You can’t put your arms around a memory.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this site is dead. We simply do not have the time to pursue it any further. Feel free to peruse the archives, but don’t expect any updates; it will be a very, very long wait.

The Doors…Reopened

The issue of authorial intent has always been a thorny one in the arts, and never more so than in this age of digital revisionism. Who can say, for instance, that putting giant lizard-riding Stormtroopers on the streets of Mos Eisley was really part of young George Lucas’ “vision” during the filming of Star Wars in 1977? Lucas can, that’s who, and if his insertion of these and many other CG-enhanced details into the film twenty years after the fact hasn’t necessarily made the world a worse place to live in (not even the most rabid of Star Wars freaks would try to make that claim), then I think it certainly goes without saying that it hasn’t made the world a better place, either. Which brings us, however indirectly, to the Doors, who forty years after the release of their debut album have elected to meddle with a different kind of giant lizard altogether (the Lizard King, geddit?). And this isn’t just some plain old garden-variety remaster job, either: on the new reissue of 1967’s seminal The Doors (previously released as part of Rhino’s Perception box set late last year), the surviving band members with the help of original engineer Bruce Botnick have given the album an all-out facelift, replacing scrapped overdubs from the original multitrack studio recordings, increasing the overall pitch by about a half-step (a correction of apparent mastering issues which caused the first umpteen or so pressings of the album to run slow), and even reinserting a few (gasp) dirty words.

Some of you, I’m sure, are wondering what the big deal is; new and improved is new and improved. But for the purists among us, this kind of move sends up warning flags. It makes us ask just how acceptable it is to fundamentally alter a classic album in the name of hearing it “as it was originally intended.” Because frankly, in another 40 years or so, when Botnick and the Doors (…Of the 21st Century or otherwise) are no longer of this earth, nobody’s really gonna care about their “intentions” while they were in the studio. They’re gonna care about the music that came out of the studio, the music we’ve been listening to and liking just fine since 1967. And frankly, in those cases when the music has been noticeably changed, to the ears of this layperson the changes have been for the worse, not for the better.

Let’s go with the obvious example: on opening track “Break On Through (To the Other Side),” we have traditionally heard Jim Morrison squawk something to the effect of, “She gets…! She gets…! She gets…! Haaaauuggghhhhhhhh!” Now only a choirboy who’s been living under a rock since the 1950s would fail to realize precisely what “she gets.” She gets high, and though the offending word itself is never actually spoken, we’re as painfully aware of that fact today as we were in the summer of ‘67. So why, in the spring of 2007, do we now have a version of the song where Morrison audibly sings “she gets high,” adding nothing to our enjoyment of the song and actually taking away from the performance’s rhythmic propulsion and sense of on-the-edge danger? This may seem like splitting hairs, and maybe it is, but when the lyrics are just “she gets…”, that little ellipsis speaks louder than any big, bad word. It puts us on edge, makes us wonder whether he’s really gonna say it, the way Roger Daltrey’s stuttering of the “F” sound on “My Generation” still does even after we’ve heard it a million times and know that all he’s gonna say is “fade away.” Not only that, but by leaving the whole word a blank slate, not even giving us the benefit of a first syllable to go by, “Break On Through” used to invite our imaginations to run wild. She could have gotten anything. She gets fucked. She gets screwed. She gets…well, I dunno, but you get the idea.

The point is that by allowing themselves finally to cross the imaginary line they once dubbed the “fuck barrier,” the Doors have somehow managed to neuter one of the most potent moments on what is arguably still their greatest album. And while it’s hardly a reason not to run out and buy The Doors if you haven’t already, even in this altered edition, then it’s certainly worth noting as an example of final results trumping “original intent.”

Accidental bowlderization aside, however, there are admittedly few moments when the “new” Doors album assaults the ears in an altogether unpleasing manner. “Light My Fire” is still the organ-fuelled marathon we know and love. “Back Door Man” is still one of the greatest white-boy blues cuts of the 1960s, hands down. And “The End” is still a hamfisted but oddly terrifying closer, a song whose epic length (11 minutes, 41 seconds on this disc), overt portentousness (who today has the nads to close an album with the words “this is the end, beautiful friend” – a debut album, at that?), and infamous Oedipal climax is still as likely to trigger your gag reflex as give you goosebumps, often both at the same time. If you’ve never heard this record, or you haven’t heard it in years, or you stopped listening to it because you decided it wasn’t “cool” enough, you owe it to yourself to check it out again. It really is that good.

In fact, if there’s anything to recommend this repackaged version of The Doors, it’s the fact that these days, pretty much any reason to hear this much-loved and maligned band with fresh ears is a good one. It’s easy after four decades of blacklight posters, Oliver Stone biopics and ill-advised reunion tours with that dude from the Cult to let the shadow of the Doors mystique obscure the quite excellent music at its center; nor is this helped at all by the band members themselves, who tend to come off as either pompous, self-important assholes or stuck-in-the-’60s dinosaurs, with the insufferable Ray Manzarek representing the worst of both worlds. Then there’s the specter of Morrison himself, who was never one for letting the music stand on his own terms. The guy was no mere mortal, he was a “shaman.” The “Lizard King.” “Bozo Dionysus,” as Lester Bangs dubbed him, and not (as many of my generation have smugly and erroneously assumed) out of malice. But with the exception of a few theatrical flourishes – the aforementioned “The End, ” bits of “End of the Night” and “Break On Through” – here he’s just Jim, a passable crooner and over/under-rated poet (depending on whom you ask) who works a lot better when he’s wailing and guiding his crack bar band through unabashed garage rockers which may or may not spill way over their expected runtimes.

The Doors at its best isn’t the work of the capital-”D,” “Riders on the Storm,” “no one here gets out alive,” dead-Indians-on-the-freeway Doors, the ones your stoner friends used to worship in junior high and who you abandoned sometime between mid-high school and your freshman year in college; it’s the work of a rock and roll band, and a damned good one at that. That, precisely, is the beauty of these early years in the band’s history, before they lost the plot and started to mistake forced profundity and ponderous arrangements for musical “progressiveness.” And it’s just that raw and untamed side of the Doors which tends to get lost in the shuffle, and which another listen to their debut will, if you let it, help you rediscover. Music listeners of the world, you’ve just been re-introduced to a little band out of L.A. called the Doors. Enjoy them…whether it’s in the way they “originally intended” or not.

- Zach Hoskins

The Doors Official Site
Buy The Doors (Remastered) from Amazon

Jazz/Punk!!

In a way, it’s a wonder that jazz and punk rock never thought to cross paths sooner. Mind you, I’m not talking about the technically impressive but rather flaccid “jazz/rock” of 1970s proggers like Emerson, Lake & Palmer – that shit falls pretty firmly under the heading of “Reasons Why Punk Had to Happen.” But from the perspective of a movement whose very goal was to slap some sense back into the late ’70s music scene, just what could be more alienating to the mullet-rockers and navel-gazers of the world than a little late-period Coltrane? Or, put this way, which seems more “radical” to you: the mildly overdriven, nihilistic Chuck Berryisms of the Sex Pistols, or James Chance & The Contortions’ frenetic blend of punk rock invective, James Brown groove, and Ornette Coleman saxophone skronk? I’ll tell you one thing; I know which one of those styles is more likely to clear the floor at a meeting of the Rod Stewart Appreciation Society, and it ain’t the one with the loud guitars.

The polemical/extreme/punk as fuck qualities of avant-garde jazz are familiar territory for Mike Watt, George Hurley, Dan McGuire and Joe Baiza, the five men who form the nucleus of the loose jazz/punk/poetry project Unknown Instructors. Not only is their recent release, The Master’s Voice, their second record as a group (debut The Way Things Work was released on Smog Veil Records in 2005), but the boys have been treading similar waters individually since the early ’80s: Watt and Hurley with the Minutemen and then fIREHOSE, Baiza in the Saccharine Trust and Universal Congress Of, and McGuire as a general jazz sax/spoken-word man about town. That accumulated experience is obvious from the first notes of The Master’s Voice, when the ironclad Watt/Hurley rhythm section propels Baiza’s wailing guitar feedback into a head-on collision with McGuire’s deadpan, Beat-inspired verse. The song is called “Swarm,” and by god the music lives up to its title, conjuring images of a locust plague of Biblical proportions; it may be over in less than two and a half minutes, but it’s a hell of a way to start an album, somehow manic and restrained, propulsive and deeply atmospheric all at once.

And the fun doesn’t stop there. Pound for pound, The Master’s Voice is a better and more accomplished record than The Way Things Work; while the shortcomings of that album (chiefly an uneven, occasionally “samey” quality in the instrumental grooves) aren’t entirely absent here, coming as they do with the territory of recorded jam sessions, this second effort from the Instructors feels both more cohesive and more thrillingly of-the-moment, both of which, paradoxical though they may be, are good things. On the one hand, the core Instructors have grown as a musical unit, cutting off-the-cuff jams (”At the Center,” the Wolf Eyes-monikered “Maggot Sludge”) which sound less like noodling and more like actual songs, while moving into intriguing new free-form territory on tracks like the bluesy, Beefheartian “Doghouse Riley.” But on the other hand, the band’s auxiliary lineup has also been expanded, breathing new life into the proceedings and ensuring that we won’t just be hearing The Way Things Work, Part 2. David Thomas, who guests on three tracks including the hilariously titled “This Black Hat is Rage,” is of course his usual inimitable self, his “strangled penguin” vocals coming off even more unhinged than they did on the last Pere Ubu album; hearing him cut loose in this setting just might be worth the price of admission alone.

Granted, not all of these guest spots work: legendary SST “house artist” (and designer of the Black Flag logo) Raymond Pettibon contributes a nice drawing for the cover, but his vocal performance on “Twing-Twang” – basically a series of “whimsical” variations on the title – is proof enough that even the most talented of graphic artists aren’t always meant to mix media. Still, the loose, collective atmosphere of the record benefits enormously from this shifting lineup, even though it means we have to endure Pettibon’s moment in the spotlight; it gives a further sense of Unknown Instructors as more than just another band of aging punks, something more akin to a genuine art/punk/jazz/poetry “happening” which goes down refreshingly rough in these days of same-sounding “supergroups” and “indie rock” as a codified genre. In fact, The Master’s Voice is such a freewheeling and one-of-a-kind record that it makes Watt’s current moonlighting as a Stooge-in-Waiting feel all the more disappointing; if Iggy and the Asheton boys had just thought to take a little of the spirit displayed by Unknown Instructors into the studio, then maybe, just maybe, they would have made The Weirdness into a record worthy of Fun House’s legacy…or at least just made it live up to its name.

Meanwhile, those for whom one record of modern jazz/punk just isn’t enough would do well to check out the self-titled debut by Puttanesca, released late last year. Also featuring Baiza on guitar, as well as his former UCO bandmate Ralph Godoretsky on bass, drummer Wayne Griffin, and vocalist Weba Garretson, Puttanesca may not boast the same kamikaze thrills as The Master’s Voice, but what it lacks in off-the-cuff excitement it more than makes up for in tunefulness, with cool melodies that drift up and out of the speakers like cigarette smoke in a noir nightclub. As a frontwoman, Weba Garretson is a powerhouse, her intoxicatingly smooth vocals lending a touch of class to Baiza’s angular fretwork. Her apparently structuring influence as a songwriter, too, suits the guitarist well; if his more tedious improvisations with the Instructors occasionally serve as reminders of just why the electric guitar is a less expressive instrument for free jazz than, say, the tenor saxophone, here he’s at the top of his game, laying down grooves with an easy funkiness on “Shiny Red Box” and channeling his best Antennae Jimmy Semens on “Fruit Filled Pancake.”

But Puttanesca works best as a collaborative effort, and the best songs on this record are the ones where the whole is greater than the sum of its musical parts. Like “White Nylon,” where Godoretsky plucks out an almost subliminally funky bassline under Garretson’s and Baiza’s mutual racket. Or “Red Haired Woman,” the album’s majestic chill-out number, in which the band wisely resists the urge to go all out and lets Garretson’s voice stretch languorously over a bed of mellow guitar chords, brushed percussion, and even a closing flute solo to boot. Best of all, though (and not just because it allows me to make my third Beefheart reference in this single article), is the closing cover of “Lick My Decals Off, Baby,” which faithfully co-opts the Magic Band’s galloping arrangement while Garretson injects the lyrics with a sexuality Don Van Vliet could never muster. In fact, just about the only complaint I have for Puttanesca is the cover art, which might just be the worst album artwork I’ve seen in a long while. The tiny version we have posted above simply doesn’t do justice to its awfulness (try here), but you can probably tell that it depicts the band members’ heads as ingredients in a giant bowl of – you guessed it – pasta puttanesca, which is depicted inexplicably flying through outer space. I think I’ve said enough. At any rate, let’s hope that next time these guys drop an album, they’ll hire a new graphic designer; music as good as this demands much, much better visuals to go with it. Seriously, a space-traveling pasta bowl? That’s so not punk.

Unknown Instructors Official Site (Facemop)
Puttanesca Official Site
Buy The Master’s Voice from Amazon and Puttanesca from CD Baby

Track Review: Patti Smith – “Gimme Shelter”

Much like any self-respecting female music enthusiast, I have a thing for Patti Smith. The woman howls like a wolf, growls like a drunken sailor, and rages and storms through a set with more energy and joy than most modern musicians half her age. And her recent cover of “Gimme Shelter” – from the forthcoming covers record Twelve – reminds her fans that Patti’s still got it. In fact, my only complaint about the track is that it’s so produced that any of the eerie “rock band from the gates of hell” feel from the Stones’ 1969 original is lost in this new, cleaner cut. It’s just a little too safe. And come on folks; if anyone still has the guts and strength to both make you move and make you worry that Satan’s just around the corner, it should be Patti Smith.

- Megan Giddings

Listen to It
Pre-Order Twelve (out April 17)

Zodiac

Late one Friday night, when I was around eleven years old, I was flipping through TV channels when I came upon a show about serial killers. One of the only images I can remember from that show was a man wearing all black, with the sign of the Zodiac emblazoned upon his chest. I only remember hearing that this man had never been caught. From then on I was always petrified of Zodiac, a cold-blooded murderer who terrorized the San Francisco area in the late 1960s. Even to this day, when I think of serial killers, he’s the first that comes to my mind.

So fast forward to 2007, and imagine my surprise when I hear that Zodiac is being turned into a film, starring none other than Jake Gyllenhaal. Right from the start I wanted to see the film, if only so I could at least put a story and face to my subconscious fear of the Zodiac Killer.

The movie begins July 4, 1969 in a small California town. Two teenagers are driving down a deserted road in order to “get closer.” Throughout the scene, “Hurdy Gurdy Man” by Donovan plays on the radio. At first the song merely adds to the ambience of the era, reminding the viewer that he is indeed in the late 1960s, but it soon becomes a stark contrast to the visuals as the two young people are shot to death by a faceless man. The murder scenes in Zodiac are graphic; director David Fincher leaves nothing to the imagination as far as blood and gore go. Every gunshot is heard and every splatter of blood is seen as the murders are reenacted from start to finish.

The most disturbing scene of the movie was the second murder. A man wearing all black with a white zodiac sign emblem emblazoned upon his chest approaches two young adults in a state park; he robs them at gunpoint, forces them to tie each others’ hands and then repeatedly stabs the two. The movie was so gruesome at this point (along with the many other murder scenes) that I had to close my eyes.

Despite the graphic murder scenes described above, however, Zodiac is not just blood, guts and gore. Much of the movie follows the story of the detectives and reporters hunting down the Zodiac killer. Through the use of music, set decoration and period clothing (bell bottoms and cowboy shirts), Zodiac recreates the world of ’60s and ’70s California in brilliant fashion.

After each of his crimes, Zodiac sends letters to the San Francisco Chronicle detailing what he has done. His descriptions are dramatized in the form of voiceovers in which Zodiac’s words, calm and remorseless, are juxtaposed over shots of police inspectors at the murder scenes. It gives an eerie sensation; Zodiac sounds proud of what he had done. Robert Downey Jr. plays the reporter assigned to the Zodiac case; haunted by continuous threats from the killer, he eventually retires his post. Perhaps a typecast role, Downey’s character falls into trouble with hard drugs and alcohol.

Jake Gyllenhaal, meanwhile, plays a cartoonist who begins work on a book after the case has gone cold to see if he can turn up any missing clues. As his life is consumed by the search for Zodiac, Gyllenhall’s character begins receiving anonymous late night phone calls from a person whose only characteristic is portrayed by deep, spine-chilling breathing: Zodiac. Finally, Mark Ruffalo plays one of the lead detectives on the Zodiac case. He too is consumed by the hunt for the killer. Every time he tries to put it behind him, the Zodiac case always seems to come back to haunt him.

As you might have already guessed, even after two and a half hours and countless segues of “two days/months/years later,” no justice comes about for Zodiac’s victims. No one is ever arrested, no one is tried; however, the detectives have reason to believe that certain suspects may have been responsible. It’s infuriating to watch so many innocent people murdered and not see anyone punished for it. But in an age when so many crime dramas (this means you, CSI!) have happy endings, Zodiac reminds us that in real life crimes aren’t always solved, and they don’t always end justly. The viewer leaves the film with a stronger grip on reality, and a bit of a haunting sensation to watch his or her back.

- Cole Merkel

Zodiac Official Site
IMDb Listing

The Cult of the Label: 50 Years of Stax Records

What’s in a label? Or more specifically, what’s in a record label – a great one, one which transcends its utilitarian function as industrial distributor and commodifier of recorded music to become a superlative artistic entity unto itself? Certainly for many music listeners, the name and logo on an album sleeve can take on a significance which almost rivals the music etched into the vinyl itself. Connoisseurs of Elvis Presley, for instance, have been fetishizing his work for the legendary Memphis imprint Sun for so long and with such intensity that it has become a byword for everything raw and untamed about “The Hillbilly Cat” pre-Ed Sullivan Show, to the exclusion of his equally seminal early recordings for RCA, and despite the fact that the entirety of his Sun sessions can be fit easily onto two compact discs, alternate takes and all.

The cult of the label, in this sense, is the mark of a true record geek: one who consumes not only music but the physical media on which it is recorded, to the point where the medium achieves an almost ritualistic significance, superseding content and authorship alike. In their deepest, darkest unconscious desires, people like these (okay, I’ll admit, us) don’t just want the major label reissue of Elvis’ Sun sides; we want the genuine article, the sides themselves, on original plastic with the original dust and with “SUN RECORDS” emblazoned boldly across the original label. Remember in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, when prototypical record geek Rob Fleming fantasized about having his apartment walls painted with the logos for classic labels such as Stax, Sun, Chess and Trojan, mere hours after his longtime live-in girlfriend dumped him? Not only does this moment violate every law of break-up propriety and interior decorating taste in existence, but it demonstrates most eloquently the iconic power of a great label in the mind of the fanatic consumer.

Yet it is undeniable that there is something more to a great label than mere totemic significance; more than the fetish-object substitute for that artistic “aura” whose loss in the face of mass industry Walter Benjamin observed in his 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” After all, what “aura” would a mere record label possess were it not for their musical signatures, a kind of industrial authorship akin to (but not nearly as hegemonic or restrictive as) the studio system of Classical Hollywood? And what’s a record label without the very human forces which drive it, defining for better or for worse the nature of its output? Thanks to the legendary blunder of A&R man Dick Rowe, the British company Decca was marked indelibly in my mind as the Label That Turned Down the Beatles for many of my formative years as a music listener. And on a more positive note, as the recently-released box set Forever Changing: The Golden Age of Elektra 1963-73 proves, classic labels needn’t necessarily possess a trademark sound when they’re guided by a person of vision; Elektra founder Jac Holzman signed artists as diverse as Phil Ochs, Nico, the Doors and the Stooges, with the only criterion for inclusion being the appeal of the music. The result, though without a “sound” as homogenized as those of Stax, Sun or Motown, was one of the most impressive rosters of its era.

All of this is key to interpreting the 50th anniversary of Stax Records, a label whose significance in the invention and refinement of soul music is second only to its Northern cousin/rival Motown, and whose musical worth, at least in my highly subjective opinion, might just have the edge. Founded in 1957 by Memphis, Tennessean siblings Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton (then under the name Satellite Records), Stax and its later subsidiary Volt represented the gold standard in raw Southern soul for roughly 15 years: from the summer 1960 release of breakthrough single “‘Cause I Love You” by Rufus and Carla Thomas until its mid-’70s decline and eventual bankruptcy in December of 1975. The prestige of Stax/Volt with regard to ’60s soul, as well as its persisting influence to this day, is simply undeniable; it is a label amongst labels, one of the very small handful in history which are every bit as important to popular music as the artists they recorded and released. For this reason it is on a certain level refreshing that Concord Music Group, the current rightsholders to the Stax name, have announced plans to reactivate the label – the fact that Concord recognizes the pedigree of the Stax name enough to resurrect it as an active producer of new music suggests a respect for music history which is rare in the current industry.

But to suggest that the “new Stax” is a true extension of the original, literally picking up where the label left off in 1975, would be more than a little ingenuous. As mentioned above, one of the key components of a great record label are the great men or women behind it, and Stax had at least two: founder Jim Stewart, whose vision took a small-time pop, country and rockabilly imprint and transformed it into one of the most crucial forces in Black music, and sales director-cum-driving force Al Bell, who was responsible both for bringing Stax’s rootsy Deep South sound to an urban audience in the North and for diversifying its sound in the wake of star singer Otis Redding’s 1968 death. It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine Stax Records without at least one of these two men at the helm.

Perhaps even more importantly, the elements that make a great label great often have less to do with the personnel involved, however capable, and more to do with the musical zeitgeist, an ineffable and unpredictable quality which cannot be captured by something as simple as the resurrection of a name and a logo. Every record geek worth his salt knows what a “Sub Pop” record sounds like; chances are, however, that they think it sounds a lot more like Bleach or Superfuzz Bigmuff than the Shins or Iron & Wine. Is this the fault of the label, its owners, or its A&R personnel? Hardly; it’s just that nobody’s making records in the “classic” Sub Pop vein anymore, and chances are that nobody ever will. That time has past.

Ironically, the document which best proves the inimitable quality of Stax/Volt’s “Golden Age” is the same compilation with which Concord has chosen to launch its “new age”: Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration, a two-disc set packed to the brims with 50 tracks that demonstrate, as eloquently and succinctly as can do the subject justice, just how amazing Stax Records was. It’s a nigh-essential purchase for the neophyte, the perfect sampler for any number of classic artists from Johnnie Taylor to the Staple Singers, and a great listen to boot. But as a starting point for new Stax music, it shoots itself in the foot; one listen to these songs and it’s impossible not to ask oneself whether such dizzying heights can ever truly be replicated.

Beginning with Carla Thomas’ crystalline “Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)” (though inexplicably leaving off her breakout duet with Daddy Rufus, despite the fact that it is mentioned in the liner notes) and ending with the label’s last big hit (Shirley Brown’s “Woman to Woman”), Stax 50th represents a near-faultless compressed history, admittedly not as definitive as 2000’s four-disc Stax Story or as exhaustive as the complete Stax/Volt singles boxes, but arguably a more inviting listen for casual fans or newcomers than either. It’s all here, or at least most of it: “Green Onions,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now),” “Knock on Wood,” “Soul Man.” And in those inevitable cases where an essential track has been left off the list (Otis’ “Try a Little Tenderness” and Sam & Dave’s “I Thank You” are both conspicuous in their absences, for starters), well, I for one am willing to guess that most listeners’ interests have been sufficiently piqued to invest in a disc or two by the individual artists.

Perhaps this collection’s greatest accomplishment, however, is that in compressing so many epochal sides into just over two hours, it provides a concise blueprint for just what made Stax so special: a combination of savvy entrepreneurship, geography, and some of the most impressive talent in music history. Just as Berry Gordy of Motown took inspiration from the assembly lines of Detroit to forge one of pop music’s greatest “hit factories,” so Stewart and Bell drew on Memphis’ rich heritage of gospel and rhythm-and-blues performance for the ultimate “live” aesthetic. Few session crews in soul music were as exciting as the Stax “house band,” otherwise known as Booker T. & The M.G.’s; but even after their 1971 departure following squabbles with new owner Bell over musical direction, the “Stax sound” was above all raw, untamed and impossibly funky, as evidenced by the Bar-Kays, something of a replacement for Booker, Cropper and company in the 1970s, whose performance of “Son of Shaft” in the 1973 film Wattstax (unfortunately not included here, though the studio version makes a decent replacement) makes a case for that incarnation of the band as a criminally underlooked nexus of Hendrix-esque rock, nascent funk and full-throttle R&B.

Indeed, those who know Stax only from “Knock on Wood” and its ilk will find Stax 50th’s second disc something of a revelation. The single edit of Isaac Hayes’ “Walk on By” will make anyone with ears want to spring for the twelve-minute version on Hot Buttered Soul, the Staple Singers’ “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There” are evergreen despite their near-ubiquity, and relative obscurities from the Dramatics (”Whatcha See is Whatcha Get”) and the Emotions (the heavenly “So I Can Love You”) amply demonstrate the dichotomy between hard-edged funk and pop bliss that was post-’68 Stax. The first disc is no slouch in that department either, with gems like Mable John’s spellbinding “Your Good Thing (Is About to End)” and Linda Lyndell’s “What a Man” (best known for its inferior ’90s update by Salt-N-Pepa with En Vogue) justifying the collection’s price tag alone. Granted, the general standard of quality does begin to drop by the end: “Woman to Woman,” despite its historical importance as the label’s last hit before collapsing, is a fairly run-of-the-mill, cheeseball ballad, certainly not up to the standards of opener “Gee Whiz.” But overall, Stax 50th makes a very convincing case not only for its heavy hitters, but for the bridesmaids and bridesgrooms who have fallen through the cracks; there’s a lot to discover here, and not just for those who have never heard of Rufus Thomas before.

The question now, of course, is whether the Stax Records of 2007 and (presumably) beyond will truly be able to live up to its past. I don’t begrudge them for trying – and I’ll admit that signing Isaac Hayes to the label which he helped revolutionize, both as a songwriter and as a performer, was a very nice touch – but I’m not optimistic. Lightning doesn’t strike twice, and when the lightning in question is premium-grade Tennessee white lightning, well, you can only guess. But hey, why not give the new Stax a shot? After all, even if the Otis Reddings and Booker T.’s of the world seem decidedly thin on the ground these days, we’ll always have the music. And what glorious music it is.

- Zach Hoskins

Stax Records Official Site (Concord Music Group)
Stax Museum of American Soul Music
“The Stax Site”
Buy Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration from Amazon

Anticipating “The Deathly Hallows”

With a release date set for July 21, 2007, many, including myself, are anxiously awaiting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows to see what J.K. Rowling has in store for the end of her series. There are many theories: maybe Ginny will die, maybe Voldemort will take over the world, or maybe Harry will have to sacrifice himself for the greater good. All are good theories and all have their place. But I’m not here to discuss what I think might happen in the book. I’m here to talk about Harry Potter as a fan and only a fan.

Growing up in the late 1990s, I was swept away by Harry Potter mania. I stayed up late to get the newest books on release night, I went to the midnight film premieres, and I saw many a kid dressed up in black robes and glasses for Halloween every year. It’s cliche, and I know that it has been said before, but J.K. Rowling pulled an entire age group away from the Nintendo 64 and into a world of magic and fantasy.

Harry Potter was my generation’s Star Wars, James Bond or Chronicles of Narnia. In essence, we grew up with Rowling’s characters. I was 11 years old when I read the first book, the same age as Harry, Ron and Hermione. Each of the books has been released in such an order that I am always within one or two years of the characters’ age. In turn, Rowling’s writing grew up with me, delving into deeper themes and harsher elements with each book. She put the characters through situations that so many teens go through, albeit in a magical boarding school context: first love, problems with parents, not knowing one’s self, trying to find a sense of belonging. Rowling’s writing has changed so dramatically over the course of the series that I sometimes wonder if future generations of twelve-year-olds will be able to pick up Potter and read the series straight though. The books become very serious very fast, to the point where even my seventeen-year-old self was crying at the conclusion of Book Six. I don’t know if the twelve-year-olds of tomorrow will be able to extract anything out of Rowling’s constant themes of death, destruction and torture. Will it just go over their heads?

But however the next era of Potter readers will react is not important right now. Generations will come and go, but Rowling’s writing will forever stay as a mark of my age. I can guarantee you that I will be at the bookstore at midnight on July 21st to buy my final Harry Potter novel. No matter how the series turns out, Rowling has already proven herself as much a visionary as a classic of our time.

- Cole Merkel

J.K. Rowling’s Official Site
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Reno 911!: Miami

If I ever decide to be a small-time crook, no question about it, I’m moving to Reno: the cops there are so out of the loop that I could get away with anything I wanted. Of course, when I talk about Reno cops, I mean the ones from Comedy Central’s Reno 911. The show has been a hit in the past couple of years as the rag tag team takes to the streets, trying to conquer crime in one of Nevada’s roughest cities. And now they are on the big screen, in what is one of the funniest adaptations I’ve seen of a TV show in a long time.

Reno 911!: Miami is vulgar, over the top, and absolutely hilarious. It begins with the crew signing up to attend a national police conference and expo in Miami. Unfortunately for them, after a four-day bus trip, none of the expo coordinators can seem to find their paperwork. So, they are instead sent to a dumpy motel. After a night of clubbing (during which each member of the police force is caught masturbating) the team wakes up trying to figure out what they did the night before. Perhaps the one member with the most to ask is deputy Clementine Johnson (Wendi McLendon-Covey) who spends the rest of the film trying to figure out the identity of the mysterious man who she has tattooed to her bosom.

As they return to the conference, the crew realizes that a deadly bio-terrorism attack has infected the 2000 officers inside. As the only trained police officers in Miami who aren’t under quarantine (obviously), it becomes their mission for the rest of the movie not only to patrol the streets of Miami and keep them crime-free, but to try and find an antidote and save the infected police officers. Along the way, the officers encounter everything from a dead whale on the beach, to an alligator wreaking havoc in a private pool, to a Colombian drug lord who believes that the troopers are following him. Each of these plotlines has elements which make them laugh your ass off funny.

Even given all of the comedy it contains, Reno 911!: Miami has little substance. But it does have nudity! That’s the kind of attitude you need to go into the theater with if you decide to see this movie. Erase any preconceptions you may have about what makes a good film and just prepare to laugh your ass off. You’re not going to walk away from it with much intellectually, but you will have a smile on your face.

- Cole Merkel

Reno 911!: Miami Official Site
IMDb Listing

Marie Antoinette

Before I begin this review, we need to get one thing straight. I love Marie Antoinette the person. Being something of a history buff, I’ve always been fascinated by 18th century European monarchs: the opulence, the over-indulgence, the utter cluelessness as to what was going on outside the walls of their palaces. And of these rulers, Marie Antoinette has always been the most fascinating to me.

Her story is one of riches to rags; betrothed to the young Dauphin of France, she waits seven years before her marriage is consummated. After having her first child, she has her husband build her a cottage on the outskirts of Versailles, where she cheats on him. The events leading up to her eventual downfall and execution contain enough plotlines to fill up 39 trashy novels; how many other historical figures can make that claim? But, my bias aside, let’s talk about the film.

Marie Antoinette has come to be remembered as one of the most villainous monarchs in history. But Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette suggests that maybe this should not be the case. Although she was one of history’s most notorious big spenders, draining the French treasury on lavish parties and haut couture, it could have all been a product of her environment. She was doing what so many queens had done before her; Marie Antoinette was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This film is a character study about why Marie Antoinette might have been so foolish. In the opening scene, the young Antoine (Kirsten Dunst) kisses her mother the Empress Maria Teresa goodbye on her way to become the Dauphine of France. This naïve teen girl makes her way by carriage toward France, and in an elaborate hand-over ceremony where she is stripped of everything Austrian (including her dog) she emerges Marie Antoinette. She was just a teenager when she left for Versailles. At an age when most modern day people aren’t even old enough to wake up without the help of their mothers, Marie Antoinette was shipped to a foreign land and forced into a marriage with a person she had never met (Louis XVI, played by Jason Schwartzman of I Heart Huckabees). It must have been terrifying! She and her husband were forced to grow up fast, and as the film suggests, this was one of the reasons that they met their ultimate demise. Neither of them were ready to take on the responsibility of a ruler, and they met their deaths because of it.

I started reading Antonia Frasier’s Marie Antoinette: The Journey (the biography on which this film was based) last summer; unfortunately, college reading took over and I never got a chance to finish the book. But I remembered vivid scenes from my reading as I watched this film, and from what I could tell this was a pretty historically accurate representation of the court of Versailles and the life of Marie Antoinette. Coppola did a nice job of keeping the film close to life. But even while keeping it historically accurate Coppola gives the film a modern twist, juxtaposing modern rock music (i.e. “Whatever Happened” by the Strokes) next to the harpsichord tunes of the day. The opening sequence has a feeling of rock star glory with hot pink credits rolling over a black background and Gang of Four’s “Natural’s Not In It” blaring.

Did I mention that the film is gorgeous to watch? The costumes (decadent), the jewels (enormous), the set (The Palace of Versailles). That’s right, Sofia Coppola had special permission from the French government to shoot this film where the actual events took place, inside the walls of Versailles. The elaborate sets that you see were not built for the film – oh no, it is actually where Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI lived. So, if you’ve ever wanted to get a closer look at the Palace of Versailles, I’d suggest you spin this DVD. You will not be disappointed.

But even if the historical aspect doesn’t strike your fancy, Marie Antoinette is beautiful just to watch: the colors, the angles, the lighting. Coppola did an awesome job making this film pleasing to the eyes. A scene that comes to my head when I say this is one of Kirsten Dunst running through a field of flowers at sunset. It’s almost surreal to watch: the close-up shots, the saturated colors and the backlighting. Also, make sure not to watch Marie Antoinette while hungry. Coppola includes many scenes of Kirsten Dunst picking out new clothes and eating decadent pastries. Seeing the food actually made my mouth water. It was all so colorful, so rich, so delicious.

The special features on the DVD are also worth watching. The “Making of Marie Antoinette” featurette is interesting to watch for anyone who wants to know more about the costumes or filming in Versailles. It also gives further explanation to Coppola’s vision of portraying Marie Antoinette as a confused girl rather than a villainous aristocrat. Along with a few deleted scenes and the film’s trailers, the special features are definitely worth watching. The funniest part of the special features section is called “Cribs with Louis XVI.” It follows Jason Schwartzman through the halls of Versailles as if he were on the show MTV Cribs. Not only does it give a better idea of the opulence of a few rooms in Versailles, it is also absolutely hilarious.

I have heard Marie Antoinette criticized for the fact that it tries to be modern while at the same time being historically accurate. However, I believe this is one of the reasons that Marie Antoinette is such a good movie. It takes something we’ve learned about in history books and presents it in a way that is historically accurate, visually pleasing, and enjoyable to watch. Just think of it as the most exciting high school history lesson you wish you could have had. Marie Antoinette is totally worth the two-hour time investment. It’s exciting to watch, and you might even learn something in the process.

- Cole Merkel

Marie Antoinette Official Site
IMDb Listing
Buy the DVD from Amazon

Black Diamond Heavies: Every Damn Time

It’s never wise to underestimate the effects of the blooooze on impressionable white teenage males. By now, I’m tempted to believe that it’s somehow encoded into our DNA; the catalyst these days might be a snatch of Led Zep on classic rock radio or our parents’ dusty old copy of Are You Experienced or the White Stripes on the Grammys, but the effects are always the same. Within months we’re discussing Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson sides like grizzled old experts: studyin’ evil, dustin’ our brooms and fixin’ to die with the best of them. Some of us even start bluesy bands of our own – though the sad truth is that for every scraggly crew of Caucasian blues-rockers who actually walk it like they talk it, there’s a baker’s dozen of pretenders who think jamming on eight bars for twenty minutes and affecting Southern drawls is what the blues is all about. And that’s why coming across a band like Black Diamond Heavies is such a treat: like fellow-travelers the Black Lips and the Immortal Lee County Killers (and unlike those aforementioned Blueshammer types), these white boys have soul.

Listen to the choogling opener of the Heavies’ Alive Records debut, “Fever in My Blood,” and that soul, that (now here’s a charged word for you) authenticity becomes immediately obvious. With nothing but a Fender Rhodes piano, a voice like nicotine incarnate and some seriously busted-ass drums and amps, John Wesley Myers (keys/vox) and Van Campbell (drums) tear out of the gates like there really is a hellhound on their trail…and you believe ‘em, too. Sure, the religiously rock-oriented might bemoan the lack of guitars, but when keyboards are played this loud and this viscerally, trust me, you won’t miss ‘em. Instead, Every Damn Time might just be the best advertisement for rock’n'roll piano lessons since the days of Little Richard: the manic anti-cocaine rant “White Bitch” comes peppered with blasts of organ feedback that would put most six-string squealers to shame, and when Myers cranks up the Rhodes in “Poor Brown Sugar,” he digs a groove so deep you can sink to your waist in it.

Of course, the main way in which Black Diamond Heavies set themselves apart from the pack – other than the whole no-guitars thing, anyway – is with their slow numbers, which somehow manage to be even better than the boogie stuff while still remaining every bit as raw. “All to Hell,” a slow-burning soul ballad just over eight minutes in length, is one of the best heartbreak songs I’ve heard in some time, right down to the cathartic gospel organ build-up. And their cover of the aforementioned Lee County Killers’ Delta blues dead-ringer “Stitched in Sin” may even surpass the original, so suited is it to Myers’ Waitsian croak and churchy electric piano groove. In the end, while the prospect of more Heavies in general is enough to set my mouth a-waterin’, I for one wouldn’t mind hearing more of the pretty songs next time around; after all, in a world where any skinny kid from the suburbs can learn a few slide licks and think he’s Muddy Waters, we can never have enough bands who’ll put a shake in our hips and a tear in our beers, all in one glorious half hour.

- Zach Hoskins

Black Diamond Heavies’ Official Site
Buy It from Amazon