Justin Hook

The Adventures of Tintin

Over the break you may have seen Tintin, that plucky little cub reporter causing scrapes and forever in the middle of international incidents, on the big screen in all his 3D smoothed-out glory. There were high hopes the Spielberg/Jackson co-production would catapult the character into public (read: American) conscience all over again. He’s certainly had a lengthy respite from the limelight.

First conceived in 1929 by Georges “Herge” Remi as his moralistic derring-do alter-ego, Tintin and his faithful companions (Snowy the white dog and Captain Haddock the pickled sailor) lit up young boy’s bedrooms for decades. Some argue the original comics, 23 complete volumes over 46 years, are cornerstones of the modern day graphic novel but that’s neither here nor there; Tintin represents something far bigger than oft-argued terminology. For generations of readers he was an escape from the ordinary – a courageous ambiguously-aged action hero, the only cool head in a tough situation and the perfect foil for a parade of baddies. His globe-straddling antics also planted seeds of travel and colourful images of the wider world young kids could only dream of.

This Canadian production from 1991 is undoubtedly the most complete screen representation of Tintin and co. Over 39 episodes, every major adventure and comic is covered. The 2D animation is mostly faithful to its source; neither overly flashy nor cheap and nasty and at 22 minutes per episode the action is fast-paced, never lingering too long and devoted almost purely to plot development. The changes reflect our modern standards and tastes – remembering that Herge was a privileged arch-conservative, reactionary colonialist and (allegedly) anti-Semite. The infamous Tintin in the Congo volume where unrepentant racism is wheeled out for guffaws is, unsurprisingly, not adapted in this collection. So yes, the original comics had their problems. Rest assured though, this collection is family safe and rollicking fun.

Horrible Bosses

Since his breakthrough low budget debut about man-boy video game obsessiveness (The King of Kong) Seth Gordon has ridden a rock path: his first feature was a sodden rom-com (Four Holidays), his first network TV show (Breaking In) was cancelled by Fox, only to be picked up again… by Fox and his doco about the socio-economic publishing juggernaut Freakonomics was a false starter. To be fair, Gordon only part-directed the last one and efforts behind the lens on Parks and Recreation, Community and The Office didn’t exactly suck. At the very least Horrible Bosses gets Gordon back on track.

Three friends (Jason Bateman, Jason Sudekis and Charlie Day) are salaried schlubs in hate/hate relationships with their bosses. An off the cuff suggestion to murder their superiors is put into action and quicker than you can say “gee, didn’t see that coming” matters spin hopelessly out of control. The trio enlist the help of a hit-man (Jamie Foxx) and they’re off and running; each responsible for murdering one of their friend’s bosses. Needless to say, none of them actually go through with the deed due to poor planning, stupidity and/or poor advice from their hit-man contact who is actually a copyright infringer rather than a hard-nosed killer.

Horrible Bosses doesn’t aim terribly high and consequently is quite a successful film. Whilst charting the same stunted man-boy path as Judd Apatow’s sausage movie factory it has plenty of charm. Firstly, the casting is extravagantly strong: Kevin Spacey and Colin Farrell anchor the film in equal parts mendacity and stupidity, respectively. Hell, even Jennifer Anniston is somehow not especially terrible. But the critical factor in this film’s lustre is Charlie Day – the manic, rat-faced, high-pitched freak from TV’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, spinning uncontrollably all over the film, stealing an already enjoyable show with graceful lunacy. See it for Charlie.

Frozen Planet

At an age where most have embraced the warm glow of senility at hourly naps, David Attenborough shows no sign of slowing down. With over 50 years of service in the field, the doyen of the nature doco continues his remarkable winning streak with Frozen Planet. The third part in a quasi-trilogy (Blue Planet and Planet Earth being its partners) it was a ratings surprise bonanza for the Nine network last year – somehow overcoming one of the most inappropriate theme accompaniments in human history (that frightful Maroon 5 song). But even if you’ve already seen it, you’ll need to see it again in 1080p to marvel at its spectral grandeur.

Filmed natively in HD this seven part series focuses on upper and lower extremities of our planet; the Arctic and the Antarctic. Documenting the lives of these animals is mindboggling. Not only the technical skill required (covered helpfully at the end of each episode instead of as a special feature) but the animals themselves. Take for example the woolly bear caterpillar; it spends a few weeks every summer eating, growing and having a lark then when the cold sets in returns home to its nest to be frozen – blood, body… everything, for the rest of the year. Its heart stops beating. Then come summer the process is repeated. This happens for 14 years before it can finally emerge as a moth. That is dedication. Now imagine capturing these harsh environmental extremes on film. Go on – try. Elsewhere penguins goof off, killer sharks hunt said penguins and polar bears fall around in snow looking like adverts for adorable cuteness.

A couple of minor points of controversy that swirled around this production (a bear cub birthed in captivity and some uncomfortable comments about the impact of climate change) fail to derail this stunning and visually arresting series.

George Harrison: Living In The Material World

The world doesn't need another Beatles doco. What little there is left to know, probably best remains unknown. But more than half a century after they first harmonised The Beatles remain pop culture giants and major influences on successive generation of musicians. Therefore, this goose still lays golden eggs.

Split into two halves, this three hour-plus film makes a decent stab at reducing five decade’s worth of pop history into digestible chunks. Largely, it sticks to the well-documented Harrison script: he was the third wheel in a legendary song writing partnership (Lennon/McCartney), he was a loner, the quiet one who struggled with attention, an intensely spiritual man and the coolest member of the band.

The first half plays more as a history of the band than of Harrison and whilst interesting, it seems ill-pitched; Paul McCartney confirms his unsightly smugness when it came to his rhythm guitarist and seems all too willing to reduce Harrison to a bit player. The second half is even more troubling.

Harrison was on an endless search of enlightenment and peace. Through religion and meditation he calmed an angry soul but we never get to the source of his distemper. The search for serenity is to be applauded, but it’s only half the story with Harrison. What drove him inwards? Some things rightly remain private, but equally there is an obligation to refrain from obliqueness when constructing intimate portraits. 

The other untouched elephant in the room – accusations of plagiarism on his biggest hit – My Sweet Lord. He ended up losing a $1.5 million court case over it. A serious oversight, but one most likely demanded of Olivia Harrison, wife and Co-Producer.

In spite of these misgivings (and my distrust of Martin Scorsese-helmed music docos) Living… is a superlative doco thanks to acres of rare footage and a subject who radiates unpredictable energy.

Boardwalk Empire

In looking to fill the coveted and prestigious Sunday night slot – vacant since the departure of The Sopranos and The Wire – HBO threw everything it had at Boardwalk Empire; Martin Scorsese, Terence Winter, Steve Buscemi, along with a budget topping $50 million ($18 million alone for the pilot). It had gigantic shoes to fill – that sort of creative and financial support from the network meant that anything less than an award gobbling masterpiece would fall short. But there’s the rub; expectations for, and perception of, this show are unreasonably lofty and drastically miscalculated.

Boardwalk Empire isn’t The Sopranos via the 1920s prohibition era or an elegantly wasted and denuded period piece like Mad Man or indeed as skeezy and methy as Breaking Bad. It’s a lavish drama full of real life gangsters (of both the political and Italian variety), natty threads, incredible set design and loving attention to detail. It’s visually arresting, delicately paced and, despite the criticisms piling up against it, a dense and supremely enriching viewing experience even though each chapter doesn’t end with a cliff hanging jaw-dropper of a scene.

At its core it’s a show about politics, not gangsterism. Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (Buscemi) is Atlantic City’s corrupt Republican treasurer ensuring streams of bootleg flow in his good-time town during prohibition, whatever the human or financial cost. And that’s basically it, along with some election rigging and internecine, inter-city warfare.

Buscemi’s performance as Nucky starts off thrillingly; a snide, dismissive, belligerent schemer with a heart for the downtrodden, he is front and centre in early episodes. But as his co-stars hit their straps (especially Michael Shannon as the self-flagellating Federal Narc and the iridescent Kelly McDonald) Nucky is left floundering, frequently coming off as a background player in his own larger-than-life life. But Boardwalk Empire regularly underplays its hand. For that we should be thankful, not dismissive.

Phish

Phish were one of the biggest bands of the ‘90s. OK, it’s an argumentative opening gambit – but it’s partially true. In terms of radio play the Vermont-based jam/improv/jazz/rock band were minnows; barely scoring a hit in their 25 years together. And in terms of breaking through to capture the popular cultural zeitgeist they had limited success; a few appearances on Letterman, a few Rolling Stone covers, a brief Beavis and Butthead appearance and a flavour of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream named after them.

But as a touring band they were a phenomenon. Forever on the road, they picked up large tracts of the audience that were deserting the Grateful Dead which made them one of the most successful touring bands of the era. This set of live shows from 1997 captures Phish at the height of their powers; it was one of the most sought after shows on the bootleg trading circuit. Running at seven discs, almost every key track gets a run – Down With Disease, NICU, Character Zero et al – and the sound is shockingly crisp, present and full.

But be warned, Phish are an acquired taste and I doubt there is any middle ground; they aren’t the sort of band you can half like. You either accept the need for endless twiddly guitar histrionics or you find it excessive. But there’s probably no better way to tackle this intriguing band.

REM

Prickly as ever, REM decided to call it quits in September 2011 thus summoning attempts to package their recording career in neat round figures. Had they waited until January it’d be 30 years. But REM rarely followed the script. Forming in Athens, Georgia in the early '80s they spent their first two decades releasing a string of mostly unassailable records and their final decade confounding critics and fans who yearned for a more subtle, agreeable and tune-y late career coda. It’s a journey well documented on this two-disc career spanning release.

 Drawing together material from the IRS and Warner years for the first time and sequenced by the band (illuminating liner notes are provided by the whole band and that means Bill Berry as well!) Part Lies… presents a fair but excruciatingly incomplete picture of REM. It’s more than just the absence of choice tracks (Drive, Bang & Blame, Bittersweet Me) because no single compilation could possibly satisfy every fan. But you get the impression Stipe & Co. are trying to present an image of the band that doesn’t quite quarry with reality. For example, 1993’s then-disastrous-but-actually-not-bad ‘guitar’ album Monster gets one song whilst the actually quite rubbish Accelerate gets three too many i.e. three. Indeed the late '90s albums are almost universally ignored. Hmmm… Are they saying critics were wrong in '00s but right in the '90s? Part Lies… is – fittingly – an awkward, incomplete and argumentative compilation.

BMA Magazine Albums of 2011, A Winged Victory For The Sullen - A Winged Victory For The Sullen

[Kranky]

Slowly repeated melodic tinkles, gauzy atmospheric wipes, drifting lugubrious strings, a sense of gloomy space and long white empty Nordic hallways in the wintertime. Yes – you guessed correctly, one of the guys from Stars of the Lid is back!

SOTL are one of the finest proponents of ambient drone going ‘round but their work rate is hardly brisk. So between albums we get side projects. The Dead Texan was a superb diversion a few years back, but this collaboration between SOTL’s Adam Wiltzie and pianist Dustin O’Halloran might just pip it at the post.

This is imprecise music – it waxes and wanes, completely eschewing traditional song structure in favour of long stretches of unravelling melody. And phenomenally beautiful and quixotic melodies they are – O’Halloran’s involvement tightens up the field of view somewhat; in comparison to SOTL this self-titled debut is more organic, less processed and less reliant on studio wizardry.

Song titles remain utterly ridiculous (Steep Hills Of Vicodin Tears, Requiem For The Static King Pt’s I & II) but they are more contained. Of course this isn’t pop music; there are no guitars and no vocals. It’s creepy. And that deliberate imprecision means it will last forever, constantly open to interpretations. But don’t go mistaking it for background music though; it’s the most engaging album of the year. And to think it came from a couple of foreigners in Belgium.

The Beaver

Your capacity to deal with The Beaver will largely be a function of how you can cope with a film about a character (Walter Black) played by Mel Gibson struggling with crippling depression whose only hope is a scruffy straight-talking Cockney-accented puppet on the end of his left arm. Admittedly – it’s a major stretch. Gibson has had his fair share of off-screen dramas over the last few years and some may find it difficult to dissociate the two. But underneath the sheer WTF element is a thoughtful, difficult and brave film that dares to broach a topic – malignant depression – in a manner that is mostly successful.

Directed by Jodie Foster, The Beaver is a story about a successful toy company executive who caves to the pressure and becomes near catatonic, neglecting all those around him. Especially his family and even more so his youngest son who is regularly overlooked by his mother (Foster) at the after school pick up point. Poor kid literally fades into the background. After a failed suicide attempt the aforementioned hand puppet rescues Black from his drift and serves as his proxy for interaction with the world. In one fell swoop Black saves his near bankrupt company, turns up on The Daily Show and engineers a détente at the family homestead.

Towards the final third Gibson narrates the following: “Everyone loves a train wreck. Until it happens to them.” One wonders if that’s explicit postproduction commentary on the controversy swirling around the actor/director’s life. If so it’s a little too smart by half, because Gibson is able to deliver a performance that is high on believable maudlin and low on by the numbers crazeee. Foster’s direction approximates low budget moody indie– think The Ice Storm with less snow. A train wreck this is not.

Sledge Hammer!

Might be hard to believe, but meta and self-referential aren’t recent inventions. In fact I think it was Greeks that invented it, before they took their collective foot off the pedal and allowed their entire economy, society and history to collapse. Apologies to our Hellenic friends out there, but I’m sure you understand. Anyways, a mere 25 years ago Sledge Hammer! premiered to inconsequential ratings and general bemusement in the US. The titular hero of the show – Sledge (David Rasche) – was a badass cop who hated crims and was no friend of regulation, due process or standard procedure. He loved his gun – shot holes in his toast with it in fact. He was ridiculous; an overblown caricature of the hard-nosed cop. His boss, Captain Trunk (Harrison Page) was even worse – an eternally angry, frustrated and screaming shadow of a human forever mopping up another Sledge-induced failure. And of course there was the archetypal competent blonde sidekick, Dori Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin) patiently doing the actual work.

If you can look past the extremely dated production values, you’ll find a clever parody of the big city cop genre; think an overtly violent Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) from Police Squad/Naked Gun. But looking back it’s easy to see why this show didn’t quite gel. Up against Miami Vice one year and The Cosby Show the next, it suffered from poor programming and being vastly ahead of its time. The mid-‘80s were largely free of this style of abstract humour. The writers (legendary Simpsons alum Al Jean/Mike Reiss amongst them) were given free reign to take things to the extreme – and they did. The last episode of the first season starts with ‘80s icon Robin Leach cold opening the show and ends with the ‘cliff-hanger’ nuclear destruction of LA. Sledge Hammer! is classic clever/dumb fun.

Underground Lovers

In the interviews promoting this career-spanning release, Vince Giarrusso (who along with Glenn Bennie co-founded this Melbourne-based band) says Underground Lovers never really went for a sound, per se. Instead, they just used whatever worked for the song – loops, antiseptic drum beats, walls of distortion and slashing feedback.

Riding the Manchester ‘baggy’ wave in the early ‘90s Underground Lovers wore their influences proudly: My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, Ride and most noticeably to this listener in hindsight, New Order.

They also garnered massive acclaim – winning over critics, winning awards and for a short time were signed to an offshoot label on 4AD. No higher cache could be found at the time. They were perpetually on the cusp of great things. But it never happened and after the obligatory flirtation with the majors came the even more obligatory dissolution.

Wonderful Things (aim for the limited edition 2 CD set) collects material from all points of their relatively short but stellar career. As you’d expect there are some egregious omissions; the blissful Weak Will and the frenzied Get Off On It are two such examples. But that’s just deliberate carping because what really emerges is a restive band that could swing persuasively between dense layered mini epics (Promenade, Eastside Stories, Your Eyes) to whimsical pop (Losin’ It) and convincing slow burn bluster (Las Vegas). An essential time capsule and fully realised snapshot of an oft-overlooked band.

Tim Minchin

A CHINWAG WITH MINCHIN
 
On the face of it TIM MINCHIN is the hardest working man in showbiz. In addition to the hundreds of shows he plays every year – one of which, a collaboration with the 55-piece Heritage Orchestra at London’s Royal Albert Hall, has just been released on DVD – the Australian comic/musician adapted the Roald Dahl story Matilda into a musical, has plans to write his own musical from scratch, has an animation project in the works and raises two small children in his spare time. It looks hectic, though not to Minchin. “Yeah… it looks busy from the outside and I do work a lot, in a weird way. But if you’re just working a normal eight hour day, every day you should be able to do a lot of shit. It’s quite hard to be able to work eight hours a day on creative stuff – you spend a hell of a lot of time maintaining the shit that everyone has to do: endless emails, tax, contracts and all that. But actually I feel like I’m not prolific enough which is probably why I work so hard. Obviously there’s circularity to that – you feel like you’re not working enough so you end up actually putting out quite a lot of stuff.”
 
As one of Australia’s most successful and internationally praised comedians of the last 20 years, Minchin is – as they say – in a good place. “I’m in the weirdest stage ever of my career at the moment in that the biggest difficulty is my job is so fun and so exciting that I’ve gotten myself in a fix for the first time. I’ve always just been keeping up – you know I’ve promised shows, or I’ve got another Edinburgh and I’ve just been working on keeping up. And now I’m suddenly sitting in a space where I have a deal with a big animation company in LA to write songs for a film, and I’ve got Broadway producers wanting me to make a live action musical and I just want to do a dark, grown up musical. Plus I want to make an album of my own.”
 
Indeed it’s this last point that is most telling – Tim Minchin writes songs that happen to be funny. But he considers himself a songwriter first, comedian second. In fact when pushed he’ll admit he doesn’t even consider he’s a comedian. “I’ve been a songwriter for 20 years but I have never made a studio album of non-comic songs. The thing that people don’t realise is that actually I only do one job – write songs with funny or interesting words, non-pop songs. I get sick of calling them theatrical songs. So really, it’s all the same job. It might sound weird but writing a ballad for Matilda and writing The Pope Song is really the same job. You just gotta choose your colours.”

Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra - Live at the Royal Albert Hall is out now on DVD and BluRay through Universal. Tim will also play shows next year at The State Theatre in Sydney with The Sydney Symphony on Thursday-Saturday February 2-4. Tickets through Ticketmaster.

Restrepo

The genesis of the phrase ‘hearts and minds’ – when referencing military campaigns that aim to win over the local population – is difficult to trace. Some place it as far back as the early 1800s. Lyndon Johnson used it during the Vietnam War and George W. Bush was fond of it in the early stages of the Iraq invasion. Bureaucrats and brass think a little bit of glad-handing, chai-sharing and ear-badgering will somehow repair the collateral damage of war – innocent civilians filled with bullet holes, villages destroyed, families displaced, entire ancient cultures uprooted… you get the picture.

Basically a public relations mechanism it has entered the vernacular as shorthand for military propaganda. So you can’t help but recoil when it’s rolled out regularly in Restrepo – a gritty, first hand POV doco focusing on Bravo Company, 2^nd Platoon’s running battles with the Taliban in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley in 2007. It’s a constant reminder that despite the best intents of the grunts (and sometimes the worst) war is more or less about killing people, usually people the aggressors don’t know or understand.

Restrepo is a good war doco – but it’s deliberately and defiantly the view of the American solider and therefore, incomplete. Author Sebastian Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington take us excruciatingly close to the action, but it would be a major failure if we didn’t feel in awe of the situation.

The larger contextual map of what they are doing in Afghanistan and how it fits into the entire campaign is unexplored, to say nothing of any internal analysis of if they should be there. To do so would make this a very different, albeit nuanced, doco.

But it’s possible. One of the greatest war docos ever made managed to juggle these competing strands. It was released in 1974 and called – you guessed it – Hearts and Minds.

Jurassic Park Ultimate Trilogy

Jurassic Park was, in many ways, a dinosaur. Obviously it all started with a small mad white-haired scientist bringing that extinct species back to life on a tropical island with delightful/disastrous results. But it was also a big budget blockbuster, and when it was first released – 1993 – popcorn epics were falling well out of favour; Pulp Fiction was just around the corner, landing a significant blow against the blockbuster for a while. Sure Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich and their ilk would continue to ply their gaudy, noisy trade – but Steven Spielberg was always more than a big, bam, slam director.

Widely credited with inventing the summer blockbuster genre with 1975’s robo-shark slasher Jaws, Spielberg always tried to infuse something else into his pictures – heart and a sense of wide-eyed wonder. Sometimes cloying and ham-fisted (Empire of the Sun) but sometimes reasonably successful (Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The Jurassic Park trilogy veers wildly between all points in Spielberg’s career: the first is terrific, unashamedly fun, crippled somewhat by clunky dialogue but rescued by some still impressive, yet embryonic, CGI. Lost World is a not so good but not overly terrible sequel afflicted by weak, copybook baddie characters. The third sits firmly in the middle. For all intents these films are chase films – with massive lizards instead of cars.

This set collects all three films in hi-def and is an absolute treat as well as a completist’s dream. There’s a trove of special features, most of which were produced for this collection. Just like the films, Jeff Goldblum is the star attraction – his scuzzy, stream of conscious delivery is quixotically appealing as ever and Sam Neill is hilariously frank (“The real acting was not laughing”). When Spielberg hits the target the results are always enjoyable, so leave your brain at the door and revel.

Armadillo

Much like Restrepo, this Danish doco follows a young unit through Afghanistan. Much like Restrepo, this doco shows a bunch of young conscripts bumbling through a foreign country, seemingly forever under fire and finding themselves in the middle of a local scandal revolving around the death of a cow. The value and importance of simple things like livestock – and tradability thereof – seem to elude these guys. And much like Restrepo both films show the occupying forces trying to subdue the local population with little understanding of the sheer outright horror and death they are inflicting.

Both the Danish and US forces are at pains to point out how they are looking for adventure, a touch of ‘boy’s own adventure’ type larkery; one prescient scene in Armadillo shows a couple of wide-eyed soldiers whooping slaughtering pixelated enemies on their PS3. On the job training I think they call it. Is it any wonder they have trouble connecting with those on the other side of the barrel. It’s all one big computer game for them.

What is clear from both of these docos is that Afghanis are perplexed that the occupiers don’t get it – they put locals in an invidious position: collaborate and the Taliban will kill them, help the Taliban and the Allied forces kill them or lock them up. War is tragedy on an enormous scale; every day the subjects of these docos go back to protected barracks.

In fairness, Armadillo does attempt to storyline the larger picture – the soldiers’ role in Afghanistan, where they are, provides more context. It is the better for it. But both are hobbled by the rules of access – these aren’t the stories of the victims (deliberately so) and in their own different ways they lionise the troops that occupy Afghanistan. This one is more warts and all, and they are some tremendously ugly warts.

Cold Chisel

As a longtime outsider to the cult of Chisel I’ve no particular barrow to push. Growing up in their heyday – the cusp of the ‘70s and ‘80s – it was impossible to escape their presence; the great Australian hard drinking, hard fighting, sweat drenched wild men of pub rock. In the intervening years they became talismans for ute/yobbo rock. It’s difficult to disaggregate the band from the myth but in hindsight they were utterly unlike their peers. Grafted onto the standard 4/4 blues-based rock band found at any pub on any Saturday night was one critical element: Don Walker – co-songwriter, calm head and source of their unique sound. Walker’s piano dominates every song but is never overpowering or distracting. Even on basic rockers like You Got Nothing I Want, Walker’s Jerry Lee Lewis-like runs hover in the background, adding much needed complexity. Of course Cold Chisel were also a democracy with each member penning classic, definable Chisel songs: Ian Moss (Bow River), Steve Prestwich (Forever Now), Phil Small (My Baby) and Jimmy Barnes (You Got Nothing I Want). So when they clicked they were more than the sum of their parts; the luminescent Saturday Night for example. The tribute album (Sarah Blasko, Ben Lee, Living End etc) from a few years back tried to rebirth the band, but you know these songs already and either love or hate them. It’s unlikely All For You will encourage widespread side-shifting or revaluation.

Eddie Izzard

ALTERNATIVE NOTION

The word ‘Python-esque’ is overused. Arriving at exactly the right time – the late ‘60s – and harnessing the absurdist worldview of The Goons, Monty Python smashed through with a style of non-linear comedy that had little precedence. They were (and still are) hailed as geniuses and untouchable. But calling every stand up comic who refrains from mother-in-law jokes Python-esque is taking it too far.

Monty Python also muddied the waters of mainstream and alternative humour. They were popular, their movies and TV shows were successful but they made little sense and the punch lines were hardly of the ‘boom tish’ variety. So it’s a high mark of respect when Python members refer to you as “the lost Python” which is exactly what John Cleese has said about the multi-lingual, Yemeni-born, British comedian EDDIE IZZARD.

For what it’s worth, Izzard openly acknowledges the influence. “I believe there is mainstream humour and there is alternative humour – and all I am doing is tapping into the alternative audience. Monty Python already proved this, and music proves this as well. This is my theory. I just need to tap into that audience who liked Python 40 years ago or those that were too young but would if they saw it.”

Yet Izzard is a performer unconstrained by definitions or genre ghettos. One minute he’s hamming it up in Ocean’s 12 and 13, the next he’s on the high-brow TV drama The Good Wife, then there’s his turn as a failed Hitler assassin in Valkyrie and his semi-regular spot on Craig Ferguson’s off-kilter, urbane Late, Late Show and a voice-over role in Pixar’s Cars 2.

Restless for sure, but does he even know where he sits on the spectrum? “Yes – I think mostly alternative… actually, wait… I don’t know about this. I think I started in the mainstream. I watched very mainstream things when I was growing up. But then I gradually developed a more alternative sensibility by having watched all the comedy that was going around and starting to twist it.”

And if you’ve seen one of his live shows, you’d know how effectively Izzard can twist ‘it’ in a logic-defying manner that has ready, universal appeal. “I think I will always have a very alternative sensibility… talking about dinosaurs, God and Greeks and mixing all that together. But I am trying to be as commercial as I can because I’d rather get bigger audiences than just playing to seven people and a dog in a very small pub.”

And so, in a masterful move to reach these wider audiences it makes perfect sense that Izzard regularly plays shows outside his native tongue. Earlier this year he undertook a successful run of French shows – 71 shows over three months – that took him all over the country, something he labels as “ridiculous ego and ambition”.

He took it a step further at the Montreal Comedy Festival playing an early evening gig in English and a late show in French. Quite an accomplishment “Yes, it was pretty impressive to me actually.” Montreal may be bi-lingual, but this comedian took it quite literally.

Ever the inquisitive individual, the French shows were mere appetisers. “Well, I was born in Yemen so I have to do Arabic. As for German, I did it at school and liked it as a language plus I’m very positive on European politics so that would work. The there’s Russian because – well they had such a hell of a time in WWII and no one has given them thanks for that. We went straight into a Cold War! So I want to go to Moscow and learn Russian. Oh, and Spanish. It sounds like I’m just rattling off a list of languages but it’s not that difficult, it’s just very hard work. It’s not rocket science, you just have to learn the words and find the right ones. So that’s the plan.”

Creatively, Izzard is also making amends with his past. “The beginning part of my career was nothing, it was just rubbish. I couldn’t get anything going. So I’m always playing catch up.”

Off-stage, he sets equally high goals. In 2009 the professional comedian/non-professional runner tackled 43 marathons in 51 days for charity after a few months intensive training. To an outsider it looks like he is making up for lost time, cramming his life full of activities so as not to slow down, lose focus, lose steam. He agrees. “I’ve come to the conclusion that I know I’ve got this life – so let’s just go for it. I don’t believe in God. Maybe there’s reincarnation, but I’m not sure. So I will do all this stuff quite intensively.”

Oddly, it turns out advertising slogans also played their part. “Oh yeah, that’s right. When I was practising for one of the marathons there was bumper sticker on a Jeep and I kept running by it – ‘One Life, Live It’. And I liked that, so I thought I’d do that.”

Still, one thing Eddie Izzard has figured out after 30 years of stand up, TV, film and theatre (through most of which he was an open cross-dressing transvestite) is that despite our problems, modern society is actually doing okay. “Things do get better. Look at the world as a graph from the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians about 7,000 years ago through to today. We have gotten to a better place.”

You can catch Eddie Izzard live at the Canberra Theatre on Thursday November 24. Tickets cost $89.90 and are available via the venue’s website.

On Trial

Whether by design or serendipity, when On Trial first aired back in June it was up against one of the many iterations of the long-running US series Law & Order. Whilst the latter is ostensibly about the criminal justice system – honestly, it says so right in the opening credits! – it’s actually more of a formulaic hour drama with a bit of gavel banging, shouts of “order” and headline-grabbing corpse discoveries thrown in for good measure. Whereas the former is an intense, illuminating and richly rewarding sneak peak into the Australian court system.

For the first time ever, cameras were allowed into court to follow the trials of three individuals. Judges, trail lawyers, the accused, victims, relatives of victims and practically anyone connected to each case gives perspectives rarely seen in the two minute grabs on the six o’clock news. It isn’t glamorous; it’s procedural, precise, but never tedious.

On Trial covers three cases – gun-related violence in one, a murder in another and finally, the robbery of a taxi driver. In each, the viewer gets to methodically track progress and slowly form opinions on guilt vs innocence. And so we begin to convince ourselves we know what’s going on and what really happened. Ultimately – as the first case proves quite adequately – picking liars is quite difficult. It’s very easy to convince ourselves of a narrative of events that conflicts with reality. Indeed we do that in our everyday lives without blinking, and probably do so with alarming frequency. On Trial reminds us that we’re mostly in the dark. As one of the Crown Prosecutors reminds us, the criminal justice system deals with events in which there are no winners. A grim footnote to an extraordinary and essential series. Hopefully there’s more on the way.

Arthur

Let’s be honest, the reaction to this film upon release was a tad precious. Not knowing any better you’d think that Russell Brand had desecrated the Sistine Chapel. In fact all he had done was star in a remake of a forgettable, but oddly exalted, comedy from the early ‘80s dreamt up entirely to play on the public persona of its star (Dudley Moore) as a shambolic, alcoholic womaniser. It’s probably best remembered for Christopher Cross’ theme song than the quality of its acting or script.

So please, stop all the hand-wringing and head nodding – this 2011 version of Arthur is perfectly fine for what it is: a formulaic screwball comedy. What it does have going for it is Russell Brand and Helen Mirren. The former – like Moore – used to be a shambolic drunk womaniser (and has a considerable substance abuse history to boot) but about-faced his career a few years back and has become semi-respectable. A do-nothing son of a billionaire with a pot bellied manservant, the ever reliable Luis Guzman, has been set up to marry the venal ladder climbing bitch straight out of central casting, Susan Johnson (Jennifer Garner, playing well against type).

Overseeing it all is Hobson (Mirren), officially Arthur’s nanny, but really his faux-mother and chief gatekeeper for the drunk man-child. In the first half hour it looks like Mirren and Brand are acting in completely different films, but quickly an easy rapport grows between the two to the point where the film is more about Arthur/Hobson than it is about Arthur/Susan. This is a major fault, especially as Arthur becomes besotted with a struggling writer/unofficial tour guide from the ‘burbs (Greta Gerwig) – the tension between the three is non-existent; we know where it’s going. That aside, Arthur is a better than expected romp.

Album of the Issue

An extraordinary thing happened to Tom Waits over the years – he became a scruffy cultural icon. The mad old coot still barks like a lost orphan in a dust storm but consensus holds he can do no wrong. No matter how abstract his imagery, wicked his couplings, uncomfortable his gait, unfriendly his rhythms.

And he seems to have whittled down to a couple of rhythms nowadays: the tin pot bashing, Captain Beefheart-thieving, arm waving type (She Stole The Blush, Bad As Me, Hell Broke Luce) and the relaxed, contemplative, slow groove type (Pay Me, Talking At The Same Time). Throw in a brazenly referenced Red Right Hand (Nick Cave) on the syncopated Raised Right Men for good measure. It’s actually very conservative – there are no surprises. Flying off the handle is quite predictable since Waits’ early ‘90s reinvention.

But this is a good thing. Especially when one of his most important sparring partners returns; Marc Ribot’s scattershot guitar phrasings are as essential to the Waits sound as the singer’s gruff growl. Guest spots abound (Keith Richards, Les Claypool, Dave Hidalgo) but the old fool is still the carnival ringleader. Wily and inscrutable as ever.

Your Highness

This is the movie where my man-crush on Danny McBride evaporated. As the walking mullet Kenny Powers on Eastbound and Down, McBride is an arrogant washed up baseball pitcher who trades in extreme meanness but whose excesses are oddly captivating. As much as I adore that show, it’s best taken in small doses. Quite why, then, he has decided to take Powers, transport him to medieval times (mullet, attitude, drug problems – everything) and team him up with James Franco and Natalie Portman in a directionless road movie is anybody’s guess.

Thadeous (McBride) and Fabious (Franco) are warrior brothers of the aristocracy. The former is a degenerate drunken bum forever living in the shadow of his more handsome, dashing and sober brother – Fabious whose bride-to-be, Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) is kidnapped by the evil Leezar. After the search party is double-crossed… no, I really can’t go on. McBride and his regular Eastbound collaborator David Gordon Green have fashioned a juvenile film that barely sticks together. Dialogue is croaky and chortle-free medieval speak. The action scenes are arduous and, fatally, it’s not that funny.

Franco is taking his ‘art’ to strange places here – I’m pretty sure he knew at the time the film wouldn’t work, so he appears to be stoned and hamming it up for friends on the other side of the camera. At least he’s having fun. McBride is just plain insolent – there are no redeeming features. One of the few saving graces is the supporting cast: Justin Theroux as Leezar is good ridiculous and the ubiquitous Toby Jones steals the show. I don’t even think you can say this would have looked good on paper, where it should have stayed. A major disappointment.

Wild Flag

When Sleater-Kinney disbanded in 2006 the alt-rock scene lost one of its true champions. Over 15 years together the band had moved on from their scratchy riot grrrl rooting to become a three armed rock behemoth. Their final album The Woods was a dense, reverb soaked headfuck and live shows at the time displayed a band that had gone far beyond the staccato, jagged rock pop heritage. Always a culturally engaged band, the heat of their righteous indignation would have fuelled small towns.

Co-lead singer Corin Tucker returned last year with 1,000 Years, a largely acoustic album of down-tempo tunes and now Carrie Brownstein (NPR radio star, fledgling cable TV comedy star, erudite pop theorist on Slate) jumps back in with Wild Flag and immediately satiates that discrete demand for intelligent grown up rock.

Brownstein is crazy charismatic: her lengthy frame provided some of the best high kicks since ever and on her battered Gibson SG she’d rip out complex and intricate guitar riffs married to boggling tempo shifts. Wild Flag is Brownstein relaxing into a garage groove riffs in hand, less burdened, unbound by expectation – the pop-inflected psych rock attack is still evident (Romance, Black Tiles) but it’s more focused and with vintage organ to boot (Boom). Ex- Sleater drummer Janet Weiss, Rebecca Cole and Mary Timony make Wild Flag a mini-supergroup of sorts. But that’s too glib, because Wild Flag are more than the sum of its parts. Let’s hope they stay.

Jane’s Addiction

Jane’s Addiction’s unhinged bowerbird approach to songwriting walks on a wire. Steel drums, hard punk riffage, ‘70s cock-rock posturing, dream-pop, prog-rock, frantic jazz-chords…you name it and the LA-based band threw it in the mix. When it works, it kills. Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual are cornerstones of alt-rock. When it doesn’t you get The Great Escape Artist – an inchoate mess devoid of memorable tracks, spark and purpose of being. It’s the sound of a band struggling to grapple with the concept of lapsed relevance.

This album marks the band’s third reunion since their initial split in 1991 and with TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek on knob-fiddling duties they were clearly looking for re-invention and inspiration. Alas, all he brings to the table are some slightly embarrassing cut/collage jagged electronics that already sounded dated on Dave Navarro’s forgettable debut solo effort Trust No One – ten years earlier! There are some great passages on this album, mostly during the first half (Irresistible Force, Curiosity Kills) but none hang together in complete songs.

Really, you can’t blame them; Jane’s Addiction doesn’t really get much credit for the paths they blazed. For god’s sake Perry Farrell invented Lollapalooza which at the time was quite revolutionary. Maybe they wanted some of that ‘reunion tour/album’ dough. It may not be the worst album of 2011, but The Great Escape Artist is probably the least essential release of the year.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

DIAMOND HARMONIES

In the mid ‘80s a full decade after his peak as a solo artist and at least 20 years before he invented Vampire Weekend, Paul Simon was in a rut. After being introduced to some music from the African continent his spirits lifted. At the time South Africa’s policy of racial segregation – apartheid – was in full swing, free elections were far beyond the horizon and individual rights for non-whites a pipedream.

Through it all the simple beauty, the mournful yet simultaneously jubilant mbube (a cappella) harmonisations of a group called LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO shone through. Their collaboration formed the core of Simon’s 1986 album Graceland. A surprise runaway hit it introduced Ladysmith Black Mambazo to the wider community, far beyond nascent world music circles. Simon recently returned to South Africa to celebrate its 25^th anniversary.

The occasion gave Ladysmith co-founder Albert Shabala cause to reflect on the album and its impact in his troubled homeland. “It was fantastic working with all these guys again for the reunion shows. That album was very much supported in our country. The community respect Paul for introducing our music to the world. The project was about us sharing our music with him and his music with ours. And for that they admire him big time here in South Africa.”

South Africa has undergone a seismic cultural and social shift since Ladysmith started in 1960. In the early days the band sang to overcome the tyranny surrounding them, to remind themselves and their community that humanity could exist even under oppression. A large part of this happened every Saturday night at weekly dance and isicathamiya singing competitions, the very place that forged the early years of Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Despite the multifarious distractions on offer today, Albert is not worried about their choir-styled singing falling out of musical fashion or favour. “This music is so popular with the young people. Every Saturday night in every city in South Africa you’ll find more and more people performing this sort of music. And when we tour, the young kids want to come and meet us. They are excited.”

Yet through it all, the music is a constant reminder of their struggles and it is something the elders of the group pass on to their youthful audiences. “They live a different life and are always amazed when we tell them what sort of life we lived. We tell them you have to work hard for your freedom. But then you enjoy it and don’t abuse it. We still have some things to do but when I look back at the life I was living compared to now…it feels like paradise! We have to encourage the young people to work for the development of the country, to make opportunities. Some of them take it for granted but we remind them it has been a struggle and people have been fighting for this. So just enjoy life.”

Ladysmith Black Mambazo will be singing at the Canberra Theatre on Thursday November 3. Tickets are $89.90 through canberratheatrecentre.com.au . 

THE MAN WHO NEVER SLEEPS

JOHN WATERS has a reputation for boundary pushing that knows little peer in modern pop culture. His name is a shortcut for pithy quips and savage rejoinders that suggest a man forever ready for a well-practised punch line, lilt of the head and arch of the eyebrow.

In the course of a string of high-camp, schlock films in the late ‘60s through to the early ‘80s (Mondo Trasho, Pink Flamingos and Polyester), his numerous stage shows (one of which – Hairspray – was a movie, then a stage show, then a movie of the stage show) or his memorable performance on The Simpsons as himself, the Baltimore native gives the impression of a man who refuses to take it easy.

In fact, when most people his age are in the first stages of their retirement, Waters maintains a gruelling work rate that would shame most writers half his years. “I don’t mind it, I guess I got it from my father…the early bird and the worm. I jump straight out of bed and get to work – writing, creating, and thinking of things. I work about ten hours a day.”

Aside from a probing body of work that runs the gamut from an obese transvestite eating dog shit (Divine’s legendary turn in Pink Flamingos – a performance forever linked to the outrage it caused but according to the man himself, “I never set out to outrage people. And besides eventually society catches up with me!”), to Johnny Depp playing a dopey teen star in the relatively straight Cry Baby, Waters has been afforded some minor luxuries. Like a beach house at Cape Cod or as he calls it “The Gay Fishing Village. I’ve been coming here for 47 years and it’s an insane beach town for artists and lunatics.”

His beach retreat is more than just a place to party with the bears (we’ll get to that in a minute), it’s also a time for relaxation. “I go swimming everyday for half an hour. It keeps my sanity.”

Fortunately with New York a six-hour drive away his neighbourhood for half the year isn’t swarming with skinny-jeaned hipsters. “Sure, it has always been an artists’ community and pretty crazy. Every summer they have bear week. This weekend is Gay Family Week. They have sporty lesbian week. Then they have women’s craft, which is a little drearier. And then on Memorial Weekend we have Baby Dyke weekend when all the college girls come and they act wild. They get into fights and get naked. It’s hilarious.”

What followed was a manic 20-minute discussion about the Australian Electoral system, Julia Gillard, yuppies, The Wire and preparing his one man live show for Australian audiences. Space (and a deleted file) prevents further discussion, so I’ll be at his forthcoming This Filthy World show hoping for a repeat performance.

John Waters will bring is solo show, This Filthy World to The Canberra Theatre on Tuesday October 25. Tickets are available through canberratheatrecentre.com.au for $75/$69 concession.

The Magnificent Tati

As a child Jacques Tatischeff was a dreamer who seemed destined to achieve little. Then he discovered rugby and through post-match reveries he uncovered his true talent: mime. He was spotted by a talent scout and stumbled into film as an actor. But Tati’s vision was bigger and through a handful of films the almost always voiceless Tati channelled the curiosity, fear and bewilderment of the modern world through poised nimbleness and tight choreographing. There were elements of Keaton, Chaplin et al but Tati worked hard to remove himself from being the focus of his work – the world was far more fascinating.

Not a storyteller in the traditional sense, Tati’s films offered scant plot and little narrative. By and large things just happened on the screen, usually many at the same time, marking a shift for the viewer from passive to active. Even nowadays this approach is challenging, and not exactly easy to enjoy. For its time this was revolutionary. Silent films of the era tried to create a sense of purpose whereas Tati was adamant there be no crisis, no drama and no conclusive arc. And so his films can be frustratingly out of reach. Play Time – his most ambitious and best film – bankrupted him and soon after the artistic community practically deserted him. It was a full and dramatic life. And then there was an aborted collaboration with crazed US power-pop, ex-child models, Hitler-moustache flouting duo Sparks. Yikes! 

The Magnificent Tati does everything you’d want it to – plotting out the life of a true original, adding dimension to our understanding of his position in cinematic history and most importantly sending us scurrying back to his films where the real Tati survives, hidden in plain sight.

Scarface (Re-issue)

Upon its release in 1983 Scarface wasn’t a success. A deliberately over-the-top, garish, profane and violent film about the life of cocaine lord Tony Montana (Al Pacino) it gets one thing spot on – timing.  Arriving just as cocaine was asserting its total ownage over the ‘80s, if ever there was a bespoke film this was it.

Scarface was also skittish, overlong, hare-triggered, intriguing and downright messy fun. Director Brian de Palma was courting controversy during its release, refusing to budge on the extreme violence that gave it an ‘X’ rating making it virtually unsalable. His ongoing battles with the studio can be seen in his protagonist’s constant battles with authority through this film. But over time Scarface became a cult classic, the coked-up gangster flipside to The Godfather’s more austere measured tones. As they’re fond of saying, both tell the ‘American story’. Montana is a refugee fleeing Catsro’s Cuba for a better life. Through sheer determination, bravado and a propensity for over-pronouncing the word ‘cockroach’, he rises to the heights of Miami’s cocaine industry. His fall is inevitable and spectacular. And full of brilliant Oliver Stone-penned catchphrases... you all know “Say hello to my little friend”...right?

Not a pretty film, Scarface deservedly hangs onto its classic tag representing a time where excess was expected and rewarded. To its vast credit, it never shies away from the sheer banality of the lifestyles portrayed. Michelle Pfeiffer as the rake-thin forever blasted drug mole is humiliated, bored and indifferent to the world – a world of all night dancing, vacant libido, guns and swearing. Lots of swearing. This re-issue is loaded with superb extras that contextualize and explain what this film means. Don’t skip them.

Baseball – A Film by Ken Burns

Most of us approach the game of baseball as outsiders. Whilst not a uniquely American game – professional leagues thrive in Japan, Central and South America – there is no doubting its cultural significance is largest in the US.

As such, the affection and outright devotion with which the game is held, travels awkwardly. Sure, we have local leagues and occasionally an Australian will get drafted to the majors but without an understanding of the intricate history and nomenclature of baseball it resembles an interminably dull and drawn out situation. Ken Burns’ award winning Baseball should go a long way to disavow the newbie of these notions and might just turn you into a novice fanatic.   

When that Burnsian black title card fades in with a jaunty tin-pan alley soundtrack and the authoritative John Chancellor narration starts – it’s like settling into an old sofa; which is exactly what you’ll need to do. This is a mammoth task clocking in at ten discs and over 18 hours.

Burns’ docos rely heavily on the personal; overarching themes narrow down to individual experiences. In one passage conservative commentator George Will argues baseball is the perfect metaphor for democracy; your team doesn’t always win, they will mostly lose and compromise is essential – but you stick it out for the greater good. Almost spot on.

Every era and scandal is covered in forensic detail, but controversially in later episodes Burns sees baseball through the prism of a few teams; the Yankees and Red Sox chiefly, meaning smaller franchises get short shrift. A minor quibble for an exemplary piece of filmmaking and with the World Series approaching there’s never been a better time to start the love affair with baseball.       

The Reels

Quasimodo’s Dream is considered by many to be one of the greatest, most eclectic albums released by an Australian band. Glancing through the Best 100 Australian Albums book released last year, it’s a difficult proposition to counter. It arrived 30 years ago, pub rock was in the early stages of its dominance (Rose Tattoo, Cold Chisel) and the post-punk scene was thriving (The Scientists, Radio Birdman). It was out of time.

There might ‘better’ albums (argumentatively subjective affair) but Quasimodo’s Dream stands firmly as an odd beast, even today when modern ears easily forgive decades old frippery and whacky synths. You could always throw the word ‘challenging’ at it, but 90 percent of you would rightfully stop reading right there because as we all know ‘challenging’ is merely a short cut to ‘fuck this is rubbish’.

It veers crazily between Krautrock-through-a-cheap-Casio nuggets of sheer brilliance (For All We Know) and kooky, non-ironic sugar pop pastiches (According To My Heart) but never goes entirely off the rails. My preference is for the former, but the appearance of the latter doesn’t detract, merely forcing us to fully engage with the album – “Why are they doing this?” It also defines the era’s DIY aesthetic much better than an overdriven guitar riff ever did. The ghostly Kitchen Man captures in one song what Jack Ladder attempted – and failed – on his recent Hurstville. Remastered and re-sequenced by Reels leader Dave Mason Quasimodo’s Dream is a slippery and very modern wonder.

Drive-By Truckers

Compiling a Drive-By Truckers compilation is a fool’s errand and an entirely redundant task. Sure, they have reams of great tracks and show no sign of reducing their inhumane work rate (nine albums in 13 years including the odd double) with the last 12 months producing two albums of new material. But this Georgia-based and proudly Southern band primarily make albums that gel as singular theme-heavy pieces of work – ‘concept albums’ if you insist.

Children of the Muscle Shoals, Alabama area and devoutly proud of their musical heritage, Drive-By Truckers sound an unexciting proposition on paper; roots rock, multi-pronged guitar attack (their best line-up stretched to three with the now-departed Jason Isbell on board), rotating vocal and song writing duties and a love of solos. Bit ho-hum really. Nope. Not when it’s done with such passion and intensity and married to actual tunes. Big fat hummable, riff-laden, dusty, propulsive, swaggering ones (3 Dimes Down, Let There Be Rock... no, not that one) and slow, hauntingly melodic, despair-ridden ones (World of Hurt) each a mini-epic of visually rich storytelling.         

An apologetic essay by legendary weird-haired rock crit David Fricke accompanies this release; its inclusion giving credence to the perception the Truckers had nothing to do with it. Ugly Buildings... barely scratches the surface, is a decent enough collection and a reliable snapshot. Big caveat though: buy every single damn one of their previous albums (start with Southern Rock Opera) instead and get the whole feeling.

Glen Campbell

Glen Campbell is a true survivor. His volatile personal life is tailor made for the country but behind the headlines is a masterful songwriter and interpreter of song. He’s also a deeply emotive vocalist, mercifully free of the syrup and dramatisms that blemish most country artists. If you aren’t familiar with his definitive versions of Jimmy Webb’s Wichita Lineman or By The Time I Get to Phoenix get to it– they are unarguable American classics.

Earlier this year Campbell was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease so Ghost on the Canvas is his farewell album. It would be unfair to compare this to his staggering ‘60s Capitol output; a modern equivalent might be Rick Rubin’s Johnny Cash albums. Indeed 2008’s Meet Glen Campbell attempted the very same rebirth with some well chosen covers (Foo Fighters, The Replacements and um…Travis) for a new audience. Canvas is a natural extension and a far better record.

For starters, Robert Pollard is here dueting on Hold on Hope (from Guided By Voices 1999’s Do The Collapse). As is Chris Issak, most of the Dandy Warhols, Billy Corgan, Keith “Nicole Kidman” Urban and Paul Westerberg. But the covers are a distraction as Campbell’s originals are stunning; It’s Your Amazing Grace is achingly beautiful and uplifting. Strong carries the forward looking, stoicism-through-adversity sentiment even further. Fittingly patchy, this man is going out in style.

Icehouse

MEN OF MANY COLOURS

Even though they were a phenomenal commercial success and have written some of the smartest (Taking the Town), eeriest (Icehouse) and iconic (Great Southern Land) songs in the last 30 years, Icehouse don’t really get their dues. Yes, they’re widely respected, but not loved in the same non-ironic way as Midnight Oil or The Saints. Now I’m not suggesting it warrants a Royal Commission, but it’s not entirely out of order.

Now that they have reformed in the wake of the recent remastering of the debut album (Icehouse) and greatest hits CD/DVD set (White Heat) lead singer/guitarist and songwriter, Iva Davies is in the odd position of talking about his band again. “It’s slightly surreal and it’s becoming my job again. But it’s also quite an interesting time because I am going back to a place I know very well but I just haven’t visited it for a long time.”

From the debut through to the massive best seller Man of Colours, Davies worked his way through multiple genres and played around with what constituted a ‘pop song’: the epic dryness of Southern Land, the radio friendly bombast of Mr Big, the new wave urgency of Taking the Town, the Bowie-ness of Hey, Little Girl. From the very beginning it sounded like Icehouse knew exactly what they wanted. Not so says Davies – “I didn’t have perspective or any kind of distance at all. So in that sense I didn’t have a vision. All I had was a very strong knowledge of what I wanted and what I didn’t want.”

Surprisingly it turns out that what he wanted was Pink Floyd. “I was 17 when I first heard Dark Side of the Moon – it had an extraordinary space you could just walk around in. It told me that you could do amazing things in a recording studio. Because even though we were basically a pub band what I really wanted to do was get into a studio and make those kinds of aural pictures.”

During the ruthless local ‘80s pub rock scene Icehouse not only prospered, they also had no problem playing certain industry games. Like playing on the venerable Countdown. “We were a bit of an anomaly. I was very aware that we were a punk band in the middle of a punk movement but also very contradictory. We didn’t buy into the grandstanding that came with the punk movement. It ultimately evaporated but was taken very seriously at the time. But we had our own space so it didn’t worry us that we could go from the Oxford Tavern [tough as nails Sydney pub] and then turn up on Countdown. Didn’t bother us in the least.”

And now they’re playing shows again, Davies finds himself in pubs again, playing a warm up show at St Kilda’s Esplanade Hotel recently. “I haven’t been in a pub for about 20 years! So it was quite a shock to the system.”

Icehouse are making a comeback at Homebake on Saturday December 3 at the Domain in Sydney. Tickets are available through Ticketek from $102. The band will also be playing Meredith Music Festival from Friday December 9 to Sunday December 11. Unfortunately, tickets are sold out.

The Thick Of It – S3

Malcolm Tucker is one of the greatest comedic characters in television. A modern update of Yes Minister’s obsequious Sir Humphrey Appleby, Tucker is the sort of guy for who if one ‘fuck’ is good enough then ten in quick succession is even better. As the Director of Communications for an unnamed UK government, Tucker (played with gangly, hollow-eyed menace by Peter Capaldi) is responsible for cleaning up everyone else’s mess; fixing and spinning like a Caledonian whirling dervish. Whilst it’s commonly accepted that Tucker is a fictional version of Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alistair Campbell, series creator Armando Iannucci is more coy, rightly pointing out that politics is full of these sort of aggressive morally questionable characters. Why pick on him?

Season 3 opens with a cabinet reshuffle which means new ministers, new blood. Hugh Abbott’s exit is dealt with suitably delicately; actor Chris Langham had no chance to return with a child sex conviction looming very large in the background. His replacement Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front) picks up the slack effortlessly – just as clueless and just as reliant on Tucker.

The danger with a character like Tucker is twofold: the tornado of profanity can wear thin very quickly and the intensity of such venom can outshine the rest of the cast. Luckily, Capaldi seems more fluid and acrobatic in insult construction than ever before. And a bickering supporting cast (Chris Addison, James Smith, Joanna Scanlon) is easily up to the task of sharing Tucker’s limelight, despite being ever wary of his presence. This longer season allows characters to settle and grow and we even see Tucker’s house after the man himself has a little stress leave. A strange idea, but a brilliant show.

Jackass 3.5

There’s a tinge of uneasy sadness in watching this film, knowing that one of the original Jackass crew – Ryan Dunn – died after a drink driving accident in June. Friends and family would most likely prefer you to not focus on the fact that Dunn was well over the blood alcohol limit. But he was, and he took another person’s life with him.

Since its inception there has always been a sense of wilful unhinged danger about the exploits of Johnny Knoxville and co. In the MTV shows and first films they were a decade younger and wounds healed quickly. The only way they could have conceived and then pulled off their stunts was surely a function of being either high and/or drunk. Now that most of them are in their middle aged years, sober, and with families, you have to wonder how they pull themselves out of bed to do this stuff. And if Dunn’s death will force them to reconsider.

Whatever the case Jackass 3.5 is a sort-of sequel to last years Jackass 3D; it’s basically a new film of unused footage that looks nothing like its predecessor. Sadly the lurid glory of 3D, especially the slow motion stuff, is notable in its absence. Some would argue they should have retired on that high point. This one is basically the crew on tour in Europe. But it takes some sort of mad genius and gonzo talent to be able to plan and execute newer, better stunts, and all credit to the production team that they manage to keep the series alive. A 40-minute doco on the genesis of the series is a worthy extra and possibly a knowing coda to the whole Jackass thing.

Friday Night Lights: Seasons 1-3

Last week Friday Night Lights won a couple of Emmys – for writing and Kyle Chandler’s flawlessly rich performance as Coach Taylor – and whilst utterly deserved it was too little too late; this critically loved show recently finished its fifth and final season. Yet it wasn’t built for awards and the red carpet. For one it’s naturalistic. Scripts are provided, but ad-libbing within the character and plot is the norm. This realism shows in the loving attention to detail of everyday, middle class suburbia. You know, the stuff we don’t usually see without studio approved gloss – if at all.

The heart of the show is the partnership of Eric and Tami Taylor (Connie Britton in a sustained equally brilliant performance) who arrive in Dillon, Texas where Eric is the new high school football coach. Being Coach is more than just a coach though and football is more than a sport. In Dillon – it’s everything.

From this relatively simple set up, concentric circles expand drawing lives together and painting the most articulate, nuanced and real vision of community, relationships and life ever seen on the small box. It goes far beyond the writing; the simplest of gestures capture layers of exposition and motivation. Chandler apparently refused paragraphs of dialogue because he could capture the intent with one look. Through it all are some seriously gorgeous epic sweeps of rural Texas and the best soundtrack on TV, bar none.

After a near perfect first season the sophomore slump is pronounced but the ship is soon righted and even if it doesn’t have the cache of cool attached to its cable cousins  Friday Night Lights sits easily and justifiably at the top of the heap. Better than Mad Men or The Wire? You bet.

Mariachi El Bronx

Reception – Good & Bad

Getting a hold of Jorma Vix proved very difficult one Tuesday a couple of weeks back. Not because his band MARIACHI EL BRONX were on stage supporting Foo Fighters (that was the next day) or in the studio recording a Dylan cover for an Amnesty International compilation album (that was the previous day) but more because he has a terrible telecommunications carrier. “Aw man – I recently talked to my cell phone provider because my phone doesn’t work at my house and they were all like, ‘Your house is between three towers and it doesn’t know which tower to connect to…So you’re just fucked’. It’s a blessing in disguise until I get an important phone call”. Which is why this delayed conversation took place on a street not far from Daniel Lanois’ house. But that’s another story.

In 2009 LA-based hardcore band The Bronx started gigging as a traditional mariachi band. The debut album was well received, as were the shows they played as their alter egos. This year’s follow up album is a more diverse experience and it feels like a band finding confidence in their newish genre footing. “For the first album we had just started learning and picking up the instruments and were all new to it. But over the last couple of years we have been researching, meeting new people, and taking lessons through YouTube.”

Donning mariachi suits and sombreros you run the risk of becoming a stale and ugly joke, but the band have dodged hostility. “For the most part we’ve had a fucking wonderful reception. We’ve been very careful not to make a mockery of it or make it seem too campy and people who listen to traditional mariachi hear that we’re paying homage to it.”

In the process of furthering their mariachi sound they also stole multi-instrumentalist Ray Suen from The Killers who, despite not coming from a restaurant band background, was still able to add layers of complexity to the sound. Indeed it’s this aspect of discovery that most excites the entire band, explains Vix. “When we started The Bronx there’s no way we’d ever have a violin or accordion on our album.”

With Mariachi El Bronx appearing on Jay Leno, touring with Dave Grohl and recording Dylan covers – are we witnessing the slow dissolution of The Bronx? Not quite. “There’s a good feeling for what The Bronx does. Not everyone is going to be into five guys screaming loudly into your face and playing as fast as possible. But the mariachi thing is more digestible. Playing drums in The Bronx is gnarly; I’m sweating and puking. But with the mariachi band we get to sit back and enjoy it a bit more. We love it and I don’t see us not doing it so it’s not a side project for us. It just feels like we have two full time bands now.”

Mariachi El Bronx II is out now through iTunes and bricks ‘n’ mortar purveyors of quality tunage.

Insidious

Local filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell are possibly the most successful film partnership in recent Australian cinema history. Their 2004 film Saw was a monstrosity in more ways than one. It launched six sequels, raked in well over three quarters of a billion dollars in receipts, helped popularise the torture-porn genre and reminded us that Cary Elwes was still kicking around.   

In the films they helmed, the pair display a tacit understanding that the biggest fear in horror films comes from what you don’t show; the implied. The Saw franchise waded through its fair share of gore and blood but the first film is taut psychological torture rather than slashy meat grinder material. They bring the former in spades to Insidious – a haunted house film with a slight twist.

The Lambert family have just moved into an austere imposing early 20^th century house. Being of that age it looks sinister even before doors start closing of their own accord and floors creak suspiciously. After a mishap in the attic, young Dalton Lambert falls into an unexplained coma. More noises, more sightings and the family move house but nothing changes. It’s not the house that’s haunted.    

For the most part the Wan/Whannell partnership delivers the requisite chills by making the things that go bump in the night real and restraining from pulling fake thrills. The first two thirds are nerve jangling.

However the decision in the final act to give the devilish haunting a physical embodiment is the film’s only, but very large, miscalculation. The visceral intensity is forever lost and momentum quickly dissolves. What we are left with is the pantomime shenanigans of a Darth Maul knock-off with goat hooves confusing all and sundry. Which is a shame because the core of the haunting – astral projection gone wrong – is an unmined genre of the horror genre.

It’s Garry Shandling’s Show – S1

Back in its day the awkwardly named It’s Garry Shandling’s Show was ground breaking. The titular and equally awkward main character – a struggling stand-up comic called Garry played by not-so-struggling stand-up comic Garry Shandling – frequently broke the ‘fourth wall’ and spoke directly to viewers at home and in the studio audience with a knowing, hanging smirk.

Each episode started with a Tonight Show-esque monologue, ended with a “Well, what did we learn?” wrap up a la The Brady Bunch and was filled out with standard sitcom tropes – zany neighbours, wacky goings-on, unlucky in love and clueless protagonist. Every character was played by actors who were acting as if they knew they were in a sitcom. If that makes sense.

It was a strange mix that gleefully played around with expectations and confounded viewers, blurring the line between reality, script and ad-lib. It was one of the earliest meta-shows, before meta was even a thing. Looking at it now you see the genesis of almost every recent sitcom of note… 30 Rock, Community, Seinfeld, Louie all owe a debt to Shandling’s loose-limbed deconstructionist mugging.

And it was the stepping-stone to Shandling’s – and some would argue television’s – greatest creation (Larry Sanders) that carried a similar concept into the world of tonight shows for greater results.

Unsurprisingly it wasn’t a popular show even by late ‘80s cable standards and 20 plus years on it looks terribly dated. I think that was point. Shandling was paying homage to the classic Norman Lear genre of TV ‘one-two punch line’ comedy whilst lovingly tearing it down at the same time. Not everything works but this show was well ahead of its time so it’s easy to let the ropey bits slide by.

Bored to Death – S2

Calling Bored to Death a delightful romp sounds like I’m damming it with faint praise. It’s one of those quaint little shows that bubbles away in the background; discrete, well mannered, tightly scripted and extremely funny. Jonathan Ames created, co-produces and co-writes the show in which the lead character – also called Jonathan Ames but played with nebbish delight by Jason Schwartzman – is a failing Brooklyn writer who branches out and becomes an amateur and unlicensed private investigator. Along with his best friend, comic book writer Ray (Zach Galifakinis) and magazine proprietor mentor George (the ever brilliant Ted Danson) the trio spend most of their time stumbling around New York in a pot haze obsessing over the minutiae of their lives: ex-partners and elf girls in the main part.

This season sees the focus shift towards George and Ray and slightly away from Jonathan who spends most of the series fretting about getting a story published in The New Yorker.  George is losing control of his own magazine (which has a slight whiff of New York Magazine about it) after a hostile purchase whilst Ray is achieving a minor cult status from the success of his Super Ray graphic novel – which Kevin Bacon wants to turn into a film. The inclusion of Bacon gives you a clue of what sort of show this is, the actor himself pitched for the role and he finishes his time on-screen leaving a dive bar in Brooklyn after being punched by Ray lamenting that the borough across the East River is not as hip as he thought it would be. It’s very insidery – jokes about strollers in Park Slope abound but it stays just on the right side of obscure literary and pop culture references.

Mariachi El Bronx

When the aggressive LA punk band The Bronx took a sidestep in 2009 and released an album of mariachi inspired acoustic music the initial shock soon gave way to a consensus that – actually, it wasn’t that bad.

Mariachi El Bronx, the follow-up and exact same name as its predecessor, is better in every possible way. Whilst the debut didn’t exactly feel like a foolish throwaway it certainly had the slight tinge of gimmick, despite its inherent charms. Maybe it was the shock of the new. Whatever the case, this ups the ante markedly.

The band have settled into a rhythm, relaxed into a style of song writing and expanded their sonic palate in such a way that it’s hard to imagine the gruff vocals of Matt Caughthran sitting behind electrified guitars anymore. You’ll hear everything but electrified here – spiralling joyous trumpets, sonorous deep guitarron Mexicanos, thrashing vihuelas and scattershot violas. Apparently the band made a studied and serious effort to get a better understanding of mariachi music before recording this album, and it shows. This isn’t a bunch of gringos slumming it. The opening triad of 48 Roses, Great Provider and Revolution Girls rescues our collective vision of Mariachi music from Gypsy Kings forever. The Pogues and Les Negresses Vertes were doing similar things with gypsy, folk and Celtic music but this is something else altogether. One of the year’s best.

Dylan Moran

You think we have it bad here in Australia. And we do. Farmers need wives, blocks of houses need to be renovated, talent needs to be discovered and mediocre amateur chefs need to cook cheese believing they belong at El Bulli, but at least we don’t have a stand-up comedy reality TV show. They do in the UK and by all accounts it’s an abject failure.

This commoditisation of comedy does not sit well with Scotland-based Irish comic DYLAN MORAN. “It’s ridiculous – there’s way too many people. You’re getting into giant sized lifts and they’re crammed with these odd people who have been manufactured by TV executives and they’re all marching down the road trying to get a gig.”

Don’t mistake that crumpled just-out-of-bed rancour for envy however. “Look I’m not saying there are too many comics. They’re a lot younger than me and I’m not competing with them. But they do stand-up on TV more, [and] then do arenas straight away without going through the process of playing theatres for years. I’m not complaining about it because it’s not my tradition and not what I know.”

And just like the reality shows for comedians it’s all part of the slow creep from art to careerism. “It’s not for everybody. But it’s a big business. Some stand-ups are playing to 6000, 7000 people a night so somebody has to be making a lot of dough.”

Moran is halfway through a sell-out tour of the country and if for nothing else alone will be treated as comic royalty for his stint on the cult-favourite Black Books, which ran for three brief seasons on CH4/ABC in the early 2000s as the irascible, permanently sozzled literary fiend Bernard Black. It’s a role that shot him to international fame, but Moran had already spent well over a decade on the comedy circuit winning awards like the prestigious Perrier Award at Edinburgh (the youngest recipient ever) along the way.

The man himself has been reported as saying the awards and attention don’t sit well, a sentiment that looks like it hasn’t changed. “What people write about me or how they rate me is not my concern or job. I’m completely baffled by it… positive or negative. But that’s entirely fitting, because everyone has an opinion and everybody is a critic but not everybody is maker.”

At this juncture it is worth noting that Moran has a refreshingly different take on his show than what you may have going in as a punter. “The truth is I’m not that interested in stand-up comedy. I don’t think of it as a career. In all my shows all I’m trying to do is create a conversation. It should feel like a conversation even though the audience aren’t responding to everything I’m saying and I’m not responding to what they’re saying obviously.”

Dylan Moran is one of the best conversationalists around. Join in.

Dylan Moran will be chatting up crowds at The Royal Theatre on Saturday September 3. Tickets are sold out, sadly.

Community

Community will be one of those shows that dies a slow death of falling audience figures and wavering network interest only to turn up 20 years later as a course in post-modern media and hailed as a misjudged classic.

There’s nothing groundbreaking about the premise – misfit slackers goofing off at an inconsequential regional community college. Even the characters are easy to recognise from Sitcom 101; the sassy black single mother, the self-obsessed heartthrob, the rebel. What sets this show apart is a gleeful desire to provide a running commentary of the experience of watching a sitcom – whilst you are watching a sitcom; the ultimate meta-comedy littered with call-backs and pop culture gags fired so quickly, you’ll need the DVD to figure them out.

Since it started, the show has twisted every TV sitcom trope so out of shape you often wonder if you are watching a comedy or a documentary on how to mess with audience’s minds. The apex is reached in the 21^st episode of this second season when it rips the ‘clip-show’ conceit to shreds in a bravura display of elliptical TV screenwriting. The majority of the clips never happened – they’re non-sequiters, inside jokes from previous episodes, or extensions of actual scenes that did.

Yes, Community runs the danger of being too clever for its own good. Meta and irony is now very much the domain of the lazy and talentless. But this show is creating an alternate universe where the escapism is so deep, the layers so thrilling to fathom and the heart so close to the surface its impossible to dislike. Except for Chevy Chase as Pierce, everyone seems to hate him. Even in the commentaries.

Carlos The Jackal

The world is a demonstrably safer place than it was 40 years ago. Maybe not a better place, but there are certainly less exploding rubbish bins and high profile hi-jackings. Not to minimise the horror of current warfare in any way but there was a time when terrorism weaved its way into the fabric of the world – first and third.

Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – Carlos the Jackal – was the embodiment of terrorism in the ‘70s. A charismatic Marxist revolutionary from Venezuela he forged his way into the tentacles of European guerrilla warfare through sheer force of will and good connections. In 1975 he murderously raided the OPEC headquarters in Zurich – but was outflanked and failed to execute his targets, Iranian and Saudi ministers. This extensive docu-drama charts Carlos’ time on full rampage, usually with a string of waif-like German anarchists in tow. At nearly 500 minutes long there is barely a wasted minute.

This is dramatisation done properly and with finesse and attention to detail. Edgar Ramirez captures Carlos in all his manic and captivating glory – through fat and thin, moments of clarity and madness. Deservedly he won awards for this performance of a lifetime. Deservedly this miniseries (skip the film version, this is the real deal) was heaped with praise; production design tackles the difficult ‘70s with aplomb – washed out, tacky but not vaudeville chintz.

Carlos is a timely reminder that history has a strange pattern of interconnectedness and is never that far from the present – one of Carlos’ earlier financial supporters Muammar Qaddafi is on the run from a country at his heel whilst the real life Carlos sits in a Parisian jail cell. For life.

An Idiot Abroad

About 15 years back Karl Pilkington was an anonymous producer at London’s XFM. After meeting Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant soon after, he became the strangest of media stars – a disagreeable, slow-witted whinger constantly perplexed and threatened by ‘the other’ – people, culture …anything. Speaking in rhymes, his dispassionate cadence coming off as the brain droppings of a pre-modern mystical sage.

The premise here is simple: travel broadens the mind, so Gervais and Merchant send their old sparring partner around the world ensuring every part of the trip is as difficult as possible. So no air-conditioned cabs, no fancy hotels and no upright western toilets. It’s all about putting a man far outside his comfort zone. And obviously Karl hates it and doesn’t shirk from letting us know how he feels about other cultures: he hates them.

I’m in two completely different minds about this show. Pilkington engages in the most myopic Johnny Foreigner-type bigotry imaginable. It seemingly celebrates the meek minded, mean spirited, insular and xenophobic by putting the archetypal Englishman in a foreign situation and revelling at the response “Your toilets are funny - ha ha. You’re so backwards”.

Previously, Gervais and Merchant have attacked those in power, the bullies and shone alight on the vulgarity of celebrity. But what are they saying here exactly? People who hold the ugliest opinions have usually travelled the shortest distance from their home? Dark people scare the uneducated? We know that.

In my other mind Pilkington is a comic creation – exaggerated for impact and this is a clear extension of the squirm humour that Gervais and Merchant excel at. An Idiot Abroad is either brilliantly clever or repugnantly simple. My internal debate continues.

Steve Cropper

Tribute albums are fiendish. The pull between being faithful to the source material to the point of miserable reverence and the urge to express individuality through ill-advised discursions into frippery is so strong that most tribute albums gather dust barely after one listen. But Steve Cropper has done the impossible – made an album that dutifully honours its subject and stands alone as a collection of songs, not merely rough-hewn covers.

The 5 Royales were a little-known but influential gospel, soul and nascent rock ‘n’ roll band from North Carolina from the mid part of the last century. Cropper is the legendary guitarist for Stax label’s in-house band Booker T and MG’s and co-wrote some of the greatest songs of the modern era – Soul Man, (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay, In The Midnight Hour. His terse, expressive hi-treble twang defined the soul-rock-funk crossover but as Cropper admits he was merely copying The 5 Royales’ Lowman Pauling.

You’d assume most modern listeners are hearing much of this music for the first time – so the thrill of discovery is part of the appeal. And when you have Steve Winwood, Lucinda Williams, Sharon Jones and B.B King (amongst others) on board there’s the risk of muddying the waters. Yet the multiple vocalists fit perfectly from Cropper’s funky but not overly-respectful arrangements. Dedicated is neo soul, doo-wop and funk done by the best in the business and a tribute album that actually works.

Steve Coogan

When Steve Coogan returned to stand-up comedy in 2008 the results were mixed. Which is to say the reviews were awful. Coogan himself appeared combative and unwilling to accept his performances were lukewarm retreads of barely updated old material, lacking energy. In his eyes, it was the media’s fault.

Who could blame him? He’s been the whipping boy for the UK tabloids for nigh on 20 years. His various bedroom exploits and chemical escapades milked for every gotcha moment possible. He was even blamed for Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. Little wonder that his articulate and impassioned attacks on News International at the height of Hackgate became a viral hit.

Before all this Coogan was an incendiary live performer. These two performances catch him at the height of his powers. Live’n’Lewd is bookended by Paul and Pauline Calf – thick, gobby Manc gits. Paul’s hatred of students no doubt invigorated the mainly university crowd Coogan drew at the time. But really, they haven’t aged well. And whilst this is Coogan’s show, it is arguably stolen by John Thomson (Cold Feet) as the chain smoking, ultra-PC, reformed working man’s comic Bernard Righton. His surreal segment intros are worth price of admission alone.  

Alan Partridge (co-created with the brilliant Armando Iannucci for On The Hour a scathingly brilliant BBC radio show) is Coogan’s undisputed breakout character and steals the second half of The Man. Partridge has been his albatross ever since. Three TV series down it’s the one character the public refuses to let die, despite less than enthusiastic support from its creator. Sadly, there is talk of a film. These shows are the balance, providing the perfect vehicle for Coogan’s brilliant mimicry skills and mangled, bitter wit. This is when Coogan could perform. This is where you should start.

Eastbound and Down – S2

At the end of the first season, Kenny Powers (Danny McBride) was driving full throttle from responsibility. After a career-reviving carrot as relief pitcher at Tampa Bay was dangled then cruelly withdrawn, Powers had no other option but to run away.

He had overreached, over promised and over borrowed. Which is why he now resides in Mexico, fashioning a truly awful set of cornrows and commanding a comically unthreatening posse of two, one of which is an over-tanned angry midget with a gun. As you would expect. His Mexican siesta is rudely interrupted by the opportunity of redemption through the local amateur baseball league. Incapable of turning down the possibility for adulation, he accepts. Only to find out he is an even bigger washed up showboat than originally thought. Situation normal.

Eastbound and Down confuses many people, playing it straight with few overt signs of irony. Audiences accustomed to winking irony interpret its absence as a sign of pandering to suburbia – the lower classes – or brazen mockery of hicks and bogans. In this respect Eastbound is thoroughly subversive. The protagonist is a jerk who might never mature into decency. But his shambolic life is so full of pathos and seemingly free of regret that it’s impossible to write this show off as an unfunny comedy, as many have done.

These seven episodes aren’t as over-the-top, stupid-funny as the first. But it obviously wasn’t the intent. They’re darker, more sombre and more rewarding. Kenny sinks deeper, but keeps on surviving. Don Johnson’s appearance as Kenny’s father is a highlight and totally outlandish, even for his ridiculous son.    

Moving the entire show into unfamiliar territory, geographically and psychologically was incredibly risky. And the forthcoming third season will be its last. As always Eastbound and Down is wrong footing its way to success, almost despite itself.

Apocalypse Now – 2 Disc Special Edition (Blu Ray)

Apocalypse Now was released in 1979, a stone throw beyond America’s withdrawal from Vietnam that marked the official end of the conflict. As fate would have it, China invaded Vietnam in the same year and whilst this isn’t a history lesson it does serve to remind us that the geopolitical landscape at the time was hardly stable or safe. So the sheer gumption of Francis Ford Coppola to herd his entire crew and family to SE Asia in this climate was brazen crazy genius.

The film needs little introduction. You should know it well enough by now. Based loosely on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness – itself based on Belgium’s conquest of the Congo at the turn of the 20^th century – it’s the story of one man’s (Benjamin Willard/Martin Sheen) descent into the Cambodian jungles and its mayhem and insanity in search of another (Walter Kurtz/Marlon Brando) who was well ahead of him; geographically and temporally.

It’s easy to overlook classic films, to leave them resting in aspic and nod sagely when mentioned as talk turns to ‘best-of’ lists. But Apocalypse Now is universal and ageless, bristling with wayward mescaline-soaked intensity. Pick a military excursion in history and you’ll easily find parallels. It’s not a film about the Vietnam War. It’s a film about humanity. The part of our psyche we prefer not to acknowledge – the extremities.

This stunning re-release covers everything you could possibly want – all commercially available versions, the sharpest picture you’ll likely very see and sound design that is compellingly transportative. The only thing that betters it is the 3-disc version containing the Heart of Darkness doco. Either way, this is one of the best releases of this or another year.

R.E.M.

In 1986, R.E.M. were in the latter part of their first big transition phase. The soft pastoral mumblings of Murmur and Reckoning made way for a more confident and raucous band. The previous year’s Fables of the Reconstruction was the shaky start; a fine album suffering a clear lack of focus. This album is where R.E.M. Mk II really kicked in and set in motion a path that created the first true arena crossover act of the alternative era. The opening double whammy of Begin the Begin and These Days is revelatory. Never had Michael Stipe sounded so clear and defiant “We are young despite the years we are concern/We are hope despite the times” he exhorts in the latter or “The insurgency began and you missed it” in the former. Even now, it sounds revolutionary. And never had Peter Buck swung between loose-limbed power chords and lush arpeggio prettiness so fluently. Garage rave-ups like Just a Touch rest neatly against Civil War ballads like Swan Swan H and sound perfectly simpatico. This 25^th anniversary remastering has lifted the record immeasurably – non-vinyl versions were wan and unrepresentative. Lifes Rich Pageant is an exciting record and easily one of the band’s greatest achievements, as well as possessing the highest ratio of fan favourites to ‘Best Of’ selections. This is a good thing. If you haven’t heard this album and think you know R.E.M. – you don’t.

Hereafter

Plucky 12 year old Marcus (Frankie McLaren) is sitting in a room with child protection services. Outside it’s a grim, grey day. The sort only England can pull off. It’s a day after Marcus sat near alone in a church farewelling his twin brother – Jason – run over whilst fleeing a gang of teenage thieves. I bet they had knives. It was England after all. In the same room sits his mother. A heroin addict, she is about to lose custody of her remaining son. What a dire situation. Unbelievably neither Mike Leigh nor Ken Loach is behind the camera. Hereafter is Clint Eastwood’s meandering excursion into the vagueness of the afterlife.

Meanwhile in France, Marie Lelay (Cecile de France) is struggling to cope with surviving a tsunami. After being clocked in the head with debris, Lelay drifts towards that light we have been taught is the signifier to the ‘other world’. After recovery, she takes a circuitous path to new age book author thereby befuddling her Gallic peers. The French don’t stand for that sort of waffly nonsense.

And finally, in San Francisco George Lonegan (Matt Damon) takes Italian cooking classes and works in a factory after giving up a lucrative, but naturally draining, life in psychic readings.

Somehow these lives have to intersect. PT Anderson and Alejandro González Iñárritu have made a career out of this sort of thing by playfully bending narratives and smashing together disparate character arcs. Eastwood on the other hand prefers to take a step back. He is a filmmaker of the less is more variety. But this means that Hereafter poses big questions but offers little framework for the viewer to contextualise them.

Eastwood has crafted an odd, decidedly non-mainstream film about loss and grief. The screenplay by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) is elliptical and intriguing but after a mid-section lag the film never regains its composure.

The Lincoln Lawyer

If your only exposure to Matthew McConaughey is his over-exposed torso on the many beaches of North America and his plentiful squalid rom-coms you’d have no reason to expect much from “McConaughey – The Dramatist”.

In fact it’s the clever bait-and-switch stunt casting of the slow drawling Texan in the role of Mickey Haller, a morally-ambiguous defence attorney whom practises his ‘craft’ in Los Angeles court rooms, that makes The Lincoln Lawyer such an enjoyable surprise. On the surface Haller is simple to figure out. By representing the scumbags and career crims he is doing his bit to keep those scales of justice in balance. Not out of a sense of altruism, mind you. Money appears to be the primary driver and a small dose of sticking it to the man; usually the police.

Haller accepts a job defending Louis Roulet, a smarmy LA playboy played with an acute sense of understanding by the smarmy and joyless Ryan Phillipe. Roulet is accused of beating and raping a prostitute – but it was all a set up to cash in on his enormous wealth and so for an exorbitant fee Haller starts demolishing the alleged victim. Matters soon get all twisty and turny and soon enough the lawyer (who works out of his vintage Lincoln) is trapped in a carefully constructed Hobson’s choice. To say any more would be to spoil.

The Lincoln Lawyer harks back to a time when you couldn’t wander into a multiplex without falling over a courtroom drama. And despite being set in LA this film isn’t always flashy; it inhabits the grimy and shifty… think The Shield vs James Ellroy.

McConaughey deserves most of the credit for this film’s success, effortlessly outshining a formidably talented cast (William H Macy, Marisa Tomei, Bryan Cranston, Michael Pena). When they’re done this well, it’s good to have the courtroom drama back.

The Adjustment Bureau

Philip K Dick is one of the most celebrated science fiction writers of all time. Not only have his novels, essays and short stories won their own share of awards but small portions of his work have been spun off into screenplays for extraordinary and middling returns (Blade Runner and Minority Report respectively). The difficulty anyone faces when confronted with converting the limitless vistas of science fiction to the big screen is that some ideas are far beyond the technical grasp of the camera.

And so we have The Adjustment Bureau, based on Dick’s short story Adjustment Team. Having not read the original text it’s hard to know how well it translates, but if Dick was aiming for a story where his protagonist runs through doors and shifts dimensions and geography with a magic hat – then mission accomplished. Somehow I doubt that was what he was hoping for.

David Norris (Matt Damon) is a young politician on the make. Despite selling his knockabout Brooklyn attitude, he’s just like any other media managed public official – he can’t even tie his own tie. The humanity! After losing a Senate election and practicing his concession speech in the bathroom, a mysterious woman in a dress (Emily Blunt) advises him to go for broke and tell the truth. But the truth has consequences and as we learn, the balance is inexorably tipped. Men in suits freeze time and ‘adjust’ circumstances and people’s minds to suit the natural and predetermined path of… things. Norris refuses to play nice. Which leads to that door/hat scenario. Flights of fantasy are in the mind and so are notoriously tricky to capture and the nature of fate, freewill and an omnipotent God are suggested but never fully realised. It’s a film that almost gets there, but it feels like someone chickened out somewhere in the process. Something that Dick never did.

BRUCE HORNSBY

It’s not often you hear a musician admit they had no idea what they were doing when their songs top international charts for months on end, sell in the millions and produce a Grammy or two. And it’s not that BRUCE HORNSBY (and his then-band The Range) didn’t appreciate his massive 1986 album and title-track The Way It Is ushering him into the public consciousness, it’s just that, well, it was a fluke as Hornsby explains. “Yes, a wonderful accident. One BBC DJ liked that one song and it then became a big hit in England… then Holland… then the rest of the world.”

What made the experience even more perplexing for the talented multi-instrumentalist was that the songs were not exactly standard commercial radio fodder. “One song – Valley Road – was about a girl who gets knocked-up and sent to a school for unwed mothers and it has McCoy Tyner jazz solos over rock beats. Then another song – The Way It Is – was about the civil rights movement, and had not one but two of these sort of solos. These were not formulaic pop records.”

Having chart-topping singles in the mid ‘80s meant you also became part of that club – the middle-of-the-road club. It never sat easily with Hornsby. “As a result, people who didn’t really know us just typecast us as a Top 40 group when in reality we were much more. But when you have such success in that area there’s a whole group of people that write you off as that. And so frankly I spent my first five years having those, then the next 20 years pushing back against that perception and mindset.”

Pushing back for Hornsby meant disbanding The Range in the early ‘90s, collaborating with bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs, scoring Spike Lee’s Kobe Bryant doco and playing with his old band mates from Grateful Dead in the various reformed versions (The Dead and The Other Ones) after Jerry Garcia’s 1995 death. Hornsby’s time with Grateful Dead in the early ‘90s was fruitful for the band – they became late-career stadium superstars in that era. “There was nothing like a Grateful Dead concert. So much of that was just about the scene. Hell, just the parking lot was amazing. It was the best party you could go to. Now the children of the scene spawned this jam band community and scene.”

In fact it’s that scene (Phish, Dave Matthews, Bonnaroo Festival, et al) where Hornsby and his new band, The Noisemakers, feel most at home. As he explains, soon after the release of a double live album documenting their 2007 - 2009 tour, “We’re moving our scene a little more toward the dancing community. We enjoy playing for that crowd way more than the lime-green golf pants community crowd. It just seemed like we were in the wrong place. That crowd were there for a nostalgic night out, a stroll down memory lane and that’s not what I do as a musician.”

Bride of the Noisemakers is out now through 429 Records, and available from all good record stores!

The Company Men

The Company Men is a good film. It had the potential to be a great film but somewhere along the way it got lost, stumbled and fell quite dramatically. Bloviating, alpha-male sales manager Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck) is arrogantly boasting about his golf handicap one minute and collecting his belongings in a box the next – the next faceless victim of a recession that obliterated entire levels of management, companies and communities. On the face of it, it couldn’t have happened to a better person.

This is one of the first tranche of films to deal with the GFC and therefore has the opportunity to pick the ripest fruit. For the first half, it does.  Walker’s family live well beyond their means; a situation familiar to many of us I’m sure. So they scale back. Dump the sports car. Sell the house. This fall from comfortable upper middle class affluence is played expertly – you can sense the fatigue, confusion and seething anger in Affleck’s performance.

The film then takes a ragingly obvious detour into homily territory where Walker is taught the value of honest-to-goodness, hands-on ‘work’ when he begrudgingly takes a job with his carpenter brother-in-law, Jack (Kevin Costner in simperingly fine form). Of course the desk monkey is a useless carpenter but he sticks it out, proving he is a man of honour. Oh, brother. No, literally. After a hokey monologue about the death of the American manufacturing industry you just know where it’s going to end up. And sure enough it does, with Walker donning his suit and reverting back to the yapping jerk he was at the beginning of the film. How odd – this journey seems to have taken us right back to where we started. On the plus side, the dependable Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones are brilliant as always.    

Reign Of Assassins

When Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was released over a decade ago – yes, it’s been that long – famed Civil War nut, Abe Lincoln lookalike and ex-Premier of NSW flew firmly in the face of public opinion by walking out of a screening early and dissing the film at a press conference soon after. Even though Honest Bob wasn’t a fan of wuxia, Ang Lee’s blades and battles highly choreographed spectacle was a runaway hit, introducing western audiences to a genre that had long been associated (wrongly) with poorly dubbed chop suey flicks. The market was soon flooded with films to satiate an untapped market – Hero, House of Flying Daggers and er, um, New Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But audiences are notoriously fickle and besides, the Harry Potter films had just started coming out so interest waned.

Those hoping for the next Crouching Tiger should probably look elsewhere. Admittedly, the John Woo co-director credit might suggest a crossover all-swords blazing action film – but this isn’t it. It’s an elegant, rewarding and vibrant film with its fair share of slashing and floating, but at its core is the complex relationship between an ex-assassin and a seemingly simple man. Michelle Yeoh is Drizzle/Zeng Jing, a swords-master in a gang of assassins who escapes her life of crime and sells textiles at a rural market. Into her life comes a man – bumbling and caring Jiang Ah-sheng– looking only for a life of suburban bliss, 15^th century style. Drizzle plays down every attempt that might out her previous life, to wit – a bank robbery scene where the new couple are caught in the middle is playful and tense. Things are never as they seem though and sure enough Ah-sheng’s less straightforward history emerges. Despite a meandering start, an intricate story unfolds and Reign of Assassins tightens up when it matters.

Hall Pass

Despite the large streak of vile gross-out humour that runs through every movie they make, the Farrelly Brothers are actually social commentators. Naturally, most writers are trying to comment on something – but in a genre where penis jokes are the common currency, Bobby and Peter Farrelly are cut from a slightly different cloth. Underneath all that juvenile shock humour there is usually a theme; that we should try and accept people for who they are and look past outer superficialities.

In Hall Pass the brothers tackle what is surely the most vexing issue afflicting modern society – husbands who look at other women’s asses. Actually there’s more, but we’ll get to that later. Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) are stuck in sexless marriages. Aren’t they all? Somehow their wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) are convinced that it would be a nifty idea to allow their husbands a week off from the marriage to indulge however they want – no questions asked, the titular ‘hall pass’.

This freedom results in a degree of stage fright and the pair spend most of the week falling asleep early and realising they are no longer their younger selves. On the other side of the equation, their spouses – Maggie and Grace – are effortlessly pulling the local baseball team and straying much farther than either expected.

American author and sex columnist Dan Savage was the subject of a recent article in The New York Times where he argued the goal of marriage should be stability not monogamy and that our expectations of the institution are unrealistic and inflexible. In a little under two hours Hall Pass struggles hard to make the same point. It’s an interesting point to reflect upon but this film settles for a safe ‘happy families’ dénouement. That really is the biggest shock.  

Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders - Hurtsville - [Spunk]

With a booming baritone, Jack Ladder is often compared to Nick Cave. That’s not being a lazy critic; it’s a statement of fact. On this album Ladder himself doesn’t appear to want to disabuse us of these accusations (Blinded By Love is a Cave cover, right?) although he’s also thrown in a bit of Pete Murphy in a set of songs that seem to be aiming of that most overlooked of markets: ‘80s goth pop. It’s not an altogether ghastly ambition but it would be nice if the tunes were there. Still, at least he didn’t aim for Andrew Eldritch.

First single Cold Feet is the undisputed highlight… galloping rhythms, descending scrappy riffs and detached maudlin warble, the song casually drifts off into the spectral plane courtesy of Kirrin Callinan’s best Robert Fripp approximations, circa Ashes to Ashes. But after that it’s one formless dirge after another, although to hear a modern musician sound like forgotten studio whizzes David + David is a worthwhile pleasure (Beautiful Sound).

The plaudits being thrown at Hurtsville are confusing. It’s a collection of middling songs lead by one absolutely terrific track. It doesn’t matter whom it might sound like because ultimately the songs fall flat. And that should be the only metric.      

Unknown [Warner Home Video]

In 2008’s grim but effective surprise hit Taken, Liam Neeson reversed a couple of decades worth of roles that had him pigeonholed as the dependable Irish dude who could hold a picture (Kinsey, Rob Roy), or the guy you threw in to add a layer of respectability (those Star Wars films, Love Actually). Taken introduced Liam Neeson as the OAP Jason Bourne – the 55-year-old action hero knocking off Albanian sex slave traders with dour steely eyed intent. He’s obviously enjoying his mid career jaunt through fists and guns territory, and as a professional boxer in earlier years Neeson has the body and stamina to make it work.

In Unknown he plays plant fiddler Dr Martin Harris, in Berlin giving a keynote presentation at a botanist conference with his wife in tow (Mad Men’s January Jones solidifying her ability to stand in position and dolefully recite lines). After realising his briefcase has been left at the airport he scurries back only to wind up half-dead in a river after his taxi careens off a bridge. Four days in a coma leaves Harris struggling to piece together the fragments in his shattered mind. He knows he’s married but that’s about it – no passport, no documents and a killer headache. Returning to his hotel he confronts his wife only to be snubbed – she has no idea who this impostor is. Indeed she already has another Dr Martin Harris under her arm proving once and for all, trophy wives shouldn’t be trusted alone in cosmopolitan German cities.

The third act turns everything upside down and a shape-shifting spy action thriller emerges; one that plays a few cute tricks and requests some pretty large suspensions of belief. Nevertheless Unknown is an efficient action thriller in a genre bloated with films lacking verve, wit or tension.

Inside Job [Sony Pictures Classics]

Inside Job [Sony Pictures Classics]

Earlier this year when Inside Job won the Oscar for Best Documentary, its director Charles Ferguson launched into an excoriating speech reminding the crowd that three years after one of the most damaging financial crises in contemporary history not one single person had been charged or sent to prison for the damage inflicted. You could feel portions of the crowd shift in their seats. After watching this you’ll be more than seat shuffling. You’ll be screaming and breaking windows.

Docos unpicking the financial maelstrom that began in 2008 abound, yet there have been remarkably few succinct and digestible explanations of what actually happened. This is one of them. It’s also the best. It tells a complex story (most industry participants have no idea how credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations work) with comparative simplicity, without skimping on detail. It also gained extraordinary access to central players in the global financial community. George Soros, Eliot Spitzer, DSK (!!!) and his successor at the IMF, Christine Lagarde all appear, usually responding with blush-inducing candour. Even though Inside Job is a polemic and plays as an impassioned screed against corporate malfeasance, it highlights that both sides of politics buckled under the lobbying power, walking away from tighter market regulation.

It’s the sort of film that demands repeat viewings. It also fills many gaps in the story; in a series of stunning exchanges it exposes the empty heart of economic academia, laying bare the utter conflict of interest between academics in the pocket of investment banks. It’s impossible not to recoil in horror.

With Greece still in serial default and the US asking for a few trillion more on the Amex card this doco couldn’t be more current. Inside Job deserved its Academy Award. The only problem was it should have won Best Picture as well. 

Flowers - Icehouse - [Universal]

That burst of domestic electro a few years back was a useful reminder that the local music scene has always been far more complex than meat and potato, guitar-based rock. Occasionally, different heads would rise above the parapet. 30 years ago a young classically trained composer scratched together a few tunes in a dodgy flat on Sydney’s leafy middle North Shore. Taking cues from the new wave, glam and art rock the Iva Davies-led Flowers (changing their name to Icehouse soon after this was released) found their feet quickly settling on a sound that was edgy, melodic, mysterious and arid. Icehouse, the lead track, is all creepy slow burning atmospherics. Quite an audacious way to start a debut, sneaking into your conscience rather than forcefully demanding attention – a radical notion in the post-punk/pubrock landscape of the day.

In the anxious shuffling Can’t Help Myself the echoey strains of disaffected and lost ‘80s youth can be deciphered, a similar feeling pervades Walls and We Can Get Together, both justifiable radio hits back when radio mattered. This album has aged well – neither embarrassingly futuristic nor hampered by the technical constraints of the era. A few tracks fail to rise, but those that do elevate it to classic status. Icehouse are far more than egregious mullets and Great Southern Land blasting out of souped up Holdens on Australia Day. This album is evidence of a band with a singular vision far ahead of their time.

The Killing - [Madman]

Every decade or so a TV show comes along that surgically attaches ass to couch. Danish crime drama The Killing (Forbrydelsen) is one such show. It’s also one of the best TV shows ever made.

Over the course of 20 hour-long episodes, The Killing redefines the procedural crime genre, thereby ruining every other pro-forma cop show in the process. Normal procedure dictates a crime happening, investigation ensuing and resolution within 43 minutes. Conversely, over a thousand tightly packed and utterly compelling minutes The Killing unravels every element of this basic and well-worn structure (all the while skewering the concept of a neatly contained crime drama) to reveal the true costs of crime – on the victim’s family, those wrongly accused, friends, politicians, investigators, the media and anyone unfortunate enough to get ensnared in the aftermath of an unseen murder. Each episode follows roughly a day in the life of the case.

Detective Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl) is set to retire when detritus is found in a field. This leads to the discovery of a teenage girl bound in the boot of a car. Lund takes the case full throttle despite that new life in Sweden beckoning. As the case becomes more complicated Lund’s new life drifts off into the distance as she battles with prickly banana eating, no-smoking-in-the-office flouting offsider, Jan Meyer (Søren Malling). Through it all Gråbøl is as stoic as the sullen weather enveloping Copenhagen and isolating all those around her. Deliberately, it seems. She plays Lund purposely flat, falling prey to none of the usual female cop tropes – no sassy mouth, designer heels or office flings. Indeed her sensible thick sweater was the breakout star of the show when it first aired.

It’s impossible to distil where this show ends up or how it gets there but rest assured every step is nerve wracking and riveting. Tak indeed.

Human Planet (Blu Ray) - [Roadshow/BBC]

Clocking in at over 800 minutes of sheer hi-def brilliance, Human Planet has just raised the bar on how nature/sociological/anthropological docos are done. A few months back we discussed the battle between National Geographic and the BBC’s Natural History Unit for nature doco supremacy. BBC has the reputation, tradition and history and accordingly the farthest to fall. Nat Geo, as the upstart in this caper, devoted their energies to technique and technology with some gripping successes. Sadly they fell over on the narrative front. No such misstep from the BBC. They own this stuff.

This sprawling doco divides itself up somewhat arbitrarily into eight parts: water, desert, rivers, jungles, Arctic, mountains, grasslands and cities. But in doing so it gets to cover, as you’d reasonably expect, every corner of the globe. It was a mammoth undertaking – four years and I imagine a few thousand terabytes of video. Whilst not overburdened with technical wizardry, the series slowly pieces together a picture of our world that’s well known (the oceans are deep, snow is cold) and less well known (tribesman who get to suspend their marriage vows and engage in a little bit of random sex when the drought breaks). Whatever the theme, the series zeroes in on specific stories to illustrate larger points. So we get Mongolian tundra farmers fretting about wolves attacking their flock - story as ancient as agriculture itself. And we get insane Filipino oxygen divers (100 metre garden hoses as lifelines) risking death to secure shrinking hauls of seafood thanks to overfishing. All up, life is perilous and a constant threat of imbalance, yet somehow we move on.

Human Planet is a visual smorgasbord; cinematography is universally jaw dropping. But underneath all those pretty pictures is a compelling narrative: we’re in this together so stop screwing it up. Your move, National Geographic.

Another Year - [Icon]

In many ways Mike Leigh’s latest film Another Year refuses to conform to the basics of scriptwriting or filmmaking. There are no broadly painted character arcs. The drama is never over egged. The tension – and there is crisp tension throughout – comes not through artificial highly stylised set pieces, but through acutely observed simmering hostility between characters with real depth.

No surprise coming from a man notable for a strict adherence to a particular type of British realism unmatched in modern cinema. To some eyes it’s bleak. And partly that’s true. Leigh will never be accused of pandering to blockbuster escapism. But bleak implies a sense of despair and desolation, whereas Leigh imbues his films with a sense of ordinariness that can be quite confronting at times. His films are a constant reminder to us all that there is nothing wrong with living in the here and now, toiling away at whatever desk-monkey job we have, just getting by. And that’s exactly what is happening here. Tom (Jim Broadbent, brilliant as always) and Gerri Hepple (Ruth Sheen) live a happy existence in a non-descript semi in the suburbs, tending the garden at their allotment on the weekends. Through their open doors pass a parade of friends who over the years have clearly come to rely on the couple for their stability and openness. Mary (Lesley Manville) has ingratiated herself into Tom and Gerri’s lives to the point where she is an unofficial aunt figure. Through Mary’s inability to operate as a normal human being we witness the disintegration of a friendship that was possibly not worth it to begin with.

Another Year is a tremendous film. It’s also one of the few that filled me with slight regret that it had finished. I could have done another hour in these people’s lives, easy. 

True Blood – S3 [Blu Ray] [Warner Home Video]

After a few seasons of success, every TV show runs the risk of over-baking the cake; ambitious storylines overestimating the talent of the cast, recycled plots, zanier plot twists or mysterious new characters. The best shows have a defined aesthetic and stick to it religiously. The near-perfect Deadwood stumbled in its third season by losing focus and introducing characters that didn’t deliver. Battlestar Galactica struggled to tie-up complex metaphysical threads in an uncomplicated manner angering many.

True Blood approached its third season as a show that overcame its genre-specific roots – Southern vampires on the make – to be a genuine cultural talking point, thanks largely to a production team who labour under no misunderstandings; they know the show is meant to be schlocky entertainment that looks fantastic and they deliver as much. The socio-political undercurrent of earlier seasons has been toned down, and the swampy gothic inter-species drama has been ramped up. Indeed series creator Alan Ball laughs off the allegorical interpretations of the show. Sometimes a vampire is just a vampire. And sometimes a gothic period drama is an angsty gore and sex-soaked passion play. Only now with werewolves.

There’s little point delving into the arcane plotting other than to say Bill (Stephen Moyer) and Sookie (Anna Paquin) are slowly subsumed into a broader, swampier mix despite a late season marriage. Many – myself included – are grateful for less Sookie. Although growth isn’t always for the better and more plots doesn’t always mean better. This series gave HBO their best audience figures ever results for the show. Creatively and commercially, True Blood continues to confound those ‘it’s just Twilight for grown-ups’ critics.

The American [Universal]

It’s fair to say many people expected something quite different when this film was released. It sure looked like a big-budget noir thriller, with early clips suggesting a lo-fi, Bourne-on-a-European-holiday type action vibe. And sure enough, that’s exactly how the first ten minutes play out with multiple deaths in the Swedish snow and a small portion of skulduggery on the side. But looks can be deceiving and after Jack (Clooney) ties up a few loose ends it’s off to Italy. For one last job. Is there any other sort in the assassination game?

In the central Italian highlands, Jack lives spartanly all the while, assembling a rifle from pipes in old garages in between some very perfunctory bed play with a local hooker. Jack eventually realises something might be amiss and that the last job might just be him. In terms of plot, The American doesn’t translate well onto paper. Visually and onto the screen, it’s another matter altogether. It’s a sumptuous, if lethargic, treat.

The poster offers the first hint, playing homage to those iconic Italian film promos from the ‘60s. Then there’s the director – Anton Corbijn, the famed moody and minimalist black and white photographer who is helming his second film after the austere Ian Curtis biopic, Control. Corbijn is a man in love with setting up shots, framing scenes to capture mystery rather than letting loose with the predictable. Throughout the film there is a studied sense of space. Symmetry plays a big part but its root causes are mystifying – is Jack looking for balance or does he think he already has it? Cryptically, it is left hanging. Whatever the reason, The American is a noir thriller belonging to another age. It also confirms Corbijn as a filmmaker with acres of promise, patience and a visual palate that’s second to none.

Urge Overkill - Rock & Roll Submarine - [UO Records]

Urge Overkill were the ultimate ‘90s anomaly. Whilst their peers were obsessively dredging the depths of angst and celebrating failure – Nash, King and Blackie were celebrating in chiffon, champagne and anthemic stadium-ready power chords. They stood out because they looked ridiculous and acted even more so. It was an act and they shamelessly flaunted the emptiness of rock and roll preening and swagger. They were beyond irony. They were hated by the scene, especially by Steve Albini.

Yet beneath all that coiffured bluster was a tightly-coiled rock/power-pop band in the classic ‘70s radio way. 1993’s Saturation was their brief commercial peak and barely two years later heroin had all but destroyed them; check out Exit The Dragon if in need of a harrowing lost classic. And so, five years into a largely ignored reformation they’ve have released their first set of new songs in a generation.

Neither as grotesquely bleak as Dragon nor as vacuously luminescent as Saturation, this is the sound of a band well at terms with their place in music history. The strut is proudly on display (Mason/Dixon) and the mid-tempo windows down thumper returns (The Valiant). There’re some fallow spots, but this is much better than anyone had the right to expect.

30 Rock – Season 4 [Universal]

You know that theory about a frog that’s being slowly boiled alive will fail to jump out of the pot, slowly dying. But a frog will jump out of a pot of hot water. Well scientists think it’s bunkum, but as a metaphor for failing to recognise gradual change, it lives on. Unlike that metaphorical dead frog. By the time the fourth season of 30 Rock aired, there was the general acceptance that we had all come to accept this brilliant, witty show as the new normal. Emmys, Globes and Peabodys amassed behind the show, which week-in/week-out was still funnier, cleverer and more Baldwin-y than almost anything else on TV. But the consensus held that 30 Rock had grown stale. Not that it was recycling gags, but that it was coasting. After a few years break from the show, watching this DVD well and truly shoots that theory down.

Head writer and co-creator Tina Fey has carved an enviable career out of making a jackass of herself, but 30 Rock solidifies her reputation as one of the sharpest gag writers in the business. The sheer exuberance and flight of fancy on display far exceeds the jokes that fall inevitably flat. The ratio is astonishing – and greater than any other network comedy. There is only one totally dud episode this season; the trip to Boston was both ill judged and non-delivering. Likewise Julianne Moore’s Boston accent could be either the biggest meta-joke the show has produced or an utter embarrassment. Smart money on the second one. She heads up an impressive roll call of guests; Michael Sheen, Matt Damon in a recurring role as Carol – Liz Lemon’s new love interest, John Hamm (again) and...um, Buzz Aldrin. As usual each episode demands repeat viewings to capture every joke. How many other shows can you say that about?

Parks and Recreation [Universal]

Of all the shows on NBC’s Thursday Comedy Night, Parks and Recreation had the most to lose. Announced as an The Office spin-off, it took two of that show’s best writers/producers (Greg Daniels and Michael Schur) with it. Expectations were suitably high. But it wasn’t a spin-off at all, rather a similarly themed mocu-comedy set in chambers of a local government in Pawnee, Middle America.

A truncated first season made an ambivalent case for renewal, largely on the back of an outstanding performance by Amy Poehler as Lesley Knopes. As the rote Michael Scott clone, the imbecilic boss prone to self-empowering management catchphrases and awkward pauses, Knopes and her collection of office misfits led by the moustache-touting everyman hero Ron Swanson seemed a little too obvious and misfired regularly. The follow up season is a revelation. So what happened?

Firstly, Poelher started playing Knopes not as a buffoon, but a high achieving meddler struggling to differentiate that line between private and public; she lacked a thought filter, but her insane heart was in the right place. And to Knopes’ rising star, a suitable foil was found in Swanson played with ineffable no-nonsense precision by the tree-like Nick Offerman. That cabal of office loons eventually outgrow mere character descriptions (April/Aubrey Plaza as the sour ironic hipster, Andy/Chris Pratt as the erratic hopeless romantic etc) and become people who do things for reasons. Albeit scripted, I understand this isn’t a doco. The internal logic of the show finds a powerful equilibrium, such that star cameos by Megan Mullaley (Offerman’s real life wife playing his on-screen ex-wife), Rob Lowe and Adam Scott are certainly scene-stealing but not overly distracting. The addition of the latter two as full time cast members bodes extremely well for a show described as the nicest on TV. Funniest would also suit.

The Office – Season Five [Universal]

The seventh season of The Office, about to finish in the US, will culminate in the departure of Steve Carrell as Michael Scott, the wise-cracking, buffoon boss unable to judge audience or situation. In many ways Scott is cut from the same cloth as Ricky Gervais’ original idiot boss, David Brent. But whereas the latter had a vicious streak forever on the wrong side of awkward, the former grew to be a well-meaning fool, given power well above his capabilities.

Still, we’re ahead of ourselves. But as a context setter, it’s valuable. Because the US version was originally seen as a sub-par knock off. An epic folly misjudging the relationship between British comedy and American comedy that would fall flat on its face. It hasn’t because it’s a completely different beast. Maybe better.

This is the season where the ship righted itself after a shaky run. There’s only so far you can run with a boss who fails to do his job properly. There has to be some sort of cost to Scott’s ineptitude; someone eventually has to pay. To this end, the writers took a small gamble. Charles Miner (Idris Elba/Stringer Bell!!) is tasked by HQ to sort out Scott, who quits in disgust and starts his own paper company in the same building. In the middle of this season, The Office delivered some of the best plot devices and funniest set ups ever. It was a master class in how to breathe life into a TV show on the wane. The only quibble is not taking the concept far enough. Nevermind, in the end Scott outmanoeuvres his new nemesis, to the surprise of many and in doing so reminds us why this show has legs – there is always something beneath the surface. If you’ve left this show to the side, this is the season to renew acquaintances.

Bill Callahan - Apocalypse - [Spunk]

Bill Callahan, whether under his own name or using his now retired Smog moniker, has been delivering off kilter songs bout love, obsession, death, horses and confusion for over 20 years. Apparently he stopped using Smog because he didn’t like the way the ‘mog’ part looked on album covers. He could be bullshiting – it’s hard to tell with Callahan. His dry wit and straight delivery often makes it hard to figure what is going on in that fractured mind. What is clear though is that Callahan is moving away from cryptic lyricism to a more personal narrative. 

Take America! for example – a terse pulsating number that is neither a disrespectful sideswipe at his native country nor tongue-in-cheek satire, but something approaching straight up historical analysis in song form. Albeit one with occasional bursts of squalid atonal jugular riffing amongst acres of sparse repetitive grooves. And if anyone does sparse repetition well – it’s Callahan. Throbbing tightly coiled fingerpicked nylon stringed repetition. On Universal Applicant he makes a break and layers on jaunty North African-esque guitar flicks and rhythms before dropping in a delicate prog-folk coda. Stunning and unexpected. 

Throughout it all that sonorous honey-soaked voice remains front and centre, floating above instrumentation with elegant effortlessness. Every song here, bar one, extends beyond the five minute mark so don’t go expecting immediacy. Or Cold Blooded Old Times. Callahan is getting dangerously close to diminishing returns and sadly Apocalypse is only a faltering victory for Admiral Chugginton. 

My Friend the Chocolate Cake

21^st Birthday Cake

This scribe once passed on an interview with Don McLean – who researched had suggested was going to be an argumentative handful – on the basis of extensive dental surgery. When the table was turned and the interview with Melbourne musician David Bridie came through he was late on account of a bout of dental surgery. Thankfully, Bridie was no handful and answering questions form an absolute stranger whilst harbouring swollen jaws was all part of the bargain struck long ago, “It’s part of the deal, you put a record out – you want to people to hear it.”

Bridie has been the driving force between two of the most respected bands this country has produced Not Drowning, Waving (1983-2006) and MY FRIEND THE CHOCOLATE CAKE (1990-current). The later have just released Fiasco (Shock) their first album in four years, neatly coinciding with their 21^st anniversary. Just don’t go make the mistake of calling it a comeback as Bridie explains “It’s not a reunion. A reunion would entail that the band had actually gone away. And we haven’t. More than a few people have said that though. I guess there were a few years back when I was releasing solo albums that the My Friend the Chocolate Cake did a handful of gigs. But the band never broke up. We’ll do the occasional gigs here and there, and that’s probably the reason why we’re still making records after 21 years. We still enjoy it and still have something to say and play. To make a living out of music you need to do a few different things. In my case I get into the soundtrack stuff or doing some production. There’s only so much you can do if you’re reliant on the one band, it’s gruelling and we try to enjoy it as much as we can.”

Trying to peg Bridie down is a difficult task. Not Drowning, Waving were defiantly atmospheric, mysterious world music at a time when commercial pub rock dominated the Australian airwaves. The Cake (as Bridie calls them) were more adult-contemporary – but not in the jazz/funk way. In the mature singer/songwriter way. Not surprisingly, Bridie’s musical path has had one or two detours, “I liked a whole bunch of different music in the formative years. I went from Yes (at the time ponderous mystical prog-rockers) – who I am totally ashamed that I liked them and will put it down to the fact that I was young – then there was the end of the first wave of post-punk into new wave. I really liked the sound and stance but I also loved the Bowie records from Hunky Dory to Low to Scary Monsters.”

Rather than bashing out three chord cover tunes at the local, Bridie was holed up in a radio studio refining his musical palate “I did a show on RRR here in Melbourne with Tim Cole from Not Drowning, Waving which was more atmospheric sounds and mixing in old speeches and stuff and created sounds scapes on a Thursday night. A little bit of all that stuff that got into my musical head. Then when Not Drowning, Waving went to Papua New Guinea that was very inspiring and then another course was set. My influences are broad and varied. Maybe that’s why I am a bit harder to categorise.”

Bridie gained a reputation in the 80’s and 90’s for creating opportunities for audiences to engage with sounds outside the strict confines of ‘western music’. There was no design however; it came naturally “It’s just one of those happenstance things that came out of doing the Tabaran (1988) record up in Papua New Guinea. It such a close neighbour to Australia –basically a two minute kayak trip across the Torres Strait and a place with a phenomenal history and amazingly intact cultural legacy.”

And whilst thoroughly devoted to the music, Bridie has a broader perspective and goal. “We just had a mob down from the highlands of Papua New Guinea playing at WOMADelaide and the two oldest guys in the dance troupe spent the first 25 years of their life without any contact with the outside world. It’s pretty rare you can find anyone this day and age who would have spent the formative times of their lives without seeing anyone else. It made me realise talking to these guys, bring home to me that PNG and other places in Melanesia have an access to their own culture. Here in the West probably yearn for in some ways. These people have been living on the same bit of earth, working the same gardens, singing the same songs, speaking the same language as their ancestors have ever thus done. And i see Australia and New Zealand as the developed nations in this region as having a responsibility to be a conduit through which they can reach out to the rest of the world. Be that protecting their rights or allow people to hear people to hear their culture and music. Which is valuable in itself, but it’s important that this stuff doesn’t die out too – because it is a link back to the way human beings lived their lives. In their case very recently in our case longer.”

My Friend the Chocolate Cake play The Street Theatre on Wednesday May 7. Tickets through the venue.

Vivid Sydney

VIVID ASPIRATIONS

When Steve Pavlovic was announced to curate this years VIVID FESTIVAL in Sydney many an eyebrow arched. Following Brian Eno (2009) and Lou Reed/Laurie Anderson (2010) the choice appeared humble. It was when the line-up was announced that the knives were well and truly unsheathed.

Pavlovic, founder of Modular Records, was accused of stacking the line-up with artists from his own label (Tame Impala, Cut Copy, The Avalanches) with a few extra on the side (Spiritualized, Sonny Rollins) for flavour. He was also blithely ignoring an obvious conflict of interest and using the government-funded Vivid Festival to promote and further the commercial success of bands on his label. It set the mainstream media and blogosphere on fire.

Some pretty serious accusations, but Pavlovic is having none of it. Prior to our late morning conversation he’d spent a lazy hour or so down at the beach and certainly didn’t sound in siege mentality. “I guess if you cared what people say it’d be relevant. I care about what real people think and I have things to share with those people. It’s the industry side that doesn’t allow me to care what anyone thinks; I couldn’t give a shit about that side. Some of the music blogs and websites out there – it’s really just five nerds from East Brunswick in cardigans being holier than thou.”

Whilst not entering a debate about the roster, Pavlovic will happily discuss constraints placed upon him. “I was brought on in December last year and had to announce by March. That’s not much time to pull it together. A lot of touring artists know what they’re doing six to 12 months in advance. There were lots of acts we were unable to get. But there’s no point losing any sleep over it or who they were because it just didn’t happen.”

There were also additional constraints like the fact there’s some festival or other on every weekend. What was once exclusive and worthy of anticipation is now as frequent – and often as lowbrow and violent – as a football match. Pavlovic, who got his start in the industry touring Mudhoney and Nirvana, has also run the occasional festival; the great long lost zeitgeist-capturing festival of the Australian circuit, Summersault in the mid 1990s.

Vivid is a recent addition to the calendar and as such runs the risk of adding to our general festival fatigue. Pavlovic, unsurprisingly, disagrees. “I don’t think so. The last few years have been all about 30,000 kids in a park. People are moving away from that to a more intimate thing. We (Modular) would like to be doing festivals from a business point of view, but we can’t think of anything that we could offer that is different. I look at the majority of the festivals out there and think same shit different station.” Agree with Pavlovic or not, but he’s trying to change the station.

For all information on Vivid Sydney head to http://vividsydney.com.

Lebanon - [Madman]

Lebanon is not a film for claustrophobics. When almost every scene of this 90-minute film takes place either inside an Israeli Defence Force tank or from the perspective of the gunner’s crosshatched gun sight lens, be prepared to squirm.

Four young, confused, argumentative and equivocating Israeli soldiers are on a prosaic mission in the middle of a Lebanese warzone circa 1982. Basically they have to get from point A to point B safely, follow orders and shoot to kill when required. Problem is, gunner Schmulik has never fired in a combat situation and struggles to engage the enemy. All of the action outside the tank takes place from Schmulik’s perspective – dying goats on the side of the street, dismembered Lebanese chicken farmers on the side of the road and widowed mothers stumbling dazed. Through it all Schmulik consistently fails to fire or when he does – is hardly forthright. In doing so, Schmulik provides a silent undermining and conflicting voice to their task. Is it nerves or does he disagree with the orders shouted down the walkie-talkie? The lingering camera lets the viewer decide that. For the most part it’s a slow burning affair. But when they are abandoned in a Syrian neighbourhood after some bad intelligence the tension ratchets impossibly high.

Lebanon proved to be a divisive choice for Golden Lion (Best Picture) at the Venice Film Festival in 2009 and triggered a battle of protest letters by the Hollywood elite at the Toronto Film Festival in the same year. Valuable in that it is prepared to use the confusing brutality of conflict to make some resonant points and mildly controversial in that it doesn’t beat the viewer over the head with politics, Lebanon still finds plenty of room to make some incendiary statements through the narrow sight of a gun.

Fair Game - [Sony]

It’s easy to get used to the idea of counter espionage without making links to reality. Spies litter popular culture. Shows like Get Smart told us spies had shoe phones. Spy flicks routinely tear up the multiplex re-inventing themselves periodically a la the gritty verite styling’s of the Bourne trilogy or the last couple Bond films. So far, so fiction. But spies exist in real life. They even have families and kids. Fair Game is the story of one such CIA spy who for reasons political expediency is outed – her cover, aliases and contacts exposed in the middle of a mission leaving her out in the cold. Fanciful, but fact.

Valerie Plame was a 20-year veteran at the CIA when her husband was sent to Africa in 2002 to investigate claims Saddam Hussein had purchased yellowcake uranium. This thoroughly debunked and always-questionable transaction was used by George W. Bush as a central plank for his Iraq folly. Plame’s husband – Joe Wilson – knew the claim was bogus and said so in a New York Times op-ed piece. But the White House, and more specifically Vice President Dick Cheney didn’t want anything to puncture the alternate reality. So they threw Plame and Wilson under a bus, divulging Plame’s identity to discredit them both.

It’s the sort of story that makes fascinating doco material, not necessarily great cinema. Fair Game is great cinema. Doug Linman, who helmed the first Bourne film, brings a similar washed-out intensity. Naomi Watts and Sean Penn as the troubled couple capture the strains of extraordinary circumstances. Confused, aggrieved and angry but never hammy or melodramatic. Quite a feat for Penn, usually 100% pork all the way. True stories often play loose with the facts, but as Plamegate proves, truth can be stranger – and more mendacious – than fiction.

American: The Bill Hicks Story - [Madman]

In the late ‘80s Bill Hicks was a bolt of the sharpest lightning you could have ever imagined. He tore though every taboo, threw the standard conceit of stand-up out the window (set up, story, punch line) and basically ranted on stage against those he hated – the government, marketers, religion, corporations. A foul-mouthed living embodiment of Adbusters.

He was the comedian for the ‘90s alt-nation generation. Tool sampled him on their breakthrough album Ænima. Super Furry Animals sample him in live versions of the appropriately titled The Man Don’t Give A Fuck. Hicks himself revelled in this attention. By the time everyone had come around to his way of thinking he was entering live shows in full rock mode: loud Hendrix-inspired music, all black and attitude to wither his most ardent detractors. By the time of his death he was outgrowing cult status. Death confirmed him a legend. I don’t happen to agree with Hicks' deification but it’s impossible to argue his impact on comedy. Towards the end Hicks was a bitter man too often getting caught in a rabbit warren of personal hates. It was only his overt posturing on the alleged spiritual benefits of drug use that prevented him from being the Richard Nixon of comedy.

American: The Bill Hicks Story goes a long way to explaining all this through selective interviews with some of those close to him, spartan archival footage and heavy use of animated photos. As a comprehensive overview of his life it’s useful, but vague around the edges and wilfully ignorant on other key points. It feels half finished. His crippling alcoholism is brushed off lightly and his legendary beef with Denis Leary deserves plenty more attention, probably its own doco. The man deserves better.

The Low Anthem - Smart Flesh - [Nonesuch]

Authenticity is waaaaay overrated. Each successive week brings forth another eerie, ghost-hummed, recorded-in-a-converted-church collection of trad-inspired folk tunes flecked with obscure Appalachian instruments. This obsession with telling stories in the meekest way possible is just as artificial – in the year 2011 – as an overproduced Rhianna three-minute extravaganza. Maybe even more so. At least big bright unadulterated pop songs seem of the moment. Which makes this sort of stuff quite reactionary. The Band had it right in the late ‘60s, retiring to Upper New York State and escaping the social chaos enveloping the country to refine the template for honky alt-America for generations to come.

Which is not to say Low Anthem are a band without merit. It is to say the do sound a lot like The Band, especially so on Hey, All You Hippies! – a swirling, vintage keyboard led stomp echoing Levon Helm’s staggering delivery and the ramshackle backing of a set of musicians sounding right on the edge of falling apart. It takes seasoned pros to make it sound this loose. Boeing 737 is equally loose, but more forceful sounding like a 4am Springsteen rave up as the bar shutters are about to be drawn. Love and Altar has clearly fallen off the last Damien Jurado album and the title track is Lambchop-lite. Quality stuff all, but hardly invigorating. Smart Flesh works well within the confines of its genre, nothing more nothing less.

Chuck – The Complete Third Season [Warner Home Video]

Chuck has always felt like a show on eternal deathwatch. It's the story of an unwilling government operative – The Intersect – with a database of government secrets implanted in his brain. Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) struggled with his ‘gift’ and the two protective agents sent to make sure he didn’t fall into the wrong hands. He fell in love with one agent (Agent Sarah Walker/Yvonne Strahovski) and constantly bickered with the other (Colonel John Casey/Adam Baldwin). The latter relationship provides the most consistent laughs in the series, whereas the former has become a major problem the show struggles to address.

Since debuting, Chuck forged an easy balance between goofy, fish-out-of-water spy caper and office slacker comedy with Chuck retaining his day job at the local big box electronics warehouse. It’s flashy, fun and none too serious. Budgets were tight – but the snappy dialogue, frenetic pacing and relentless cultural referencing made up for crappy CGI and shaky-wall syndrome. Whilst critics have always held a soft spot for this underachiever, finding an audience has proven tougher. It survives thanks to a commercial agreement with a multi-national sandwich chain offsetting production costs.

This season finds Chuck getting his wish to be instated officially as a right proper spy. He promptly fails spy school. A small setback and he’s soon back in the bad-guy-stopping game. This season also finds his family and friends conspiring with him to defeat his nemesis – The Ring. It’s a gamble that pays off handsomely. Scott Bakula returns as Chuck’s scatterbrain genius father, Brandon Routh arrives for an extended run as an operative, who may or may not be a bad guy. But the heart of the show – Chuck and Sarah’s relationship – rises and falls in tune with Bartowski’s new life as a spy, providing an awkward distraction in a show that refuses to surrender.

The Girl Who Played With Fire [Roadshow]

Here’s what I know about the Stieg Larrson Millennium series. Firstly, the books keep the mouth breathers on public transport happy, providing something slightly more challenging than the latest Dan Brown pamphlet of rot. I also knew that Larsson was a publishing phenomenon who died rather prosaically (heart attack) given the Byzantium ‘all-the-way-to-top’ plotting of his books.

What I didn’t know was how tediously overdrawn that plotting was. And how execrable the dialogue and how tepid the suspense appeared. To be fair, nuance is lost in transplantation and dialogue that feels free flowing and intelligent in one language invariably comes off as stilted and hokum in another – but plotting doesn’t. And characterisation doesn’t.

As might be clear by now, I have neither read nor seen any of the other Lisbeth Salander books or films. As a neophyte, it was a worthwhile experiment jumping right into the middle of a film series. Using The Two Towers and Empire Strikes Back as case studies, I reminded myself that mid-points could succeed as stand-alone pieces of work, taking into account the necessary ambiguity and fuzziness at the sides. Sure, it’s impossible to understand everything without a full download of the back-story and so, character motivations will occasionally be a mystery. But this is an entirely different kettle of salted herring.

This film – like ones that precede and followed it – is actually respliced and edited down from a Swedish TV mini-series. So it’s only natural that The Girl Who Played with Fire feels like a TV movie. It’s plodding and sluggish. Noomi Rapace plays the abused and avenging heroine (Salander) with stoic, thin lipped tightly coiled brilliance. And there are flashes of suspense, but they’re just as easily spotted in advance. As a film – it’s a drag.

Low - C’mon - [Inertia/Sub-Pop]

Another Low album, another round of fans asking the inevitable: is it as good as Things We Lost In The Fire ? In many ways, that 2001 album is an albatross around the Duluth-based trio’s neck. To many, the band has been trying to figure out a way to grow within the narrow confines Things… created. Muffled drums, grinding guitars, slowly revealed and hushed melodies. Their most recent album Drums & Guns was the most politically-charged and divisive in the band’s career. Think of C’mon as a rebalancing.

Lead track Try to Sleep is pro-forma Low – a shuffle of feint reverbed guitar, rising counterbalanced harmonies and subtle jazzy drum rumbles. If that song settles your nerves, Witches jolts. An angry retort against “All you guys out there, acting like Al Green” it builds with slashes of rabid guitar threatening to detonate. But then – it doesn’t, pulling back into an ethereal pinched solo. Soon after, the song thumps to a halt. A confused and confusing track, it nevertheless verifies their utter command over dynamics. The driving eight minute dirge Nothing But Heart reaffirms their comfort with campfire repetition.

C’mon is Low reasserting their strengths. They’d be foolish to try and replicate the past and forays into experimentation have failed to yield unanimous victories. It’s the album they needed to make to get to the next step. Most bands would eat their own arm to make such a tremendous holding pattern record.

Indigo Girls

DEEP SOUTH GIRLS

America’s Deep South has a turbulent history. That band of states hugging the lower corridor of the mainland – Texas through Florida – succeeded during the Civil War. Soon after they became the butt of pretty much every geographic joke America could imagine. Native Georgian Emily Saliers, one part of duo, INDIGO GIRLS, makes a convincing case that those jokes are at best ill-judged, at worst fabrications. “The South was a fascinating place to grow up. It’s the birthplace of the civil rights movement in the US. It’s a tremendously painful and difficult yet inspiring history. There are dialogues here in the South. Living here is as good as politics and human conversation get in the face of this nation that’s so polarised. Atlanta is the place to be.”

Emily and fellow Indigo Girls band member, Amy Ray (they share vocal and guitar duties) know a thing or two about politics and fighting for causes; it runs through their blood and their music. Saliers grew up in the hotbed of political activism – Yale in the 1960s in a stridently liberal family. But for Saliers, despite a devout fan base at heart there’s a simpler message: “Indigo Girls audiences tend to be involved and whenever we bring up a local issue, they burst into applause. They know what we’re about. And even those that are there for a good time are at least there in the spirit for change.”

For the pair, like many others, the change is political, environmental and social – but more specifically personal. As openly gay musicians there have been battles, but it hasn’t typified their career. Saliers easily pinpoints one recent unsavory incident. “We had this one tour all set up, paid for and everything. It got cancelled. Word got to parents that we’re lesbians and they objected to that. But we have always been outspoken and radical ….so it kind of goes with the territory.”

The band’s biggest hit to date was their 1988 single Closer to Fine but it was a contribution to the compilation Grateful Dead tribute album Deadicated three years afterwards that sparks Emily’s memory. “We’ve always had tremendous respect for them and then got to open for them in Eugene, Oregon about a million years ago… or maybe it was the very early nineties. It was one of the highlights of our career.”

For a band reared on lush country-folk acoustic music, it was a rare treat to work with a band that codified much of the folk-rock formula in the late ‘60s on American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead, “To see Jerry Garcia (lead singer, guitarist, chief beard-wearer) listening to us play at the side of the stage and we were just babies. It’s just another moment in a wonderful career – but that one performance in particular stands out.”

The Indigo Girls will be causing audiences to swoon at The Canberra Theatre on Wednesday April 27. Tickets start at $89.90, and are available through www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

Machete [Sony]

Machete might well be the most politically astute and courageous film in recent memory. Whilst director Roberto Rodriguez sketched out the idea long before Arizona’s controversial border protection laws were enacted – in turn sparking an ugly public debate about the rights of Mexican immigrants – it’s impossible to view Machete outside this context.

Machete (Danny Trejo) is a Mexican Federale; a good cop mired in a sea of corruption and bribery. Three years after his family were murdered by brutal drug lord Torrez (a brilliantly over the top Steven Segal) Machete wanders the Texan streets; an illegal alien eking out a meagre existence as a day labourer. When a slimy gringo offers Machete a suitcase full of cash to assassinate a rabid anti-immigration politician (Robert de Niro), he accepts. But the fix was in and Machete was being set up all long. Soon enough the film starts unravelling at blistering speed as heads are severed, litres of blood are spilt and limbs fly as Machete is forced to defend his almost innocence.

Rodriguez loads up plenty of knowing winks; legendary gore FX man Tom Savini as a henchman, referencing his cameo in the original Dawn of the Dead, Cheech Marin as a pot smoking priest, Michelle Rodriguez as an impertinent freedom fighter and Don Johnson as a drawling vicious good ol’ boy vigilante.

And then there’s the man himself, Machete. In the world of grizzled and pock-marked Mexican character actors, Danny Trejo reigns supreme. But stepping into the leading role limelight has proven to be a risky move and in a film glistening with supporting actor delights Trejo is the weakest link. Quite obviously playing the stoic pillar of strength whilst the world collapses around him, Trejo can’t quite get the pitch right. In the end it’s a moot point – Machete is eye-popping, fast-paced brilliant fun.

Immigration Nation – The Secret History of Us [Madman]

Think of this as a version of Howard Zinn’s landmark 1980 publication  A People’s History of the United States. Like Zinn’s book, this doco gives voice to the forgotten people, the ones forcibly removed both from the pages of history and from the land (in the case of one confused Fijian/Indian girl in the ‘70s) by that old paragon of British Imperialism, the White Australia Policy. Long before anyone here had slurped a pho, gorged a pizza or regretted a kebab our Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, could be found lecturing world leaders at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that no way would he support a racial equality clause and fat bloody chance he’d let any of those wily Japanese past our borders. Nearly a century later, politicians at the highest level seem to be reading from the same noxious script.

For three quarters of a century, it was an immigration policy supported by both sides of politics that doggedly strived to ensure Australia remained as homogonous as possible. The land of opportunity… So long as you were white. A few rabble-rousers (Charles Perkins) attacked the edifice, but the institutional strength of ‘white’ Australia was near indomitable. Yet cracks were appearing. Menzies tried to stem the flow with the Colombo Plan, the first mass advertising campaign promoting Australia as a great, not really racist country. It failed. Whitlam said he cared, but the figures and facts suggest otherwise. It was Fraser who reversed the rot and welcomed thousands of fleeing Vietnamese. One of the reasons he is hated by the new generation of conservatives. Says it all really.

But history is contestable. And there are large swathes of our populace longing for days of yore; a mythical place that never even existed, as Immigration Nation makes so plainly clear. Riveting, angry and essential stuff.

J Mascis - Several Shades of Why - [Inertia/Sub Pop]

For someone who has spent the best part of the last 300 years making ears bleed with some of the loudest riffage in alt rock, J Mascis doesn’t need to hide behind a wall of amps. He’s well qualified in thrashing out gonzo solos but can just as equally shift down to bucolic acoustic rambles.

Along for the ride is a veritable who’s who of indie rock: Sophie from Godspeed/Silver Mt Zion, Kevin from Broken Social Scene, Ben from Band of Horses, Kurt Vile from the closing credits to Eastbound and Down S2. Not along for the ride are drums, nary a tom in earshot.

Usually buried beneath layers of distortion, Mascis’ plaintive croak is given the starring role, delivering in spades. There’s always been a sense of longing and regret in his voice and sans electricity it positively aches.   Make It Right   ambles into existence like   Seemed Like The Thing To Do   (from 1994’s   Without a Sound ) Part II. That’s not a complaint, and the addition of flute makes perfect sense. It’s one of the better songs on the album.  Several Shades of Why  is a subdued album with small aims – it meets them easily.

More than a curiosity but a little saggy in parts, it nevertheless provides the crucial balance in Mascis’ fuzz heavy catalogue. The Dinosaur Jr reunion rolls on, delivering the goods in the most unexpected places.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia – Season 4 [20 ^th Century Fox]

The final episode of the fourth season of Always Sunny stands for many as a high watermark. The Nightman Cometh finds Charlie (Charlie Day) writing and directing a creepy, vaguely psycho-sexual stage play drama about the theft of a boy’s soul which the gang (Kaitlin Olsen, Rob McElhenrey, Glenn Howerton and Danny De Vito) ruin pretty much straight away with on the run rewrites, the introduction of cat’s eye contact lenses, karate... you name it.

It’s a bravura episode that captures all the best elements of the show: out of control chaos, wanton scheming, razor sharp banter, lots of yelling and phenomenal scripting. So popular was the episode that the actors expanded the concept and toured it in real theatres across North American to some pretty decent reviews.

The Nightman Cometh caps off an extraordinary season for Always Sunny. By now it had long settled into its groove; a group of unrepentant, hyper competitive, low achieving scumbags forever in search of someone’s face to shove ‘it’ into – the ‘it’ didn’t have to be anything in particular, more of a vibe. So long as they were awake, they were on the lookout for trouble. Like Frank convincing Dee (Olsen) and Charlie they had just eaten human flesh, which sets off a chain of events that result in the pair assuming they were cannibals and rocking up to a morgue with a six pack and portable grill. And then there’s an episode set in the 1700s where the gang are just as rude as they are now – just in fancier clothes.

Just before these episodes aired, Fox announced they had greenlit an extra three seasons and many worried the show would coast with the threat of cancellation removed. If anything the opposite seems to have happened – this show gets more inspired and brilliant as time goes on.

Buried [Icon]

For a film that spends every minute in the cramped confines of a coffin somewhere underneath the Iraqi desert, there’s a lot of space in Buried . Space for the viewer to consider Paul Conroy’s (Ryan Reynolds) predicament. What was he doing in Iraq in the first place? How did he manage to get buried alive? Who can help? Why he was taken hostage and more importantly how he intends to get out alive.

Buried opens with a blank screen which immediately throws the viewer off-kilter and creates fidgety anxiety. Eventually, a Zippo lighter flame sparks and Paul, an American civilian contractor in Iraq, is revealed buried in a box. A mobile phone has been placed in the box by his captors. The phone is Paul’s only hope. Through it, he must negotiate his way out. He’s given a time by which he must organise $9 million in ransom. Every call he makes reduces his battery life and by extension the probability of his own life.

This is a thoroughly modern film. Whilst confinement as a cinematic theme isn’t exactly new its treatment here is. Technology is a lifeline – but no saviour. Someone else at the other end must be willing to enact some sort of rescue plan. A plan is eventually hatched after a convoluted series of misdirections and hung up calls that culminate in a mendacious conversation with his employer as they try to weasel out of covering his probable life insurance payout.

Buried is intensely claustrophobic, there are no flashbacks to act as tension valves or moderate the overbearing dread. As such it’s up to Reynolds to carry the entire film. He does. It’s a belligerent, confused and desperate performance and Buried is an unsettling film that far exceeds its experimental approach to narrative.

JUSTIN HOOK

R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now - [Warner]

15 albums and 28 years in, R.E.M. continue to plough headlong into irrelevance. Truth be told they haven’t been essential for well over a decade, but that’s certainly not prevented them from churning out an ever growing collection of sluggish, lumpy and directionless records. Collapse is generating plaudits because a bunch of the songs on it sound like some of their older, better songs. What sort of measurement is that exactly?
Sure, there are faint similarities between UBerlin and Drive and Oh My Heart could well be an Out of Time cast-off, but that’s as deep as it gets. There’s simply nowhere to go with such a comparison. And whilst Peter Buck’s decision to dust off the mandolin is praiseworthy (the jangle-heavy It Happened Today starts a mid-album peak of three decent tracks in a row) he’s far more enjoyable these days as a member of Robyn Hitchcock’s band, perhaps unbound by expectations.
But a broader, more troubling question remains; who exactly are they making albums for anymore? ‘For themselves’ is a cop-out answer but it’s hard to imagine they’re picking up new fans with this formulaic middle of the road tosh and the rest of us are weary of making excuses for this band. Forgiving every half-baked retread of a humid summer long gone, every familiar descending arpeggio, every vaguely recognisable chorus and every blustering glam ‘rock’ number. It just doesn’t muster.

Band of Brothers

On a recent trip to Turkey acclaimed oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros decided to make a quick diversion southwards to visit his family in Egypt. The oud is a bulbous, fretless stringed instrument common in Middle Eastern music and an ancient ancestor of the lute. Anyway, back to Egypt. Tawadros booked his flight on the day the protests started, meaning the taxi ride out of the airport – where he conducted an impromptu concert with his brother James – was more eventful than usual. “We were driving through tear gas and all these people just to get home.” And people complain about the traffic in Sydney.

Looking back on the experience, Tawadros was thankful to be part of history but equally happy to be back on safer ground. “We didn’t really enjoy it that much at the time. There was instability. It was unsafe. There were no police and the civilian checkpoints were unpredictable. I got dragged out at knifepoint and searched. It wasn’t fun, but we made to the airport and got out.”

Our interview didn’t start off as a political forum. But as much as Tawadros approaches his art from a purer place, sometimes events conspire. “I try to stay away from politics but it seems to be forced upon me. My music has no colour, creed, sexuality or religion. Music unites people on many levels and that’s the way it should be. For me it’s the common goal of human growth.”

And Tawadros lives up to that maxim. Music has bee a constant factor in his family life. By choosing the oud he was following in the footsteps of his grandfather – an oud player and violinist. He went on to study under Mohamed Youssef, a family friend and renowned oud player and jazz pianist, who encouraged Joseph to reconfigure his thinking about the instrument and encouraged improvisation. “ I’m very proud of my Egyptian heritage but I want to explore the oud in different areas, to expand its role outside traditional music and explore. Within tradition there are always limits. I try to push the boundaries and find my own voice.”

Now well established worldwide as one of the leading figures of the oud, Tawadros and his brother have branched out with fellow similarly acclaimed brothers Slava and Leonard Grigoryan under the banner BAND OF BROTHERS .

Tawadros had known Slava for many years, running into him at various music festivals until the planets aligned. “I had always wanted to play with him and finally in 2003 I got the opportunity. Then in 2004 we played a benefit for Iraqi children and it was at that point we decided to release something.” And as always, Tawadros is doing it for the sheer pleasure. “Music should not be looked at from a market perspective. If I looked at it that – I’d be much bigger than I am now.”

Catch Band of Brothers live at the Blue Mountains Folk Festival, held over Saturday-Sunday March 19-20 in Katoomba. Tickets can be purchased via the festival’s website.

Dragon

14 years after throat cancer claimed DRAGON ’s lead singer Marc Hunter, the band are touring again with Mark Williams – think late ‘80s hit and brief NRL theme song Show No Mercy – out front. When looking to fill an unplanned vacancy in a band line-up some bands plough on with steely determination (AC/DC) whilst others instigate gruesome talent shows (INXS).

For Todd Hunter – guitarist and main songwriter ( Rain , April Sun In Cuba , Are You Old Enough ) – Dragon has always been more about fluid dynamics so Hunter wasn’t particularly concerned about answering to sceptics about carrying on the Dragon name under a different set of musicians. “To hell with all that stuff,” he says. “We have a life and the band is there for periods of time or not and it means different things at different times.”

Somewhat surprisingly, the current iteration of Dragon is the most stable there has ever been, as Hunter explains. “We’ve had 35 people through in the last 35 years, but this line-up has been together for the longest of all the Dragon line-ups.”

Dragon actually started as a Grateful Dead-styled pysch rock band in 1973 – with the obligatory two drummers – on a hippy commune in New Zealand where the brief was to play non-stop for 24 hours straight. Moving across the Tasman a couple of years later, they weren’t necessarily ambitious. “We were never a career band, just stumbling from thing to thing. The ‘70s was like the Fall of Rome. We worked all the time. But it was never a goal orientated thing – we just bashed our way through.”

Of course, the Fall of Rome is usually associated with more decadent matters and for Dragon in the ‘70s it was no different. Band members fell to drugs and Marc’s struggles with heroin exacted a personal and collective toll. “It was quite terrifying and heavy stuff. People were dying. It’s not something you’d like to live through very often. The race was on to spend as much of their [record company’s] money as possible. Then we realised ‘shit – it’s our money’. Happily, it was only those early years that were really [crazy] and the rest has been great.”

Dragon’s current tour pays homage to the songs that encouraged them to pick up their instruments in the first place, covering British Invasion (The Troggs, Rolling Stones et al) classics. They’re songs the band just love playing, simple as that. “We were sitting around backstage playing these songs and we thought ‘why don’t we just play them live?’”

Unlike many other bands on the retro/nostalgia circuit, Dragon are very much in the now with an eye on the future; Hunter reels off Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver and Arcade Fire as current favourites. They acknowledge the past, but are neither prisoners to their catalogue nor afraid to rearrange the shared history of the band and its fans. More power to them.

Catch Dragon live at the Southern Cross Club in Woden on Friday March 11. Tickets start from $40 and can be purchased via the venue’s website.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work [Madman]

Joan Rivers was a trailblazer. As much as she demurs from that accolade – not out of any sense of reserved humility but more a defensive “I’m still alive, you fucker” – there she was in the mid ‘60s spewing taboo jokes about abortion, women’s rights, her husband and society where women were meant to be in the kitchen, pregnant and silent.

When Johnny Carson, the doyen of Late Night television, made the seemingly off the cuff comment “you’ll be a star”, it set into motion a train of events that was self-fulfilling. Doors opened where once they slammed in her face, projects dropped in her lap and through it all Rivers continued as the ribald voice of a generation of female comics. But when she made the fateful decision to use that notoriety and dive head first into one of those projects (a talk show, natch) Carson disowned her for life – never once speaking to her again before his death in 2005.

During the course of this ‘all access’ doco, Rivers lands a gig on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice with her daughter in tow. She wins, thereby launching another round of press attention and career momentum she so desperately needs to survive – and craves. Rivers would probably drop dead if she ever stopped, a point she makes early on when pointing out that an empty calendar is one of her worst fears.

Although A Piece of Work provides a comprehensive review of Rivers’ intriguing and troubled background it largely sidesteps the issue that has come to define Rivers in her twilight years – plastic surgery. Maybe for her, the subject doesn’t deserve that much attention; it’s simply who she now is, the source of a cheap gag. But the deeper personal, psychological wounds she carries and the superficial physical ones on public display and how they are so obviously intertwined is either ignored or addressed in passing. For all the bluster, there are clearly some areas still off limits for Joan Rivers.

Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam: Series One and Two (sold separately) [Madman]

Despite the explosion of TV chefs and cooking shows over the last decade there are very few personalities with actual skills on offer. Rick Stein is one. On the surface, a dotty bumbling fool, forever spilling ingredients and drifting off into some tangential anecdote about rivers or culture but underneath it all is an encyclopaedic knowledge of food and a damn good chef. Anthony Bourdain is another. But he’s more an international caustic wit / personality / brand / travel writer / advertisement for smoking into your 40s these days than actual chef. Then there’s a whole bunch of hair-obsessed dickheads. Luke Nguyen, however, is the real deal: a respected chef running a successful restaurant who also happens to be a natural, affable screen talent.

One of the most appealing aspects of Nguyen – and both his SBS series – is his respectful treatment of the willing local props. We’re all used to images of celebrity chefs barging into kitchens to get their hands dirty, but when Nguyen does it there’s a palpable sense of respect and awareness. Not only does he converse freely in local dialect but he’s willing to cede the cooking utensils to those who spend almost every backbreaking waking hour at the grill for the sake of the dish. Contrast this to another local chef of Asian origin who could barely string a ‘thank you’ together in native tongue.

Of course, all of Nguyen’s charisma and self-deprecating goofiness would count for nought if his recipes and skills were off. I’m no expert in Viet cuisine but my other half and her family – who settled in the same Sydney suburb as Luke’s family in the mid ‘80s exodus – confirm their authenticity. Although some of the more challenging stunt dishes (still beating snake heart) are at best, localised delicacies.

Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam (S2 is the north, S1 the south) is as close to that aromatic smell of charcoal grilled pork, sweet aromatic fresh herbs and nose-tingling rich fish sauce as you’ll ever get onscreen.

Swervedriver - Never Lost That Feeling

SWERVEDRIVER know rotten luck. Good timing also held some sort of unjust grudge against them. For a start, their 1991 debut album Raise was released a month before My Bloody Valentine’s game changing Loveless and a month after Nirvana’s Nevermind. Falling bang in the middle of two of the most well regarded releases of the last quarter century was hardly a blessing in disguise.

Then add the fact that Raise – hymns of wide open vistas and sandy deserts and odes to Yank muscle cars – was totally out of sync with the prevailing musical moods, think Bandwagonesque and Screamadelica, and you’d be forgiven for thinking Swervedriver didn’t know how to cop a break. Despite a warm following in the UK, the band really found a rabid audience in the US and Australia, reasons for which still partially allude lead singer/guitarist Adam Franklin. “Yeah, it’s different in every country and always interesting to try and figure out why. Maybe Australian and American audiences get into us more because of lyrics about driving across the desert for miles. And there you have two countries where you can do that.”

By the mid-‘90s Swervedriver had outgrown their misaligned ‘shoegazer’ roots and were racking up success in the burgeoning alt-rock landscape; a magical place where money and record deals were being thrown around in some crazy race to the bottom. From 1995 onwards Swervedriver’s career became the litmus test of torture at the hands of record labels, rapidly churning though Creation, Geffen and then A & M, as an unperturbed Franklin explains. “The first time we got dropped by A & M and then consequently Creation it made us stronger, we’d just made our best album [Ejector Seat Reservation] and we just thought we’d stick it out.”

Franklin recalls running into a Creation employee around this time who was puzzled as to why the band didn’t split following their release from the label. “I laughed and said there’s no reason to break up just because we’d been dropped. Then the next one [99th Dream] was picked up by Geffen and the girl that signed us lost her job. That took the wind out of our sails. But we chose that path – we signed to the majors and got into bed with the devil. That’s how it works.”

And so the inevitable split. “I suppose we didn’t officially break up although it felt like the end. We certainly never announced it or anything. I think there was maybe a plan to go on hiatus and then maybe get back together but we never really did it until many years later.” After ignoring numerous requests Swervedriver finally caved in 2007. “It was natural in the end, quite spontaneous – everyone was up for it.” Four years into Swervedriver Mk II they’re still very much into it.

Catch Swervedriver and supports Tumbleweed and The Laurels live at Sydney’s Metro Theatre on Friday February 18. Tickets are $50.10 + bf and are available through Ticketek.

Queens of the Stoneage - Queens of the Stonage (reissue) - [Liberation/]

Despite an ever-ballooning and intermittently settled line-up, QOTSA is essentially Josh Homme. This 1998 debut album represents his first set of songs since the dissolution of Kyuss. Expectations were high. Which direction would Homme take the band: the pop-influenced swagger path of Demon Cleaner or the trippy, staccato prog funk road of Supa Scoopa? Time proved he could forge a new fork – all of the above and more.

At the time, QOTSA felt unburdened where Kyuss was loaded with baggage. Homme claimed he was going for robot rock, a nothing phrase masking his obsession with discursive Krautrock. But he got it. On Regular John the die was cast – repetition, groove, heft and harmony – the sound of falling up an Escher staircase. Avon and If Only complete an incredibly fluid and riff-heavy troika. To the disappointment of many, things slowed down to an amiable saunter soon after – the tuff gnarl of Mexicola and rabid snarl of How To Handle A Rope providing the only real back-end shout outs. But Homme was always more interested in shapeshifting liquid dynamics, and to complain is to undermine the jazzy contributions of ex-Kyuss bandmate and co-writer Alfredo Hernadez. QOTSA – the album – remains an intriguing vision of a chaotic future. Three extra tracks drop in seamlessly during the album, not as addendums and neither disrupting the flow nor spoiling the original; a further sign of Homme’s restless vision.

JUSTIN HOOK

Let Me In [Icon]

I never quite understand the antagonism towards Hollywood remakes. If some clueless, coked-up studio exec wants to feed some beloved boutique film into the turd machine of mainstream cinema and spit out a big budget bedazzling god-awful remake – then so be it. Who cares, honestly? The creative team behind the original toiling away in some hovel in Vladivostok might be lucky enough to get a steady stream of Blu Ray residuals and everyone involved in the remake will hang their heads in shame and possibly gain a little humility in the process. In an ideal world, that is. In this world we have Dinner for Schmucks. Still, Let Me In isn’t an epic fail on that scale, more a head scratching ‘Huh? Why bother?’

Let The Right One In is barely 18 months old and remains an icy, intense-teenage-bullying-through-the-prism-of-a-Swedish-vampire film pleasure. In a sea of teen novel mediocrity, it was the real vampire film of the decade. So what to make of this almost note for note, scene for scene remake? Clearly it’s in love with the original and hasn’t taken any ill considered liberties with the plot or characters. The film has made the concessionary move to the US (New Mexico) but the bleak desolation remains. Likewise the elemental story remains; shy beaten up boy meets free wheeling shoeless girl, boy falls in love, girl reveals herself to be ageless vampire, dad collects blood for girl, boy catches train with girl in box to escape authorities and start life of blood collection for new girlfriend. It’s actually a tender story treated with restraint – except for the hugely violent but sporadic spurts, larger and bloodier in this version. Kody Smit-McPhee is suitably saucer eyed and Chloe Moretz is vicious and sympathetic in equal measure – but despite the outsized skills of each actor, the chemistry is sodden; a regrettable flaw for a film of exquisite technical expertise.

JUSTIN HOOK

Dogtooth [Madman]

Expectations can be ruinous. When a film is tagged as controversial it can be difficult to disaggregate your feelings for the film from how those around you are reacting. For better or worse, art is rarely consumed in a vacuum especially when it is nominated for Best Foreign Feature by the Academy (it lost).

And so it goes with Dogtooth; everything about it screams polarising. A family on the outskirts of an unnamed Greek city carry out a surreal existence. The three adult-aged children have grown up in a gated compound having never experienced the outside world. Their parents feed them fanciful and terrifying stories of the world (planes are toys that fall from the sky, kittens rip apart grown men) and distort commonplace naming of objects (a chair is a sea, the salt shaker is a telephone) all for the purpose of outright psychological control. They live a denuded life, create mundane games to pass their time and get the odd fuck from a female security guard the father procures for his son’s pleasure and, um, development. Tellingly, we never learn the names of any of the family members. The sex in Dogtooth is played for control and distance not titillation. That the parents seem to survive on a diet of dissociated hardcore pornography is part of the iron-fisted grim reality of life inside the compound.

Not much happens in this film, striving as it does to be a malevolent character study of parents crossing that line from protectiveness to cruel dictatorship. It is a subdued film. Elegant even, in its own twisted way. And like all statement cinema, Dogtooth is devised to be dissected. Whether it’s internally robust enough to withstand such pressure is another question. Like the family itself, just one loose thread could unravel this whole mess.

JUSTIN HOOK

The Necks

LAYING IT ON THE LINE

For over 20 years THE NECKS have existed in a parallel universe to the Australian music scene. Often categorised as an experimental jazz trio, they are one of the few acts that continue to defy the straightjacket of genre definitions. On paper they do indeed appear to be the traditional ‘jazz trio’ of bass, drums and piano.

But as each show they play is entirely unique The Necks are also one of those rarest of bands which invite audience members inside the creative process through unscripted hour-plus performances. Improvisation is nothing new, but usually there are boundaries or cheat notes to fall back on. Not so for this trio. And each of their 15 albums is like each concert; a once off performance piece that will never be replicated. So amongst many other achievements The Necks have neatly solved that troublesome song request heckle.

For the band’s next set of Australian shows they are second on the bill to newly reformed neo-noise legends Swans. It’s the first time they have ever played support to another act but are nonetheless thrilled with the opportunity that came about through a chance meeting with Swans leader Michael Gira on their first US tour in 2009, as bassist Lloyd Swanton explains. “It came about because one of the keystone gigs of that tour was at the Big Ears Festival at Knoxville, Tennessee. The promoter pretty much organises for his own amusement, getting bands he likes. It was the show we built the first tour around and Michael Gira was also performing. We had a chat and for Tony [Buck – drums] particularly, Swans were very influential on him back in the 1980s.”

As is surely always the case in the experimental, avant-garde rock circles someone in The Necks’ posse knew someone in Gira’s posse and soon enough he had offered the band a North American distribution deal through his highly regarded label Young God Records. With the North American shows going incredibly well, including an effusive review of their Knoxville gig by the tastemakers at Pitchfork (“The Necks’ two Knoxville sets were two of the best hours of music I’ve ever heard”) and capacity crowds in every city they played, a Gira-led distribution arrangement was met with open arms. Then the financial crisis put the kybosh on the whole thing. “Yeah, the GFC hit and Michael had to scale down his operation dramatically and was unable to offer that deal anymore.”

Young Gods is a boutique label run pretty much by Gira alone and with the financial uncertainty he simply wasn’t in a position to take on new acts. But there was an upside. “We were disappointed but possibly as some sort of consolation Michael offered us the support for their [Swans’] first ever tour of Australia. We think it’s a really nice match

The band has been fortunate enough to find another really nice match with studio egghead, renowned boffin and restless futurist Brian Eno on two occasions in the last 18 months. Firstly in mid 2009 when Eno was curating Sydney’s Vivid Festival under the Pure Scenius along with Jon Hopkins, Leo Abrahams and Karl Hyde (Underworld) and then for a return performance at Brighton 12 months later, again at the invitation of the bald domed one.

They were obviously doing something right. “It was fantastic working with Brian because he’s such a significant figure and it was incredibly flattering that he wanted us in the first place. And then to get asked at the Brighton Festival was a real feather in the cap. It’s one thing to have Brian Eno come and kind of hand pick you when he’s in town but to then say ‘come and do it all again’… well, it was also reassurance that the concept had legs.”

Despite Eno’s restless polymath tendencies he’s also the ultimate pragmatist. Able to swing effortlessly between innovative regenerative art (77 Million Paintings) and producing doleful, Brit mop rockers (Coldplay) without skipping a beat. And far from being intimidated with the gig, Swanton was pleasantly surprised with his boss-for-the-day’s work ethic. “It was a revelation to see how no-nonsense and humble he is. I now have an inkling to why he’s so renowned as a collaborator: he brings out the best in people and there’s no air and graces at all, very down to earth. His dad was a postman!”

Famously, Eno rarely plays live and continues to rebuff offers to return to the stage with his former band Roxy Music so Swanton is fully aware of how lucky the band were to not only get the invite but share the stage, as he explains. “For all the intellectualising and trying to get to the future before everyone else, he’s very rooted in the real world. The whole concept he conceived was extraordinary and we had to make some concessions to the fact that we weren’t the only people on stage but Brian hasn’t worked live in years so we were very lucky. I found it a little nerve-wracking but also got a huge buzz out of it.”

Both shows received reliably ecstatic reviews and for those unable to make the trip up the highway or to the other side of the globe to see the all day performance there is hope despite the challenges. “By definition it’s quite unwieldy but there’s definitely talk of doing it all again in the future. And everything was recorded so there’s also every likelihood of an album coming out at some stage.”

Catch The Necks live at The Street Theatre on Sunday February 13. Tickets range from $35 to $25 for students and are available from the venue’s website.

Le Savy Fav

LET’S GET OVER THERE

The last time LES SAVY FAVtoured Australia lead singer Tim Harrington, a man known for his... shall we say eccentricstage presence, mounted a 20 foot concrete wall in Sydney’s Reiby Place and proceeded to abseil back down said wall with his microphone cable anchored to a hand rail to the joy/horror of a packed laneway below. That was 2006 and the band was in the country 18 months ahead of and out of sync with their forthcoming and highly critically praised album Let’s Stay Friends

Since then Les Savy Fav have toured sporadically, putting in mainly one off festival appearances overseas and devoting time to their day jobs and growing families. They return to Australia for the first time almost half a decade to the day later and lead guitarist Seth Jabour is in a fighting mood. “I think there were things we could have done differently. Like getting out there and touring more. Doing no touring at all doesn’t really put us in the forefront of people’s minds. And we wanna be in people’s minds.” Make no mistake, when you hear people say ‘you simply mustsee this band live’, Les Savy Fav are that band.

Yet despite the sheer intensity and sense of outrageous decadence they... well, Tim... bring to the stage there are also pragmatic reasons to bemoan the lost opportunity of a barren touring calendar, as Jabour continues. “It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to convince people to buy a CD or records. Well, actually records are easier to sell than anything these days because record lovers love the physical thing in their hands. Whereas CDs are basically landfill nowadays.”

The missed opportunities of not touring, dwindling CD sales, difficulties scheduling required band activities (“When it comes to doing something as rote as setting up a rehearsal time, it’s like pulling teeth”)... could it get any worse? Yes. It sure could. Like, say, seeing your as yet unreleased new album (Root for Ruin) leaking onto file-sharing networks? Yeah, that. “It was devastating. We hadn’t planned for that. We’d talked about all these things we wanted to do and began to strategise then all of a sudden it was all over the net and… well, it was kinda pointless.” Some indie rock detective work by the band’s label, Frenchkiss Records, who just happen to be run by bassist Syd Butler, placed the source of the leak to somewhere in Europe – possibly Spain – but Jabour remains sanguine. “I think it was handled pretty smartly in the US but overseas, maybe they do things a bit differently. It was a bummer, but we took it on the chin. We took it all over the face!”

As it stands in early 2011, Les Savy Fav are defiant in the face of Iberian Jamon-loving Rapidshare banditos. “Root for Ruin is a fucking awesome record. But there’s work to be done. Keep touring, keep pumping it out and hyping it. It’s worthy of our time.” Spanish dates remain unconfirmed.

Catch Les Savy Fav at their show at the Manning Bar in Sydney on Thursday February 10. Tickets are $45 + bf and are available through Moshtix.

Centurion

At the height of its power the Roman Empire stretched from northern Britain down through North Africa and across to modern day Iraq. Assuming you paid your taxes, supported Rome and stayed out of trouble Pax Romanaprovided stability to large swathes of the Ancient World that had hitherto only known internecine warfare. But to maintain ‘peace’ the Empire needed to conquer land and secure outposts and it was the legendary Ninth Legion’s responsibility to invade and subdue Britain around 47 AD, which they did quite well. But then sometime around 117 AD they disappeared off the face of the earth. Historians debate the fate of the 3,000 strong legion and Neil Marshall (Descent) uses this intriguing myth as a launching pad for a pretty chaotic and disappointing film.

Centuriondesperately apes Zack Snyder’s gloriously technicolour approach to blood spatter in that camp masterpiece 300– each swipe of a blade renders the screen a deep shade of red. It looks like bad CGI because it is bad CGI. I get that it neatly juxtaposes the wintry, bitter Caledonian battlefields (cinematography is universally excellent) but if you’re going to go comically crimson you may as well go blue or yellow and make it actually funny. It gets tiring.

In Marshall’s telling, the Legion, sarcastically led by Titus Virilus (Dominic West), are ambushed by the feral Pict tribe after they were betrayed by a crazy mystic wolf woman who had her tongue cut out by the Romans. Sure the Romans killed her family, but peace comes at a price… right? A small group of survivors led by Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) attempt a daring rescue of the now captured loin-clothed McNulty and hand out a bit of old school revenge, which results in more blood and enough plot holes to build an aqueduct through. It meanders to an inglorious end. Centurionisn’t bad, it’s merely adequate which given the myth the film was based upon borders on insanity.

JUSTIN HOOK

Tumbleweed The Waterfront Years 1991-1993 [Aztec Music]

For a few brief years in the fabled early ‘90s Tumbleweed were The Next Big Thing. Evolving from Wollongong local heroes Proton Energy Pills and The Unheard, their first single was produced by the skinniest man in, ahem, grunge – Mudhoney’s Mark Arm. The band impressed an Atlantic Records executive enough at a hastily organised showcase gig at the now defunct Hopetoun in Surry Hills to sign them to an international contract. Quickly enough they were supporting Nirvana on their only Australian tour, thanks to a Mudhoney brokered deal two years previous when both were unknowns. World at their feet. Just as quickly, Tumbleweed faded, ignored by label and public alike despite releasing albums for the rest of the decade. They remained loyal to revered Sydney label Waterfront, and this crucial collection proves Tumbleweed have aged better than every other feted early ‘90s breakthrough act. THC imagery looms large but they are far more than a stoner group; just as in love with overdriven superfuzz as they were with the taught, lean riffing of Celibate Rifles (Sundial), happy to meander in a locked-in Creedence groove (Shakedown) whilst laying on supple J Mascis styled licks over “pop songs” (standout Carousel). Almost every song on this compilation of early singles, EPs and the debut eponymous album is a reminder why Tumbleweed threatened so – they had it.

Justin Hook

Great Migrations (Blu Ray) [Madman]

There used to be a time when it was enough for a nature doco to have David Attenborough poke a badger with a stick in a jungle all the while explaining that poking badgers with sticks makes them quite irritable. Nowadays in the age of high definition and micro-engineering, quaint badger abuse just doesn’t cut it. The BBC’s Natural History Unit is generally considered the gold standard of nature and science broadcasting with over 50 years in the field and a swag of accolades and awards to match. So it’s somewhat strange to consider that National Geographic – an organisation over a century old – could be considered the newcomer. But it is and Great Migrations is Nat Geo’s big budget shot across the bow, which means one thing – higher degrees of technical wizardry, bigger budgets, closer close-ups and more complicated set ups.

Taking over three years to shoot in native HD, this miniseries is a stunning accomplishment. Take for example the monarch butterfly that traverses the North American continent before making its return at twice the pace. Filming butterflies presents all sorts of challenges – they are small and somewhat boring, but here they blossom into monoliths that fly right next to you in 1080i glory. But it’s not all beer and skittles. Nature docos like to remind us death is just around the corner, as if to reiterate that life is fragile. Great Migrations is no different, often violently so. Is there anything cuter than a seal rolling around in a pool of mud? Of course not. Is there anything more tragic than witnessing a playful seal savagely ripped apart by a great white shark? Yikes. Narration by Alec Baldwin is occasionally distracting and smarmy but is solid. Sadly Stephen Fry’s allegedly superior narration track isn’t an option. Editing is another concern; non-linear and disjointed, it fails to settle into a supple groove like its competitors. However, a better argument for the Blu Ray format you’ll unlikely find.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Blu Ray) [Madman]

Hayao Miyazaki, through Studio Ghibli, has spent two and a half decades defining that line between childlike and childish. Whereas the former retains and celebrates a joyous but inquisitive simplicity and wonderment with the world, the latter dwells on the juvenile, ignoring the intelligence (regardless of age) of the audience and relying on formulaic, monochromatic character storylines.

Sure, Pixar has turned the perception of animation on its head but in reality it was Ghibli that redefined the genre in the late 20^th century. And Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is where the big screen story begins, because Nausicaä’s Japanese box office success in 1984 paved the way for the creation of Studio Ghibli a year later. Since then Academy Awards (Spirited Away) and a respected cult following has established around the anime house, such that when Hollywood comes calling Miyazake has the power to enforce a strict no re-edit policy. Indeed it was Nausicaä’s disastrous mid-‘80s US distribution deal that hacked, dumbed down and retitled this film that led to Miyazake’s stance.

So how does the re-voiced, re-released Nausicaä hold up? Alarmingly well. As with most Ghibli output it’s a captivating plot from the outset – Earth has been all but destroyed by a devastating war 1,000 years previous. A small community, one of the few left, survives in the valley on the edge of a forest infected by the toxins of previous generations. The forest is a dangerous place. A plucky young proto-feminist (Princess Nausicaä) finds herself in the last line of defence of their fragile society. Monstrous, mechanised and destructive outsiders (Tolmekians) are out to eliminate and enslave... wait, does this sound eerily reminiscent of Avatar? Yeah, me too. In the end Nausicaä packs a monumental emotional punch, presaging the dire warnings of environmental mismanagement that are still largely ignored. This film is years ahead of its time, in every possible way. Essential.

Duran Duran - All You Need Is Now [Tapemodern]

The opening salvo of Duran Duran’s 13th studio album, all sliding and discordant synths sitting atop mild hip-hop beats didn’t give cause for hope. Even in their early ‘80s prime they were a patchy, extravagant dada-esque joke concocted by The Face magazine about fashion-obsessed over-consumption more than an actual band; seek out the bonkers clip for Rio if in doubt. By 1986 Phase I was all but over – the joke wore thin. 1991 brought unexpected success via Ordinary World, a syrupy MTV-ready hit. Soon enough Phase II was over. So here we are in 2011 and it seems Duran Duran might pull it off again. Don’t call it a comeback though; they’ve been slogging away for years. So getting back to those synths; wouldn’t you know it within a minute they soon give way to a glorious blast of what made Duran Duran so great in the first place – blinding synthpop. It’s the closest they have come to replicating Rio or Seven and the Ragged Tiger in years. Not bettering but getting close to that elusive vibe. Decadent, freewheeling and joyous. Maybe a looming 30th anniversary forced the band to refocus after a series of aimless releases. Maybe it’s Mark Ronson on production duties – he certainly seems attentive to the band’s legacy and is playful (The Man Whole Stole a Leopard is essentially The Chauffer in different skin) without being overly sycophantic. Or maybe they just decided to knuckle down and write some cracking tunes. Whatever it is – it works. 

Justin Hook and Allan Sko's Top 10 DVDs of 2010

Twelve months ago we argued the small screen was attracting the best writers, directors and actors around. A year on, nothing has changed. If anything, it just keeps on getting better. Zombie drama The Walking Dead looks impressive, Mad Men fails to falter and the lavish Boardwalk Empire brings erstwhile fast-talker Martin Scorsese to HBO.

Multi-casting has freed up our boxes to a whole raft of exceptional shows that wouldn’t get a look-in otherwise (Fringe, Community, et al). Add to that Conan’s new show on GEM as well as both Colbert/Stewart on ABC2 all of which transmit hours after airing in the US and you get the distinct feeling some of the programmers are paying attention. But of course, some shows deserve special homage…

Eastbound and Down – Series 1 [HBO/Warner Home Video]

I knew this was going to be a great show when MC5’s Miss X blasted within the first ten minutes. It set the tone perfectly; defiant, aggressive, blue collar and unrepentant. Danny McBride’s Kenny Powers is all these things and more – a tragic anti-hero. At a mere six episodes long, Eastbound and Down gets to the nub quickly, but it’s not rushed. It’s a finely paced story of redemption and hanging onto dreams – as ill-judged as they are. JUSTIN HOOK

Bored to Death – Series 1 [HBO/Warner Home Video]

Bored to Death is another example of a small scale show with modest ambitions scoring week-in, week-out. Jonathan (Jason Schwartzman) is a struggling novelist recently dumped by his girlfriend. With no career ambitions to speak of and more content slouching around Park Slope with best friend (Zach Galifianakis) it’s a pretty tame set-up. But throw in a side career as a private detective, an anarchic pot-obsessed Ted Danson and the Russian mafia and things get very silly and very good, very quickly. JUSTIN HOOK

Modern Family [Sony]

Look, this show isn’t the standard bearer for innovation. If anything it conforms slavishly to the norms of sitcom-land. Everyone does pretty much exactly what you’d expect them to (the gays flame, the South American is hot tempered, the father is an idiot etc) and the stories tie up neatly within 30 minutes. But within these confines, Modern Family works minor miracles. The characters are they key; they are believable, multi-dimensional and most importantly, funny. JUSTIN HOOK

John Adams [Warner Home Video]

Never let it be said the Brits have a monopoly on period piece, fancy dress drama. John Adams is a sumptuous treat – visually compelling, dense plotting and austere delivery. At times it had a tendency to labour under the weight of its own importance and fanatically serious tone but it’s a small price to pay with wig-bearing Paul Giammatti chewing through scenery and Laura Linney being simply awesome. Best production design this side of Deadwood, which is saying quite a bit. Cocksucker. JUSTIN HOOK

Community [Sony/Universal]

Like Modern Family, Community appears to be a standard sitcom set up – a bunch of misfits drawn together in unusual circumstances (all are attending community college) ironing out their differences in 22 minutes. And for the first few episodes it certainly lived down to this expectation. But then something happened and it became one of the smartest, self-aware, self-mocking, meta-comedies on television. Season 2 which has just started on digital TV here raises the bar even further. JUSTIN HOOK

The Tenth Inning [PBS, via Amazon and record high exchange rates]

Baseball, Ken Burns’ gargantuan 18-hour history of America’s Favourite Pastime (TM) remains the highest rating show on PBS. But that was 16 years ago and since then baseball has suffered some, shall we say, troubles. Barely concealed steroid abuse took down some of the sport’s biggest names under the compact approval of the authorities. Burns’ latest addition doesn’t quite match its predecessor – but for neophytes it’s a good, and often gripping, introduction to an unfamiliar sport. And I usually hate sport. JUSTIN HOOK

Archer [FX-Fox 8]

Adam Reed – the creator and writer of Archer – was also responsible for Frisky Dingo and Sealab 2010. If these shows mean nothing to you the stop reading now. Sterling Archer is a spy and complete fool. An oversexed, alcoholic, trigger happy fool. Think of it as an animated James Bond vs. The Office vs. Arrested Development if that sort of shorthand appeals to you. H. Jon Benjamin is stunning as the voice of Archer – antagonising anyone who crosses his path with an expert balance between smarm, braggadocio and stupidity. JUSTIN HOOK

The Shield – Season Seven [FX]

Over the course of seven seasons, the noose has been slowly tightening on Vic Mackey and his increasingly fractured Strike Team and in this, the finale, writer-creator Shawn Ryan lets the rope strain to breaking point. With moments worthy of Shakespearean tragedy, the writers perform an admirable and brave switch by brazenly turning the audience against Mackey. Michael Chiklis and Walton Goggins (Shane Vendrell) provide some of the year’s most intense scenes. ALLAN SKO

Boardwalk Empire [HBO]

Whilst nowhere near the lofty heights of writer Terence Winter’s former work on The Sopranos (but what is, right?) Boardwalk Empire still succeeds in being a fascinating piece on how corruption and crime fuels society, in this case the suptious looking 1920s Atlantic City. Refreshingly, Steve Buscemi steps from the shadows of supporting role to main star, and doesn’t waste the opportunity. Stephen Graham is excellent as Al Capone, but Michael Pitt as the layered Jimmy Darmody is the heart of the show. Even Omar from The Wire is in it. ALLAN SKO

Sons of Anarchy [FX]

The Shield writer-producer Kurt Sutter took the grit, crime and power struggles of Vic Mackey’s world and translated it to bikers; with excellent results. While a little ham-fisted and sensationalised to start with, the show soon relaxed into a groove and focused more on the relationships between – and motivation of – the characters, all of whom are forever split between what’s right, and what’s right for “the club”. Compulsive viewing. ALLAN SKO

OSS – Lost In Rio [Madman]

OSS 117 is a series of French films and books centred on the fictional Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath. Created by Jean Bruce, these are the Gallic equivalents of James Bond in many respects – in fact the 117 spy denomination tag predates Bond’s 007 by a decade. Coincidence or conspiratorial skullduggery? Obviously the latter. Anyway, in the way that Austin Powers spoofed James Bond spy capers, so too does OSS 117 – Lost In Rio parody the original OSS 117 films; still with me? All you need to know is that de La Bath is a racist, bloating, sexist and thoroughly out of step spy who, much like Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau, somehow manages to get the job done, blithely unaware of the path of carnage left in his trail. OSS 117 is sent to Brazil hot on the trail of Nazis who managed to escape post-WW2 justice. A tasteless set up, you might think, but director Michel Hazanavicius manages to get in a few digs at his own country’s treatment of war criminals and the alleged fascistic tendencies of legendary French leader Charles de Gaulle.

Indeed, it’s the scenes where de La bath gets to exercise his blatant and casual colonial racism that are the most rewarding; the condescension of local Brazilians and a thoroughly out of control sub plot involving legions of Chinese assassins is definitely squirm-worthy – but when delivered with such stony-faced, dead-eyed precision as it is by Jean Dujardin it’s not so easy to dismiss as attention seeking. Of course, asking for the location of Nazis on the lam at the German Embassy’s information desk is high farce, pure and simple. And whilst Dujardin is electric as de La Bath, the production design and cinematography is equally praiseworthy; it has that washed out, over lit, dusty film-stock, ‘60s era vibe down perfectly – thereby making the valid point that parody is more than retro costumes, funny accents and odious catchphrases.

Food Inc. [Roadshow]

As a carnivore I approached this doco with caution. Like most decent, right-thinking human beings I have a fair understanding of how the food that goes into my mouth gets there. I’m not an activist for any of the sub-genres of sustainable farming, cooking or preparation – but I do know that if you treat animals like shit and you end up eating that animal, it’ll taste like shit.

Food Inc. doesn’t set out to radicalise its audience. There are some shocking scenes of mistreatment and utterly despicable living conditions that farm animals must endure on their way to our plate. But as repellent as they are, it’s the tip of the iceberg. The worst stuff happens way behind closed doors. And I’d like to think Food Inc. is part of a larger movement to revaluate the amount of food we consume as well as its origin, but sadly this is a niche doco – one that plays well to those already engaged but drifting past the general populace; those watching Today Tonight to get updates on where to get the cheapest mince in their area. But I doubt they’ll ever see it.

And I doubt they’d have any idea who talking heads like Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) or Michael Pollan (who really deserves his own documentary feature) actually are. Nor would they care about the appalling state of food patent laws that has subverted traditional seed farming, effectively destroying generations old cropping techniques; corporate malfeasance and regularity neglect writ large. That’s the story of the modern industrial agricultural industry. Lax and unenforced standards, shocking treatment of animals, sick and fat consumers and corporations who are too big to bully.

Amongst the despair and cavalcade of grief there is some respite. Small scale farmers who attempt to minimise the agony. But it’s tinkering at the edges. The fact is we need to revaluate our food decisions – the what, how, where and why. Food Inc. is a good primer.

The Phantom Band - The Wants [Other Tongues/Chemikal Underground]

Just when almost everybody had settled on their Top Ten list for the year, along comes Phantom Band to screw up the schematics and make a late bid for Album of the Year. You see the Phantom Band are tricky, pulling you in with savvy pop sharps only to pile on layer after layer of every imaginable genre (Krautrock, power-pop, Berlin-era moody Bowie, surf-rock…you name it) until you’re left reeling, confused and bewildered. The greatest trick of course, is making it work.

The Wants represents the difference between a band throwing all the sounds of all their favourite albums into 45 minutes like impatient teenagers and a group of assured, deliberate and relaxed musicians writing dense, complex and unpredictable mini-masterpieces. Take The None of One for example; an elegant, gentle banjo-flecked ballad that stumbles into a thumping, rave-up before settling into an elliptical electronic fadeout. Now that shouldn’t work and I’m sure it reads ghastly but as each layer intersects and cross fades, The Phantom Band make it seem necessary and designed – not clamour for clamour’s sake, a notion that bogs down similar bands from, say, Brooklyn for example. Then there’s A Glamour where shadowy guitar riffs float over Miles Davis style hard-funk circa On The Corner. Ultimately this is a bastard, gnarled pop record and unlike most potential ‘Albums of the Year’, The Wants has longevity and puts some other bands trawling the same ditch to shame. And they’re Scottish. Huh. 

Wolf People - Steeple [Jagjaguwar]

There’s a few scientifically proven measure of what makes a great song. Sounding like Jethro Tull circa-Stand Up is usually a good start. Not necessarily the more flute-intensive parts (difficult to find as that might be) but the proggy, hard crunch Martin Barre parts. Then there’s the spidery Richard Thompson-era Fairport Convention quotient; the essential years that melded pastoral English folk with churning rock. A bit of wigged out cosmic skronk noise won’t hurt either. Nor will liberal doses of Sabbath/Zeppelin riffage. On paper that sounds like a god-awful expedition down shit street. But when Wolf People do it on Silbury Sands, the lead track off their debut album, it’s pretty bloody tremendous. Especially considering the first 90 seconds is an elongated gonzo blues guitar solo tacked onto the Wicker Man soundtrack. It shouldn’t work. Then all of a sudden it starts making sense after the stanza where Jack Sharp mournfully wails “You never drive the lifeboat up the mountain side”. Quite. And whilst it’s tempting to fob Wolf People off as hackneyed Canterbury-scene revisionists with a classic rock bent, there’s something else happening. As much as you hear influences, it’s hard to pick other people’s songs like you might with some other Canidae-inspired bands. I don’t give Chris Goss a hard time for re-writing Cream’s songbook, so it’s only fair Wolf People get cut a little slack. Of course they’re no Masters of Reality. But who is? This will do just fine though. 

Animal Kingdom [Madman]

Animal Kingdom is a film about a Melbourne crime family. This is a significant barrier to overcome. Localised crime stories have hardly been off the screen in the last few years. Mostly they’ve been utter trash – soulless exercises in hyper sexualised crim glamorisation serving only to titillate audiences unwilling to grasp the true nature of extortion, assassination and drug dealing. It’s reckless entertainment exploiting the most venal aspects of our airbrushed and image conscious modern life.

Animal Kingdom is a completely different beast. For a start it’s a family story that just happens to be about a household of career criminals. A bit like The Wire is a show about decay that happens to be a cop drama. In addition, there isn’t that much action or gun play in this film. For a film that is driven by the after effects of bullets, the actual gunplay is short, brutal, erratic and blunt. Like the characters who inhabit this world.

Jason Cody (James Frecheville) is a recent orphan thanks to his mothers OD. He’s taken in by his extended family of criminal misfits overseen by Smurf (Jacki Weaver), the matriarch and true power base of the family. The stoic youngster has stumbled into a family fraying at the edges after Baz (Joel Edgerton), the day-trading rational one, is killed by bent coppers and the family begins to spiral out of control, ensnaring anyone unfortunate enough to cross the family’s path. Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) steps up with disastrous results. His vicious intent, often unspoken, is the core of Animal Kingdom; it lingers long after the credits roll. Eventually Jason is compromised and runs for his life. The final scene is ambiguous – in a film about allegiances there’s no easy read on that final embrace between Jason and an obviously stunned and off-kilter Smurf. But chances are the die has been cast.

Every single sentence of praise heaped upon this film is justified. Animal Kingdom is a triumph.

Beneath Hill 60 [Paramount]

For a country that takes great pride in the mythology of young men killed at war in foreign battlefields, there have been scant few films pulling apart actual battles. The truth underpinning these myths is open to debate – every April there’s another round of ‘they wuz anonymous cannon fodder M’Lord’ vs ‘Poppycock – it forged our National identity.’ And if the amount of boozed up flag-flaunting young patriots who descend upon the cliffs of Turkey is anything to go by, myths are very important. Unfortunately myths cloud reality and subsume individual deeds into a greater, more blunted and acceptable narrative. Truth is – war is about killing people.

Oliver Woodward (Brendan Cowell) is a reluctant conscript. Whilst the majority of his peers promptly signed up to fight for the Empire, Woodward was hesitant to commit. More important to ensure the copper mines ran to capacity for the war effort, he thought. Cowardly, said society. So off to the Western Front he heads soon taking control of a tunnelling operation that will eventually blow up that hill in the title. He succeeds of course, setting off an explosion that at the time was the greatest manmade explosion in history. The acute sense of claustrophobia achieved on such a marginal budget is astonishing, and for a movie largely set underground and in sodden trenches Beneath Hill 60 doesn’t fall into the trap of indistinguishable characters sloshing about complaining about the higher ups. Although there’s a bit of that as well, along with flashback sequences that disrupt rather than assist.

So whilst we may not make many films like this, it’s comforting to know that great Australian wartime stories can translate to the big screen free of cheap jingoism and rich in nuance. A fine cast (Gyton Grantley, Anthony Hayes and Aden Young) and Jeremy Sims’ tight direction – except for those flashbacks – make for a genuine and intense treat.

John Steel Singers

The Tangalooma Resort is about 90 minutes from the Brisbane CBD on Moreton Island. Popular with locals, it’s a dolphin retreat of sorts and dotted with the rusting hulks of long deceased ships, a perfect retreat for stressed out Brisbanites. I’ve been told they actually exist. When the JOHN STEEL SINGERS wanted an image to adequately express the specific local-ness of their recently released debut album, Tangalooma (Dew Process), they lugged carloads of camera gear to Moreton Island, as Tim Morrissey explains. “I hadn’t been to Tangalooma since I was three and I always had that visual image in my mind of the wrecks. We wanted to do something Queensland-centric and these shipwrecks where just phenomenal.” From firsthand experience diving through the wrecks, I can confirm he’s not lying about the wrecks and the stunning cover art proves they know a thing or two about graphic design.

There’s a strong sense of local pride in this band. Not in the Southern Cross tattoo on your neck type of way, more of a respect of antecedence and contentment with how the Brisbane music scene has evolved. “We wanted to make a fairly Brisbane and Queensland-centric album because a lot of people in Brisbane or even other parts of Australia don’t necessarily know a local band is even Australian.”

And then there’s that Brisbane sound, as Tim continues: “Brisbane, musically, always had a unique sound. Dry vocals, pop oriented, but also trebly guitars straight into the amp and wiry little guitar licks; bands like Up’s and Downs, the Apartments, the Go-Betweens.” It’s that last band that has made the biggest impression on the John Steel Singers. “The Go-Betweens always quoted Brisbane suburbs or things about the area and it was always great that this pretty successful band were still quoting Brisbane suburbs.”

It’s no surprise then that The Go-Betweens’ Robert Forster ended up producing Tangalooma, playing the less invasive, more fatherly role in the recording. “The father role would be an apt way of describing it. He’s certainly not an engineer sitting at the mixing desk twiddling knobs.”

Apart from the obvious fan-boy thrill of working with one of your musical idols, there were pragmatic reasons for the coupling that actually went beyond Forster reclining behind the mixing desk in an immaculate suit sipping tea. “Robert is wired to make pop songs – he has a pop brain,” Tim explains. “He’s also very good at arranging and structuring and really helped trim the fat off a lot of the songs. You know if you’ve been playing a song for a year you might get quite attached to a guitar part. But in reality it may be cluttering up the song, so it’s good to have an authority figure everyone respects. You tend to take it a lot more seriously when it comes from him.” Long may he trim.

Catch the John Steel Singers live at the ANU Bar on Friday December 3. Supports are Deep Sea Arcade and Fishing and tickets are $18.85 + bf through Ticketek.

The Church

THE CHURCH were recently inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. On the evening of the ceremony, the band’s lead singer, Steve Kilbey, stole the show with a rambling and hilarious 30 minute speech that even managed to prompt Tina Arena to heckle from the floor. At the conclusion of Kilbey’s show-stealing performance, Marty Willson-Piper – the man largely responsible for the band’s signature ethereal, chiming 12-string guitar sound – mock-chided his colleague for destroying the mystique they had worked assiduously at developing over their 30 year career. As for the award itself, Willson-Piper is gracious but wary; “Awards are a funny thing. The problem with awards is in the end they have no bearing on what you do creatively. I mean it’s great someone has come along and said ‘you are worthy’ and it’s nice to have people show their appreciation. But it has no bearing on what you do.”

Walking ever more delicately around the subject the guitarist concludes, “You don’t want to be ungrateful but you can’t really incorporate it into your work. The thing with awards is you just have to treat them with a healthy distance. You just say ‘thank you for bestowing the honour upon me’ and just leave it at that. It has nothing to do with how you move on as a band.”

And they have been doing plenty of moving on over the last 30 years. Willson-Piper joined Kilbey and guitarist Peter Koppes in a lineup that would eventually morph into The Church in early 1980. Little under a year later they scored their first major radio hit with the pysch-pop jangle mini-anthem The Unguarded Moment. As the decade wore on, the dream-pop neo-psychedelia scene, of which The Church are widely regarded as one of the most influential flag bearers, even secured its own media friendly label – Paisley Underground. Then there’s the ghostly Under The Milky Way (from 1988’s Starfish) – a song that kicked down many a door internationally and was recently voted by The Age newspaper as the best Australian song of the last 21 years.

For a band with such a nigh-on unimpeachable legacy, you could probably forgive them for dwelling on the past and perhaps even allow a surrender to the now drearily inevitable ‘play the whole album all the way through’ thing. For Willson-Piper and co. that’s on the agenda. “No it’s not, really. That’s the thing we have to be careful of; things like that they tend to suggest. And it’s just like the Hall of Fame thing, when you get honoured at a thing like that it’s like a full stop, it means it’s the end. And it’s not really. We’ve continued making records since we started and we’ve never stopped.”

Yet for all these years of activity, critical adulation, commercial success and touring, life in a Hall of Fame band isn’t as financially rewarding as you’d expect. Statues and industry votes don’t pay the electricity bills. “No, not particularly. Everybody’s always hurting for money. It’s an expensive world we live in and I find that everyone’s trying to find ways to pay bills… to buy that CD… to go out to dinner… to go to the movies and even buying your kids a present and eating! People think that bands like us run around flush, just because we’ve been around for a few years.”

For the current 30^th anniversary tour, the band decided on a small scale, acoustic approach eschewing larger plugged-in theatre shows. Each show will be a reverse overview of their career where they play a song from each album in reverse chronological order from the last album all the way through to the beginning. Willson-Piper is happy with this compromise. “It’s a cool thing and it’s a good overview without it being too bombastic and self-aggrandizing. We just felt a low-key version of what we had done over the years is the best approach.”

This approach means we’ll be getting a unique perspective on how the band themselves see their place in the recent history of Australian rock, and you’ll also get at least one song from the oft-criticised – especially by the band themselves – Gold Afternoon Fix, the 1990 album that represented The Church’s big chance to capitalise on Starfish’s international success and also saw the departure of drummer Richard Ploog and the arrival of drum machines. Willson-Piper is currently writing the liner notes for the album’s pending re-release and fronts up to the challenge.

“It’s gonna be a difficult one to write because it was the album where Richard parted ways with the band and it sounds like a drum machine and it really ruins the songs – all you can hear is that stupid drum machine which is so frustrating and I don’t know how the hell we let it happen. Whether Richard was going to be in the band or not is another issue… but you know why didn’t we get another drummer? Why were we doing it with a drum machine? For all the sadness of Richard not being in the band and whatever the reasons were is irrelevant. The point is if he wasn’t going to be in the band why didn’t we get another drummer? Why did we substitute him with a crap drum machine? So that is always eternally disappointing for us that it ended up being that way.” So in a few weeks time when The Church play at Tilley’s, come see them kick the boot into drum machine once and for all.

Catch The Church live at Tilley’s on Saturday December 4. Tickets are $48 and can be purchased through the venue either at the bar or by calling 6247 7753.

Get Him To The Greek [Universal]

Russell Brand makes an unlikely movie star. An ex-junkie with an outrageous wit, enviable command over vocabulary to back it up and a string of scandals (the heroin years, the infamous BBC Radio sacking, the profligate shagging) who never really acts, more so just plays a variation of himself. In Get Him To The Greek he’s turned a supporting character role in a marginal bromance comedy caper (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) into the star attraction. Washed up rocker Aldous Snow (possibly some sort of self-congratulatory knowing riff about the doors of perception and cocaine) was a carnal force of nature in Forgetting… and this time the only way forward is more: more drugs, more debauchery, more uncomfortable situations, more everything. Except laughs. A & R man Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) convinces his boss Sergio Roma (Sean Coombs) that to reverse the fortunes of his ailing record company they should put on a 10^th anniversary show celebrating one of Snow’s more famous performances. Green is dispatched to England to get Snow to the Greek Theatre in three days time.

Cue drug and sex fuelled mania; AKA a standard Brand weekend circa 2003. The good things first. Sean Coombs as the head of Pinnacle Records reverses over a decade’s worth of annoying pouting – he’s fantastic, displaying an assured sense of comic timing few would have credited him with. Rose Byrne as Snow’s girlfriend steals the movie with a gloriously louche, leg-splitting performance on live TV. The African Child clip – an uproarious Live Aid spoof – is pitch-perfect. Unfortunately the rest of the film is repugnant drivel. Green adores Snow and goes to any length to enable his hero – smuggling drugs up his arse, letting him screw his girlfriend, sending him out to score him smack. What a chortle. There’s never any recompense – just a rock star being a prick and an all-forgiving crony. This isn’t a clever satire of out of control celebrities. It’s a muddle-headed 90 minute excuse for asshole addicts.

The Crazies [Roadshow]

Hollywood’s being eating itself for generations. It’s not a startlingly new trend for brain-dead producers to stumble across an old film and think that it deserves a remake; only with more explosions and nudity. Hell, Hitchcock even went to the trouble of remaking his own films. Horror films have been enjoying – if that’s the right word – a particularly fertile period of remakes, re-imaginings and reboots (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Elm Street et al) and drilling down even further you have the films of George A Romero; the most famous of all horror directors. Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake of Romero’s 1978 masterpiece Dawn of the Dead was an achievement in that it didn’t overly piss on the grave of its source material. Since then Romero himself has added another three films to the Dead canon, with diminishing returns.

The Crazies is one of Romero’s lesser known films but one that adheres strictly to the goofy-spectacled director’s roll call of mandatory tropes; (i) rural town Middle America peopled by God-fearing innocents who succumb to (ii) a shady government cover up of an unknown disaster leading to (iii) out of control infected inhabitants pursuing a (iv) plucky group of survivors, one of which will surely be (v) pregnant, another of which will undoubtedly (vi) get infected by the unknown virus and take a bullet, all the while (vii) lawlessness and gallons of blood ensue. Of course the metaphor of an out of control military freely executing citizens is, sadly, becoming universal (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan… take your pick) and whilst obvious, it isn’t necessarily ham-fisted. Tim Olyphant (Deadwood, Justified) is excellent as the uptight town Sheriff and Joe Anderson (Control) channels southern hick extraordinarily well for an English toff and I’m pretty sure Romero himself made a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ cameo. The Crazies is a solid, if graciously slow, film blessed with some well balanced and expressive cinematography of big sky country and one of the better remakes on offer.

Grateful Dead - Crimson, White and Indigo [Rhino]

The Grateful Dead. If you have a cursory understanding of rock history you’ll know the name, but probably couldn’t pick a tune to avoid a back alley knifing. At a stretch you might be able to peg them as that indulgent perpetually stoned psychedelic rock band from last century. The Dead are, for all intents and purposes, dead. After Jerry Garcia’s (lead guitar, vocals, heroin) passing in 1995 they officially disbanded, but by my reckoning over 60 live albums have been released from the bands extensive vault in the last decade. Crimson, White and Indigo captures the band in 1989 on one of their brief late-career creative resurgences. Not withstanding their genre-defining excursions into alt-Americana (Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty – both essential) the Dead were primarily a live proposition, where spontaneous explorative melodies would float unrestrained for days before exploding into distilled pysch-riffing. But, they also knew how to get bogged down in meandering twaddle.

There is good and there is bad Grateful Dead. This is pretty good Grateful Dead. Brent Myland’s ‘80s clonky keyboards rankle this traditionalist but there is an energetic and fluid Scarlet Begonias->Fire on the Mountain and Garcia’s fragile vocals are better than average especially of a jaunty Wharf Rat. Not the best live introduction to the band (the 1977 shows, especially their Cornell University gig on May 8, is the Rosetta Stone) but a fun trip, nonetheless.

Dexter – Season 4 [Paramount]

After a frustrating and lacklustre third season that ambled to nowhere in particular with Jimmy Smits in tow, Dexter has received a much needed bounce back. By now our titular hero is married with a bouncing baby in one room, a surly step-daughter in another and a wife yapping about nappies. Oh god does Rita ever shut up? Turns out – yes, she does but we’ll deal with that later. Dexter is now a rumination on the terror of suburbia, where violence lurks just beneath the surface. There’s only so long a serial killer cop can fly underneath the radar and it’s this need to hide in plain view that has driven Dexter Morgan since day one, but it has never been more pronounced.

Surely someone will notice? Maybe, but in the meantime there’s another killer on the loose in Miami. Special Agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine) is back in town cooking up some cockamamie ‘Trinity Killer’ theory, a murderer who kills in allotments of three. Crazy old coot. Of course, turns out he’s right and in the Trinity Killer character (John Lithgow) the writers have delivered the single best antagonist in the show’s entire run (notwithstanding the sadly departed Doakes. Oh how I miss the pantomime intensity of Doakes). Lithgow is creepy belligerence personified; the mid-season finger-snapping (literally) episode is one of the more jaw-clenching TV experiences of 2010. High praise for a show that is, essentially, goofy ham horror. Indeed the entire supporting cast could be replaced with piles of old newspapers and I don’t think I’d either notice or care. Sadly, it’s this lack of attention to the minor characters and plot arcs that prevents Dexter scaling any great heights. Michael C. Hall remains fantastic, although his expository voiceovers are utterly redundant and need a mercy killing. The season’s denouement is a genuinely jarring climax; a gutsy development that keeps an occasionally faltering series alive.

Beyond The Lighted Stage (Blu Ray) [Universal]

The best music docos tackle marginal acts. Whilst Some Kind of Monster was undoubtedly a hit, the stink of immature petulance will forever cloak Metallica. In comparison, 2009’s vastly superior Anvil! The Story of Anvil was a triumph for the underdogs, the forgotten, those who never gave up. And now there’s Beyond The Lighted Stage, an intimate portrait of Canadian prog-trio Rush – not so much a marginal band… more of a marginalised band.

Rush are the archetypal nerd band – geeks loved them, critics hated them. Formed by the offspring of post-War European émigrés who’d resettled in suburban Ontario (Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee) Rush had confident swagger from the very beginning; check out the unbelievable footage of a Lifeson family dinner conversation where a very young Alex lays out his future plans for rock domination. It looks like a dramatic recreation, but it’s not. The band settled down after the dour, intense and bookish Neil Peart took over drum duties from John Rutsey. To this very day he is the brooding foil to the Lee/Lifeson levity. He’s also one of the greatest living rock drummers. Hitting their stride in the late ‘70s, the band had enjoyed its period of commercial glory (Tom Sawyer, Freewill, Entre Nous) at the exact same time as punk broke. So despite selling out arenas they were yesterday’s news. Still, the fans stuck it out.

Beyond the Lighted Stage juggles the competing demands of its audience perfectly. There is enough revelatory information and intimate footage to appeal to the dedicated fan (of which there are legions) and for the newcomer there is a mesmerising story of three guys shunned by the popular press who prevailed against the odds despite the most repulsive of wardrobe decisions imaginable. Be warned though, Rush are a prog-rock band and Geddy Lee has one of the highest vocal registers in rock and is an acquired taste. Impossible to recommend this doco any higher.

Phil Collins - Going Back [Atlantic]

Phil Collins is a vastly underrated drummer. Probably more famous as the cheeky chap out front of Genesis who had a few solo hits, especially that one with the big air drum solo, he played on seminal albums by Brian Eno (Another Green World) and John Cale (Helen of Troy). Look, he’s no hack. Then there’s his baldness. In an industry where hirsute is king, fair play to the short bald man. OK, so that’s all well and good, but is this album of traditionalist Motown covers any good? Yes and no. Collins has always professed a love for soul standards, even charting with a well chosen cover in the ‘80s (You Can’t Hurry Love) so this isn’t some late career revisionist cash-in a la Rod Stewart or Barnsey.

Still, we shouldn’t be expecting it to reach the stratospheric heights of the source material – Collins middling warble hits its fair share of notes but cannot possibly match Smoky Robinson’s (Going to a Go-Go)  rich velvet croon or Stevie Wonder’s (Uptight) propulsive hot wail. This is Collins’ vanity project – not quite 100% blue eyed soul, but he’s having fun so good for him. On the other side of the ledger, the playing is incredible. You can thank three parts of the legendary Funk Brothers, who appear on every track for that, lifting Going Back release from ‘yawn’ to ‘alright, pretty decent’. Of course, hunt down the originals every single time.  

Nightmare on Elm Street [Warner Home Video]

The original Nightmare on Elm Street remains the gold standard of teen slasher flicks. Released in 1984, it was a true crossover hit and pop culture juggernaut – that razor-claw glove, tipped fedora and ratty green and red jumper belong in some sort of Horror Hall of Fame. Freddy Krueger is the archetypal villain; a disfigured, child killer hell-bent on revenge, terrorising a generation of slasher fans. The bar was set exceptionally high. The sequels were pretty dire, save for 1994’s New Nightmare that was meta before meta became a way of life.

This Nightmare On Elm Street, as current fashion dictates, is a re-boot not a remake. Helmed by the guy who directed the Smell Likes Teen Spirit clip, this version is confused, nuance-free and paced like a series of gritty video clips strung together with nary a thought of plot development. The first two thirds of the film breezes by with a roll call of gruesome deaths bereft of context. The total absence of character development means we have no reason to care when tired teen #2 meets his or her fate. Another teen falls asleep and gets sliced – ho hum. It’s only when the film slows down in the final act that we get a better sense of Krueger’s motivation.

Indeed, the film’s saving grace is Jackie Earle Haley as Krueger. He’s reversed Krueger’s unfortunate descent into vaudeville comic farce and delivers a believably chilling performance. The decision to re-invent him as a paedophile rather than a garden variety child killer seems iffy, but apparently that was Wes Craven’s original intent. Robert Englund will always be Freddy, and allegedly approved its re-casting, but Earle Harley is suitably menacing and vile. Elm Street 2010 was a financial success and Earle Haley has signed on for more, so a new series could have legs. Let’s hope it doesn’t follow the Saw route of pandering to every sadistic torture porn set piece imaginable. Let’s hope the producers realise that Elm Street worked because it was genuinely terrifying and well written. Don’t hold your breath though.

Five Minutes of Heaven [Madman]

There’s a reason Liam Neeson turns up in dreck like The A-Team, and this film is it. You have to hand it to him. As one of the few actors that can actually carry a film on charisma and chops, Neeson doesn’t seem that concerned about public perception. He certainly doesn’t struggle over a role as Hannibal in the aforementioned ‘80s TV remake – he just does it, has fun, takes the money, builds another aviary and moves on. There are no complicated justifications or slippery red carpet explanations. Then the next thing you know he turns up in a slow burning character piece like Five Minutes of Heaven as Alistair Little, one time member of the Ulster Volunteer Forces.

In 1975, Little balaclava-ed up to take out IRA member, Jimmy Griffin, in retaliation for some dispute. The reasons didn’t matter – Little just wanted to kill a Republican to prove his mettle. To walk tall into a pub, as he says. Unbeknownst to Little as he completed the hit, the younger brother of the target was watching the whole thing and despite taking aim, he decided not to knock off eight year old Joe Griffin (James Nesbitt). But he may as well have, because Griffin’s life was pretty much over – because he was the kid who let his brother die. Fast forward three decades and the two are due to meet again – this time live on TV for some voyeuristic atonement. This is where the film veers off into fiction (the TV show never happened, the murder did) and this is where tension begins to slowly dissipate. We know Griffin wants to kill Little, but can he? Will it solve anything?

Nesbitt is part of the problem; all twitches and uncontrolled, erratic anger. There is fury, fire and focus in Nesbitt’s performance but after a while I began to feel a bit dirty watching him convulse like an untrained hamster. Neeson, on the other hand is guilty, empty and cool. A simplistic morality play, but riveting nonetheless.

Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky [Young God Reecords]

Michael Gira can rightfully claim to being years ahead of his time. Swan’s apocolyptic brand of neo-noise, swirling avante-dissonance and harsh metallic grind can be found in artists as disparate as GSY!BE and Marilyn Manson. Critical adulation was one thing, but the latter years of Swans Mk. I were bitter and terse. Maybe that’s why his solo work and Angels of Light output was, at times, so bucolic and dare I say it - joyful.

And now all these alt-rock marquee acts are filling theatres and Gira struggles in Upper New York State to turn a profit running his label, Young God Records. Gira does it for the passion, those visceral moments where slack-jawed audiences can only stare at him, stunned (witness his highly lauded 2009 Australian tour) – not the cash. But bills need to be paid.

And so 14 years after their ‘last’ album, Swans Mk. II are here. But this is not a nostalgia trip, whatever this is. If you came across Swans late night on Rage assaulted by epic, verdant Love of Life you’ll find much to love on this album – Inside Madeline and My Birth are natural progressions whilst Eden Prison has all the crushing urgency of Swans circa 1991, thank a returning Norman Westberg for that. A singular triumph for Gira, My Father... will please fans familiar with any part of his incredible canon.

Tame Impala

Kevin Parker is relaxing in his suburban Perth home in-between North American tours, getting ready for a quick Australian run of shows. Kevin Parker released his first album (Innerspeaker) in May this year to near universal acclaim. Even the waning tastemakers at Pitchfork agreed the LP was a wonderful dose of chugging psych-pop bliss. Kevin Parker used to be an unmotivated law clerk wage slave, walking around Perth delivering court documents, singing and writing songs in his head, and resigning before he was fired. He could see the writing on the wall. Kevin Parker is TAME IMPALA.

Or more to the point, Tame Impala is Parker’s studio project that has grown into an international touring act. As he explains: “It feels more and more like there are two halves of the Tame Impala thing. There’s the recording project which is just me and it will always be like that. And then there’s the band side. When we’re on tour it feels like a band – a group effort and group atmosphere. But when we’re not on tour – it couldn’t be anything further from a band. It’s just me in the studio and I’ll occasionally get other guys to pitch in.”

Yet despite the fact that more tours and more record sales means the Tame Impala brand grows ever more so, Parker is dogmatic about its future. “It’ll always be the one man studio project. It’ll never be a band, where we get together and jam. We all have other bands where we can do that. It doesn’t need to be a band. So it’s kinda safe as always being a recording project. I’m most inspired and creative when I’m alone.”

It’s a refreshingly honest, almost dictatorial stance by the 24-year-old. “There are moments when I feel the project is getting taken over by the band,” Parker admits. “In those dark moments I just wanna start another project where no-one else can taint it with their ideas. Eventually I don’t do anything.”

At the moment, though, Parker is very much doing something – completing the much anticipated follow up. At a push, he’s willing to concede progress. “It’s extremely different. A bit more excessive. There are large portions that don’t even sound like the same band. I have never been this excited about a batch of recording before.”

As if it’s not abundantly clear, Parker is a notorious studio rat. But only recently has he allowed himself to stretch out a bit in the recording process. “In the past I have been afraid to use certain instruments because it might be ‘too’ something. Too rock ‘n’ roll. Too cheesy. I’ve stopped holding myself back from guilty pleasures. On the last album there were a lot of rules and boundaries I placed on myself.”

And the consequence of this new-found freedom? “More candy pop.”

Fascinating stuff. You can check out Tame Impala when they play at the ANU on Saturday October 9 with Cabins and Felicity Groom. Tix are $40.90 + bf from Ticketek. Innerspeaker is out now through Modular.

Eastbound and Down: Season 1 [Warner Home Video]

You’ll know within minutes if Eastbound and Down is your sort of show. Fade in: the show’s protagonist, 19-year-old rookie pitcher for the Atlanta Braves Kenny Powers, wins the World Series with his 100 miles-per-hour golden arm and the catchphrase “You’re fucking out” sweeps the nation. Power is an abrasive, racist, redneck homophobic steroid addict and soon enough he starts a downward trajectory that results in a dishonourable exit from the Major Leagues and a new career as a relief teacher in hometown Shelby, North Carolina.

For Kenny it’s the end of the world but he refuses to believe his life is over, living every moment as if he’s still a sports megastar. The dream may be over – and a new job as a relief PE teacher proves it so – but he walks and dances like it isn’t. There’s no way around it, Kenny Powers is a thoroughly dislikeable character. He crashes with his brother Dustin (John Hawkes of Deadwood) who is married with three kids. It’s not ideal. Kenny makes himself at home calling hookers and smashing up furniture when the moment requires it; he is usually drunk and/or high. But somehow through all the obnoxiousness something is going on. Danny McBride (co-writer/creator) imbues Kenny with an indefatigable belief that he will prevail. As easy as it would be to poke fun at these sorts of characters and the lives they lead, Eastbound and Down doesn’t. It’s a path that Australian comedy struggles with. Despite claims to the contrary, Kath and Kim was a snow job of suburban oiks; the sort of sneering inner city mockery that made it popular, for a brief moment, with inner city mockers. But Kenny Powers is aware he’s a washed up idiot – but by the same token he’s no-one’s monkey. In Kenny Powers McBride has delivered a character more complex than any other in television comedy today. Eastbound and Down is a triumph.

Emma Pollock

The title of Emma Pollock’s second solo album after the dissolution of The Delgados, a band better known for being praised than actually being well, better known, is some sort of theory about chaos, risk and expectation. Being neither mathematically minded nor interested in convoluted explanations I’ll just assume it all means something. Like this intro, this album is awkward and unwieldy – unwilling to settle and find its groove. It starts as a simple alt-rock album. Hug The Harbour and I Could Be A Saint have all the thrashing buzz-saw guitar jolts you’d expect from her former band, but mercifully decoupled from the extravagant orchestration that often bedevilled her previous band. Then the album takes a few detours. Nine Lives is a grand example of Scottish Dixieland, possibly one of the best you’ll find this year, and Confessions could be Pollock’s stab at compressed robotic chart pop. It is a little haphazard but that’s the charm – I much prefer Pollock outside the constraints and conformity of a band (although ex-band mate and current husband Paul Savage lent a hand) and for those who insist on being hand-fed – think of her as the Caledonian Aimee Mann. Ignore the headlines that imply a lack of melody, The Law of Large Numbers is a straight up indie-pop record regardless of how Pollock dresses it up. JUSTIN HOOK

David Cross

There’s no doubting David Cross is a funny guy. As Tobias Fumke the hapless never-nude marriage counsellor in Arrested Development Cross was one of the stand outs in a show that suffered from talent overfill. And with his main foil Bob Odenkirk, Cross created one of the little known but wildly inventive and influential cult favourites of the ‘90s – Mr Show with Bob and Dave. Nominally a standard skit show, Mr Show revelled in the absurdist stream-of-consciousness humour Americans apparently couldn’t pull off. They did it astoundingly well. Odernkirk’s spell on Breaking Bad as Saul Goodman is essentially an extended Mr Show character. Anyway, the point is Cross has talent to spare. Which makes Black and Blackerer, a live show recorded over two nights in Boston, all the more disappointing. An extended riff on his chequered past with drugs and alcohol is material ripe for the picking, but it descends into a weak narrative about how junkies are lazy and easily distracted. Not only is it obvious, it’s not particularly funny. Likewise, a stab at Mormonism, well constructed and everything, feels a little too rote and Cross has adequately skewered religion in his numerous releases in the past. To continue to push that barrow you need to be George Carlin. Cross is fantastic, but no one is Carlin. However, the NGR LVR joke is awesome. JUSTIN HOOK 

Ponyo – Special Edition [Madman]

Ponyo is the story of a fish-girl who wants to be human. Following a near death experience with a fishing trawler, Ponyo (Noah Cyrus) befriends Sosuke (Frankie Jonas), a sensitive little chap with a fierce undercut, an absent fisherman father (Matt Damon), and a mother (Tina Fey) who should have her licence revoked for the way she hugs the sharp bendy roads in the seaside village they all live in.

Ponyo, against the wishes of her father Fujimoto (Liam Neeson), uses her magic power to morph into a sleepy little girl. After which everyone has a jolly good time. I don’t mean to sound flippant – because this is a brilliant film full to the brim with the sort of animation that values craft over technology – but this special two-disc edition is just as much about the special features as it is about the main event. With over four hours of documentary material this is the full Ponyo experience. Fujimoto, Ponyo’s father and regulator of the ocean, who through overbearing efforts to protect his daughter ends up pushing her away, was devised as a proxy for Japanese fatherhood. “Most fathers suppress their emotions. I think that’s how today’s Japanese fathers are,” laughs creator Miyazaki. There’s also the revelation that during production Miyazaki decided that making a film with a children’s nursery wasn’t enough; he wanted to build a nursery. And so he did. It also unravels the creative of making the film and where it all started – halfway up a mountain overlooking the Seto Inland Sea.

Sometimes learning too much about a movie demystifies the experience and clouds the memory, particularly Miyazaki’s elliptical and woozy fantasy films. And for many that sense of magic is usually a function of childlike imagination aligning with visual overload and poetic storytelling. Don’t be afraid though – this spectacular film is not diminished in any way by explanation. If anything the allure is stronger.

Date Night [Fox]

Next time you get home exhausted after a tough day working in the factory, bitching at your partner about lasagne for dinner again and complaining about your stupid neighbours, think about James Franco. A few years back James decided he wanted to go back to school. So he enrolled in four post grad classes. He wrote a novel for his literature class thesis. He went to NYU to study Filmmaking; Fiction Writing and Poetry at two other colleges. Next up a PHD in English and another post grad degree at Rhode Island School of Design. He also found time to star in Sean Penn’s well-received Harvey Milk biog Milk and about six other films yet to be released. And then there’s his bizarre meta-turn on the hoary daytime soap General Hospital as Franco – a photographer/artist/serial killer. Quite what one of the most in-demand actors around is doing on a daytime Prozac TV is anyone’s guess, probably just what James Franco wants.

Why is this relevant? Because James Franco is the single best thing about Date Night and he’s only on the screen for about five minutes. His scene with Mila Kunis as the mistaken Tripplehorn couple displays all the manic, eccentric and wanton stupidity that Tina Fey and Steve Carrell fail to achieve during the remaining 85 minutes. It’s not their fault – the script is undercooked and plodding which is slight issue for a period drama, but fatal for a supposed screwball comedy. Phil and Claire Foster are drab suburbia personified – a tax lawyer and real estate agent with two kids who find themselves mistaken for the aforementioned Tripplehorns, and in possession of a flash drive. Except they’re not, on both counts. This in turn sets off a chain of wacky scenes, each crazier than the previous. Except they’re not, on any counts. Throw some crooked cops into the mix and you have one of the biggest disappointments of the year.

So, in conclusion: James Franco.

Stone Temple Pilots - Stone Temple Pilots [Atlantic]

It’s easy to pity Stone Temple Pilots. Rarely has a band been dismissed so lightly and attracted such undue scorn from perceived allegiances. They were cabin hopping grunge wannabes, cashing in on the gloom rock glory days. Rubbish. Stone Temple Pilots were revivalists in love with rocks golden teenage era - Bowie, Led Zep, The Stooges and Stones. That they found an audience in the early to mid nineties is
mere happenstance.

1996’s Tiny Music… proved they could pull off hook-laden scuzzy garage rock and dreamy psych-pop barely raising a sweat. But the backlash was on and the band spluttered to dissolution, creatively nimble but commercially a spent force. Of course Scott Wieland being a massive junkie didn’t exactly help. And so – as per script – the late oughts reformation is upon us.

Stone Temple Pilots is their first album together in nearly a decade but where there should be a sense of urgency – to justify existence – there’s a lazy reliance on old tricks; a lucky dip of influences, a dash of flair, some melodic crunch and a frustrating sense missing the target. As usual, Dean DeLeo is beyond reproach, an undervalued and innovative riff machine who appears to have been listening to a lot of Aerosmith lately. But even whilst coasting Stone Temple Pilots are intriguing – a band lost in time, not really belonging anywhere in particular, making music purely because it feels good.

Cop Out [Warner Home Video]

When cop films collided with buddy flicks sometime back in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s, the results could be phenomenal. The premise was simple; uptight, clock watching rule-abiding desk cop clashes with freewheeling gun-happy loose-haired maverick cop. Explosions, car chases, car crashes, arguments and copious amounts of broken glass ensued. It was stupid, big budget, no brain VHS-era fun. Eventually audiences tired of simplistic morality and so they teamed Tom Hanks up with a slobbering dog. Soon after it was left to Steven Segal to carry the flame for the ailing genre into the new millennium and last time I checked he was a puffy faced low talker in search of a career. Take that for what it’s worth.

And so, 20 odd years later we have Kevin Smith breathing life into the genre with Cop Out. Is it homage? Maybe. Is it a comedy? Allegedly. Is it ironic? Look, it’s really hard to tell anymore with Kevin Smith. As a lapsed enfant terrible, Smith has entered that phase in his career where it’s not exactly clear what he is doing. Bruce Willis is the perfect actor to skewer a hard-nailed, stereotypical cop – but it’s arguable he was more successful with this sort of wink-wink irony in Die Hard 4. On the other side of the equation Tracey Morgan ramps up his tits-out, manic clown routine to variable effect. In the right context Morgan can be charming – in the way Ol’ Dirty Bastard was charming rushing the stage at the Grammy’s all those years ago – but here, the lack of chemistry between the two leads hurts Morgan more than Willis; Morgan needs a foil – and Willis looks bored. Sadly, there is a half decent film hidden somewhere in the midst of limp storyboarding and twaddling dialogue. But it’s not one of Smith’s better moments.

In The Loop [Madman]

In The Loop is a film in which a lot of swearing happens. Almost universally, the mouth of Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) is responsible. Tucker is the highly strung, aggressive Director of Communications for an unnamed British PM, who cuts a swathe of verbal destruction through gaffe-plagued ministers, departmental staff, lowly public servants and anyone else unfortunate enough to cross his path. No one is spared from his extreme alpha male bullying. In full flight it’s a wonder to behold; almost operatic.

Malcolm Tucker first cracked skulls in the BBC’s superb Yes Minister update The Thick of It. His is one of the few characters to make the transition to the big screen version, although In The Loop is not strictly a continuation, more a launching pad.

And speaking of launching pads, the spectre of an invasion of the Middle East looms. Intelligence has been doctored, allegedly. Ministers are making complete prats of themselves on national radio; bad publicity and dissent in the ranks runs rife, and so comes Tucker’s job to fix things, finding his way to Washington where competing departments and agencies are bouncing up against each other. Soon enough the case for war is lost in a fog of lies, deceit, mismanagement and petty personal vendettas. Sound familiar? Its high farce, satire and Politics 101, all in one big swearing, sweating ball.

Despite universally compelling performances from an eclectic cast James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), David Rasche (Sledge Hammer) and Anna Chlumsky (My Girl and My Girl 2) something elemental gets lost in translation, a certain British forlorn weariness and foot-shuffling despair the Atlantic Ocean wipes clean. In The Loop succeeds by sending you back to the source document, because I watched the first three series of The Thick of It in quick succession soon after and it was still utterly brilliant. Essential viewing, if not an essential movie. Now fuck off.

Steve Mason - Boys Outside [Domino]

The Beta Band weren’t built to last. With founding members exiting early due to failing mental health, chronic internal squabbling and critical adoration that rarely translated into commercial comfort – they were the adorable, quixotic black sheep of British music circa 1998. Never far from a blindingly gorgeous melody, they also pulled off random kitchen sink, hip-hop infused noise with surly indifference. Radiohead loved them, naturally. This is Mason’s debut album under his own name after a couple of post-Beta subterfuge imbued side-projects. On knob twiddling duties is uber-producer Richard X (Sugababes, Annie and Pet Shop Boys) which on the surface seems an odd choice, but Mason has never been one to shy away from a little Casio-tone jiggery-pokery. Boys Outside is Mason’s first output since a bout of profound depression, in his own words he ‘went mental and had a breakdown’. Accordingly, there are calling cards from a fractured mind littered throughout – but on The Letter he assures us “In my mind I’m getting better”…although a little bit later “something bad has happened here”. Still, this is not a record steeped in sadness or crisis despite descents into lovelorn confusion. There are hints of his old band in the lilting All Come Down – typically subdued beginnings climaxing somewhere up the side of a foggy mountain. Throughout it all Mason’s biggest weapon shines – a luxuriant, ghostly textured voice more open and honest than ever before. Boys Outside already sounds like a lost classic.

Mother (Madman)

4.5 out of 5

Mother is the latest film from Joon-ho Bong, who made a figurative splash in 2007 with The Host – a big budget action film that delivered actual entertainment, genuine thrills and memorable performances. Bong’s 2004 serial killer thriller pic Memories of a Murder was even better. Go find it.

Restraint and attention to detail are two of the hallmarks of Bong’s approach. Minor characters are fully formed – they don’t simply appear, filling in space with the occasional quip or clunky dialogue to aid exposition. By the same token his films aren’t replete with flashy, attention grabbing performances or glacial Occidental meditations of life and loss. This is a director with an acute sense of balance.

Mother’s plot could be lifted from any gumshoe novel of the last 50 years. The dim-witted and slightly tipsy Do-joon (Won Bin) makes an ill-advised pass at a young girl whist staggering home. When she is found murdered the next day Do-joon is arrested and made to sign a confession, despite sloppy denials and even sloppier police work. His protective mother Hye-ja (Kim Hye-ja) steps in to make the case but neither police nor lawyers give a rats. The case is closed and Do-joon ambles off to prison. As the layers are revealed, notions of innocence and guilt are skewered, and the line between protection and criminal interference becomes evermore opaque. A pair of scenes toward the end of the film are staggering; quiet, simple and extraordinarily powerful pay-offs. No dramatic orchestral swells and/or doleful Oscar-baiting sobbing. Taut storytelling and eerie cinematography brilliantly capture the grey nothingness of a senseless crime in an unnamed city; it could be anywhere – and that’s the point. Won Bin and Kim Hye-ja were heaped with praise for their compelling performance – rightly so. Mother is one of the best of the year and Bong confirms his status as a world class director.

The Hard Ons

The HARD ONS were one of those first wave of punk and post-punk bands that saw more early success and critical respect overseas than in their homeland. Died Pretty, Nick Cave and The Saints all experienced similar. As a result, many think European audiences understood these bands better. It’s a notion that Hard Ons bassist Ray Ahn doesn’t buy for a second.

“Nah, no one gets the Hard Ons more than Australians. When we go to places like Spain I can guarantee you we get a bigger crowd than Sydney but that’s not to say we’re more popular. Madrid’s a massive city. If you can’t pull a decent crowd in Madrid you won’t pull decent crowds anywhere.”

Forming in the western suburbs of Sydney in the early ‘80s the band have assiduously stuck to their guns for over two decades. “We knew exactly what was going to happen,” Ahn says. “We were gonna be shunned, and piss off a lot of people. But we weren’t gonna suck anyone’s cock to open doors for us.”

In response the band started kicking down doors with a tireless work ethic. “In October we’re going to Europe; our 15th tour there,” Ahn reveals. “In February we’re going to Japan; that’ll be the fourth tour. Been to America five times. I don’t know any other band at our level that can do that. We’re really fucking lucky man.”

Lucky maybe, but really hard working, creating an ethos that crowds adore. “We’re also fucking underdogs – people in Australia love underdogs,” adds Ahn, warming to the subject. “We’re a uniquely Australian band – you can tell but the way we sing, our attitude… We don’t have any airs or graces. We’re not a bunch of pretty boys. Typical working class Australians and a lot of people relate to that.”

Indeed. Ahn is conducting this interview on a lunch break from his day job at Utopia Records in Sydney, whilst singer/guitarist Blackie drives cabs and drummer Pete K splits his time between Regurgitator and Front End Loader, amongst others. Oddly, this time-sharing arrangement may have extended the longevity of the Hard Ons.

“I know a lot of bands burn out after a few years but we just don’t have that problem cos we don’t see each other that much socially for a start, and we don’t play with the Hard Ons all the time.” But when they do, you’re going to see “three average looking middle aged guys doing the best to rock their asses off”.

For now the band, who Ahn modestly suggests “got lucky in a small period of our career,” aren’t slowing down. “If we didn’t have jobs we could probably do three times as much, but you just can’t because you have to figure out how to pay the rent.”

The classic paradox – rent vs. rock.

The Hard Ons play at The Maram on Friday August 13, supported by Fangs of a TV Evangelist and Boonhorse. Tix are $14 + bf from Moshtix. The wonderfully titled new album Alfalfa Males Once Summer is Done Conform or Die is out now.

Hoodoo Gurus

The HOODOO GURUS are part of our musical and cultural DNA. They’re everywhere, but strangely seem to exist outside fads, genres or (what’s my) scenes.

With a collective range of influences that run the gamut from Fleshtones and Nuggets-era garage rock through to surf, Little Richard and ‘50s rockabilly legend Gene Vincent, the young Hoodoo Gurus formed in the chaotic and creative early ‘80s Sydney, as lead singer/guitarist Dave Faulkner explains: “We were looking around and seeing the remnants of the Radio Birdman/Detroit scene on the one hand, and on the other there was electronic post-punk art rock. We didn’t see anything in between and realised there’s a whole lot of music that’s not being played.”

The band found their confidence pretty quickly. “We were a bit arrogant,” Faulkner admits. “Within a few months of rehearsing, without even talking about it, it was obvious something was happening. We were just serious from day one. But our success came incrementally.”

After a pair of incredibly well received albums (Stoneage Romeos and Mars Needs Guitars) in the mid-‘80s  yielded a string of instant paisley-tinged pop classics (Tojo, Death Defying, Bittersweet, Like Wow – Wipeout!) the band were ready for their early career wobbles. Ironically, it happened with one of their biggest albums, 1987’s Blow Your Cool. As Faulkner explains: “We got a little bit ahead of ourselves around that album. We had troubles with our record label – they were independent but they were stealing from us and we weren’t getting our overseas royalties; they didn’t approve of our choice of producer… We weren’t masters of our own destiny.”

Faulkner readily admits they were swept up in all the excess of the ‘80s. “Yeah the times we were in, and also getting caught up in the myths of who we were, got us away from the core of what were about. Brad was into Guns N’ Roses and was doing a lot of Eddie Van Halen finger tapping – that was not what I signed up for!” Faulkner isn’t entirely dismissive however. “It was a necessary step. But we had one of our biggest hits (What’s My Scene?) so it was a very important album for our career.”

Fast-forward ten years and the band split to focus on other projects. A few years later the pangs of reunion became too strong to ignore. After well received shows at Homebake and Big Day Out, the next step was obvious. “Those shows were a wake up call. This was a really amazing band just doing nothing. And if people say I’m a sell-out for reforming the group then let them say it. If you don’t like it – just don’t come to our gigs. Just ignore us.”

I think it’s safe to say it’s almost impossible to ignore the Hoodoo Gurus.

The Hoodoo Gurus play at the ANU Bar on Friday August 6. Tix are $40.90 + bf from Ticketek.

Blood, Sweat and Gears [Roadshow]

3 out of 5

What’s the hardest thing about riding a bike? The footpath. Thanks. I’ll be here all week. Try the veal. Croaky old jokes aside, we all know the hardest thing about riding a bike is passing the drug test. Sure, it does look bad – but artificial stimulants in professional cycling are hardly a new phenomenon. Strychnine, amphetamines, cocaine, testosterone, chloroform, blood swapping, steroids… et al have been on the menu for over 100 years. A cloud of insinuation follows one of the sport’s biggest stars, Lance Armstrong, everywhere he pedals and even the most respected rider of all time – Eddie Mercx – knows his way around a doping scandal.

What to do? Blood, Sweat and Gears makes the case that it is possible to run a clean and successful professional racing team. This doco follows Team Slipstream from inception through its journey to top flight competitiveness. It’s a rag tag bunch of ex-cheats, aging coulda-beens and underachieving upstarts. They might not have the sponsorship or the media attention of the bigger teams – but they get drug tested every second day. Sorta like a massive ‘fuck you!’ to the rest of the sport. By being so defiantly drug-free there is an implicit degree of finger pointing at the rest of the sport. Which, to be fair, probably isn’t so unwarranted.

Any doco about cycling is bound to take in Le Tour de France and therefore guaranteed to contain bucolic footage of the French Alps, quaint cobble-stoned villages and smelly, baguette and cheese encrusted Gauls. On that measure it delivers. But outside the suspiciously looking stock footage of daisy fields, Blood, Sweat and Gears looks rough and cheap. There are elements of friction and suspense yet probably not enough to drive a 90 minute narrative. The notoriously blunt ex-doper David Millar is a fascinating subject but the doco spends too much time meandering when it should be flying headfirst down the mountainside.

Bill Bailey

BILL BAILEY has opted for the path of simplicity on his current Australian tour. Not the dreadful punning found in most comedy show titles. He’s called it Bill Bailey Live. It’s a reflection of the show’s modest origins. “I’ve prepared a little bit differently this time around. The last tour in the UK was in large venues so it was a show with that in mind. Whereas this tour is in smaller venues way out in the middle of nowhere… Outer Hebrides, Orkney, Shetlands. Stunning places where no one really goes to play.”

Far from representing a fall from public favour, it was a deliberate move by Bailey to return to his roots as a stand up performer. “It’s been a revelation!” he enthuses. “Because I was touring around little community centres I had to strip everything down to its basics. It’s been a real rediscovery of the art of it all.” And a discovery of sorts – “you pretty much know everyone’s name by the end of the show.”

Despite venue size it wasn’t exactly a breeze for the seasoned comic, who is used to playing in arenas where crowds are measured in thousands – not handfuls. “In a way it’s harder. It sounds bizarre, but it’s harder to build a show from a small audience. When you’re on stage and there are a lot of people, they tend to blend together – so you just project the show to the back row. Whereas if you’re in a small venue you can see everyone, you can see their faces!”

As a result the subject matter of Bailey’s new show is more personal and more intimate. In addition to the usual array of keyboards, guitars and songs there will be short films and a visual element of the show that isn’t so easy to pull off in large stadiums. His grand plan was simple, developing a show that could be done in the back of a pub if need be. When reminded of the potential hazards small shows present – getting tackled by an eager spectator a la Slash in Milan for example – he’s sympathetic. “That’s above and beyond the call. But Slash is pretty cool and one of his solos could probably knock down a mugger anyway.”

In April, Bailey played the enormous Ashton Gate Stadium – home of Bristol City FC. It was a triumphant homecoming. “I grew up around there in a little town called Keynsham. Bristol was the big smoke, so going back was a big moment for me. Lots of family and friends were there… it was an emotional moment.”

For a young Bill Bailey, Bristol was the cultural and musical epicentre of his universe, the place where his musical education began. “I used to go and see bands there all the time – Undertones, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Damned, the Stranglers.”

And if you’ve seen Bailey live, you’ll know music is an important part of his live act but it’s not a cheap, jokey, ‘let’s have a laugh at this band’ parody thing he’s aiming for. “No, the musical things tend to be more a recognisable style of music rather than a certain band. Every so often music reinvents itself into a different style – dance music will morph into electro and incorporate retro elements of drum ‘n’ bass, for example. And each time it does that it captures the public imagination for a while. That’s what I use, the familiarity. That’s what the musical sections of the show are about. It’s a form of musical shorthand – ‘oh I see, I know exactly what you’re doing.’ And once you have that familiarity you can mess around and have fun with it.”

Bailey would be most recognisable for Australian audiences as Manny Bianco, the serene yet somewhat dazed and gullible ex-accountant assistant to Dylan Moran’s chaotic Bernard Black in Black Books. He also turns up occasionally on QI (ABC, Tuesday nights) and when in town usually a spot on Spicks and Specks (ABC, Wednesday nights) – which, to the most even-handed of judgements, is an inferior copy of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, the similarly music-themed panel show up to its 23^rd season in the UK.

For around six seasons, Bailey played the role of team captain and was witness to some of the more exciting incidents on the show. “Usually the pop stars that had written their own stuff were pretty cool about it – they were up for a laugh. But some would be terribly precious about having the mickey ripped out of them. I remember reading a brilliant description of Buzzcocks – a vinegary tang of mockery. When Marl Lammar [all-round media personality and current co-host with the brilliant Mark Radcliffe, who also features on Radio 4) was hosting he could barely conceal his contempt for most guests. But if you don’t take yourself too seriously you’ll come out alright.”

The problem is musicians have notoriously fragile egos. “One guy got so nervous he actually ran out the building. He just legged it and kept on going! There was a Benny Hill-styled chase with management trying to stop him. He made it to reception and got stuck in those revolving doors. Then he ran across the forecourt until someone rugby tackled him and dragged him back in.” Is it any wonder Bailey’s quirky observational humour wins awards – this stuff is gold and just writes itself.

Catch Bill Bailey live at the Royal Theatre on Friday July 30. Tickets are $79.90 and are available through Ticketek.

Monae - The ArchAndroid [Warner Music]

4.5 out of 5

Just when you thought you’d had your fill of bonkers, robot obsessed, futuristic, Philip K. Dick vs. Prince vs. James Brown vs. Fritz Lang concept albums (never! - Ed.) – along comes Janelle Monae to make you look like an idiot. If you make it through the gonzo essay in the liner notes with sanity intact (and believe me its possible you won’t) you’ll find an album that aims very high and hits its mark more often than not. After being ‘discovered’ by Outkast in 2006 and joining Sean Combs’ XX label, Monae has spent the last few years gestating ArchAndroid in a world that sounds hell more fun than this one. It’s a three-suite monster built around outrageously addictive Atlanta grooves, hard funk, big band swing and afro-hip-hop. One minute it’s a dance-pop album channelling Lily Allen right down to a faux-cockney accent (Faster) the next it’s a Goldfrapp-esque downtempo autumn stroll (Sir Greendown) the next it’s sweet Nuggets-era psych-pop (Mushrooms & Roses).

By the time you get to the double hit of soul-pop in Cold War and Tightrope its obvious Monae is some sort of didactic freak blessed with galloping ambition and a fearless shapeshifting voice that remains defiantly unchallenged by some pretty intense stylistic demands. Arguably ArchAndroid could do with an edit – but I wouldn’t want to be the one to suggest it to her. Barely half way through her twenties, my spine tingles considering the possibilities Janelle Monae has wrought. 

Herb and Dorothy (Madman)

4 ½ out of 5

Herb and Dorothy Vogel are a pair of frail, unassuming elderly New Yorkers who live in a small apartment surrounded by clutter, turtles and cats. Stacked against the walls, piled up against tables and consuming every other inch of free space from the bathroom to the kitchen is one of most impressive collections of 20^th century modern and contemporary art ever assembled.

Which in and of itself is not that amazing. Until you find out Herb and Dorothy amassed their collection on the wages of a postal worker and a librarian. Starting in the mid-‘50s the couple would seek out emerging artists in some of the dodgiest parts of New York in its seediest decades; Chuck Close, Christo and Jeanne-Claude and Robert Mangold are effusive in praise and it’s clear the pair are more than just clients. But theirs was a very different kind of patronage as they had only two rules: that they could afford a piece on their meagre salary and that it could fit into their apartment.

The polar opposite of sycophantic art dealers and gallery trolls, they weren’t in it to make a quick buck – sitting out the numerous art booms that could have made them millionaires many times over. By the time they bequeathed the entire collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington it was approaching 5,000 pieces. But they’re not in it for the recognition – Herb managed to keep his art obsession a secret from his colleagues for most of his working life. They collect art simply because they loved it.

But Herb and Dorothy is about more than art. It’s the blissful story of two people who found their passion – and more importantly found someone else to share that passion with. It’s also the story of art appreciation. Much is made of the way Herb studies a piece, an intensity often outweighing the drama on the canvas. An extraordinary documentary about an extraordinary couple.

Hole - Nobody’s Daughter [Universal / Island Def Jam]

2 out of 5

Up until Nobody’s Daughter Hole had released a mere three albums and there’s ample evidence this is just another Courtney Love solo album masquerading under a less tarnished banner. That’s three albums in nearly 20 years, only one of which approaches essential status – 1994’s Live Through This. Hardly prolific, their status outweighs their reputation by a wide margin. Attention is the name of Courtney’s game. Maybe because it obscures her song writing skills, which on the evidence here are barren and outdated. Nobody’s Daughter is a throwaway throwback. Love’s throaty, cracked snarl was great in the angsty early ‘90s; nowadays it comes off like a petulant middle ager struggling to find a reason to bother, devoid of all swagger.

Sonically it’s the sounds of modern radio rock – no edges, no urgency, no meaning – and could easily pass as Celebrity Skin outtakes. Not a terminal problem until you realise it was released over a decade ago. It’s not Linda Perry’s (ex-4 Non Blondes, general gun for hire) fault, nor Billy Corgan’s – even though both contributed extensive co-writes. Samantha, one of Corgan’s efforts, is emblematic: a plodding major chord stomper, it struggles to convey any real sense of anguish and descends into a shouty, risible attention seeking chorus “People like you/Fuck people like me”. No wonder he sought an injunction against its release.

Mark Lanegan

Of all the musicians that came out of the Pacific Northwest in the decade that straddled the ‘Seattle years’ there are few that continue to push themselves creatively as much as MARK LANEGAN does.

As lead singer for the volatile Screaming Trees, Lanegan made his mark remaining stoic amongst the chaos that engulfed his band and friends as drugs and major label money swept through town. But that’s ancient history, as Lanegan explains. “I’m not someone who does a lot of ruminating on the past. My mind never really drifts back to those days ever – if at all. They’re not good or bad memories. It’s just a time that I lived through.”

Lanegan’s reticence to dredge the past slightly downplays one of the most critically acclaimed careers of the last quarter century. Taking time out from his main band in 1990, Lanegan started work on a series of solo albums that to this day remain largely unknown gems outside his dedicated fan base. Take 1994’s Whisky For The Holy Ghost for example; a swirling mostly acoustic album soaked in despair, alcohol and tobacco. The Lanegan cliché writ large. For the man himself it was an offer too good to refuse. “To be honest the amount of money they offered me to make it was quite a bit more than I had been paid for any other record.”

Soon after Lanegan returned to his main band for one final album (1995’s Dust) and a tour that drafted a recently unemployed young guitarist from California called Josh Homme, who had just left Kyuss. Lanegan returned the favour by adding a serene menace to Queens of the Stone Age, on and off for the next decade or so.

In between, Lanegan kept himself busy with collaborations with Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs) in the Twilight Singers and Gutter Twins, Isobel Campbell (ex-Belle and Sebastian) and Soulsavers amongst many others.

It’s a dizzying and eclectic range of co-conspirators but for Lanegan it’s a simple equation. “I do numerous one-off things for people, but the longer lasting ones like my relationship with Greg or my relationship with Queens or Isobel – they’ve lasted many years because they’re my friends.” Asking if there have been any rebuffs, Lanegan drops one of many throaty, bone-rattling and frankly surprising laughs. “I’ll let you know if I run across them but it hasn’t happened yet.”

Preparing for the upcoming tour has been a re-education of sorts. “I went back to find songs that would be fun or interesting. And I surprised myself. There were a bunch of songs I thought ‘okay, that’s not bad.’ But there were plenty more where I cringed and thought ‘God, I can’t believe I did that.’ I jut pretend somebody else did it.” Here comes that laugh again.

Catch Mark Lanegan live at the Metro Theatre in Sydney on Thursday July 8. Tickets through the Theatre and Ticketek.

Parks and Recreation – Season One

Sometime back in 2008 when it was still regularly funny, talk swirled around The Office about a spin-off. It made sense; over four seasons the writers and creative team behind the show successfully shrugged off the expectations and limitations of its UK parent version and grew to be a pithy sitcom overflowing with characters, wit, heart and plain stupidity. But then after what seemed an eternity, Parks and Recreation was announced and it was clear the only thing the two shows would have in common was a group of writers and producers (Greg Daniels, Michael Schur) and the loose mocumentary feel that, after Modern Family, should really take a long holiday. At a mere six episodes, Parks and Recreation wasn’t given that much time to settle; and to be fair this first batch of episodes is more exciting for what it promises than what it delivers. Amy Poehler as the over-eager, always ‘on’ municipal public servant is frankly a bit all over place; it’s all well signposted mugging and bland ‘aw shucks – you go girl’ positivism. Knope’s best friend Ann (Rashida Jones) and her hapless boyfriend Andy (Chris Pratt) are given scope to shine, but largely their shared scenes are flat. Nick Offerman as Knope’s taciturn boss Ron is the most fascinating aspect of the show, possibly because he’s the one thing that sits still – immovable – amongst the chaos and wacky sitcom situations and hi-jinks that surround him and engulf council chambers. Likewise the surly and snide April (Aubrey Plaza) stakes a claim as one of the better characters by virtue of her nonchalance – the Power of Blah, if you will. Make no mistake, Parks and Recreation is a seriously funny show, one of the best around – but I doubt these six episodes would convince you.

3 out of 5

Hot Hot Heat

Press junkets are gruesome affairs; phone conversations with people in a distant time zone who clearly would rather be watering the garden than regurgitating the story behind their latest (and best, of course) album for the 78^th time, discussing the motivation behind a lyric that probably means nothing or vainly selling the charade that rock and roll is a joyous explosion of creativity, youth, chemicals and spare time. Which explains why HOT HOT HEAT’s guitarist Luke Paquin is watching a Matthew McConaughy documentary between press interviews. To be fair, the doco is about the press junket process and sounded like a defiantly ‘shirts on affair’ but Paquin is getting pointers nonetheless. “Well I have found out I’m not nearly as charismatic as he is – and I don’t quite have the pectorals.” I’ll be leaving that one alone.

Notwithstanding his lacklustre gym routine, Paquin and his band mates have taken the somewhat energetic step of playing residencies in LA and New York to promote the self produced fifth album Future Breeds, as he drawls from Brooklyn. “We thought the best way to warm up for the release would be to do a show a week for a month. And I couldn’t think of a better city to be stuck in.”

In between the band play a one off show in Berlin for a large beverage distiller, but Paquin won’t be drawn into an art vs. commerce argument by some Antipodean yokel. Wait, yes he will... “It was an offer we couldn’t refuse. Obviously, there are a few products we probably wouldn’t associate ourselves with and there’s a bit of a moral dilemma with something like alcohol but we’re all adults – we all drink, right? I don’t feel like I’m compromising my artistic integrity too much. Plus we’ll probably get a free bottle of [popular ‘yoof’ spirit] before the show.”

It’s been a rocky ride for the Canadian band over their ten plus years. Members have left, Paquin himself is a mid-oughts recruit and the band left the Warner stable after 2007’s poorly received Happiness Ltd. “Well, I quite liked our last album – but I guess we were getting a little too comfortable.” In response Hot Hot Heat have recorded an album in Future Breeds that feels like they’ve thrown everything up in the air with mixed results. “Well it’s definitely a hell of a lot harder to play these songs live – just in terms of pure technical ability.” As to whether the band have reclaimed their momentum of their early career – you get the feeling it’s a moot point, as Paquin contemplates, “we just wanted to challenge ourselves for our own mental health – just to feel like we had a right to exist in the world.” Not sure such self-doubt doubt conforms to the Matthew McConaughy School of Media Relations– but it’s a refreshing change for these ears.

Hot Hot Heat’s latest effort, Future Breeds, was released in Australia on Friday June 11 and is available at all good record stores.

Valentino: The Last Emperor (Madman)

Matt Tyrnauer, who started his career at the tragically under-appreciated Spy magazine and is now a special correspondent at Vanity Fair, followed legendary fashion designer Valentino Garavani for Valentino: The Last Emperor. The title gives the game away; whilst not necessarily a fawning love letter to the perma-tanned subject of this insidery doco, neither is it an incisive deliberation on the fashion industry. Wisely stepping back and allowing the revolving cast of seamstresses, designers, pooch handlers, hangers on, models and immaculately attired business men to float through the viewfinder, Tyrnauer captures Valentino in the final act of an illustrious decades long career – Valentino retired from the industry in 2008. Sadly, Valentino: The Last Emperor leaves an empty taste, failing to capture the effervescent swing of his best designs. This is the man, after all, who thinks nothing of letting five slobbering pugs take up a row of lush leather seats on a private jet. Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino’s business and life partner, emerges as the driving force behind the success of the brand. But in one telling, if brief, encounter he also reveals the sheer obscenity of the fashion industry.

Referring to a photo shoot in 1967, Giammetti reminisces about filling a studio with semolina to recreate the look of a North African sand dune. This profligate waste of foodstuffs is mind boggling. You see, fashion isn’t about real life. It’s about venerating the absurd, celebrating the wasteful, applauding the irrational and stroking the egos of artistes whose diminished mental capacity is directly proportionate to their callous indifference to the outside world. Now, I don’t for a minute suggest we should all scupper about in burlap sacks and egg carton trilbies, and riling up at the insanity of the fashion industry is a fools errand but seriously, there have to be limits. Not for Valentino though. The last of his kind, they say. Let’s hope so.

3 out of 5

Chickenfoot Get Your Buzz On – Live (Universal/Liberation)

Like most things Sammy Hagar-related, the genesis of Chickenfoot can be traced back to tequila. The story goes that Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Michael Anthony (ex-Van Halen) were jamming at one of Hagar’s bars, Cabo Wabo, in Mexico. Hagar runs a thriving business empire of themed bars and in the last few years sold a majority interest in his Cabo Wabo branded tequila to the same liquor company that makes Campari, Wild Turkey and Cinzano. There’s nothing more rock than a Campari on rocks, as the famous saying doesn’t go.

After joining the crumpled rockers on stage, Hagar figured his incisive business acumen was again spot on and figured all they needed was another ‘80s throwback to complete the gory picture. And that’s how Joe Satriani – the man with the second hairiest forearms in showbiz – came to find himself in one of the loopiest and least exciting supergroups ever to make a quick buck. Get Your Buzz On – Live is essentially a meat and potatoes run-through of Chickenfoot’s self-titled debut album. Now as much as the band members would like to think otherwise, Chickenfoot, the album, is not Hall Of Famer material. It sounds like a leaden, plodding, joyless hard rock romp through the collected back catalogues of each member – but without the wicked humour of vintage Van Halen (to be fair the Hagar-fronted Halen weren’t that funny), the deft pop-funk of the Peppers or the dazzling virtuosity of Surfing with the Alien. The hour long doco yields far greater rewards – Hagar proving himself to be an utter bore by getting in the face of Bob Weir (Grateful Dead), yelling and screaming at his own non-jokes; Chad Smith’s excruciatingly fallow attempts at vox-pop humour and Nigel Tufnell/Christopher Guest bringing the lols like the seasoned pro he is.

2 out of 5

A Perfect Getaway (Roadshow)

Occasionally, a film that promises to be a B-grade, straight to DVD, phone-message-checking, magazine-reorganising, CD-alphabetising snorefest turns out to be halfway decent. Its not that I have anything against Timothy Olyphant, as Deadwood’s Seth Bullock he was the stoic heart and moral compass in a world gone batshit insane and sure I no longer harbour a grudge against Steve Zahn for appearing in Reality Bites but really… on paper A Perfect Getaway looks formulaic, dull and uninspiring. It’s a story about a couple honeymooning in Hawaii hot on the heels of a spate of gruesome murders. But being the stubborn young would-be victims that they are, Cliff (Zahn) and Cydney (the underused Milla Jovovich) set out to camp on a scenic, secluded beach. A run in with some island trash spooks the happy couple but warning signs are for audiences – not characters in films. More warning signs pop up in the form of rugged, know-it-all man of action Nick (Olyphant) who, as an exaggerated ex-Marine type, is suitably threatening and occasionally helpful in unequal measures. The trailer trash re-appear out of nowhere just as expected and it’s from this point that the guessing game really begins in earnest. Writer and director David Twohy is no slouch – he’s behind some of best (The Fugitive), the worst (Waterworld) and inexplicably popular (the Vin Diesel helmed Riddick franchise) films of the past few decades. The key to A Perfect Getaway’s success is how Twohy plays with audience expectations – drawing us into well designed, but ultimately dead ended side plots but also keeping the clues solvable. Once the real killers are revealed the movie picks up in pace but loses dramatic tension. It’s an unfortunate trade-off because I was quite enjoying the tease. Nevertheless, it’s an unusually satisfying action thriller and one that really came from nowhere.

Field Music - Field Music [Measure]

For the time being, the brothers that make up the core of Field Music (David and Peter Brewis) have yet to descend into Gallagher-style public slag offs – which is not all that surprising when you consider they come across as the aural equivalent of an afternoon of tea and scones. That’s not to suggest they are either weak or limpid; far from it – this is clever, muscular, at times baroque but uniformly brilliantly written indie pop music. Think Grizzly Bear through an Anglo-pasture-funnel (they exist) but 75% less insufferable. Actually, The Rest Is Noise sounds like Billy Joel circa Brooklyn 2009 but that’s as close to it gets to hacky scenster-ism.

The remainder of the album is a total grab bag of quality influences and musical quotes – Todd Rundgren looms large on the prog-pop arrangements, but this is suffused with the uniquely British, jaunty cloak of XTC with a little bit of skeletal Richard Thompson riffage for good measure; the iridescent Effortlessly makes it seem, well, effortless and Measure is surely Kate Bush via The Books for goods sake. For a double album, it’s hard to fall back on that old adage that “a few less songs would have made it a classic” and Field Music mounts a convincing argument that a surfeit of ideas can be wrangled into something listenable, cohesive and memorable. There might be better albums released this year, but I’d be surprised.  

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night [Inertia]

Montreal really is a magical city. Even when stripped of its musical heritage, from prohibition-era Jazz hang out through to millennial straddling post-rock epicentre and obviously Celine Dion’s home-town, there’s a rough hewed, dark, intensity to the place that escapes words. It is after all, basically a French town an hour’s flight form New York. Maybe that’s why music has always been at the forefront of the city’s identity; and for me The Besnard Lakes are one of clearest exemplars of Montreal’s strange logic fusing crunching ‘70s guitar rock, dreamy psychedelia, grinding shoegaze and swirling spine-chilling harmonies (Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean Blue loomed large during recording) into something approaching indie prog. Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent Pt’s 1 and 2 is the perfect album primer, opening with co-lead singer Jace Lasek’s eerie disembodied falsetto floating into range like a lost seaman’s clarion call until about the four minute mark when the guitars drop right in, letting you know that Lasek not only looks spookily like Ian Hunter – but he also can major chord crash like the heavily ringleted power rock genius. And This Is What We Call Progress and Albatross round out the four standout tracks on the album; the former is a pulsating, riff laden shin-tremor whilst the latter is an undisguised Bilinda Butcher shout out. The Roaring Night doesn’t quite match the sheer grandeur of 2007’s The Dark Horse but I still listen to that album weekly, so comparisons at this juncture might be a tad uncharitable.

Party Down Season 1 (Anchor Bay)

Party Down is an unassuming show; the sort that creeps up on you over ten episodes slowly revealing its idiosyncrasies. Revolving around the lives of a small group of dissatisfied and disillusioned actors working in catering to pay the bills before their dreams evaporate means that Party Down is an office comedy with a brilliant get out of jail free card – the putative ‘office’ changes every week when the team go to another home, function, seminar or birthday party. It’s a brilliantly simple plot device that gives the show a sense of forward momentum, leaving behind the sordid office politics so readily mined elsewhere (The Office as an obvious but by no means solitary example). The other brilliant element of the show is its understatement. Mercifully free of big personalities, zany characters and fish out of water situations it is droll, dry and harsh where every other comedy these days is either trying to be the next Arrested Development or has re-heated the mocu-drama to within an inch of its life; Modern Family and Parks and Recreation excepted as they are both quite splendid. Party Down the catering company is managed by Ron Donald (Ken Marino), an overly cautious Brent-like character struggling to supervise a handful of employees who routinely ignore him, regularly drink on the job and generally don’t give a shit about anything – least of all any last vestiges of self respect they may still cling to. Adam Scott (Six Feet Under and fine jaw-bones) is the standout as Henry Pollard – the guy who once had a famous catchphrase in an advert years ago – he knows its over, but he lives in hope. Jane Lynch (Glee), Martin Starr (Freaks & Geeks) and Lizzy Caplan (True Blood) elevate this show to instant cult status.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra - Kollaps Tradixionales [Constellation]

Surely one of the most unsafe MS Word spell check bands in existence, Silver Mt. Zion continue to confound, frustrate, delight and amaze in equal measure.  For every passage of visceral, eye-popping, locked-in groove volcanic momentum there’s another of middling, directionless distraction. Never a band to structure ‘songs’ in the traditional sense, the Montreal based collective have pushed their sonic palate immeasurably towards the exhilarative ‘angry-crunch’ idiom since their quasi found-sound beginnings as a Godspeed You Black Emperor side project.

Always an acquired taste, Efrim Memuck’s vocals have found a natural cadence vacillating between agit-prop chant, aggravated sneer and disillusioned waft. As usual it’s the longer pieces that reward the most; There Is A Light is one of the band’s finest, a slow-grinding organ and viola gypsy dirge gradually giving in to a cataclysmic sub-terrarium fireball of crunching hard-rock intensity. As is normally the case, Sophie Trudeau’s violin colours every key passage with understated tenderness or vicious, vibrato-laden fury. Silver Mt. Zion have yet to make their unified masterpiece, and Kollaps falls over (oh dear) in places struggling to find a memorable melody or rhythm, but really that’s an uncharitable complaint; they’re not a pop band and those moments are rare and pass easily. Screw it – Album of the Year.

Invictus (Warner Home Video)

Everyone knew that one day Morgan Freeman would end up playing Nelson Mandela on the big screen, but as the years passed, an aging Freeman meant that Mandela’s latter years would be the focus. But don’t be fooled, Invictus isn’t a Mandela biography. South Africa’s most famous revolutionary prisoner cum Springbok-loving President is presented here as the driving force behind a more communal national or more euphemistically ‘rainbow’ acceptance of the national rugby union team. The political tinderbox prison years are dealt with in flashbacks alone and his newly minted freedom and subsequent election to the highest position in the country is represented in brief introductory scenes that look hastily edited. After that it’s all football, all the time. Despite being universally loathed by the black population because the white Afrikaners love them, Mandela figured the national rugby union team – the Springboks –represented some sort of crude reconciliation talisman, so he promptly invites the underperforming team’s captain Francois Pianeer (a suitably barrel-chested and slippery-accented Matt Damon) to a private defrag. After which Pianeer realises he should steer his team to an unlikely World Cup victory later that year.

It’s that simple, see. Pianeer’s teammates resent being the unwilling poster boys of Mandela’s fresh start, but they eventually acquiesce. Sure, the still seething racial divisions of the post-apartheid era have been smoothed over – but c’mon, this is a story of sport triumphing over racial hatred. Credit to director Clint Eastwood; the ruggers scenes are tightly shot, amply reflecting the beauty and brutality of union with little concession to the international audience who would barely understand the game. But Eastwood has constructed a film where technical expertise is immaterial because Invictus is a simple story of acceptance prevailing over division; a theme the aging director is devoting an increasing amount of time to in the final act of his brilliant career.

The Big Bang Theory Series 2 (Warner Home Video)

The first season of The Big Bang Theory was a surprise runaway success. Coming from the same writing team as Two and A Half Men, expectations were guarded but when it first aired nearly four years ago there was a peculiar simplicity about it; a standard multi-camera, scripted situational comedy in the strictest sense. It didn’t have that interested insidery hipster irony a la 30 Rock, deadpan uncomfortableness as seen in The Office or incessant juvenile vulgarity of its stablemate. Its closest natural bedfellow would be the increasingly diabolical How I Met Your Mother. But where the latter has stretched a once-unique concept thinner than a crepe l’orange, Big Bang has settled into a neat groove with a group of characters easy enough to care about, just the right side of one-dimensional being propelled through storylines with ungainly, awkward humour.

This time around there is a more natural and cohesive interaction between the main actors. Of particular note is Simon Heldberg as the miss-firing, still-living-at-home ladies man Howard Wolowitz; in a show built on rapid fire boom-boom one-liners and stilted geek humour Heldberg increasingly stands out and challenges Jim Parson’s portrayal of bean-pole nerd Sheldon Cooper as the energetic focus of the show. Unusually it’s the nominal ‘star’ of the show Johnny Galecki who falls short of the mark more often than not, being surrounded by scene stopping performances he seems weak and insipid rather than calm and collected, particularly so when his fellow Roseanne alum Sarah Gilbert guest stars alongside him. Viewership has almost doubled since the show’s debut and whilst ratings don’t necessarily or easily equate to quality, in this case the numbers stack up for a reason. Within its self-imposed limitations The Big Bang Theory is undemanding, quirky and satisfying.

The Knife - Tomorrow, In A Year [Etc Etc]

Enigmatic electronic Swedish outfit collaborate with avant garde opera artists and release concept album about controversial evolutionary botanist. If that sentence doesn’t strike the fear of god into you, then nothing will. The Knife aren’t the most accessible of bands, known more for masks and not playing to any of the accepted norms of media participation, record promotion or publicity.

So it’s hardly a surprise they’re in the market for astringent barely listenable noise operas.Tomorrow, In A Year is based on Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of the Species but I would challenge anyone to point that out without the benefit of cheat notes and reviews like this pointing it out.

It starts out with a trickle of mild bleeps that could be bird noises I suppose and ends 120 odd, really odd, minutes later with a couple of tracks that might have fallen off a Knife album (Colouring of Pigeons, The Height of Summer) But the album sits uneasily in the bands discography – it’s neither a spooky, icy electronic record nor a thoroughly immersive otherworldly aural space exploration. Being stuck in-between doesn’t suit Karin and Olof and despite the occasional flourish I can’t see even the most devoted Knife fan listening to it all the way through more than once other than to prove a point to the idiots who just don’t get it. Like me. 

ZZ Top – Double Down Live 1980-2008 (Eagle Vision)

I’ve enthused about ZZ Top on this page in issues past and the release of this ‘Then and Now’ type live DVD affords me the ability to roll in the mud once again. By 1980 ZZ Top had well over a decade to hone their live show – and it’s obvious. With only two members (Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill) front of drums at all times, the band realised early on that standing motionless in front of a stationary mic stand would hardly make an enticing live proposition. So we get Dusty leaning in deep, dropping the bass to almost floor level; Dusty and Billy swaying side to side, crab walking around the stage in unison – Cliff Richard and Shadows-style; and both of them wearing singularly awesome beards. It sounds almost quaint. But this small concession to showmanship pushes the music into sharper focus. Fortunately, ZZ Top have practically written the rules for dry, bluesy hard rock – except for that well-deserved if unsatisfactory period of commercial success in the mid-‘80s when they discovered synths and the power of MTV – and Billy Gibbons’ guitar tone has been envied and copied for decades so it’s easy to forget he was the one who invented it. The 1980 concert drawn from the Rockpalast vaults is a treat for the true fan as it focuses wholly, out of necessity, on the early stuff. Fast-forward 28 years and pretty much nothing has changed – Billy’s voice may have dropped an octave or four and the suits are bit nattier but the segue from Waitin’ For The Bus into Jesus Just Left Chicago still delivers chills in its fourth decade. Fashions and genres evolve, rise, fall and get forgotten but through it all ZZ Top have remained a constant. In the absence of a tour this Double Down more than satiates, but it’s not the real deal. I live in hope.

The Killers Live From The Albert Hall (Island)

Say want you want about The Killers – they’re soulless chancers who write choruses rather than songs, for example – but you cannot deny there’s a massive audience for safe, anaemic modern radio rock songs. You’re just as likely to hear a Killers song advertising hybrid cars as you are a delicious new chocolate bar or an enticing new financial product from a friendly bank. They write music that is universal, or more unkindly – bland, and as a result they can pull a crowd. On the plus side their live shows are usually celebratory where the records sound calculated, and honestly sometimes all you want at a gig is 90 minutes of fat choruses to spill your overpriced warm beer to. Right? Maybe, but be under no illusion – Brandon Flowers really does think he is Bono and when Dave Keuning fires off some Edge-inspired hanging arpeggios on For Reasons Unknown on a Gibson Firebird it is for all intents and purposes a U2 tribute night. And is it just me or does Flowers slowly adopt an Irish brogue over the course of the evening? No, he does. It’s okay though – some semblance of order is restored over the next few songs – ‘80s saxophone! And then if that’s not enough – sax-funk. Oh the humanity. Nearly a decade on, the Killers are a well-oiled live band so don’t expect much in the way of intimacy or nuance from this DVD, unless you count the alleged ‘acoustic’ rendering of Sam’s Town, which, with electric guitar and drums, quite patently isn’t. Instead expect 120 minutes of well-recorded, well-produced, bright and boisterous rock songs with faint new-waveish tinges. No endearing false starts, no fumbled notes or embarrassing humanesque missteps; just The Killers in all their fashion-shoot crisp glory.

Adventures of Power (Madman)

Power is a skinny, orange-haired, Rush-obsessed geek working a dead end mining job. Miners are hard working folk, as you’d well know. They wear overalls, belong to unions, look tough and talk in grunts. They’re real. And mining folk certainly won’t stand for a co-worker who air drums on the job. Yes – air drums. The hollowness of Adventures of Power is set up in the opening montage where Power dances his way home, air drumming to the general befuddlement of all who cross his path, all set to the requisite ‘80s soft rock power anthem. I’m sure you’ve seen it all before – the overcoming adversity, true life-type story of a nerd who dreams of becoming the best [insert obscure leisure activity] in the world. When Power (Ari Gold, who also wrote and directed) attempts the impossible at an underground Mexican drum-off – a Neal Peart/Rush air drum solo without a stool – he ends up on the floor in agony and defeat. It’s a rookie error, but his raw talent is recognised and so begins the transformation from no-hoper to possible champion at the Air Drum Battle in big ol’ New York City. Along the way he steals the heart of a deaf girl. Good on him. He certainly didn’t steal my heart or attention. Adventures of Power is a puerile, underwritten, laugh-free drag that ploughs through every underdog cliché available. Small town kid whose dreams are too big and incomprehensible for the yokels. Check. A rag tag bunch of misfits. Loose cannon son doing it for his injured father. Check. A face off against the spoilt brat rich kid (Entourage’s Adam Greiner not exactly stretching himself). Check. ‘80s soundtrack. Check. A sabotaged drum stool. Check. This film wants cult status so desperately it’s painful. Even if it didn’t, it’d still be painful.

Haeundae (Madman)

Here’s some simple analysis even the most economically-challenged movie studio executive should understand: Roland Emmerich’s 2012 cost $260 million and is universally acknowledged to have sucked total ass whereas Yoon Je-kyoon’s Haeundae cost $16 million and is one of the finest examples of disaster porn to grace the screen for quite some time. The former is a horrendous example of Hollywood at its most overblown, under-performed, formulaic and downright offensive. The South Korean entry on the other hand is a mind-blowing experience balancing in-your- face technical wizardry, goofy humour and actual delicate human stories revolving around characters that have actual relationships. That’s one of the joys about the current crop of South Korean big (relatively) budget flicks; white-knuckled action sequences can co-exist quite happily with dialogue, emotions, feeling and acting. 2007’s The Host was a perfect example of a monster movie that re-taught mainstream Hollywood how to make a monster flick. And gratefully, it was success. Likewise Haeundae was rewarded with significant commercial success in its homeland. The story itself is actually pretty standard disaster film stuff. A series of increasingly severe earthquakes in the Sea of Japan suggest the ‘big one’ is on the way. Kim Hwi (Park Joong-hoon), a divorced geologist at the National Earthquake Centre, raises the alarm but no one takes heed, of course. His ex-wife works in real estate (boooo!) and her evil boss is about to open a new development right on the shoreline. The next thing you know a bloody tsunami is bearing down on the resort town of Haeundae-gu. The ensuing chaos tears the town apart in a way that $260m worth of CGI cannot accomplish, and in this film heroes die – and stay dead. I know, amazing. Haeundae conforms to the broad rules of these sorts of film, but at its heart there’s a tenderness and lightness of touch that is staggeringly original.

Chevolution (Madman)

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara either is a revolutionary hero driven to eradicate hunger, poverty and disease in Latin America or an over-intellectualised tyrant of the worst order who sided with ruthless military dictatorships and oversaw the murder of innocent civilians. The man is divisive, but Chevolution thankfully doesn’t get too bogged down in mythology and politics, instead focusing on the iconography of that image: Guerrillero Heroico or Heroic Guerilla Fighter. That intense, tousled-haired, distant-gazed image of a young Che was taken as he stood at a memorial service for the victims of a suspicious explosion in Havana. Alberto Korda was the photographer and this doco is equally his story; a man who revelled in the bohemian, boozy lifestyle of pre-revolution, pre-Castro Cuba; a man who excelled in the field of taking photos of floozies and bimbos; a man not given to revolutionary zeal; a man more familiar with the business end of a Leica M2 w/ 90mm lens than a Kalashnikov. The image itself was deemed too bland for immediate publication and it wasn’t until a few years later when it began popping up at rallies and demonstrations that it began to take on a life bigger than its subject. The tumultuous late ‘60s proved the perfect incubation ground and with cheap re-production and printing methods the image launched onto the walls, banners and t-shirts of students the world over. Would Che have been disgusted at the commercialisation of his visage or would he approve of it being the clarion call for protests spanning generations and countries? Probably the former, but in the end the image represents something undefinable transcending Che’s mottled and contradictory life story. Chevolution is as both a primer on Che and a fascinating thought bubble on the power of political, commercial and revolutionary imagery.

Bronson (Madman)

Chuck: Season 2

Chuck was one of the stand-out debuts of 2007. A sharp, witty and effortlessly fun spy caper, think Burn Notice through the prism of goofy ‘90s workplace slacker comedy or a Gen-X Get Smart. Criminally overlooked, it should have been much bigger than the small blip on the radar it actually was. It has already attracted a degree of cult-dom in the US through a successful ‘Save Chuck’ campaign, but here in Australia it remains a DVD nugget. The first season found Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) juggling his menial job at the big box electronics store and a career as ‘The Intersect’; the holder of a fountain of government secrets downloaded into his brain by some opportunistic twist of fate. Adam Baldwin stole the show outright as the uptight, lantern-jawed and long suffering NSA agent John Casey and was rewarded with noticeably more screen time as the show progressed.

For the return season, Chuck is no longer the confused Kafka-esque ‘man in the middle’ – he wants to be part of the system, he wants to be a full-on spy. But as we all know from Charlie’s Angels, espionage and being pursued by the Russian Mob isn’t for tousle-haired softies. Accordingly, Chuck spends much of his time trying desperately to prove he’s not a total screw up. Unsuccessfully. Some of the quaint charm and sparkle has worn off a little this time around as limitations in the concept begin to creak at the edges and frankly the production design is hardly in the realm of Mad Men. Still, that was never the goal. In reality as an early champion of the show I’m probably being unnecessarily harsh, these are really inconsequential quibbles. Chuck is a strange beast; an instantaneously gratifying, lovable slow burner.

Breaking Bad Season 2

Walter White (Bryan Cranston) faced the harsh consequences of his part-time job as a meth manufacturer in the closing sequence of the first season of Breaking Bad. Facing off against the insane and ultra-paranoid drug kingpin Tuco (Raymond Cruz) who, roasted on ice, beats the living shit out of one of his underlings over some perceived slight, Walt finally saw the reality of his predicament and it’s a manic, violent and irrational reality. He might have the chemistry smarts to cook the purest meth ever seen in New Mexico to pay for his cancer treatment, but the drug trade is some seriously fucked up shit. Keeping secrets from your family is one thing, staying alive at a drug meet in a car junkyard is another altogether. Happily, the second season picks up exactly where this scene left off and it doesn’t take long for pathological drug lord Tuco to ramp up the intensity, setting of a chain of events that culminates in a terrifying trip to an empty house in the desert and an elderly mute ex-gang banger in a wheelchair with a doorbell on the arm rest. Lynch would be proud.

Easily one of the best shows of the rebirth-era of television (cf: Sopranos onwards) Breaking Bad is a show that revels in the consequences of deception. It’s not that Walt and his hapless sidekick Jesse (Aaron Paul) are experts in grand illusions or meticulous planners, they’re just lucky enough to get away with it – for the time being. Cranston proves his back-to-back Best Actor Emmys weren’t sympathy votes, playing Walt with equal parts pity, despair, anger, forthrightness and fear. His shaved skull and wan demeanour are no mere parlour trick, and Cruz’s performance as Tuco is gobsmackingly unnerving. When even the minor roles are worthy of note, something tremendous is happening.

DVDevotee Two and Half Men Season 6

The September Issue (Madman)

Lancelot Link Secret Chimp (Shock)

Lady GaGa - The Fame Monster [Interscope]

Just because your dress sense consists of whacking a baking tray on your arse, a bra made of tulips and a gingerbread house for a hat – doesn’t make you an edgy pop culture icon. Just because you have the attention of the world’s media – doesn’t make you worthwhile. Just because you copied Madonna’s shock and bore media management campaign – doesn’t make you savvy. Just because your songs sound good on the radio – doesn’t mean this is pop.

The Fame Monster looks and sounds like a quickie to capitalise on GaGa’s chart ascendancy and fill a gap in the market. At a swift eight tracks and under 35 minutes it’s tailor made for short attention spans. Bad Romance starts things poorly sinking with sub-Poker Face-sims; probably one of the worst of the album.

Alejandro is her La Isla Bonita moment; as a Madonna rip-off it works just fine. The ass end delivers a couple of dance pop nuggets – but it all feels nastily pedestrian especially for an album nominally about the shallowness of fame. GaGa has spent virtually every minute of her career reminding us she is first and foremost a visual proposition and undoubtedly these songs would get some sort of life on stage. But as it is, The Fame Monster sounds like an excuse to run out a few b-sides and loose tracks and give her a reason to flash her vag to the world. Again. Like she needs a reason.

DVD Devotee North by Northwest 50th Anniversary Edition (Warner Home Video)

DVDevotee Roxy Music More Than This

Robbie Williams - Reality Killed the Video Star [Virgin]

Robbie Williams is in a quandary. Reality Killed the Video Star is his putative comeback album. That’s how he’s been talking it up. Only it’s not – as he acknowledges quite explicitly (“don’t call it a comeback”) on the wan, sub-Depeche Mode Violator-era Last Days of Disco.

Williams is also making amends for his poorly received, and admittedly poorly conceived, written and executed Rudebox in 2006 by turning in a dozen songs that try to balance his early millennium stadium juggernaut and well, growing old. But Williams still lives in the world where a £20m fall in his fortunes not only warrants media attention but is not considered fatal. And where joke marriage proposals on idiot radio stations is considered a classy promotional tactic. He wants to be taken seriously. He doesn’t want to be taken seriously. He wonders what people in the next century will think about him (Superblind). But he’s just havin’ a larf, right? He’s a scamp, puncturing his public persona and mucking about with the media. Give over. This would be furtive ground in other hands, where flights of fancy are matched equally with incisive wit and genuine soul searching; not here though. Williams is so bloody ham-fisted. Reality... doesn’t feel like a glimpse inside the muddled mind of a charming and skilled entertainer. It’s buffoonery being passed off as pop music. The only thing Robbie Williams continues to skewer is the last vestiges of his talent.

DVDevotee Tyson - Hopscotch

Eddy Current Suppression Ring

Powderfinger

The Black Ryder - Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride [EMI]

Severed Heads

Powderfinger

The Black Heart Procession – Six [Temporary Residence Limited]

Relax cigarette and scarf fans - The Black Heart Procession return to gloomy, low tempo death-imbued torch song territory. Ho-fucking-ho. The San Diego band have devoted a career to balancing moody atmospherics with quality, mannered song writing. 2007’s The Search altered the mood a little going up-tempo and was a better album for it. But now they seemed to have gone two steps back. Rats sounds like Red Right Hand, which is fine; until you consider there is little reason to listen to an approximation when the original will do just fine thank you very much. The rest of the album is a dirge – the abundant biblical imagery would tire even then most brimstone-inclined listener. Sadly, there is no fire.

White - Denim Fits [Inertia]

There are many ways to review music. I'm adopting the sounds-like method here. Call me lazy.OK, here goes. Sex Prayer is John Densmore via Tortoise. Which is as awful in actuality as it is on paper. Paint Yourself is part CSNY and part Royal Trux. In fact there's a lot of Royal Trux on this album. Not literally, though. Idiot. Everybody Somebody sounds like someone punched the fuck out of Cheap Trick and made them record on a one-track. Massive point and joy deductions for reminding me of Eagles of Death Metal afterwards however. I am unable to listen to this song again. Fuck it. This album's a mess. I love it and hate it at the same time and at thoroughly different times. I'm confused. These are confusing times.

Atlas Sounds - Logos [Remote Control]

Atlas Sounds is the side project of Deerhunter's Bradford Cox and Logos is his fifth release in the last 18 months.  Ryan Adams, you have nothing on this man. Cox has an unerring ability to deliver skewered, wonky dream pop epics that gobble up motorik, indie noise, alt-rock and shoegaze without a trace of parody or cliché. Make no mistake, his influences are obvious but where others fail, Cox transcends his mental sketchpad to create utterly stunning modern hazy dream nuggets. And despite its side project status, Logos is no throwaway. Guest spots from Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier and Animal Collective's Panda Bear fit well - but it's Cox who demands all the attention. Last years Microcastle was universally and rightfully hailed as one of the year's best and Logos is up there. Again. Wonder if he has anything ready for February.

DVDevotee Gossip Girl Season 2

In April last year New York Magazine - journal of choice for indolent and sarcastic hipsters - proclaimed Gossip Girl to be Best. Show. Ever. Sure, there were a few caveats and NY Mag has a tendency to ride cultural waves for all their worth and, okay, the show is a scarcely veiled doco of WASPY, rich Manhattanites. But what the hey, Upper East Side teen angst was cool again! It was a cultural juggernaut for the inattentive txt generation. The overall ridiculousness of a bunch of image-obsessed New Yorkers grappling with who to sleep with next and how to deal with their meddling family was captivating. Whilst hardly an Austen-esque study of class and privilege there were some pretty universal themes on offer and as long as it's hilariously over the top and looks good then I'm in. Season two opens with Nate (Chace Crawford) and Serena (Blake Lively) retreating in the Hamptons. Of course. Nate's squiring an older woman. Of course. Everything is as it should be in Gossip World. It's senior year and everyone is preoccupied with college - Yale in particular, not that Gossip Girl has ever been a beacon of scholarship but Yale is old money and Ivy League so it'd hardly impact their social lives. Still, it's a risk no one's willing to take - so Columbia and NYU it is. Phew. Not sure any of these characters would survive outside a 5 km radius of a Marc Jacobs store. Its zeitgeist moment may have passed - although S3 features serial teen drama guesters Sonic Youth looking for TV face time after Gilmour Girls finished up - and you could argue we all care a little less about well-sculpted moneyed up teens and more about keeping our jobs but Gossip Girl is unabashed, self aware, extreme-dialogued fun. The reason recessions don't matter in this world is not that they're immune - more that it'd totally bring us down. We don't want that.

Leo Sayer

Disco. Surely the most reviled genre of popular music. I don't remember burning parties of prog-rock, shoegaze or emo records along the lines of the infamous and disturbing Disco Demolition Night at a Chicago park in 1979. But then I'm no historian, so lay off. All I know is that if you were unlucky enough to be tarred with the (gold lame) disco brush at the end of the '70s - respectability came tough.

Unfairly, LEO SAYER is often relegated into the 'disco-pop type guy who had a few hits then disappeared' column. But Sayer was like any other singer-songwriter looking for a break. He knew his way around a melody (You Make Me Feel Like Dancing), picked his covers carefully (Albert Hammond and Carol Bayer Sager's When I Need Love) and is as comfortable in front of a camera as he is behind the microphone.

But looks can be deceptive as Sayer explains. "I'm a rebel. I've always been a rebel and I love surprising people. But I'm looked upon as a very middle of the road artist, which honestly is the last thing I am. It's just probably because I smile and I'm very nice to people." It's the only time during our conversation that the irrepressible and energetic recently naturalised Australian citizen sounds weary. But there is always an upside. "They seem to like me on Kerri-Anne."

There's an argument to be mounted that Sayers 1976 album Endless Flight is an overlooked classic of the singer-songwriter type. It's a period he looks back fondly on. "I will say this - we always tried to work with the best musicians. Richard Perry [producer of everything from Beefheart to Streisand] surprised me because he knew all these great players and brought them into the studio. We had the best soul players - Larry Carlton [renowned jazz guitar boffin], Earl Slick [Bowie], Ray Parker [pre Jnr and Ghostbusters], Steve Gadd [Pauls McCartney & Simon]. That's why my records from that era stand up. Working with the best people in the industry stood me in good stead."

But after the flood of commercial success came the inevitable drought. Sayer's star faded and releases became rarer. Reflecting, Sayer isn't particularly remorseful. "Well, you know, I think it was basically a problem of continuity. I like to think of myself in the Bob Dylan mould. I like to surprise people and make different records that never really follow or sound like the ones that came before." And if you've been wrong-footed by the Dylan reference, hold on to your britches as Sayer enthuses about his new stuff. "I'm working on a new project that sounds distinctively urban. Like Jill Scott meets Leo." Seems there's a surprise at every corner. Unprompted, he concludes, "there might be a death metal album in me yet." Don't count it out - it's not that much of a jump from L. Sayer to Slayer.

Sayer will perform at The Auditorium at the Vikings Club in Erindale on Saturday November 21. For tickets, call the club on 6121 2131.

Bridezilla - The First Dance [Inertia]

To say that The First Dance is eagerly awaited underplays Bridezilla's predicament somewhat. Having been handpicked by Nick Cave, ATP and the indie-rock-cred community en masse as the bright young thing of the scene they'd better not fuck it up. Largely, they don't. Their first major release is a case study in simultaneously playing down expectations (it doesn't over-egg the mix) and broadening potential (2007's Bridezilla EP sounds like a completely different band). First track Lunar Eclipse sets the tone perfectly; an elegiac slow build smoulder, revelling in a light syncopated clutter of drums, violin and reverb-rich guitar snarls. Final track The Last Dance is an intense, delicate hushed gothic ballad. As bookends they do a pretty good job marking out the bands territory. In between there's high country, mountain-green pop songs, Will Oldham-style (Tailback) and alt-country rave-ups (Western Front). That said - it doesn't all work. A few tracks plod along directionless but The First Dance is an invigorating and bold statement of intent from a band seemingly not that interested in the middle ground. All power to them.

Fringe Warner Home Video

Any show that teams The Wire's Cedric Daniels (Lance Reddick), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Pacey Whitter from Dawson's Creek (Joshua Jackson) and Denethor from that mystical goblin trilogy thing (John Noble) is onto something. Or possibly on something. Co-created by J.J. Abrams, Fringe relives those glory pre-millennial tension years of The X Files when it was perfectly acceptable to claim your missing coffee mug was actually a conspiracy that spiralled all the way to the highest levels of government.

Fringe's first 15 minute are jaw-dropping (literally, in one instance) and highlight its promise and flaws. It's a high concept show that relies on episodic, self-contained puzzles and typically gruesome crimes being solved through 'fringe' science - mysticism, teleportation, retina mapping and so on, whilst in parallel unravelling the workings of a shadowy and sinister multinational defence and technology company.

It seems like Abrams is making up for the loss of good-will experienced by one of his other shows - Lost - where mysteries are frustratingly left hanging for months on end or pushed into dead-ends, because Fringe moves at a swift pace and manages to score a balance of immediate outcome delivery and plot arcs that encourage commitment. That's the promise. The flaw is character development; Anna Torv as FBI agent Olivia Dunham is wooden and detached and whilst this might adequately suggest a degree of wonder and shock, as the story tightens its grip it becomes a tad repetitious. Reddick plays the stiff Homeland Security type guy straight down the line but he can do so much more. Still - it's that guy from The Wire! On the other hand, Noble and Jackson riff off each other gloriously as loopy, genius father and impatient, unforgiving son and Nimoy... well, enough said. The latter easily makes up for the former. Production design is impeccable giving Fringe a visual tightness and disconcerting sense of unease that elevates the show far beyond its shaky foundations.

Generation Kill (Warner Home Video)

Produced by David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire) and based on the writings of Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright (who was embedded with the US Marines as they rolled through Baghdad in the early stages of Iraq v 2.0), Generation Kill is an intense and frustrating journey displaying all the hallmarks of a Simon/Burns joint. There is no exposition - you're dropped right into the middle of the action with exposition; it's confusing - characters are initially hard to pin down especially in 100 pounds of khaki Kevlar protection and the dialogue is often impenetrable - see point one and two as well as a whole new level of military-speak that easily rivals The Wire's arcane scripting. But make no mistake - this isn't The Wire in the sand. It's an entirely different and yet somehow familiar and equal beast.

Despite the subject matter, Generation Kill isn't a chest-beating shoot-em-up USA! USA! war-is-hell type story. But nor is it a Chomsky-esque antiwar diatribe (that cut shot of a grunt reading Chomsky was quite funny, though). It's a relatively simple, sometimes absurdly placid, document of a bunch of highly trained, unequally educated, bored Marines driving across hostile terrain in a desperate search for a mission. Actual warfare is seen mainly in the hazy distance. When they eventually find their way into combat - it's confusing and nerve jangling.

This seven part mini-series could have been derailed if Wright's character played as the viewer's voice - clarifying the complex administrative machinations onscreen for the laggards at home. Fortunately, he is mostly a silent observer leaving all the work to us. Generation Kill is more about hierarchical incompetence than fighting wars, and the outright unreliability of middle management and chain of command. It is a story about grunts and how they see their world -ugly, reactionary, angry but nuanced and never condescending. Compelling storytelling and essential viewing.

Arctic Monkeys - Humbug

Letting the hype pass me by, I approached the 'difficult third album' by these once precocious teenagers with no barrow to push. But the Josh Homme produced Humbug has problems. Firstly, it sounds like the Arctic Monkeys through the Homme filter -slinky, high pitched, squeak-slide and background wobble... a sound so recognisable it's rapidly turning into cliché. Here it doesn't gel or fit. Crying Lightning is a simple tune lost with extraneous sonic waffle. My Propeller finds the right balance of atmospherics and propulsion and yet it still doesn't feel right. Pretty Visitors is practically a Songs for the Deaf throw away. Pathetic. Turner is an ambitious songwriter but these tracks all feel like co-writes with their heavy handed producer. Turner needs to wrest control back from the ginger.

Future of the Left - Travels With Myself And Another

You want shouty, jagged, sweat-soaked, jaw clenching, engorged vein, melodic power rock? And you also like pithy agit prop lyrics all about the system and that sort of stuff? Well put down your Nickleback bootlegs and Third Eye Blind re-issues because Future of the Left are back with album number B. Future Of The Left are the cult band di rigueur. Rising from the ashes of McKlusky and Jawback they make exactly the sort of music you'd expect from a trio of well read, jumped up Welshmen. They represent the uncompromising, piquant ying to Super Furry Animal's fruity strawberry fuzz yang. As one of the best tracks - Land Of My Formers - exclaims "They only get under your skin if you let them". And they do.

Elvis Costello

The first time Elvis Costello played Canberra in 1982 he was smack bang in the middle of one of the most remarkably productive periods of the post-punk/new wave era. With occasional backing band the Attractions, Costello had already delivered at least five bona fide classics in the space of five years - My Aim Is True, Get Happy, Armed Forces, This Year's Model and Trust. It really puts to shame the current crop of artists who struggle to complete one halfway decent album every couple of years. "Yeah, absolutely," agrees Costello. "But you know I have never really understood why it took so long for people to record albums. This one [Secret, Profane and Sugarcane] was done in three days. And looking back our first one was done in 24 hours. One of the later albums - all up it took us three weeks in the studio to finish. Which at the time must have felt like an epic."

To provide a little context the late '70s are synonymous with bloated themed and concept double/triple albums, laser-bedazzled stage shows, the real emergence of AOR and the shared enemy - prog rock, so three weeks in the studio would hardly be considered a vacation. "Back then it wasn't unusual to take three days to get drum sounds right," jokes Costello. "I think the main problem came about because some of the artists had nothing to go in with. They had none of the songs finished and would spend the majority of their time in the studio just wasting everybody else's time and getting nothing done. It was different with us. We had everything ready to go as soon as we hit the studio. We had been playing the songs on stage for quite some time before we went in so really the process of recording and making albums was quite quick. And besides - that's not the way I work. I have to have the songs ready to go."

You can tell. Those albums firmly established Costello as a songwriter who could swing effortlessly between restrained aggression and soulful pop, and one who would go on to tackle pretty much every genre on offer - from straight country and western (Almost Blue) to classical composition (Il Sogno), pop-classical experimentation with the Brodsky Quartet through to highly praised collaborations with Burt Bacharach. There's hardly an ounce of fat on any of Costello's albums in the late '70s and despite their vintage sound just as urgent and essential now as they were when punk was exploding all round him.

But Costello never really fell for punk or the then fashionable psychedelic rock of his youth, gravitating towards the more pub-rock classicists such as Lee Dorsey and the loose grouping that formed around Nick Lowe (who produced all of that first batch of '70s albums) and Dave Edmunds, Rockpile. It was deeply uncool at the time - but somehow, Costello twisted it to his will and remade it in his image.

Indeed, that is one of the hallmarks of his career - regular and wholesale reinvention of sound and image. I suggest his current work falls neatly under the alt-country tag, a more homespun approach where you can hear the creak of the wooden floor, but Costello's not too sure about that "Well, homespun - I don't know what exactly that is meant to mean. Like I said before, the record was recorded quickly and we did use technology to our advantage but it's still quite direct but it's never obvious or heavy. The way it was recorded you can hear us lean into the microphone and we had all sorts of different instrumentation. Mandolins, fiddles and so on. You know they refer to mandolins as old time instruments but I never really understood that - we're playing them now aren't we?" Yikes - it feels like I am the straight man on a talk show with this sort of riffing. But Costello is a notorious raconteur, penning columns in Vanity Fair, guest hosting David Letterman's Late Night show in 2003 and even getting his own show, Spectacle: Elvis Costello with ..., that aired locally on the ABC earlier this year. He's a man at ease with his image and songbook, not afraid to poke fun at himself or drastically reinterpret songs as the mood fits.

As you read this Costello is finishing up a tour of America with his 'Sugarcane Band.' "We've got seven great players on stage every night. It's fantastic. The songs take on a form of their own with each show, they grow...they change like there's a connection with the mood of the crowd. So every night is different." A more scaled back version will appear for the forthcoming run of Australian shows. It will just be Costello on stage sans band. "I will be pulling songs out of my catalogue that I haven't done for years. But I will be looking at them again in a different way. It's interesting - when I go back and look at the songbook, one song leads to another and then another. I find songs I haven't done in ages, had forgotten about and it feels good to play them again." But it's not all stardust memories. "There are some new songs in the shows for Australia ready to go and by the time I get down there will be even more." No doubt he will have applied the blowtorch and reworked them a couple of times by the time he makes it to Canberra.

Elvis will play the Royal Theatre on Wednesday October 14. Tickets through Ticketek. 

Patrick Wolf - The Bachelor

This kid's alright, eh. Little bit extravagant, little bit of an attention seeker, sets his sight high, not afraid of the sitar. You know with all the dour, faceless, tepid singer/songwriters around, Wolf deserves thumb slaps for at least having a personality. It's the meat in the pie. Although I doubt he's ever eaten one. Meat pie, that is. Mores' the pity because meat pies are thoroughly enjoyable, especially the fancy gourmet ones. The Bachelor is an ambitious, pastoral romantic Celtic folk record. Some would call it poetic but that's usually shorthand for "I don't get it - but I know I should like it". The excursions into Celt-lectro are unfortunate and blight the record but Wolf does have a unique ability to make you want more. Pies, that is.

Suzi Quatro

Sunday night was a little more surreal for me than usual. On the one hand I was knocking off a delicious prawn salad as SUZI QUATRO and her unreconstructed rock mullet bombarded me with vocal coaching advice on a certain televised national singing competition. From this, I learnt to trust myself on stage more. Great advice I think we can all work with. Then on the other hand, minutes later I was listening back over my conversation with Quatro and hearing a legendary Detroit rocker discussing one of the most tumultuous times in American music, in one of the most incendiary parts of North America - the late 1960s in Michigan.

Iggy was slashing the shit out of chest and shocking audiences nightly and militant rock insurgents MC5 were terrifying everyone who came into earshot, particularly with their infamous eight hour set preceding the violent 1968 Democratic National Convention. There was more than a riot going on and Quatro was up to her neck in it. "We were part of that - that's how we all grew up," she recalls. "All the bands in Detroit were a combination of the Motown influence plus the white rock influence. It was a great city to grow up in, musically. We were right in the midst of it."

The United States was fraying at the seams - the combination of an unpopular war, political assassinations and truncheons falling down indiscriminately on the skulls of the youth was tearing the country apart - so it's not surprising that playing the hardest, dirtiest rock you possibly could was the natural outlet, as Quatro explains whilst prepping for one of her regular Australian tours this September. "We just went out and played music but there was a feeling that came out of Detroit that was like a desperate energy and living in the fast lane. That was the feeling you got from Detroit rock. We all went to the same gigs - we had the same element in most of us."

That element for Suzi Quatro is the classic North American rock and pop songwriter. Citing a wide range of influences from Elvis Presley, Dory Previn, Wayne Newtown and Don McLean she has had an obvious influence in bands like the Joan Jett-fronted Runaways (who were more contemporaries in reality) and The Donnas more recently. And is it possible perhaps that Kim Gordon would never have picked up the four string if Quatro hadn't have laid the groundwork back in the '60s with glam pop hits like Can the Can and Devil Gate Drive. We will never know and science is unable to tell us with any degree of confidence. Unless someone asks Kim Gordon that is. Take that science.

You can catch Quatro at the Royal Theatre on Saturday September 26. Tickets through Ticketek.

Mental As Anything

Like Roxy Music, Rolling Stones, Devo, Talking Heads and Les Savy Fav, 2009 ARIA Hall of Famers MENTAL AS ANYTHING got their start in art school. Forming in the mid 1970s, it was a handy distraction from class at the time. But then something happened.

In the intervening 30-plus years the band wormed their way into the consciousness of the nation with a string of instantly recognisable songs (Too Many Times, If You Leave Me, Sprit Got Lost, The Nips Are Getting Bigger) and for that co-frontman Greedy Smith blames the wireless. "We came from a period where the only time you heard rock music was on radio stations and a few rock music shows," he explains. "But now we're reaping the benefits because when radio stations do surveys about songs their listeners want to hear, they recognise all of our stuff so we get played quite a bit." Bit like the Stockholm Syndrome then. Well, not quite. "The thing is - a lot of Australian bands from the '90s get far less radio play than we do but have probably sold a lot more records then we did. But we really managed to imprint on people's heads at that stage." OK, so it's actually more path dependence then. Whatever the theory - it seems to be working as the band continues to play over 100 shows each year. As for all those singles, well "we used to put out a single every two or three months!" Is it any wonder they're everywhere then?

Yet for a band who have had to deal with their fair share of knockers and naysayers over the years, primarily focussing on their perceived relaxed attitude, the band never planned 'wackiness' as such. It was more a function of necessity. "When we went to the US we had all these record company executives asking us 'who do you get to do your styling?' and we'd sort of jokingly reply 'St Vincent De Paul.' We just got everything from the op shop so we weren't consciously trying to have a look. It was just that the half-fitting, lairy clothes were the ones we could afford. Geez, those Americans took everything so seriously. We were just oblivious to it."

Oblivious or not, a cursory glance at the Mental's discography reveals a comfort and prowess for songwriting that's often overlooked. An incredible range of influences bubble to the surface - reggae, rockabilly, new-wave, punk-pop and country - but they don't really crowd each other out or overpower the mix. They make it look deceptively simple, and for that reason alone Mental As Anything are one of the few bands that transcend their history and survive without tacky re-invention. Deep down - I think they do take what they do quite seriously.

Mental As Anything play the National Capital Craft Beer Festival on Saturday September 26. Tickets through Moshtix.

Jenny Wilson - Hardships!

Not entirely sure whether to blame Rufus, Sufjan or Antony, but someone has to take responsibility for the propagation of highly-affected, fussily arranged, Venus fly trap torch songs. The sort that tricks you into thinking it's more than it really is. Jenny Wilson has an inclination to favour technique and artifice over substance. Take for example We Had Everything - an attention grabbing song, held together by a genuinely interesting hook and bold melody, it displays a restraint and simplicity lacking elsewhere - only to throw it all away with an unnecessary coda diminishing all that came before. Hardships! seems designed to appeal to the all-knowing, insider-y, hip, bon vivant demographic. All up - it's a bit of a chore.

Tortoise Beacons of Ancestorship

As an insufferable music snob I take great pleasure in liking things that other people find difficult or outrightly despise. I also turn on bands once they start getting mainstream reviews or attention. I don't listen to music on the radio and refuse to wear denim. I find it impossible to tell the difference between fact and fiction and almost every day is a never-ending stream of pithy, banal observations delivered to no-one in particular. Back in the day, Steely Dan were my band but they confused me somewhat - I didn't know if they were taking pot shots at me or giving me coded messages regarding my superbness. Whatever, their guitar solos killed. Tortoise are my corduroy fantasy but with no complicated wordplay. 'Post-rock' according to my milkman, like I knew what the hell he was talking about. It's all hi-falutin rhythmical sharp edges, synths, blizzard syncopation and un-rusted beats bridging the gap between 1970s Eastern European advertisement jingles and Canadian prog rockers Rush. Beacons of Ancestorship is therefore, tops.

Little Britain USA

Catchphrase comedy is a capricious beast. It's a fine line between playing to your audience and lazy repetition. As an audience we love being in on the joke, waiting patiently through the setup for the punch-line. We know exactly how it's going to end, but we still react uproariously like upon hearing that glorious assembly of words we've heard a thousand times before. Sounds vaguely like communism to me. If lucky, your witticism will enter the lexicon and echo through schoolyards and cubicles the nation over. And, if that were the measurement of success, David Walliams and Matt Lucas are solid gold comedy giants. However, it's not - and they resolutely are not.

Little Britain USA (and its antecedent Little Britain) is a collection of unendearing, fatuous non-sequiturs strung out over a very slim concept of gross-out sketch comedy played for the lowest common denominator. It has proven to be a very successful formula, with sell-out arena shows, Sunday evening puff pieces and celebrity hook-ups. But beyond Daffyd being the only gay in the village, fake vomit, fat suits and the computer still saying no, there's no real core to this duo's output; not the awkward heart of David Brent, the surreal menace of Papa Lazarou or the blithering ignorance of Alan Partridge. Comedy works when there is reason to watch, committing yourself to fanciful set ups or holding the mirror up to our own internal ugliness. But Walliams and Lucas are incapable of managing the risk.

For this US jaunt of Little Britain there are some concessions for the local audience but nothing that corrects the imbalance of a show that has outstayed its welcome by a wide margin. Which is the approximate length I will continue to avoid it by. Fans, of course, will absolutely love it. I guess that's the point.

Les Paul – Chasing Sound

Les Paul was responsible for one of the most instantly recognisable articles in the annals of rock. The Gibson Les Paul is the object d'art that prompts salivation in wannabe rock star saddos and delivers salvation for actual rock stars; a hulking lump of wood that delivers such tone, sustain and sheer grunt that it's impossible to consider the birth of rock and its many schisms without it. Along with Leo Fender's namesake it defines the look, feel, sound and soul of late 20th century music transgressing genres, tastes and demographics. Which makes it all the more remarkable how much of a missed opportunity this documentary represents.

Les Paul was not only a six-stringed technical virtuoso but also one of the greatest innovators of recording technology - inventing multi-tracking, phasing, overdubbing and delay to name a goddamn important few. Primarily a country player early on, the restless and inquisitive Paul quickly added jazz to his repertoire before moving onto backing Bing Crosby and Top 40 success with his wife, Mary Ford. All reasonably interesting and necessary exposition-wise, it seems the filmmakers either willingly or by force diminished his role in developing the solid body electric guitar by barely touching the Gibson Les Paul element of his life. Maybe the idea was to redress the balance, to remind us there was a vastly talented and driven man behind "the log," as he called it.

On that count, Chasing Sound works. It's just there is way more to the story that should be told. In its absence hit the local music shop, strap on the most expensive guitar you can find - it'll be a Les Paul - and grind an E major chord in honour of the legend.

The Big Bang Theory

When not creating unchallenging and acceptably quirky hit sitcoms (Two And A Half Men, Dharma & Greg, Cybil) Chuck Lorre also writes hit songs for Debbie Harry; namely the late ‘80s disco/pop anthem French Kissin’ in the USA. True story. He also wrote the soundtrack for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie which won him a bunch of pointy awards. Again, true story but I digress.

The Big Bang Theory is the latest Lorre vehicle and whilst he hasn’t exactly extended himself very far, it’s undoubtedly one the highlights of his canon thus far. TBBT is your standard multi-camera, live studio, scripted comedy that follows the lives of a group of hyper intelligent geek friends as they struggle with females, ladies and anything girl-related. Hardly an innovative concept and one could justifiably question the need for Revenge of the Nerds: The Facebook Years yet somehow, despite these handicaps, it works. The answer lies predominately in the casting and ensemble chemistry of the key characters; Johnny Galecki (Roseanne) as Leonard Hofstadter and Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper. The leads bounce tremendously well off each other, the latter deserving of praise for bringing a degree of pathos to what is essentially pro-forma “well, this is awkward” scripting.

From what I understand, there were significant problems with the pilot and the series sat in development hell for a while, something obvious in the wobbly early episodes. By the end of its first season The Big Bang Theory settled significantly and became an enjoyable, worthwhile diversion. Its nominal big brother and stable mate (Two And a Half Men) may get all the ratings but this one deserves the attention.

In Treatment

There are a couple of ways to attack this gargantuan 18 hour, 43 episode series. Firstly, stock up on beer nuts and take it all in one sitting. You’ll probably need a real therapist before reaching the ninth and final disc – but what is art if not suffering. Or you could tackle it as intended – watch an episode/session per day. That way, Dr Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) and his rotating cast of misfits and malcontents will slowly and insidiously seep into your consciousness. The latter is recommended.

In Treatment is a relentless dissection of libido, narcissism, relationships, integrity and honesty. Weston is a middle aged, on-edge psychotherapist stuck in a rut rarely carving any joy out of his career and either lusting after his patients or struggling to control the urge to doze off in boredom. To combat this, he turns to his own therapist, Gina (Dianne Weist) and the irony appears lost on the self-obsessed Weston; in Gina the roles are totally reversed but he struggles to acknowledge the folly of his own middle-aged, text book neurosis.

In Treatment is slow-burning and intense. Another in the long line of intelligent shows that demand attention and commitment (The Wire et al), it’s designed to be taken sparingly and in a controlled environment – because that’s really what the show is about: control – how it is enforced, manipulated and lost. Hosannas to Byrne as Dr Weston, Melissa George as the predatory Laura, Blair Underwood (LA Law) as an emotionally crippled Marine and the ever dependable Michelle Forbes (Battlestar Galactica, True Blood) as Weston’s marginalised wife. In Treatment is true appointment televisionn.

Tinted Windows, Tinted Windows

Tinted Windows are the supergroup nobody even requested. Tinted Windows is the album that proves no end of indie cred (James Iha) and power pop participation (Adam Schlesinger & Bun E. Carlos) can save Taylor Hanson from toiling away in well-coiffured obscurity. Songs crackle past in bright, shinny, “wooh-ooh-ooh” fashion. Choruses rise and fall like cheap soufflés. Not exactly bad or offensive this unholy marriage of WTF to major chords is clearly designed to be consumed as disposable, unadulterated sugar rock pop. That being the case I shall gladly oblige and forget about it by next Thursday.

X

In the late ‘70s the Australian music scene was dominated by confrontation, blood, piss, beer, fleeing Mr Plod and dodging empty bottles in flight. The kids were angry. As Steve Lucas, guitarist with reformed Australian primal rockers X, explains. “People would throw chairs through windows, destroy pubs. They’d climb up the drainpipes to get in. They’d have riot buses and paddy wagons turn up and were literally grabbing people and tossing them in.”

That’s no sense pride in Lucas’ voice, more bemusement that things had gotten so bad and “I’m not encouraging anyone to do that anymore but it’s different times. Back then that subculture was a very real, living breathing thing. The music industry was very stitched up; if you didn’t play the game you were outlawed. And we were musical outlaws. We’d hit and run at venues and leave people damaged and bleeding behind. That’s not what we set out to do but that’s how it happened.”

Indeed, X had a fearsome reputation. The band – the late Ian Rilen (bass), Cathy Green (drums) and Lucas – tore a swathe through Melbourne and Sydney for around a decade between the mid-‘70s and ‘80s releasing two highly lauded albums X-Aspirations and At Home with You, both recently re-released as part of Aztec Music’s excellent and exhaustive reissue series.

That era of Australian music receives kinder treatment as each year passes – maybe because the times were easier, less complicated or confusing. Nowadays we face such a multiplicity of options before we even leave the door, it’s no wonder some people reminisce wistfully, as Lucas agrees. “It sounds so geriatric… ‘You just don’t understand what it was like at the time,’ but it’s true. People were a lot more militant in their beliefs and expectations. There were no VCRs, let alone DVDs, let alone internet and so when the TV went off people went out to pubs and watched live music til 3 in the morning. We’d go from gig to gig playing full houses watching people destroy themselves and have a fair whack at destroying ourselves along with them.”

But with so much choice on offer, X’s brand of aggressive clarity might just be the antidote to our complacent times. “Well I think it’s very timely that X have come around again,” says Lucas, “because we’re needed now more than ever to express an alternate point of view. And we’re not shoegazing introspective wankers. We are up there with a message… Don’t take anything for fucking granted! It’s not wrong to question anything. If I can get a young kid to an X gig and get them to question the way they do something – then it’s worth doing the show, worth re-releasing the record.”

So you’re performing a public service then? “Absolutely. I should be put on the Honours List – Order of Australia for Keeping It Fucking Real.”

You heard the man! X will be keeping it real at the Basement on Thursday August 13.

Super Moth Black Rainbow Eating Us

If you like Air but can't quite handle the highly dependable clatter of Super Furry Animals, then Super Moth Black Rainbow could be your 19th favourite band. There's an easy-going, vocoded laziness wafting across this album that could be uncharitably compared to a nauseating chill out compilation CD but the Moths pull up just on the right side of predictability. Just. Iron Lemonade teases with an ever-present threat to explode and Gold Splatter would be more at home on DJ Shadow's Diminishing Returns psychedelic mix tape. But in the end Eating Us sounds happy enough to merely exist. Apparently that's sufficient these days.

DVDevotee - True Blood – Season One (Warner Home Video)

Out of nowhere and taking almost everyone by surprise, True Blood has become the breakout hit HBO have been pining for since Tony Soprano whimpered off our screens. Season Two, which has just started in the US, is regularly pulling in over 10 million viewers per episode and this first instalment DVD is moving units at a rate equalling the commercial/creative nexus that was The Sopranos. Timing surely has much to do with it. Look around the multiplex and the mega bookstore and you'll find all the evidence you need - fangs are back, big time.

But with its soupy Southern setting and languid air of deviant sex, hillbilly histrionics and extreme violence, True Blood is more Flannery O'Connor than Stephanie Meyer. Series creator Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) can take most of the credit for this. A native Southerner, Ball explicitly wanted to avoid the Southern clichés - rednecks, the confederate flag, "yee-haw!" etc. Instead, the focus in True Blood is character development and multi-layered storytelling that largely wears its metaphors explicitly on its sleeve, albeit with a sly wink and devilish guffaw. In this alternate reality, humans live side by side with the fanged ones. But it seems not everyone is entirely happy with vampires in their midst - despite the vampire 'race' becoming a semi-accepted section of mainstream society after those wily Japanese scientists developed synthetic blood, thereby allowing all the vamps to live upstairs in relative harmony.

Of course the Deep South has a spectacularly mixed history, so to speak, with outsiders and you figure out pretty quickly where the writers are heading. But there's much more. True Blood is a sumptuous treat on every level with Anna Paquin, as the all-hearing jailbait Sookie Stackhouse, deserving of specific praise. Alan Ball describes True Blood as popcorn TV which is something of a disservice, because underneath it all is a noir-ish drama/thriller with comedy and social satire weaving through it with effortless grace.

The Horrors Primary Colours

Stovepipe mannequins The Horrors have, out of nowhere, released one of the best albums of the year. Not entirely original or inventive Primary Colours is a sonic eardrum buzz belonging somewhere between Psychedelic Furs in 1984 and Jesus and Mary Chain in 1986. Very specific, but also very delicious. Lots of reverb, cavernous drum echo, manicured distortion and plenty of long black fringes. Who knows - they might suffer the same indignity as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and be a fuzzy blip on the radar. But if so, then we should at least thank them for the glorious sweaty leather rockers of Mirror's Image and Who Can Say and for having the balls to release an eight minute single - Sea Within A Sea. Bravo.

Mirrors (20th Century Fox)

I'm all for Kiefer Sutherland having a career outside of the small screen straightjacket of 24, but for the sake of differentiation it might be a good idea if he didn't accept roles casting him as troubled ex-cops sneaking around dark, empty buildings - gun in hand, chasing noises in the night. Because all I could think of was Jack Bauer. And how the hapless Ben Carson wasn't a slice on Jack Bauer. Maybe a stuffy period drama or a vampire tit-comedy would reboot our idea of who Kiefer Sutherland is. My unfortunate fantasies aside, Mirrors reads like just another J-Horror flick with the usual supernatural spin - in this case spirits lurking behind mirrors. And for the most part, this is largely how it crawls along.

But underneath is a fine thriller gasping to get out; touching on issues of identity, philosophy and spooky children maladministered by the state, naturally. Our anti-hero, Carson, is a suspended detective and in an effort to prove responsibility to his estranged family he finds work as a security guard in a disused building. Right, now that's the first problem - ain't no disused building ever been problem-free.

Soon enough strange things start happening in the old department store that in fact was originally a psychiatric hospital long beforehand. Never saw that one coming did you? The previous security guard died in mysterious circumstances... oh, god it's so unbelievably rote. Carson slowly begins to unravel the malevolent back story of the fiendish apparitions - at great cost to his family and self. Mirrors are furiously painted, blood is spilt, looks are quizzical and credulity is tested.

Only rarely does the film Mirrors want to be rise to the surface and, for those who make the effort, the genuinely unsettling final scene is exactly what this film should have been. Too bad French new wave horror director Alexandre Aja failed to find the right tone for the remaining 108 minutes.

Doves Kingdoms Of Rust

Despite appearances and a back catalogue suggesting otherwise, Doves are a nimble, hard and funky band. Live, they frequently encore with the monstrous, dance/rock end of the world rave up Space Face/Crunch dating back to their Sub Sub days. Makes sense really. The band not only hails from Manchester but they also met at the iconic Hacienda nightclub in the ‘80s, which at the time was the hedonistic centre of the music universe. Years passed by and the band reinvented as maudlin alt-rockers mirroring the prevailing mood in Britain – all millennial anxieties and jaw-gnashing post Brit-pop comedown. Through it all, there was something more to Doves. Songs laden with inverting arpeggios one minute would disappear quietly the next
only to reappear as crunchy, arena thumpers. On Kingdom of Rust the band has struck a fine balance between history and forward momentum. House of Mirrors and Winter Hill are instant Doves classics, but it’s the white boy funk of Compulsion and skronk-dub of 10:03 that you finally hear a band letting all the elements fall emphatically, gloriously into place.

The Day The Earth Stood Still

There’s much to be said about sci-fi films of the ’50s and ’60s. Yes, the giant lizards were hammy and unterrifying but the post war period represented a time when people grappled with the ramifications of victory/loss; living with new fears – mutually assured destruction, creeping communism, duck-and-cover, Cold War. The terror of the tank was replaced with a psychological horror far more insidious. It was the stuff of metaphor heaven and it fed scriptwriters for generations to come. Around 57 years after first release The Day the Earth Stood Still has been given a coat of paint, spruced up for the CGI generation and launched on an unsuspecting and indifferent public. Keanu Reeves plays the alien, earnestly mugging his way through this shocker with all the charm and charisma of a used battery. His crib notes probably said “stoic” but all I saw was “imminent constipation”. He’s not exactly helped by Jayden Smith playing the obligatory opinionated sprog. It’d be cruel to get stuck into a kid, but he’s thoroughly disagreeable and will struggle to reach the low heights of his dad, Will, on this evidence. Jennifer Connelly, John Cleese and a giant orb emit low range energies that struggle to maintain attention. The plot is simple – alien comes to earth to collect a show bag full of animals that are innocents in the destructive nature of man, alien advises humanity it is doomed and are bad, alien begins to blow up world – yet they still manage to stuff it up. In this post-millennial update you can practically hear global warming and allegory in the background but maybe the producers got scared and played it safe. So, in its place is a directionless mess – no plot thrust, nil character development, cod dialogue and a giant robot that would be more suitable as an oversized garden gnome.

Chuck

Another in the long line of shows ignored by Australian programmers, Chuck was one of the highlights of the 2007 new release calendar and also one of the many victims of the Writers Strike in the same year that truncated seasons, split them in half and generally interrupted the flow of every show on TV. A few recovered easily (The Office and 30 Rock remained safe bets) but for the newer ones like Chuck, Reaper and Pushing Daisies the task to retain viewers in an already vicious market was tough. Fortunately Chuck well and truly hit the ground running. A deft mix of slapstick, mundane office life gaggery, spy caper, espionage drama, twenty-something angst – it almost seemed too clever and chaotic for its own good. The premise required an extraordinary leap of faith – our unwitting/unwilling hero Charles “Chuck” Bartowksi (Zachary Levi) through the magic of the internet, and trickery of his malevolent ex-best friend/rogue CIA agent, has become a fountain of Government secrets. Downloaded into his brain, or something, it activates itself when he gets close to the scene of a potential crime. The Fed’s want him but Chuck is happy enough muddling along as a computer expert at the local suburban big barn electronics warehouse. Chuck eventually relents and becomes part time spy. It could be a hackneyed bore but with well written minor characters and perfectly pitched plot development Chuck exhibits a depth lacking in most network dramedies. Think Burn Notice via Judd Apatow. In the final third of this debut season something intangible happens; everything falls into place and it transforms suddenly from an already great show to outstanding television. A show ready-made for cultdom.

PJ Harvey & John Parish

Within seconds of Black Hearted Love, the first single and starter track of the new collaboration between Polly Harvey and John Parish, it’s clear Harvey has located her guitar. Not quite the ostentatious, bold slashing entrance of Big Exit nor the brittle, intense scratchy cathartic horror start of Rid Of Me, it’s definitely somewhere betwixt; an arresting departure point that’s somewhat disingenuous as a predictor of what follows. Say, for example, the mandolin-based bright eyed menace of Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen that ramps up just as you’re settling down with your Earl Grey. It’s the sound of Plant/Page eyeing off Polly from the top of a misty hill, just beyond an abandoned castle. Leaving California must surely give Lisa Germano’s copyright lawyer shakes in the night, but all that gets forgotten as the jittery, late night cab ride of The Chair shakes us up again and returns us to the start with one criminally brief appetizing, descending arpeggio. Blink and its over. We’re halfway through and the somnambulist dirge of April is a perfect excuse to go for a five minute dash down the shops to stock up on imported cheese and crackers. Yum! As if playing to the concept of flipping a old 33 1/3 ‘record’ over, the title track is the next immediate attention grabber, sounding like a Steve Albini-era cast off (“He had chicken balls/He had chicken livered spleen”) – but it’s an unexpected two parter and the instrumental fade out The Crow Knows Where All the Little Children Go is a little bit of Beefheart and a little bit of Lindsey Buckingham, frantic harmonic tweeting and everything. It’s jarring, and I’m not sure it works. Pig Will Not is the fantasy song of all those yearning for aggressive shattering chords set to Polly barking like a dog. With wonky booze-hall piano outros it’s awfully close to self parody. The entire venture is rescued in stunning fashion by the tender despairing call of Passionless, Pointless (“You wanted less than I wanted/Where does the love go?/I am asking/There’s no kindness in your hands”). In lesser hands it would sound like a spotty teenager’s lament and downright cringe-worthy; in Harvey’s its visceral, tangible and present - like most of A Woman A Man Walked By, despite minor flat spots. There’s much to be said for ferocious love stories set to the stark strains guitar, piano, drums and mandolin and as someone who had lost interest in Harvey, it feels good to be back.

Died Pretty - Dirty pretty things

You may have seen him late afternoon on a side stage at the travelling heatstroke carnival that is the Big Day Out, shimmying and shaking, or maybe prancing and pouting in glorious white at one of the smaller stages at Homebake a few months ago. Either way, Ron Peno, lead singer of DIED PRETTY was clearly having a ball. And deservedly so. January capped off an incredible 12 months for the recently reformed inner-city indie stalwarts. In addition to playing two of the more notable festivals on the local circuit, Died Pretty collected a Hall of Fame nod from The Age and started the ball rolling with a Don’t Look Back tour of their beloved 1992 album Doughboy Hollow.

Looking back, appropriately enough, Peno is wistful about the concerts and album itself. “We didn’t except much out of that and had no desire to reform again, basically. It wasn’t an appealing idea to Brett (Myers, guitarist and co-songwriter), but he was approached to do the Don’t Look Back series of shows and it sounded like quite a good idea. What appealed to me was the concept of doing an album from start to finish and Doughboy Hollow is quite a well liked album - the memories I had of writing and recording were all very happy memories, positive and nice. It wasn’t anything nightmarish.”

Despite the 16 years apart, it all fell together quite easily. “We booked for some rehearsals but we cancelled a few because we didn’t think we needed to do any more!” Confident buggers. Of my suggestion that promoters in Europe get on the phone and entice them back to a part of the world that occasionally treated the band better than their homeland, Peno is sceptical, but ultimately hopeful when pushed. “It was good to relive. But not for too long. Nothing worse than bands reforming every five minutes - it’s really boring!” Take note, Beasts of Bourbon.

The Don’t Look Back shows were more than just a chance to blow the cobwebs out for one last valedictory romp around the country in front of crusty old fans yearning for a blast from the good old days. So successfully were they that the organisers of Homebake came knocking at their door for a slot in December. Then not long after, they got another call from the Big Day Out people. “Wonderful!” exclaims Peno, sounding genuinely surprised with the upsurge in attention and festival requests they have been fielding.

But this isn’t some tragic long-lost-band-getting-their-due type thing. Died Pretty played at the very first all-Sydney affair BDO in the early ‘90s, just as Doughboy Hollow was saturating airwaves and Discmans the nation over. “Yeah… it’s pretty amazing. We were riding a bit of a peak; we were one of the ‘bigger’ indie bands at the time. It worked well for us… and to be on a bill with Nirvana on it!”
Nirvana notwithstanding, they have encountered some unusual scheduling over the years, such as being sandwiched between End of Fashion and Gabriella Cilmi at Homebake last December “It was weird. But I really enjoyed her. I watched her whole performance and I thought she was great.”

According to Peno, the admiration was mutual “I was told she was grooving to us at the side of the stage, so I thought I’d return the favour.” And critics of Cilmi’s show-cancelling history and rather ‘honest’ award show antics be dammed, she has a fan in the leader of a cult ‘80s indie vintage act. “Ah gawd, more power to her. She’s had a number one hit. I’d love to have a number one song!” Mind you, that’s as far as the love spread. “As soon as the crowd heard that song – they left,” Peno confirms.
On a similar note, Died Pretty are themselves well versed in the major record company machine. In the giddy early days of Alternative Nation they were offered a Sony deal and, to the surprise and chagrin of many, took it. But Peno remains justifiably unrepentant. “There came a point where we thought we may not get this chance again, so why not just give it a shot. If we fail - fine. If we don’t - even better! We knew what we were doing amongst the cries of ‘sell out’ and ‘you’ve gone commercial.’ Well, no. Not really.” And even though the buzz died rather too rapidly after the first blood of that deal was released (Trace), the era was free of nefarious pony-tailed-record executive meddling. “We had a really great time, they were really good. They couldn’t do enough for us. We were the ones who were demanding not to appear on certain TV shows and saying ‘We won’t play there.’ We were the ones being a bit devilish.”

Which brings us to the current day. Aztec Music have just released a remastered and expanded package of their stunning, moody and unarguable classic debut Free Dirt. “It’s great that someone has the goodness and brains to re-release it,” Peno offers, somewhat humbly. Indeed, there was voluble consternation in some quarters that Free Dirt was overlooked for the Don’t Look Back concerts last. A moot point for sure, but emblematic of the tenderness that many treat that record with - and there’s no doubt the re-release is an essential addition to complete any indie/OZ/garage/VU-inspired/paisley underground/whatever collection. Such were genres Died Pretty messed with.

And Peno continues to mess around. “I’ve got other irons in the fire other than Died Pretty. We’re never going to write any more Died Pretty songs, but we’ve written other songs for other projects.” Peno’s referring specifically to Noise and Other Voices, an electronic influenced project formed with Myers a few years back that retouched a bunch of unrecorded Died Pretty tracks, and his other more country-esque partnership with Kim Salmon, Darling Downs, on hiatus for the time being whilst Salmon grapples with a Surrealists record. And if that wasn’t enough, Myers has already notified Peno of a batch of songs floating around in the baroque pop vein à la John Cale circa Paris 1919. “Organic, lots of strings, piano, acoustic guitars. I’m really looking forward to that.” As we all are.

At a time when many are reminiscing about Died Pretty, Peno and Myers have effectively called stumps on the band. Yet they remain individually restless and creatively unstoppable. The re-released Free Dirt is available through Aztec Music now.

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals @ Enmore Theatre Thursday January 29

Ryan Adams has copped his fair share of flak over the course of his career. Everything from his choice in female companions, self confessed destructive personal habits, crowd baiting antics, over expressive blogging, extreme work ethic matched with unrelenting cockiness …. pretty much anything he does attracts attention. Blame Adams for making it impossible to look the other way.

But there must be a reason that at around 10 albums into a solo career that has seen little radio attention outside the precocious early 2000’s he still manages to pack out the Enmore on a steamy Thursday evening in what must be one of the most overcrowded months in Sydney gig going memory. Within minutes of launching into When The Stars Go Blue from Heartbreaker it’s clear that Adams is in good form exhibiting a clarity in voice, strength of purpose and overall tolerance that has been absent in some of his more recent tours. For example, a troublesome guitar mix for most of the night resulted in a few cagey sideways glances amongst those in the crowd who have experienced the worst but rather than haranguing a random roadie or throwing the shits around, he laboured away without the slightest appearance of nuisance. In the old days, a walk off would have been probable under similar circumstances. He was clearly having fun. Engaging the audience in hammy, convivial chatter is not something we are accustomed to at his gigs, but there he was – cracking gags and batting off tiresome song requests like a Vegas pro. The occasional blasts of shredding metal riffing through the PA were odd, but playful.

Of course, any Ryan Adams show in this country is unfairly measured against his barnstorming shows in 2002, particularly the much heralded three hour marathon stint at the Metro. Mores the pity. Because Adams is a completely different beast in 2009. His detour through the Grateful Dead songbook still yields magnificent, transcendent jammy results (Let It Ride, Goodnight Rose, Peaceful Valley) and the much maligned Easy Tiger material plays much stronger on stage than record especially when Cardinals lock in and don’t get too fussy. But the older material aroused the biggest response and the inclusion of Oh My Sweet Carolina, Wonderwall, La Cienega, Rescue Blues and a bluesy, dusty low key version on New York, New York was more than enough to satiate. Actually it was highly unexpected. With Cobwebs over and done, Adams retreated from the stage at the family friendly time of 11pm and headed off for a pizza ignoring the showbiz encore ritual. Adams has announced these will be the last shows he plays with Cardinals and it’s a confident bet that in 10 years time we’ll be talking up this tour as another highlight in an already extraordinary career.

The David Lynch Collection (Umbrella)

There really is no point trying to figure out the work of David Lynch. Those seeking to decipher plot, interpret character motivation or narrative structure and imagery are inevitably doomed to failure. Confused, wordy, undergraduate-styled failure. Indeed, the man himself has made every effort to dissuade academic dissection, claiming he himself has no idea what’s really going on in his films. So, they’re actually not full of hysterical and frustrating red herrings – they’re simply very unusual stories direct from the inside of the brain cavity of a mild-mannered, well-dressed Montana native. And as a noted exponent of transcendental meditation this is perfectly sensible. Most people find 120 minutes of Lynch pretty difficult going, so imagine their joy in this 5 disc set - 450 minutes of head groaning insanity via the feature-length debut Eraserhead, short films (old and new), behind the scenes footage, errant musings, Lynch at work in his studios and a helluva lot more. But to be fair there are large tracts of a penlight camera observing Mr David sitting at his desk from below in silence, so clearly there is some sort of plot for the hardcore fan. Eraserhead is every bit as unusual as the eerie synopsis would indicate; but more importantly it confirms the emergence of a talented, committed and singular vision. What becomes obvious through this collection, though, is that Lynch is no smoke and mirrors charlatan: he truly believes in what he is creating, and the amazing thing is he is creating art that references, emulates and evolves from a diverse bunch – Goya, Man Ray, Rockwell, Rothko, Dali. It’s pretty hard to pin him down and that’s the beauty of his output. Even his straightest story, the, err… Straight Story left people scratching their heads. Sadly not included on here is Lynch’s anti-iPhone rant. Although easy to locate, it should be committed to celluloid for prosperity. We live in brutal, ugly, strange times, so it’s no real surprise that most times Lynch is the one making most sense.

The Datsuns - Taking it up a gear

The Datsuns

It seems like a lifetime away, and I guess for some readers it is, but in 2002 THE DATSUNS were on the verge of something huge. Finding themselves passengers on the new garage rock revival road show with The Strokes, The Vines et al this Cambridge, NZ band were tipped for greatness of sorts. Admittedly it was mainly the notoriously absent minded NME behind the proclamations, so let’s view history through that particularly corrupt prism but nevertheless The Datsuns were a blast of simple, effective, major chord chugging rock.

The live shows were incendiary. The buzz was loud and leery. Then all of a sudden, nothing really happened. Despite appearing to be stadium ready, it all dissipated rather quietly. Not that this worries guitarist Christian Livingstone. “You know we never really had a plan to conquer the world or anything. We just enjoyed making music together and it was great that other people enjoyed it as well.” Thankfully he sounded positive and the furthest from bitter about the band’s career trajectory. You see after the success came expectations and after expectations came John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, as it always does. Jones produced the disappointing Outta Sight, Outta Mind although Livingstone hastens to add “we pretty much have always produced our own albums anyway.”

You’d be hard pressed to fault the band’s comfort with the control board with the results of their latest and most satisfying release, Head Stunts. Equally a welcome return to riff-busting form and an extension towards longer more mind-jam based song writing it’s cohesive, tight, melodic and warm. And all this despite the band living on separate continents.

Livingstone is based in the UK now; “it just makes more sense to be based here. It’s close to Europe, easier for touring and besides I really like London.” And no, it has nothing to do with the sizeable ex-pat Antipodean community based around the SW5 post code. “It’s great. We have heaps of touring bands and friends dropping in and crashing all the time. We had John Reis (Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes, veritable demi-God) sleeping on the floor the other day after a gig.” As any good real estate agent would proclaim, it’s all about location, location, location. And as any RFTC would say…. you bastard! Yet despite some minor hiccups on the way (label swapping, member changes) The Datsuns are located pretty well themselves. Touring an album that deserves recognition – one they clearly believe in – and enjoying their time beyond the tyranny of expectations, as Livingstone concludes, “We’re playing better than ever before.” It’s pretty simple really, as it always should be.

The Datsuns’ new album Head Stunts is out now through Cooking Vinyl.

DVDevotee Boston Legal – Season 4 (Fox)

For many years I had written Boston Legal off as a fun, light hearted goofy romp that occasionally touched on real issues that mattered. In the mid 2000s it seemed hopelessly out of place with so many serious dramas around it – The Sopranos, The Wire et al and even comedy had progressed within the confines of the major network yoke with 30 Rock, The Office and so on slaying the multi-camera, fast edit, jump cut shows that David E. Kelly (Ally McBeal, The Practice) excelled in. On top of it all was the odd bromance between William Shatner as senior partner Denny Crane mincing every scene to a pulp and James Spader as the rambunctious Alan Shore. It was typical Monday night fodder, easy on the brain and rounded out with a seemingly endless supply of quirky and by-the-book zany characters.

Then something happened. I watched this all the way through in a couple of days. It’s fair to say I had severely misjudged Boston Legal. What Kelly has done with this show is apply the Trojan Horse to pretty much every cause on the socio-political map and dissect it with a simple brilliant conceit – the pro/con of the court room. Themes are vivid and broad, the Iraq war and abortion are common touchstones, yet one episode in particular is starkly prescient in that it encapsulates, nay predicts, the sub prime meltdown that has gone on to infect the world economy. It’s practically a Wall Street Journal op ed piece through the prism of screwball comedy. And it works. The instrument may seem blunt, but in the hands of actors like Shatner and the ever expanding Spader it’s positively infectious. But singling this episode out would do a disservice to pretty much everything else about the show, especially the addition of John Larroquette as the stern new partner bought in to tame the motley crew of alleged lawyers down. This addition alone displays such confident self awareness that few other shows rarely exhibit. I finished Season 4 eager to explore this show and shamelessly perusing for other available seasons. An immense, happy victory.

DVDevotee The X Files: I Want To Believe (Fox)

Towards the end of its run, the TV series that spawned this utterly unnecessary feature was farcical. A once moody, smart conspiracy nut’s daydream devolved to a sodden by-the-numbers FBI procedural show with a weirdo bent. A concept that relied so heavily on both pre-millennial and sexual tension between its two lead actors could only go so far once the former turned out to be a non-event fizzer and the latter manifested itself as an ill-advised “between the sheets” photo shoot for Rolling Stone magazine. An odious franchise of crime scene shows eventually filled the insatiable gap for the public’s thirst for twisted cop shows, but nothing in David Caruso’s resume goes any length to explaining why series creator Chris Carter pulled this corpse out of retirement for one last tour. From the opening strains of the once eerie theme music to the overblown and trite finale that finds our protagonists – Agent Mulder and Ex-Agent Scully – lip locking in a manner normally reserved for Mills & Boon serialisations, this is a glorified, movie length episode circa 1997.

And that’s where it belongs. Now, I fully understand the pull of fandom (as a Freaks and Geeks extremist I was orgasmically overjoyed when the series was rescued from oblivion and released a few years back) and I also recognise that old concepts can be built upon with great success (Battlestar Galactaca) but neither explains this instalment. It says nothing about the world in 2008 whatsoever; the more prominent threat of terror isn’t disseminated nor climate change attacked. Instead we get a psychic kiddie fiddling priest (Billy Conolly in splendid dramatic mode, hamming but not baking) who may or may not know the whereabouts of a missing FBI agent. Ho hum. Of course she turns out to be the victim of a rancid Mengel-esque cloning experiment run by Russians (natch) but that’s pretty much it. Action, running and Google searching ensues (bam!) and I was left wondering when Dolly the Sheep became such an important topic for 2008. On the upside Amanda Peet is extraordinary as usual, as the lead FBI person and the cinematography is gorgeous – frigid, white and brittle. A bit like a girl I once dated. Hi Beth! Otherwise it’s a confusing mess best left for fans of the show or the mid 1990s.

Jamie Lidell - The world according to Jim

Jim Lidell

JAMIE LIDELL is about to see if all those Elton John comparisons floating around since the release of his third album Jim (Warp) earlier this year are based in reality. You see, Lidell is currently in Belgium prepping for a run of arena sized shows through Europe with the bespectacled, outrageous one himself. But if playing in front of tens of thousands just - made - redundant fund managers and their over-jewelled suburban wives is a nerve wracking experience, it’s not showing. In fact, he confides that it’s not the crowd size that concerns him, but the set up. “The most nervous thing about the shows is that we don’t even get a sound check. We’re trying to get the best 45 minute set that we can but I’m more worried about equipment failure.” And well he should. Stadium shows are capricious beasts and Lidell swings from full band, nu soul rave ups to avant-ballads over DJ scratching faster than an Elton wig change. “I wanna go out the back and cry!” he adds with an anxious laugh that sounds tongue in cheek, but is no doubt frighteningly real.

Jamie Lidell made his mark in 2005 with his genre splitting, attention grabber Multiply. It was a gonzo amalgam of Otis Redding, Sly Stone, Jackie Wilson, Hendrix, Stevie Wonder and the list could on for another page or so. It was defiantly retro yet paradoxically incredibly current. It sounded like a time capsule from Motown, the golden era of the ’60s and ’70s where pop was soul was rhythm was blues, but it was held together by very Internet II-era electonica. It was the sort of music that made Saturday nights smarter, sleeker and sexier. As a performer Lidell also copped hints from his eclectic range heroes, knowing that image is everything, so long as it is propped up with quality songs. There was lots of tin foil and lamé, however. On the back some extraordinary press attention after the release of Multiply including an Artist Of The Year gong from the redoubtable XLR8R magazine, Lidell hit the airplanes with passport in hand.

The Brussels-via-Berlin-via-Brighton songster had a successful run of international dates only to see the wind disappear from his sails. Expanding about his experiences the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Lidell laments the slowdown .“The second tour wasn’t as successful as the first. It had all sort of died down. But there’s no point going over there with the idea that you can crack America. You just play with what you’re comfortable with and if it happens… well, it happens. But you know, you live and learn.”

This Zen-like conversational path is a pleasant change from the usual array of musicians who talk of breaking into markets and relentlessly regurgitate press releases to bored journalists. In fact even though he’s on the other side of the world on a creaky line, Lidell sounds positively ebullient. Apart from rehearsing for the Elton shows, Lidell has started doing some friendly DJ sets, “you know just throwing on some records, maybe some Interpol, then doing a bit of live singing over the top,” he explains.

Regardless of where he is on this crowded globe, Lidell assures me he has friends in every port to hang out with, play some music with and get some ideas from. Yet despite this, he notes some keen differences. “Oh yeah – there are some differences. There aren’t as many fantastic beaches in Belgium as there are in Australia.” Yup. He has a point there; another pasty-white musician to watch out for in the forthcoming southern summer months.

Jamie Lidell will play at the Falls Festival this December/January. His latest album Jim is out now on Warp Records via Inertia.

DVDevotee Back To You (20th Century Fox)

Back To You seemed like a bit of an anachronism when it first aired last year. It was a return to the simpler more predictable days of situation comedy; multiple cameras, live studio audience, back-and-forth banter suitable for the whole family, and Kelsey Grammar. Pretty basic primetime stuff. But at least it’s not Two and a Half Men – what the fuck accounts for the success of that show? Is it maybe in times of crisis and uncertainty we want familiarity, comfort and nothing too challenging? But then a black man has just become President of the United States, so forget that theory. Gawd, when did everything get so confusing? Anyway, Back To You sees Grammar trading barbs with Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) his co-anchor at a smallish town TV station. The pair’s drunken hook up at a party ten years previous led to a daughter he didn’t know existed and much of this first, and only, series revolves around the slow reveal and concealment of this fact.

Reasonable hilarity ensues, matching the growing slow boil and smoulder of chemistry between Grammar and Heaton. However the real treat lays elsewhere in Fred Willard’s absurdist non-sequiters, superb timing and peculiar reminisces, and even though he’s trawling similar ground as he did in Best In Show, Waiting For Guffman, A Mighty Wind et al, it’s still a freakish delight to catch him in full flight, as is normally the case here.

And fortunately it picks up immeasurably when Josh Gad as the nervous, inexperienced station manager and Ty Burrell as the awkward, stumbling field reporter end up becoming the worthwhile focus points of the show as the Grammar/Heaton/child storyline peters out to an obvious and laboured conclusion. It’s no 30 Rock, The Office or Arrested Development, but it doesn’t want to be. It may be an old design, but Back To You is broad, dependable and solid but a million times better than Two and a Half Men.

DVDevotee Burn Notice – Series One (20th Century Fox)

Burn Notice is an unusual and at times frustrating show. When drip fed on free-to-air television last year it was difficult to warm to; it seemed cheap and nasty, unsure what exactly it wanted to be – an espionage thriller? Smarmy, tongue in cheek comedy? Cool, controlled insider spy drama? In the end it turned out to be a nimble mix of all these and a whole lot better than anyone had reason to hope for. We have Bruce Campbell to thank for that. And Jeffrey Donovan. The latter, in the lead role, plays Michael Westen as a spy who suddenly without warning or reason finds himself ejected from his shady CIA-esque employer – blacklisted or ‘burned’. Calling on his out-to-pasture, flabby, insolent best friend Sam (Campbell) with contacts all over the spy industry, Westen spends equal time attempting to regain his identity and then uncover the source of his blacklisting, funding himself via mercenary jobs as they arise, usually involving the protection of foolish loose acquaintances who get in too deep for their own good. Through it all Westen’s voice-overs provide DIY advice for the budding spy – the best way to win fights, how to out manoeuvre mobsters and lose a tail, manufacture explosive devices from household equipment and everything in between. OK, you have every right to assume we’re eerily close to MacGyver territory here but this one manages to charm its way out of that abyss with taught writing and, of course, Donovan and Campbell. Gabrielle Anwar as Westen’s on/off girlfriend grows exceptionally more bearable once she drops the risible IRA back story and preposterous ‘Oirish’ accent, and if that’s the most heinous crime of the show, then that’s hardly a complaint. Burn Notice settles after some early staggers and when measured against the yardstick that all DVD TV show releases should be measured by, namely is it worth repeated viewings; then yes, it’s a complete screwball success. Burn Notice is released on December 3, 2008.

DVDevotee 16 Lovers Lane: The Go Betweens

(Madman/SBS)
“How many times can we talk about the fucking relationships in the band?” shrieks the smirking, ever wily Lindy Morrison mere minutes into this instalment of the uneven SBS series exploring the classic canon of Oz albums. Well, another 50 minutes now that you ask, Lindy. Grab a drink maybe and enjoy raking over the ‘failed-relationship in bands’ coals yet again cos it’s a magnificent story. The Go-Betweens were one of the most idiosyncratic bands this nation has produced; an effete arch, supremely dapper artist convinces a reserved, movie loving, poetic type to form a band. With little more than a vague notion of playing songs together, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan became one of the great song writing duos of the modern rock/pop era, regardless of nationality. Later, wanting a female drummer Morrison was drafted into the band soon becoming a bedroom partner for Forster, then a few years later Amanda Brown completed the complicated relationship foursome on viola and oboe. And whilst it was Brown’s baroque pop bent that became one of the signature Go Between sounds, it was the art-rock leanings vs. classic easy, almost adult contemporary pop tension between Forster/McLennan that set them apart. 16 Lovers Lane was the first album to be recorded by the band in Australia after enduring some fruitless and painful years in London. This release is evident throughout the album, nowhere more so than the joyous Streets of Your Town.

The real delight on this DVD, other than the boisterous Morrison and articulately hilarious Forster, is the frank memories of and by bassist John Willstead, a disruptive part time member – from openly berating Morrison’s lack of skin skills through to acknowledging he had no idea who the band were before joining and then admitting he didn’t even like them after he found out. A hoot? You bloody well bet. Grant McLennan is obviously only present through extensive archival interviews and concert footage, but this ain’t no wake. It’s a thorough and exhilarating tale of every facet of Lovers Lane told with a wide eyed sense of possibility and bittersweet reflection. It’s also the best and most essential of the series thus far.

DVDevotee Martin (Umbrella)

Martin has a problem. He thinks he’s a vampire, but he comes across as just a shy, confused and disillusioned teenager in the middle of a sexual awakening he doesn’t quite understand or know how to control. Rather than take the normal path of awkward, drunken Saturday night fumbles and constant rejection, he has a nasty habit of drugging, raping and killing strangers. Not recommended, kids. Maybe it has something to do with his overbearing, Colonel Sanders-esque, Nosferatu-obsessed uncle who takes every spare opportunity to remind poor Martin that he is infected with Satan. Or maybe he really is the 84 year old vampire he claims to be, it’d certainly explain the Salem witch-hunt inspired flashbacks he experiences on a regular basis. One of George A Romero’s lesser known films, Martin is one of the filmmaker’s favourites and it’s easy to see why. Whilst not as gonzo gruesome as any in his …Dead canon it’s one of those great films of the 1970s that uses the decaying core of the American Dream and piles on sub text after sub text. Indeed, this is standard Romero – he has a ceaseless fascination with Dystopia. Martin is basically the story of an introverted vigilante, a kid with a vague chip on his shoulder thrust into the baffling world of sexual politics. There are shades of cable-fave Dexter in Martin; once the blood stops flowing he loses his interest in sex, and his motivation to do anything. Violence is sex, and it’s the only thing that inspires him to keep on going. It doesn’t help that his first consensual experience, with a bored housewife, ends with her committing suicide; but hey, we all have our crosses to bear.

n the background, urban Pittsburgh crumbles, much like Martin himself, in the visually arresting way only ’70s filmmakers like Schrader, Scorsese, De Palma, Friedkin et al could capture. Romero belongs in that club, sadly he is often misunderstood as the Gore King despite the sturdy social criticism underpinning every one of his films. Extras include audio commentary with Romero and the formidable Tom Savini (Martin was his first collaboration with the odd-spectacled genius), short doco, trailers, unsettling TV spots and galleries.

DVDevotee Great Australia Albums: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Murder Ballads (Madmen/SBS)

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have followed a uniquely violent, poetic and ambivalent path. They don’t give ass about public or critical perception, and even within a clearly defined sound they can tinker considerably with the edges – like they did this year on Dig! Lazarus! Dig! – yet remain wholly within their own aesthetic. Such definition, perversely, crates freedom.

So in 1996 when the band recorded Where The Wild Roses Grow with Kylie Minogue, just starting to define herself outside the SAW factory pop persona, brows were furrowed and chins stroked. Kylie got instant indie cred and Cave… well I’m still not sure what he got, despite his earnest proclamations herein about Kylie being a ‘national treasure’. I’m not foolish enough to argue the point on that, but I can confidently assert that Minogue is one of the most inarticulate, incoherent and vague interview subjects about an artist she recorded a career turning song with. For god’s sake, surely she had time to prepare a reasonably well structured sentence or two about the writing process or her thoughts on Cave, as a performer or person. Instead we get a babbling brook of simplistic senselessness that not only fails to scratch the surface – it doesn’t even enter the same room. If this doco was planned as some sort of stealth attack of Kylie’s ability to function outside the three-minute radio song format, it succeeded marvellously.

Almost all of the major players are interviewed, Warren Ellis and Blixa Bargeld being notable absentees. Cave’s recollections are expansive and dramatic as would be expected – thought bubble moments of German tourist slayings a particular highlight. Roland S Howard, despite looking like a 60 year-old canteen lady manages to stay upright on his stool – which for anyone who saw his performance last year at his ANU Bar is quite a feat. Conway Savage is deliriously engaging and Mick Harvey’s role as the musical core and equilibrium of the band is reinforced, as if it were necessary.

Absorbing viewing, by and large, yet there are other problems. The doco dissolves into a quasi history of the band rather than the recording of the album, song by song deconstruction style. Worthy and who knows – that may have been the intention of the producers to differentiate from its more famous counterpart. But the result is disjointed and sadly unsatisfying, especially considering the source material on offer.

The Dandy Warhols - Fine and/or Dandy

The Dandy Warhols

Australia is a strange and wonderful place. It’s not necessarily the heat, isolation, Bindi Irwin or mystifying appreciation of Powderfinger – but combine the first three and number four begins to make sense. No, Australia can be fascinating when it holds seemingly random artists close to its collective chest at the expense of others and flying in the face of trends or demographics. Take THE DANDY WARHOLS for example. In the UK they are primarily known for being ‘that Vodafone band’, a reference to the once ubiquitous Bohemian Like You that seemed to be everywhere in the early 2000s. In Europe they’re a festival mainstay. In their homeland, the US, they’d struggle to get arrested. But in Australia the Dandy Warhols are semi-citizens; indeed drummer and regular phone interview dodger Brent de Borg is shacking up with a Melbourne native before the end of the year to cement the Dandys-Oz link once and for all.

Yes, Australian audiences have been kind to their supple blend of placid psychedelic power pop, astral drones and skinny legged hipster pouting. Dandy’s guitarist Peter Holmstrom has a good idea why. “Australians get that we have sense of humour.” Take their breakthrough single Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth, the semi-detached ironic tirade against heroin chic, nodding-off delivery and all. It takes a rugged sense of irony and humour to write a song lambasting vacant, aloof posturing whilst engaging in the very same behaviour all the way to the middle of the charts. Peter continues, “People don’t want their band to have a sense of humour. But personally I think it comes down to whether you like the music or not, it shouldn’t be about anything else. I know that having met some of my favourite bands, getting along with some of those people and not getting along with others – I made a conscious decision that music is not the people. You know – I can still like the music even if I don’t like the people… and it doesn’t seem like it should be that hard, but it was. It was a bit of a dilemma with a certain band.” Not that he’s naming names or anything, damn you Holmstrom! Kill Yr Idols indeed, as industry iconoclasts Sonic Youth once proposed. Figuratively, not literally. Of course.

But this business called music is a fickle, fad driven beast, “It seems like in England our audience has just gotten older, the influx of new listeners hasn’t really come in. England is such a trendy market so I’m not that surprised; what we’re doing now doesn’t sound like anything that’s popular. Everywhere else, it’s the full spectrum.” Moving beyond any nominal ‘scene’ would surely be the goal of any band hoping for longevity, and the Dandy’s are no different; releasing seven albums over fifteen years with the most recent, back to basics release …Earth to the Dandy Warhols on their own Beat The World Records, after exiting heavyweights Capitol Records. “It makes perfect sense, we’re not making music for just one thing, it’s not supposed to be connected to just one person. We’re making records that are a permanent thing.” As Holmstrom agrees however, time will be the ultimate test.

The move to complete independence hasn’t been a dramatic shock to the band, as Holmstrom explains, “We’re involved in every decision, but it doesn’t seem that much different from before because so much of the machine was already set up and it had nothing to do with Capitol Records… you know, they just put the records out.” Touring, bookings and all other support functions were farmed out beforehand and you get the impression that the band’s relationship with a nasty major label was purely dutiful. “It’s much the same as before, except that nobody says no!” Ah yes – the devil hands of meddling studio hacks knocking down every good idea and offering a posse of redundant ones. The Dandys should make a documentary about that one day.

Warming to the topic of total control the laconic guitarist continues, “You know there have been plenty of ideas that have been completely not feasible, and we realise that as time goes by. But nobody says so right up front. So it feels like we get to work things through, we get to learn and not get shot down.” The dissolution of the old system has increasingly created possibilities for new bands, and if you’re reading this whilst listening to a digitally compressed music file, well so much of such a simple task is tied up in the new way that I doubt you could consider waiting for official release dates before hitting the bit-torrent sites. Let alone what it means to stand up to turn a record over to listen to Side B. Or working horrific soot soaked 12-hour shifts down a pit.

But now’s not the time for hollow nostalgia of the industrial revolution. “You have to change, because the old ways never really worked, and they never did. We always felt like we didn’t get everything out of the label, there were things they weren’t doing or even willing to try. We felt like we never really fitted into any of the genres or any of the little boxes they wanted to fit us into so when we said no it would hurt people’s feelings, which is really silly. We just didn’t want to do anything that was embarrassing or pointless. It was just frustrating.”

Not that it ever called into question the purpose or drive of the band. Like Brando in a tight white shirt rage, they just wanted to stick it to The Man. “We just always had someone to rebel against.” Now that they are fully self managed and released, it might be difficult to find a suitable focus of their rebellion, perhaps it will be turned inwards. “No, we’ll find something else.”

Playing in Canberra for the first time in eight years at the 40th Anniversary Stonefest sounds like a pleasant outing for Holmstrom and co. “I love playing festivals, it feels like summer camp.” And depending on the largesse of organisers we may be lucky and get a marathon, Grateful Dead-esque wig out. “We’re finding it very, very difficult to play under two hours because of the amount of songs we have, most of which we feel like we’re expected to play.” Then as if to point at the staggeringly obvious Holmstrom adds with a wry laugh, “There’s no usually with us.”

The Dandy Warhols play the Stonefest Superstage on Saturday November 1st at 7.30pm. …Earth To The Dandy Warhols is out now through Inertia.

DVDevotee The Onion Movie (Fox Home Entertainment)

In case you don’t already know, The Onion is a satirical newspaper. In the previous millennium, in Web 1.0 days, it was considered to be an excellent office-based time waster and quite a good laugh; LOLS weren’t invented at that stage if memory serves. These days its star has dimmed significantly, although some of the earlier faux-headlines retain a distinct glory: World’s Largest Metaphor Hits Iceberg, Holy Shit: Man Walks On Fucking Moon and referring to Bill Clinton, President Feels Nation’s Pain, Breasts. In its heyday it was sharp as a nail and almost every story fused pop culture and current affairs references with satire, verve and astonishing wit. Then it went to shit. As if to prove the latter point we now have The Onion Movie, a disastrous attempt to cash in on the web/print version of the paper. Stuck in development hell for many years, somehow this project has managed to get itself released. It was probably costing more to store the film stock than release this turd. At some stage I guess it made sense to try and bring the humour of the paper to the screen although it’s a rather difficult task to transfer the headline Drugs Win Drugs War to the big screen with any degree of success.

Sometimes ideas are best left in the creative room. Charlie Brooker had a similar problem with his very funny website TV Go Home launching the somewhat funny sitcom Nathan Barley but succeeded barely, and even with the genius assistance of Chris Morris. And The Chaser, who pretty much owe their entire career to The Onion achieved a similar transformation by running headlines ticker-tape style across the bottom of the screen – but at least something else was happening around it, pitiful and stubbornly non-satirical as it was. The Onion Movie has a plot, I think, involving a venerable, respectable newsreader who becomes increasingly sickened at the direction his broadcaster is taking after a corporate takeover. That’s it. That’s the plot. His disgust is manifested by a couple of brisk walks down the corridor to berate the new corporate owners. Wrapped around that feebleness are sketches of Onion style headlines acted out and an incredibly awful and alarmingly out-of-date Britney parody. Seriously, there’s absolutely no film here. It’s a loose idea, rough draft at very best. If you need further convincing of the hideousness of The Onion Movie, consider that Steven Segal’s brief appearances in parody film trailers being the high point. Then shake your head in wonderment and horror.

Howe Gelb - Desert Sessions

Howe Gelb

Interviews scream to a halt for many reasons; the interviewer may run out of questions or perhaps the whole thing is flailing with a performer far more media savvy and experienced taking the upper hand. Other times it’s just plain boring and the subject prattles on and provides redundant overused quotes and anecdotes. However, never have I had to cut an interview short because the interviewee has had to get back to dinner with indie-pop drama starlet and mini-legend Kristen Hersh. Down the line from an unnamed restaurant in Tucson, Arizona I interrupt the evening gathering of HOWE GELB , sometime leader of alt-rock-Americana (before there ever was such a phrase) stalwarts Giant Sand, frequent solo artist and partially delayed taco devourer.

Gelb is a great believer in change, mutation and organic growth. He’s been experiencing it first hand as a musician for over 30 years after all. In recent times as Giant Sand off-shoot outfit Calexico became the more popular act, he found it necessary to make the obvious decision and call a halt to the association. More change.
“Out here change occurs every day. The desert just gets mucked up every day by the elements. Whether it’s the pounding or de-particlising of the ground. Or when the rain comes. Well, it just has its way with everything. Nothing here can handle the rain, it just changes everything. And the wind, nothing but scatter, scatter, scatter.” Conversation then veers off to dust devils that resemble triangles and you can jump into them, or something. He continues “Anyway, the point is that all these make for something I call a positive erosion.”

And like most places there is change going on in his home town despite it being in the middle of a desert. It’s getting crowded. “People have moved here in abundance over the last two decades. It used to be retirees or people being punished. And it was really cheap to live. That’s why when I got here I stayed here and you’d entertain yourself with making music. In the old days there was not much going on here so you had to do it yourself. There were no radio stations, no one would play anything good.” Thus the need to manufacture, necessity being the mother of invention and all that.

But inspiration is more than comfort, cold beer and cheap housing, as he explains. “Isolation and struggle” is a common motivator. “The government isn’t paying for anything. The artistry becomes a mode of survival and out of that comes soulfulness because you tend to embrace the music as more precious and you give it more than anything else.”

It’s that lived-in, and live-by necessity sentiment that typifies Gelb’s music. It’s dry like his wit and delivery, but there’s a real sense of honesty with any of his projects. Indeed only the restless and inquisitive Gelb could pull off a sunny-sounding gospel album recorded in snowy Canada with the Voices of Praise Gospel Choir as he did on 2006’s Sno’ Angel Like You. His new album under the Giant Sand moniker, proVISIONS (Shock) is focused, melodic and bound to be disgracefully ignored by the general populace. Undoubtedly, he will happily continue.

It’s proof of a relentless quest for change, although Gelb would disagree on that work rate thing. “I like to do nothing. I’m really lazy and completely unambitious. And that’s all good if you want to live in the desert.” As a sand sociologist, Gelb is second to none. So, budding musicians, take heed of his ominous warning: “Inevitably I have found out every song you write will eventually come true. So look out. Be careful!”

Howe Gelb plays at The Factory Theatre, Enmore, on Friday October 31.

Kevin Bloody Wilson

Kevin Bloody Wilson

“G’day Justin, how the fuck are ya?” And with that simple and characteristic opening gambit, all my fears were assuaged – KEVIN BLOODY WILSON was on board and in full, easy flight. Sure, he was twenty minutes late but he blames the previous interviewer from Noosa, who kept him a little too long. “Fucking slap him around a bit,” is his straightforward advice on dealing with over-talkers. Something we should all take on board.

OK, before I continue it’s only fair to point out there will be swearing from here on in, but what else should you expect from the man behind such classics as Hey Santa Claus (You Fucking Cunt), Ho Ho Fucking Ho and the tender Do Ya Fuck On First Dates? He consistently pulls enormous crowds with his ribald, politically incorrect song parodies and you’d be wrong to assume it’s the outback’n’ocker crowd that warms to this Outback Balladeer the most.

Our nation’s capital holds him dear to their collective heart it seems “Strangely enough when we go to Canberra we always sell out the show.” Reminiscing about this city soon finds Wilson warming to one of his pet topics and making the point to remind me it’s this very town that’s responsible for much of the anger out in the general populace, frustrated with the frippery, hectoring and proscriptive mind set. “Aw, it’s all fucking rhetoric. You’ve got people down there setting the agenda for what they call political correctness which is an absolute fucking crock of shit.” I use my tactical advantage as a local to suggest Wilson’s routines and general lack of not giving a shit to how he’s perceived act as a communal release valve for punters, who are sick of the weasel words creeping into our once robust and colourful vernacular.

“Thank you. I guess you’re just not allowed to say the things I say. If the political corrects had their way you wouldn’t have comedians in Australia – something you say is going to be offensive to somebody. It’s just fucking bullshit, absolute fucking bullshit.” But, before you can blink we’re back talking politics and this time the recent election in Western Australia, a place where Wilson spends the majority of his time and where he got his leg up in the mine fields of the dry, mineral rich expanse of the far west.

Over 25 years as a “professional hobbyist” Wilson has witnessed a slow creeping change in his adopted state. “They’ve sucked the guts out of a lot of towns because of this fly-in/fly-out stuff. While a lot of the towns are fucking surrounded by mines they’ve got fuck all else going on. The sense of community isn’t there any more. There’s no footy side, no cricket team on the weekend because there’s no cunt there.” Despite this, he is heartened by the recent change of government, although it’s not the shade of party he’s happy with. “Personally I don’t give a fuck, but it’s the promise to the regional areas. They’re pulling for 25% fucking royalties off the mining industry. So they fucking should for the regional areas. I live in Perth and we’re well catered for, so fuck ’em. Put the money back where the money’s coming from.” A most reasonable and astute argument you’d be hard pressed to fault, and one borne of time spent pounding every highway in this country.

Kevin Bloody Wilson has an opinion, likes to make people laugh and doesn’t really care what others think about him or his comedy. In someone less travelled, articulate (yes, articulate) and thoughtful, such a character would be a buffoon and lord knows I’m sure we all know many like that. But the real delight is that while there is a character on display, it’s grounded in reality and experience and not only for show. He lives it like he sings it, doing exactly as he pleases, pulling no punches and making a comfortable living whilst he’s at it. He won’t bring down the government when next in town, but I bet there’ll be plenty who work in close proximity to it yelling loud and clear, front and centre.

Kevin Bloody Wilson will express his opinion articulately at the Vikings Club, Erindale on Friday October 10.

DVDevotee Deep Water (Hopscotch)

You ever told a little white lie that came back to bite you? Mangled the truth to get out of a tight spot only to get sprung and subsequently humiliated? Perhaps you valiantly attempted to spin your way out of it by embellishing and making the deceit larger and getting in deeper. It’s a horrible tight feeling of doom and dread, not wanting to get caught out but being too far to back down. Spare a thought then for Donald Crowhurst, the archetypal courageous British lion standing up to be counted in the first round of the world yacht race of its type in 1969 with little more than a few weekends pleasure craft sailing behind him. Crowhurst was a family man, a big thinker whose ideas invariably ended in dust and approaching his middle years there was not much to show. He then hit upon the idea of a solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world to secure a £5,000 booty that would stabilise his professional and personal life. It was the typically mad British thing to do. Things weren’t particularly good from the start. After securing financial backing and press via a ruthless Fleet Street self promoter, Crowhurst captured the imagination of a nation willing to buy into any old British ‘can-do’ mythology on offer; the Empire was still strong and a Brit had sailed around the world a year previous. But even as an amateur sailor he knew the craft he was entering would simply not be up to the task. You can see the regret in his eyes as he sets out from Devon on the last possible day before the race is closed. What follows is one man’s journey into the biggest lie of his life: he falsifies the boat’s log books and convinces himself of unlikely victory by waiting for the race leaders to finish their lap of the world whilst he idles in the Atlantic Ocean sailing absolutely nowhere. Events and nature conspire, but eventually it’s Crowhursts’ own mind that turns on itself.

e becomes a mad Kurtz-like character set adrift from reality, and the world, scribbling philosophical treaties verbatim. This documentary is monumentally sad and thoroughly engrossing, utilising talking head interviews with fellow competitors, family and friends. Recordings of Crowhurst on his journey and footage of equally mad Frenchman Bernard Moitessier ratchet up the intensity, resulting in a sense of shock and disbelief when it’s all over. And I’ve only told you the half of it.

DVDevotee Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (Warners)

In 2006 it was announced there would be two shows on the very same network both dealing with the behind the scenes mischief of a prime time ensemble comedy sketch show – it was going to be either a masterstroke of programming genius or the most foolish decision since Nixon purchased that Dictaphone – or two shows ostensibly about what happens when the cameras are turned off after an episode of Saturday Night Live. History shows 30 Rock won the ratings battle and heads towards its third season with a full gust of wind and awards behind it, but the similarly numerically titled Studio 60 didn’t fare so well and was canned before the end of its premiere run. Upon release, there was much hype, expectation and grudging respect for this Aaron Sorkin (West Wing, Sports Night) dramedy. Studio 60 promised a return to intense pede-conferencing, light speed banter and highly stylised television of early West Wing. By and large it delivered. The big cheerful surprise was Matthew Perry’s brilliance – who knew this Friend’s huckster had talent, timing and depth? The sad, exasperating surprise was Sorkin’s inability to craft a series set on a supposedly legendary comedy show that is the least bit funny.

Sure, the drama behind the scenes appealed to a certain type of viewer interested in industry machinations and the self referential story lines (Perry’s drug background = Sorkin’s personal history) were charming and knowing – but every so called ‘sketch’ is an abject lesson in comedy by committee. It simply isn’t funny. And it needed to be to maintain the illusion of believability. There is no proof that Studio 60, the ‘show-within-the show’, is actually humorous. Indeed, one wonders if the onscreen portrayal of hapless writers struggling, and failing to bring the funny is actually a manifestation of Sorkin’s fraught state of mind once the audiences began to dip, the critics bared their fangs, and execs unceremoniously decided the show was a lame duck. With hindsight Studio 60 is better now than before. The drama is dogmatically multi-layered, Amanda Peet and Steven Weber work wonders with engrossing character arcs and Brad Whitford is on TV again. Result! Yet whilst the topical, sometimes hectoring story lines may date (some absolutely have) and the first episode Gilbert and Sullivan sketch should be erased from tape and memory, Studio 60 is an admirable, classy and entirely watchable failure.

DVDevotee Classic Albums Under Review: Guns ’n’ Roses – Use Your Illsuion 1& II

(Shock)
OK, the sleight of hand in the title is in the suffix ‘Under Review’. The addition of these two words means much, for this is definitely not part of the superior BBC Classic Albums series. Rather it’s a shoddy, poorly filmed, scripted, edited and attended shadow of the originating concept. First and foremost is the total absence of the band or anyone remotely associated with the recording of the over-the-top, in parts hugely enjoyable behemoth that was Use Your Illusion I & II. Instead we get DJs, magazine publishers, empty TV news bobble heads and assorted hangers on to the LA glam scene that resolutely refuse to let past recede and ramble on with pointless, wearisome anecdotes about how they used to hang with Axl and the boys back in the day. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there was a vague association of the subjects on offer, but when you have to rely on sub-par concert footage to flesh out the discussion it’s a doomed mission. Indeed, spending the best part of the first half of this DVD talking about the superior nature of their scorching debut, Appetite For Destruction, is surely a recipe for destruction, or disinterest of the main event at the very least. Having said that, there is some awesome vox-pop type footage of an Australian crowd prepping for a Gunners show in the great western expanses of one of our major cities in the early ’90s, and I was wishing the whole doco had been about those shows at Eastern Creek and Calder Park. But I was shit out outta luck. The Classic Album series is a success because it assembles behind the scenes information, stories and explanations for well known albums sounding the way they do. The band, key production and management staff reliving the moments where splices of tape transcended their humble origins, becoming amazing, memorable songs often induces wide eyed wonder and invariably enriches all future listening experiences, all the while dodging excessive wonkishness. This DVD does nothing of the sort. It’s a shameless cash in worthy of nothing but a court injunction on the grounds of offence to common decency.

DVDevotee The Best of Radiohead

(Parlophone)
Radiohead: The Best Of, assembled against the band’s wishes at the conclusion of their relationship with EMI/Parlophone, is exactly what the cover art says – a visual chronological jaunt from the little band from Oxford that could. It’s no spoiler to point out at this early stage that the only things that remain constant with this band over the 11 year run represented here is Johnny Greenwood’s insanely stark square-jawline that mathematicians have yet to figure out, and Thom’s obsessive need to not be a star. He’s against all that malarky, don’t you know. It’s about the music see. Proceedings start creakily at Creep – a song which still leaves me cold – and there’s little at this early juncture to suggest this ragged, poorly-attired mob would become the Krautrock inspired prog monsters they morphed into circa 1997 to 2001. In fact, they come across as a rather redundant and annoying indie-pop band (Shed Seven, Mansun, anyone?) waiting for the bomb to drop. Next up, Anyone Can Play Guitar, clearly honouring the mantra of The Shaggs, proves that anyone can make clips like EMF and by Pop Is Dead an obvious XTC debt looms far too large and any casual observer would have justifiably lost interest and jumped on the nascent Crash Test Dummies juggernaut. Then, by gods, they redeem. But you already know that – it’s no surprise at all. Clips circa The Bends find a band settling into the college rock format, visually and sonically, before their Pink Floyd moment arrives in the Magnus Carlsson directed Paranoid Android. Then it all gets very large and ubiquitous, it was OK Computer after all. Record company cash funds the deconstructionist dystopias of Pyramid Song and Sit Down, Stand Up. As the years progress, the band recede into the background and become less of a feature until their appearances feel more like a contractual obligation than a genuine interest in actually being onscreen. Indeed, by Go To Sleep it’s CGI time - an animatronic success it should be noted. There are many genuine late night Rage classics contained herein, but more importantly, this DVD chronicles Radiohead giving a resolute middle digit to the industry whilst still playing within its confines. That either makes them hypocritical cop outs or smart ass renegades.

DVDevotee The Wire – Season 3 (Warner)

There’s no point getting into some lengthy treatise about the shabby treatment of quality US drama on Australian television. Irregular scheduling and lacklustre promotion is par for the course when it comes to shows like The Wire, The Sopranos and Curb Your Enthusiasm. And in the era of TiVo and torrents it’s the major distribution studios that have shown the foresight lacking in TV executive land with swift releases of TV shows, many of which were lucky to even be screened here. Sure, it’s a business and it’s just another product, but still, at least they treat fans with a degree of respect. One of the most justifiably acclaimed shows in the history of television and one of few unapologetic examinations of the American underclass, The Wire was created by ex-Baltimore journo and small screen scribe David Simon (Homicide: Life on the Streets) and fellow Baltimorean and ex-homicide detective Ed Burns. Together they formed a formidable writing partnership, took the drug laden streets of Baltimore as a canvas and painted an unbelievably rich portrait of life in Anytown, USA; replete with chaos, violence, sex, drugs, corruption, duplicity, old-fashioned honour, betrayal and booze. There are no heroes or villains to speak of – it’s not that simplistic and it demands much of the viewer. Story arcs are not always explicit and character motivation only becomes apparent upon devoted viewing, and sometimes not at all. It sounds like a chore, but it’s the furthest from it. Season Three is the reminder that politicians are just as grubby in power consolidation as the thugs, although with far less lethal consequences.

This becomes very clear as one of the main characters meets their demise in the season finale, so obvious on paper but still hard to accept. There are mayoral elections, the ill-fated ‘Hamsertdam’ experiment and Stringer Bell imparting MBA-quality business advice to his underlings. Throughout it all, the density of plots and dialogue is breathtaking – as one of the cast members comments in a supplied doco, it’s the only English language script he’s ever received with a glossary. At times, you wonder whether that glossary should be included as a necessity in each box set. How do you top this effort? Well, I’ll see you next column…

DVDevotee The Wire – Season 4 (Warner)

Oh hai – you’re back. Picking up from a few centimetres to your left we have the simultaneously released Season Four, wherein the gaze is turned to the school yard where thugs and runners are made. Where do they come from? Nature or nurture? The kids are gonna learn – then the questions are what and where? The street or the school room? This season is one of the strongest yet with the young unknown cast shining as wise-ass hustlers and sage souls years ahead of their age. One of the main drawcards of the entire series, Dominic West as the hopeless, irascible drunk Jimmy McNulty, plays a smaller role here, but with every characterisation so rich and deep and each actor so committed to the material it simply doesn’t matter.

The Wire is one of those rare shows that straddle entertainment and social commentary, making a point for sure but not ramming it down your throat, and it’s uncommon a plot device appears that isn’t absolutely essential for narrative thrust. Amazingly, this is a rarity in modern televisual screenwriting. It draws heavily on the first hand experience of Simon and Burns, but draws in an intimidating cast of contributors, writers and consultants: Richard Price (Clockers), George Pelecanos, trial lawyers, politicians, academics, prosecutors, academics and, most importantly, criminals. All the pieces matter. It presents urban decay dysfunction exactly as it is: to the police and criminals hierarchies matter and are very much the same - you are simply a cog in the system. Buck the trend and you’ll end up paying for it with demotions or death.

There is an illuminating and compelling documentary in two parts on this disc and that’s not only due to the appearance of Baltimore’s other favourite son, John Waters. Congratulations due to everyone involved in the simultaneous release of these discs (five per season) and, being one of the few shows that not only stands up to – but demands – repeated viewings, they are necessary additions to any collection. Elevating the street to art, The Wire is better than the rest, or as Simon says, “If we had done everything wrong it would have been a cop show.” That’s enough effusion for now. Or at least until Season Five is released.

THE GIN CLUB

WHAT: BRIV-VEGAS FOLK/COUNTRY/ROCK/PSYCH/ETC COLLECTIVE
WHERE: THE GREENROOM
WHEN: SAT AUG 9

Any band that lists Spiritualized, Will Oldham and You Am I (Sound as Ever-era … hopefully) as influences are onto something. They also draw inspiration from many other bands, but you’ll need to speak to them in person to find that out. Or maybe throw yourself into their sprawling, ambitious double album Junk, on which there are 26 songs! That’s more than My Bloody Valentine have ever recorded (unchecked fact) and about the same amount Ryan Adams uploads weekly (probably true). Not to be confused with ’80s punk/country rockers The Gun Club, this Brisbane-based, internationally road-hardened society are particularly restless and avid genre hoppers - you name it, and these multi-instrumental type guys will be able to play it. And if that sounds like a challenge to yell out random song names played by other artists at future gigs, then so be it. They seem like capable lads and any band that gets its start at open mic gigs should be well versed in the adroitly worded heckler put down. So drink up and heckle on folks, The Gin Club are in town.

theredsunband - The Shiralee (Enchanted Recordings/Shock)

Honestly it’s surprising this band is still going. Perennial also-rans, revelling in low key fuzz, plodding tempos and breathy vocals, theredsunband seem as underdone as a pair of black Hi-Top Cons purchased for $3 at the Fake Markets on Nanjing Road. You know - the ones that fall apart after a couple of weeks. Mangled, inappropriate metaphors aside, The Shiralee is a great album. Honestly. A cursory understanding of the band’s history paints picture so bleak and versed in near disaster and total misfortune it’s hard not to be astonished they can even be bothered writing songs any more. Glad they do though. Down to a core duo of sisters Sarah and Lizzie, this long delayed follow up to Peapod easily outshines its predecessor with sharper hooks, stronger melodies and a sense of cohesion I always felt the band lacked. Sarah’s delivery doesn’t sound so apologetic anymore, but it retains the sense of unforgiving despair that is nowhere near as stultifying as descriptions elsewhere suggest – think Caroline Kennedy of similarly and sadly ignored locals The Plums. Not a misstep in sight, The Shiralee is a success that should get more attention than it probably will.

Albert Hammond Jr - ¿Cómo Te Llama? (Rough Trade/Remote Control)

Albert is the high-Strat wearing lead guitarist from The Strokes, in case that whole new garage rock thing passed you by. And if it did, then don’t bother reading any further because this falls somewhere between his band and um, tedium. Sure there are some neat melodic hooks, the riffs are as metronomic as ever and there are things resembling songs on this release - as opposed to Hammond’s faltering debut - but ¿Cómo Te Llama? (Spanish for “Sorry about the cancelled tour”) lacks spark and a unifying feeling, sounding exactly like the swiftly recorded disc it is. The Boss Americana is a crunchy pop rocker, a million miles away from the East Village and all the better for it. It’s also the most energetic track on a relaxed, almost lethargic, album. Elsewhere, cod reggae sidles up against moody instrumentals, strings, kinetic new wave romps and the inevitable Strokes throwaways. Gawd – there’s nothing worse than getting to the end of an album and struggling to remember anything about it, despite it being fresh in your memory. Who knows, maybe it’s a grower. Or maybe I’ll forget all about it and just listen to Bee Thousand again.

Martha Wainwright - I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too (Shock)

Martha Wainwright’s value is her voice – the way it glides, growls and soars all over the place, seemingly cracking mid-vowel only to assertively reform at the last minute. Her self-titled release was engaging, light on the studio trickery and opulence that invariably weighs down her big brother Rufus. It’s clear that on I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too, Martha is a convert: Big is better. Stevie Nicks big. Highly compressed, studio session player instrumentation type big. There are saccharine guitar flourishes and fills where there used to be space. Where before you could hear the crack of Martha’s voice and space and intimacy filled the songs, now it’s all sheen, density and robustness. In places it works (You Cheated Me and Comin’ Tonight) but usually it’s annoying, all the more frustrating if you are aware of her enormous ability to capture attention through the simplest of couplets and chords. The pair of covers feel tacked on and unnecessary; See Emily Play (Pink Floyd) is rather psych-lite and Love Is A Stranger (Eurhythmics) is a leaden blunt hammer – complete with ’80s horn and Dick Dale soloing replacing the sinister and menace of the original. Why? Who the fuck knows. Well, I bet Brad Albetta does. As Martha’s new husband and frequent musical collaborator, Albetta has really stepped up to and beyond the plate, packing this release full of noise and clutter. Still, the Wainwrights do like to keep it in the family and if it all goes ass up in five years time – Martha will just write a scathing, acrimonious tune about it.

DVDevotee Genesis When In Rome 2007

(Virgin)
Upon hearing my love of Genesis people usually laugh and call me names. “Sad old tosser” for example. It’s a cruel world really as they find out soon enough after a quick retaliatory jab to the kidneys. Many people see Genesis as soft ‘80s FM codgers who are unable to dance and equally incapable of touching, visibly. They are wrong. Genesis are one the oldest, most venerated and likeable of that hoary old beast called the prog rock band, who, with their original lead singer Peter Gabriel, recorded the utterly splendid and gorgeous The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.

This DVD captures Genesis (sans Pete Gabriel, alas) at the start of their 2007 tour in Rome, obviously. It’s their first in 15 years and they had the collective presence of mind to invite a camera crew along for ride as they prepared. The resulting two hour doco called Come Rain or Shine is the real treat on this super three-disc set and one whose enjoyment is not limited to the Genesis fan. The full access, fly-on-the wall material catches some great moments: an excruciating press junket where lead singer/drummer Phil Collins bristles, and then exits when being questioned about the bands fan base or “sad blokes who live with their mums.”

The real bonanza however is the stage show: its design, planning, rehearsal and shambolic operation. Nothing really clicks, graphics totally miss cues and the crew cover their asses and don’t quite acknowledge they haven’t hired anyone to push a button at key moments during the show. As the first show approaches no one can be found to fulfil this key role, simple as it seems. Things get quite tense – band, crew and management get snappy. It’s grippingly hilarious stuff. A little dafter is Collins’ brain wave of a duelling drummer scenario and his drum tech’s subsequent bumbling efforts to secure a stool that sounds just right. “Why did I inherit this stupid fucking task” he ponders, reasonably enough, after one disastrous voyage to the local mega mart. The show itself is as a spectacle: massive crowd, big clean audio, wavey neon stage and a set list that appeases old jerks like me and newer fans alike. An unanticipated victory.

Neon Neon - The man that gave a f–k

One of the joys of the telephone interview is getting your subject in vastly different time zones. An early morning call can result in sleepy rambles whilst evening calls can run the gamut from drunken tirades to thoughtful conversations full of ready-made quotes, quips and anecdotes. Then there are those interviews where you call the wrong number and waste valuable record company time and money waiting for a non-existent musician to materialise at the other end. Turns out that one digit is the difference between a Welsh pop magician and a random argumentative family somewhere in London, who either improbablely do have a family member called Gruff, or were simply too startled to tell the unusual Antipodean caller to sod off. Either way, I was afforded the luxury of eavesdropping on five minutes of CNN Market Wrap and a bit of domestic squabbling before realising my error and redialling. “Did you do an interview with them?” Gruff Rhys queries helpfully, after hearing of my celebrated dialling skills. I didn’t, but I managed to monitor my share portfolio for what it’s worth.

Gruff Rhys is engaging in that most celebrated of activities musicians stroke their egos with – the side project. Taking time out from fronting psych folk rockers Super Furry Animals, Rhys has paired up with LA based producer Boom Bip under the guise of NEON NEON to celebrate the life of infamous car inventor, toucher of blonde women and trafficker of cocaine John De Lorean - inventor of the wing-doored car that bears his name and stars in the Michael J Fox classics Back to the Future I-III. Rich pickings as Rhys informs me: “Obviously De Lorean was an extremely dodgy guy, but he was a very inspiring subject to write about.

e kind of pioneered some of the less savoury aspects of life in the 21st century - completely obsessed with celebrity culture.” Like the inspiration himself, Neon Neon’s debut album is a shiny clarion call from 20 years ago, or as Rhys prefers, “It’s a fantasy party record! It’s a completely reckless record – glorifying cars and right wing traditionalists like John De Leroan. It’s just an album about a very flawed human being.”

Neon Neon come from the world of 12 inch remixes, Air Jordans and the ‘Keytar’, and like anyone recording a concept album about a questionable character, the famously eclectic songwriter really suffered for his art.

We listened to a lot of crap ’80s music. Crap but beautiful. Like Cliff Richards’ Wired for Sound.” It would be around this point that most people would throw down their Walkman in disbelief, but he’s serious. “We didn’t want to make a parody record. There’s a genuine love of people like New Order and Prince. We were earnestly into it all and quite militant in keeping the record shiny and leaving the darker, more ethereal sound off the record.” Indeed it was the darker material that pleased Rhys the most, despite the fact it never actually made it on the record. “I felt it was some the best things I have ever recorded – but it wasn’t the right vibe.” Who knows, maybe they’ll turn up on a period referencing B-Side of a forthcoming 12” Single.

Neon Neon tour nationally alongside Goldfrapp, Soulwax, Peaches, Dizzee Rascal, Does it Offend You, Yeah? and more as part of Parklife, which touches down at Moore Park in Sydney on Sunday October 5. Tickets from www.parklife.com.au . Stainless Style is out on Lex Records via inertia.

The Dandy Warhols - Earth To The Dandy Warhols (Etch n Sketch/Inertia)

Surely the title of this album is just asking for trouble. Like say “Give Up. Please,” especially given the band’s form since the early noughties. But anyone familiar with The Dandy Warhols and their nonchalant vacant fashionista glaze would also know they really don’t give a fig about abuse, critical or crowd led. Lead Dandy Courtney Taylor-Taylor even went so far as to narrate the doco Dig! where the band came across as nothing but soulless careerists. So, Courtney and co. are either supreme ironists or talentless hacks riffling through 30 years of alt-rock looking for the next hazy dirge. Of course the answer depends on where you sit. For me the Dandy’s were jolly good fun ten years ago and Earth tries very hard to reclaim those glory years, with middling results. The album falters out of the start box with Taylor’s weak, reed thin falsetto on The World The People Together (Come On), before moving swiftly onto the comically awful, dumb-jock vocals of Mission Control. At this point it wasn’t looking good but Welcome To The Third World pretty much pushed me into the negative, floundering in ill-advised Nile Rogers funk circa Duran Duran’s Notorious. Remarkably and somewhat surprisingly, the album is salvaged as it moves on, mainly because there is enough justified by wistful memories of bare-titted tambourine shaking and by making successful concessions to the band of old (And Then I Dreamed Of Yes, Now You Love Me). Neither a comeback nor an outright failure, Earth To The Dandy Warhols breathes some life into a weary outfit many had given up on.

DVDevotee Classic Albums: The Doors

(Eagle Eye Media/Destra)

I never really got into The Doors. Jim Morrison’s vacant lothario preening, faux nihilistic primary school poetry and cadaver stage presence was a false start. Whilst presented as the anti-hippie band from down the coast, The Doors were designed for those merely wanting to flirt with Dante-esque slides into decadence. It was marketed as grimy, grungy and grotty - everything the sun and beach culture of LA wasn’t. That 20 years later the same stretch of the Sunset Strip cultivated the preening, empty, although immeasurably more enjoyable glam rock scene should not be forgotten. Having said that, the Classic Albums series doesn’t rely on a love of the band for guilty pleasures - especially if your taste runs to aging, balding recoding engineers dropping EQ levels and gleaming at the camera with murderous joy. I concede a case can be made that the propulsive, hopscotch guitar and keyboard riffage of Break on Through is a reasonable thrill and an amazing statement of intent for a debut album opening track. But the collective reminiscing made me wistful for a time when this music was received as innovative and zeitgeist stuff - not for the music itself but the scene that surrounded it. All the major players are represented here; Robby Krieger looking like a dried prune recently rescued from a bowl of brine, Ray Manzarek coming off like a terribly groovy English Lit professor rapping with the ‘kids’ and John Densmore stating with a clarity borne of first hand knowledge “self destruction and creativity are not always in the same package… you can’t just wear leather pants, drink and make it.”

Take note [insert name of every up-and-coming rock band]. What is most rankling about this particular disc is the dismissive attitude displayed by some parties that The Doors weren’t about flower power, but personal power. It simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Mainly because it summarily ignores the work of anything north of LA and deceitfully overlooks the inane ramblings of Morrison, who in less lucid moments was prone to rave on like a self-involved grad student: to wit, the lolling, drug-addled indulgence of his song ‘explanations’, included here in all their foul glory - it’s the type of stuff that went unchecked for years until he checked out for good years later in Paris. This Dionysian dream was nothing but a morally bankrupt nightmare.

MARK KOZELEK- Always good for a laugh

MARK KOZELEK isn’t a showy character, despite the fact he can rip off Crazy Horse-style guitar shards at ease for well over ten minutes, or just as easily sing sweet lullabies to his cat - one of which rested next to him during our conversation. His trick, for want of a better term, is consistency; you know what to expect with each release and yet remain delighted despite the stylistic similarity that marks his resume. Somewhat surprisingly for a guy whose sepia toned, textured, cardboard-thick recordings suggest a man in the grips of morbidity, he was effusive, expansive and damn near energetic when I spoke to him from his house in San Francisco.

Although reminisces of European tours dampened his mood a little - “For me there’s always a little sense of gloom and doom every time I have to fly into Heathrow. I really don’t like flying. You’re stuck in a plane for 12 hours then all of a sudden you’re very far from the people you’re closest to.”

And it’s not just those who you have left behind that you worry about: it’s those you meet on the road that also cause their fair share of worries. And yourself, as Kozelek explains. “You find yourself acting strange. Sometimes when I’m on stage and I start rambling about my personal life or spilling my guts to some weird fan that’s gonna post what you said online in half an hour… it’s a weird world, a whole different thing. Being in that world where people are obsessed with you is strange, idiosyncratic and exclusive.” But he’s not being the archetypal whinger bemoaning ‘life on the road,’ displayed as the juvenile, excessive, groupies and airports affair by so many who have come before him - he’s making a cogent point that travelling, whilst sounding great on paper, is actually a bit of a bore. “You make a connection with people but not in a way that you do with the people you love at home, its very different.”

And the next time you’re bounding out of a venue, vocally declaring the gig you just saw to be the best ever - well, since the last one at least - just remember it isn’t all strippers and blow backstage. At least it isn’t for Kozelek: “Sometimes, even though you’re out there playing for 500 or 1000 people, so for two hours you sort of have the world in your hands, but in a second those people are out the door, on trains. And I’m backstage with the club guy, who really just wants you to get the fuck out of there because he has to do the same thing tomorrow night, and all of a sudden you’re in a cab and in a hotel room, jetlagged, fucking lonely as hell, and you can’t call anyone ‘cause it’s fucking expensive and it’s some weird hour somewhere else.” Honestly, on paper it sound like a moan, but it was the best description I have ever heard from a musician on the tedium of a professional life on the other side of a guitar. And a topic discussed equally brilliantly in Dean Wareham’s (Luna) recently released autobiography Black Postcards, recommended by Kozelek himself as a true depiction of life as a struggling indie icon.

From his earliest days in intense, emotion-heavy folk rockers Red House Painters to his more recent incarnation as Sun Kil Moon, Mark Kozelek has been no stranger to critical acclaim. But don’t think a few sharply phrased, introspective fan boy observations will get you into his scrapbook of well-thumbed reviews. “I never get into the cryptic writing of a journalist who’s explaining the record - I was there!” Fair point, actually. “There’s really nothing I have to learn from what someone else has to say. Often times things are not accurate – ‘This song was written about something that happened in a hospital room.’ No it wasn’t!”

A sage reminder to all music fans who think they ‘really get’ their artists of choice - lay off the dozy interpretation and enjoy the ride. Pragmatically, Kozlek has his mind elsewhere “It doesn’t matter to me.
I just want the review to be good.”

And he has every reason to hope for that as well, self-releasing on his own imprint Cobra Verde. “I’m in a different place now, I’ve got my own label, got my own website - you know, I’m trying to sell records. So when we get the press I definitely cross my fingers that it’s good, because it’s an investment for me.” Not that we should expect beer company banners proudly emblazoned at Kozlelk shows any time soon. “Honestly, if I got bad reviews it wouldn’t affect me. I wouldn’t second guess the album - ‘Aw man - they were right, this record sucks’ - and I have gotten some bad press on records in the past. Tiny Cities (Sun Kil Moon’s album of Modest Mouse covers) got some bad reviews but it didn’t affect me personally. Pitchfork, Rolling Stone gave it bad reviews and it pretty much trickled down from there, so I was like ‘fuck, I’m trying to sell records, this isn’t good.’ But I totally have a sense of humour; it doesn’t matter to me because I’m making music and I believe in it and I wouldn’t put these records out if I didn’t.”

Red House Painters dissolved slowly in the late ‘90s as the band became more a solo project for its singer/guitarist than a functioning band, so Kozelek made it a formality, began recording under his own name and released a series of acclaimed (naturally) records featuring radical re-imaginings of Bon Scott-era AC/DC tracks. Songs like If You Want Blood, Riff Raff, You Ain’t Got a Hold on Me and Rock ‘n’ Roll Singer were stripped of their sinewy lascivious sexuality and lust, revealing a sense of yearning and despair hitherto unseen in the three-chord Young/Scott wonders. Covers they may have been, but they felt like Kozlek originals conforming to the sombre pacing and almost monotone delivery of pretty much every song he’s committed to wax. In his choice of covers (AC/DC, Kiss, The Cars, John Denver) or original subject matter (boxers felled before their prime), Kozelek sounds exactly the same. Indeed, he chose to abandon the Red House Painters name and start again as Sun Kil Moon because he predicted fans and critics had become bored of his old trading name.

Overall though, he remains comfortable in his own skin regardless of what name it goes by. “I’m 41 now so it’s simply a matter of becoming who you are. It’s like a Woody Allen movie; you use the same guy every time, because it just works. I’m at that stage in my life where I don’t wanna fuck around. I know who I am, what I wanna do and what works for me. AC/DC, Stereolab, Will Oldham (Bonnie “Prince” Billy) have all got a way of doing things and I’m just like that. I don’t have any bag of tricks. There’s one thing I know how to do and I’m not gonna try to pretend to be anyone else.”

Mark Kozelek performs under the Sun Kil Moon banner on Friday July 25 at The Factory Theatre, Sydney, supported by Emily Ulman (Melbourne). Tickets are $30 plus BF from the Enmore Box Office (9550 3666) or www.factorytheatre.com.au . April is out now on Spunk.

DVDevotee American Gangster – Extended Edition

(Universal)
That wearisome dinner party game of comparing adaptations failing the transition from the page to big screen now has a sister version – movies that can’t even get magazine articles right. American Gangster is based on a New York magazine article called Return of the Superfly. Reading like a blockbuster in the making, it’s easy to see why it was optioned, speeding through the years with white powdered abandon, the giddy self-aggrandizing braggadocio of Frank Lucas proudly detailing his rise from the streets of Harlem to insane New York drug kingpin. His method, smuggling the dope in the coffins returning from the Vietnam War, was as audacious as the man himself, yet the film fails wholeheartedly in portraying his sheer brutality or kinetic energy. Instead American Gangster is a confused, rambling non-epic, overburdened with trite characterisations, repetitive set pieces and a sluggish tone overpowered by numerous unnecessary location changes.

When the Stax soundtrack ramps up on cue 30-odd minutes in, it heralds the entrance of pimps, hustlers, hookers and tight close up shots of Lucas (Denzel Washington) supervising the action – it’s an absurd game of ride the cliché coming off like an overcooked Scorsese-like mess at best; at worst a flimsy slumming homage to the risible Blow. Technique aside – what is this movie actually saying? The forward thinking street-smart philosophy Frank exhibits in taking on the Italian mob and beating them at their own game cannot displace the misery the man ultimately wreaked. He vociferously defends his actions to this day, claiming he was merely an uneducated black man trying to get ahead. No doubt – but the film glorifies his actions and methods by barely scratching the surface of the man. Washington’s performance is partly to blame, but really the script is the problem – an alternate, better version would have him reading the original article to the screen for 20 minutes.

More disastrously, the alternate ending on offer is a pathetic Hallmark moment implying a level of misplaced brotherhood between Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) and Lucas that simply didn’t exist for the majority of the film due to the parallel character arcs. The rare shinning lights are the RZA as Moses Jones whose mellifluous, breezy manner is a welcome respite from the jarring overacting happening all around and conversely, Josh Brolin hamming it up in the most delicious way possible as a corrupt NYC cop. Despite the plaudits, American Gangster is a lost opportunity.

Jeff Lang - Lang Way To The Top

Like most labels, the contemporary blues/new roots/blues roots/alt-America tag that invariably gets slung around Melbourne based guitarist JEFF LANG ’s neck is a pointless shortcut that counts for nought. Half Seas Over (ABC Music), his most recent release, is a dense, gothic affair where Lang’s role as one of the premier guitarists of his generation are further emboldened.

Its release helps revitalise this exceptional musician, unburdened with ego or tacky over-virtuosity, so says the sprightly Lang after a few well-received shows in his home town over the weekend. “It’s good for the energy and tempos of the gigs to have a new record out – because with the newer songs I have to get them match fit, which means the fresh ideas I bring to the gig also lift it.”

Reference points like Richard Thompson, John Fahey and Bert Jansch weave in and out of his music – but he’s not mimicking, he’s forging a totally unique brand of Australian music that easily defines itself as
totally individualistic and utterly enthralling. “It is called playing music and not working music after all, and it’s something we all do because we’re in love with the sound of music… Well, not the film, but it ends up being a constant thing throughout your whole life where you do it because you’re in love with that sound.”

And it helps that the sound Lang is in love with is currently going through somewhat of a surge in popularity. Look no further than John Butler, Xavier Rudd, The Waifs, The Audreys and the exponential growth of the Blues and Roots Festivals on both our East and West coasts, and you get the impression we’re pushing over pensioners to get closer to the stage. But where some of the aforementioned artists verge on the wrong side of tedious, his intense storytelling and sparse, tense-to-urgent sonic maelstroms aren’t particularly radio friendly. “Nice and comfortable music might sell a lot but it’s not really what I do.” But despite thematic currents of loss and despair, Lang has no time for the archetypal Tortured Artist. “How hard can it be to do something with your time, to spend an evening playing music?”

Lang is highly regarded internationally, a point highlighted when the recently, tragically departed dirt blues legend Chris Whitley proposed a collaboration that eventually turned into Dislocation Blues (ABC Music). He expands humbly, speaking with clear affection, “I had known him for 11 years before the idea ever came up. It took him that long to suggest it because I knew him as a friend and a fan and when you’re a fan, you never listen to it and think – ‘oh man, he needs me to play on this!’ So it surprised me at first but it quickly went from ‘oh really?’ to ‘Yeah… this could be pretty fucking good!’ There’s a lot of common ground.”

And collaborations, like touring new albums, generate a sense of urgency and excitement for Lang. “You do get reenergised. The whole idea of playing in front of a crowd is to go on a bit of a journey, and it’s not a subjugation of an audience’s will to yours. I’m really just providing a spark, just being a good servant of music, trying to be a catalyst.” So there you have it – Jeff Lang: The Public Servant of music, which obviously means he will fit hand in glove when he plays Bureaucracy town next month. “Traditionally, it’s been quite a good audience for live music in Canberra so I’m looking forward to it.” And so should you.

Jeff Lang plays at the Street Theatre on Sunday June 1 from 8pm. Tickets on sale now via 6247 1223 or www.thestreet.org.au .

DVDevotee Steve Kilbey Live

(Plus 1 Presents/Picturesque Films)
There’s no point avoiding it – this would have to be one of the poorest quality live DVDs I have ever heard, to the point where I have had more enjoyment watching a mobile phone recorded Japanese Guided By Voices cover band on You Tube. It beggars belief that Kilbey (The Church) would think it a good idea to release a performance this sub par and that the transfer engineer could sleep at night knowing there was an example of his/her work in the public sphere purporting to be a commercial quality DVD so bad, it sounded like it was recorded through a public phone three blocks down from the venue, then mixed and mastered through a poker machine.

Gripes aside - no, wait … I have another. Caroline II is a Lou Reed solo track from the album Berlin, released in 1973 - a full three years after he left the Velvet Underground. It is therefore incorrect to state on the DVD sleeve that Kilbey covers a Velvet Underground track. He doesn’t. Why does this matter? Because it gets to the heart of the problem of this disc - it looks and sounds cheap and nasty, and is therefore a wholly unfair representation of Kilbey’s silky, moody vocals and robs almost entirely any shimmering element from the trademark 12-string guitar chime inhabiting most Church songs.

These things matter for an artist like Kilbey, notorious for his studio deliberation - pick a random Church album and you’ll discover soon enough the care and attention I am referring to. Accordingly, it tarnishes the performance ‘recorded’ in New Zealand covering much of Kilbey’s back catalogue but, somehow the still transcendent beauty of Under The Milky Way still shines through. There are special features, but frankly I would have preferred more attention be paid to the main feature. Maybe wait ‘til this one time Canberra resident returns home for a live show before hopping onto this wreck.

DVDevotee Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares: Series One

(Shock)
Australia is currently experiencing a serious bout of Ramsey-mania. His deliciously tart and ferociously delivered fucks and cunts have lit up suburban plasma screens like a banana flambé. Moral panic! Decency standards sliding further into the abyss! Shut the fuck up! Cunt! Gordon Ramsey is the lovable scar faced curmudgeon shining a light on some of the most frightful kitchens this side of Hades.

This is the British version of Kitchen Nightmares so there’s far less in your face aggression and whip smart editing that mares the US version, but the concept remains the same: restaurant tinkering on the edge of oblivion, clueless over cashed proprietors running for cover and chefs who’d rather spend their day at the bar than behind the pass – enter a belligerent Scottish git to yell them into match fitness and hopefully save the restaurant. It would count for nought if this was merely a circus sideshow of spotty-faced apprentices and windy bluster. But Ramsey believes. He is on a mission to save food preparation, service and delivery – to elevate, and remind chefs and waiters they have a responsibility not only to the customer but to the food.

As a carnivore it troubles me no end that so many have so little appreciation of where food comes from and how it is prepared for our consumption. It’s a mucky business that has created many a vegetarian but chefs like Ramsey, Jamie Oliver, Marco Pierre White, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Heston Blumenthal are all doing their bit to remind us that cooking is not a chore – it’s something that should be savoured, respected and enjoyed. And that’s why shows like this serve such a valuable public service.

Yes, I know gastro-porn is a fad but it sure beats devoting your precious time to the exploits of a bunch of puffed up, goon faced, hilariously named muscle heads knocking about school teachers in a rubber Coliseum. Ramsey is a juggernaut overseeing a £100m, 10-Michelin star empire, comprising twenty restaurants and pubs in the UK, US, Ireland, France, Dubai and Japan. He knows his stuff.

Watch, gasp and learn.

DVDevotee Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who

(Universal)
Years back, upon foolishly attending one of Kiss’ endless Farewell Tour gigs, I had the fortune of witnessing a truly nerve-jangling experience far outshining the laughable cartoon parade soon to follow. Pre-show, Won’t Get Fooled Again was playing and as the natives rustled, the instrumental section grew slightly louder as it approached the crashing Pete Townsend power chorded mid-song crescendo, at which point the house lights swiftly dropped and the volume ascended to stadium strength. A potent display of melodic dynamics, it remains my only memory of the show. It’s also a reminder why The Who were one of the most powerful bands around and, as can be seen on Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who, they were also one of the most disparate, opinionated, honest and forgiving set of individuals to inhabit the ‘glory years’ of rock.

In this revealing doco each band member gets a personal history, and whilst each is equally fascinating and in-depth, you still end up wondering out how the hell they made it work. Fortunately this isn’t some airbrushed hagiography – Townsend’s kiddie porn issues are broached and stridently defended, John Entwistle’s bewildering fiscal immaturity is dissected and Keith Moon’s erratic behaviour is remembered fondly yet not entirely excused. Soul baring honesty sees Townsend explain the pressure of being the default songwriter and the need to be a hit factory is made all more harsh when Daltrey chimes in, saying he had no idea how to help him, so he just left him alone. Also particularly illuminating is agreement by Townsend and Roger Daltrey in separate interviews that the rock opera Tommy triumphantly defined Daltrey as the bare-chested, lion-maned frontman after years of searching for a purpose within the band.

Somehow out of dysfunction grew an arm-swinging, fist-pounding unit who made drum blowing up, guitar mauling and amp smashing de rigueur – Townsend’s not-so-playful bitterness at Jimi Hendrix’s wholesale theft of his act at the 1967 Monterey Festival is genius.  Archival footage is voluminous and goes some way in showing the raw intensity The Who exuded – something I have witnessed first hand and can happily report is breathtaking. Extras, including extended interviews, make an already worthwhile release near essential for any fan of big-nosed guitar rock.

DVDevotee Scott Walker 30th Century Man

(Madman)
There are few legitimate enigmas in rock music - Roky Erickson and Syd Barrett are obvious contenders - and the necessary caveat in this field of mythmaking is the expectation that ‘genius’ rarely equates to ‘psychologically functional’. And really, that’s just fine if you look at the scrapbook. Brian Wilson has been an enigma for decades, living off the sun-kissed memories of at least three generations of fans and critics, but as a musician he is a spent force and as a cabaret act he is a reasonable enough way to spend 90 minutes. Scott Walker - who was born a year after Mr Pocket Symphony - has never stopped moving, creating or perplexing his audience and as this doco reveals with astounding access, he’s one of the most thoughtful individuals ever to pull on winkle pickers, stovepipes and fuck-the-world sunnies.

Yes, there are significant gaps in his output - three albums in 21 years at one point - and he hasn’t performed live on stage in over 30 years, but seeing Walker telling an interviewer at the height if his Walker Brothers (The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore) fame he didn’t care at all for fame or money, just the creation of art, you begin to view him as the most rational man in contemporary music. He released four progressively non-selling and genre defying albums after the dissolution of the Brothers in the late ’60s, but the failure of Scott 4 appeared to have a negative effect on the reclusive star - he released dross for 20 odd years.

30th Century Man charts his single minded rise through fame, fall from public consciousness and, more startlingly, the recording process for his 2006 release The Drift where slabs of meat will be punched for art. Extensive jawdropping archival footage makes this the best home movie ever made about experimental crooner baroque pop and the assorted vox pops from Bowie, Eno through to Goldfrapp and Johnny Marr attest to Walker’s exhaustive influence. One day we may catch up to Scott Walker, but by then he’ll be either another 10 steps ahead or dead.