

2008-12-01T11:24:00.000-08:00

No wait.... sorry. THIS is the best Fall song - "DR. BUCK'S LETTER". Completely fucking mental. Dark and hilarious:

I lost my temper with a friend
Mocked him and treated him with rudeness
And though I tried to make amends
Still I miss him I walk a dark corridor

Woke up one morning
Doctor Buck's letter
Of my own making, I walk a dark corridor Oh my heart
Hoping one day a door will be ajar
At least so we can recompense
The betrayal of our hard won friendship
In vulgar and arrogant abeyance
To what was untrue underneath our parlance

I open the envelope, Doctor Buck's letter
Re: Welfare Benefits reports

J. McCarthy, approximately 10-15 days
I got down, I was depressed.
It was Doctor Buck's letter.

Turn the radio on

Doctor Buck's Letter
Cheer myself up
Put the radio on, get the magazine out
And read about the 'Essence of Tong'

Checklist:
I never leave home without:
1 Sunglasses: I wear them all year around, I seem to need them more often, it's a habit
2 Music: cassettes CDs
3 Palm Pilot: it's my lifeline I think it's my P.A.'s computer, she rules my diary and I download it
4 Mobile phone
5 Amex card; They made such a fuss about giving it to me that I spent more time getting it turned down.

I was in the realm of the essence of Tong.

The Fall: "Free Range"

2008-11-29T00:56:00.000-08:00

Someone put my favourite Fall song online. This song has got cool stream of consciousness lyrics that references Shakespeare, Nietzsche and "2001: a Space Odyssey"... and more importantly - it rocks!

In 2001
A Life code:
It pays to talk to no one.
Proliferating across the earth.
Also Sprach Zarathustra*
Faction Europa
Free Range.

2001
Also Sprach Zarathustra
Proliferating across the earth
Pressure guilt
Grudge match
12 cm flak unit
Range 1 stroke 35

This is the spring without end
This is the summer of malcontent
This is the winter of your mind

By 2001
Also Sprach Zarathustra
It pays to talk to no one
Europa, faction
Proliferating across the earth
Free Range

This is the spring without end
This is the summer of malcontent
This is the winter of your mind

Insect posse
will be crushed

Moravia, trouble
Moldavia
Europa
Every second third word
Europa
It pays to talk to no one.

Free Range.

Joann Sfar to direct Serge Gainsbourg bio-pic

2008-11-26T08:43:00.000-08:00

French comic book guru Joann Sfar - creator of Tim burton-like vampire tales and stories about Jewish history - is going to direct a bio-pic about the life of another French guru, singer Serge Gainsbourg.

Variety article here: “Joann Sfar’s cutting-edge creativity and unique take on the character of Serge Gainsbourg is what really drew us to this project,” said Universal Pictures Intl. Studio prexy Christian Grass.

Watch the notorious Gainsbourg video "Lemon Incest", featuring him and his then 13-year old daughter Charlotte:

You can also go and watch the legendary meeting between Gainsbourg and Whitney Houston. I can't embed that video, unfortunately, but please follow this link.

Gilbert Hernandez: "Palomar" and "Luba"

2008-11-26T06:56:00.001-08:00

It's just been announced that in february Fantagraphics will publish a collection of his sequel to his classic "Palomar/Heartbreak Soup"-saga. The book, called "Luba", collects 3 previously available volumes - about Luba's life in America after she leaves Palomar - in one thick 600 page hardcover. I've never read these stories, so it's pretty much a must-buy for me.

For those who want to start at the beginning: The old 500 page "Palomar" hardcover collecting his classic "Heartbreak Soup" stories is sold out, but the stories are also available in two new cheap softcovers - "Heartbreak Soup" and "Human Diastrophism". These are some of the true high points of US indie-comics, and they're highly recommended. I've got fond memories of reading Danish translations of these stories at my local library back in the mid-1980s when I was 14 or 15 years old. Back then I didn't know latin American writers like Gabriel Garcia Marques and Isabel Allende, so entering the Latin American town of "Palomar" was a completely new and alien and exciting world. It was was raw and cute and funny and sexy.

Ang Lee's "Lust and Caution"

2008-11-22T04:17:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed Ang Lee's "Lust and Caution". A lot of the reviews said it was overlong, and it probably is, at 155 minutes - but if you're in the mood for something that's slow, dark and beautiful and that that transports you to another world (Hong Kong and Shanghai between 1938 and 1942), then go for it. Not quite as good as Lee's "Brokeback Mountain", but a LOT better than that "Hulk" movie, heheh. Americans should go for the NC-17 version, obviously, those sex scenes ARE pretty hot.

Richard Thompson's "Cul De Sac"

2008-11-21T05:47:00.001-08:00

No, this is not one of my usual posts about my favorite songwriter Richard Thompson - this is about the other Richard Thompson, the cartoonist sensation. I've bought the first collection of his "Cul De Sac" newspaper strip, and it's fantastic stuff, carrying on the artistic tradition from "Peanuts" and "Calvin and Hobbes".

Here is mr. 'J.D. Salinger JR' - the one and only Bill Watterson, writing the foreword to the book:

"I thought the best newspaper comic strips were long gone, and I've never been happier to be wrong. Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac has it all--intelligence, gentle humor, a delightful way with words, and, most surprising of all, wonderful, wonderful drawings.

Cul de Sac's whimsical take on the world and playful sense of language somehow gets funnier the more times you read it. Four-year-old Alice and her Blisshaven Preschool classmates will ring true to any parent. Doing projects in a cloud of glue and glitter, the little kids manage to reinterpret an otherwise incomprehensible world via their meandering, nonstop chatter. But I think my favorite character is Alice's older brother, Petey. A haunted, controlling milquetoast, he's surely one of the most neurotic kids to appear in comics. These children and their struggles are presented affectionately, and one of the things I like best about Cul de Sac is its natural warmth. Cul de Sac avoids both mawkishness and cynicism and instead finds genuine charm in its loopy appreciation of small events. Very few strips can hit this subtle note.

I also like the nightmarish suburb that the Otterloop ("outer loop") family inhabits: the identical houses crammed in endless rows, the relentless highway traffic strangling the soulless development, the ugly shopping malls, the oppressive parking garages, and sticky-floored restaurants. Like most of us, the family negotiates this modern awfulness as a simple matter of course; the critique appears only in the drawings, where the strip suddenly works on another level.

And oh, those gorgeous drawings! With a mix of rambling looseness, blotchy crudeness, and sheer cartoony grace, Thompson's expressive pen line is the equal of any of cartooning's Old Masters. Thompson has a very sharp eye and a command of technique we almost never see anymore. He reminds us that comics can be more than illustrated gag writing, and that good drawings can bring a comic strip's world to life in countless ways that words cannot. The artwork in Cul de Sac bowls me over. It's a pleasure to study long after the strips are read.

The first fifty pages of this book are taken from the earlier incarnation of Cul de Sac that appeared in the Washington Post Magazine. Here we discover that Thompson has a natural flair for watercolor painting too. At this point, however, I'm not even surprised.

I hope you enjoy Cul de Sac as much as I do. I think you're in for a real treat."

--Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, 2008

The most recent Cul de Sac strips can be found HERE.

Richard Thomspon's blog can be found HERE.

Anton Webern

2008-11-17T09:34:00.000-08:00

Anton Webern took his teacher Arnold Schoenberg's twelve tone technique and and pared it down to the bare essentials - his pieces tend to be short, minimalist and quite unsettling. They are also probably nearly incomprehensible to the unschooled ear (including mine), but in a cool kinda way. It's really weird music, quite austere and beautiful.

Webern was shot at the end of World War II by an unhinged American soldier. There's a Thomas Pynchon quote from "Gravity's Rainbow" that kinda makes this into an epic conspiracy to keep advanced European music down. It kinda worked, in the end the more simple minded easy listening minimalist music of Philip Glass became the bestselling classical music.

"Shot in May, by the Americans. Senseless, accidental if you believe in accidents -- some mess cook from North Carolina, some late draftee with a .45 he hardly knew how to use, too late for WWII, but not for Webern. The excuse for raiding the house was that Webern's brother was in the black market. Who isn't? Do you know what kind of myth that's going to make in a thousand years? The young barbarians coming in to murder the Last European, standing at the far end of what'd been going on since Bach, an expansion of music's polymorphous perversity till all notes were truly equal at last. . . . Where was there to go after Webern? It was the moment of maximum freedom. It all had to come down. Another Götterdämmerung."

Drei Kleine Stücke Opus 11

Symphonie Opus 11:

Glenn Gould

2008-11-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a Google video of legendary pianist Glenn Gould playing first two traditional pieces, and then three modernist 1930s pieces by the composers of the Second Viennese school (Schoenberg, Webern, Berg).

Gould was known as a passionate interpreter of Bach, but he also occasionally composed abstract atonal pieces himself in the style of the Viennese composers.

the pieces are:

- Lords of Salisbury Pavan by Orlando Gibbons
- Galliard No.6 by William Byrd
- Suite, Op.25, Intermezzo by Arnold Schoenberg
- Variations, Op.27 by Anton Webern
- Sonata, Op.1 by Alban Berg

And here's a video of Gould and Yehudi Menuhin playing the uncompromising bleak piece "Fantasie opus 47".

Lewis Trondheim's "Little Nothings"

2008-10-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

It's cause for celebration that NMB has just announced that volume 2 of Lewis Trondheim's "Little Nothings" series will be out in january. This must mean that volume 1 has sold well enough for them to continue publishing this series, which is good timely news, considering that volume 3 is already out in France.

"Little Nothings" is a series of daily strips originally published in Trondheims own online blog in French. They are about little fun or strange things that happen during his day, or about little trains of thoughts he has. In themselves they aren't much, as the title "Little Nothings" also suggests, but when you collect them together in a book, they paint a quite a fun and colorful portrait of Trondheim's daily life, little moments with his family, his geek obsessions (like playing with his kids' toy Star Wars light sabre when noone is looking) and little neuroses. It's just a great collection of little everyday moments that everyone will be able to relate to, especially semi-neurotic geeks.

NMB have started online publishing strips from the forthcoming book in a daily blog - you can go take a look. However they've degraded the strips quite badly before putting them online, so you can't get a sense of how beautiful Trondheim's penmanship and watercolors look in book form. To get a sense of that you can visit his original French blog .

"Little Nothings" is one of the best works from one of the world's leading comic book artists, and I'd suggest jumping aboard this series.

"The Rip"

2008-10-27T05:44:00.000-07:00

The greatest moment on the recent Portishead comeback album was the psych-folk/kraut-rock crossover track "The Rip". It's recently been covered by Radiohead. Wonderful!

Original version:

Radiohead version:

"Famous Blue Raincoat"

2008-10-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

This is one of the greatest songs ever written. It's about confused people in the 1970s searching for spiritual enlightenment ("Go clear" is a Scientology term) and finding only... well, confusion, and depression.

I dunno if my version is too fast, it seems like the only way to go with this song is to lighten it up a little bit.

(yes and I fuck the lyrics up slightly towards the end. God forbid that I ever do a perfect take in this blog)

Me:

Leonard Cohen live in 1979:

Its four in the morning, the end of december
Im writing you now just to see if youre better
New york is cold, but I like where Im living
Theres music on clinton street all through the evening.

I hear that youre building your little house deep in the desert
Youre living for nothing now, I hope youre keeping some kind of record.

Yes, and jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?

Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
Youd been to the station to meet every train
And you came home without lili marlene

And you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobodys wife.

Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well I see janes awake --

She sends her regards.
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
Im glad you stood in my way.

If you ever come by here, for jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.

And jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear

-- sincerely, l. cohen

Old The Onion article.

2008-10-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

Haha, gotta love the Neil Gaiman blog - today he brought this The Onion article from 8 years ago to me attention. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad and prophetic:

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

Martin Kellerman's "Rocky"

2008-10-16T00:40:00.000-07:00

I love the autobiographical Swedish daily newspaper strip "Rocky". And now you can read it online:

From The Beat:

"Are Scandinavian comics the next big thing? We’re not sure if a big thing is even possible anymore, but they are one of the freshest, funniest new waves of comics out there, and the scene is definitely producing some amazing young artists who will make a mark in the future. However, the cartoonists that are already here are pretty good, too. [...]

[...] Then there’s Martin Kellerman’s ROCKY, one of the most popular comic strips in Sweden, but don’t take that as damning with faint praise…it’s a lovingly savage look at slacker life that translates very well, using an anthropomorphic cast of characters. Fantagraphics released a volume of ROCKY reprints back in 2005, and a new one is on its way. To pave the way, Fantagraphics is running Rocky online DAILY."

Alan Moore's "In Pictopia"

2008-10-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

One of the very best short Alan Moore works is now scanned and online.... the story is somewhat similar to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", but it was written earlier than "Roger Rabbit". It's a story about lost innocence in comics and in our culture.

"IN PICTOPIA!"

"Suzanne" and "Chelsea Hotel No. 2"

2008-10-14T05:51:00.000-07:00

Me playing two Leonard Cohen songs... Cohen seems to fit my voice very well (probably because neither of us can actually sing), so I should probably be doing more of these.

SUZANNE

Suzanne takes you down to
her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body
with your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body
with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body
with her mind.

CHELSEA HOTEL

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe...

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often.

Radiohead plays Neil Young

2008-10-13T03:54:00.000-07:00

Someone put Radiohead's awesome version of Neil Young's "On The Beach" on Youtube. Well, actually it sounds just like Neil's version, but that one's awesome too, and so is this. The clip is not quite complete so you'll have to find the full version on a file sharing service. It's well worth it, this is one of the most brilliant Radiohead rarities.

The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away,
The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away.
All my pictures are fallin' from the wall where I placed them yesterday.
The world is turnin', I hope it don't turn away.

I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day,
I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day.
Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away.
I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day.

I went to the radio interview, but I ended up alone at the microphone,
I went to the radio interview, but I ended up alone at the microphone.
Now I'm livin' out here on the beach, but those seagulls are still out of reach.
I went to the radio interview, but I ended up alone at the microphone.

Get out of town, think I'll get out of town,
Get out of town, think I'll get out of town.
I head for the sticks with my bus and friends,
I follow the road, though I don't know where it ends.
Get out of town, get out of town, think I'll get out of town.
'Cause the world is turnin', I don't want to see it turn away.

Anyway, the reason I started to think about Radiohead and Neil Young is because The Guardian and BBC have just released this clip (click on link) of Thom Yorke talking about meeting Neil Young and playing "After The Gold Rush" for him at a concert. I have previously posted the clip of him playing the actual song, but here it is again:

Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer

2008-10-11T03:18:00.000-07:00

WHile I'm waiting for my copy of "The Graveyard Book" to arrive... here is a sublime Neil Gaiman fanboy moment: Amanda Palmer playing Radiohead's "Creep" on ukulele... for Neil. Wheee!!

Towards the End Neil plays Mitch Benn's "Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now" for Amanda. It's this video:

Everything sounds like Coldplay now
Everything sounds like Coldplay now
No other sounds can be allowed,
Everything sounds like Coldplay now.

Everyone tries to sing like Chris
Plays the piano just like this
Very restrained, not too much row
Everything sounds like Coldplay now.

And if you do a high bit in the middle eight,
Then you have almost solved the riddle of just how
To sound like Coldplay now.

This could be Embrace, Keane or Snow Patrol,
Thirteen Senses sound like this as well I'm told
It could be anyone, it's so hard to say,
Maybe this is actually Coldplay.

'Cause everything sounds like Coldplay now.

"Venus in Furs"

2008-10-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

This is my version of the Velvets' "Venus in Furs". No way to I could do this song justice, but hell - I tried anyway in my own humble way. It's part of my ongoing "record amateur versions of all the classic V.U. songs" project.

John Cale version:




Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girlchild in the dark
Comes in bells, your servant, don't forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

Downy sins of streetlight fancies
Chase the costumes she shall wear
Ermine furs adorn the imperious
Severin, Severin awaits you there

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears

Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather
Shiny leather in the dark
Tongue of thongs, the belt that does await you
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

Severin, Severin, speak so slightly
Severin, down on your bended knee
Taste the whip, in love not given lightly
Taste the whip, now bleed for me

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears

"Elfquest" online

2008-10-06T04:38:00.000-07:00

In an interesting move Richard and Wendy Pini have put the entire "Elfquest" comics saga online so that it can be read for free. I've probably grown a bit out of this series since the 80s, but back then I loved Elfquest more than anything. I've not kept track of the many spin offs and cross overs they've done since then, but the original 20 issues, at least, remain a solid piece of fantasy entertainment. Definitely worth checking out. And if you known any 9-14 year old girls who're into fantasy then they'll probably be eternally grateful if you point them toward this thing.

[Edit: I suddenly realize that while the series is fairly harmless almost-all-ages reading, at least based on my decadent Scandinavian values, the vague suggestion in the series of 'progressive' Elfish sexual politics (more than one partner and stuff like that) may mean that it's 'mature readers only' for conservative US readers. It's a pity though. Those 10 year old girls really seem to take to this series]

Here's a blog entry from the Forbidden Planet blog - she's just gotten round to reading the series and is impressed.

Ten Years of "The Big Lebowsky"

2008-10-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

Rolling Stone celebrates ten year of "The Big Lebowsky"

I was one of those few people who 'got' it the first time. I saw it twice while it was still in the cinemas. Hah!

The anniversary DVD box:

Moebius coloring

2008-10-04T09:23:00.001-07:00

I've previously recommended Alejandro Jodorowsky's and Moebius' classic "Incal" series to readers of this blog (particularly you, Jeff). It's a Star Wars/Dune style spiritual sci fi epic based on the Tarot deck. (The main character, the third rate private detective John Difool, obviously being "The Fool".)

However as The Beat pointed out yesterday, the current English language edition has cold 'airbrushed' computer-colors that are less than ideal. Search out used copies of the old Marvel/Epic eidtions from the early nineties to get the proper warm colors close to the style Moebius use himself for his paintings.

here are a couple of comparisons:

More comparisons here.

Corto Maltese and Watchmen

2008-10-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

A few bits of comics news.

Apparently there are now rumours that Hugo Pratt's "Corto Maltese" will once again be translated into English. This time hopefully in complete form. Read a great article about it and about the series here.
There's been a screening of 25 minutes of the Watchmen movie, and apparently it's good stuff. CHUD report here.

"Sunday Morning"

2008-10-01T03:44:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly working my way through the major Velvet Underground songs. "Some Kinda Love", "Waiting for the Man", "Candy Says"... and now "Sunday Morning".

Original version:

Sunday morning, praise the dawning
It's just a restless feeling by my side
Early dawning, sunday morning
It's just the wasted years so close behind

Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all

Sunday morning and I'm falling
I've got a feeling I don't want to know
Early dawning, sunday morning
It's all the streets you crossed, not so long ago

Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all

Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all

Sunday morning
Sunday morning
Sunday morning

Tinariwen

2008-09-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

Tinariwen is a group similar to Group Inerane - both groups play a modern version of Tuareg music - but they have a more polished sound. THeir albums are also more readily available from Amazon and similar sites. They have been embraced by Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, among others.

"The Tinariwen story is already well marinated in startling myths; fierce nomadic desert tribesmen toting guns and guitars, Ghadaffi's poet-soldiers spreading their gospel of freedom throughout the world, turbaned rock'n'roll troubadours, Stratocaster on one shoulder, Kalashnikov on the other, 17 bullet wounds and rawest desert blues on earth. All this fabulous imagery is the modern equivalent of the legends that have always stuck to Tinariwen's people, the nomadic Touareg of the southern Sahara; the noble desert warrior, the blue man, the lord of the desert, mysterious, secretive, covered from head to toe with eyes only bared to the world.

Like all myths, like all legends, there's plenty of truth mixed in there with the wild fantasy and wishful thinking. But the real story is deeper, richer, more engrossing, and more universal. In the desert oasis of Tamanrasset, southern Algeria, three aimless teenage friends in exile – Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Hassan Ag Touhami aka 'The Lion of the Desert' and Inteyeden - fall in love with the guitar, and with all the dreams of modernity and freedom that it embodies. They write songs about their own lives and about those of their friends, the modern Touareg youth, no longer lording over the desert on their camels, but living the clandestino life far from home, surviving by any means necessary, longing for friends and family, dreaming of retribution, of freedom, of self-determination. They are Kel Tinariwen, the 'desert boys'.

In the 1980s, all three become soldier-musicians, lured into military camps in Libya by Colonel Ghadaffi. Their songs become the soundtrack of a time and of a movement; the ishumar, the Sahara desert's Generation X. They fight a brief, painful rebellion against the government of Mali. They accept peace. They become full-time musicians and meet LoJo, a group of musical adventurers from Angers in France. They stage the first Festival in the Desert, visit Europe for the first time, release two albums including the award winning 'Amassakoul' and tour the world. This whole epic story takes 28 years to unfold."