Drinking With Strangers: addendum

Butch Walker -- "Cigarette Lighter Love Song"


When I try to explain exactly what this man's music means to me, I just want to show people this clip. This is from a show in 2003 at Atlanta's Variety Playhouse, between Walker's first and second albums. The place was packed with fans, and I was one of them. I will never forget this night as long as I live.
The energy is the place was amazing; and every time I listen to this version of the song (in addition to the DVD of the show, he released some of the audio from the show on a live compilation some years back) I get goosebumps whenever the audience swoops in and takes over the chorus that first time through.

Drinking With Strangers

"If you've listened to FM radio any time in the last 15 years, you've probably heard a Butch Walker song -- though you probably didn't know it at the time. In 'Drinking With Strangers,' Walker recounts his days of being a Hair Metal nobody who became a Rock Star nobody who became a songwriter and producer working with Pink, Katy Perry, Tommy Lee, and some band named Weezer. Told with all of the candor, wit, and humor one would expect from one of the Greatest American Musicians No One Has Heard Of -- this memoir is the story of playing by your own rules and winning."

This was the brief little review I wrote to help sell some copies of this book at the book store where I work. And it's about as unbiased and un-hyperbolic I can get when talking about Butch Walker -- the dude's music has meant more to me over the years than I could ever attempt to describe. I discovered the Marvelous 3's breakthrough, Hey! Album, at a time when nearly every song was like a page out of my own life; and if one of the songs didn't speak to me at the time, it soon would. From then, I've followed his career pretty closely, and the man has yet to disappoint.
And it was much the same with this book. Though a lot of the Marvelous 3 and post-M3 stuff I knew about, it was nice to get to fill in all of the details. And it was nice to read about Walker's early days in hair metal band Southgang, as well as his transitional group Floyd's Funk Revival/the Floyds. (There isn't much out there from either of these bands other than some highly-marked-up shit on Ebay.)

I don't read much non-fiction -- and I especially don't read memoirs -- so I can't judge this book on the merits of such. But I can say, if you're a fan of the guy's music, you'll dig this book. If you don't know anything of Butch Walker, I'd still say give this one a shot. If nothing else, it will be a charming bedside read.


THINGS I LEARNED WHILE READING DRINKING WITH STRANGERS

~~ Butch is cousins with the former vocalist of Savatage/Trans Siberian Orchestra

~~ Rivers Cuomo was once in a hair metal band named Zoom, whose gimmick was wearing nothing but bath towels and roller skates

~~ Walker's hair metal band Southgang was one of two bands originally signed to an upstart Charisma Records. The other was a band named Jellyfish

~~ During his early days of becoming an in-demand record producer, Butch passed on the opportunity to produce the debut of an up-and-coming band named Creed



~~ Drinking with Strangers -- Butch Walker
~~ It's So Easy, and Other Lies -- Duff McKagen
~~ Things the Grandchildren Should Know -- Mark Oliver Everett
~~ Goodnight Jim Bob -- Jim Bob
~~ See a Little Light -- Bob Mould

Summer of 89, Winter of Rock Bio

Just a few days ago, Butch Walker's book/"memoir" Drinking with Strangers hit the shelves. Being a huge fan of all things Walker puts his name on, I shouldn't have to say that I'm pretty excited about this. I'm a few pages into it right now, and it's everything I expected it to be. And that's such a good thing.


But one thing struck me while starting this book -- I have a number of "rock bio" type books (auto-bios, actually) on my shelves that I've yet to read (including the promo copy of Duff McKagan's story, which should make a nice counterpoint here); so, I'm making it a point to spend most of these coming winter months making my way through these books and hopefully writing about them here. But that last part remains to be seen.

My list, so far:

~~ Drinking with Strangers -- Butch Walker
~~ It's So Easy, and Other Lies -- Duff McKagen
~~ Things the Grandchildren Should Know -- Mark Oliver Everett
~~ Goodnight Jim Bob -- Jim Bob

Voodoo Zombie Blaxploitation

Last night, the people (or person) behind the Grindhouse Film Festival series screened the relatively unknown blaxploitation-horror gem, Sugar Hill. Not being too well-versed in blaxploitation (just like most of Portland, it would seem, given how surprised Halstead was at the crowd that showed up), this movie was unknown to me. I'm aware of some of the other entries in the hybrid genre -- Blacula, Scream Blacula Scream, Dr Black and Mr Hyde -- but again, I've never seen any of them. But much like the kung-fu films I spent years blissfully ignoring during my years of near-constant VHS scouring, opting instead to make my way through the horror section of all the video rental stores in my area -- the Grindhouse series has been slowly exposing me to some great blaxploitation films; Sugar Hill being no exception.

Like so many films of that era, and especially those that fall under the "grindhouse" banner, Sugar Hill is not without its flaws -- in acting, in the plot, in its own logic; but also like so many of those grindhouse films, that's where a lot of the film's charm comes from. It's schlocky, it's silly, it's pandering, it's kinda stupid, but it's also entertaining and fun.

If you're a fan of some of the other genres that fall under the collective grindhouse umbrella, then I do recommend this one to you. Yes -- it falls short in some areas, but the voodoo approach to the (stale, even then) zombie movie is a nice change of pace.
If you're not a fan, you can probably skip this one. Overall, it's pretty basic fare.

DSC_5633

DSC_5633, originally uploaded by G C Lee.

No Dust Here

Last night was the opening for No Dust Here, a group art show I'm taking part in. For the show, a number of artists were given old record albums and asked to reinterpret the cover(s) however they saw fit, using whatever medium they wanted. As usual, my medium was photography. Here are side-by-side comparisons of the source material (album cover) and my final submitted image:









The show runs throughout the month of August, at the Basil Hallward gallery on the third floor of Powell's City of Books. If you can, go check out it. There's some really amazing work in the show.

overlooked, underrated pt 2

A few more entries in my favorite overlooked albums list



Morrissey -- Kill Uncle
After Southpaw Grammar, this album probably receives the most ire and criticism of Moz's solo attempts. I've never understood why. I think it's a damn solid album, full of gems and career highlights. In fact, I've listened to this one so much that my CD has tiny holes worn through the top side, making it unlistenable now. Thankfully I was able to rip it into iTunes before that happened.








Morrissey -- Maladjusted
This one isn't spat upon so much as it's simply ignored by most. And unfairly so.
All in all, this album was probably the last good album the man recorded (he's still making records that follow this same blueprint, yet those have been received unwarranted praise from all corners, while this one is continually forgotten -- even the recent resequenced reissue didn't do much to improve it's general legacy).





more to come...

overlooked, underrated

Recently, PopMatters posted an article on "10 albums that supposedly suck, but don't" -- which got me thinking of my own list of personal favorite albums that are often looked down upon or ignored by long-time fans. Sometimes, a band will branch out and try a new sound, or find itself drifting into some different territory. Some times, this change is awful. Other times, it's just new and different; and after time, it comes to stand out as something to give a second (or third or fourth) chance.

Here are a few of my favorites, in no real order.



Twisted Sister -- Love is for Suckers
Originally conceived as a solo vehicle for Dee Snider, this is a huge departure for a Twisted Sister record and often receives a lot of unfair criticism. It was never meant to be a proper "metal" album, and so it can't really be criticized for not meeting any kinds of "metal" standards. It was meant to be a more pop-oriented, more radio-friendly device to launch Snider as a solo artist. Depending on whose story you hear/believe, one side or the other -- Snider or Atlantic records -- was a bit weary of releasing it as a solo record and demanded it be released as a Twisted Sister record. The album itself had been recorded with a series of studio musicians (Kip Winger among them), but the other members of Twisted Sister received credit on the album. So, in the end, fans were given a "Twisted Sister" album that had not been recorded by the band proper, so sounded a far sight different than expected. It was also a Pop album disguised as a Metal album -- never a good thing.
And unfortunately, the backlash the band received, in addition to conflicts within the band itself, was too much. And an album that most of them had nothing to do with was to be their swansong.

If you can put aside any notions that this is supposed to be a "metal" album, I think you'll find a pretty strong (not perfect), utterly enjoyable pop album.






GWAR -- Carnival of Chaos
I once read a review that described this album as the "thinking man's GWAR album," and I kinda have to agree. After setting the world on fire with Scumdogs of the Universe, watching it burn with American Must Be Destroyed, and then feeding it to the World Maggot with This Toilet Earth, there wasn't much left for them to do. So, they brought about the end of times with Ragnarok and reveled in it all with Carnival of Chaos.
They tried some new things, tried some new sounds, and (unfortunately) set the stage for their near-demise. While certainly not a flawless album, it's certainly one that deserves more attention than it currently receives; as well as a higher rank among the GWAR echelon.







Misfits -- American Psycho
Yes. We all know that the Michal Graves era of the Misfits could not hold a candle to the (classic, legendary) Glenn Danzig era of the Misfits. Such an argument is ridiculous, cliche, and should not still be happening in 2011.
That said -- if you're able to take this (first) reincarnation of the band on its own terms and its own merits, you'll find a really solid horror-themed pop-punk band who released two solid albums. The first one -- American Psycho -- is the stronger of the two, and definitely worth a re-appraisal if you happened to be one of the ones who initially cast it off.





....more to come....

Wuving the Oaf

The Wunderful Ed Luce -- creator of the Wuvable Oaf comics -- was recently interviewed over on the Accidental Bear blog. You should definitely go read it.

Also, Luce will be at Floating World Comics on August 4th, premiering the latest issue of Wuvable Oaf, as well as exhibiting a selection of art work.

*Hint Hint* His show would make the perfect prelude, or follow-up, to the No Dust Here show which will be at the Basil Hallward gallery at Powell's Books starting August 4th -- a show that I will have a few pieces in. *Hint Hint*

No Dust Here

I've recently posted some information on No Dust Here -- an upcoming group art show/project I'll be taking part in during August -- over on my photography blog.

Black Moon

Thanks to the glory that is Janus Films and their continually outstanding Criterion Collection...um, collection -- I've recently been turned on to the staggeringly beautiful weirdness that is Louis Malle's Black Moon. An English-dialogue French Surrealist revision of Alice in Wonderland that concerns itself with ambiance and atmosphere, rather than any actual plot. Bitchy fat unicorns, brother/sister make up parties, an elderly matron whose best friend is a rat and who breast feeds from her daughter -- it's an incomprehensible, indescribable fever dream that follows dream logic from start to finish. While it's not a film that will connect with everyone, it's definitely a film that will leave its mark with all who give it a chance.

7 inches...

I've recently started moving my vinyl collection into the digital realm; it's been far easier than initially thought, and it's also reacquainted me with some long lost friends and long lost gems.

So, I thought I'd share these wonders with anyone who happened to be interested:

I've started tossing them up on a new blog: 7 Inches of Ecstasy

For now, I'm focusing mostly on my 7" and "45" records, but I'm sure I'll throw in an occasional 10" or 12" long player for variety.

Come on over and join the party!

I Was There

I've recently started another blog, over in the Tumblr universe. It's nothing but scans of all the various concert/movie/event tickets I've held onto over the years.

It can be found at:

http://ticket-taker.tumblr.com

Come on over!

Stumptown 2011

This past weekend was the 2011 Stumptown Comics Fest. Again, I volunteered for a few hours during the festival in exchange for free entry. Saturday, I spent my time chatting and catching up with friends, sported my Vic Boone hoodie to try and raise awareness for an awesome upcoming new comics series, bought a lot of shit, and had my sketchbook filled in a little.
Sunday was my work day, so I didn't do much other than say my farewells before heading into my real job.

Here are some of the sketches now filling up my book:









a Wuvable Oaf sketch from the wonderful Ed Luce



a sketch from Julia Wertz, formerly of Fart Party



a Spacetrawler-related sketch from Christopher Baldwin




SAILOR MOON, as sketched by Katie Shanahan




from Erika Moen, half of the Bucko team




Hellboy, as "sketched" by Vinny Navarrete



a top-notch top-knot from Sarah Olekysk



a Sex Wizard from Carolyn Main's Sex Wizards

Appreciation: 'Opus'

For the second outing of my Theatre Appreciation class, we went to see Michael Hollinger's play Opus performed by Portland Center Stage. I've been to a few PCS performances, but not many of their contemporary productions -- I've seen them perform King Lear, The Importance of Being Earnest, the obligatory production of A Christmas Carol; but the only modern/contemporary production I've seen from them was The Pillowman, which was merely OK. And therein lies my problem with most contemporary theater productions -- I find them only to OK, usually I find them to be incredibly pedestrian and predictable.
Case in point, Hollinger's Opus. While it wasn't a bad play (it was competent enough and the actor's all had their chops), it certainly wasn't an interesting piece, nor was it as provocative as it thought itself to be.
It was very much a "white people's problems" story ("Do I join the nice small quartet or do I take the audition for the Pittsburgh symphony?"; "If we perform at the White House, do we really have to play 'Hail to the Chief?'"; "We're gay professional orchestral musicians, yet we're still in the closet!"), like one long, highly produced, live episode of Friends. And had I come in with a check list of everything I'd expect to be in a modern/contemporary play, about modern/contemporary "problems," I would have checked off every single plot point on that list.
I find myself having the same issues with most of other contemporary forms of art, but that's another post for another day.

Appreciation: 'The Adding Machine'

This semester, I'm taking a Theater Appreciation class, wherein we will be taking in numerous productions throughout the Portland area. The first one of these was Theater Vertigo's production of Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine -- an American Expressionist piece from the 1920s.
It is the story of Mr Zero, a downtrodden, faceless, nameless man who, on the day of his twenty-fifth anniversary with his company, is told that he will be replaced by an adding machine -- a piece of machinery that not only will make his manual job obsolete, but that "can be operated by a high school girl" for less pay. Zero's reaction is to murder his boss. He is then tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
In the play's second act, Rice skews the audiences expectations for Zero's redemption -- showing his fate to be anything but redemptional.

Expressionism is defined as a movement that "present[s] the world in an utterly subjective perspective, radically distorting it for emotional effect, to evoke moods or ideas." And this where Theater Vertigo's production really shined. The set was incredibly minimal, with only the most basic props used, and the makeup was stellar: masks and half-masks used to wonderful effect, helping to stretch a small company of actors into a much larger number of unique individual roles.

The story itself also hit a little close to home for me -- my employer having recently laid off nearly 10% of its unionized work force. Fortunately(?), I was not one amongst that number, but more than a few friends and co-workers were. So, seeing such a play as The Adding Machine with those lay-offs still in mind added another layer to the experience.


The Adding Machine runs 4/8/11-5/7/11, Thursday/Friday/Saturday only, with Thursday nights being pay-what-you-can. And, it's at Theater Theatre on SE Belmont -- a fantastic establishment for smaller local theater productions.
If you're able, I highly recommend this one.

Obits

Also, it seems a new Obits record has slipped in under the radar.
And it's a good one -- it doesn't cover much new ground since the first one, but the band sounds tighter and more confident as a whole.

some quick reviews

Last weekend, I rented Wes Craven's last offering -- My Soul to Take Take.
What could have been a pretty decent teen slasher film turned out to be little more than Wes Craven trying to remake Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street, by way of Virginia Woolf's The Waves -- a group of teenagers connected through a superfluous "other;" in this case, it's a Freddy Krueger-like mass murderer (the Riverton Ripper) with multiple personalities. The main characters of the story were all born on the night the Ripper supposedly died, and are believed throughout the community to each be an embodiment of one of the Ripper's various personalities.
It starts off interesting and with potential, but loses steam halfway through and then gives up completely by the end, leaving some gigantic plot holes in its wake.





I followed that one up with the Bava/Argento production, Demons.
I don't know why I got it into my head to check this one out; I'd attempted to watch it on numerous occasions, but always gave up about 20 minutes into it. But this time, I stuck it out and kept with it -- and I'm glad I did. While it does move at a slower-than-glacial pace at the beginning, it really picks up after a while and becomes a pretty damn fun, gory mess of a classic. And it even has a killer soundtrack to go along with it.
I recently found out there is a sequel to this one, so I'll probably pick that one up soon.

final

This is "rough" edit of my final project for my Final Cut Pro / video editing class. We were to edit together a montage, choosing one of four sets of criteria.

Mine is a montage that attempts to tell a story.
It is based on Peter Walsh's dream sequence from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. The narration is of the dream sequence, but read from a Russian translation of the text.
I may tweak a few of the cut points throughout the piece, but otherwise it is a done deal, and one that I am happy with the outcome.

Jay

Jay a video by G C Lee on Flickr.

Rubber

Last night, I headed to the "After Dark" series of the Portland International Film Festival to catch Rubber -- an English-language French film about an abandoned tire who, after becoming sentient, discovers that he has telekinetic abilities: so, he (his name is Robert) travels the country side making various animals and people's heads explode. It's also structured in such away that allows it to be incredibly contained and self-referential.
It's cute, "meta-," and "artsy" but thankfully stays just this side of entertaining so as not to be too cloy.

Return

...and I'm back.

These days, my spare time is more and more infrequent. And that means things such as blog posts become more and more infrequent as well.
But, to catch up --

-- I spent some time in Alabama, celebrating Christmas with my family. I try to make it down that way once a year to visit and see my niece and nephews.

-- I returned to some *ridiculous* roommate drama, causing me to move out a few weeks earlier than planned. But things have a way of working out, and I'm now sharing a place in SE Portland with a friend of mine.

-- I'm on about halfway through my third term of school. It's currently kicking my ass, but forcing me to be creative. So it works out well.

And speaking of such things, here is my first project from mt Video Production/Editing (Final Cut Pro) class. I did not film the footage used; I simply had to edit a batch of footage together to tell a story somewhere between 45 seconds and two minutes in length.






And that's all the high points I can think of.
More to come soon, I hope.