Showing posts with label Scooter Hall of Fame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scooter Hall of Fame. Show all posts

Saturday, December 01, 2012

I Don't Want a Lot for Christmas There's Just One thing I Need


Merry Christmas - Mariah Carey

It seems like every year we listen to the same Christmas music, or at least that is what gets played on the radio. Sure songs from new releases that year may get played but are quickly forgotten the next year. There really has not been a new Christmas song that has entered the holiday cannon since Mariah Carey released All I Want for Christmas Is You, which is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

All I Want for Christmas Is You is another lovelorn Christmas tune in the vein of the great Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) but manages to be more upbeat than the Darlene Love original. It is really one of the rare Christmas songs that is not just great for the holidays, it is just a great song period.

The rest of Merry Christmas is filled with your traditional holiday fair, traditional songs like Silent Night, and more upbeat songs like Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. There are a couple other original like the sappy ballad Miss You Most (at Christmas) but it will be All I Want for Christmas Is You that will continue to get major airplay over the next month.

Thursday, November 01, 2012

If You Want Beef Then Bring the Ruckus


Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) - Wu-Tang Clan

As I pointed out in my review for the Man with the Iron Fists Soundtrack review, if there is one thing I have learned in my life is to never, under any circumstance, trust a big butt and a smile. If there is a second lesson I have learn it is Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nuthin ta (expletive deleted). Just when the Golden Age of Hip-Hop seems likes it was starting to come to the close in the early nineties thanks to gangsta rap and hip-pop, the nine New York collective dropped Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) , this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

The album just sounded like New York City (or at least it sounded like that to this teenaged suburban white kid), it was grimy, dirty, and menacing with plenty of kung-fu sounds (of course the guy went on to write, direct, and star in a kung-fu movie). With beats by RZA, the music somehow managed to sound sparse and big at the same time. And the Clan managed to assemble the greatest crew in the history of rap by a country mile. Ghostface Killah and Raekwon are two of the best lyricist in the game. Method Man brought in a commercial aspect, and Ol' Dirty Bastard was just unhinged bringing in an element of anything can happen.

Oh, and the songs. Three of the songs from the album made my list of the 100 Greatest Songs from the Golden Age of Hip-Hop. As the intro would have you believe, the teenaged version of myself ran around chanting the Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nuthin ta (expletive deleted) wit , even the present day version does the same thing occasionally. My favorite line remains, “I’m causing more family feuds than Richard Dawson.” (R.I.P. Richard). C.R.E.A.M. was a stroke of genius, and another chant worthy chorus. And the song is just pure paranoia, and the second most paranoid songs ever after Mind Playing Tricks On Me (with all due respect to Black Sabbath). Then Method Man why the M.C. ended up being the breakout star of the Clan and featured maybe the most memorable opening of any song ever which was hilariously parodied by Dave Chappelle.

Who knows when we will get the next proper full length We-Tang Clan album, if ever? It is not the easiest thing to get these guys at the same place at the same time (I know from experience from the massive delay of the Wu-Tang Clan / Rage Against the Machine concert I went to because the members were too busy playing basketball and started their set a full hour after the opening act finished). But hopefully it gets done soon.


Monday, October 01, 2012

Are Sins Ever Forgiven?



I loved the original Final Fantasy, half-inch box characters and in all of their 8-bit glory. You got to walk, sail and fly around a world that looked like Middle Earth and fight random creatures as you walk across the world. Of course I picked up Final Fantasy II (which was the fourth installment of the series, but only second released at the time in the United States) for the Super Nintendo. This was the first time we got actual characters instead of stock characters to choose from (and name yourself).

Really one of the few reasons why when it was time to choose a next generation council I went with Playstation despite being a Nintendo guy for the previous half decade or so was because the next Final Fantasy installment released in the states was a Playstation exclusive (that and the Nintendo Cube just looked weird). Even though it was only the third in the series, the newest installment was given its proper Final Fantasy VII name even if it left people like me scratching their heads wondering what happened to III-VI (keep in mind this was in the early days of the internet before we even thought to Google it to find out what was going on, mostly because Google did not exist back then).

Right out the box you new Final Fantasy VII, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, was going to be something different and epic. Seriously, you open it up and there are three CD’s. After hours of game play, they would actually ask you to put in a new disk. That is just how grand the game was. And not like today when marketers boast three disks but those three disks turn out to be a blu-ray, DVD, and digital copy of the same movie, this was three disks of gaming content. There was also a big shift of setting, where the first two (American) games looked like olden times Middle Earth type place, Final Fantasy VII opens up in what looks like an industrialized future .

Then there were the graphic. Sure they may look laughably bad fifteen years and two gaming generations later, but they were jaw dropingly beautiful back their compared to their 8-bit counterparts. Even the music was significantly better. There was even a actual pop song included instead of the usual 8-bit blips and beeps. Instead of the block like fighters, there were actual three-dimension characters that actually looked like real people. The game was so expansive that you could actually play the whole game and not even met all the playable characters. Like previous games, these characters had their how skill sets and weapons, but they seemed even more individual in this game. The game also introduced a new way of fighting. You would still go into battle randomly as you walk the world, but during the fights there was a time gauge with different characters and enemies filling their gauge faster than others adding even more strategy into to the fighting.

As great as the graphics were at the time, the real reason to play Final Fantasy VII was a great story line. You first play a Cloud, a mercenary for hire who joins a rag tag resistance group as they try to keep an evil soldier Sephiroth from destroying the planet. The game is also most notable for what is widely considered the most shocking death ever in a video game. Not that I was shock because while playing one day, a friend walked in and asked if I got to part where the chick dies. Although I ended up being shocked that Aerith actually stayed dead. I assumed after she was killed by Sephiroth, Cloud would find a way to resurrect her, but never thought she would actually stay dead until the credits rolled. Despite the dated graphic, Final Fantasy VII is still worth playing by either dusting of the Playstation disks or it is even now available for download on the Playstation Network (but not an HD version that everyone has not been patiently waiting for).

Saturday, September 01, 2012

I Never Think, That’s What Makes Me a Good Cop



These days when looking for new shows to watch, I tend to look for actors I like or show creators whose previous work I enjoyed. As a kid I was much simpler, when I saw commercials for Sledge Hammer! I thought to myself, I enjoy the Peter Gabriel song, maybe I should watch this show. And thank goodness for Peter Gabriel because Sledge Hammer! turned out to be one of the funniest half hours ever forged for television which it is why it is this month's induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

The show followed Inspector Sledge Hammer of the San Francesco Police Department, who would typically solve cases violently without compassion, and usually by accident. Basically a dumber version of Dirty Harry who carried a .44 Smith & Wesson around with him at all times, even in the shower. Of course when you have amassed as many enemies as Hammer, on both sides of the law, you would be armed at all times too. His straight-(wo)man partner Detective Dori Doreau, was basically everything Sledge was not. Of course their Captain Trunk was your typically uptight boss who sole kelp Pepto-Bismol in business to help him deal with his inept inspector.

Sledge Hammer! was absurdist at its best. And the show saved the best for last. When the show looked like it was going to be canceled, the show decided to blow San Francisco up with a nuclear bomb, accidentally set off by Hammer when he tried to disarm it of course, and then still ended the episode with, “To Be Continued… Next Season?” Surprisingly the show actually did get renewed and the show took place “5 years before” despite numerous contiguity inconstancies which only enhanced the absurdist nature of the show. To this day it still weird to see David Rasche in new endeavors like Burn After Reading or most recently as a mysterious figure on Rubicon because whenever I see him I think to myself, why is Sledge Hammer acting serious? Then I have to go watch an episode or two of the funniest things ever to air.


Wednesday, August 01, 2012

As We Start our Travels, Things They Will Unravel



It is weird to think about it nowadays, but my love of A Tribe Called Quest could be attributed to Married...With Children of all things. If there two things I loved in the early nineties it was hip-hop and Al Bundy. Then one day watching Yo! MTV Raps a new video came on called Bonita Applebaum which the young brain of mine assumed was a Kelly Bundy reference. Before you laugh at that notion, I apparently was not the only one because a few years later PM Dawn included in their song Set Adrift on Memory Bliss the lines “Christina Applegate, you gotta put me on”. After picking up Peoples' Instinctive Travels & the Paths of Rhythm, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, it was clear that A Tribe Called Quest would be no one hit wonder releasing some of the greatest songs of the Golden Age of Hip-Hop.

Riding the second wave of great hip-hop (known back then as the new school) along with Jungle Brothers and De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest quickly went to the forefront of the new movement. Where the previous generation built their songs around rock music, and burgeoning gangsta rap genre out west was building songs around funk samples, Tribe and the Native Tongues went more mellow with jazz samples and out of the box samples like Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side.

Tribe even had one of the first Latin inspired tracks in hip-hop with I Left My Wallet in El Segundo about, well, the title explains it all. But the Spanish guitar that opens up the track sets the stage in one of the more entertaining tales in the history of rap. It is a shame nobody ever thought to turn it into a movie (it could at least have been as entertaining as all the House Party movies). Another stand out track on the album is Can I Kick It? a perfect call and response track that Tribe perfected on their five albums.

But it was Bonita Applebaum which included one of the most recognizable riffs in any rap song ever (and later bit by The Fugees in their version of Killing Me Softly). When LL Cool J’s love songs all come off with a bit of cheese, Bonita Applebaum was pure coolness. Even twenty plus years later, it is not just one of the bet songs in hip-hop history; it is one of the best songs ever. And their debut showed that A Tribe Called Quest makes the ultimate head nodding music.


Sunday, July 01, 2012

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility


Spider-Man

When they announced Marc Webb would direct the next Spider-Man I thought to myself, wait the dude from (500) Days of Summer? Yeah it was a good movie but I have no interest in seeing Spidy in a dance sequence to a Hall and Oates song. Seriously, why are we getting a reboot ten years after the last one when a fourth Sam Raimi would have been much better? What makes it worse is that a proposed fourth Raimi movie would have featured John Malkovich as Vulture in perfect type casting and Anne Hathaway as Felicia Handy, aka Black Cat (who ironically went on to playing a female cat person in another comic book movie). And since Webb cast Emma Stone in his movie I am going to have to begrudgingly rent it in a couple months.

Aside from a massive upgrade at love interest, I just cannot see the new version begging better than the Sam Rami version which is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame. After the campiness of the later nineties Batman films almost killed off the superhero movies, they came back in a massive way in the early 00’s thanks to films like X-Men and Spider-Man who brought some seriousness back to the funny books and Sam Raimi’s love and respect for the story is shown throughout.

As cool as Spider-Man’s web slinging is, let’s face it, a superhero is only as good as his rouge’s gallery and Spidy’s is second only to Batman’s. And while some of my favorites were held back for future movies (Doc Ock, Sandman) , the Green Goblin was a worthy first opponent thanks to a stellar performance from Willem Defoe (even if he looked scarier with the mask off). And like any great nemesis, Green Goblin was a close relationship to Spider-Man as the father of Peter Packer’s best friend. J.K. Simmons also gave a great performance as Peter’s boss J. Jonah Jameson. And of course what Same Raimi film would be complete without a cameo from Bruce Campbell (who played three different roles in the three movies). Spider-Man is also notable for have one of the very few video game that not only did not suck massive but it was a really great game and even features Bruce Campbell as the Narrator all three game tie-ins.



Friday, June 01, 2012

Yeah, You Can’t Front on That


Check Your Head - Beastie Boys

Like most people, I came to Paul’ Boutique late and let face it, as great as it was, License to Ill was a novelty album for sophomoric guys. Really, Check Your Head is when I became a true fan of the Beastie Boys and that is why it is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame. Released just eight months after Nevermind, the Beastie Boys rode the wave of alternative music mixing live instrumentation, the first time they played on the majority of the songs since their punk beginnings while keeping their hip-hop esthetics. Check Your Head pushed the boundaries of rap as far as Paul’s Boutique did but was assessable right off the bat.

Pass the Mic was a great introduction to the Boys new sound as the first single from the album, the passing of the mic would satisfy the hip-hop purists while attracting the new alternative crowd with the fuzzed out guitars. Later in the album they would go full out rock stars with Gratitude (setting the stage for one of their biggest hits Sabotage off their next album). And much like Sabotage, the song is built around a killer bass groove courtesy of MCA.

Even though they plugged in for the album, there are plenty of clever samples that made Paul’s Boutique revolutionary. So What-Cha Want is built off of When the Levee Breaks. And like a few songs on Paul’s Boutique, Finger Lickin’ Good drops the track and just lets a couple seconds of Bob Dylan’s Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues before going back to the weird mix of Aquarius and Dance to the Music. The Biz vs. The Nuge lives up to the name as it is just Biz Markie singing over Ted Nugent’s Homebound. And what would Pass the Mic be without the Jimmie Walker famous “Dynamite!”

They push their sound even further in the second half of the album when they go back to their punk roots with punky version of Sly Stone’s Time for Livin'. Something’s Got to Give is a trippy ride. They even throw in some funky instrumentals for good measure. We may have lost a true legend a couple weeks ago in MCA, but his work with the Beastie Boys will live on forever with the great albums he left behind.



Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Did You Know That Life Has Given Love a Guarantee


Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder started out the seventies releasing the great classic Motown style music the teenager was known for up to that point when he released another ultra catchy love song Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Your. But as the musical prodigy transitioned into his twenties, his music got a little darker, longer, and much more political with songs like Superstition and Living for the City that still remained as catchy as his earlier work. All this collimated with his last album of the decade and best of his career Songs in the Key of Life, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

As the title suggests, the album is not simply just about love or politics, it is about life and everything that comes with it. And the complications of life can explain why it took two albums, a bonus EP, twenty-one songs, and an hour and forty-five minutes to get through. There is joy, pain, entertainment, and struggle, from the ghetto to the penthouse, from the cradle to every twenty-six years Stevie had lived upon the release of Songs in the Key of Life on the album. Does it get heavy handed at time as most double albums do? Yes (especially the eight and a half minute Black Man that went on too long before the classroom segment at the end) but it is still hard to say there are any throwaway tracks on the albums.

Like most people my age, who were yet to even been conceived when the album was released, it took me a while to discover the album as I consider Stevie Wonder a singles artists for most of my life. I will not even confirm nor deny that the first time I heard Pastime Paradise my first thought was who is this stealing from Coolio? But I will admit Coolio did help me realize that the ultra poppy Stevie Wonder from the sixties was just one part of an even grander career than I realize at that point in my early life. The haunting original Pastime Paradise was a death march that put other songs in the Wonder songbook that I already knew into a new perspective like Living in the City.

My favorite song on the album, and maybe number two in his catalogue behind Superstition, is the simplistically titled As. The title is a stark contrast of the grandiose love song with its sweeping chorus and beautiful verses. And where a couple songs go on for too long on the album (did we really need to hear Aisha Wonder take a bath), the seven minutes of As go too fast and could have went on for twice as long and I would not have minded. You may have to actually live life to fully appreciate Songs in the Key of Life (or at the very least hit a quarter-century like Stevie did as he was recording it), but once you have, the album should become a cornerstone of your record collection.


Sunday, April 01, 2012

Science and Progress Do Not Speak as Loud as my Heart


A Rush of Blood to the Head - Coldplay

When people hear “power ballad” they conjure up visions of hair metal bands swaying their guitars in unison while lighters flicker across the arena. But if a power ballad is just a ballad that climaxes with an epic guitar near the end, then no one does power ballads in modern times better than Coldplay. The built their career on writing love songs with an extra kick to them that launched a couple thousand copy cats last decade. If Coldplay introduced this sound with Parachutes, they perfected it with A Rush of Blood to the Head, this month's induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

There were plenty of soaring ballads like on their album including one of their best The Scientist, a song so lovely you are not even distracted by the clunky title. It was even accompanied by a brilliant backwards music video that went back to the start just as the song suggested. And of course the song ends with their signature crunching guitars. But no song on the album (or in the band’s catalogue) builds to an epic conclusion quite as good as the album closer Amsterdam with a closing coda you just have to sing along with.

The band even took out the power with pure ballads like the sweet Green Eyes. Warning Sign was another stand out track that worked that middle ground between power ballad and pure ballad where singer Chris Martin yearns for a lost love with lyrics like, “And the truth is I miss you.” The song is a must for any break up mixtape.

As great as the power ballads on the album are, A Rush of Blood to the Head is where the band dropped the ballad completely on some songs and just brought the power. The opening song Politik was a the real rush of blood to head into where the band really sets the tone of the album with the frantic drums, piano, and guitars that give way to Pink Floyd style verses before hitting you over the head again at that chorus. But Politk just sets you up for not only the best song on the album, the second best song from the 00’s with Clocks, a song so great, the moment I heard it I had to dust of my piano, download the sheet music and give it a try myself. After listening to Parachute, you could tell the band was heading for something great, but I am not sure even the early fanatic would have guess something as great as A Rush of Blood to the Head was coming down the pipeline.



Thursday, March 01, 2012

Ma Ma Se, Ma Ma Sa, Ma Ma Ma Coo Sa


Thriller - Michael Jackson

Last week Amazon did one of the absurdly cheap daily sales for Thriller and I came to the realization that I never upgraded my cassette tape version to CD so I jumped on the deal (please not as of this writing it is back up to $9.99, which is probably cheaper than what you paid for it on cassette). Thirty years later, yep the Michael Jackson album hits the big 3-0 later this year, it is easy to forget how big the album was but when a great song Baby Be Mine is the least recognizable track on the album, you are doing something right. Seriously, Thriller, which is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, is pack with more hits than most artists’ Greatest Hits albums.

Thriller starts off what remains today one of the great party starters Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ which will have everyone within ears shot shouting along the ending tribal chanting. And who else but Michael Jackson can make calling you a vegetable sound fun? Jackson was also one of the few people who could recruit a Beatle to sing one of his songs on his album and even battled for a girl’s affection with Paul McCartney on The Girl Is Mine.

And that just the start of the album, then you get to the heart of the album and Thriller, Beat It, and Billie Jean is the musical version of the Murder’s Row. Each song is vastly important in its own way. Billie Jean and it lighting effects because the first music video by a black artist t hit heavy rotation on MTV. Then MTV helped catapult Jackson into legendary status with the fourteen minute movie for Thriller turning the new medium into must see television. And as much as Rihanna and the pop stars tried, Thriller remains the darkest pop song of all time. And of course what better compliant than when Beat It got the “Weird Al” Yankovic treatment? And forget the aging Beatle, Jackson recruited an in his prime Eddie Van Halen to play guitar on the song.

The sneaky great song on the album is Human Nature. The smooth delivery and sythy backing music is almost Yacht Rock and maybe is Michael’s most sampled song in his catalogue. Thriller is really a great rediscovery for those that have yet to upgrade it to your digital library. Hopefully Bad gets the deeply discounted treatment soon because I need to upgrade that also to the digital age in the near future.



Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Your Purple Prose Just Give You Away


Schubert Dip - EMF

A couple months ago VH1 unveiled their list of the 40 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 90’s and I kept getting more and more agitated watching it with every passing entry because 90% of the list did not deserve being on the list because they were too obscure, sucked massively, and most egregious were those song that should not even be considered one hit wonders. Seriously, if I were ever to create a list of the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 90’s (Spoiler Alert: hypothetically if I were to do so, I would post my list next Monday) I would venture to say only 15 of their 40 would make my top 100. 15 would actually be the same about that I would argue are not even legitimate one hit wonders that VH1 had on their list.

One of the additions to VH1’s list that made me the angriest was the inclusion of EMF who released quite possibly the greatest rock dance album ever in the history of recorded time with Schubert Dip, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame. It is a shame that VH1 completely forget about Lies which was a legitimate hit or smaller hits like I Believe and Children. Sure, if there was such a thing, EMF could be considered One Album Wonders with Schubert Dip, but One Hit Wonders they are not.

Sure Unbelievable is clearly EMF’s biggest hit and deservedly so as it is one of the best songs from the decade period. It demanded your attention from the first “Oooh” and heavy use of cowbell and managed to either be the first rock song to get massive play in the clubs or the first dance song that truly rocked. The song also famously helped Andrew Dice Clay get back on MTV after getting banned a couple years earlier by sampling the raunchy comedian heavily in the song.

But with Schubert Dip, EMF showed they were no one trick pony. Children rocked with the same intensity as Unbelievable exchanging Andrew Dice Claw with police sirens. In fact other tracks like Long Summer Days, When You’re Mine, and I Believe could still keep house parties moving today and may bery well have paved way for the rock tinged techno music of the late nineties with acts like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers. Lies showed the band could switch gears into the more serious but still made the song danceable to that part of the fan base. It would be hard-pressed to find anyone who has listened to Schubert Dip all the way through that would call EMF a one hit wonder. Just do not ask me why a sample of Bert and Ernie opened up Girl of an Age.



Monday, January 02, 2012

Today I Finally Overcame Trying to Fit the World Inside a Picture Frame


Room for Squares - John Mayer

A wise man once said music is the soundtrack to your life. Not only is it your soundtrack, but it is your yearbook; hearing certain songs will take you back to a high school dance, your first kiss or the time you drunkenly tried to steal a speed bump from a parking lot in college (No Diggity! No Doubt!). Listening to Room for Squares by John Mayer can take you back to the time to your early twenties when the world was at your fingertips when anything was possible. Back before you were stuck in a dead end job (and that is if you are lucky these days), had a mortgage that is not worth the paper it is printed on and long before John Mayer was writing crappy concept albums about having sex with Jennifer Aniston. But one thing Mayer got right on that crappy concept album is that it is a long time since twenty-three and listening to Room for Squares, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, will take you right back to that age.

John Mayer broke on the scene with No Such Thing, a one man acoustic version of the Dave Matthews Band delivering folksy pop with hope for the future. Even if the song starts off with the sarcasm of “Welcome to the real world she said condescendingly” he was still looking forward to running through the halls of his high school even if his ten year reunion was still a couple years away. The bright eyed optimist could be found all over Room for Squares like on the 3x5, a must for any road trip where Mayer himself takes to the road lamenting nothing but not having a camera to document his trip.

The name Room for Squares started up Mayer longstanding love of self deprecation and seeped into the songs on the album like on My Stupid Mouth (which he still has not cured a decade later) where his mouth resigns him to play a game of chess with the salt and pepper shaker by himself. And of course there is also the biggest song of his career: Your Body Is a Wonderland. Is it cheesy? Yes. Was it overplayed? Definitely. Did every guy who put it on when alone with a lady get some sweet lovin’ because it? Quite possibly. Wonderland was not the only chance on the album to make your move as there were a few other love songs on the album most notably St. Patrick’s Day. It is a shame the song did not become a winter standard, maybe because it spanned too many holidays, but it remains a great track on in the colder months when you want to be warmed up by that special someone.



Thursday, December 01, 2011

We’re Gonna Have the Hap-Hap-Happiest Christmas Since Bing Crosby Tap-danced with Danny Kaye


National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Christmas movies are the comfort food of the holidays, with multiple days off work or school and temperature too cold to actually go outside during the Christmas vacation, it is easy to sit in front of the television with a blanket on and watch some holiday fare, and since ‘tis the season any movie with snow will do. There are few Christmas movies that are legitimately good any time of year and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is one of the few and this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

Like the first two Vacation movies, Chevy Chase (Fletch) and Beverly D’Angelo (The House Bunny) reprise themselves as the married Griswolds. And like the previous two movies, their children are played by entirely different actors; this time inexplicably Audrey became older than Rusty for the first in the film and were played by the relatively unknown at the time Johnny Galecki (Suicide Kings) and Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers). There was also the returning Randy Quaid (who could not make it to Europe in the previous film) who torments the Griswolds in their own home this time around.

But like every Vacation movie, no matter how many people they try to bring in to steal his thunder, the star of the movie remains Chevy Chase as the bumbling father who thinks he has a chance with a younger woman and has one massive breakdown per movie because everything that could wrong does. And there were plenty of reasons for a break down this time around from unannounced guests to a light show that does not work right. But it is the lack of a Christmas bonus (or more specifically one that turns into jello) that sends him, and Cousin Eddie, who kidnaps his Scrooge of a boss and his wife, over the edge to high comedic results.

My fondest memory of the film happened in high school when my math teacher decided to show the movie before our Christmas vacation and “forgot” to bring the School Board edit version and instead watched the full unedited version instead (actually this was a common occurrence of my teacher as we also got the real version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in English one time). For those that do not have cool enough teachers, you can catch the movie playing on ABC Family this month on 12/7 and 12/12 both at 9:00.



Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Bend Through Alleys and Bounce off all the Buildings


Garfield at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

Holidays are about tradition and n two holidays are steeped in more tradition than Thanksgiving and Christmas. For the former, the day always starts off with some with some cinnamon rolls while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, which is this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame. Then a trip to a relative for some turkey, football, and cards, not necessarily in that order.

Parades are all about childhood wonderment with floats only as limited as a five year old’s imagination. Every small town has one with the local marching band, fire trucks, and local businesses and politicians who try to endear themselves to adults by bribing their kids (and lefts face it the adults too) with candy. But as really the only national one, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade is much grander and everything is bigger, the marching bands are better, and of course the balloons, from Garfield to the recently introduced Shrek all the way back to the very first balloon Felix the Cat, introduced all the way back in 1927. Look out for Sonic the Hedgehodge in his very first Macy’s Parade later this month.

Sure in recent years the parade went from a who’s who of celebrity appearance to me asking “Who?” through the parade, but it is hard to break tradition. So come the 24th, I will surely wake up, put some cinnamon rolls in the oven, and turn on NBC for its 85th airing of the American tradition. Here’s hoping I actually recognize someone other than Al Roker this year.

Saturday, October 01, 2011

You Said that Irony Was the Shackles of Youth


Monster - R.E.M.

Last week news broke out of nowhere that Rock and Roll Hall of Famers R.E.M. were calling it quits after almost three decades and fifteen albums together. It was almost like hearing your grandparents were getting a divorce after all these years. What is most surprising is they are closing up shop after releasing their best album since drummer Bill Berry left the band. Of course this brings up the old sports question of do you retire after winning the championship or keep trying to get one when you are no longer productive, so maybe it is better to call it quits now or turn into The Rolling Stones who have not put out a listenable album in my lifetime.

R.E.M. hit their creative stride the early nineties. Ironically, after being the face of alternative music, or college rock as it was called then, for most of the eighties, the group made it big by going mellow just as alternative was making it into the mainstream. After two album, the band packed in their mandolins and dusted off the guitars for Monster, which was not even a back to their roots movement but ended up expanding their sound even more and this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

Monster started off with the heaviest guitar riff Peter Buck ever on What’s the Frequency Kenneth? setting the listener up for a louder and fuzzier sound. It also us a glimpse into the theme of celebrity that runs throughout the album, with the title of the song coming from a phrase an someone repeatedly yelled at Dan Rather while attacking him. The album also ends with another stalkerish track You which manages to be creepy and awesome at the same time. The other most notable song about celebrity was Let Me In, a tribute to Kurt Cobain who committed suicide months earlier.

Aside from the opening song, the other stand out track is Strange Currency. It is thematically closer to the songs on the previous two albums, but with much more feedback that makes it fit in with the rest of the tracks on Monster. The song may be the sweetest song the band ever wrote after Nightswimming and Michael Stipe shows why he has one of the great voices in the history of rock when he sings lines like, “I need a chance, a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance…” Here is hoping that voice is not lost forever just because the band broke up.



Thursday, September 01, 2011

Everybody Wants to go Forever I just Wanna Burn up Hard and Bright


Gold - Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams went on an amazing streak during the 00’s releasing an album a year for the first five years then three alone in 2005, all of them managed to be at the very least good. We are currently in his slow period where he has only released four albums in the last six years, with another set to drop next month. Though all of his albums are solid, his first two solo records stand out above the rest with his sophomore outing Gold being, well, the gold standard and this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

The album starts off with New York, New York, an ode to a city that was about to change forever, the music video featuring a still intact city skyline was filmed on September 7th 2001. Even though it was recorded months before the attacks, the song became a fitting tribute to the city and its strengths and even without the sentimentality of its release date, New York, New York remains Adams’ best song to date.

Ryan puts the alt in his country on the next song where he breaks out his harmonica for Firecracker, a hoedown for the rock set. Adams mellows out for Answering Bell with his buddy Adam Duretz on backing vocals. Further in the album, Enemy Fire is just straight ahead rock and roll with a tinge of punk. Gold is still Ryan Adams’s most diverse album stylistically and definitely makes for a better listening experience, especially at a full seventy minute album.

But let’s face it; nobody does depressingly sad songs better than Ryan Adams and you can finally break out the Prozac for the fourth track, the drink alone anthem La Cienega Just Smiled. And you really cannot get more pretentious than a balled named Sylvia Plath. Then right around the time Gold hits its halfway point, Adams breaks out the epic almost ten minute Nobody Girl that could have gone on for a half an hour and I do not think any fan would complain.

If there is one depressingly sad song that stands above the rest is When the Stars Go Blue (which has almost become a standard thanks to the cover by The Corrs and Bono). The song should be near the top of every breakup playlist from now until eternity where your heartbreaks with every crack in the singer’s voice. It has been a while since Ryan dams has written any new material (by his standards) but I am sure we will hear more songs like this when Ashes & Fire comes out.



Monday, August 01, 2011

Kenny Wasn’t Like the Other Kids, TV Mattered, Nothing Else Did



I am not one of those people the bemoan that MTV does not play music videos because I bet most of the people who do complain would not bother to sit through an hour of Lady GaGa and Katy Perry videos in hopes they may play the latest from Mumford & Sons when you can just go on the internet and see it on demand. But watching the channel’s retrospective on VH1 Classic all weekend (apparently the actual channel is too busy with a Jersey Shore marathon to get nostalgic) I realized just how horrible the channel’s line up these days compared to the classic days when even non music video shows did not suck.

If I am not mistaken, Remote Control, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, was the first show on MTV that did not resolve around music videos except for the lightning round where characters who have a wall of televisions in front of them and had to name the music videos that were playing on the ten screens. As the name suggested, Remote Control had a much more focus on television than music with many categories devoted to classic television shows like Leave it to Beaver and The Brady Bunch (Jerry Mathers even made an appearance while Barry Williams, Eve Plumb, and Susan Olsen actually played).

The game was simple, three contestants would come to the basement of Ken Ober, sit in easy chairs and buzz in for point with bizarre characters (my favorite being Dead or Alive, where contestants would have to guess, well, you know). In between commercials there would be a snack break, which was delivered from above the contestants. And when a contestant was eliminated, they were yanked “off the air” through a brick wall where they were tormented for all damnation.

Remote Control was surprisingly a launching pad for many of the cast. Ken Ober, rest his soul, would go on to star into the original Parenthood television show before returning to MTV in a trio of Blues Traveler videos. Co-host Colin Quinn would parlay the gig into a cast member on Saturday Night Live. While token hot click Kari Wurhrer would go on to be a staple during the Skinamax block of movies throughout the nineties. Ever her replacement Alicia Coppola would go on to have many recurring roles on shows like American Dreams, Jericho and most recently popped up on The Nine Lives of Chloe King.

But the most surprising breakout stars of the show included Adam Sander, who beat Quinn to Saturday Night Live by a half a decade before going on to become the biggest comedic actor for a decade and a half. Also performing skits on the show was another comic who would eventually make it huge, Denis Leary, including some famous commercials he would go on to film for the network.

Watching classic bits during the MTV of Remote Control like celebrity edition where LL Cool J goes head to head with (not Downtown) Julie Brown and "Weird Al" Yankovic and another featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers (where Anthony and Flea played as a Two Headed Monster)makes me wish that MTV would add Remote Control to the list of shows the channel is rebooting along with Beavis and Butt-Head and 120 Minutes. If only for selfish reasons because I would be the Ken Jennings of the show.

Friday, July 01, 2011

Hey I Can't Find Nothing on the Radio, Turn to that Station



Peter Buck once not so affectionately referred to his band’s early nineties records as R.E.M.’s James Taylor period, and sure Out of Time featured the worst song ever by a great artist with Shiny Happy People and included Endgame which sounded like it was lifted from seventies AM radio, but he is not giving the album along with my favorite album by the band Automatic for the People) enough credit. Yes the songs were much mellower than their previous work but the band got out of its comfort zone utilizing different instruments and even included a strings section on multiple songs. So I will be giving Out of Time its due by making it this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.

The embracing of new instruments by R.E.M. was best exemplified by the album’s first single and band’s biggest hit Losing My Religion where Buck put down his guitar and picked up the mandolin which was a perfect backdrop for Michael Stipe’s haunting vocals. Half a World Away also featured the mandolin, but in a much more upbeat use than Losing My Religion and featured bassist Mike Mills on his new instrument for the album, the organ and remains one of the band’s most beautiful works of art.

Out of Time also so the introduction of guest vocalist, a first for the band. R.E.M. may have been the first alternative rock group (or college rock as it was called back then) to include a guest rapper on the song, and they even started the album off with KRS-One on Radio Song (which should have been a much bigger hit than it was). Their old Atlanta buddy Kate Pierson of the The B-52's adding vocals to Shiny Happy People, Country Feedback, and Me in Honey.

Though Out of Time was the start of the band’s “James Taylor” era, the album still featured a few songs that would not have been out of place on their eighties albums like Low where Stipe gets low on the vocals against a sparse backdrop of staccato guitars and organ. While Belong features the classic harmonies of Stipe and Mills that really sore in the chorus. But Out of Time was just a great primer for what was coming next with Automatic for the People where the band were at their peak musically.



Wednesday, June 01, 2011

When I Was Young I Didn’t Think About it and Now I Just Can’t Get it off My Mind


The Lillywhite Sessions - Dave Matthews Band

The good people over at Simon and Schuster were nice enough to send me over a copy of So Much to Say: Dave Matthews Band 20 Years on the Road (look for my review next week to coincide with the book hitting bookshelves) and in honor of the book’s release, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame is the band’s unreleased gem known as The Lillywhite Session.

Naturally So Much to Say dedicated a whole chapter to the time period. As legend has it, the Dave Matthews Band went into the studio with longtime producer Steve Lillywhite and recorded a batch of songs only to ditch them to go back on the road. When the tour was over, instead going back to the Lillywhite songs, Dave hooked up with Alanis Morrisette producer Glen Ballard for an album of much tighter and poppier songs the band had ever done called Everyday. Months after the released, songs from The Lillywhite Session hit file sharing site where anyone could hear the album that might have been.

Mortality has never been a shy subject for the band, but Before these Crowded Streets took a decidedly darker turn from their previous work and The Lillywhitte Session took them deeper into the rabbit hole with songs like Grey Street, Digging a Ditch, Big Eyed Fish and maybe their saddest song to date Grace Is Gone. The latter of which Dave himself references to as the sad bastard song and still is in my repertoire of songs I go to when I am in my drunken sad bastard mood.

The standout track of The Lillywhite Session, and quick live performance staple, was Bartender. If there is one thing the band does best is sweeping epics that they can jam on for over ten minutes such as Warehouse and Two Step, and Bartender is where it all came together in a sweeping ode to a priest stand in that serves beer on the side. By the time the track hits the midway point, Mathews is wailing vocally like a one man choir before giving way to LeRoi Moore, one of his finest moments in the studio, who take the song home before ending it with a sweet pennywhistle.

The songs of The Lillywhite Session would later be revived a year later as the band convened in the studio but without Steve Lillywhite this time around for the proper release the appropriately titled Busted Stuff which despite sharing nine songs sounded lighter and more hopeful in spirit (thanks in part to new songs Where Are You Going and You Never Know). Grace Is Gone got turned into full country bar tune, a couple minutes were shaved from Bartender, Kit Kat Jam was stripped of lyrics, and JTR, Sweet Up and Down, and Monkey Man were cut from the final version. Though Dave Matthews Band songs are never fully realized until they are road tested for an entire summer, the release of Busted Stuff must have been cathartic to the band and fans alike after the tumultuous two years from the start of The Lillywhite Session to the release of Everyday, to the leak of the unfinished tracks.



Sunday, May 01, 2011

Now Here’s a Little Story I Got to Tell about Three Bad Brothers You Know so Well


Licenced to Ill - Beastie Boys

In honor of its twenty-fifth anniversary, the Beastie Boys commemorated the event with Fight for Your Right Revisited to answer all the unanswered questions like did your mother kick them out of the house for not cutting their hair. My initial thought when this came out was, “wait, Fight for Your Right is a quarter century old?” Nothing makes you feel older that hearing about the twenty-fifth anniversary of an event that happened when you were in grade school.

But Licensed to Ill, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, was the perfect album for a pre-teen with a number of great sing-a-long primed for boys on the playground. Sure we didn’t know much about them at the time (and arguably still do not), but Girls got sung over and over again back in greade school (and middle school, and high school, and college, and reunions). But (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!) was an anthem for a generation even if we did not know how to fight or party just yet.

Most rap album would be happy with two songs of that quality, but Licensed to Ill is wall to wall jams: No Sleep to Brooklyn is a road trip staple that is required listening at high speeds with the windows rolled down; Paul Revere is the ultimate posse track with Scenario that only song that comes close to matching it in that category; Brass Monkey remains an instant sing-a-long; all of which I could spit verbatim to this day.

And the production from Licensed to Hill was off the hook and is now the definition of old school. The production is so crisp it is a shame that Rick Rubin does not produce more rap record that he does these days (listening to 99 Problems clearly shows he still got it). Rhyming and Stealing sets the table perfectly with samples from Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and The Clash especially with Kerry King of Slayer shredding a couple of tracks. While Paul Revere remains one of the most classic beats in the history of rap and a prerequisite beat for any freestyle rapper to spit on. And let’s not forget the “mmmmmmmmm… Drop” from The New Style which is one of the most iconic moments in rap history. With the release of a new Beastie Boy album finally being released this week, do not forget to go back and listen to how the group got to this point.