Category: Reviews

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story – Krista lent me some Chuck Klosterman novels which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Chuck is an editor at SPIN magazine and his writings are chock full of pop culture references and gets into the minutae of music.  I love it.  It felt like I was sitting with a friend who is equal to me in my thoughts of music…I have yet to find a person who talks about the little things they love about a song…I have my suspicions that Karilee may fit that bill on the music scene.  Or Sara.  But I have yet to have those conversations with them.  You know the conversations I’m talking about…the ones where you are sitting in a living room listening to some tunes and then comment on a random part of the song and thoroughly dissect it like it’s a frog in Grade Ten biology class.

The book follows Chuck on his drive through North America to look at the spots where rock stars have died…Randy Rhoads, Buddy Holly, Kurt Cobain, etc.  Chock full of discussion on the great rock greats around America intermixed with his own thoughts at the time about his rental car (dubbed the Tauntaun) and the current status of his relationships in life with loved ones.  Krista didn’t care for the last half of the novel (and I think she stopped reading it?) but I found the book enjoyable.

Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs – Another Chuck Klosterman great epic with essays on random subject matter ranging from Star Wars, Breakfast Cereals, the beauty of Saved By The Bell…such obscure subject matter which needs someone to talk about it for an entire generation.  I enjoyed his essays although there were a few I skipped altogether (like when he talked about The Real World which is a TV show I hadn’t seen before).  In the middle of book laid the Top 23 Questions I would Ask a Person to Answer to Determine if I will Love them.  These questions are amazing and I actually have photocopied them and carry them in my backpack for a boring day at the pub.

All in all, I will definitely look into further Chuck Klosterman novels as I enjoy his insights into our society, pop culture and music.  If you were going to start off with a novel, I would start off with this particular novel as you can pick and choose some essays to read and if you enjoy what you read, then you know you’ll like everything else.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Thanks to Trish for lending me this novel.  Even though I heard the ending inadvertently on the bus one night, I still was anxious to read the last great novel in the Harry Potter series.  While I won’t spoil anything here, I will say that it was quite the page turner and I finished it in a few days while in Sudbury with Mom and Dad over the holidays.  All in all, a fitting end to the series.  While a lot of people have spoken to me and indicated they didn’t care for the last chapter, I thought it was great.  My only qualm with the novel is that fell outside of the standard formula of the other novels; in that there is a year at the school, there’s trouble with a new teacher, etc.  So it was a different read and at some points I was feeling that the novel wasn’t moving along fast enough.  There was literally a few chapters dealing with them wondering what they should do next while they camped somewhere.  Meh, that’s a minor point really as we all knew the novel structure had to change.  While I am disappointed that this is the end of the Harry Potter train, I was pleased with the last novel…much like I was pleased with Revenge of The Sith.

Moonraker – I picked up a few James Bond novels while in Sudbury and just finished reading Moonraker.  From what I can remember of the film, it is nothing based on the novel whatsoever.  I believe this had to do with the fact that Moonraker was created for a population who wanted some outer space action ala Star Wars.  Nothing of that sort in the novel.  It follows our great spy James Bond keeping an eye for sabotage on the Moonraker project and it’s fraught full of suspicion at every turn and red herrings.  Can I point out that so far in all the novels of Bond I’ve read, James really gets a number done on him in the final chapters.  That never happens in the films!  Except for Casino Royale which faithfully reproduced the final torture sequence.  But imagine that happening in every novel!  It’s true!  In Live and Let Die, he gets dragged behind a boat and thrown through corral all the time which slices him up badly.  In Moonraker he gets his skin burned by steam.  Gadzooks!  If this is what being a spy is all about, it isn’t all that glamourous.  Either way, I enjoy Ian Fleming’s writings as they keep the pace moving and it’s also interesting to see how the film compares with the original novel (in some cases very faithfully (Casino Royale) but in some cases, not so much (Moonraker).

We awoke on Sunday morning and thought we should go see Cloverfield considering last night didn’t really work for us.

At noon we strolled into the theatre and caught one of the more innovative films I’ve seen in awhile.

Am I biased? Heck yeah. I dig J.J. Abrams stuff. His television shows, films and viral marketing plans are interesting. He knows how to use the tools of the new age.

I suppose I can say that I may spoil Cloverfield for you when you read ahead but at the same time, there’s nothing really to spoil. There’s no grand revelations. It’s a monster movie. But if you really don’t want to hear any word of the film at all before seeing it, stop reading now!

Cloverfield takes place in Manhattan where everyone is going to a party for their buddy Rob who is moving to Japan to work. In the first twenty minutes you get introduced to the main characters of the film at a party through the medium of a handheld videocamera which is taking footage of Rob’s friends so he can have the film when he goes to Japan. It’s standard fare throughout with the connections of the characters laid out before us and with some good humour spread out.

Then the insanity starts to happen when there is an earthquake and they go up to the roof to investigate and a building in the distance (or maybe it’s the Statue of Liberty?) explodes and there is masses of shrapnel (think meteors) hitting their surroundings. Chaos ensues, everyone is running into the streets and up above something tears through a building and down on the street it comes to a stop – the head of the Statue of Liberty. Essentially, this is in the trailer so you aren’t getting spoiled with any details here.

The film then follows our ragtag team trying to escape the city in the midst of wondering what the heck is going on and running amongst the chaos of the army attacking a monster and the looters and general mayhem.

The film is all based from the point of view of one person’s videocamera which made me feel sick at one point and I had to leave the theatre to get some fresh air.

I enjoyed the concept of the film in that it was a monster movie but from our viewpoint. It was very realistic in the emotions and the actions that would be occurring at the moment. I felt like I was part of the film running around with them.

I also loved the little societal comments they made; for example when the head of the Statue of Liberty lands in the street everyone around it yanks out there cellular phone and snaps photos of it. We are living in a world where everything is documented and probably ending up on the Internet. It’s…strange. Instead of running the heck out of Dodge because everything around them is being destroyed, they pause for a moment to snap a photograph. This is essentially the main drive of the video camera operator as well as he says “Someone is going to want to see this after it’s done.”

Vero and I thoroughly enjoyed this film with the different take on the monster movies you’ve seen in the past. While I couldn’t handle the erratic filming of the scenes, it didn’t take away from the sheer amazing feeling of following this group of people trying to escape a city under attack by a monster.

Two sidenotes: For those who have seen the film, did you catch at the end what happens in behind the scene at Coney Island? I missed it but read about it on Wikipedia. That’s interesting.

Also, I enjoyed the fact that the film was shrouded in secrecy. JJ Abrams has stated that he finds the connected world we live in to take some of the magic away from films nowadays; in that everyone knows every little detail before even walking in to watch the film. I must agree on this point as I recollect The Blair Witch Project and I had no idea what the film was about until I saw it in the theatre. I think the magic would have been stolen from me if I knew stuff about it.

Sorry to the crew of friends who we went to the film with last night. In hindsight, I’m glad we didn’t stay in the third row. If I was sick in the furthest row from the screen, I’m sure I would have been feeling the same (if not worse) last night.

Lastly, my friend James commented on how he didn’t like how everything was wrapped up in one neat package at the end; as in, you don’t really find out much in terms of what the heck is attacking Manhattan.  I personally love that.  Too often do we see films that answer every little detail for us.  I like how the film’s concept was more to capture the feeling of how you would be in a monster-torn city, rather than the story about the monster.

iplaying: Come Again – Thornley (Come Again)

On Saturday, I relaxed and sifted through some more recordings. I also hit up the Mongolian Village for some dinner with Vero, Matt, Karilee, Joe, Danielle and Danielle’s brother and company.

I enjoy the Mongolian Village. You go up to their buffet table, put your food in a bowl and they cook it for you and bring it to your table. I was quite stupid in the fact that I got two separate helpings and Vero pointed out that the minimum they would have charged me would have been $5 per bowl anyhow so it would have been smarter to load up the first bowl. I then pointed out to her that she is clearly the smartest of the two of us and should speak up when these things enter her brain so I don’t end up with a bill for $30 at the end of the night instead of $20.

I ran over to the movie theatre as everyone else had picked up their tickets earlier in the day. Unfortunately, it was too late to do anything good with the tickets. As soon as we entered the theatre, it was every man for themselves as it was packed. I must get out of the Kapuskasing mentality of going to the theatre. In the end, Vero and I ended up in the third row from the screen. After debating whether or not we should just get a refund or not, a woman came to the front and announced that the Cloverfield film is filmed with shaky handheld cameras and would be reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project.

That sealed the deal for the two of us as we figured we would not be able to see much in the third row with a shaky camera. This man gets a little motion sickness from those kind of things.

We left the theatre, got a refund and went to Rogers Video where I picked up Death Proof – Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie which is a homage to the old 70s drive-in films as well as a homage to the American muscle car films of the 70s.

It had been awhile since I’ve seen a Tarantino flick and I fell in love with it within 5 minutes…with the random conversations and the intriguing characters. The film revolves around a sociopath in the form of Kurt Russell playing Stuntman Mike who drives around in his stunt car which is deemed Death Proof; as in, no one inside it can die. The movie is split into different halves, one where Stuntman Mike meets some women in a bar, and then the second half when he appears again meeting another group of women who are looking for the car that appears in Vanishing Point. Interesting sidenote in that I have never seen Vanishing Poing but had heard about it from Rob’s old roommate Grant in which he claimed it was the best movie ever but it has never been released on film.

A good portion of the film is dedicated to Vanishing Point where they obtain the car and they enjoy a test drive in it.

The car chase scenes were amazing and Tarantino has outdone himself in creating something original in the form of the great classics of car chases.

Vero and I thoroughly enjoyed this film and recommend it to all if you’re into that sort of thing.

iplaying: Louie Louie – The Kingsmen

After work yesterday, I headed out to the OC Transpo Lost and Found depot to look for my stray glove and after scouring through a garbage pail (one of the large ones) full of stray mittens, I could not find it.  I suppose I shall go again next week in hopes of finding it.  I also dropped some money in the donation box as I didn’t have any change the last time I went there to get my lost bus pass.

I then headed towards Milestone’s with Mike while picking up some Tragically Hip albums at CD Exchange which is YET ANOTHER record store shutting its doors in Ottawa.  Gak!  When will it stop!?

Milestone’s was fun times with Maren and Krista.  Although I must admit that our service was pretty horrible (having an empty drink on my table for five minutes irks me).  In the end, I enjoyed the Shanghai Noodle Stir Fry once again but we may opt to try out a new place in the future.

I then headed over to La Nouvelle Scene to see a play with Vero – a play in which our friend Steve was acting in.  The play was called Duel and it was written by Michel Ouelette.  What was interesting about tonight’s spectacle is that it was performed in a laboratory environment, where two different groups chose the same scene to act out and you get to see what the Director has as a vision for the scene.

Thing is, in theatre, there’s always reinterpretation going on.  You don’t always see the exact same play.  The director puts some thought into how they envision the play ~ the visuals, the mannerisms, the characters, but the dialogue remains the same.

So the first scene had Steve and someone else do a very stylized interpretation and I thought Steve’s performance was probably one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.  He played a transvestite who had a mean streak…I thought of the Joker when seeing him perform and I thoroughly enjoyed his actions throughout the scene as well as his speech pattern.  Very cool.

The next group that came up were actually doing the scene in the Romanian language.  Now, after a few beers at Milestone’s, the french was hard enough to comprehend, but there’s no chance in Hell that I would understand the Romanian one!  The funny part was that I didn’t catch that they were doing the same exact scene because it was definitely different in style and I only caught the characters names in the Romanian language which tipped me off that it was supposed to be the same exact scene.

They had an interesting Q&A session at the end where the two groups came together and talked about how different it was to see the scene they did reinterpreted in such a vast way (for example, the transvestite makes no appearance in the Romanian version).

All in all, I enjoyed it purely for Steve’s performance and the manner that the laboratory works (as in, seeing two different takes on a scene).  It would be like giving Troy and I a lyric sheet and asking us to write a song.

Now the second film we watched on Samurai Sunday was even better…Zatoichi! This is what I want from a samurai film…honour, blood, swords, ronin…you name it, they got it!

Zatoichi follows a blind swordsman around. But don’t be put off because he’s blind. He uses his other senses to kick some evil ass. In the end, the film revolves around some Yakuza hassling the people of the town for protection money and then the blind swordsman comes to their aid. Is this a common story? It’s seems that there is always the theme of taking down the man (or the bad man) in all movies and it involves the bad men taking money from little old ladies.

Anyhow, I loved the film. It was amazing. It was funny, it was serious, it had a great style to it…even the kids raking the fields tapped their rakes to the dirt in time to the music. The battles between samurai resulted in some stylized computer generated blood which was neat. The story was decent too and it kept my interest. For an introduction to a samurai film, it was top notch.

After reading about Zatoichi, I found out that he is the Japanese equivalent to our James Bond. He literally has 30+ films about the character, as well as a television series! What’s even crazier is the fact that the actor Shintaro Katsu was the sole actor who played Zatoichi until he passed away and then Takeshi Kitano took over the mantle in the 2003 film version of Zatoichi (which is the version we saw). I would be interested in seeing a few of the old Zatoichi films because of the lore that it has on the samurai culture. I wonder if my uncle Gerry has seen all the Zatoichi films while in Japan? Maybe it’s one of those things where it airs every Saturday night…

Two samurai swords up for this film. Highly recommend as part of your mandatory samurai film watching.

After the film, we ended up picking some Chinese food up from the Lucky Star Chinese place down the street from us. It was pretty good and we were all stuffed afterwards. All in all, Samurai Sunday was a success and I will definitely think about holding another one in the future.

Sunday – After meandering around the house and editing some more music, Matt and Karilee came over for Samurai Film Afternoon.  This had been a long time coming as other events had interfered with us going ahead with some good samurai film watching.

While munching on some lovely veggie tray delights (thanks to Matt and Karilee), we watched the first film of the day Rashomon which is a film by Akira Kurosawa who (from what I’ve been told) is a Japanese director who films have influenced a lot of western film-making, including Star Wars (as I hear about it a lot in documentaries).

Rashoman deals with the murder of a samurai and the witnesses accounts as to what happened.  In the span of the film, there are interviews of the bandit, the wife of the samurai, the samurai himself (through an otherworldly medium considering the samurai is deceased) and a woodcutter who claims he saw the events from the woods.

In the end of the film, there is no way to know whose story tells the truth and that is the point of the story – that no truth can be obtained from witness accounts.  This technique of storytelling has been used in future films that you may have seen like The Usual Suspects or Courage Under Fire.  It’s interesting to see that Kurosawa’s films are known for introducing a lot of storytelling or cinematographic elements into modern film making.

In the end, I found the concept of the story interesting (after having it laid out before me in the Wikipedia entry!) but overall the story was a little slow.  I will still recommend it but don’t expect some amazing samurai duels in this film.  Maybe that will occur in his other film Seven Samurai?

Saturday – Mike and I awoke at Vero’s, drove her to work and then headed home to enjoy the day. It was one of those days which I had sought out for the past four months. One where I could catch up with my recording of music.

First step – go through the recordings that I had downloaded from the Fostex recording studio. I had backed up all the files over the holidays but had yet to go through them. It’s a lengthy process but a fun one to do also as there are some gems that I had forgot I recorded over the past few years.

Of special note were a few live off the floor sessions that have graced my music page before but I got to import these files into Garagaband and pan some channels and increase volume where it needed it (sometimes the vocals weren’t great at all as there were people singing from across the room). In the end, I’m satisfied with the end product. I’m especially satisfied with the live jam session that Randy, John and I recorded on Boxing Day a few weeks ago. It was amazing and had some great renditions of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game as well as Tripping Daisy’s Piranha. Let us not forget What I Like About You by the Romantics. I split these tracks up and hopefully will get them into the hands of the people who were there in given time.

After going through the live sessions I started going through the cream of the crop which were my original songs, riffs, jam sessions. This will be a lengthy process as there are probably 60 separate songs to go through and then I have to decide what to do with them. For example, I had this great recording of Brighter Days (by our very own Randy) but in the end, I messed up one chord change at the end so really, it ruins the song. Why would I want to spend time on effects and whatnot when it’s a mediocre take? It doesn’t do the song justice.

However, there are other songs where I realize that they just are good as a demo so I shouldn’t really bother with reverb and other effects. In the end they should just be there as a reminder if I want to go back and record the song properly. Essentially I recorded a lot of these demos to send off to Troy so he can pick and choose a song that we could take on as our next one to record. Of course, these songs were recorded a year ago so you can see how busy we have been!

In the evening, Vero, Mike and I headed over to Holly and Alex’s place along with Joelle. We had an excellent meal of soup, pizza and Greek salad. Yum! It was also Joelle’s birthday this coming Wednesday so we had a little something for her in the form of ice cream cake. There was no pin the tail on the donkey which was disappointing.

After dinner, we hauled out the Game of Kapuskasing (which Joelle had picked up last summer at a KDHS garage sale). We found out that the game is actually Wheeler Dealer but they custom make the game to incorporate town businesses. The rules seemed complex at first and everyone was pretty leery of playing it but in the end it was pretty fun and we kept encountering rules that made the game even more fun, such as the BAMBOOZLE card where you can challenge another player to a BAMBOOZLE duel where you each roll a die and whoever wins the roll gets to keep their property as well as take the other person’s property. It was very much like Monopoly but had it’s own spin on it.

Highlights from the game:

• Bamboozled! I was on a roll with Bamboozling and managed to win a bunch of properties at the beginning of the game from duels. I also loved how everytime it would happen there would be a cry of BAMBOOZLE across the table.
• The choice between a Tax Audit or something else which prompted Alex, Vero and me to chant AUDIT! AUDIT! To Holly’s distaste while she had to make a key decision.
• The Investing portion of the game is fun as you pay to invest in a material (like gold) and you roll the dice to see if the investment pays off or if you lose your money.

All in all, it was a long game that we had to cut down for time’s sake but all involved enjoyed it (although Joelle crapped out early in the game and went bankrupt) and I ended up winning by a cool $100K lead. Definitely recommend the game.

Thanks to Holly and Alex for the lovely supper and entertainment for the night.  I love not having any schoolwork which interferes with life!

Another concert DVD I sat down lately was the excellent capture of Matchbox Twenty’s tour to support their album “More Than You Think You Are”. This was their tour before taking a hiatus while members shifted and Rob Thomas released a mediocre solo album.

I had also seen bits and pieces of this DVD but never caught it all in one shot. It captured everything I love about MB20. Kyle Cook (thanks for the edit Eric!) is amazing on guitar. Rob Thomas is killer on vocals. The production of the show is alright. You can see them take bits and pieces from various other icons like U2 or the Rolling Stones but really…who can be original anymore?

I actually enjoyed the documentary even more which followed the band on the entire tour and highlighted behind-the-scenes happenings which showed what the crew did. I had never seen a documentary focussed so much on the crew and the production of the show. The closest thing I’ve experienced in this vein is the U2: Show book which is a must-have for anyone who wants to get into producing any sort of stage show. So it was interesting to see them discussing lighting and whether or not they should throw the house lights on during the last song. It’s also interesting to see that pretty well all of the rock shows you see are scripted to a certain point and that if you go see one show, chances are you may see them comment in the same fashion night after night, or have the same funny moments happening.

Palmer Interruption: I have spent a long time going to rock shows and I’ve realized what makes one band stand out over another in terms of repeated viewings on the same tour. It’s all about changing the show. The first time I realized that I was seeing the same show was when I saw Evanescence in Montreal in the winter, and then the following spring they ended up coming to Ottawa and I saw them there also. I realized it was the EXACT SAME SHOW. Even down to the comments about the tour or the city they were in. Sure, every showman has their classic comments like “You’re the best show of the tour!” which is always a questionable comment but it irks me when you see the same exact motions being followed…it’s like they’ve become their own cliché.

So when you see Led Zeppelin, or Pearl Jam, or the Smashing Pumpkins (to some extent), you see they have re-playability value on their tours because they are always somewhat different. Jimmy Page has stated that he has never played the solo to Stairway to Heaven the same on any date. Eddie Vedder has a commentary on today’s issues, today’s feeling at the concert…it isn’t scripted. Heck, he even does research into the city they are coming into and makes comments about them (like sports teams and such). The Smashing Pumpkins pretty well have the same show going on musically, but their commentary is always different or they switch up their setlist from time to time. I think it would get pretty boring to follow a band who has such a scripted show. Although U2 is probably the exception to this rule as they have such an energy that you get a high off of being there. But they themselves switched up their ZooTV show every night in small ways so every night could be a little different.

When someone asks me why I have so many Pearl Jam or Pumpkins bootlegs, this is the reason. They have re-playability power. If they had the same show each night of the tour, I would just get the best sounding bootleg from the tour and listen to that one and I essentially have heard the entire tour. But that’s not the case (which is definitely apparent with Pearl Jam officially releasing every bootleg of their tour and they sell like pancakes. Why does the term ‘hotcakes’ sound so much better when a hotcake is just a pancake?). End Palmer Interruption.

So the DVD was excellent and it got me excited to see the band in the spring in Toronto. I would recommend picking this DVD up for any fan. Heck, I think I got it for $8 at Music World a few years ago so it was well worth it.

iplaying: Razor – Foo Fighters (In Your Honour)

I believe I got this concert DVD last year for Christmas. I did have it on a few times but had never had the chance to watch it fully even though Eric had recommended it many times.

The Skin and Bones DVD follows the Foo Fighters on their afoostic tour where they toned down the rock and upped the acoustic quotient. I was familiar of Foo Fighters only through their radio singles and took a chance on picking up their In Your Honour double disc, solely for the fact that one disc was all acoustic and I thought that was neat. Quickly, Foo Fighters has been introduced into my main musical repertoire, with picking up their new album (which is killer…it may win the 2007 best in my opinion) as well as their remastered album The Colour and the Shape.

The DVD is great. It has a great selection of tunes, whether they are originally acoustic tunes, or acoustified rock songs. You also get some good stories behind some of the songs, especially Friend of a Friend which is a tip of the hat to the other members of Nirvana for all you Nirvana fans out there. The story about this song was probably my favourite on the DVD. I also enjoyed when Dave Grohl introduces all the members and asks the percussionist to show him every instrument in his arsenal.

The DVD made me feel like I was there enjoying a relaxing evening with the Foo Fighters. If you are a fan of their high octane performances, you still won’t be disappointed with the toned down acoustic set.

iplaying: On The Mend – Foo Fighters (In Your Honour)