Each month, since Feb of 2006, I start a playlist in my iTunes of the tunes that catch my ear that month. I started off writing a post to my Mog page with a short review or comments of each track, not only to keep a running diary for myself, but also to hopefully point others toward these tunes. In the last several months I have started to cross post this information on other sites where I keep blogs. (If you are reading this somewhere besides Mog, you can find all the old ones at www.mog.com/iren) I want to apologies for any weird formatting stuff right here and now, I type this in MS word and then post it on these various message places, some of which have…w ell formatting issues….
Anyway for this month here is what caught my ear…
Dr. Woofenstein
by The Damned
www.officialdamned.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damned
This is from the new Damned record which I am still getting into and enjoyng. This song just caught my ear, it's a little on the slow side tempo wise, but there is just something in the hook that caught in my brain. This video is not the best, but it will give you the idea what the song sounds like.
Fight Fire With Fire Shotgun Blues
by Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan www.myspace.com/isobelcampbel
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobel_Campbell
Copperhead Road
by Steve Earle www.steveearle.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Earle
The best video I could find is @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc86_Weoye0 (The Embedding disabled by request) but once again this song was rattling around in my head this month.
The Ballad of Thunder Road
by Robert Mitchum
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mitchum
Robert Mitchum wasn't a great singer, but this was the theme for the movie that is referenced in the Steve Earle above and is an interesting companion piece to Copperhead Road
Greetings From Shitsville
by The Wildhearts
www.thewildhearts.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wildhearts
Ever wonder what it would sound like if you mixed power pop vocals and heavy metal riffing..... wonder no more the Wildhearts have build a sound and a following on just that idea.
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin.. it's on the funny side, and reminds me of the comic series Fables, Roger Rabbit, and that whole fractured Fairy Tale kind of thing.... so far it's fun and slightly silly...
Back of the book:
A boy named Jack sets out to seek his fortune in the big city, but when he finally gets there, it is Toy City, formerly known as Toy Town. There is a serial killer loose upon the streets. One by one, the old, rich nursery rhyme characters are being brutally slaughtered. The Toy City police are getting nowhere. Bill Winkie, Private Eye, has also mysteriously vanished, leaving only his sidekick, Eddie Bear, to take care of business. But Eddie is ready, and when he teams up with Jack, the two set out on an epic adventure, not to mention a lot of heavy drinking, bad behavior, fast car chases, gratuitous sex and violence, bizarre toy fetishism and all-round grossness of a type not normally associated with Toy Town.
I just wanted to take a moment to look back at the year as I covered it in this blog. Now I did start off with my job search and my dream of spending a year traveling around the USA as the focus of this blog, but as things happened, I found myself employed and loosing track of the year adrift idea. The job hunt ended and I no longer needed to blog about it, and I think that part of the magic of spending a year adrift is that it could be spontaneous and it could just drift. If I did have that year to travel I think I would just go where ever I felt moved to travel….. Anyway, I am getting a little far field.
So I put the blog on hold for a while, and came back with the idea that I would use it as a place to post the reviews and what not that I had been writing. So I started down that road, reading books, seeing movies and writing about them. As the year wore on my time once again seemed to get sucked up by life stuff, and more importantly I wasn’t feeling it with my writing. That’s one thing I have to say, that when I am not feeling it, it’s not flowing and I am not going to put it out there…. So for the last couple of month, I haven’t been reviewing and I haven’t been posting as much as I would like to. I hope to get more out next year…..but I also have a couple of writing projects that I an intending to work on that may or may not take time away from blogging.
Thanks to anyone that’s been reading along… and, well, yeah, I guess that’s it.
two films I am fond of... having just got my hands on the soundtrack for CQ I figured that I should post something about it....
It's a cool film about film making in the late 60s, set in France and dealing with a young film maker who falls into direction an Sci Fi/ Spy flick while trying to make his own personal film.
more at http://www.experiencecq.com/
The other is Hi Life.... it's a fun holiday tale about abortion, gambling, lies and money owed.
This evening I am headed out to see PISTOLWHIPPERS VS. D-FUNK ALLSTARS, and just wanted to give them a little love... I missed the last bout because I was drinking in Stockholm, which is one of the only things that I dig more than seeing the Derby on a Sat evening.
It's late, I am half awake and feeling roughly inhuman... so it's time to do something to make me feel a little more human.... to wit The List... you know that list, the one that people in relationships talk about... the list of celebs that they are allowed to sleep with if they get the chance, and their partner can't complain. Well I am single, and pretty much plan to stay that way, and I think James Ellroy hit the nail on the head when he said only fools want to fuck celebs, and that makes us a fool nation... so I have a different sort of list, it's a list of women who have been in the public eye in some way shape or form that I would like to have a drink: Beer, coffee, tea, juice, milk ect.... with and have a conversation with... here is my current 10 (and these are not in any order...)
Christa Faust- Cool Crime Writer.... Paget Brewster- Actress... Birdgirl need I say more
You know her, you love her, simply smashing... Kate Winslet
Ellie Vee... from the defunct band The Charms... I have met her and spoke with her for a moment at the Charms merch table... but still coffee, beer, what ever..
Penelope Houston- former lead singer of the punk band The Avengers... I'd love to pick her brain about the west coast punk scene
in the 70s.
Callie Thorne- The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Streets and Ed's Next Move... actress... Love to hear some stories about those giggs.
Sarah Vowell- Author, fellow History Nerd and Rockfiend... I think it would either be fun or we would hate each other. Catherine Mary Stewart- Actress... really I just want to ask about her films... Dudes, Night of the Comet and The Apple.
Jewel Sheppard- Writer and Actress... come on she was in Return of the Living Dead... do I need any more reason to talk to her? Ok, she's also a writer and had been in a bunch of 80s B Films
Neko Case- Singer and Alt Country goddess... really I just want to beg her to cover a couple of tunes, but I'd like to talk music and what not with her.
