Being a fan of Mandy Moore comes as a surprise to a lot of people I encounter. "Why???!?" seems to be the most popular response. The thing is, at the ripe old age of 25, she's become quite the songstress. Forget "Candy" and the teen princess pop she did 10 years ago; she doesn't want you to remember it anyway. She's been working stealthily the past few years to let people know she belongs much more into the classic pop realm. I first took major notice with her covers album, "Coverage" where she paid homage to XTC, Cat Stevens and Blondie, among others. Her last album "Wild Hope" was a very mature step forward in her musical growth. She's much more Carole King than Britney Spears. In short, readers, she's one of us.
Her new album, entitled "Amanda Leigh", is the boldest statement yet in her musical growth. The album was co-written and produced by Candy Butcher/Major Label Mike Viola and recorded in Ducky Carlisle's home studio in Boston. That's right folks, 2/3 of the Major Labels play a large part in the creation of her newest album.
That fact alone should have you running from your keyboard to buy a copy.
The album isn't a hard Power Pop affair. It's a lovely, light as a feather and highly acoustic pop album and Mike's fingerprints are all over it. More than a few times during the discs running time, it sounds like Mandy had joined the Candy Butchers. The joint effort is fruitful, bountiful even. The opening track, "Merrimack River", is a great introduction to what's to come, with Mike and Mandy's vocals wrapping around each others beautifully. The followup track, "Fern Dell", has a great Jazzy feel. The first single off the disc is "I Could Break Your Heart Any Day Of The Week". It sounds, to these ears, like a Three Dog Night tribute from it's opening "Family Of Man" organ riff to the "Shambala" infused chorus.
Other disc highlights include "Pocket Philosopher", which has an admitted Nilsson/Newman vibe to it, while "I want Love To love Me Back" is 70's MOR perfection.
This album gets a high grade from this guy. It's recommended. Go git it.
Here is a great concert from Amoeba Records last week featuring Mandy and Mike:
You may have noticed on the left hand side of this blog, there is a widget dedicated to a group called "The Major Labels" and their new album, Aquavia. I urge everyone reading this to stop and click on the widget. This is a brand new album by Expert Popsmiths Bleu, Mike Viola and Ducky Carlisle and it is exquisite. I've personally had it on a loop for 2 weeks straight. It's a very addictive confection. You can listen to some samples of the album, but I recommend you dive in head first and immerse yourself into the album, start to finish. Although I loathe the term normally, the album is Beatlesque. The album is also T-Rexy, Bowie-y, Lennon and Mccartney solo-y and, to my uncannily trained ears, Hudson Brothers-y.
The opening and closing songs ("The Major Labels Got It Made" and "TML4EVA") bookend the inner content with the first proper song within those bumpers being, "Don't Hear A Single"; a paean to the great pop records of the past. If you're past 35, you'll be able to fully appreciate the sentiment here. There is some incredible Lennon/McCartney-ism going on with 2 seemingly different songs welded together to form a whole.
The next song is simply the best 3 and a half minutes spent in 2008. "Velveteen Queen" can be called a number of things: Baroque, Glam, Psychedelic... they may all fit, but labels aside, it's simply pop brilliance. The guitars, vocals, lyrics all come together with the nudge of a higher power's hand.
"The Bitter Pill" shares a kinship with "Don't Hear A Single" in it's record store delving theme.
"Richard Randolph" is a curious song. It's about a harmless middle aged man child who wants nothing more than to play with the local children. The parents, however, won't stand for it. The vaudeville type melody belies a darker lyric about automatically deeming anyone with a love for children and remaining a child himself (the Peter Pan Syndrome) a pervert. A worthwhile, challenging song.
"Hummingbird" is Bleu's beautiful second cousin to McCartney's "Blackbird". Simple and lovely.
This is where side two on a vinyl record would be (and one is forthcoming, I've been assured!) and it is an Abbey Road type suite of sweeping themes and melodies. It kicks of with the assaulting driving rock of "Jimmy Kenney" and lands on the doorstep of "The Sweet", a fascinating pop piece with movements and themes that would've made Brian Wilson proud.
Then there's "An Ode To Something To Cry About"... This is an oddball one joke one off. Possibly the weakest cut on the album, but it's a funny joke piece that reminds me of Nilsson's "Ivy Covered Walls" off of his Sandman Album.
"Deja Vu (All Over Again)" is a short and sweet Merseybeat like tune that comes complete with Ringo Drums and 12 string Rick melody lines. It's just an appetizer for the album's namesake.
"Aquavia" is a devastating and haunting song that wouldn't be out of place on an early 70's Elton John album. The melody and chorus will stay with you for days.
After the "TML4EVA" closer, the cheeky bums had the nerve to round out the album with 6 minutes of noise.
Seriously, this is one wonderful album and one of the best albums I've heard all year. Download it for free, or better yet, throw 6 or 7 dollars their way. They more than deserve it.
Yet another pic from the upcoming "My Sassy Girl" remake to confound and exasperate me:
OK, I mean, WTF? She's pushing him around in a shopping cart with a, what, BEAVER PELT on the front? I know, in the beloved original, Gyun-woo carries The Girl around on his back while she's passed out drunk, but I don't get this at all. Methinks this does not bode well....
UPDATE!!!! 12/08/07: I've been thinking about this photo. In the Original Korean MSG, Gyun-Woo carries The Girl around on his back. Maybe in the US version, he carries her around in a shopping cart he takes from a vagrant. If this is true, it's a sloppy update of events since Gyun-Woo's carrying of The Girl on his back takes on a major double significance. She's a burden to him, but she's using him to lean on. It's a perfect metaphor for their relationship. Shopping carts? No. Not at all.
Anyway, I'm thinking if the above is true, then this photo is from the guy's abortive attempt at revenge. In the Original MSG, Gyun-Woo attempts to make The Girl pay for the way she's treated him by getting drunk and making her carry him on her back as punishment. Of course, it doesn't work out like that at all. This photo could be illustrative of his plan. At least that's what I make of it. Or she just might like pushing her boyfriend around in a shopping cart. We'll see...
In other notes, "The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show" featuring the Spice Girls finally aired this evening on CBS. They performed "STOP" from the Spice World album. I thought this was quite a strange song to make their official comeback on US television with (ooh! A dangling preposition!). The song wasn't a hit in the US at the time of the Movie and Album's release. Still, it was an excellent performance. The girls looked lovely in their USO uniforms and sounded great. They even did their Hand Jive movements during the chorus! Made me feel good.
Well, turns out the Writer's Strike put the Kibosh on The Dewey Cox Band's performance on Jay Leno this evening. That's right. No Mike Viola on TV tonight. It's a shame. Still, go and see the movie if just for the music. If you hate anything Judd Apatow related, this one might make you queasy (as it undoubtedly will me) but I'm willing to sit through it for Mike Viola, Marshall Crenshaw and Van Dyke Parks penned goodness.
...and speaking of Judd Apatow....
I heard somewhere he was voted by Entertainment Weekly as the "Smartest Person In Hollywood". Now, because a certain lead singer of The Candy Butchers' wife is a photo editor for EW, I'll go light on them.... but not Apatow.
Just look at this Terrorist-cum-Yakov-Smirnov lookin' bastard. Seriously. "Smartest Man In Hollywood"? Maybe he is. I don't personally know the man. I can go only from his work that I've sampled. On that alone, I would say his only "Smarts" are f**king the celluloid corpses of:
a) The Porky's Movies
b) The American Pie Movies
c) the Farrelly Brothers Movies
...and making audiences think his crap movies (produced or directed, I don't care which) are light years better than they actually are.
Seriously? Making irredeemable gross out movies with limp pathos tacked onto them is criteria for being intelligent? Sure, he's obviously smarter than American audiences and critics since they seem to fall for the same damn plot device EVERY TIME (i.e. A reprehensible person is ultimately endearing if it's revealed he/she has a heart by the last reel), but come on. His films aren't even all that funny and any humor that is to be found has nothing to do with the plot. It's all incidental comedy that never comes out of the situation at hand.
Think about it. Take out the "You know how I know you're Gay" lines in "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and the "Hairy Man" cracks out of "Knocked Up" and the movies just aren't funny. Take the McLovin subplot out of "Superbad" and the movie falls flat on it's face. The subplot of the movie so completely eclipses the main plot that the ads had to completely focus on it instead of what the film was really about (which was the impending separation of two childhood friends once they go to College... and getting laid). That's how wretched "Superbad" is. Menstruation jokes? Yeah, a real knee slapper. Hear me once. "Superbad" sucks "Dazed and Confused"'s dick, "She's Having A Baby" owns "Knocked Up" and "Hardbodies" wrestles "The 40 Year Old Virgin" to the ground and farts on it's face. I have a weird feeling Apatow wants to be the current Generation's John Hughes, but it just ain't gonna happen. I don't care how much his PR machine tries to drill it into my brain.
The person with the REAL smarts in Hollywood is the one that does the promotion for his movies. THAT guy is a genius. Anyone who can convince the public at large that this unfunny hack's films are worth seeing is brilliant beyond compare.
Man, oh, man. It is shaping up to be yet another great summer for music for me. It started right on time at the beginning of this month. While I was anticipating the new Beat Crusaders album coming out this coming Wednesday (May 30th, 2007, natch), The Pillows went and threw me a curve ball by releasing a new album. I didn't even know they were coming out with a new one, but... there it was, all shiny and new.
The Album is called "Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up!" and it could damn well be the best album of the summer already. Their last album, the 2006 "My Foot", was obstinately a fall/winter album in mood and content. The final song of that disc, "Gazelle City", even had the chorus, "Come on sunshine, lift me up". They were all too ready for summer and the new album delivers on that vibe in spades.
Right out of the box, they ratchet up the free feeling punk of "Wake Up! Dodo"; their latest single. The follow up, "YOUNGSTER (Kent Arrow)" then digs in with a deliriously jittery pogo-infested dance vibe. The mood then shifts slightly to the beyond grotty sounding "PROPOSE" and on and on to the killer finale, "Sweet Baggy Days" which features a protracted coda and some startling vocal work from Vocalist Sawao Yamanaka. I never knew he had such a wide vocal range.
Simply put, this is top down, crusin' the shoreline music. The Pillows are easily the sexiest, most seductive sounding punk band I've ever heard.
Similarly an incredible summer band, Britain's McFLY have re-released their last album "Motion In The Ocean" in a slightly expanded, re tracked edition with a full length Concert DVD from Wembley Arena in late 2006; recorded right before the release of MITO. It would have been worth enough the purchase just for the new single, "Baby's Coming Back," with it's Partridge Family/ Lovin' Spoonful sound and the reinsertion of their cover of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" (which only appeared as a bonus track on the first pressing of MITO), but the real keeper is the DVD. It's just astounding. Truly. Their last Concert DVD was a good show, but it was during the "Wonderland" tour; the weakest of their three albums. This DVD, however, is sheer bliss.
They take the stage to the melody of Ennio Morricone's "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" in a nod to the Ramones' stage entrance during their final few tours. They then proceed to tear up the (mostly) teen age girls in the audience with a mix of hits and new tracks from the MITO album. They even try their hands at two modern classics, "Fight For Your Right (To Party)" (yep, the Beastie Boys!) and Ray Parker, Jr.'s "Ghostbusters". Don't roll your eyes, though, they take them both into the stratosphere. A great moment is hearing them play "I Wanna Hold You" with the original doomsday lyrics that were changed to a softer set of lyrics after the initial pressing of their second album, "Wonderland". Throw in a Beach Medley of songs from their first album, "Room on the 3rd Floor" and a drum based bit torn straight out of a production of "Stomp" and you have a truly entertaining 80 minute concert film. It's so good, in fact, that I'd have loved to have had a CD of the show ala the "Live and Off The Record" CD/DVD set from Shakira.
In the 1970's, the soundtrack to this DVD would have been bigger than "Cheap Trick at Budokan". No shit. Highly, highly recommended for anyone who loves great pop music.
Well, goddam if Fox Video didn't do the world a great service the other week. They went and not only re-released last great rock and roll movie of the 20th century on DVD, but they released it as a Director's Cut with 40... you read it right, 40 additional minutes of footage; clocking the running time to a whopping 2 and one half hours!
The film I'm speaking of is Tom Hanks' directorial debut, "That Thing You Do!" I'm not lying to you when I say that I truly believe it is one of, if not THE, last great rock and roll movie of the 20th century. This is one of those perfect movies. Everything falls into place perfectly, from the sets and locales to the actors and the script. It is done to the strictest specifications of the universe. It is that perfect. The movie, in short, is just meant to be.
So, Terry, you're probably thinking, if the film is soooooo perfect, then why would a Director's Cut be in order? Damn it, I don't know, but somehow, the movie is improved on a great many levels. I wouldn't subject anyone to this cut for a first time viewing, but after someone has seen the theatrical version, I would tell them to see the Director's Cut as soon as possible. In addition to the joy of simply spending more time with these beloved characters, the film expounds on many things that may leave the viewer wondering after a couple of viewings. No, they still don't explain who U Thant is, but you do get a better idea of why Guy keeps saying "I AM SPARTACUS!" over and over.
It's easy to see why the cuts were made. The first half hour takes too long to get things moving and the last half hour seems to take too long to wrap things up. That, of course, is where most of the cuts were made. Still, for the patient viewer, these scenes enrich the movie greatly. Simply put, the original cut is much more of a rock movie and the extended cut leans more to a period piece than anything else.
Unfortunately, there are no commentary tracks and both Tom Hanks and Liv Tyler are absent from the current interviews, but all of the Original Wonders are on hand, as is Charlize Theron, who I found to be very open and funny as well as delightfully deadpan in her interviews. The reunion feature actually looks like a reunion (instead of a promo piece) and gives the viewer the feeling that "That Thing You Do!" really meant a lot to everyone, even 11 years on.
Other features are repeated from the previous DVD release, save for the feature called, "The Wonders In Japan", where the actors were treated as a real band as they lip synced on talk shows and the like. Unfortunately, the International trailers from the first release aren't there (And they are a hoot) and there should have been a feature on the people who created the music. OK! Time to let it out, kids! Mike Viola is the lead vocal on most of the Wonders' songs. He's wonderful and you should go and buy all of his records. http://www.mikeviola.com/
DO IT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!!!!
Here's a documentary on Mike Viola that I uploaded to You Tube. Yes, Mike's cool with it. I consulted him.
