Friday, December 28, 2007

what's been spinning at our house

how's your news? -- calvin from the asian media crew let us borrow this documentary about five physically and mentally disabled people who meet at a summer camp and travel across the country doing man-in-the-street interviews. the reporters are engaging characters, and it's interesting to see the way their interview subjects respond to them (although my sweetie, who works with medically fragile, multi-disabled kids, is bugged that larry perry, who's now 65 and communicates using hand signals for "yes" and "no," doesn't have the use of an augmentative communication device). this could be part of a new genre: disability road pictures. another one we've viewed this yr: 39 pounds of love, the story of a 34-year-old, texan-born israeli animator with spinal muscular atrophy who travels across the u.s. to confront the doctor who examined him at birth and gave him 6 years to live. and he gets to ride a harley (well, in a sidecar).

lost in the stars: the music of kurt weill -- another cast-of-thousands production by snl musical director hal willner, this 1985 trib to threepenny opera composer kurt weill (a big influence on folks we dig like tom waits and mark growden) includes the likes of waits, lou reed, marianne faithfull, dagmar krause, and charlie haden applying their unique spins to weill's cabaret-music-for-the-end-of-the-world. found a cassette of this for cheap on amazon, and like willner's mingus, monk, and disney projects, it's a beguiling movie-for-the-ears that we can't seem to get enough of. on alex ross' recommendation, i've got the 1930 recording of the threepenny opera coming, too.

les rallizes denudes, are you rallizesed? -- thanks to jon teague, julian cope, and dan mcguire, this year i got my first earful of noisy japanese psychedelic bands like high rise, mainliner, and les rallizes denudes that bring to their logical conclusion some musical threads i've been obsessed with since my first teenage exposure to jimi's woodstock and monterey feedback apocalypses, the mc5's kick out the jams, and the first two velvet underground albs. the shadowy 'n' mysterious les rallizes, who existed as a band from 1967-1996, have recently released a deluge of product on the equally shadowy 'n' mysterious ignuitas and univive labels. most of the univive stuff is multi-disc and prohibitively expensive, even by japanese standards, while the ignuitas is merely exorbitant. i copped the ignuitas are you rallizesed? double cd when it was _very_ briefly available via forced exposure on the basis of relative economy ($28). it's from a '74 show that includes feedback-drenched versions of the third album velvets-y "enter the mirror," "the last one" (which curiously appears mid-set unless the compilers tampered with the sequence), garage-punk pounder "my conviction," and my current fave, "tenshi - koori no honoo," which unfolds as ominously as my preferred yodo-go a go go track "flames of ice." plus lotsa spanish-tinged gtr wonderment that puts me in mind of television (the band, not the appliance) and some of jimi's more out-dere woodstock improvs. not bad for a buncha nipponese francophiles. still need to hear fushitsusha and the jacks (besides the one song i have on a compilation).

1 Comments:

Blogger Steve-O said...

I love me some Hal Wilner. I you want to borrow some other Kurt Weill CDs, I've got tons of 'em. We need to get together and have a beer sometime soon. Let me know when you are available.

12:34 PM  

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