...where distraction is the main attraction.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Mini-updates on movies, music, and home

This post will be much less organized than the previous one since my mind is scattered from many hours of working on stories.  So here's a list:

1.  MOVIES

Here's a full gear-shift from the previous post.  A video!

When Hitchcock's producers gave him the greenlight to turn Blackmail into a sound film, he had to figure out what to do with the accented voice of his Hungarian leading lady, Anny Ondra.  He ultimately decided to keep Anny as the lead, but have her lip-synch the dialogue while an English actress, Joan Barry, read the lines in the mic just off-camera.

Before he decided to do this, he ran some sound tests with adorable Anny.  Somehow this footage survived!

Watch Hitch drop an incredible old-school version of a That's What She Said joke:





2.  MUSIC

There's been an sudden influx of album re-releases:


Smile (The Beach Boys) - Arguably the most famous unfinished album in Pop music history dropped into the market yesterday, 44 years late, in at least four different packages -- 1 CD, 2 CD, 2 LP, and a $140 special edition.  This had been intended to be the followup to "Pet Sounds", a further revolutionizing of sound recording and songwriting.  But due to label issues, creative disagreement, and Brian Wilson's fragile state, the album was shelved before it was finished.  This pushed Wilson further into a mental illness that was later revealed to be schizophrenia.

"Smile" had been making its rounds via bootlegs for thirty-odd years.  Brian had also recorded it without the band back in 2004.  But this new set was completed with the original recordings and approval by the rest of the group.

No more songs about surfing, instead an avant-garde "teenage symphony to God."  That's going on my Wish List.

Quadrophenia (The Who) - For those who don't know me, I like The Who...to an irrational degree.  And this is my favorite studio album of theirs, and possibly anyone's, ever.  It's the Catcher in the Rye of Rock n' Roll.  It's both messier and more mature than "Tommy".  It's full of crazy love, crazy hate, and tremendous teen angst.  And like Catcher it takes on different colors and meanings as the audience gets older.  Eighteen years ago, I named my first real short story after one of the songs.  Today, I get the exact opposite meaning from that song, "The Punk And The Godfather."

I already have two previous releases of this album, so I'm going to avoid the massive release on November 15th.  There will be a double-CD (organized in a bizarre manner in order to fit in some demo recordings), a multiple-LP, a loaded iTunes LP, and a $130 special edition (with 4 CDs, the 1979 film, a hard cover book, and other Who-phernalia).


Achtung Baby (U2) - U2 rereleased THEIR BEST ALBUM (yes, their best album) yesterday for its 20th anniversary.  And yesterday, a cute little package arrived for me containing this very thing.

It was this 1991 album that got me hooked on these Irish fellas.  They had gained massive fame and fortune from the Unforgettable Fire to Joshua Tree to Rattle & Hum period, but had found themselves at a creative dead end.  So they ditched their world famous style and built their sound back up from scratch.  Gone are the politics and peaceful ruminations.  Here are seething broken hearts, the terror of unrequited longing, and spiritual disillusionment.  It's their best music and (by a considerable distance) their best writing.

The anniversary release came in FIVE parts: 1 CD, 2 CDs, a vinyl set ($140), super deluxe set ($125), and an Uber deluxe set ($435).

Okay...

Grrr...

I can't keep the rant holed up anymore.

I F***ing hate these $100+ releases!  It's an insult and punishment to the fans who cannot (legally) access the songs they want to hear without shilling out an incongruous amount of cash for RECORDED SOUND.  It's an execrable bourgeois show-off jerkoff golden-calf-wanking malignant affront and completely inappropriate in this economic climate.

It's conspicuous consumption.  It's not music.



3.  Abrupt subject change!

HOME

Kristen and I have been working on the second bedroom.  The Mold Room.  The Office To Be.

We've soaked the walls, removed the wallpaper, removed the wallpaper glue, bleached the mold, removed vents and weird wall things, and are now prepping to paint the walls and ceiling.

It's taken longer than we'd anticipated, but the work has been calmer than last month's Ceiling Spectacular had been.  Plus we've been able to work side-by-side which makes it feel more like teamwork.

The office may be ready by this weekend.  And that is great.  We'll have some before, during, and after pics once it's good to go.

A good Wednesday to you all!