'82 CROWD OF PEOPLE - '82 Crowd of People

Listening to the first track from "'82 Crowd of People" you might get the idea the album is going to be a nice, bizarre hodgepodge of found sounds. Alas a more orthodox style of music making ensues after those promising 2 & 1/2 minutes. Orthodox, yea, but certainly not conventional. Lot's of unrecognizable sounds placed strategically within the songs. Sometimes it sounds brilliant...but on the other hand it just as often sounds amateurish. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, but sometimes I can't help but say "let's get on with it then". Case in point, the meandering "Fuck Off" is a tedious 2 &1/2 minutes. But more often than than not '82 Crowd of People throw in just enough weird stuff to keep things interesting. Personally I think this material would benefit 100 fold by losing the pre-programmed drums and what sounds like pawn shop cheap keyboards (Casios, maybe?). I could almost imagine a group like The Fall doing something exciting with these tracks. As it stands you've got a record that sounds like it was recorded by some really bored people without plan or purpose, perhaps trying to kill some time during Spring Break. Promising at times. Curiously strange at others. And the rest of the time it gets pretty boring.

File under: '82 Crowd of People

Condition Critical

Just yer typical run o' the mill thrash/death metal, I confess it's only here in the Dime Bin because I think the cover is awesome. And it is.

STEBACH - 2012 Ride After Burnin

Stebach is a municipality in the district of Neuwied, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. That one piece of information is all that is offered on Wickipedia, and I've found even less about the enigmatic singer/songwriter who goes by the name. Though I don't know his nationality I'm pretty certain English is not his native tongue. A lovely track named "Back to Sweden" would suggest that Stebach is a Swede, and indeed there does seem to be a Danish lilt to his voice. Most of his songs are simple pieces that revolve around his subtle guitar work and catchy vocal style. He plays a lot of blues type stuff, too. Probably an acquired taste for most, I'm beginning to quite enjoy it. Then he also uses a drum machine and what sounds like an 8-track (or maybe even a 4-track) recorder. On these songs he really cuts loose.

The enigmatic Stebach

  File under: Stebach

YAHOWA 13 - "Fire in the Sky'

Unlike much of the Father Yod stuff, "Savage Sons of Ya Ho Wah" has at least two or three songs that I might put on the same level as "classic rock". It's sloppy and ragged...in "Man the Messiah" the singer can be heard shouting out chord progressions. This one and "Fire in the Sky" are my favorite Yahowa 13 tracks. I find more bizarre absurdity in the long form Yod-led services but these are more like actual songs and as such they ain't half bad.

also: MAN THE MESSIAH

"Son of God" - to go or not to go

You know, I don't know why but I seem to be a little put off by the prospect of watching the new movie "Son of God". And I'm not sure I know the exact reason why. Sure, there was no way I was going to catch it during the initial release when I knew the parking lot would be filled with church busses transporting who-knows-how-many devoted followers eager to hear/see the story told yet again through the lens of a different director/producer/et. al. Not that I have a problem with most devotees so much as I hate a crowded theater. Even if I were the only one there, the fact of the matter is that it IS a theater.

Theaters are where I go to be entertained. Of course there are numerous moral lessons to be gleaned from practically any movie. It's the nature of the "story" to have moral to it. But the gospel isn't something you go to for entertainment. In the grand sense it IS a "story", but should it be presented as that and nothing more? And if it IS presented as "something more", is the theater the place to do it?

I remember when "The Passion of the Christ" was in theaters. Even the most god-hating atheist would have to admit that it's an incredibly powerful film. It's too visceral and evokes sympathy, you cannot remain unmoved. In my work at the time I had occasion to see it not once, but twice. The second time I had a completely different reaction. It was like watching a collaboration between George Romero, Quentin Tarrantino and Ron Howard. All I could think was "what am I doing watching this level of violence in a theater? What am I getting from it? Is it packing a more brutal punch than it would had I only read about it?" And the biggest question of all, "what's the point?" Indeed, what's the point.

Evangelism? Okay, fine. It's certainly not the medium I would use, but I'm not out there waving bibles so I don't know. It would, however, explain why there are so many Christians in the USA who think Jesus looks like Jim Cavaziel. (that's a joke). If someone had come up to me after I'd seen "The Passion" and tried to use the movie as a springboard for whatever message they were selling I would brush them off with contempt. Who are you to exploit my emotions and assume you have all the answers to any questions I might have had about what I've just seen in the film? Surely a Cinema Center conversion must be difficult to maintain.

Viewing "The Passion" twice made me consider the reasons I wanted to watch it in the first place. "It's so historically accurate", they say, "the actors even speak in Arabic!". That's nice and intersting, but I don't think it would make me want to buy a ticket. "Oh, but the acting is first rate, and the cinematography so realistic!" Ah, yes, but that should be the state of any good movie. "It sticks pretty close to the actual biblical account!" I guess that seperates it from "Jesus Christ Superstar", but I'll bet there are no rock songs... "But..." and? "But"...and? "But.............

"But it has the most REALISTIC DEPICTION OF JESUS' SUFFERINGS AND CRUCIFIXION"........okay, now I'm intrigued. Now I'm in line at the box office. No, I'm not a sucker for gratuitous violence. I've seen my share of blood in the movies. Somehow it's different when the subject matter is so controversial. As much as I want to deny it, I sat in that theater because I wanted to cringe when the whip tore the flesh. I wanted to jump when the first nail was driven into his hand. I wanted to cover my eyes when the Roman soldier thrust the spear into his side. But most of all I wanted to walk out of those theater doors and be able to join the chorus, "Man, that was the most realistic depiction of the crucifixion I've ever seen!" And I KNOW I'm not the only one. I may be one of the few who will ADMIT it, but I would bet there are many, many, many whose primary reason for watching it was to see a man get flogged, beaten and nailed to a cross...not unlike the people who lined the road to Calvary back when it was all going down.

Then again I expect the sadistic element in "Son of God" will be played down if for no other reason than because of time restrictions. Not saying it will be less powerful or gruesome. But the effect of maybe a ten or twenty minutes given to the Stations of the Cross will surely be less of a blow to the senses than Mel Gibson's two hour marathon.

I don't need to see the crucifixion. I don't want to see it. There's nothing they could present, with all their CGI and method acting degrees that could make it appear any more graphic and upsetting as it already does in my mind. I don't want to see Jesus walking on the water because it will look like a really unconvincing magic trick next to the incredible vision that's in my mind. Speaking of magic tricks, how are you going to make the feeding of the 5,000 look like anything more than a parlour stunt on film? And yet for me it is one of the most amazing miracles. In my imagination I can almost see Jesus gathering those fishes and loaves as they seem to manifest from another dimension.

Any movie about God...any movie about Jesus...is going to be a letdown. It's going to be a waste of money. Like watching Justin Bieber in the lead role of a John Lennon biopic. Like One Direction headlining a Joy Division tribute show. Like Honey BooBoo on the Board of Education. It's not going to tell you anything you didn't already know. It's not going to provide any context with which you can formulate your own understanding of the material.

So I have to face it. As far as I'm concerned it's a fact. "Son of God" is entertainment. Plain and simple. As such it cheapens the original, which I think we can all agree was not written for such meager purpose. I think that's the core of why I'm not so psyched to watch it. I'm not saying I WON'T eventually go. Who knows, I might go see it tomorrow night in lieu of church services. Which is a funny joke, at least I think so, until you realize that there are probably thousands of people who actually did just that last week.

By now the crowds have dwindled down, who knows but I might get bored between now and "Son of God" closes.

SUGAR RAT - Rats Have Rights

I've scoured the engines of the Internet looking for something about Sugar Rat but all I can find are links to download services where their album can be bought. There is, however, a pretty cool site for another entity also bearing the same moniker. This would be for "the number one lesbbian-singer/songwriter-britpop-punk-bhangra band of the year". "Lesbian rock that pops. Lesbian pop that rocks". Tall order, there. I don't know, they could be one and the same. Listening to the sample of the most recent "website" Sugar Rat song, "It's a Heteronormative World, No!" I'm just not sure. All I know for sure is that this person/band are hardcore early R.E.M. fans. Listen to the vocal mannerisms on "Thanksgiving Day" or the introductory section of "Working for the Jihad", which bears more than a passing resemblance to "Pretty Persuasion". So I don't know, maybe the lesbian pop rock bhangra band is the same as the Sigur Rat I've come to know and love from their single on Spotify.

File under: Sugar Rat

HASIL ADKINS - Best of the Haze

I was surprised after hearing Hasil Adkins' LP of chicken-related songs that he's actually a legend in certain circles. After doing a little research I understood exactly why. I read that he was a major influence on The Cramps and it all fell into place. A documentary about his life and contributions to modern music, "My Blue Star", was released a few years ago. There's another documentary on YouTube called "The Wild World of Haskil Adkins" but the audio-video synchronization is so bad it's hard to sit through. So here's the "My Blue Star" trailer, which pretty much covers all the bases anyway.



File under: Adkins, Hasil