Monday, October 13, 2008 Latest
I can't believe how quickly time passes these days. At the same time, the next three weeks can't pass quickly enough until we kick John McCain and Sarah Palin to the oblivion they so richly deserve. As much entertainment as these two provide, I'm ready to never hear from them again.
Here's my theory: the two year election cycle is killing us. Some economist needs to calculate how much we lose in GNP due to nonstop election coverage. There's absoultely no reason why this process needs to take so long and be the cause of so much distraction. When you think about it, this ever-lengthening process is just as much of an outrage as the concept of the electoral college. I hope that Obama and the dem congress will take a serious look at these issue once they're in business.
This past Friday night / Saturday morning I did a radio show on KPFK for the excellent Truth Seekaz program. I had a blast and mostly got over the inner freakout that happens anytime I get in front of a microphone. You can listen to it here, at least for the next couple days. I'll try to figure out how to archive it on this site.
There are seven releases from Yoga Records out now -- Jeff Eubank, Robert Lester Folsom, David Nigel Lloyd, Carole Caroompas, two by Matthew Young, and The RFD. I'm really pleased with how things are going so far. The fancy database-driven official website still isn't finished and it's driving me nuts, but it's almost there. Various other label realated things are about to drop soon. I'll be in NYC for the WFMU record fair next week and back in Boston for a minute after that.
Monday, August 11, 2008 Yoga Records
The secret project I've been working on for the past seven months is ready to fly. Yoga Records is my new reissue label, specializing in downloads of many of my favorite private press music -- folk, psych, new age, and lots of left field stuff from classical to hip hop. Everything is 100% artist approved from the best possible analog sources, and everything is available for licensing for sampling, movies, and whatever else. We'll be putting out a new release every Friday for the next several weeks at least, and the long term goal is to do 52 a year. Several projects are already on their way as CDs from my good friend Jae-Soo Yi at Riverman Music, and I'm working closely with William Tyler at Sebastian Speaks to bring out an amazing LP compilation of Collie Ryan's music in the next two months or so. As the label grows I'll do more LPs as cash flow allows, but I also love my ipod and iphone and I'm putting my faith in digital sales as a viable model for the future.
Needless to say I'm psyched about this opportunity to share my addiction to amazing, little-known music with a larger audience. Learning how to start a label has been difficult but never less than a good time. I've had a killer team of people helping in this endeavor. In particular I'd like to thank JD Emmanuel for engineering the sounds and keeping the good vibes coming, Daniel Sanders for his tireless help in building the site and explaining how it works, and Cammie Henderson for all the secretarial and emotional support. I'm still trying to finish the database-driven official website, so for the time being you can check out our myspace page and visit Other Music Digital to audition and buy tracks.
As for the rest of my life, no idea where to start. Got an offer on a big project and don't want to jinx it by saying it out loud, but could be good news. More adventures to the desert, Tahoe, Marin, back to Boston and New York, databasing the world's largest collection of new age music, addiction to Speed Racer, Kabbalah weddings and 88 drummers in the LaBrea tar pits. Every day is full of interactions with artists I respect, and taking this time away from the movie business has been a boon for my sanity and faith in humanity. I would like to get back to screenwriting, but we'll see about that. For now, I'm occupied with better things.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008 It's on
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 Maker Faire
Friday, May 2, 2008 Menudo
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 Guitar Soli
Apparently the plural of solo is soli. I learned this because Numero Group just released their latest compilation of folk music, this one entitled Wayfaring Strangers: Guitar Soli, probably the first and certainly the best comp of solo guitar. Like every Numero release, this package is top shelf and first class all the way, setting the gold standard for reissues in the 21st century, the "Criterion of music" as I like to say. When I first heard that people were collecting this stuff I was like "wha?" but this release makes a strong case for the habit. Best of all, writing the liner notes for the Ted Lucas track earned me an "impossible without" credit. Hear that? Impossible. Impossible!! Hahaha.You can find out more here. PS... I want to go on the record as saying that the Ted Lucas Om album is the best private folk album ever made. Thanks.
Thursday, April 3, 2008 Still Here
I decided to start titling these entries. Since I haven't written for two months I'm calling this one Still Here, cause I'm still here. Think maybe it's time to go all pictures.
I've been working on a project that I want to talk about real soon. It is really an exciting development that has been a long time coming. All life is about learning how to build things. I'm learning a lot on this project.
Saturday, February 2, 2008 Favorite movies of the 21st century
Feel free to criticize my picks (as long as you can provide 70 of your own). Since I realize a lot of these choices may seem less than serious, as time goes by I'm going to try to write a little about each pick so you know where I'm coming from.
2001
1. Freddy Got Fingered
Forget Julian Schnabel; Tom Green is a real artist. Talk about someone doing their own thing. Tom Green seems almost desperately concerned with the need for real expression between human beings. Everything he does is a primal scream for sanity and humanity. With Freddy Got Fingered, Tom managed to find new things to say about the war that happens between fathers and sons. This brilliant, surreal film is impossible to classify, but it's best compared with Strange Brew, another formally masterful, surprisingly serious comedy written and directed by comedians, and unfortunately, another one time deal.
2. Harvard Man
Sleazy, sexy, psychedelic philosophy, burning brightly. You cannot really go wrong with a movie where Sarah Michelle Gellar gets in a catfight with the Noxema girl playing an FBI agent.
3. Together
Probably the definitive cinematic statement on the subject of communes and hippies.
4. Pootie Tang
I saw the rough cut that got director Louis CK and his editor fired. Believe it or not, they totally deserved it. Somehow the studio found a masterpiece the director could not.
5. The Others
Mad drama. I need to see this again.
6. The Royal Tenenbaums
My favorite Wes Anderson movie, which isn't really saying that much. I was able to stand three viewings of this, but never noticed a single new thing after the first. The Wilson brothers do not really get the respect they deserve for their work in this one.
7. Storytelling
Sick, sick, sick. Only listing it for the first part...
8. Rivers and Tides
Took a subject I thought would make me want to scream and made perfect sense of it. Andy Glasswort rules.
9. Waking Life
I need to see this again. It probably doesn't bear that much scrutiny. I hung out with Speed Levitch once. That was a pretty awesome experience. On a related note the walking tour of ground zero Speed does for Linklater's camera in a short called 'Live From Shiva's Dance Floor' is easily the best movie ever made about September 11.
10. Audition
I only saw this stylish, disgusting movie once and that was probably enough.
2002
1. Attack of the Clones
Ok so look. I could argue for this movie a million different ways. I could talk about how, if anyone's still here in 50 years, and if any of those people are able to form a coherent thought, people will marvel at the fact that George Lucas divined 9/11 before it happened and correctly diagnosed the creeping disease of our age before anyone even knew what was going on (hint -- it has to do with denial). I could talk about the fact that of all the 70s mavericks Lucas is the only one still pushing the envelope in any relevant way -- making the experimental films he always talked about, only not as some Stan Brakhage wankfest, but a sweeping revolution in how movies are made so far ahead of its time that most people still don't get it. I could talk about virtual sets and the fact that Lucas used HD in a scene The Phantom Menace and all you film lovers never even noticed. I could talk about the fearless, seemingly insane but ultimately brilliant upending of a mythology we thought we knew so well (Yoda commanding an army of stormtroopers; Darth Vader as a bratty teen prettyboy driven mad by his envious Jedi tutors). I could talk about how much I love the fact that this is creator-owned independent moviemaking and how much I love how much that bothers so many different people for so many different reasons, none of them good ones. I could talk about the fact that the first 20 minutes of this movie are about as perfect as cinema gets, or how Ewen MacGregor's two minute scene talking at R2-D4 is the one of the most riveting things ever, if you take a moment to appreciate it for what it is. I could talk about camp and cheese and what these things really mean and why they're the last vehicle for honest expression. But I don't need to do any of that because, of course, deep down, you know in your heart of hearts that there are movies, and then there is Star Wars, and that this is, by far, the weirdest and wildest of the six (if not the best, you can't beat the OG and Empire, and thankfully Lucas didn't try to do that).
2. Punch-Drunk Love
It's sort of hard knowing that PT Anderson is chillin a couple miles away from my apartment, out there living the life I want to live, being a genius very few people understand but everyone respects, making babies with Maya Rudolph and doing whatever the hell he pleases.
3. ivans xtc
If you want to know why every major director in the world cast the as yet mostly-unknown Danny Houston (grandson of John) in their movies over the last five years, see this. See it if you can, because due to some legal BS this is still not commercially available in the US, which is a crime, because this is my favorite movie about the movie business of all time, and I've seen them all. Just stunning from beginning to end.
4. 24 Hour Party People
Michael Winterbottom's crank-em-out style is so much better suited to fun movies like this than the important cinema he strains so terribly to create. (Ever see Code 46?) I love Joy Division and Happy Mondays and Factory; it's still hard to imagine anyone taking on so much monumental history and making it look so easy. Great movie.
5. Y Tu Mamá También
There isn't that much to say about this movie... You see it and you're like, ok, Alfonso Cuarón is a genius and a beautiful human being, and anyone who disagrees is probably a hater or votes republican or both.
6. The Pianist
Another movie that pretty much speaks for itself; I'll just add that Polanski rules and Spielberg's a schmuck.
7. The Sweetest Thing
I must be the only one who considers Roger Kumble an 'auteur,' but look at this guy's career -- first he helped write Kingpin and There's Something About Mary, the two good Farelly Brothers movies (classics), and then he kicked off his directing career with Cruel Intentions, easily one of the sleaziest mainstream movies of all time. What next? Remake Cruel Intentions almost note for note with no name actors playing younger versions of the same characters in even sleazier situations as a pilot for a cable series that doesn't get picked up but instead appears as... Cruel Intentions 2. Then this, a movie where Selma Blair... I can't say it. Spontaneous musical number... bizarre female rhythms, like a pulsatingly messy version of Sex and the City. Just thinking about this makes me want to see it again. And of course, next was Just Friends.
8. Bowling For Columbine
What can I say? Michael Moore does not give two damns what you think of him and his politics, and God bless him for that, because warts and all here is the true definition of a patriot, here is someone who cares about this country with every fibre of his being, even though this country is too worked up in its own retarded froth to appreciate what a gift this guy is. Personally I'm appalled by some of the twisted things he does in this movie -- when he mugs reaction shots after an interview is over I want to strangle him. For example. Fahrenheit 9/11 is much better cinema, but I'll never forget seeing the world premiere of this at Telluride.
9. Stone Reader
I'm glad someone made this movie, as it completely explains the experience of becoming obsessed with a piece of art and the need to connect with its creator. It's basically the story of my life (though not nearly as cool).
10. Femme Fatale
This movie pretty much proves what we already knew, that Brian DePalma is simultaneously the most stylish and most tacky filmmaker alive, and that it's better when he doesn't write his own films. I will say that a second viewing improved my opinion of this one somewhat, and that I laughed a lot when the "seven years later" title came up, something that just annoyed me the first time around. Rebecca Romain-Stamos ranks with John C. Reilly as one of the worst choices for a lead ever, but she's better looking than Reilly.
More soon...
2003
1. Dogville
2. Kill Bill
3. Bad Boys 2
4. All the Real Girls
5. Peter Pan
6. Hulk
7. demonlover
8. The Hunted
9. Elephant
10. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
2004
1. Team America: World Police
2. When Will I Be Loved
3. Kill Bill 2
4. Fahrenheit 9/11
5. The House of Flying Daggers
6. Slasher
7. Sideways
8. The Sea Inside
9. The Nomi Song
10. The Passion of the Christ
2005
1. Revenge of the Sith
2. Kung Fu Hustle
3. The Squid and the Whale
4. Just Friends
5. Grizzly Man
6. Mysterious Skin
7. War of the Worlds
8. A History of Violence
9. Hustle and Flow
10. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
2006
1. Idiocracy
2. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
3. Children of Men
4. The Departed
5. Borat
6. Apocalypto
7. Marie Antoinette
8. Friends With Money
9. Sin City
10. Mutual Appreciation
2007
1. Death Proof
1. There Will Be Blood
3. Sweeney Todd
4. Hostel 2
5. Persepolis
6. Zodiac
7. The King of Kong
8. The Last Mimzy
9. Knocked Up
10. The Hoax
Monday, January 14, 2008
Man oh man, 2008. Testing this little audio thingy:
That song by the way is 'Miscommunication' by Timbaland with Keri Hilson, which I edited to take off the weak third verse from Timbaland's brother.
