Author Archives: Edwin Oslan

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June 15, 2013

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Young and Dangerous (1957)

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Don’t you love the poster for this movie?  It’s similar to the one for The Explosive Generation.  You’ve got a male character who looks as though he’s trying to force his will onto a female and then you’ve got some extra pictures of teens fighting, another male forcing his will upon a female and what looks like teens hanging out or something.  Once again the film’s title and poster are a complete lie.  Young and Dangerous is another melodramatic soap opera where the teens are nice people who are slightly misled and just need some guidance.

It had such potential too!  The movie begins with a “rumble” sequence in which a jealous ex starts a fight with the film’s main character over a girl before the cops break it up, leaving you with such hope… but alas, the movie very quickly degenerates into long, boring scenes of parents talking to teens, teens talking to teens and parents talking to parents; in groups, one on one, over the phone, just talk, talk, talk.  About what?  Well, apparently the film’s main character, Tommy Price (the incredibly good looking Mark Damon who was in Corman’s The Young Racers among many others) is a “bad kid” with no direction in life and a “reputation.”

When there aren’t scenes of people talking there are romantic montages and two goons trying to pick up ladies who hopefully aren’t “dogs.”  But let me start from the beginning. After the “rumble” sequence Tommy Price makes a bet with his two buddies Rock (William Stevens) and Stretch (Jared Barclay who resembles a young Dennis Hopper, but taller) that he can get with Rosemary (Lili Gentle).  Price takes her out in his car, makes a move on her, she jumps out and then, for no reason at all, a cop sees them and takes them in even though they didn’t commit any discernible crime.

After the “traumatic” questioning in the police station, Rosemary’s parents make it clear that she is not to see “that boy, Tommy.”  Henceforth she violates this, they start falling in love, he starts realizing there is more to life than “jazz, women and cars” and then he gets in another fight with the bad guys from the film’s opening.  The fight sequences is about the only other redeeming part of the film.  It’s actually pretty bloody!  Though it is amusing that Rosemary’s jealous ex and his boys look about 40 but, suspension of disbelief, I guess.

I love juvenile delinquent films; some of my faves include Robert Alman’s The Delinquents and Roger Corman’s Teenage Doll.  I’m sure I can name a dozen more.  But so many of them seem to shirk on the good stuff in hopes of “sending a message.” Chances are pretty strong though that I’ll continue to watch these and be fooled.  Next up: High School Hellcats!

 

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June 14, 2013

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Blackenstein (1973)

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Please realize that my giving Blackenstein (a.k.a. Black Frankenstein) a grade of three out of four iron crosses is more of a reflection of my horrible taste in films, than of the film’s actual quality. The customary complaints of budgetary restraints, poor acting, bad dialogue, plot holes, unexplained character motivation and technical issues don’t even begin to describe how bad this movie is.  But one thing that really surprised me was how much gore it had!  I thought it was going to be tame like Blacula, which is a PG rated American International release, but, oh no!  “The monster” goes around ripping out organs and pulling off limbs, and there is some full frontal nudity.  So the film definitely earned its R rating.

The plot begins when a cute little doctor/nurse/whatever named Winnifred (Ivory Stone) begins assisting Dr. Stein (John Hart) in his makeshift mad scientist lab, full of cheap props, Tesla coils and things that create lightning for no reason.  Yet this is supposed to be his “state of the art” medical facility where he uses “experimental” techniques to help people.  Mind you, he IS a good guy and not a mad scientist; he apparently is actually helping his two patients, a 90 year old woman who wants to maintain a youthful appearance and a Russian amputee to whom he attached new limbs.

Anyway Winnifred tells him about her lover/fiance (we talked through that part so I didn’t get what the official title was), Eddie (Joe De Sue), who lost his arms and legs in Vietnam.  Stein agrees to try an experimental procedure to give him new limbs from recently deceased corpses.  Everything would have gone according to plan if not for Stein’s other assistant, Malcomb (Roosevelt Jackson), who, out of desire and jealousy, screwed with the DNA formula and, as a result, turned Eddie into a monster that goes around killing people.

Uh, okay so, plot holes?  They keep Eddie locked up, I think?  Yet he manages to make nightly rendezvous where he finds random victims (and one not so random bigoted male nurse!).  They are all unmotivated and completely unnatural.  His victims incude a middle aged couple and their dog, the girl who left her date’s presence after he was too forward with her, the couple outside the nightclub and so on and so forth.

Oh yeah!  I should mention that there is a pointless nightclub scene.  You could argue that director William Levey was establishing locale but, for some reason we see a comedian Andy C perform minutes of his routine and a nightclub singer Carmello di Milo sing a number or two.  These are entertaining scenes for what they are, but they disrupt the flow of the film.  Not that this film has much flow, but hey!

Also, I wasn’t going to bitch about this too about continuity, but where the hell did he get that suit from?  First he’s in his prison – right, the doctor and nurse, for some reason keep their patient in a prison like cage – where he emerges wearing a suit!  A fucking suit!  I suppose they’re trying to keep with the Karloff’s monster but you know, they still didn’t answer where he got a suit from.  Oh and bullets don’t harm “the monster” but really sharp k-9s do, hint, hint….

The acting is mostly crap although there wasn’t much to work with.  John Hart and Ivory Stone do okay at their on dimensional parts but Roosevelt Jackson is hilariously bad!  His character stares and ogles his love interest with no subtlety at all!  The movie tries to show that he has romantic feelings for Winnifred, but he stares at her like a rapist, and I don’t think that was intentional.  Okay, later he does try to rape her, but I don’t think the director was employing the subtle technique of foreshadow.  In fact I’d say I don’t think he was thinking anything when he made Blackenstein aside from “yerp, gotta kill people and uh, have the monster walk and stuff and like, uhh…”

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June 11, 2013

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Scream Bloody Murder (1973)

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I couldn’t decide which was the more lurid poster so I went with both.  I’d been looking forward to seeing Scream Bloody Murder (also known as Matthew, Claw of Terror and The Captive Female) for a while.  I had seen the trailer a number of times and boy did it look good!  Of course by good I mean, completely outrageous and devoid of anything resembling good taste.  And, to be honest, I’m a little surprised by the IMDB user comments, which claim that the movie was, among other things, boring.  It certainly wasn’t that!  I was torn though.

This may sound like a pretty lofty claim but during the movie, I kept thinking, “hey, there’s more to this than just a gross-out fest!”  Filmmaker Marc B. Ray probably would disagree but in making the female character likable and smart, Scream Bloody Murder almost felt like a strong woman film at times.  Or maybe I’m full of crap considering she was tied up quite often.  It just seemed that, unlike a lot of similar movies, you were legitimately on her side in her struggle as opposed to delighting in watching mindless chaos and violence.

First of all the pacing was a little strange.  I’ve seen the trailer for The Captive Female, so I was under the impression that the movie focused almost entirely on the two characters – the villain Matthew (Fred Holbert) and the heroine Vera (Leigh Mitchell) – in one of those tasteless “abducted women” exploitation films.  Maybe I had The Sinful Dwarf in mind.  I don’t know for sure.

The point I’m making is that Scream Bloody Murder is like two films in one.  The first half is pretty much just a slasher movie while the second is the disturbing dominance/submission thriller that the trailer was advertising.  Basically, what happens is that a little kid Matthew runs over his dad with a tractor, then loses his own hand to said tractor and is sent to the looney bin all during the credit sequence.  When the movie actually begins, he’s 19 years old and has a hook in place of his hand; I’m also positive that they had Norman Bates in mind for the character.  It’s a wonder how this character managed to feign sanity for so long considering how he immediately goes on a killing rampage starting with his mom and her new husband.

This is where it gets really crazy; he just kills tons of people on his trek from his hillbilly farm to L.A.  In the process he pictures every woman who is with a man as his mother.  The movie shows us what he sees before he kills people; it looks like a bad acid trip in which the screen gets really distorted and color and the women turn into hideous monsters.  So he kills them and the men they are with.

The tone and pace change when Matthew meets adorable, sassy, redheaded prostitute Vera.  I’m actually surprised people said the acting was bad.  I think she played the part with class and her role as the hooker wasn’t exploitative.  I suppose you could argue that Ray didn’t need to make her a prostitute in the first place.  But then, Matthew wouldn’t be able to complain about “all those men touching you.”

I feel like I’m giving away too much plot here but let’s just say to get Vera in the house – any house – he had to, ahem, get rid of its occupants; “sorry m’am but I’m going to need the house.”  Then the fun really starts!  Like I said the Vera character is intelligent, quick witted and likeable so the movie actually seemed to be about her struggle to free herself.  Furthermore, unlike a lot of these exploitation films, the villain doesn’t rape the victim or drug and sell her into white slavery.  Matthew’s intentions of taking Vera away from the prostitute lifestyle are essentially good, if not misguided.  But ultimately it’s Vera’s choice what she does with her life.  She even uses sex as a weapon against her captor.   Do you see where I’m going with this?  It seems Ray was trying to be a little more ambitious than your typical exploitation director.  On the other hand the Vera character was still tied up in a lot of scenes.

Bottom line is I really liked this movie and don’t understand why it gets a bad rep.  Let me rephrase that.  I don’t understand why people into this type of crap knock the movie so much.  The kill scenes were pretty predictable but then the plot soon had some twists and turns I wasn’t expecting.

But in case you really want to make sure it’s worth 4/4 iron crosses, here it is in its entirety!

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June 11, 2013

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Coven

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Coven

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special introductory paragraph
Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls
Coven
Blood on the Snow

What do you do when your bar band can’t get a deal?  You have to come up with some sort of gimmick.  And that gimmick was, of course, Satanism and witchcraft.  Coven weren’t the only band doing this stuff; there was Black Widow, Lucifer’s Friend and some Italian band I can’t think of off the top of my head.  Coven was a psychedelic rock band with some jazz and prog influence thrown in for good measure.  They often get compared with Jefferson Airplane but that’s probably only because of female lead singer Jinx Daweson.  Otherwise the comparison is as superficial as saying Led Zeppelin sounds like Black Sabbath.  The other members of Coven were Chris Neilsen (guitar), Rick Durrett (keyboards), Steve Ross (drums) and – I know everybody flips when they hear this even though it’s just a meaningless coincidence – Oz Osbourne (bass).  Keyboardist Rick Durrett would be replaced by John Hobbs at some point as well.  They made three albums and called it day.

Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls – Mercury – 1969

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The world must have been really different in 1969 if Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls was controversial enough that Mercury deleted the record shortly after its release.  It’s easily one of the most unintentionally funny albums you’ll ever hear and I can’t imagine anyone but the squarest of the square taking it seriously.

First of all, in spite of the relatively negative tone this piece is taking, I DO enjoy this album even if it’s for the wrong reasons.  The album is fun to listen to overall and certain songs like “Black Sabbath” and “Wicked Woman” are pretty catchy.  The musicians are on the entire time.  It’s just hard to really take a band seriously when the only things they sing about are Satanism, witchcraft, sacrifices and selling your soul.  But Steve Ross does some neat drum rolls and fills and both Chris Neilsen and Rick Durrett jam out on their respective axe and keyboard instruments.

The group also varies their approach from song to song.  The album’s tone is set with opening track “Black Sabbath” which utilizes eerie minor notes and “ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh” chants when describing a black mass.  While I understand that Dawson is trying to sound like some evil old English cult leader or something, her singing is actually pretty annoying.  She pronounces “them” as “themMM-ah” and uses soft “L” sounds that you would get when touching your tongue to the top of your mouth.  Fortunately she only uses this singing approach in two other songs.  One of those is “Coven in Charing Cross”, which, incidentally is also about a black mass and has (rolls eyes) the entire band chanting “they are seven/seven are they.”

But the other songs on the album don’t even attempt at creating a scary or evil mood.  They stick to the subject matter at hand but with an inappropriately gleeful tone.  “The White Which of Rose Hall” is a toe-tapping number about that voodoo/witchcraft enthusiast Annie Palmer from Montego Bay.  “Pact with Lucifer” tells the tale of a struggling farmer who sells his soul in order to get his crops to grow.  “Choke, Thirst, Choke” sounds way too happy to have lyrics like “choke, thirst, choke/devil we evoke.”  “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” actually has a swingin’ jazzy vibe to it!  The lyrics go “everything she touches dies”!  And the songs “Wicked Woman” and “Dignitaries from Hell” actually kind of rock!

But the biggest culprit on the album is “Satanic Mass.”  I’d heard about it before and, from what I read, I was totally expecting it to be some sort of experimental piece or ambient sound collage.  But no such luck.  It is actually a thirteen minute long recording of a satanic mass with no musical accompaniment.  Maybe some people found this crap scary but I find it about as exciting as you could expect from *hearing* people say a bunch of satanic mumbo jumbo for thirteen minutes.  And, if that gives you nightmares, then you need to get out more.

Coven – MGM – 1972

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The track “Washroom Wonder” begins with the sound of a flushing commode.

Well, they lifted the veil on this operation pretty quickly.  I guess they really were a mediocre bar band!  There is absolutely nothing connecting the second Coven album to the first.  And don’t think this is some sort of artistic progression, hell no!  See how the cover contains a photo of the band with their faces whited out and a black cat sitting in front of them?  Well that black cat meets mysterious, ghost face motif is a complete lie!  There is nothing dark on this album.  Aside from having the same name and personnel – though I think this one has the second keyboardist on it – Coven is like a completely different band.

They now play Southern rock; ya know, Black Oak Arkansas, Bob Seger, Lynyrd Skynyrd, southern rock!  Eight of the eleven were either written or co-written by guitarist Chris Neilsen and he loves playing those Grand Funk style blues riffs while the pianist hammer’s away on his boogie-woogie piano almost the entire time.  Like I said there is no darkness on the album.  Jinx Dawson sounds like a sassy, tough broad and seems to have added a Southern twang to her singing.  The song “Lonely Lover” even has a cowbell!  The album also detours briefly into sentimental 70s soft rock.  One of those is album opener “Nightingale” – complete with string arrangement – which really throws you for a loop since it neither continues the approach of the first album nor sounds like the rest of the second.  The other soft song is a cover of anti-war tearjerker “One Tin Soldier” from Billy Jack.  I guess it was their only hit.  I find the song a little too sappy to get into.

And that’s it!  There is nothing else to say about the album!  Actually, I take that back; they cover “Jailhouse Rock.”  Also one of the other members sings on some of these.  But, as far as the rest of it goes, this music could have been made by hundreds of other bands playing in local bars across the U.S. in front of the drunken hillbillies that enjoy this stuff.

Blood on the Snow – Buddah – 1974

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This is getting rough…

Why are they putting an image of the devil on the cover of their album?  Blood on the Snow has NOTHING to do with the devil.  The worst thing is how misleading this album is!  The opening track “Don’t Call Me” is an energetic, major chord, hard rock song with the guitars pumped up in the mix and the piano mixed so low that it’s negligible.  While not a great song, I thought, just for the sake of this here review, I’d somewhat enjoy this record.

What a fuckin’ joke!  Every song that follows is either a boring 70s soft rock song with a string section or an equally boring ballad.  And I know what you’re going to ask.  What the hell is the difference?  Well, I suppose that’s pretty negligible as well.  Okay, they’re not ALL ballads.  “Hide Your Daughters” is another piano driven, southern rock tune with lightly distorted guitars and “down home” style singing and I suppose “Lost Without a Trace” is an attempt at an epic rock tune with a darker mood.  Also, don’t be fooled by the song titled “Easy Evil.”  It’s (eye roll) another southern rock song – woa it has a saxophone! – this album sucks.

You old people with shitty taste can argue that Jinx Dawson has a pretty yet untrained voice and that she sounds sexy/sassy but, I don’t need this bland, 70s FM nonsense!  The last song is the title track and it has loud guitars and… eh, never mind.

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June 10, 2013

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Iggy and the Stooges – Ready to Die

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It’s all relative I suppose and you don’t need me to tell you that I like the new Stooges album because you can just go on youtube and listen to the whole thing for free.  But, hey, I just want to talk about the Stooges even though I very clearly said I wasn’t going to do that in my introduction essay thingy.  The Stooges are built into the DNA of my music taste.  If you don’t own The Stooges, Funhouse, Raw Power and the two to three albums worth of songs on unofficial releases like Open Up and Bleed, then you and I do not share the same world view and we should probably not run into each other on the street.

The Stooges brief career ended in 1974.  Several of Ig’s former band mates played on a few of his solo albums but it was made pretty clear a reunion wasn’t going to happen; especially after the insulting liner notes on the 1997 Raw Power CD reissue.  To quote – regarding the Asheton bros. – “those guys couldn’t organize a home aquarium without me.”  Ouch!  But somehow, in 2002, the Stooges were back!  Iggy was joined by Ron Asheton on guitar, Scott Asheton on drums, Minutmen/Firehouse bassist Mike Watt and even Steve McKaye on sax.  They did four songs for Iggy’s 2003 album Skull Ring.  Then they put out their poorly received “come back” album, The Weirdness in 2007.  Then, in 2009, Ron Asheton passed away.  Well, who else should take his spot than the guy who did so way back in 1972?  So, even though he hadn’t held a guitar in three decades, James Williamson rejoined and here we are, with a new Stooges album.  Only now it’s Iggy and the Stooges but, we know what’s up.

It’s good!  I  don’t think people were expecting to be blown away.  But I’m enjoying Ready to Die a lot more than I did The Weirdness (although, to be fair, I might have to just go back and listen to that one since it’s been six years).  First of all let’s make one thing clear.  Ron Asheton was the man!  His forceful, primitive guitar playing is the reason why punk rock exists.  But James Williamson is a stronger player.  That means a world of difference in 2013.  The Weirdness is full of basic, not too interesting garage rock riffs and we need some new tricks to tides us over!  I’m not saying this new album is particularly original.  All I’m saying is that Williamson just plays better melodies and more creative riffs.

It’s a garagey/punky hard rock album!  They aren’t breaking new ground and don’t try to.  Instead it’s just rock ‘n’ roll.  Um, lessee… I wouldn’t call the album particularly diverse but there a few different things going on here.  Williamson plays Stonesy melodies but, just like on Raw Power, his tone and approach are meaner and dirtier than Richards.  But this, in no way, has the same anger, fire and vitriol of Raw Power so don’t think it does just because I made a comparison to it.  I bitched on facebook about how I want the “I’m a streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heart full of NAPALM!!!” Iggy not this modern, crooning Iggy.  But, how can I demand such a thing from a 67 year old man?  The album scores on the fact that they know what they’re good at yet don’t make active efforts to copy the past.

Most of these songs are energetic rockers in which Iggy does what Iggy does; he makes no bones about his love for “those double Ds” – which is funny because I always pictured Iggy as an ass man who loves huge amazons but whatever – talks about having a shitty job and being sick of it and a bunch of other hilariously blunt admissions.  But the rockin’ tone is broken up with a trio of bittersweet, acoustic numbers – the strongest being album closer “The Departed”, which aside from incorporating the “I Wanna Be Your Dog” riff on acoustic guitar is just a really beautiful song about their dead friend.

Some of the songs also have sax and piano on them so that adds some dimension.  I’m sorry if this review isn’t the most in depth thing but I really don’t know what else to say about the album.  It has ten songs in 35 minutes.  Some of the song names are “Sex & Money”, “Dirty Deal”, “Unfriendly World” and “Gun”, so you know, they try to keep things grounded but not get TOO negative.  After all, they’re old and lived long lives and have had plenty of time to be angry at the world.  I dunno, whatever, it’s good.

 

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June 10, 2013

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I Eat Your Skin (1964)

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I am pretty sick of zombie movies but that’s because the only ones anyone ever makes are the stereotypical ones with hordes of flesh eating, walking dead who infect others by biting them and can be killed by a blow to the head.  But I wonder why it’s been such a long time since anybody has ever explored the classic voodoo zombies of the pre-Night of the Living Dead era?

Before Night of the Living Dead came out zombies were controlled by a voodoo master or some other similar force and just did the master’s bidding.  They pretty much acted like brain dead henchmen who would just as easily chop someone up with a machete as carry a bale of hay.  This topic fascinates me yet everyone just wants to watch crap like The Walking Dead.  And don’t tell me to see it.  I don’t have very much interest.  I saw the pilot and thought it was pretty standard stuff.  Maybe I’ll read the comic since I hear that’s all right.

Now then, one thing that boggled my mind about I Eat Your Skin is that there was no skin being eaten.  I suppose you could argue that the formula the doctor used ate people’s skin away but that’s a pretty ambitious reference to the title, I think.  More than likely it just sounded cool, especially on a double feature with I Drink Your Blood, which I have yet to see.

I Eat Your Skin is not a perfect movie but had enough of what I wanted to see that it worked for me.  The plot involves a womanizing writer named Tom Harris who is played by William Joyce who reminds me of a poor man’s Robert Ryan.  He, his publisher and his publisher’s wife take a sojourn to the Central American island called… Voodoo Island in hopes of inspiring Harris by surrounding him with voodoo culture.  The only thing Harris does is chase after Coral Fairchild (Betty Hyatt Linton) the daughter of the scientist Duncan Faichild (Dan Stapleton).  His conquests are then, often interrupted by the strange looking, bug-eyed, corpse like zombies, who attack people at random.

The acting is all hammy and hack.  The dialog is dubbed, making characters sound as if they are providing voice overs when they are actually just speaking.  There are attempts at comic relief which are horrible; often involving the publisher’s busty (their words, not mine!) wife who is incredibly annoying!  And the dialog is awful; unfunny one liners, corny fake insults, cheesy come-ons, etc.  Yet, I enjoyed it!  Writer/producer/director Del Tenney (known for such classics as The Curse of the Living Corpse and The Horror of Party Beach) does his best to entertain on a miniscule budget.  The movie is surprisingly violent for something that came out in 1964.  It’s not H.G. Lewis violent, mind you.  But there is a decapitation by machete, stabbings of various kinds, a torch to the face and slowly rotting skin.  But probably the best and most original event was when a zombie holding a box of explosives walks directly into the propeller of a helicopter causing it to explode.

Also the set pieces were neat looking.  I love this voodoo stuff so to me, temples with various masks and tropical jungle environments are all a plus.  I was disappointed that movie was in black and white.  Typically I don’t care about that however the movie should have been in color since it takes place in a tropical environment.  I really wanted to see the lush green of the trees and the multicolor masks and costumes that the natives used during the extensive voodoo ceremonies.  Oh well.  I also have issue with how the cheap, Alpha Video DVD release I watched it on, was formatted to the 1:33 ratio as opposed to being in widescreen.  It actually cut off parts of the credits.  Now how hard is it to release something in its correct aspect ratio even if you are a budget DVD company?

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June 10, 2013

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The Melvins – Everybody Loves Sausages

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Cover albums are usually a terrible idea.  Bands might have a blast jamming their favorite songs but they should do the listener a favor and keep it strictly in the rehearsal room.  That is, of course, unless you’re the Melvins and actually do something unique with other artists’ creations.  It should come as no surprise even to the casual listener that the Melvins wouldn’t go the standard route and just do faithful renditions of songs everybody has already heard a whole bunch of times.

Furthermore the cast of characters involved with Everybody Loves Sausages should make people froth at the mouth and rush out to get the record – or at least listen to a free download.  Also the idea of a covers/collaborations album isn’t exactly new to the Melvins.  In 2000 the group did a similar project called The Crybaby.  And furthermore, even though Everybody Loves Sausages is considered an official Melvins release, it’s a pretty mix and match affair.  Aside from the aforementioned guest appearances, various songs feature different permutations of the group; both the duel drum version with Jared Warren and Cody Willis and the Melvins Lite version with Trevor Dunn on standup bass appear on the record at various points.  The only member who plays on all thirteen songs is Buzz Osbourne.  His “cover” of “Heathen Earth” by Throbbing Gristle is actually a solo piece he made up himself in which he plays all of the bleep-bloop noise machines and which actually isn’t a cover of “Heathen Earth” at all since the song “Heathen Earth”, as thought to be a Throbbing Gristle song, doesn’t exist and is actually Heathn Earth, an album.

Going into the record I was already familiar with nine of these thirteen songs.  Of the one’s I hadn’t heard, “Set It on Fire” is by Australian garage/punk band the Scientists.  Mark Arm’s lead vocals makes the song sound like Mudhoney, which is fine by me!  “Art School” by the Jam is done Oi! style with Tom Hazelmeyer of Halo Of Flies and AmRep fame joining Osbourne on a hilarious shouting match of “Oi, Oi!” while the two sing in thick British accents.  It sounds like standard punk fair but no worse for it.  It’s the other two that bug the shit out of me!  When I checked discogs for “Timothy Leary Lives” by Pop-O-Pies and “Romance” by Tales Of Terror, both are from long out of print albums, which fetch incredibly high prices and that sucks because both songs are good!  When Osbourne calls the Tales Of Terror record one of the best he’s ever heard by anybody ever, he might as well wave his dick in my face and say, “ha ha, you can’t touch this!”

As far as the rest of it goes, it’s going to be difficult to describe the record without describing each song individually.  I know this is a terrible way to write a review so please bare with me!  The album’s “WTF?!” tone is immediately established at the beginning of the album.  After Scott Kelly of Neurosis makes you want to drink Coor’s and smash beer cans against your head all day to the tune of “Warhead” by Venom, the Melvins do a faithful, sincere rendition of “My Best Friend” by Queen!  According to the liner notes, it’s supposed to make you go, “huh?” but I can just as easily assume it was Buzz’s and Dale’s honest admission of love for each other.  Who knows?  Then the album gets kinda shitty because they do “Black Betty”, a song I’ve always loathed with all my being!  I just can’t stand that “black betty bam balam” refrain!  Thankfully the Melvins make it halfway listenable by playing the coda Motorhead style.

Elsewhere we get “Attitude” by the Kinks which RULES!  It’s probably my favorite performance on here.  They don’t change it too much but you know how in the original the chorus slows down and only gets fast in the last refrain?  Well, in this version, it’s fast and punky the whole time!  So, it never stops kicking your ass!  It’s awesome!  “Female Trouble” is a neat little treat with Dunn’s standup bass and Osbourne singing “they say I’m a skank but I don’t care/go ahead and put me in your electric chair”!  “Carpe Diem” by the Fugs isn’t altered too much other than briefly heavying up the song during the “you can’t out think the angel of death” refrain.  Otherwise the band maintain the gorgeous melody of the original, making it my second favorite performance on the album.

And that leaves us with the two longest songs on the album.  Don’t get me wrong; I like “Station to Station” by Bowie and “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” by Roxy Music.  And the band do fine versions of them; the former is turned into a heavy, sludge thing before the funky part kicks in.  I wish J.G. “Clint Ruin Feotus” Thirlwell sang in his old sleazy style, not his new, high pitch, melodic style but oh well.  And, in the latter, Jello Biafra, with his unmistakable vibrato, helps maintain the original’s creepy vibe when telling the tale of a man’s love affair with a blowup doll.  The only problem is that, since most of the songs are relatively short, placing an 11 minute song and a 9 minute song at track five and track ten respectively tend to slow up the album’s otherwise brisk pace.

Someone might want me to mention that Blondie drummer Clem Burke, former Melvins and Cows bassist Kevin Rutmanis, Tweak Bird guitarist/singer Caleb Benjamin and longtime Melvins producer Toshi Kasai also appear on the album.  They do.

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June 10, 2013

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Mudhoney – Vanishing Point

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I know I’m late to the party on this one since the latest Mudhoney album Vanishing Point has already been out for two months.  But I guess I just wanted to rant about how good the new album is.  I listened to it on repeat on my two hour car ride back from Grand Rapids and I must say it’s their best album in fifteen years (not counting their absolutely fantastic best of/rarities double disc set March to Fuzz).  Now that is actually saying something.  I gotta confess that I’m a fan.  In Our Band Could Be Your Life writer Michael Azerrad claims that Mudhoney topped out early in their career with “Touch Me, I’m Sick” and henceforth just did the same thing over and over just not as good as the first time.

Well, he’s got that almost correct.  Add Mudhoney to the Motorhead/Ramones/AC/DC camp; bands who know one or two tricks but do them so well, they should never, ever think outside the box.  It’s a good box after all.  My friend told me that Vanishing Point sounds like it could  have been released 20 years ago.  Great!  I’m one of the few who thinks they never sucked during the 90s.  However after their breakup/reunion with Guy Maddison in place of original bassist Matt Lukin, I don’t know… I just didn’t like those albums as much.  Maybe I just felt that Since We’ve Become Translucent, Under a Billion Suns and The Lucky Ones were just generic garage rock albums.

But they’re back in fine form!  Little Marky Arm and Steve Turner blast out one great Stooges/Blue Cheer/MC5 riff after another across the album’s ten songs and 34 minute running time.  There is some great guitar interplay and Arm’s lyrics are as spot on and clever as ever.  Arm compares GG Allin to Long John Silver and drops references to Foreigner and Devo songs.  And when the lyrics aren’t clever, they are deliberately stupid and thus very funny.  Probably the best example I can give for this is “What to Do with the Neutral” which contains the lines “embrace the positive/reject the negative/what about the neutral which is neither here nor there/what to do with the neutral is not an easy problem/problem to solve/I will say no to nothing/and yes to something/but I have no idea what that something should be.”  What does that even mean?

But, like usual, Mudhoney tamper their signature style with slightly different approaches and fun little inside jokes for rock fans.  Oh!  And “Chardonnay” is a raging, uptempo punk song!  It sounds like the New Bomb Turks!  Aforementioned “What to Do with the Neutral” seems to be a vocal homage to Iggy – and I mean the solo, singing Iggy not the “I’m a streetwalkin’ cheetah” Iggy.  And I can’t say for sure but on the intro to “I Don’t Remember You”, it seems as though the group “borrowed” the “Under My Wheels” intro.

But it’s those inside references that make me want to shout it out loud and proclaim to the bros in the car next to mine when I tool around this boring Detroit suburb, “fuck you, assholes!  I listen to ROCK, baby!”  And that’s what this and all of Mudhoney’s albums are!  They’re rock!  Not  punk, grunge or “alternative” (a term which seems to all but died save for those who are completely out of touch)!  I don’t know how to say it without getting redundant!  No new ground is broken, just ten wonderful, catchy as all hell fuzzed out rock tunes!  They’re loud and Mark Arm belts out the lyrics with the same glee and whimsy as when he first shouted “I’m a jerk/I’m a creep!” 25 years ago.  Only now it’s “I’ve got big enough balls/ to admit I like it small”!

Oh okay, I will also mention “Sing This Song of Joy”, a mellower, more somber tune which evokes a similar mood as earlier songs like “Endless Yesterday” from aforementioned Under a Billion Suns, “Thirteenth Floor Opening” from Piece of Cake and “Broken Hands” from Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.  So there you go; different tones.  However the majority of the album is a rollicking, gnarly good time!  And really isn’t that what we all live for?

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June 9, 2013

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Black Sabbath – 13

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If any of my loyal readers were wondering why I dropped off the blogosphere, I spent the weekend in Grand Rapids, acting drunk and stupid while attending the performances of Kylesa, Torche and Baroness, who just happened to all be in town on three successive nights.  Now I’m back and have the next week off work so expect to see lots of new posts; band profiles and reviews, reviews, reviews!!!  Old, shitty movies, new lousy records – although I’m being facetious on both fronts let me tell you about the mediocre new Black Sabbath album.

But before I get to that let me tell you about Blood Ceremony, who opened for Kylesa.  They sounded like Sabbath but with a flute playing front-woman who dressed in typical, Satanic cult garb.  It seemed like the only things she sang about were Satanism and witchcraft.  Which, leads me to my next point.  Where does Sabbath stand in 2013 among all of these stoner, doom and sludge metal bands?

Look, it doesn’t take a rockologist to know that these reunions are a pile of bullshit.  The first Black Sabbath album was released in 1970.  The world was a different place; nobody had heard anything quite like that first album.  In fact I was chatting with the gentleman at the Corner Record Shop and he told me that it really stood apart from Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer and Led Zeppelin.  People really believed that Ozzy Osbourne, Toni Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward were card carrying occultists who drank goat blood and worshiped at the altar.  Or maybe that’s how they were perceived in conservative old Grand Rapids.

But back to this reunion thing.  Bands have a right to make money off their legacy however they should limit it to a tour and then kill it.  Why try to recreate the past?  And, for that matter, it’s not even a full reunion!  I was disappointed when I read that Ward wouldn’t be participating.  He plays in an atypical jazzy style where he struggles to stay in standard 4/4 time.  Brad Wilk, on the other hand, is just a rock drummer.  They could have gotten anybody and it wouldn’t have mattered.

But the bottom line is that Black Sabbath attempt to recreate the sound and vibe of their first four albums to a fault.  It seems as though the group surveyed their early catalog and found specific songs to replicate.  While most don’t go exactly by the numbers, opening track “The End of the Beginning” and third song “Loner” are musical sequels to “Black Sabbath” and “Planet Caravan.”  The former follows the structure of “Black Sabbath” to a t.  It starts with slow, doomy, heavy chords.  Then said melody is played on the root notes.  Then the song builds up and the headbanging part comes in with the only departure being that the song doesn’t end but detours into another part.  But it also starts the album with a question.  The opening line in “Black Sabbath” is “what is this that stands before me?”  The opening line in “The End of the Beginning” is “is this the end or the beginning?”  Yeah.

“Loner”, on the other hand, is “Planet Caravan” style acoustic, hippie, bongo drum music and attempts to combine the lyrical themes of both “Planet Caravan” and another Sabbath softy called “Solitude.”  Ozzy even sings through that weird, quivering bong water effect from the original “Caravan.”  Yikes.

But elsewhere you’ve just got a lot of slow, heavy, down-tuned songs, the very type you’ve heard countless times on Sabbath albums and by countless other bands.  Yes, Ozzy has a unique voice, Iommi plays occasionally solid riffs and Butler moves his fingers all over the neck of his bass to created that whirling sound.  So I’ll give them that.  There are parts of 13 which are solid and heavy.  But so what?  A few of these songs are just way too long!  Why does “God Is Dead?” have to go on for nine minutes when all they do is repeat the same parts over and over?  Also, two songs – forgot which – have stupid “funky” parts, sorta like you’d find on a Rage Against The Machine record, in other words, not good!  Furthermore Ozzy really hams it up and, sadly, sounds a little stupid when he’s deliberately singing every song very slowly decades after performing on the much more uptempo material of his solo career.

But one thing that hasn’t changed is that the lyrics are really dumb, combining a melodramatic delivery, stupid cliches and bad rhyme schemes often at the same time!  The most egregious example I can think of at the top of my head is this line from “God Is Dead?”, which goes “Out of the gloom I rise up from my tomb into impending doom.”  That’s pretty terrible, isn’t it?  They’re mostly like that!  And this is 2013!  We forgave Sabbath for the clunky lyrics and overly earnest approach on songs like “War Pigs”, “Iron Man”, “Electric Funeral” and “Sweet Leaf” because they were young guys thinking that they were making serious statements!  But now that younger bands like Electric Wizard and Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats are singing cult, Satanic and witchcraft themed songs in a fun way, Sabbath’s philosophical musings on God, Satan, death and the apocalypse make them seem like old, out of touch, buffoons.

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June 6, 2013

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Black Shampoo (1976)

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We must live in a more repressed time than the one in which Black Shampoo was made.  It must have been common practice to bang some trashy middle aged woman – reverse cowgirl style – while her children watch from within their swimming pool.  Also the two daughters are naked after having stripped for and mounted the movie’s main character before their mother shooed them off so she could have him for herself.

Black Shampoo – from director Greydon Clark, who would later be responsible for such classics as Satan’s Cheerleaders and Skinheads: The Second Coming of Hate – is not your typical blaxploitation film.  I mean, it has the genre’s main elements; gratuitous sex and violence, a bad-ass leading character who casually bangs a lot of different women, mustachioed thugs who cause needless violence to get what they want and a love interest that develops over the course of a montage.  However, it’s those lapses in good taste – not that this genre really has much – and surreal situations that made me *almost* give Black Shampoo my first four out of four (don’t ask why my album reviews are out of five and movies out of four, just don’t).

First of all, the movie’s “bad ass” main character Mr. Jonathan (John Daniels) operates a hair salon where he meets the “special needs” of the female clientele.  In fact the opening credit sequence has him shampooing some woman’s hair before she blows him and says something like, “wow, it’s so big!” or something like that.  Mr. Jonathan’s male assistants are two flamboyant gay guys; the white one is slightly wimpier than the black one.  No, it’s not politically correct!  Fuck that!  Yes, the portrayal of the two gay characters is purely based on stereotype.  I don’t know if the actors are actually gay but they don’t seem to be faking those feminine poses.

The loose plot is revealed when three thugs visit the salon and threaten Brenda (Tanya Boyd), the receptionist.  Mr. Jonathan goes into action.  That’s pretty much it.  The sex scenes don’t even come close to erotic.  Don’t get me wrong; the women have good figures, especially Tanya Boyd.  But the act is either scored by hilariously bad 70s soft jams, overacted (OHHH, OHHHH, OH MY GOD) or just plain gross – I did not need to see that open-mouth tongue kissing.  Mind you, these things made the movie amusing so I’m counting them as positive.  One sex scene borders on rape and that’s done by the movie’s hero!  But, I’m gonna save the kicker for the next paragraph.

The barbecue chicken cookout scene.  If I was trying to impress you with my incredibly cultured film taste, I’d compare it to a scene in a Fellini film.  But, let’s just say the cookout took place on a ranch, had a naked woman casually walking around, a ballerina who dances for nobody, a partially naked woman who has holes cut out of her shirt so she can show off her huge breasts, over the top, flamboyant queers and Mr. Jonathan wearing a cowboy hat.  The scene is completely unnecessary and exploitative but I suppose that’s the point.  Also ::spoiler:: there is a scene where a thug shoves a hair curler up the ass of one of the gay hairdressers.

The score is also something else.  Aside from the customary “wicka-wicka” funk music, there is a strange moog playing at times and a salon trashing sequence set to looney tunes music.

And while all of this would seem worthwhile, let’s face it.  The lead actor is completely wooden; sure he’s supposed to be “cool” but he almost exudes no emotion at all except when he rapes a woman as a way of coping with being let down by his true love.  Also the only action we see in the first 70 minutes is Mr. Jonathan punching someone in the face and kicking someone in the balls.  In the trailer it looks exciting but it’s surrounded by no other action.  And the climactic chase scene – involving a motorized weapon, which I won’t reveal – seems to go on for too long, as if they were padding for time.

However, I’m still gonna recommend it because of the film’s ridiculously violent payoff at the end!