Due to computer problems its all been offline recently. For nearly a month! The real world be damned, I have internet again. Getting some stuff uploaded for the next few posts so in the meantime I have the soundtrack to Chevy Chase's best film, after Caddyshack and National Lampoon's Vacation series. Fletch! Composed by Harold Faltermyer. Its not an amazing film by any stretch of the imagination. Its just a Chevy Chase film. You don't write films and then cast Chevy. You write a film for Chevy! Fletch is the best example of his one liners and flippant humour. Go Fletch.
Tour was, as it always is, better than the rest of life. Despite being only 3 days long. We hit Edniburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow with the superbly heavy Diet Pills. Played with some awesome bands like Holy Mountain, Divorce and Loinstorm and got immensly drunk. We are all now broke and tired. But that is what its like being in a band and I would not change it. I also got some new things to watch..... Q The Winged Serpent : Larry Cohen's classic, slightly spoofy, non too serious monster movie. Giant, ritual killing, stop motion serpent terrorizes David Carridine and New York. Salute Of The Jugger : Post-apocalyptic brutal sports with Rutger Hauer and Private Pile. Alligator : Another classic from when I was kid. Giant alligator munches its way through the sewer system and eats lots of folk. Nightmare City : Italian, low-budget disaster/zombie film with immensly shit make up effects but has a charm that I can't deny. Look how bad it is....
Scanners : The old Cronenberg classic on VHS, charity shop find. Blood Camp Thatcher : a.k.a. Turkey Shoot. Australian, exploitation number. Future prison stuff, the rich hunting the unmates, Big brother, totalitarian society. Has Fifi from Mad Max as a prison warden. And this horribly creepy rabbit mask we found in a fancy dress shop in Nottingham. Superb work all round. The only problem is I can't afford to pay rent or tax now. Thank you to my good friend Si for getting me into this one. Supremly heavy doom/sludge trio Warhorse. Heaven Turns To Ash.
..well the 80's to be precise. Saturday morning TV was full of cartoons. Some havn't aged well others have. Sabre Rider was a adaption of a Japanese OAV series. They changed all the dialogue, added extra scenes and scrapped other elements and we had Sabre Rider And The Star Sheriffs, another addition to the line ( Bravestarr and Galaxy Rangers beat it) of space cowboy/western cartoons. I vaguely remember this. Never to watch it as a kid more just the image of it popped up somewhere. What prompted this post was the discovery of the first DVD ina local second hand shop for the grand price of 100 pence, a bargain you will agree. Well about a year ago I came across the original soundtrack to it by the very talented Dale Schacker and couldn't believe it.
You see, Dale was given compelte freedom of artistic license to do whatever the hell he wanted with the score. He created a huge, sprawling work. Synth and pop elements are present as is a lot of "real" electric guitar. The music itself has the recurring country/western feel as well as a hugely dramatic nature that stands out amongst many other similar animations. Here we have the full OST. Including all the different world versions of the main theme and the many variations and edits/remix's of some tracks. It concludes with a interesting at times boring at others interview with Mr Schacker. I can't get enough of this at the moment.
Yes. Arrived the other week. Here we go. First off, The Last Dragon DVD. You can read my previous post about how much I love this film here so just take my word its sweet. But slightly more exciting was the Rodney Dangerfield "No Respect" 3-disc set. This is the best visual companion for the Dangerfield fanatic. Featuring all of his specials he did for NBC and Fox, a selection of his own show live from Club Dangerfield, the proving ground for many young stand ups. it features a young Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Hicks as well as the crude but good David Tyree. It also features the Dangerfield episode of This Is Your Life, presented to him live on stage during one of his performances. Its really nice and touching. Dangerfield, what a legend. Here we go.....
I also purchased a new amp, but that is another story for another time. I also have come across this on my internet travels that I will share with you. Been digging this album loads recently. It shouldn't really need any explanation at all, The Butthole Surfers are legends in there own. If you like them then you love them, there is no middle ground at all. This is my favourite album by these oddball legends, the opening sample always raises a smile.
The what? You have never heard of The Last Dragon? One of my all time favourite films? are you some kind of loser? I first saw this film when I was a kid after my mum taped it offa TV late one night ( this was a ritual and a good reason why I saw so many nasty 80's films that I really shouldn't have at that age) This was a film that mixed martial arts, break dancing, hip-hop, blaxploitation, disco and 80's fashion. What is there not to love about it. It was the creation of Berry Gordy, he of Motown Records and the evil mastermind behind Micheal Jackson's ascendancy to the stars. He financed this film, which to this day is one of the biggest commercial flops but financialy was off the scale. The plot involved Taimak ( first acting role) and his quest to attain the "glow". Along the way he falls in love, battles lots of bad guys, learns about feelings and how to dance. It featured various future greats. William H Macy has a slight cameo, Chazz Palminteri plays hood #2 and Prince's lady friend Vanity plays the love interest. And it features Sho'nuff. Julius J. Carry III's finest role to date in my opinion, god rest his soul.
Of course Taimak's acting is immensly wooden, he learned to act on the set. But the fights are ace and they have mixed enough comedy into it as they realise how silly the whole concept is. It always reminded me of some arcade beat em up almost. The oddball characters and set pieces. Good fun facts : Leeroy's younger brother Richie, was the real life younger brother of Sugarhill Gang member Master Gee. The youngest child of the Brown clan is played by Cosby show mainstay Keshia Knight Pulliam. Kanye West has since made the Sho'nuff's trademark shades cool. I would say stole his style. Vanity has been scuttled by Prince, who helped launch her girl band Vanity 6 and if rumour permits James Brown and Nikki Sixx have both been inside her. She was also a crack addict for over a decade and now requires kydney magic to keep her alive. Due to this she decided to become a born again christian or something like that. Tiamak, in his own words " I am still training and practising both my martial arts and acting, I will be on the big screen again soon". He has allegedly written a script for a sequel. Julius J. Carry III is dead.
I bring this up because I was telling a lady friend how amazing it was and tried to find my VHS copy of it but its dissapeared. meaning I can finally move into the 21st century with The Last Dragon and buy the DVD.
Following on from my recent charity shop, VHS buy of the 1989 movie adaptation of The Punisher it got me thinking about how much better this version is. I used to rent this from the video shop all the time when I was a kid nearly every weekend. It was The Punisher and The Goonies in rotation. Now, this is a controversial topic almost. A lot of people would argue the toss over this one with me. But I stand firm in my beliefs that the 1989 version with Dolph Lundgren and Louis Gossett Jr ( my second favourite black man) is far better. The 2004 version starring Thomas Jane and John Travolta(?) lacked the gritty violence of both the comics and the 89 version. Fair enough, his costume was more faithfull to the original and it referenced the comics a lot more, but the addition of the three neighbours spoiled it somewhat for me. The Punisher was far to human or at least showed his emotions far to much. Something that Frank Castle always had under control. Now the 1989 version didn't have the costume, but Dolph Lundgren's face is lit to look like the skull. His stubble and the two black eyes are the skull. Plus he had no reservation about using guns and violence, something that they toned down so much in 2004. Dolph blows people away left, right and center. Point blank range with shotguns, impaling them with harpoon guns. Its all in there. He looks like he lives in the sewer, he lacks all the fancy gadgets they introduced in 2004. 1989 Trailer.....
2004 Trailer....
Thomas Jane does a decent enough job of embodying Frank Castle but the addition of John Travolta ruined it for me. The dropping of the mafia ( despite the Saints being some kind of crime family) and the bright weather took away any atmosphere the film created. Now the Dolph version of Frank is so much better. He hardly talks, he has a very dry wit that is sparringly used and he has tons of guns..exactly what the Punisher is meant to have. The supporting cast are decent enough, the gangsters are nasty enough and Dolph's Castle is a lot more believable than Jane's. I rest my case. Well thats it really, just a little rant after I watched both last night. What a pointless post eh? Fook.
The new Coalesce album is available on some blogs. Well ahead of its release. What do I do? I need to hear it but I want to wait, but can I? Anyone that knows me knows how much I love this band. So the chance to hear new material before the release date is proving too tempting, bastards. I have the link sat in my bookmarks, taunting me. I was exactly the same with the final Cursed album, I of course bought it when I could but I had to hear it before that day. This might be a similar situation. But Oliver did get some bargains this week. From the unmined, treasure chest of charity shop shopping. Oxfam to be exact. For the price of 10 queen heads, I got....
Paul Simon - Gracelands LP Rainbow - Rising LP In/Humanity - The History Behind The Mystery LP + 7"
And 2 classic films for my video collection ( thats right, video collection)
The Punisher, the original not the shoddy Travolta remake...
And Patrick Swayze's best film by a country mile....
Superb you more than likely will agree. So to readress the balance placed on my feeble mind of the imminent Coalesce album..here is something that I have spent more than a fair share of time listening to. Awesome, lo-fi, male/female vocal ambience. Ida, Will You Find Me. Superb stuff.
.jpg)
