It’s time to pour yourself a double (or triple) of whatever poison you prefer and listen to Ms. Simone. The only thing missing from this splendid cover of the original Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ meisterwork is the sound of ice clinking in your glass. There’s anger, bitterness, guilt, and extremely high sexual tension in the air. In other words, much more than a mortal man or woman can handle in under two minutes and 40 seconds. Your therapist, life coach, priest, rabbi, or Scientology auditor can wait until morning …
Back when I was in high school during the mid-late 1980s, I was vaguely aware of the Smiths. I knew they were the hip band du jour in England and in many quarters in America. However, I didn’t really listen to a lot of their stuff. Sometime around 1986 or so, I noticed random goth girls looking at me very intently. I wasn’t quite sure what this was about until one told me I looked like Morrissey of the Smiths. She showed me a picture and I did see a resemblance. Only knowing that people considered him hip, I thought this was very cool and started to explore the Smiths music in more detail. Not being the fastest human in the world, I thought this would be my entree into stud-dom … I’m going to pause for 60 seconds for all of you to finish convulsing in hysterics … OK, are we done, now? Let’s continue …
At the time, I didn’t realize that girls that were into Morrissey were not exactly the types that would be ready to request my services in the carnality. It didn’t help matters that I lettered in theater … Seriously, stop laughing, motherf–kers! … It’s only after I realized that Morrissey was not a role model for someone who wanted to be successful with girls that I sort-of started to come into my own.
I stopped listening to the Smiths and Morrissey for several years and have only started to re-explore their stuff. They’ll never be my favorite band, but there are some gems in their oeuvre. “Everyday Is Like Sunday,” from Morrissey’s debut solo album “Viva Hate,” is a particular favorite and I think is the greatest song he ever had any involvement with.
One of the better songs from the 1980s era Rolling Stones, this was from the Stones’ decent but uneven 1983 album “Undercover.” The “hot” woman in the video is Anita Morris, who first gained fame starring in the original Broadway version of “Nine” and subsequently played sexy women “of a certain age” in many 1980s films (“The Hotel New Hampshire,” “Ruthless People”). It’s nice to see the Stones let a sexy older woman be the object of lust instead of the usual young bimbo. Sadly, Morris died of ovarian cancer in 1994. So, in honor of Ms. Morris and sexy older women everywhere, I’m raising a glass in tribute.
The video here is the uncensored version which was edited for MTV. From what I remember, the cut parts were the buttons flying off the pants of someone watching Ms. Morris and fire shooting out of her ass. Maybe there was more, but it’s been nearly 30 years since I watched this video.
Trivia note: this was Martin Scorsese’s original song choice to underscore the cocaine-helicopter freak-out scene from “Goodfellas.” However, he chose Harry Nilsson’s “Jump Into the Fire” instead, because the scene in the film took place in 1980 and “She Was Hot” came out in 1983. Scorsese advised he only uses songs that could have been out / released at the time a scene would take place. I think the Nilsson choice was better, but “She Was Hot” would have played wonderfully in that famous scene.
“The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle” is an extremely controversial documentary about the Sex Pistols that features manager Malcolm McLaren as the lead character instead of the band. McLaren rewrites the Pistols’ history as being an elaborate hoax/scam/con job on the record industry and his running away with millions of dollars of corporate cash.
On one level, this is a very funny and engaging film. And the Sex Pistols footage is totally amazing to watch. However, as we’ve learned in subsequent years from numerous books and interviews with the surviving band members (and in Temple’s updated documentary from 2000 “The Filth and the Fury”), McLaren was not the master Machiavelli and lovable rogue he painted himself to be. Instead, McLaren was a largely incompetent, greedy, and (arguably) evil man who callously disregarded and exploited the pain and misery of those around him to get as much money as he possibly could that should have been rightfully been given to others. I still find the film entertaining, even with a huge asterix in my mind that what I’m watching is complete bollocks, to coin a phrase.
The Japanese subtitles on this trailer are appropriate, because the only way you could watch “The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle” in America until around 1992 or so was on imported Japanese videocassettes. That’s how I first saw this film (around 1986) and was in constant rotation in my VCR for the next six years. It also features a lot of footage that never made the final film.
What’s really fascinating is that the Sex Pistols film was originally supposed to be a film called “Who Killed Bambi?” directed by American sexploitation master Russ Meyer and scripted by Roger Ebert. Ebert posted the entire script he wrote on his blog as well as his version of how his and Meyer’s involvement with the Pistols came about. A totally fascinating read.
Watching this film just made me smile from ear to ear the first time I saw it back in 2000. The reason is that, for all intents and purposes, I was the lead character, William Miller, back in middle and high school … albeit with much much much less ambition … as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t pursue a career in journalism or filmmaking.
With the exception of “Say Anything,” “Almost Famous” is writer/director Cameron Crowe’s best film. It’s his autobiography disguised as fiction. What’s particularly amazing is that he really did live most of the antics in the film at the age of 15 and not only did Crowe not become a drug casualty or bitter hack as he got older, he transcended all of it and became a successful filmmaker.
Yes, there’s a lot of this film that may seem corny. But the lead character (as well as the person the lead character is based on) is only 15 … and is a decent person. His way of navigating this sometimes very dark world and maintaining his integrity is what makes this film particularly inspiring. It’s clear that Crowe has a genuine love for humanity and for people. As flawed as many of the characters are in this film, he doesn’t make any of them completely unlikable. His ability to see the humanity in a very debauched world is what makes this film such a joy to behold.
The performances, from Patrick Fugit as Miller, to Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Jason Lee, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are all terrific. Hell, even Zooey Deschanel is charming in this film (which trust me, is extremely hard to admit).
A lot of rock critic types rolled their eyes at this film when it came out and you can sense the jealousy in their attacks for obvious reasons. While This is not a perfect film, denying its charms is to deny the film’s audacious optimism and humanity. This is a great, great movie and is a film that always makes me feel better about the world.
From 1968’s “White Light / White Heat” here is the Velvet Underground’s infamous 17-minute plus epic of noise and decadence “Sister Ray.” A bonafide classic and the last hurrah for the orginal VU when John Cale was still a member. After this, the Velvets were still a great act, but started to shift away from darker themes.
An outtake from the Stones’ 1978 masterpiece “Some Girls” that should have definitely been included in the original mix of songs, but now has thanks to the Deluxe Edition double CD that was recently released. While this cover of the Freddy Cannon classic is a damn nice discovery, the version by the Flamin’ Groovies from the early 1970s is even better:
More balls-to-the-wall mid 1990s punk rock, this time from Boss Hog, Jon Spencer’s other big band of the era (aside from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion). Boss Hog not only featured terrifically abrasive guitar work from Spencer, but also some of the most ferocious vocals in all of rock and roll from Spencer’s spouse, the beautiful and sometimes nude Christina Martinez. Bang your head, indeed!
Some primo 1990s gunk-punk from Norfolk, VA. The Candy Snatchers, along with such bands as The New Bomb Turks and The Oblivians, were an important part of a defiantly lo-fi punk movement from the 1990s that belched and farted all over the corporate “alternative nation” that erupted thanks to Nirvana’s success. These were bands who just rocked out with little regard to digital recording or political correctness and epitomized everything that corporate alternative bands claimed to be.
This was one of the defining songs of my 10th grade year in high school. Mainly because I got rides to school with my older brother and he played the “Earth Crisis” cassette in his car every day. I finally got to see Steel Pulse live during my first year of college when they opened for Bob Dylan. In retrospect, the acoustics were so horrible in the basketball den where I saw them, that it wasn’t quite the transcendent experience I was expecting. Fortunately, I was too chemically enhanced to care.
Dave's Strange World 