(SCENE: SHOT OF ACTOR WALKING THROUGH WAR-TORN, POVERTY-STRICKEN VILLAGE)
ACTOR: Hi, I'm Denzel Washington. Here in the poorest villages of southern Zambia, conditions are rough. Food is scarce, medicine is in short supply, and the basic living conditions are intolerable. For just a few pennies a day, you can make life better for a suffering child.
Not through food or supplies or education. That would cost thousands of dollars a year, and let's face it - one small charity advertising on late night TV isn't going to put a dent in the problems of a third world country. At New Hope Children's Fund, we're changing kids' lives one day at a time. For a simple donation of $50 a year, we'll throw a pizza party in the honor of one lucky boy or girl. Your donation will buy a young child a pepperoni pizza, a slice of cake for dessert, enough party favors and noisemakers for his or her entire family and memories that will last a lifetime. And we'll send you pictures commemorating your child's special day.
Just listen to this testamonial from young Antare:
VOICEOVER: "My village was destroyed by the ongoing guerrilla war. The water supply is tainted and we often go days without food. But thanks to New Hope, I had a really fun time at my pizza party. Everyone sang songs and played crazy party games. I never saw my little brother laugh so much! Although it's over now and the gnawing pains in my stomach are back again, I'll treasure the memories of that one special day for the rest of my life. Thank you, New Hope."
ACTOR: Support New Hope Children's Fund. We're doing what little we can to fight poverty. I mean, at least it's something, right?
Sunday, September 26, 2004
The new R.E.M. single "Leaving New York" makes me sad. This isn't intentionally created by the song, but by the realization that one of my favorite bands has completely lost its fastball for good. Not that I've expected much out of R.E.M. recently; it's been eight years now since their last good album and both Up and Reveal were largely dull with only a couple of redeeming moments ("Lotus," "Imitation of Life") scattered amongst the tasteful but uninspired proceedings. But the new single is so wan, so lifeless, so clumsy in it's straining for prettiness that it makes me cringe every time I hear it. It's a song that tries to conjure up an elegiac, sentimental feel with a big attempted chorus that's designed to soundtrack the emotional climax of a Hollywood date movie, but the whole thing (particularly the big clinching attempt-at-tearinducing chorus) completely fizzles out into nothing. Granted, R.E.M.'s in a tough creative corner right now: they can't go back and remake the classic albums they made 20 years ago, and any massive reinvention of their sound would seem like old guys awkwardly trying to be down with the kids. But is this bland Wonder Bread 'n Miracle Whip sandwich the best they can do? R.E.M. never really "rocked" to begin with, so you'd think that they might be one of the few major rock bands to survive the transition to middle age, but the strong melodicism and effortless beauty of their best works seems miles away at this point. (And in case you're wondering, yes, I am pretending that the Mandy Moore/Michael Stipe cover of "God Only Knows" isn't happening. Bad enough that I don't like their new stuff any more, I don't want to start retroactively disliking R.E.M. and Stipe for butchering one of the five greatest songs ever written.)
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Well, ahem. There would be a new blog entry here, except a last second Google search showed that someone already beat me to the idea I had. So, uh, I'll have to improvise. Here, enjoy this tasteless, hackneyed joke instead, until I come up with something slightly more adequate:
(SCENE: A black and white exterior shot outside a factory. An old man is sobbing quietly as one of his employees attempts to console him.)
SCHINDLER: I could've done more! I could've saved more!
CLERK: Please, sir. You saved so many people's lives. History will always remember your sacrifice.
SCHINDLER: No, not that! I mean I could've saved more on my car insurance if I had just switched to GEICO sooner!
ANNOUNCER: GEICO. A 15 minute call could save you 15% or more on your car insurance.
(SCENE: A black and white exterior shot outside a factory. An old man is sobbing quietly as one of his employees attempts to console him.)
SCHINDLER: I could've done more! I could've saved more!
CLERK: Please, sir. You saved so many people's lives. History will always remember your sacrifice.
SCHINDLER: No, not that! I mean I could've saved more on my car insurance if I had just switched to GEICO sooner!
ANNOUNCER: GEICO. A 15 minute call could save you 15% or more on your car insurance.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
I have returned. Let us cease with the formalities and the throngs of adulation from a grateful nation and get on with this: a list of some of my favorite moments in music. Leonard of Ludic Log fame did one and Nate of Hipster Detritus fame did one and now I'm blatantly stealing this great idea. I'm sure I'm forgetting hundreds of great moments that I will regret not mentioning after I post this, but this is a decent compendium of Great OMGTHAT'SFUCKINGAWESOME Music Moments I Have Known:
- The dual guitar run at the end of "Timorous Me" by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.
- The "swing down, sweet chariot, stop and let me ride" outro of Parliament's "Mothership Connection (Star Child)."
- The way Charles Bissell's voice gradually changes from cocky self-assuredness to pleading desperation during the Wrens' "Surprise Honeycomb."
- The keyboard part on Destroyer's "An Actor's Revenge." Who knew that synth horns could be so moving?
- Damo Suzuki's incantation of "you just can't get that no more," rising from a whisper to a obsessively chanted scream, on Can's "Paperhouse."
- The groove of "Doing It to Death" by James Brown. Unstoppable - even the 10 minute version seems too short.
- When 60's garage bands filled with kids who barely knew how to play their instruments somehow stumbled onto one perfect riff, chord progression or beat that they could never again recapture. Examples: "Be Forewarned" by Macabre, "Voices Green and Purple" by the Bees, "Bad Girl" by the Zakary Thaks, "1523 Blair" by the Outcasts.
- Howlin' Wolf's voice.
- The way that Joe Pernice steals the lyrics from Bread's "Make It With You" for the chorus of the Scud Mountain Boys' "Grudge Fuck" and reframes them into the last desperate plea of a man who knows it's all over but can't yet face the end.
- The intro of "Gimme Shelter" - the guitars interlocking, Keith's string bending conjuring the turmoil under the bright facade of the late 60s, then Charlie's drums come in at the exact correct moment. Classic rock radio has not, could not, kill the power of this.
- "GUERILLA WAR STRUGGLE IS THE NEW ENTERTAINMENT"
- "Walk On By," Isaac Hayes, in its full 12 minute glory. That slinking fuzzed out acid guitar, those slowly creeping lonesome strings, the background singers pushing along Ike's pleading vocals during the chorus, all building to that gloriously-epic-yet-incredibly-funky breakdown at the end.
- "Vacuum Cleaner" by Tintern Abbey - the beautiful vocal harmonies, the e-bowed guitar solo, the fact that it is a plaintive and oddly moving song about helping your girlfriend clean the apartment after she fixes your needle.
- The part during "We Are Time" by the Pop Group where Mark Stewart yells "you, I, we are time" as the band completely drops out for a split second before the pulsing bassline returns to lead the rest of the band back in for the apocalyptic, crashing noise of the song's finale.
- The careening wreck of "O My Soul" by Big Star, a song that threatens to come unglued throughout, barely holding together through the weight of its own momentum. And Alex Chilton's clearly ill-fated call to "never you mind / so go on and have a good time."
- Janet Vogel's otherworldly tenor, turning the Skyliners' "Since I Don't Have You" and "This I Swear" from straightforward doo-wop love songs into something that taps into something hauntingly melancholy.
- The combination of Thom Bell's production and the Spinners' voices on "One of a Kind (Love Affair)" and "Could it Be I'm Falling in Love," two of the most effortlessly uplifting songs ever recorded. Hearing the Spinners' classic singles makes even an errand to the grocery store seem like an afternoon at the park with your best girl.
- "Sing Me Back Home" by Merle Haggard - a song that connects with everyone's desire for home so convincingly, it somehow even makes me nostalgic for my hometown.
- The part at 4:20 of Neu!'s "Negativland" where the old tempo stops abruptly and restarts at twice the speed, with Michael Rother's stun-gun guitar taking over the song. And the part at 8:01 where it happens again, but even faster.
- An abridged list of Fall moments: The "Human ra-ace-ah / Don't think, ask him" chorus of "Various Times," a bleak assessment of mankind that makes the rest of punk's nihilism seem like child's play in comparison. "The Classical," from the all-encompassing rant to the pummeling barrage of the bass-and-two-drums attack to the spittle-flecked conclusion where Mark E. declares "I've never felt better in my life" while interjecting cryptic curses. MES yelling "Shift!" to change from the first part to the second part of "The N.W.R.A." "Middle Mass," for the lurching main riff, the cymbal crashes at the end of every line, and "the Wehrmacht never got in here."
- El-P's production on Fantastic Damage and Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein, a suffocatingly dense atmosphere from which no light can escape.
- John Cipollina's Hendrix-meets-Morricone guitar soloing during Quicksilver Messenger Service's "Calvary."
- The drumbeats punctuating the chorus of the Gap Band's "Early in the Morning."
- The Asheton-Alexander rhythm section throughout the Stooges' Fun House.
- Clint Conley yelling "I'm not judging you, I'm judging me!" at the end of "Academy Fight Song", with Peter Prescott slamming the cymbals on every syllable.
- The penultimate verse of Teenage Fanclub's "Alcoholiday" - "All I know is all I know / What I've done, I'll leave behind me / I don't want my soul to find me." Probably my favorite lyric ever - an existentialist statement of purpose set to an ascendant yet wistful melody and gorgeously languorous chords, capped off with a soaring guitar solo that defiantly stomps over the regret-laden reflectiveness of the first four minutes of the song as if to squash any notions that the narrator will keep on living in the past.
- Billie Holiday singing the line "crop" at the end of "Strange Fruit" with a mixture of pain and weary anger that sounds like 200 years of torture and oppression being released in one short phrase. Nothing else in music is remotely like it - the rawest, nakedest emotional display ever recorded.
- The dual guitar run at the end of "Timorous Me" by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.
- The "swing down, sweet chariot, stop and let me ride" outro of Parliament's "Mothership Connection (Star Child)."
- The way Charles Bissell's voice gradually changes from cocky self-assuredness to pleading desperation during the Wrens' "Surprise Honeycomb."
- The keyboard part on Destroyer's "An Actor's Revenge." Who knew that synth horns could be so moving?
- Damo Suzuki's incantation of "you just can't get that no more," rising from a whisper to a obsessively chanted scream, on Can's "Paperhouse."
- The groove of "Doing It to Death" by James Brown. Unstoppable - even the 10 minute version seems too short.
- When 60's garage bands filled with kids who barely knew how to play their instruments somehow stumbled onto one perfect riff, chord progression or beat that they could never again recapture. Examples: "Be Forewarned" by Macabre, "Voices Green and Purple" by the Bees, "Bad Girl" by the Zakary Thaks, "1523 Blair" by the Outcasts.
- Howlin' Wolf's voice.
- The way that Joe Pernice steals the lyrics from Bread's "Make It With You" for the chorus of the Scud Mountain Boys' "Grudge Fuck" and reframes them into the last desperate plea of a man who knows it's all over but can't yet face the end.
- The intro of "Gimme Shelter" - the guitars interlocking, Keith's string bending conjuring the turmoil under the bright facade of the late 60s, then Charlie's drums come in at the exact correct moment. Classic rock radio has not, could not, kill the power of this.
- "GUERILLA WAR STRUGGLE IS THE NEW ENTERTAINMENT"
- "Walk On By," Isaac Hayes, in its full 12 minute glory. That slinking fuzzed out acid guitar, those slowly creeping lonesome strings, the background singers pushing along Ike's pleading vocals during the chorus, all building to that gloriously-epic-yet-incredibly-funky breakdown at the end.
- "Vacuum Cleaner" by Tintern Abbey - the beautiful vocal harmonies, the e-bowed guitar solo, the fact that it is a plaintive and oddly moving song about helping your girlfriend clean the apartment after she fixes your needle.
- The part during "We Are Time" by the Pop Group where Mark Stewart yells "you, I, we are time" as the band completely drops out for a split second before the pulsing bassline returns to lead the rest of the band back in for the apocalyptic, crashing noise of the song's finale.
- The careening wreck of "O My Soul" by Big Star, a song that threatens to come unglued throughout, barely holding together through the weight of its own momentum. And Alex Chilton's clearly ill-fated call to "never you mind / so go on and have a good time."
- Janet Vogel's otherworldly tenor, turning the Skyliners' "Since I Don't Have You" and "This I Swear" from straightforward doo-wop love songs into something that taps into something hauntingly melancholy.
- The combination of Thom Bell's production and the Spinners' voices on "One of a Kind (Love Affair)" and "Could it Be I'm Falling in Love," two of the most effortlessly uplifting songs ever recorded. Hearing the Spinners' classic singles makes even an errand to the grocery store seem like an afternoon at the park with your best girl.
- "Sing Me Back Home" by Merle Haggard - a song that connects with everyone's desire for home so convincingly, it somehow even makes me nostalgic for my hometown.
- The part at 4:20 of Neu!'s "Negativland" where the old tempo stops abruptly and restarts at twice the speed, with Michael Rother's stun-gun guitar taking over the song. And the part at 8:01 where it happens again, but even faster.
- An abridged list of Fall moments: The "Human ra-ace-ah / Don't think, ask him" chorus of "Various Times," a bleak assessment of mankind that makes the rest of punk's nihilism seem like child's play in comparison. "The Classical," from the all-encompassing rant to the pummeling barrage of the bass-and-two-drums attack to the spittle-flecked conclusion where Mark E. declares "I've never felt better in my life" while interjecting cryptic curses. MES yelling "Shift!" to change from the first part to the second part of "The N.W.R.A." "Middle Mass," for the lurching main riff, the cymbal crashes at the end of every line, and "the Wehrmacht never got in here."
- El-P's production on Fantastic Damage and Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein, a suffocatingly dense atmosphere from which no light can escape.
- John Cipollina's Hendrix-meets-Morricone guitar soloing during Quicksilver Messenger Service's "Calvary."
- The drumbeats punctuating the chorus of the Gap Band's "Early in the Morning."
- The Asheton-Alexander rhythm section throughout the Stooges' Fun House.
- Clint Conley yelling "I'm not judging you, I'm judging me!" at the end of "Academy Fight Song", with Peter Prescott slamming the cymbals on every syllable.
- The penultimate verse of Teenage Fanclub's "Alcoholiday" - "All I know is all I know / What I've done, I'll leave behind me / I don't want my soul to find me." Probably my favorite lyric ever - an existentialist statement of purpose set to an ascendant yet wistful melody and gorgeously languorous chords, capped off with a soaring guitar solo that defiantly stomps over the regret-laden reflectiveness of the first four minutes of the song as if to squash any notions that the narrator will keep on living in the past.
- Billie Holiday singing the line "crop" at the end of "Strange Fruit" with a mixture of pain and weary anger that sounds like 200 years of torture and oppression being released in one short phrase. Nothing else in music is remotely like it - the rawest, nakedest emotional display ever recorded.