July Top Ten

1. Book clubs. Why I didn't join one earlier is beyond me. But thanks to a colleague, I am now part of a small but enriching conglomeration of bibliophiles who remind me to eat my fiction vegetables on a weekly basis. After having been involved for only a few months, I'm totally committed. I highly recommend the experience, especially as an antidote to the loneliness epidemic. We meet on Zoom so you don't need to reside in a densely populated area to join one. There's even a website to facilitate the process. Visit bookclubs.com today! The second book since I've joined is Borges' Labyrinths which we're about halfway through (new favorite story = "Funes the Memorious"). The first was...

 2.  Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice; Pride and Prejudice (BBC, 1995). I loved it more for its status as an ur-text than for any of its masterful narrative devices. One can feel the brusque-but-tameable hero of Harlequin romances gestating in Mr. Darcy, for instance. Austen was loathe to provide much description of place so the BBC adaptation was a welcome guide through the dialogue-heavy novel. I hope the forthcoming Netflix series makes Mrs. Bennett (Olivia Colman) less of a Chicken Little. At the very least, I think most of us share her confusion, if not rage, over entails.

3. Sally Rooney: "Misreading Ulysses," The Paris Review, December 7, 2022; Rebecca Romney: Jane Austen's Bookshelf - A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend (Simon & Schuster, 2025). Rooney's thesis on how Ulysses both dismantles and upholds the innovations of Pride and Prejudice is intriguing. Austen synthesized the masculine traditions of Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding with the feminine traditions of Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood and there's a parallel synthesis of the masculine (Stephen Dedalus) and feminine (Molly Bloom) in Leopold Bloom. But this conclusion is predicated on the dubious, if not flat-out incorrect, characterization of Austen as "the author of the earliest novels in the English language still widely read and loved in the present day." Under the influence of Rooney, I was surprised to find mention of any books at all in Pride and Prejudice much less that the act of reading comprises a fair bit of the narrative ambience. This is where Romney's book helps. As a reading experience, it's not recommended - Wiki-style biographies of pre-Austen writers punctuated by recollections of Romney's rare-book exploits. But as a guide for What To Read Next/After Austen, it's indispensable. Onward to Frances Burney, Charlotte Lennox, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, etc.

4. Doug Rice: Blood of Mugwump - A Tiresian Tale of Incest (FC2, 1996). A slim avant-garde novel in which a character (more like a node, really) named Doug Rice morphs into and out of his sister and grandmother. The words "cock" and "cunt" appear with frequency. Rice quotes Joyce, Faulkner, and the Pointer Sisters. A line like "By carefully studying a videotape, he had learned a trick from Meryl Streep about different ways to alter x-rays" snaps you out of the miasma of permeable borders before plunging you back into the Imaginary "world without words, amen." Photos (some fin-de-20ème-siècle, some contemporary) purporting to depict Rice and/or his sister illustrate several chapters (called "routines" here). Subsequent works by Rice include Janey Quixote and A Good Cuntboy is Hard to Find.

5. Charles Baxter: Blood Test - A Comedy (Pantheon, 2024). Unfunny variation on Minority Report wherein a suburban nobody pays thousands to a shady Theranos-type entity which claims it can predict that he will commit a murder. Always trust an author who lards his novel with arch directions such as "just flip ahead a couple of pages after you've gone out to your kitchen for some popcorn and a beer, and the story will resume." Done, dude.  

 

6. Louis-Ferdinand Céline: Journey to the End of the Night (1932); Paul Bowles: Let It Come Down (1952); Graham Greene: A Burnt-Out Case (1960). Three Heart of Darkness variations that need to be put down for a nap. The best I can say for the Greene is that I excavated one handy apreçu ("As usual there was no silence [in a Congo leper colony]. Silence belonged to cities.") and a cranky but funny one-liner ("Perhaps it's His will that you should take a nembutal."). The worst I can say about the Bowles is that I highlighted only two lines of its 300-plus pages. Improbably, the Céline was the best of the lot even though it's the longest/hardest to take and the author was a widely read anti-Semite. The locales are far-flung (i.e., the hero escapes deepest Africa) which knocks some of the stuffing out of the colonialist existentialism. Céline has a feel for flânerie in New York City, Detroit, and Paris. And he mentions avant-garde films, supernaturally hip for 1932. But in case you're curious, know that the opening of William T. Vollman's afterword does a spot-on impression of all three authorial voices: “Reader, fuck you!...You think I give a shit whether or not you’ve read this book? Or that Céline’s ghost does? That would be the day!” So reader, make this the day you read something else. 

 

7. The Listeners (Janicza Bravo, 2024). This four-episode BBC One miniseries, adapted by Jordan Tannahill from his 2021 novel, concerns an English teacher (Rebecca Hall, superb) driven to despair by The Hum, a low frequency emanating from an undetctable source. She's relieved to discover a group of people who claim to hear it as well. But they soon display cultish tendencies, a fiasco only exacerbated by the fact that she's grown closer to one of the listeners - her teenage student. Inspired by real testimonials, The Listeners focuses too much on the interpersonal to the detriment of the intrapersonal, to how sound can reorient our relationship to our bodies. But especially under the tutelage of Bravo, who directed 2020's fantastic @Zola, it's a heartbreaking portrayal of how trauma and illness can destroy relationships while creating unforeseen ones, reminiscent of Fearless (Peter Weir, 1993), Away from Her (Sarah Polley, 2006), and Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995).  

8. "Boots" from 28 Years Later (Danny Boyle, 2025). The film is a solid B+. But the score, composed by Scottish hip-hop soundscapers Young Fathers, is one of the best I've ever heard. As usual, you cannot glean this from the soundtrack album (on Milan) although it's far less abstract than the norm, beginning with two surprisingly jaunty songs as opposed to limbs desperate to find their host bodies. But heard in the film, a track like "Boots" augments the horror of this third installment in the zombie franchise. The Fathers sample a 1915 spoken-word recording of Rudyard Kipling's harrowing anti-war poem "Boots" as if it were the reanimated dead. Recited by American actor Taylor Holmes with increasing terror, it appears on the film's soundtrack with no clear source such that we don't know if the sound is diegetic. It just creeps towards us, dragging along industrial groans and ululations. Then it disappears, and we're left fearful of its return.

9. Lola Young: This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway (Island, 2024). 23 when this second album was released last year, Young already has the makings of a supernova. And she seems poised to stick around if only because she comes off so tough. Pressed up against the fourth wall on the cover, she's in our face throughout. Ten out of eleven songs come with an explicit language warning, including the spoken-word "Outro." But because she's so tough, the men and women in her life think she can handle the ghosting, co-dependency, and assholism they throw her way. These time-wasting drips put her on the defense starting with the great album title and winding through each song wherein she tells them all precisely where to get off in her cigarette-cured South Londonese. So here's hoping her longest-lasting relationship is with producers/songwriters/musicians Carter Lang (SZA, the new Justin Bieber) and Buddy Ross (Haim, Travis Scott) because together with Young, they've conjured at least eight different ways to grab your ear - distressed bhangra, poppin' post-punk, open-spaced verses clashing against brickwalled choruses, whatever Lola wants. All of which is to prep you for the September 19th release of her next album, I'm Only F**king Myself.

10. Leaving...on the Criterion Channel. My new favorite genre! Almost 100 years ago, Walter Benjamin clocked collecting/hoarding as a method for denying mortality; can't die when I have twenty-and-forever-counting hard drives choked with films, music, and books to consume. But mere death isn't enough to help with prioritizing what particular text to consume. Each month the Criterion Channel mimics death with an entire category of films leaving the channel that month. It's a perfect way to move from collecting to consuming (yes yes with Adorno cackling at you from beyond). By July 31st, I downed all the Argentinian noirs (fave was Fernando Ayala's nasty 1956 The Bitter Stems), most of the Noir and the Blacklist titles (John Berry's unbearably intense 1951 He Ran All the Way deserves to be better known), and even some mainstream crap (1990's Blue Steel, one of Kathryn Bigelow's worst). And I look forward to filling in some Guiraudie and Chang-Dong gaps by August 31st.

Best Singles/Albums of 1985

The great Brad Luen of Semipop Life renown ran a Best Albums/Singles of 1985 poll and I participated, I did. My ballot is below which gave me an opportunity to clean up my own 20-year-old (!) Fave Singles of the 1980s list, mostly as per year of release. But what I assumed would be a simple exercise soon threw me into an epistemological tizzy.   

Years are stupid things. I initially had Exposé's "Point Of No Return" in the #5 spot. But Chuck Eddy reminded me that the song was originally released under the name X-Posed in 1983 on the Pantera (!) label. Discogs concurs noting, "released in November 1983, despite labels stating "℗ 1984."" But the Wiki entry for Exposé says the group wasn't formed until 1984. So which date is correct? (Also, check out how much the X-Posed font looks like the one for X-Ray Spex.) To appease the Latin freestyle gods (Lewis A. Martineé, we invoke thee), I replaced "Point Of No Return" with "Exposed to Love" which I may prefer nowadays anyway for how much it reminds me of my favorite bubble bath, Black Orchid. 

Until last week, I thought Magazine 60's "Don Quichotte," Roxanne Shanté's "Roxanne's Revenge," and Roky Erickson's "Don't Slander Me" were 1985 releases. But all signs point to 1984. And I prefer the faster album version of "Don't Slander Me" from 1986 which I believe was never released as a single. So I might be lying by leaving it on my decade list (although I love the December 11, 1984 original too so it stays). Wiki says authoritatively that "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" was released on May 27, 1986. But Discogs shows the Arista label clearly reading "1985." The Indestructible Beat of Soweto and Psychocandy were released in 1985 in the UK but were they released in 1986 in the States? And "The Payoff Mix" EP was never officially released at all, at least not until the 2008 Steinski compilation What Does It All Mean?: 1983-2006 Retrospective on the Illegal Arts label. But you currently cannot purchase the latter on Amazon even though Discogs allows its sale. 

Then there's the matter of release date vs. year of impact. Whatever the specific date they hit the racks, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto and Psychocandy signify as 1986 albums in the States. VU was recorded in the late 1960s but most of the planet didn't hear these songs in VU (as opposed to Lou Reed) form until 1985. Exposé's romp through the Billboard Hot 100 wouldn't come until 1987. And if all of the titles below had to impact me in 1985, then I couldn't play this game at all. I owned Psychocandy and Cupid & Psyche 85 on vinyl and taped Big Lizard in My Backyard from a friend. But most of the rest I didn't hear until after 1990. To the best of my recollection, I have never held a copy of the original Sin version of Fear and Whiskey despite 20 years of crate digging. Like many, I assume, I heard it on the 1989 Twin/Tone compilation Original Sin which itself was already difficult to find on CD by 1990. 

And finally, there's the matter of format. As far as I can determine, "Mario" was never released as a single, in Europe, Africa, or the US. But I doubt that many Franco releases were perceived as albums anyway; they feel like 12" singles. "Mario," for instance, takes up all 14:19 of the A side of the Mario album with only two other songs on the B. (See also Fela.) I didn't hear it until 2001 when it was plucked all single-like by World Music Network for The Rough Guide To Franco: Africa's Legendary Guitar Maestro. Think you know what VU is? Think again, avers Wiki: "Sources disagree on whether VU should be classified as a compilation album, archival collection of outtakes, or a long-delayed studio album, though others avoid categorizing the album entirely." Avoiding categorization - how punk. I doubt Steinski himself knows (or cares) if "The Payoff Mix" is an EP or a 12" single (but note that Discogs sanely, if not correctly, sidesteps the issue with one category labeled "Singles & EPs"). And Luen calls "Round 1" "an EP title track" while Eddy on Facebook says Round 1 (guess I have to italicize it here) is an album (and so does Discogs!). But quickly thereafter (he has an infuriating tendency to edit after he first posts which, little known fact, was the impetus for Ozzy writing "Am I Going Insane"), he said it's barely an album if you "take away" the uncensored version of "Round 1," running barely over 25 minutes and 25 minutes "was the old Pazz & Jop cutoff for EPs." But, um, you can't take away a track from an album, at least not on physical releases (I suppose you could scratch out the track in question on your vinyl version or record over it on cassette). I first heard it in 1998 on Rhino's Fat Beats & Brastraps: Battle Rhymes & Posse Cuts, the best volume of the series due in no small amount to the inclusion of "Round 1." That's single enough for me and, in any case, Luen accepted it so it stays (and had he not, I'd just hit him with "You's the only crab lowlife bitch who's a bum!"). 

Who cares, right? If Luen does a 1986 poll (which he totally said he would!), then I won't be wringing my hands thusly. This is all just a reminder not to take unnatural measurements of time too seriously and not to fret that "Bon Bon Vie," "That's the Joint," and "Eisiger Wind" are 1980 releases. I so wanted them to be of 1981 provenance since I've long opined that 1981 was the best singles year in popular music history. They're spiritually 1981 singles, though, and, surprise!, I didn't hear a single damn one of them until the 1990s.   

What about the music, man? I've always gotten the impression that the zeitgeist finds years on the five lacking; something to do with mid-decade dashed hopes perhaps. But people bitch about (and hype) every year. And while 1985 wasn't stellar for singles, I was stunned to conclude that I would award an A+ to the first six items on my albums list. That said, I'm sick of hyping faves. Low-Life has long been my favorite album of all time. But I need a new one (maybe something by Beauty Pill?).  Nowadays, I'm sweeping in corners for music that has totally escaped my attention, especially non-English music; "Mario" is my sad attempt to redress this shortcoming. To that end, below my ballot, I submit my favorite ballot from the poll. Most of Dave Moore's list is non-English and even his Malcolm McLaren choice is perverse. I bet he's done time with Chee Shimizu's Obscure Sound book (great ILM thread about it here) since that's where I first heard (of) the Rare Silk album at #14. I thank him for guiding me away from the English-singing canon.

Singles

1. Roxanne Shanté vs. Sparky Dee: "Round 1 (Uncensored)" (Spin)

2. Franco: “Mario” (Choc)

3. Kate Bush: "Running Up That Hill" (EMI America)

4. Exposé: "Exposed to Love" (Arista)

5. Jermaine Stewart: "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" (Arista)

6. DeBarge: “Rhythm of the Night” (Gordy)

7. Loose Ends: "Hangin' On A String" (MCA)

8. USA For Africa: "We Are The World" (Columbia)

9. Colonel Abrams: “Trapped” (MCA)

10. Bronski Beat: “Hit That Perfect Beat” (MCA/London)

 

Albums

1. New Order: Low-Life (Qwest)

2. Velvet Underground: VU (Verve)

3. Double Dee & Steinski: "The Payoff Mix/Lesson Two/Lesson 3" (Tommy Boy)

4. Scritti Politti: Cupid & Psyche 85 (Warner Bros.)

5. The Indestructible Beat of Soweto (Shanachie)

6. Mekons: Fear and Whiskey (Sin)

7. The Jesus and Mary Chain: Psychocandy (Reprise)

8. The Dead Milkmen: Big Lizard in My Backyard (Fever)

9. Hüsker Dü: New Day Rising (SST)

10. Prefab Sprout: Two Wheels Good/Steve McQueen (Epic)

 

Dave Moore

ALBUMS

1. Malcolm McLaren: Swamp Thing 20 pts

2. Manu Dibango: Electric Africa 20 pts

3. Jasper van’t Hoffs Pili Pili: Hoomba-Hoomba 20 pts

4. Ichiko Hashimoto: Beauty 20 pts

5. Lena Platonos: Galop 15 pts

6. May East: Remota Batucada 15 pts

7. Taeko Onuki: Copine 15 pts

8. Hailu Mergia and His Classical Instrument: Shemonmuanaye 10 pts

9. Ut: Conviction 10 pts

10. Winston Tong: Theoretically Chinese 5 pts

11. Vinod Pandit: Jhoomo Re Jhoomo 5 pts

12. Junko Yagami: Communication 5 pts

13. Kate Bush: Hounds of Love 5 pts

14. Rare Silk: American Eyes 5 pts

15. Diana Ross: Eaten Alive 5 pts

16. Miami Sound Machine: Primitive Love 5 pts

17. Grupul Stereo: s/t 5 pts

18. Plastic Mode: s/t 5 pts

19. Kassav’: En Balaté 5 pts

20. Boney M: Eye Dance 5 pts

SINGLES

1. Madonna: Into the Groove

2. Mariya Takeuchi: Plastic Love

3. Kate Bush: Running Up that Hill

4. Siouxsie and the Banshees: Cities in Dust

5. Mr. Fingers: Mystery of Love

6. Amina: Shehérazade

7. A-ha: Take On Me

8. Pet Shop Boys: West End Girls

9. Prince: Raspberry Beret

10. Bellamy Brothers: Old Hippie

11. Sheila Chandra: Strange Minaret

12. Mai Tai: History

13. Melanie: Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed

14. Segun Adewale: Atewo-Lara Ka Tepa Mo ‘Se

15. Suzanne Vega: Marlene on the Wall

16. Fun Fun: Living in Japan

17. Cafe Turk: Haydi Yallah

18. Magika: I Know Magika

19. Princess: Say I'm Your Number One

20. Lee Sun Hee: Ah! It Is Ancient Times [Ah! The Good Old Days]

 

 

I Sold My Soul for Black Sabbath

Wherein an inveterate disco dancer claims Black Sabbath, the overlords of heavy metal, for disco. If indeed guitarist Tony Iommi was a master of riffs, then it holds that the repetitive nature of the riff could be marshaled for dancing as well as head-banging. Add a bassist (Geezer Butler) and a drummer (Bill Ward) who could get all start-stoppy funky whenever they wanted. And now you can grasp why metal boys appreciated this rhythmic license given to their girlfriend-hopefuls who just wanted to dance at concerts. As for Ozzy Osbourne, dead at 76 on July 22nd, it's sad that so many tributes had to satisfy rockist articles of faith by claiming that Osbourne did, in fact, write that lyric or have a hand in creating that melody. Isn't his status as one of rock's greatest vocalist enough? You hear the women of ABBA referred to as sirens for their uncanny ability to beckon you to their pop getaways. But Osbourne's voice was a two-minute warning, capable of emptying entire downtown hotels with a single wail. His enormous lung power propelled you away from him, then swept you up in all those metaphors of flight and escape that peppered his/their lyrics. And thus he became hero to generations of no-account kids who hoped for a better life outside of the capitalist grinder. It's appropriate that the most touching of the many tributes raining down this week came from Geezer Butler:

Goodbye dear friend- thanks for all those years- we had some great fun. 4 kids from Aston- who’d have thought, eh?
So glad we got to do it one last time, back in Aston.
Love you.

What follows is my attempt to siphon off all the Sab I'll ever need. Most of the findings here remain true. My Sab is a fast and dancey one. I don't go to them for ballads ("Changes" is fine but I never need to hear it again), interludes (no matter how short or how much heft they lend to each Album), guitar solos ("Warning" drags the debut into the muck of the River Thames), or even songs (again, "Am I Going Insane" causes little pain but Top 40 nuggetry is not their forte). And I don't go to anyone for prog which explains my indifference to Vol. 4 and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Paranoid is the most consistent and contains two of their greatest dance tracks - "War Pigs" and "Fairies Wear Boots," Sabotage features Ozzy's best performance and offers plenty of prog weirdness besides, Master of Reality the dankest, Never Say Die! proof that they could outpomp Van Halen.

The comp below fits on two discs and at the very least includes "Supernaut" which most fans nominate as the best cut off Vol. 4 and which the 1976 We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll (notice singular "soul") omitted despite including four (4!) other tracks from Vol. 4.

I Sold My Soul for Black Sabbath

(Bozelkablog, 2025)

"Black Sabbath
"The Wizard"
"Behind The Wall Of Sleep"
"N.I.B."
"War Pigs"
"Paranoid"
"Iron Man"
"Electric Funeral"
"Hand of Doom"
"Fairies Wear Boots"
"Sweet Leaf"
"After Forever"
"Children Of The Grave"
"Into the Void"
"Supernaut"
"Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"
"Hole In The Sky"
"Symptom Of The Universe"
"Megalomania"
"The Writ"
"Never Say Die"
"Johnny Blade"
"Junior's Eyes" 

 

Black Sabbath: B+
Paranoid: A-minus
Master of Reality: A-minus
Vol. 4: B
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath: C
Sabotage: A-minus
Technical Ecstasy: D
Never Say Die!: B+ 

 

The Best Hollywood Films of the 1960s

On the occasion of the criminally tardy Blu-ray release of 7 Women, I herewith offer my list of the ten greatest Hollywood films of the 1960s:

1. 7 Women (John Ford, 1966)
2. The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis, 1961)
3. Petulia (Richard Lester, 1968)
4. Red Line 7000 (Howard Hawks, 1965)
5. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
6. Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)
7. The Boston Strangler (Richard Fleischer, 1968)
8. Bye Bye Birdie (George Sidney, 1963)
9. Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969)
10. The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962)

I arrived at this top ten by asking a question on Facebook a few years ago:

"Hey fellow film dorks! Can you name an American feature-length narrative film from the 1960s better than any of these listed below? Caveats: 1. I want it as mainstream/Hollywood as possible. So no sexploitation, no avant-garde, no Russ Meyer, no indies, etc. 2. No other films by directors already listed. I know Hatari! and Marnie are great. 3. I’ll puke (and you’ll clean it up!) if you mention Best Picture Oscar winners or anything by Kubrick. 4. I hate Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and no to The Graduate.

Bonnie and Clyde (Penn)
Bye Bye Birdie (Sidney)
The Hustler (Rossen)
In Harm’s Way (Preminger)
The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis)
The Legend of Lylah Clare (Aldrich)
The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer)
Petulia (Lester)
Point Blank (Boorman)
Psycho (Hitchcock)
Red Line 7000 (Hawks)
Rosemary's Baby (Polanski)
7 Women (Ford)
Shock Corridor (Fuller)
Too Late Blues (Cassavetes)
Two Weeks in Another Town (Minnelli)"

The purpose was threefold: 1. to focus my viewing schedule 2. to discover if there were indeed any films greater than those I listed and 3. to gain the illusion that I was "done" with the Hollywood of the 1960s, a decade which seems to me (preposterously, I admit) manageable. Plenty of friends offered suggestions, all of which are below and most of which I managed to watch. Years later, I discovered only two titles to rank with the powerhouses listed above - The Boston Strangler and Midnight Cowboy, the latter of which I apparently saw far too young since it hit me much harder when I watched it again in 2022.

Given the arbitrary nature of years, decades, and even nations, it was silly for me to be a stickler for rules. But again, I longed for focus. So no Boom! (Joseph Losey, 1968) or Paradise Alley (Hugo Haas, released in 1962, but shot in 1958). The 1960s were notorious for runaway productions, a phenomenon skewered by Minnelli's Two Weeks in Another Town which itself got skewered by the very system it critiqued. So is it a Hollywood film or a meta Hollywood film or more Hollywood than any film listed on this page for how it perfectly traces the death of classical cinema? Is Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968) a Hollywood film or even American one? I wouldn't prevent anyone from top tenning it but I left it off my list. I would definitely find a spot for Bunny Lake is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1965) but in the end, I slotted it as a British film. 

To be clear, my top ten list would not comprise my list for the decade overall, not even close. For one, the avant-garde was really starting to whip up a storm in the 1960s; Andy Warhol's Drunk and Jack Chambers' The Hart of London are better films than anything above. For another, there's the rest of the world to manage which became downright torrential by 1960. And finally, there are beloved indies like Cassavetes' Faces, Juleen Compton's The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean, and Andy Milligan's Seeds. Nevertheless, the ten Hollywood baubles I come here to praise are sources of endless renewable energy and curiosity.


All Fall Down
BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER
Billie!
Blast of Silence
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
The Boston Strangler
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Cape Fear
CAPRICE
CHARADE
THE CHASE
The Collector
COMANCHE STATION
Cool Hand Luke
DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
The Disorderly Orderly
Don’t Make Waves
DOWNHILL RACER
Elmer Gantry
Experiment in Terror
Gunn
The Haunting
HELL IS FOR HEROES
Hud
In Cold Blood
Inside Daisy Clover
The Killers
Kiss Me Stupid
Kitten with a Whip
Lonely Are the Brave
LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
MADIGAN
The Magnificent Seven
Major Dundee
MARY POPPINS
The Masque of the Red Death
MEDIUM COOL
Mickey One
THE MISFITS
Mutiny on the Bounty
MY FAIR LADY
North to Alaska
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST
ONE-EYED JACKS
The Party
THE PAWNBROKER
PLANET OF THE APES
The President's Analyst
PRETTY POISON
THE PROFESSIONALS
RACHEL, RACHEL
THE RAIN PEOPLE
Reflections in a Golden Eye
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY
ROME ADVENTURE
The Savage Innocents
Something Wild
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD
THE SHOOTING
Strangers in the City
Support Your Local Sheriff
SUSAN SLADE
THE SWIMMER
Targets
TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE
That Cold Day in the Park
They Shoot Horses Don't They?
Two For the Road
WAIT UNTIL DARK
The Wild Bunch
Wild River
The World of Henry Orient
YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE

Nothing but Trouble (Dan Aykroyd, 1991)

The understandable vitriol this film received upon release is a classic case of genre misdirection. A putative comedy starring comedic talents and written/directed by a comedian, Nothing but Trouble packs its biggest wallop as a horror film. In fact, it's one of the most genuinely scary entries in the old dark house subgenre. Chevy Chase and Demi Moore play Manhattan yuppies who, while on a road trip with Brazilian billionaires Taylor Negron and Bertila Damas, wind up in a cavernous estate presided over by a 106-year-old judge (Dan Aykroyd, in pustule-ridden makeup) who puts the unsuspecting principals through a series of nightmarish Rube-Goldberg-like contraptions including a lethal rollercoaster called The Bonestripper. John Candy does double duty as the local sheriff and the judge's mute granddaughter [sic]. Aykroyd does quadruple duty as one of a pair of deformed grandsons who look like charred Teletubbies. Digital Undeground provide a musical interlude and escape the judge's wrath with a rendition of "Same Song" (look for Tupac in his first film appearance). I don't recall laughing even once. But I found it a consistently inventive ride more than a little reminiscent of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Comedy fans, avoid this like The Bonsetripper. But horror fans should take a bite.

Grade: A-minus

The cure for The Cure? Staring at the Sea, of course!

I have now heard every Cure album ever and, almost to a song, I couldn't find a single album track that I'd place on a desert island playlist. For a non-goth like me who runs on pop/punk concision and disco sybaritism, Staring at the Sea: The Singles (the CD version of Standing on a Beach), plus a few items detailed below, is all I'll ever need. (If you're already seething, then hie thee to Anthony Miccio's blog who has more tender ears for the band. Do note, though, that he's ignored live albums so I do too. I also forewent remixes but downed all five hours of Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities 1978–2001 (The Fiction Years) so slack could be cut.) 

On one level, this is a me problem. I encountered "All Cats are Grey" (from Faith) in Bob Stanley's Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern and found it so seductive that I figured it was my problem that I'd never excavated something equally seductive from their non-hit oeuvre, hence this project. If I just listened hard enough, then I'd be able to fall for almost anything unknown to me, right? But on another level, this is a them problem combined with a format problem. The Cure's discography is testament to the album as an inefficient music delivery system. Brutal to acknowledge but many acts don't have 30-40 minutes of compelling music in their oeuvres much less per long player. And when CDs granted artists the possibility of 79 minutes of self-expression, the tax on our attention grows to unconscionable proportions. For the Cure, the advent of the CD couldn't come soon enough; 12 inches of vinyl were too tight a corral for Robert Smith & Co's gothic caterwaul so that when CDs became the norm, the boys were quick to abandon quality controls. Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (1987) and Disintegration (1989) clock in at 74:35 and 71:45 respectively, upping the ante for those of us who'd already heard them as too slow to get to the point. How was I going to find another "All Cats are Grey" without a Bob Stanley shaving off all the top-heavy filler?

I didn't have the financial or technological wherewithal to roam through the haunted catacombs of their discography as a teenager in the mid-1980s, making it easier to consider myself a huge Cure fan. The only album I owned was 1983's Japanese Whispers which 13-year-old me had no clue was a compilation. My high-school friend Lisa's VHS of Staring at the Sea: The Images passed through so many hands, mine included, that I doubt the poor gal had possession of it for two full years. I watched all 17 videos reverently, allowing those to stand in for the six albums I couldn't afford/hear. But by the time of college in the late 1980s, I was learning about rockism and listening to the canon which left little time for the Cure. I snagged a vinyl copy of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me for cheap likely because no one wanted two 12"s of bloat in 1988. I didn't hear Disintegration (or anything else I'd missed) until years later; I was too busy with Janet Jackson. 

I don't want to go through each album with too fine a comb, preferring to keep thing as positive as possible. My desert island playlist would augment the ace Boys Don't Cry compilation with the "I'm a Cult Hero"/"I Dig You" 7" from Cult Hero, a Cure side project. "I Dig You" just might be the quintessential post-punk song - post because it dances so well, punk because they let a postman sing it (both songs are appended to the 2005 CD Deluxe Edition bonus disc of Seventeen Seconds). Some might deem Japanese Whispers a ripoff at a merciful 28:27 (although perhaps it was budget-priced, Cure scholars?). But it allowed me to retain affection for a song like "The Dream" which would've gotten lost on an album of even ten more minutes in length. And the one track where I would've welcomed seven-plus minutes, the disco-at-last "The Walk," comes in at an infuriating 3:30. I couldn't even find a contemporary 12" mix of the thing (although do check out the nifty 2006 Infusion mix). I'd like to spend more time with Pornography which was faster and noisier than I remembered. There’s an extreme, uncompromising ethos to its glumness that makes me want to listen harder. I'm weirdly okay with the run from "Last Dance" to "Prayers for Rain" on Disintegration but cannot stand ILM fave "Plainsong." I was nervous by how much I perked up while listening to The Cure (2004), lending the impression that my tastes are truly screwball. But Miccio has kind words for it and Smith is in remarkable voice throughout (check out the American Idol-ready yelps of "Lost").

So Staring at the Sea plus the Cult Hero single plus a 7-minute "The Walk" plus stray tracks taking up a short second disc. Is that so bad? (It is?)

Three Imaginary Boys (1979): B
Boys Don’t Cry (1980): A-minus
Seventeen Seconds (1980): B-minus
Faith (1981): B-minus
Pornography (1982): B
Japanese Whispers (1983): A-minus
The Top (1984): B-minus
The Head On The Door (1985): B
Staring at the Sea: The Singles (1986): A
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987): B-minus 
Disintegration (1989): B-minus
Wish (1992): C+
Wild Mood Swings (1996): C
Bloodflowers (2000): C-minus
Join The Dots: B-Sides & Rarities 1978-2001 (The Fiction Years) (2004): B-minus
The Cure (2004): B
4:13 Dream (2008): C 
Songs of a Lost World (2024): C+

David Murray Octet, Blue Note, March 17, 8pm show

I have heard that in order to truly understand jazz, one must not only know music theory well but also be a musician oneself. Satisfying neither of these categories, I've long felt exiled to the fringe of jazz fandom and sheepish about professing love for any of my favorites, from Jelly Roll Morton to Ornette Coleman to Mantana Roberts. It was thus with much trepidation that I agreed to see the David Murray Octet last Monday at The Blue Note at the invitation of the great Brad Luen (subscribe to his brainy, wide-ranging Substack, Semipop Life). The last jazz show I recall seeing was Sun Ra at Milwaukee’s Shank Hall in the early 1990s. And while I dug that show (more for the band than for Ra who punkily never acknowledged us and hit a few pings on his synthesizer), I was still nervous about dress (could I wear shorts?), demeanor (is talking okay? hooting? tapping my foot?), or just generally being caught out as not belonging there. Turns out there’s a full menu so you can stuff your piehole with burgers and fries before the show. And shorts were fine; I didn’t look any more haggard than the tourists who showed up in St. Patrick's Day garb. Seating is pretty cramped and, since it's first come, first served, I quickly grasped why there was such a long line two full hours before the show. As it was, we barely got a table for ourselves arriving with about 40 minutes to spare. But here's the rub - with burger in belly along with several Negronis and my chair turned toward the stage for a comfortable vantage point (even a bit of room to stretch my legs), I had a fantastic time!

I assume there are adepts who adjudge Murray the greatest working saxophonist on the planet, especially since Sonny Rollins' retirement in 2014. At 70, he's been at it since the 1970s and he's amassed an impressive array of accolades including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989. I've heard several of his myriad albums including Revue, the 1982 album he recorded with the World Saxophone Quartet, which a 1990 Village Voice poll deemed the best jazz album of the 1980s. These were intermittently arresting. But I often hear jazz as wearying iterations of genius within a limited sonic and/or conceptual palette such that a great Billboard Top 40 single seems more difficult to achieve (and hence more precious) than a great John Coltrane album. In short, Murray will always be a side dish to my pop/rock buffet. So I was at the Blue Note not to honor genius but to observe how this music came to life, embodying tensions between composition and improvisation, group work and solo flights. 

The most fascinating aspect of the show was how openly the octet managed soloist duties. Of course, Murray led the charge here with nods and verbal signals to various band members to take their turn. But sometimes one member would hand signal to another for some sort of predetermined direction. No doubt these allotments of freedom within strictures are de rigueur for most jazz shows. For me, though, it helped drain some of the intimidating mastery from the event.

As a rhythm guy, the musicians who impressed me most were the bassist and drummer and, later, the pianist. (There were nine musicians on stage including David Murray. I couldn't find the names of the bassist and drummer and I don't want to assume the roster listed on the Blue Note website is correct since it lists only eight musicians. But I assume the pianist was Lafayette Gilchrist. The others listed were: Russell Carter, Luke Stewart, Corey Wallace, Mingus Murray, Shareef Clayton, and Immanuel Wilkins.) I paid close attention to their supporting roles while the others were soloing. And even when I lost the thread, I intuitively appreciated their generosity in remaining in the background while the soloists came forward (this might be why the bassist and drummer's own solo turns felt a bit abstract to me). Gilchrist contributed to the bedrock on later numbers and helped me understand why I much prefer jazz pianists to saxophonists - no matter how showy they get, they always seem to be selflessly rhythm-a-ning rather than accessing the deepest recesses of their souls. 

The only moment that thrilled me (goosebumps popping, blood rushing, silly grin forming) came at the climax of the last number with the entire ensemble coming together for a shrill wall of confrontational gush. But watching the attempts at keeping the music going was enough to captivate me for the entirety of the two-hour show. It was also enough for me to rue the fact that I haven't taken advantage of the copious jazz performances NYC offers daily. Wonder who's playing at the Village Vanguard this weekend.