Wonder Katzen

January 12, 2007 | Filed Under Comedy, TV | Leave a Comment

Fans of twisted, subversive comedy take note: The first season of MTV2’s often brilliant “kids” show, Wonder Showzen (which I first gushed about here), is set to be released on DVD March 28th according to this and this. I’m psyched, are you? (You sicko creep.)

And if that weren’t already enough, there’s even better news. According to an interview with (H.) Jon Benjamin on the January 7th episode of the Sound of Young America, Dr. Katz is finally coming to DVD! Benjamin discusses doing the commentary for the Season 1 DVD in the interview, as well as his thoughts on Squigglevision (the style of animation used on Dr. Katz and on the 1st season of Home Movies, another show which features his voice), hosting the ongoing comedy thing Tinkle with David Cross and Todd Barry, and why he doesn’t do traditional stand-up. You can hear the unedited Jon Benjamin interview here.

Anyway, this is awesome news for fans of Dr. Katz who have been petitioning for a DVD release for quite a while. My “temporary” copies of the series (previously discussed here), while good for quick fix, obviously can’t compete with high quality editions with commentary and all that. I can’t wait. [No release date has been set so far, and sites like Amazon aren’t yet listing it.]

Guitar Girls

June 1, 2006 | Filed Under Music | 1 Comment

It’s true–my parents have terrible taste in music. It’s something I suffered through as a child. I found myself listening to either the oldies stations (i.e. the same 20 songs over and over), my dad’s classical stuff (boring!), or Mom’s…*shudder*…Julio Iglesias. There were no classic gems in their record collection–just a bunch of watered-down crap. And if it hadn’t been for the guidance my brother provide me, who knows what might have become of me.
Even if they had been hip to good music, there’s little chance my parents would have been into the Pacific Northwest’s folkstress Linda Perhacs. Her only LP, Paralellograms (1970), was recently rediscovered after being buried in obscurity through a few reissues, starting with a bootleg CD of the original vinyl released in 2003. An expanded edition, with demos and such (five previously unreleased tracks), was more recently remastered and reissued by Brooklyn’s The Wild Places label in 2005. Her gentle, flowers-in-the-hair folk is liberally enriched with psychedelia. There is a somewhat ominous/sinister tone to some of the songs, and except in cases of the few upbeat numbers like “Paper Mountain Man,” calling her material “trippy” is neither an exaggeration nor a cop-out. It’s beautiful, strange and manages not to verge too close on hippy-dippy.

And on it goes, someway somehow

May 2, 2006 | Filed Under Music | Leave a Comment

The only truly good thing about breaking up is the music. Whatever pain and heartbreak you might endure, at least there is an inordinate number of sad, down-on-yr-luck, fuck-it-all songs out there to comfort you in your misery. And if you’re like me, you spend a substantial amount of time wallowing in it before moving on. What better way to wallow and embrace the pain than to throw on some lonely sad bastard shit and wile the night away?

Vancouver, BC’s The Organ recently provide yours truly with a fitting soundtrack. The debut album from this female five-piece, Grab That Gun (Mint Records 2004, and Too Pure 2006), borrows heavily from early 80’s post-punk and new wave. It’s full of energy yet overwhelmingly dark and melancholy. With pronounced basslines, minor key melodies, melodramatic vocals which remind me most often of something like a cross between Morrissey and Debbie Harry, and–yes–a Hammond organ, their sound definitely isn’t anything amazing or new. I don’t really care, though; I guess it scratches an itch. Those of us who have not yet grown completely tired of this unending 80’s revival will find something to like here. There are plenty of hooks, and the vocals add a little something to usually male-dominated post-punk stuff. But mostly it’s the feeling.

The song here is included on the album but is a slightly different (and slightly superior) version. I dunno–I’ve listened to it so many times it no longer makes any sense. How appropriate.

The Organ: “A Sudden Death” [MP3]

Cerulean

March 30, 2006 | Filed Under Music | Leave a Comment

In 1991, I was fourteen years-old and living in California with my family. My older brother was back home living with us after completing basic training for the Army Reserves. We shared a room for about a year, and I was given access to his massive tape collection, a blessing which helped foster my ever-growing obsession with music.

It was at this time that I began graduating from my 80’s roots. I’d been listening to a healthy dose of some of the more well-known “modern rock” bands of that period for a few years. Bands like The Cure, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, and REM were my musical universe, ever since the same older brother introduced me to a path at least slightly removed from the dark side of mainstream radio with a mixtape of assorted Cure songs (with everything from Boys Don’t Cry up to Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me) which he layed on me in the fifth grade. While those bands were certainly a decent foundation, I was naturally starting to want more variety.

So I dove into my brother’s tape collection and began listening to some newer bands like Ride, Chapterhouse, and Lush–basically bands in the poppier end of the shoegaze pool and what is sometimes referred to as “dreampop.” [It would be several years before I heard MBV and Slowdive, unfortunately.] There was something very fresh sounding about those bands. Effects heavy and with plenty of swirling distortion, it was like nothing I’d heard. I remember walking around my neighborhood listening to Whirlpool on my walkman and being filled with this crazy energy. I was inspired to make a music video for Ride’s “Vapour Trail” with my parent’s camcorder which consisted of me basically riding around on my bike and shooting the scenery and people in highspeed shutter mode. What can I say? I’ve always been really into bike safety.

LA’s Cerulean reminds me a bit of that time in my musical life. The music of their 3rd album, No Sense In Waiting (2005, self-released) certainly mines some of the same territory of those early 90’s bands. And though they tend toward the more compact, song-oriented rock side of things, they do convey a similar vibe. There’s not much drifting feedback or jam-y parts going on here. All but one track is up-tempo. On the other hand, the album is laden with overdriven melodies and cascading guitars, with plenty of delay effects. A few even approximate something like the rush I feel when I hear those opening reverbed toms of “Decay,” one of my favorite tracks from Ride’s Nowhere. My one real gripe is what I can only describe as the somewhat heroic quality of the music and of the male vocals, which I find mildly annoying. That, and the album has a sound that is maybe a little too consistent. Otherwise, this a pretty solid record and well worth checking out. And hey–with all these bands still mining the 80’s post-punk/new wave sound, these guys actually sort of sound ahead of their time. What irony?

Cerulean: “In Pictures”

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