I remember when Siskel and Ebert dedicated an episode of one of their shows to films of the seventies. At one point during the show, Siskel said that the 1970’s were the last great era of film. Among others, his reasons were that back then, studios were dedicating budgets to film makers to tell any kind of story they wanted to pursue. That is why you had really interesting and strange stories with big name actors being shot beautifully. My Dad and I watched “Fat City” tonight. It was a movie made in 1972 by John Huston. Its about two boxers at very different points of their lives. From the opening scene with the location dissolves of Stockton (below) I said that I already love the movie. Stacy Keach and a young Jeff Bridges are in it. My Dad said that Huston was a boxer at one point and at different stages of his life, he had all sorts of strange odd jobs. This is a really great movie with a story that could have been written by Bukowski.
Fergie, Beyonce, Ashlee Simpson, Clay Aiken, Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion, Akon, Soljah Boy, Jay Z, Mariah Cary….This was from a show filmed in 1969. These were two popular artists. The United States had been at war for four or five years. What has changed? Was America smarter then? Is it really this impossible to see relevant, amazing and unique artists on television performing and completely owning a song? I think that these clips are beautiful and sad at the same time!!
Nate and I were asked to play drums and bass for the band Hour Of The Shipwreck (http://www.myspace.com/houroftheshipwreck) last night. This is a band that plays music written by Richie Kohan. Marcel Camargo played as well as Alex (last name soon to be learned…!) on keyboards and Richie playing electric 12 string and singing. Really pretty chords and patient and brooding music. Loud picked bass… It was a lot of fun for me to channel my inner Chris Squire.We played at the Knitting Factory here in Los Angeles. We were opening for the band Faun Fables. I was excited to see them because I had heard them before. Abby and Amanda from the Ditty Bops showed me one of their albums on tour. I really loved how it sounded as well as the voice of the singer Dawn Macarthy. Beautiful pagan punk hobbit music! Anyhow, I ended up buying one of their CDs called the “Transit Rider” which I soon lost. So it was cool to be able to get something else of theirs and get to see them perform last night. Despite the sound being pretty rough with mics feeding back and acoustic instruments not being miced well enough, their music was really cool to hear and I liked their performance a lot.Here is a cool video for one of their songs:
You all may have seen these but I really want to put them up here again because they are amazing and worth the time to watch. More to come. Go South Carolina.
Here’s footage from a show that Kneebody played in New York a couple months back. It was the 55 Bar. So much fun. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”No Thank You Mr. West”:
Every year there are albums that define the chapters of my life. I guess that was kind of a cheesy sentence… It’s not rocket science. Everyone has music in their lives that will alwyas be linked to memories and will bring specific feelings every time they hear it. When I went to Brasil, everyone working with the band I was with down there, the Brazilians, were telling me about music they were excited about. I came back from that trip with about thirty cds. Tons of Caetano Veloso, Milton Nasciemento, Jaques Morlenbaum, Tim Maya, Ed Motta, Tom Ze, Gal Costa, and samba school cds… Another album that had just come out out there that everyone was telling me about was Tribalistas. This was a super collaboration album with Marisa Monte, Carlinhos Brown, and Arnaldo Antunes. These are all singers the Brazilians love. Big artists. I remember first hearing Carlinhos Brown years and years ago. I first heard him on that great album Bill Laswell produced for the Axiom label called Ritual Beating System. At the time, he was the young Brazilian Salvador answer to all the hip hop music I liked at the time. Artists like De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest… Marisa Monte is someone that everyone down there loves. Whenever you mention her name people sigh and shake their head. She’s that good. Arnaldo Atunes is someone that I knew the least about. Everyone was talking about that album. I didn’t get a chance to pick it up on that trip and it wasn’t until last December that I got back there again and bought it. It’s one of those albums that gets you right away with the way it’s recorded. The sound of those three voices together! Why does it sound so good? One of the reasons if that they are singing an octave apart!!! So cool. Atunes sings the low parts. His voice is so low and the tone is so thick that it sounds like a solid thing. It’s just beauty and it really grows on you the more you hear it. The song O Amor e Feio just popped up on Itunes and I remember driving with Ang to Arizona or driving with the The Ditty Bops and Jesca Hoop from San Francisco. Definitely pick this up! And here they are: