What's John watching?

Muchmusic: Loud: Oh man, For Whom the Bell Tolls. I don't think I've ever seen that video. And, I have to be honest, the first Metallica I heard was from the black album. *ducks for cover* Thankfully, a buddy I met in university introduced me to the world of speed metal (early Metallica among it; can't get faster than Trapped Under Ice).

Holy crap! I was just confirming Superjoint Ritual's name on-line - getting ready to write about how they remind me of Pantera - when I read that Anselmo is their front man! I'm serious! 5 Minutes Alone was goin' through my head as I'm listening to F*** Your Enemy! Man, that's f***ed up... ¶ 12:30:00 a.m. (0) comments

Muchmusic: The Punk Show: I'm gonna try to catch this regularly; it was a great show. Possessed To Skate by Suicidal Tendencies was awesome! The skaters in the pool were insane! ¶ 12:22:00 a.m. (0) comments

American Wedding: Well, the first one is still my favourite, but I have to admit, for sequels, this one and American Pie 2 are pretty good.

It's funny, I didn't think I'd like American Pie at all; we'd seen the second one in the theatre when it was a friend's night to pick, and while I laughed a lot more than I expected, it's the kind of movie you only watch once. Then we're down east, and I find American Pie among the hundreds of DVDs my brother-in-law owns; we just popped it in one night, no big expectations... I loved it! Seriously. I'm sure I'll own it someday.

Anyway, this one was good for a laugh too. Michelle's dad (Fred Willard) had me rolling around on the couch during the bachelor party scene. Then there was the other end of the spectrum: the dog-s**t-truffle scene. *shudder* I really thought my wife was gonna hurl (and I almost lost it too). Anyway, I'm sure the fans will love it. It's nice to see sequels with a purpose. ¶ 1:51:00 p.m. (0) comments

Las Vegas: My wife loves this show. I, on the other hand, haven't watched many episodes. I liked this one, though; it was taped, so I'll attempt to identify it as the Sugar Ray episode. I'm guessing Mark McGrath doesn't make regular appearances.

I loved the scene where Big Ed (James Caan) pays the thief a visit. If I'm that guy, I'm s**ting my pants about the time he's tellin' me how upset he is over his wife's cheatin'.

I'm thinkin' everything wasn't turnin' up roses after the episode, though. I mean, yeah, she wasn't cheating, but Ed still failed to notice that she'd changed her hairstyle, he'd had her followed... Can 30 diamonds really fix all that? Actually, yes. What was I thinking? ¶ 8:16:00 p.m. (0) comments

Velvet Smooth: *wipes tears away* Oh man, was this one ripe! Owen Watson's (billed as Wat-son, I think, for some reason) creation. Well, O.K., he didn't directed it, but come on, like anyone's gonna remember this for anything other than his hilarious choreography. Jumpsuits, primal screams at just the right moments, and even footage played at double speed to add tension to the chase (I'm assuming that was intentional, but Lord knows; the quality of this DVD was anything but "superior"); who could ask for anything more?

It had the longest musical interlude I've ever heard, the cleanest head wound I've ever seen (fatal head wound, no less), the tastiest lookin' blood I can recall (raspberry jam, yum-yum)... They even had a casino consultant on the set, and boy did it show. :-) It was a riot! ¶ 11:56:00 p.m. (0) comments

The Falcon and the Snowman: Chilling. Before I get into the story, I have to mention Penn's style. At times, it was like I was watching a young Hoffman. Uncanny! I'm serious. Especially when Lee (Sean Penn) was agitated (which was often).

I don't know if I believed in Boyce (Timothy Hutton). I really enjoyed this movie, but the subject (i.e., spies) is fascinating, so they'd have to screw it up pretty badly for me not to. There were some great scenes (e.g., the scene where Boyce blows up at his father had some great shots of the old man (Pat Hingle)... such emotion in those close-ups), but I didn't realize how much the movie was lacking until the last few minutes of Boyce's interrogation; in those moments, seeing the disdain on Hutton's face, I realized I hadn't seen Boyce's progression. Yes, he'd been drinking more. Yes, he'd cut up his stuffed owl with a steak knife. But there wasn't enough to connect that boy watching Watergate unfold - "Do you find this amusing? Hardly." That was an excellent moment - to the unrepentant, and very believable, greasy-haired traitor. If Hutton could've pulled off more of those bright moments, then maybe, but as it was, I was just fascinated by the subject, not dealing with knots in my gut because I felt like I was going down with Boyce.

Lee, on the other hand, was complete. Penn played him well. You knew him... who he was, where he was going, and why.

Fascinating, and long, for an 80's flick: two hours, 13 minutes, I believe, but it certainly didn't drag. ¶ 11:10:00 p.m. (0) comments

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: I knew nothing about this movie before I sat down in the theatre; nothing. Well, O.K., one thing: my wife mentioned that Jim Carrey was in it. The title should tell you it's out of the ordinary, though. Reading it now, it makes sense.

This movie pulls a lot of stuff out of the cupboards, throws them in a boiling pot of water and serves them up for supper. I'm talking about the stuff we don't like talking about. The stuff that you only hear from the drunk, bitter people at dinner parties. The impermanence of life, memory, everything we hold dear. That we will never truly know anyone in this world, and that even our spouses - should we be lucky enough to find someone to share this with - have thoughts that would break our heart were they spoken aloud. That many of us deny these things, and stay, because of the investment, because that's all that waits for us out there anyway.

Yup. Seriously. All that stuff. For supper.

It's also screamingly funny. If you had any doubts, Jim can play an amazing four year old. Hell, Jim's daily life is probably spent covering up his four-year-old-like brain.

This is the sort of movie you could watch a dozen times and keep catching things you missed. Oh, all the books were facing bind in. Oh, Kate's hair is green in this memory.

You know something else I liked about this movie? It ran the billing about 20 minutes in; long after I was hooked and forgetting this was a movie. The Coen brothers did the same thing in Raising Arizona. If I ever direct a movie, I'm gonna do the same thing. It pulls people in. ¶ 1:34:00 a.m. (0) comments

Clear and Present Danger: Well, no neat little package here; just Jack Ryan tellin' the truth. Again, I'd seen this one before, in the cinema, and, again, I'd forgotten a lot. That death alley in... Bogota, was it? Colombia, anyway. I can't imagine driving that well in those circumstances, and if he hadn't, at any point, he would've been killed.

Crazy. Intense. The phone rang in the middle of the movie and there was no way I was getting it. Bravo has that great first rush... What? It must be an hour without a commercial, and then two slots near the end. That's much better than the Superstation "every ten minutes, for ten minutes" thing. I would've had no trouble answering the phone in that case; it's not like you have a chance to get into the movie or anything.

The family scene was really cool, having heard the same lines not a half hour before in Patriot Games. And it was an answer to that hanging question? Was she pregnant with a boy or a girl? And, no, I didn't remember that from the first time I'd seen it. I'm actually going to the doctor this week about my memory; it's starting to freak me out... ¶ 1:26:00 a.m. (0) comments

Patriot Games: It was a Jack Ryan day on Bravo. I caught the tail end of The Hunt for Red October before this one started.

It had been a long time since I'd seen Patriot Games. I remembered the bombing - it's what I always think of when I see Sean Bean - and how it all finished up at the house on the coast, but the rest was fuzzy. I really enjoyed it, even if it all tied up in the neatest little package you could imagine. (See honey, that's what traitors get: a bullet in the chest, lots of bullets in the chest and head.)

I was surprised to see Thora Birch billed... a miniature version of herself. :-) Did she do anything between Clear and Present Danger and American Beauty? Survey says: a few movies. These Hollywood kids... Do they think the suburbs are alien? ¶ 1:11:00 a.m. (0) comments

El Elegante: Another Fox Searchlab short. Interesting. I laughed at the line, "My father always used to put me back together again after he sawed me in half; he was a good dad like that." You can practice counting in Spanish too. Oh well, enough of that for one night. ¶ 8:48:00 p.m.

Farm Sluts: Now that got your attention, eh? No, it's not some perverted pony ride, but it's not safe for work or young children either. To quote the Web site:

Farm Sluts contains partial nudity, language and untimely random acts of perversion.

You have been warned. :-)

If you've ever opened an e-mail or visited a Web site because you've trusted the sender, only to find yourself in a truly nasty world, this one's for you. It's a very professional short from Fox Searchlab. Kinda reminded me of Office Space. ¶ 8:25:00 p.m. (0) comments

Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica: Happened to catch the camping episode - from the way Jessica was talking, I'm assuming there's only one - after the local news. That girl is hilarious... and gassy! I think she might have as much as me (but don't worry, "it's air, not stink.") :-D ¶ 8:56:00 p.m. (0) comments

Starsky & Hutch (2004): Eh. It had its moments. I've never seen the show, so I probably missed others. Hell of a casting job though, looking at Paul Glaser and David Soul; Stiller even wears that hilarious sweater. :-)

This movie sure had plenty to look at; especially for a 70's lover like me. Heck, I'm still holdin' out hope of gettin' me one of those Zaire '74 T-shirts from the big Ali vs. Foreman fight. I even wrote Sony Pictures asking for one from the Ali set a few years back. I mean, come on, they must've had hundreds... but, no dice. :-/ Anyway, this illusion was complete; I didn't notice any time warps.

There were some relatively subtle jokes too. No one laughed at the scene where Starsky goes to his mom's grave until he pulled out the donut - she was a cop - even though I thought the LOVING MOM quoted with six-shooters line in the epitaph was pretty funny. The steak-knife-throwing kid was a riot too. ¶ 11:11:00 p.m. (0) comments

Vanishing Point (1971): I watched the UK release. The DVD had the US and UK releases, and I knew what that meant: bodies naked as the day they were born or... Well, in hindsight, a much shorter film. ;-) Nah, it wasn't like that; or maybe the evils of ladies' breasts and bums have already corrupted me.

Sarafian - the director - is an artist. That was clear right from the opening. I watched a lot of his commentary too - I'll finish it up tomorrow... getting sleepy - and his thoughts just cemented that view for me.

It's always strange, watching old movies for the first time. Sarafian is talking about the shot of the three cop cars driving into the camera, saying it's been copied so many times - the commentary was made just a few years ago it seems - and I'm thinking, "Yeah, he's right. I'd just accepted it when I first saw it, having seen it many times before, but he created it."

I guess I shouldn't say always, though. The French Connection had me sitting on the edge of my seat long before I realized how influential the car chase was. Sometimes you just know you're in the presence of something special. Hey, speaking of The French Connection, if Hackman hadn't been working on it, he might've played Kowalski. Sarafian wanted Barry Newman from the start, but I guess the higher powers were considering others.

Just when I thought the movie couldn't get any better, Leslie West broke into Mississippi Queen. Man, I love that song. I know the Web is all about hyperlinks, but good content has a habit of... I was going to say "disappearing," but "vanishing" is more apropos, no? :-) So, for all you readers with a little time on your hands, wondering who the heck Leslie West is, I give you a Mix magazine article from 2001:

MOUNTAIN'S “MISSISSIPPI QUEEN”

By Gary Eskow

Mix, Oct 1, 2001

In the late 1960s, it seemed as though every corner of the pop music playing field was covered. On any given day, an AM station might send out a bit of confection like The Archies' “Sugar, Sugar,” follow it with the Fifth Dimension's version of “The Age of Aquarius” from the Broadway show Hair, pop in The Beatles' “Hey Jude” and end the set with some greasy funk, maybe James Brown's “Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud).”

During this period, the guitar gods, led by Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, were attempting to deconstruct the very nature of popular music as it had been written, recorded and performed up to that point. For starters, the notion that song structure (principally the 32-bar form) must be worshipped was trashed. Although the material of Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and countless other bands they influenced was built on traditional forms, the emphasis on extended solos often blurred them. (Although it may be argued that the lasting gems from these groups are songs such as “Purple Haze” and “Sunshine of Your Love,” which feature condensed solos that highlight, rather than obliterate, form.)

While the legends were experimenting, a legion of up-and-coming talent was taking it all in and preparing to make contributions of their own. One of them, guitar player Leslie West, was racking up a huge East Coast following with his group The Vagrants. Although they never broke nationally, The Vagrants attracted some serious attention from the industry. When West left the group to record a solo album, Felix Pappalardi signed on to produce. Although most historians know that Pappalardi also produced Cream, the quintessential “power trio,” his musical roots were far-reaching. “Felix was Dinah Shore's arranger at one time,” notes West. “I didn't know anything about music when I met him. I still don't! Felix explained music in ways that I could understand.”

After completing the solo album, West and Pappalardi decided to put together a band, and in 1969 Mountain was formed. Drummer N.D. Smart and keyboardist Steve Knight rounded out the group, who recorded their first album, Mountain Climbing, in 1970. This album, recorded and mixed at The Record Plant in New York City, featured a new drummer, Corky Laing. It yielded the memorable hit single, “Mississippi Queen.”

At its heart, the song was just a simple variation on the standard I/IV/V blues form that every basement band was hacking away at. So what made “Mississippi Queen” so special that it's sometimes listed among the Top 50 rock songs of all time? One clue may be found in West's approach to music making.

“I don't play over words or through lines,” he says. “It's like an orchestra. The first-chair violin stands up. Then the trombone has a solo. Everything has its place. Small little bursts you can sing back to yourself. I see guys playing all over the neck — long, drawn-out solos. I thought of a solo as a song within a song; it has to help the song. My whole theory is not to play anything you wouldn't say.”

That philosophy is clearly at work throughout the 24 bars that make up “Mississippi Queen's” structure. Consisting of 12 two-bar phrases, the first 10 of these are memorable, one-bar guitar licks answered by a bar of vocals. The last two reverse the pattern. That's it! No wasted notes or verbiage, and no solo, although West, who has a distinct sound, was more than capable of spraying out his thoughts, paragraphs at a time, in concert. The brevity of these intensely musical licks helped lodge them in the minds of a generation of rock music fans.

It was Corky Laing who actually came up with the idea for “Mississippi Queen.” Recently he recalled, “I had a band called Energy back in '69. Felix was supposed to produce us, but then Cream came along. Back in August of '69, we were playing at a funky beach club called 30 Acres. It was the hottest summer ever in Nantucket, and one night the power blew [out] across the entire island! I was in the middle of playing some dance tune when the bass and organ went down. I found myself rapping this song on the spot!

“You see, a buddy of mine had a girlfriend with him at the club who was visiting from Mississippi. She had on a see-through dress — I can still remember this; she was amazing! Look, there were also Dexedrine's in my system, and I was on overdrive. I looked at this beautiful girl and began screaming this song, 'cause there was no power.

“Fast forward to the fall of that year. We were recording Mountain Climbing in New York City, and Felix kept saying that we needed one more good rocker. Leslie had just moved to Park Avenue. He was having a lot of virgins just show up at his house at this time. It was great! On the day we decided to work on the song, Leslie blew off the chicks who were hanging around and we got down to business. He came out with a lick — you know the one. I was madly in love with The Band, and I decided to put a ‘Cripple Creek’ feel behind it. Later on, I told Levon Helm that I felt bad about ripping him off, but he said that he didn't hear any similarity between the two songs, and that we didn't owe them any money!”

Being a producer, especially when you're also a member of the band, as bassist Felix Pappalardi was, can be tricky, especially when you have to criticize the artists you're working with. “We cut the track a number of times,” Laing says. “I thought many of the takes were great, but Felix kept throwing them out, demanding that we polish the phrasing. Finally, we played it exactly right — or so I thought. Felix maintained that the time was strange, and asked that I give him some time he could hear. I was totally pissed; it was like the fourteenth take, and I thought we had it! So I started smashing the cow bell, very angrily. Felix said, ‘Keep it right there!’ That cow bell intro became a hook for the record. By the way, I've always used Latin equipment. I'm not a Latin drummer, but I'm very fond of the sound. Right from the beginning, I'd often use timbales instead of tom toms. I grew up in Montreal, and my mother turned me on to a lot of Cuban music. We didn't have a cold war with Cuba, so I guess it was easier from a cultural point of view to get into that music in Canada.”

West has similar memories of how he and Laing wrote their most famous song. “When Corky brought me the idea, it was a one-chord dance song. We got real high, took out a napkin, and I came up with the main riff and the chords. Then we fit the words over the sound.”

Mountain recorded basic tracks together at the Record Plant, with veteran engineer Bob D'Orleans at the board. “It really wasn't that involved technically,” says Laing. “I was fond of the big boom directional mics. I used two different bass drums for tonal purposes. I do remember that the Record Plant had a standard mic cabinet back then.

“Jimi Hendrix had just finished mixing his Band of Gypsies record, and I remember him walking in while we were mixing ‘Mississippi Queen.’ He put his head down and listened to the entire album and was very positive. Back then, the vocals and guitar solos were the only parts that were overdubbed. The energy of the music was in part dictated by the fact that guitar and bass players had huge amplifiers, but drummers had nothing — just their physical strength. I'd be out there with these monster players who had a wall of sound, sitting there bashing my head out! Come to think of it, that's how I play today! Felix let me put everything I wanted into ‘Mississippi Queen.’ Every part of my body was going full out. I was completely indulgent with the two-bass drum beat.”

“Felix was a great producer,” adds West. “When I'd go into the studio to overdub guitar parts, as I did on ‘Mississippi Queen,’ I'd start to think. Felix would say, ‘Don't think; I'll think.’ I remember that I filled up the little holes in that song with four or five different passes of fills. We patched together a solo, and then I had to learn the one we'd made, and go back in the studio to record it all over again. That's how I learned to answer myself! Eric Clapton does the same thing.

“Felix gave me choices on the guitar takes, but he made all the decisions on which vocals were keepers. I'd say the guitar and vocal sessions took about 40 minutes each. As I remember, I sang the verses down, and then came back and sang all of the ‘Mississippi Queen’ lines. The mix took care of itself.”

The name of the group Mountain played on the girth (long gone) of its celebrated guitarist. Underneath it all, though, there was more than a touch of Vienna in West's musicianship. Listening to him warm up before an outdoor concert in Crystal Lake, England, in 1970, on a bill that also featured the Small Faces and Pink Floyd, I remember the delicacy that showed through even in West's most furious impulses. He had an uncanny ability to create harmonics of subtly differing nuances. “I discovered that eight different harmonics can be gotten out of any one note,” West says. “It's all in the angle of the right hand. I designed some guitar picks recently that should be coming to market soon. One of them is made to help even the novice discover how to get those harmonics.” West also used the pinky on his right hand to subtly modulate the volume controls on his Les Paul to soften the attack of pick on string.

Tragically, Felix Pappalardi was the victim of a shooting incident in 1983, but Leslie West and Corky Laing have remained active. West is currently producing an Atlantic Records band called Clutch with his partner, engineer Jason Corsaro. He recently completed an instructional video, Leslie West Big Phat Ass Guitar, that will be in stores in the near future. More information on him can be found at his Website, www.lesliewest.cjb.net. Corky Laing has his own band, Cork, which features Eric Schenkman, the Spin Doctors' lead guitarist. Their second CD, Under the Radar, will be released on King Biscuit Records in the fall.


© 2004, Primedia Business Magazines and Media, a PRIMEDIA company. All rights reserved. This article is protected by United States copyright and other intellectual property laws and may not be reproduced, rewritten, distributed, redisseminated, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast, directly or indirectly, in any medium without the prior written permission of PRIMEDIA Business Corp.

Me again. FYI, Primedia's definition of personal use is:

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So I'm all good. ¶ 11:05:00 p.m. (0) comments

50 First Dates: Holy crap! I can't believe this guy! Sandler and Schneider just keep topping themselves. This is definitely my favourite Sandler movie, and Schneider was Ula; I've never seen him more in character. He was hilarious! I won't spoil any of the jokes - don't even watch the trailer if you haven't seen it yet... somehow - just go see it.

I haven't seen such a perfect mix of humour and drama in a long time. Is he still talking about the Sandler flick? Yes, I know, it came out of nowhere. Even after a buddy recommended it, I didn't expect it to be that good. It's easy to see why Astin and Aykroyd signed on for it. ¶ 11:00:00 p.m. (0) comments

Down to Earth (2001): Thanks to Dinner & a Movie, I know this is a remake of Heaven Can Wait (1978), which is itself a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). I want to watch both those movies now because I really liked this material. I'm used to seeing Chris Rock loud, crass... and funny as hell. He was funny in this, but reserved too; he seems to have a respect for the history of the part... Or maybe I just had some gas...

What really scares me is how I hardly bat an eyelash at the Superstation's stupid overdubbing of cusses anymore; that used to drive me up the wall, and now... *shrug* What's next? Not caring when they edit for time? *grind teeth* ¶ 10:55:00 p.m. (0) comments

Well, I'm back! Mexico was warm and sunny; Canada is... surprisingly mild for early March. Seems like I missed some decent weather up here. Oh well, on with the show.

King Kong: Don't Mess with the Monkey: A funny little piece. I liked our introduction to Ann (Anna Hewlett): sexy lips peeking out from under the brim of her hat dispelled the notion that women of the 1930's couldn't hack it in Southeast Asia. The fez and cymbals were a nice touch too. :-) Oh, and the music was awesome, although the opening score had me trying to take the movie seriously, something that antics of the locals quickly killed. :-) ¶ 9:23:00 p.m. (0) comments