If I hear a better rock album this year I’ll be shocked. My god, this is just… I don’t even know how to try and encapsulate the way this album makes me feel – perhaps a bit like I felt when I first heard The Pixies. But The Besnard Lakes don’t sound like The Pixies. … Continue reading
I go through my moods with beer the same way I do with music and movies – warmer weather brings out lighter brews such as lagers and ales while the year end creep into colder weather turns on my desire for stouts, porters and the like. Wheats and White Ales feel more like delicacies and … Continue reading
I’m sitting in Columbus Airport in a starbucks waiting for a flight. Through the house speakers is a steady, non-threatening mix of ‘chill-out’ music; a neutered continuous breeze of hi hat, fluttery bass and just-barely there vocals in every permutation of mock-rasta dialect imaginable. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either, especially because it … Continue reading
I will never forget the first time I saw the Coen Bros. film Fargo. I hated it. And you will probably recall, perhaps from your own experience with the film, just how much seemingly everybody loved it. Well, maybe not everybody, but everybody in the kind of circles that contain folks who like Coen Bros. … Continue reading
Fact: the rate at which our access to and handling of information is speeding up exponentially. Of course, right? And Fact: The previous, if accepted as fact can be seen as having changed the way we consume and process the aforementioned information, particularly the information we call ‘stories’. Bear with me here, it might get … Continue reading
Wow, now that’s some picture, eh? Some of you out there will know the film Alucarda, the 1978 Mexican horror film directed by Juan Lopez Moctezuma. I did not until recently seeing it mentioned here: http://blog.reelloop.com/8168/news/horrors-remake-the-crazies/ Anyway, I’m always up for some Satan-themed horror so I hunted it down and took a peek. For both … Continue reading
Master is a title we bestow upon those who excel and/or define their provocations. Think ‘Master craftsman’ or ‘Master of Ceremonies’*. But by its very nature this title is transitory: within this filthy prison we call ‘time’ those people identified as ‘masters’ will eventually die or retire and someone new will earn the hallmark. For … Continue reading
Dillinger Escape Plan reminds me of some massive cyborg amalgamation machine – the foundation to the unit was laid down on 1998’s Under the Running Boards and perhaps more specifically 1999’s Disasterpiece Calculating Infinity, but ever since then the band, in spite of (or perhaps because of) their fluctuating lineup has added to itself by … Continue reading
Rock stars die. Let’s face it, other than making music it’s what they’re good at. Many die before their time (Hendrix) many die waaaay after their time (Clapton? Sting? They walk the Earth but Bonham and Jerry Fuchs, to name a few, die young. Thanks for that). But they die like everyone else. Unlike everyone … Continue reading
This morning I encountered a folder buried on a hard drive that contains audio samples from movies that made me think about some random scenes, sometimes in films that aren’t necessarily on my ‘Watch Again Soon List’, but that are awesome in their own right and bring a smile to my face. I’ll start with … Continue reading