For the next couple weeks, at least, Mondays nights on NBC are wall-to-wall. Chuck, Heroes and Life make an entertaining evening, and I'd argue that the most popular, Heroes, is by far the weakest link. Of course, after next week, Life moves permanently to the black hole of Friday night, which means I won't be writing about it anymore (just say no to Saturday posts). Of course, the Christian Slater starring My Own Worst Enemy starts, and that's probably the only mention of it you'll see from me (and unless Heroes picks up, it's not long for the docket as well).
I'm so glad Chuck is back (my favorite new series from last year without the initials M.M.,) and while this season premiere brought the funny, I still found it hard dealing with the exposition necessary to guarantee that new viewers won't be lost. Between all the little reintroductions and the stiffness of this week's baddie (Michael Clarke Duncan) the humor had to work overtime to make up for it. Thankfully it did that and more. Between Morgan's Thunderdome method of choosing an assistant manager ("one will be assistant manager... the other will be Jeff",) and the many subtle Casey moments the show has grown to rely on. Casey even gets in on the Phantom Planet backed ("Dropped") dressing montage, a callback to the pilot. ("Dropped" gets cut up and used several times afterwards, a scoring method applied several times last year, and was perfected with Bob Mould's "Circles" on Schwartz's The O.C. exactly three years ago).
Humor also took the form of Huey Lewis & the News songs ("Hip to be Square,""Power of Love,") giving us contrasting views of how the cheese of Huey Lewis can either lift spirits or annoy the hell out of you depending on your mood. Then Flight of the Conchord's french pop parody "Foux du Fafa" helped amusingly introduce Sarah's new cover at a yogurt shop (Weinerlicious will surely be missed). Meanwhile, the all important third act song this time out is courtesy of Frightened Rabbit, who's "The Twist" works both to show Casey's unwanted empathy ("the twist is you're just like me") and the convenient blowing up of the rebuilt intersect and agents surrounding it ("need human heat"). So long Tony "Candyman" Todd.
Life, on the other hand, doesn't have as much humor to make up for all the reintroductions that it put us through, and thus is suffered as a result. I assume (hope) that the next episode (Friday) will work much better. Musically, there's at least still some of the same commitment to quality that later episodes showed last season, this time highlighted by The Heavy's "Colleen."
Checking back in with HBO's True Blood we're definitely stepping into the 'page turning' mystery mode now, with Sookie (or, as fittingly pronounced by all, 'Sucky') on the case, using her telepathic abilities to try and clear her dimwit brother's name.
Other items to sink your fangs into: a vampire bar that's practically Disney by day, and Dante's Inferno by night; Lafeyette's illicit v business; and more importantly, the puzzling case of the caniney roadhouse proprietor Sam. For a moment we all thought he might somehow be the dog that watches over Sookie, but by the end of the third episode, we see them together, and our scent is thrown off. But seeing Sam roll around in Dawn's bed sniffing the sheets like their made of snausages (all to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "That Smell,") we know that this dog will hunt. [Readers of the book, please no spoiling.]
Most of the series music thus far has been from the roadhouse, so it's refreshing to hear what the Vamps are listening to. Bill seems to be a world music guy, listening first to some Hawaiian (Kalani Kinimaka) and then some Khmer (Cambodian) pop from Dengue Fever, whose song title ("Escape from Dragon House") also doubles as the episode title. Anyone got a translation of the song readily available?
We had to wait a week for it, but wasn't it worth it? Not only did to see Mad Men's big Emmy win, but all the expectation for this episode after week off was met with another solid (game changing) episode. As expected, the death of Marilyn Monroe played a crucial role in this, the August episode for Mad Men, tying it together with the theme of 'be careful what you wish for."
The story of Marilyn Monroe is obviously one of tragedy, a women who achieved fortune and fame, but in the end was destroyed by it, the historical tie to the aforementioned theme. It was obvious to anyone that Joan, of all people, would be affected by her death, so it's all the more cold to hear Roger lecture her on who was worthy of mourning. "She was a movie star who had everything, and everybody, and she threw it away," he says to her, devoid of empathy. "Someday you'll lose someone you love, and then you'll understand," she replies and Roger is left to stare off in the distance. He already has lost someone he loves, and she just walked out the door behind him. Just one of the many subtle moments that help set up Roger's surprising move at the end, but more on that later.
The main story throughout, of course, was the downfall of Freddy Rumsen, played with aplomb by Joel Murray. The title of the episode, "Six Months Leave," sounds like something you might wish for after a hard day at the office, but for Freddy, in the wake of pissing himself, it's a death sentence. Don's resistance to firing Freddy is seen by Roger as loyalty to a fault, but in this case I think it's more Don seeing his own precarious situation in parallel with Freddy's. A man's name is important, and not to be sullied, even if, as in the case of Don, it's not even his real name. Freddy knows that the arrangement is just a gesture, and that his job won't really be there when he gets back. "Who am I if I'm not going to that office every day?" Freddy asks Don, reminding us that he's defined himself by his job. Don, meanwhile, is nearly the opposite -- he's essentially lost his identity in the role of his job. Their final words say a lot. Don, still playing the optimist, says "Good night, Freddy," while Freddy, understanding what's really happening, says "Goodbye, Don." We'll miss you Joel Murray [plays "Taps" with zipper].
Another recurring theme throughout is of various characters getting woken up abruptly, to be confronted with a sobering reality. Betty, is awoken from an alcohol and depression induced nap, and after being subjected to Sarah Beth's hints at an affair, Betty then decides to take kill two birds with one stone, setting her one outlet for an affair in Arthur, and instead setting him up with Sara Beth at a lunch she conveniently misses. If there's any doubt as to Betty's intention in the setup, we're given a visual of young Sally "stirring the pot," as the Drapers make cookies. Freddy similarly awakes from a drunken stupor, only his sobering reality was soiled trousers, and the walk of shame out of the office, his last such walk. Complicit in Freddy's demise was Pete, who's awoken from a nap in his office by Peggy, confronting him about ratting out Freddy. Hildy's disgust was also visible, which is funny in that he still can't get respect from his 'girl.'
In the final, plot twisting scene, Don is woken from his nap by Roger's wife Mona, and we find out that Roger has not only used Don's words to justify his dumping of Mona, but also is throwing his lot with Don's secretary Jane. Roger, who earlier was thinking of how he lost Joan, convinces himself that Jane is his Joan (and, to revisit the "Maidenform" episode from earlier, Marilyn's not an option now, so you have to go with a Jackie). The move is traitorous to Don on many fronts, the worst of which is knowing that Roger's gained access to info about Don via pillow talk. As we saw last season with the oysters and the elevator stunt, Don is ruthless in his revenge, so one wonders what it's store for Roger (and Jane, for that matter -- it's bad enough having to watch your back with Joan, but add Don to the mix, and you get the feeling Jane will soon be following Freddy's zipper out the door).
The significant choice of music this episode was the closing credits, with Marilyn Monroe singing "I'm Thru With Love," from her role as Sugar Kane in the Billy Wilder classic Some Like It Hot (see video below). It's the saddest of all the Marilyn songs, and thus has even more of an impact in the context of the initial belief by many here that her death was a suicide. Meanwhile, Betty switches away from news of Marilyn's death on the radio, to instead listen to Tchaikovsky's "First Piano Concerto", which may or may not have some significance. Tchaikovsky first wrote/dedicated the song for friend and Moscow Conservatory founder Nikolai Rubinstein, but ended up taking it to someone else after Rubinstein asked him rework it, and that history could have some parallels to the state of the Drapers, if you squint really hard (go ahead and squint!).
The way soul singer Nikka Costa tells the story, there was a difference of a opinion between the kind of music she wanted to make and what Virgin Records wanted from her. "Why do you have to scream like that?" was an example of the kind of questions Costa had to endure. Credit the 31-year old Costa with sticking to her guns, as her forthcoming album, Pebble to a Pearl, doesn't hold back on her soulful scream, which you can witness for yourself as she performs the first single "Stuck to You" on Leno Wednesday night. It certainly helped moving to the reborn Stax Records label, given their influence on Costa's soulful delivery.
Speaking of sticking to his guns, Pete Seeger has been going at that vocation for a long time, finding a cause to sing about either with The Weavers, The Almanac Singers, or solo going back to even before the Spanish Civil War. His career has survived being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and was one of the first to take up the cause of the environment. Seeger co-founded the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater in 1966, and he's still singing about the effects of pollution on the river, with the song "Throw Away That Shad Net (How Are We Going To Save Tomorrow?)" on his latest release, At 89. This national treasure plays Letterman Monday, and at nearly 90 years old, we should relish every appearance we can get from him.
Finally, Lucinda Williams is getting ready to release, Little Honey, which might be her best album since 1998's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. She performs the first single, "Real Love,", on Letterman Thursday, and Jackson Browne fans might notice that the song blatantly lifts a guitar line from Browne's "Boulevard." So much so, in fact, that I'd venture to guess that Browne must have some songwriting credit, or at least his blessing, because as he sings in that song, "nobody rides for free (nobody, nobody)".
Blitzen Trapper's Sub Pop debut continues some of the restless mixtapery found on their prior release Wild Mountain Nation, creating perhaps sharper collages of 70's hippyish rock. Neil, Dylan and the Dead are all present, and when they turn it up a notch, I even hear some mid-70's Robert Palmer, another branch of the long haired boogie rock of the 70's. Furr, while not as good as Delta Spirit's debut (Ode to Sunshine,) builds on the hippie indie rock sound of Cold War Kids and Dr. Dog, with BT sounding a bit like an Americana version of the retro paisley 90's band Jellyfish. Lots of 70's pop and rock mishmashed together in a manner that's quite pleasing, even if you've heard it all before. When the steel guitar and other alt country leanings creep in is when BT really shines, like on the highlight title track and beautifully lazy "Stolen Shoes and a Rifle."
Splitting the difference between her gospel-tinged solo debut (Rabbit Fur Coat, with the Watson Twins) and her latest 70's AM radio-like offering with Rilo Kiley (Under the Blacklight,) Acid Tongue ultimately fails to capture the attraction of either. There are plenty of highlights that suggest that this could've been a great album, like the gospel of the title track, the rocking fun of "Fernando," and epic "The Next Messiah." The strangest thing for me is that "Carpetbaggers" actually suffers from having Elvis Costello lending vocals, sounding more like stunt casting than collaboration. It might be that my expectations were unrealistic, but I still can't even make it all the way through the opening track ("Black Sand") without grinding my teeth, and that's never a good thing. It's an album that's sure to have plenty of fans (just not me).
1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the previous collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno, was a landmark recording for many reasons, including it's pioneering use of sampling. It was released with little fanfare, slowly building an appreciation over the years for it's fusion of African rhythms, paranoid funk and voices echoing a cult of personality. 27 years later, they're back, but Everything That Happens will Happen Today shares almost nothing in common with their cult classic. In fact, with the prevalence of an acoustic guitar throughout, it resembles more in mood the innocence and laid back qualities of Talking Heads' Little Creatures. Songs like "Life is Long" and "Strange Overtones" are immediate, feeling effortless and oozing positivity, a far cry from the paranoia of previous collaborations. The few times the duo stray back into the experimental sounds of their previous effort, it doesn't seem to work. The trip-hop of "I Feel My Stuff" feels like an unwelcome left turn when it arrives, and "Poor Boy" just feels wrong for some reason in the context of the album. It is still Eno and Byrne, though, so even the misteps are more interesting than most can offer these days.
Now that the song is out there, the reaction has been quick, and mostly brutal. I understand some of the knee-jerk from both ears. James Bond fans want something more like "Goldfinger" and Jack White fans want a White Stripes song and White tries to walk the fence, coupling his trademark bluesy distorted riffs backed by the traditional Bond orchestration of horns and strings.
My main complaint is that Alicia Keys seems like an afterthought in the recording, like she walked in as White was already playing and just sort of joined in. But other than that, the song works well enough and ultimately, we should all hold final judgement until we see in the context of a film. I think too often people forget that a theme to a film requires visuals for it to be complete, and after seeing it used in a film, the opinion often changes and morphs over time. A great example would be "Live and Let Die" from Paul McCartney, a song which all agree now is a classic. But if you heard it the first time, with that reggae middle part, you'd have been scratching your head not knowing the context of the film. I think we'll find that the song holds up well, especially compared to the themes of the past 25 years, as low a bar as that seems.
Of course, Noel Gallagher (Oasis) thinks (colorfully) otherwise. "It's a pisstake that the greatest British agent of all time has to be soundtracked by a bunch of f****** Americans" he told NME recently.
I've written a couple of theme tunes. They haven't got very Bond-esque titles, so I would have to tailor the title accordingly. The latest one that I wrote, I listened back to it thinking, 'F****** hell, man! That'd make a f****** great Bond theme.'
Here's hoping those themes will one day see the f****** light of day.
The National and The Breeders play a special Obama rally in Cincinnati, October 16, to try and get out the vote. Early voting starts next week (Sept 30) for Ohioans, while folks in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Kentucky and Virginia can cast votes even before the first debate this Friday.
Early voters, for the most part, consist of folks who have already made up their mind, so on the surface, it wouldn't seem to benefit one candidate over the other. But it can benefit the Democrats in that it helps alleviate the stress of huge voter turnout in densely populated areas (which lean Democrat). Ohio's Franklin County had too few functioning polling booths to handle the influx of voters back in 2004, with folks waiting 4-6 hours at some places to vote. It's been estimated that "between 20,000 and 30,000 people were deterred from voting because of the long lines."
Tim and Eric's Awesome Show (Great Job!) is a show that's difficult to just blanket recommend to folks. The cable access outtake format requires a certain taste in comedy that a large majority of the population never acquire, even those familiar with Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup. It can often seem just weird for the sake of being weird, but through the insanity many great moments of surreal comedy bubble up.
Take the Rainn Wilson guest appearance as child singer Bobby Stoan, showcasing his limited knowledge of how to make babies (see video below). The visual joke of having Wilson's face digitally placed on a real toddler is funny enough, but having him sing "do you really have to pee in a girls mouth to make babies?" is beyond funny. Kids say the darndest things about 'the birds and bees.'
Of course, it's not the first time Tim and Eric have had bands performing songs for the show. They've even released a whole album of songs from the show, Awesome Record, Great Songs, featuring the likes of Built to Spill ("Come Over,") The Shins ("Wipe My Butt") and Aimee Mann ("Hearts"). And if that weren't enough, this month, they released another EP of bizarre songs, Uncle Muscles Presents: Casey and His Brother, featuring music from last week's "Muscles For Bones" episode, and from their live tour this past summer.
While there may be three hours of Heroes tonight, here's a friendly reminder that there are two other great shows that sandwich the series for NBC next Monday night. Both Chuck and Life, in lieu of the Heroes onslaught tonight, don't have their premieres until next week, but you can see them a week early via this internet thing that everyone is talking about. NBC.com, Hulu.com and the new kid on the block, Amazon Video on Demand, are all showing the season premiere for the two programs right now -- for free.
Chuck, for it's part, has already been picked up for a full season based on the strength of the first six episodes that Josh Schwartz and company had in the can, and from what I've seen of the premiere, it's seems warranted. Guest baddie is the 'imposing' Michael Clarke Duncan, who's character takes part in an expository-rich opening scene that helps fill in the blanks for new viewers. It's representative of the tightrope that both Chuck and Life have to walk this go 'round, following their strike-shortened first seasons.
Musically for Chuck, we get the usual mix of both new and pop-cultural referencing old. Multiple songs from Huey Lewis & the News, for instance, play a minor role, while buzzy Frightened Rabbit ("The Twist") get the coveted introspective third act slot that last season was (sort of) famous for. That's all I'm saying until after the proper premiere, when we'll reconvene and discuss, deal?
In the meantime, as promised, below is the season premiere of Chuck. Once you're done with that, you probably want to check out the other half of next week's sandwich, the season premiere of Life. (After Monday night, Life moves to Friday nights at 10PM.)
In a normal week, I'd also be saying more about My Morning Jacket (Monday on Leno and Foals (Wednesday on Kimmel Live), but it's my birthday week (turning 40!) the Music on TV gods have made this week thick with aural goodness. As Yo Gabba Gabba's intrepid host DJ Lance Rock likes to say, "Listening and dancing to music is AWESOME!!!"
As Wall Street is being crushed under it's own karmic weight, Dear Science is turning out the be the perfect soundtrack to fiddle while Rome burns. From top to bottom, Dear Science is the most focused and consistently great album that TVOTR has released yet, which is saying a lot. And it's funky, as evidenced on the lead single "Golden Age," (coptastic video!) which beautifully apes Jacko's "Wanna Be Starting Something." The album opens with the ba-ba-ba's of "Halfway Home," a song that acts as the perfect bridge from Cookie Mountain, sounding very much in that mold of artistry, but then also adding some subtle orchestration. By the next song, "Crying," it's apparent that we're in for even more than expectations set us up for. Kyp Malone's falsetto has always been there, but by turning up the funk and adding horns (courtesy of Antibalas,) the effect is a different experience entirely. "Dancing Choose" has Tunde Adebimpe sounding like Saul Williams, and those horns continue to kill me. Following "Golden Age," the ballad "Family Tree" builds from a slow and sparse oddity into the beautifully orchestrated ending that's like Sigur Ros, with the histrionic dial turned down a notch. I could easily wax on about each and every track, but I'll just single out two more, "Red Dress" and the closer "Lover's Day," as absolute stunners. I can already hear a few outlier voices crying that TVOTR has lost a bit of their art, but that's really just haughty hooey. It's a nearly perfect album, and, like previous TVOTR releases, rewards upon repeat listenings. Album. Of. The. Year.
Noah and the Whale's debut is a pleasurable serving of twee pop. You've more than likely already heard the first single "5 Years Time" from a recent Saturn television commercial. The Twickenham five piece cobbled their name together from American director Noah Baumbach's film The Squid and the Whale, and their sound from American folk acts Magnetic Fields, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Sufjan Stevens. There's always a danger in sounding derivative given the obvious references in their sound, as even when it's done as well as this, you know that it's been done before. Still, it's a great collection of maudlin love songs where even a line as sappy as "let my love surround you like an ether in everything that you do," is delivered in a way that a cringe turns into a smile.
I'm finally getting around to a Bumbershoot recap, and part of my delay is because unlike my adventurous first day, I don't have any stories to tell this time. That's the way it often goes, great adventure/no pictures or lots of pictures/no stories to tell. The wife was back from her trip, but feeling under the weather, so I couldn't make it until about the time Two Gallants went on (above). That means I missed Blitzen Trapper, Mark Pickerel and his Praying Hands and the infamous Monotonix, who's set lasted all of around 13 minutes before being shut down. The garbage can getting tossed around is apparently what did caused the show to be prematurely halted, not the nudity:
The Stooges were famous for shrinking the distance between band and audience, and Monotix just obliterates it.
I learned my lesson from the Two Gallants set that the staging area for photographers at the Broad Street Lawn (Rockstar) Stage is kind of stupid, so I got there early enough for John Vanderslice to be in centerstage up front for some shots. Vanderslice is famously the nicest guy in indie rock, and he had it going on before the set, telling various folks in the audience that he was so pleased to see them and that he'd catch up with them after the set.
Old 97s were on next, and they were playing at possibly the greatest setting to take photos at Bumbershoot, the Mural Ampitheatre. It's set up for perfect lighting in the afternoon to early evening, which is when the Texans went on. Frontman Rhett Miller has a face that cameras love, and he seems well aware of that fact, putting all the poses on display for the three songs we're allowed to shoot. Heck, I'm comfortable enough in my sexuality to say that he's pretty hot. Does that make me gay for Rhett?
After that I had just enough time to get a couple shots of one of my heroes, Del the Funky Homosapien. By the time he got through his first song, I'd almost forgotten the time, such is the power of his smooth delivery.
I had to haul ass to get to the Battles set, but unfortunately, I was too late to get any frontline shots and had to rely on the side stage approach. Aside from Man Man on Saturday, this was the one other band I wanted to see at Bumbershoot, so I took only a few photos and worked my way around the crowd trying to find a place to enjoy the set. It was easliy the largest audience I've ever seen at that stage, and so your typical view from a fan was at a distance. Aside from Monotix, this set was easily the most talked about amongst the folks I spoke with that night.
Tired and wanting to go home, I started the long trek back to my car, stopping to get in a shot of Mike Doughty and a couple photos of Sondre Lerche (above) before heading out into the dark, dark night. It's always a sad journey home leaving the last day of Bumbershoot, not just because the festival's done, but also the knowledge that you just witnessed the end of summer. We have just a few short weeks of leftover sunshine before the imminent arrival of the rain here in Seattle. Not even Monotonix can cut fall's arrival short.
Add Andrew Bird, Les Savy Fav (playing an "acoustic spectacular,") The Fiery Furnace and Special Guests (aka Franz Ferdinand) to the list of indie rockers for Obama. While not as stunning as the poster we saw last week for the upcoming National/Breeders Obama show in Cincinnati, it's still works for me, considering how many acts that they had to fit in there.
I'm so glad Chuck is back (my favorite new series from last year without the initials M.M.,) and while this season premiere brought the funny, I still found it hard dealing with the exposition necessary to guarantee that new viewers won't be lost. Between all the little reintroductions and the stiffness of this week's baddie (Michael Clarke Duncan) the humor had to work overtime to make up for it. Thankfully it did that and more. Between Morgan's Thunderdome method of choosing an assistant manager ("one will be assistant manager... the other will be Jeff",) and the many subtle Casey moments the show has grown to rely on. Casey even gets in on the 
