TOP TEN SPRINGSTEEN SONGS
With Bruce Springsteen playing at Old Trafford this week, we preview it with our list of his top ten songs...
1 - Born To Run
Every legendary song needs its own legend, and Born To Run's comes from the story of how it was written. After two promising but commercially unsuccessful albums, Bruce Springsteen was in his last chance saloon as far as his music career was concerned. So he wrote a song about having one last shot at glory (a trademark - almost to the point of cliche - theme for him over his career). But it's not the lyrics that mark this out of one of rock music's all-time classics, it's the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to the music, clearly inspired by Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound, and climaxing perfectly with the few seconds where the song seems to fade away before exploding back to life, as thrilling as any other moment in music history.
2 - Thunder Road
Another Born To Run classic that is thematically close to the title track, Thunder Road is another 'let's get out of here' track, but stylistically it's very different. Starting with a plaintive piano/harmonica-led verse, it gradually builds up and manages to be very catchy despite lacking a traditional chorus. The lyrics are amongst Springsteen's best, not least the closing line "It's a town full of losers, we're pulling outta here to win", while throwaway lines like "You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright" (picked by Julia Roberts as the song lyric that described her most accurately) sum up his appeal to the everyman and everywoman of America (and the world).
3 - Atlantic City
"Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night, and they blew up his house too." As anthemic as any opening line in Springsteen's oeuvre, it comes from the most accessible track from his folky acoustic album Nebraska. Released in 1982 in between The River and Born In The USA, it stands out from both of those for its sparse instrumentation, mainly because he took the decision to release his 4-track demos as the album rather than the version he had recorded with the E-Street Band. Atlantic City is another tale of a young couple making an escape to the titular city, which was racked at the time by crime families (the 'chicken man' was a real mob boss named Philip Testa, who was blown up in March 1981) and general decline and despair. Basically, it's a less optimistic version of the two songs above.
4 - The River
Coming from the double album of the same name, this is one of his best downbeat songs, with the river acting a symbol of hope for the working class protagonist and his young girlfriend, but circumstances soon overtake them, leaving him with just his memories of that hope: "That night we went down to the river, though I know the river is dry, it sends me down to the river tonight." As for unfulfilled hope, does any line sum it up as well as this one: "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?" A truly great song that may not have been a massive hit, but will always be remembered as one of his best.
5 - Highway Patrolman
Another song from Nebraska, this is one of his clearest examples of story-telling, so much so that Sean Penn actually made a film based on it (The Indian Runner). The highway patrolman is called Joe, and his unruly brother Frankie goes off to war in Vietnam while Joe stays home and marries their sweetheart Maria. When Frankie comes back, he gets in trouble at a bar and possibly kills another man before going on the run, with Joe having to chase him like any other suspect but eventually letting him escape over the border because: "Man turns his back on his family, well he just ain't no good."
6 - Racing In The Street
Coming after the optimism and yearning of Born To Run, you might have expected follow-up album Darkness On The Edge Of Town to be pretty upbeat, considering that Springsteen had enjoyed plenty of success and acclaim for that album. However, the follow-up's title said it all, as Darkness was full of stories of tragedy, failure and the loss of hope, none more bleak and affecting than Racing In The Street, "She sits on the porch of her daddy's house, but all her pretty dreams are torn, she stares off alone into the night, with the eyes of one who hates for just being born." If that sounds depressing, Springsteen's plaintive vocals and simple piano-led instrumentation make it even more of a dirge. But an incredible one and the first one to play anyone who thinks that there's nothing more to him than the anthemic rock of Born In The USA.
7 - Hungry Heart
During the late 70s, Springsteen wasn't too interested in recording upbeat poppy songs, prefering to focus on the darker side of life (see above), so whenever something commercial popped in his head, he gave it someone else instead. Patti Smith's Because The Night is one of the best examples of these, and Hungry Heart was meant to be too. He wrote it for The Ramones, but was convinced to keep it for himself. The lyrics are still fairly dark, about a broken relationship and a constant unfulfilled yearning for love, but he sugarcoats it with his poppiest production of all, echoeing the treatment he'd give to his tale of a bitter Vietnam veteran (Born In The USA) a few years later.
8 - Gypsy Biker
The newest song on this list, it comes from last year's Magic album and showcases the E-Street Band at their very best, with a pounding drumbeat, soaring harmonica and duelling guitars all creating a wall of noise to back Springsteen's tale of the homecoming of US soldier killed in action in Iraq. An outspoken opponent of Bush and the war, his lyrics here say it all: "The favored march up over the hill, in some fools parade, shoutin' victory for the righteous, but there ain't much here but graves." You can maybe see it as a kind of sequel to Born In The USA, with the betrayed veteran replaced by the hidden victim of a more media-savvy war.
9 - Into The Fire
A lot of American musicians tried to write songs about 9/11 in the years after it happened, but sadly a lot of them ended up like Toby Keith's braindead jingoistic rant Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue. Seven years after his last album, Springsteen returned (with the E-Street Band in tow for the first time in 18 years) with The Rising, an album partly written as a reaction to America's great tragedy. Of course, he did it well, with Into The Fire's heartfelt tale of a fire fighter's widow getting the tone and emotion right: "It was dark, too dark to see, you held me in the light you gave. You lay your hand on me, then walked into the darkness of your smoky grave."
10 - 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
One of Springsteen's best love songs, Sandy is also the best track from his formative first two albums, and sees love conquer all in a troubled area (Springsteen's hometown in New Jersey). Musically, it's a lot more whimsical than most of what was to follow, with clear references to Van Morrison and a bit of a Gallic flavour too. Like most of second album The Wild, The Innocent And The E-Street Shuffle, it's a little bit rambling, but it's a rough gem whose sweetness is untarnished by the fact that a young Tony Blair used to listen to it while he was courting Cherie.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Top Ten Spielberg Moments
After nineteen years of waiting, the new Indiana Jones film is finally released this week, which of course means that the new Steven Spielberg film is released too. So, to celebrate the beardy legend‘s twenty-sixth movie, we've decided to dedicate this week's blog to the best bits from Spielberg's iconic oeuvre.
Now, we could fill this with the obvious suggestions: flying bikes, marauding dinosaurs, giant boulders, what have you, but that would be boring and predictable. So instead we're going to try to take a look at the less-celebrated moments from Spielberg's iconic films, not an easy task in a career as well-known as his. Wish us luck...
1) "I thought I'd lost you boy!" (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
Well, Indy had to be at the top didn't he? There are many well-known and not so well-known moments in the Indiana Jones series that could have taken top spot on this list, but for me it had to be this heart-wrenching scene between Indy and father Henry from Last Crusade. After busting his dad out of a marauding Nazi tank, Indy has apparently fallen to his death off the side of a cliff. Henry, Sallah and Marcus Brody peer over the edge hoping for a sign of life, but there’s nothing. All seems lost until Indy hauls himself back on to land and creeps up behind the trio to see what they’re looking at. Henry double takes, grabs his son and, with tears in his eyes, says: "I thought I'd lost you boy!" "I thought you'd lost me too, sir,” comes Indy’s reply. Last Crusade was one of the last times Spielberg told his familiar father-son subtext from the point-of-view of the son. Fittingly, it's one of his best.
2). Truffaut's connection (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
A major part of Spielberg's genius is his ability to imbue seemingly silly stories with the kind of intelligence only peers like Scorsese and Coppolla are attributed with displaying. Close Encounters is his finest example of this. What for some is just a big science-fiction epic with funny little space aliens at the end is really a film about spirituality, the search for meaning and, above all, connection (one of the key themes in any Spielberg film). Nowhere else is this better conveyed than in Francois Truffaut's hand-signal conversation with the aliens in the film‘s closing stages. John Williams's music is, of course, majestic, as is Spielberg's orchestration of the scene, but it’s Truffaut’s acting that really makes the moment fly. The innocent joy on his face perfectly epitomises the wonder of much of Spielberg’s oeuvre.
3). Cadillac of the Sky (Empire of the Sun)
One of Spielberg's most overlooked films, Empire of the Sun finds the director focusing on themes of tolerance (another often-overlooked key idea), communication and respect. Based on JG Ballard's autobiographical novel, it's the story of Jim, a young boy who gets separated from his parents and put in an internment camp after the Japanese attack on Pear Harbour. In the typically Spielbergian way, Jim is obsessed with flying and this forms the basis of the film's best scene. Wandering through an aircraft hanger, Jim spots a Japanese plane and reverently approaches it. A Japanese officer sees him and arms his gun, ready to shoot the boy down. Three pilots arrive and Jim turns round to salutes them. They salute back and the soldier lowers his weapon. The scene then dissolves into a young Japanese boy playing with a toy plane, which he accidentally throws over a gate separating his side of the camp from Jim‘s. Jim picks it up and throws it back. A beautifully understated and too-often overlooked scene from one of Spielberg’s first out-and-out serious pictures.
4). Mary's breakdown (E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial)
Yes, E.T’s teary farewell is one of the most well-known scenes in film history never mind just Spielberg’s oeuvre, but it’s the peripheral action that I’m talking about here. Avert your attention from Elliott and E.T and you find some wonderful grace notes going on in the background with Elliot’s siblings, friends and, above all, his mother. Played by Dee Wallace, Mary is one of the more interesting female characters in Spielberg’s canon (he tends to focus more on men) and her reaction to E.T’s departure is heartbreaking. As her son says goodbye to the most important thing in his life at that moment, she sinks to the floors, tears in her eyes, looking on with a mixture of powerlessness and pride at the maturing Elliot. Another fine example of the often-overlooked subtlety and texture Spielberg‘s films are packed with.
5). Alex Kitner's death (Jaws)
Some say Spielberg can't do dark. The death of young Alex Kitner in Jaws proves otherwise. Coming early in the film, this scene is a master class in slowly building up tension, with Spielberg letting us know that the shark will attack but not who it will attack. Alex who, in an added twist of tragedy is only allowed to go back into the water after begging his mother, seems the least likely candidate, so when Jaws does sink his teeth into him you know the film means business. But it‘s the end of the scene that I want to concentrate on most here. Once the shark has taken his prey, we see concerned parents rushing into the water to collect their children. Blind panic is replaced by deathly silence as all but one return. The image of Mrs Kitner, alone on the shore, calling her son‘s name is one of the most quietly devastating scenes Spielberg has ever shot.
6). Anything Goes! (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
Raiders of the Lost Ark screenwriter Philip Kaufman apparently declined the offer to work on Temple of Doom because he felt it was too mean-spirited, and it's difficult to disagree. From the dubious humour of the banquet sequence to the heart-ripping of the Thugee temple, Doom almost entirely lacks the lightness of touch that made its predecessor so iconic. I say almost, because it opens with one of the series' best sequences. A glorious, Busby Berklely inspired musical number, it features the film's banshee in distress, Willie Scott, singing Cole Porter's Anything Goes in Mandarian. Spielberg has often said he one day hopes to make a full-blown musical, and this sequence has enough vim and vigour to suggest he‘s more than capable of pulling it off.
7). Restaurant conversation (Catch Me If You Can)
Many recent Spielberg films have focused explicitly on the parent's responsibility to their child, but Catch Me If You Can looks at the child's responsibility to the parent. Based on Frank Agbagnale’s autobiography, this 60s-set caper movie finds our hero trying to use the money he earns from his cons to help his divorced father win back his mother. Of course there’s no hope of that happening, and this scene, in which Frank has bought his father a new Cadillac which he can‘t accept due to a government investigation into his finances, is one of the film‘s most heartbreaking. Walken's performance is beautifully understated as he tells the story of how he and his wife first met and starts to work out what his son is up to. The character is later revealed to have died in a freak accident while running to catch a train. Maybe, Spielberg seems to be suggesting, he wouldn‘t have needed that train has Frank quit his fantasy life sooner and stayed behind to help his father ease his woes in a more realistic way.
8). Wonderment (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
Spielberg himself has identified the scene in Close Encounters in which young Barry Guiler stands in front of the open door at his family home with an extra-terrestrial inferno blazing in front of him as the key image of his career, and it’s difficult to disagree: that moment embodies the wonderment and promise inherent in all Spielberg films. But Close Encounters also contains another key Spielberg shot, one which is perhaps more significant than the Barry scene. As the mothership prepares to take off at the film’s climax, the gathered scientists look on with wonder and awe. In three simple shots, Spielberg shows us their reactions, slowing tracking in on their awestruck faces. It’s a shot Spielberg has used to varying effect in virtually all his films, but this is my favourite example.
9). Viktor’s Matchmaking (The Terminal)
I’ve said it before in this blog and I’ll probably say it again, but just to make it totally clear The Terminal is so, so much more than just a silly romantic comedy. It’s a post 9/11 satire on immigration. Seriously! Think about it: Viktor Naborski arrives in the US from Krakosia and instead of being welcomed with open arms, he’s imprisoned in an airport which is covered from head to toe in ads. The country that once promised to take “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” has mutated into a world dominated by individualism, epitomised by Stanley Tucci airport head who is hoping to dupe Viktor into escaping the airport and ultimately being arrested so he can gain promotion. Spielberg contrasts this character with the thriving multi-cultural community within the airport, which consists of Hispanics, African-Americans and Indians. Working menial but important manual jobs, they are the heartbeat of the airport and in this wonderful scene Spielberg blends his political point with fun romantic comedy as Viktor hooks cleaner Enrique up with immigration officer Dolores.
10) Smoke Gets In Your Eye (Always)
Spielberg may be famous for science-fiction and fantasy, but it’s drama Always that is arguably his least grounded film. A remake of Victor Fleming's 1943 romance A Guy Named Joe, it finds Spielberg indulging his love of the falseness of movies. Nobody is as quick-witted as Richard Dreyfuss’s maverick aerial firefighter Pete, nor as humorously earthy as his friend and colleague Al (John Goodman), or as sweetly spunky as girlfriend Dorinda. Nobody, that is, except the inhabitants of movie land. A film drenched in the moxy and occasional schmaltz of classic Hollywood, Always is the kind of movie you wish you lived in, but sadly don’t; a point best typified by an early scene in which Dreyfuss surprises Hunter with a party to celebrate her birthday. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is played by a cheesy band; Hunter, clad in a beautiful white dress, offers to dance with the rest of the pilots, encouraging them to, in unison, run off to clean their soot-ridden hands and faces; and Goodman and Dreyfuss roam about the scene cracking a bunch of ridiculously quick-witted jokes. Wonderful stuff in an imperfect but warm-hearted flick.
After nineteen years of waiting, the new Indiana Jones film is finally released this week, which of course means that the new Steven Spielberg film is released too. So, to celebrate the beardy legend‘s twenty-sixth movie, we've decided to dedicate this week's blog to the best bits from Spielberg's iconic oeuvre.
Now, we could fill this with the obvious suggestions: flying bikes, marauding dinosaurs, giant boulders, what have you, but that would be boring and predictable. So instead we're going to try to take a look at the less-celebrated moments from Spielberg's iconic films, not an easy task in a career as well-known as his. Wish us luck...
1) "I thought I'd lost you boy!" (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
Well, Indy had to be at the top didn't he? There are many well-known and not so well-known moments in the Indiana Jones series that could have taken top spot on this list, but for me it had to be this heart-wrenching scene between Indy and father Henry from Last Crusade. After busting his dad out of a marauding Nazi tank, Indy has apparently fallen to his death off the side of a cliff. Henry, Sallah and Marcus Brody peer over the edge hoping for a sign of life, but there’s nothing. All seems lost until Indy hauls himself back on to land and creeps up behind the trio to see what they’re looking at. Henry double takes, grabs his son and, with tears in his eyes, says: "I thought I'd lost you boy!" "I thought you'd lost me too, sir,” comes Indy’s reply. Last Crusade was one of the last times Spielberg told his familiar father-son subtext from the point-of-view of the son. Fittingly, it's one of his best.
2). Truffaut's connection (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
A major part of Spielberg's genius is his ability to imbue seemingly silly stories with the kind of intelligence only peers like Scorsese and Coppolla are attributed with displaying. Close Encounters is his finest example of this. What for some is just a big science-fiction epic with funny little space aliens at the end is really a film about spirituality, the search for meaning and, above all, connection (one of the key themes in any Spielberg film). Nowhere else is this better conveyed than in Francois Truffaut's hand-signal conversation with the aliens in the film‘s closing stages. John Williams's music is, of course, majestic, as is Spielberg's orchestration of the scene, but it’s Truffaut’s acting that really makes the moment fly. The innocent joy on his face perfectly epitomises the wonder of much of Spielberg’s oeuvre.
3). Cadillac of the Sky (Empire of the Sun)
One of Spielberg's most overlooked films, Empire of the Sun finds the director focusing on themes of tolerance (another often-overlooked key idea), communication and respect. Based on JG Ballard's autobiographical novel, it's the story of Jim, a young boy who gets separated from his parents and put in an internment camp after the Japanese attack on Pear Harbour. In the typically Spielbergian way, Jim is obsessed with flying and this forms the basis of the film's best scene. Wandering through an aircraft hanger, Jim spots a Japanese plane and reverently approaches it. A Japanese officer sees him and arms his gun, ready to shoot the boy down. Three pilots arrive and Jim turns round to salutes them. They salute back and the soldier lowers his weapon. The scene then dissolves into a young Japanese boy playing with a toy plane, which he accidentally throws over a gate separating his side of the camp from Jim‘s. Jim picks it up and throws it back. A beautifully understated and too-often overlooked scene from one of Spielberg’s first out-and-out serious pictures.
4). Mary's breakdown (E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial)
Yes, E.T’s teary farewell is one of the most well-known scenes in film history never mind just Spielberg’s oeuvre, but it’s the peripheral action that I’m talking about here. Avert your attention from Elliott and E.T and you find some wonderful grace notes going on in the background with Elliot’s siblings, friends and, above all, his mother. Played by Dee Wallace, Mary is one of the more interesting female characters in Spielberg’s canon (he tends to focus more on men) and her reaction to E.T’s departure is heartbreaking. As her son says goodbye to the most important thing in his life at that moment, she sinks to the floors, tears in her eyes, looking on with a mixture of powerlessness and pride at the maturing Elliot. Another fine example of the often-overlooked subtlety and texture Spielberg‘s films are packed with.
5). Alex Kitner's death (Jaws)
Some say Spielberg can't do dark. The death of young Alex Kitner in Jaws proves otherwise. Coming early in the film, this scene is a master class in slowly building up tension, with Spielberg letting us know that the shark will attack but not who it will attack. Alex who, in an added twist of tragedy is only allowed to go back into the water after begging his mother, seems the least likely candidate, so when Jaws does sink his teeth into him you know the film means business. But it‘s the end of the scene that I want to concentrate on most here. Once the shark has taken his prey, we see concerned parents rushing into the water to collect their children. Blind panic is replaced by deathly silence as all but one return. The image of Mrs Kitner, alone on the shore, calling her son‘s name is one of the most quietly devastating scenes Spielberg has ever shot.
6). Anything Goes! (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
Raiders of the Lost Ark screenwriter Philip Kaufman apparently declined the offer to work on Temple of Doom because he felt it was too mean-spirited, and it's difficult to disagree. From the dubious humour of the banquet sequence to the heart-ripping of the Thugee temple, Doom almost entirely lacks the lightness of touch that made its predecessor so iconic. I say almost, because it opens with one of the series' best sequences. A glorious, Busby Berklely inspired musical number, it features the film's banshee in distress, Willie Scott, singing Cole Porter's Anything Goes in Mandarian. Spielberg has often said he one day hopes to make a full-blown musical, and this sequence has enough vim and vigour to suggest he‘s more than capable of pulling it off.
7). Restaurant conversation (Catch Me If You Can)
Many recent Spielberg films have focused explicitly on the parent's responsibility to their child, but Catch Me If You Can looks at the child's responsibility to the parent. Based on Frank Agbagnale’s autobiography, this 60s-set caper movie finds our hero trying to use the money he earns from his cons to help his divorced father win back his mother. Of course there’s no hope of that happening, and this scene, in which Frank has bought his father a new Cadillac which he can‘t accept due to a government investigation into his finances, is one of the film‘s most heartbreaking. Walken's performance is beautifully understated as he tells the story of how he and his wife first met and starts to work out what his son is up to. The character is later revealed to have died in a freak accident while running to catch a train. Maybe, Spielberg seems to be suggesting, he wouldn‘t have needed that train has Frank quit his fantasy life sooner and stayed behind to help his father ease his woes in a more realistic way.
8). Wonderment (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
Spielberg himself has identified the scene in Close Encounters in which young Barry Guiler stands in front of the open door at his family home with an extra-terrestrial inferno blazing in front of him as the key image of his career, and it’s difficult to disagree: that moment embodies the wonderment and promise inherent in all Spielberg films. But Close Encounters also contains another key Spielberg shot, one which is perhaps more significant than the Barry scene. As the mothership prepares to take off at the film’s climax, the gathered scientists look on with wonder and awe. In three simple shots, Spielberg shows us their reactions, slowing tracking in on their awestruck faces. It’s a shot Spielberg has used to varying effect in virtually all his films, but this is my favourite example.
9). Viktor’s Matchmaking (The Terminal)
I’ve said it before in this blog and I’ll probably say it again, but just to make it totally clear The Terminal is so, so much more than just a silly romantic comedy. It’s a post 9/11 satire on immigration. Seriously! Think about it: Viktor Naborski arrives in the US from Krakosia and instead of being welcomed with open arms, he’s imprisoned in an airport which is covered from head to toe in ads. The country that once promised to take “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” has mutated into a world dominated by individualism, epitomised by Stanley Tucci airport head who is hoping to dupe Viktor into escaping the airport and ultimately being arrested so he can gain promotion. Spielberg contrasts this character with the thriving multi-cultural community within the airport, which consists of Hispanics, African-Americans and Indians. Working menial but important manual jobs, they are the heartbeat of the airport and in this wonderful scene Spielberg blends his political point with fun romantic comedy as Viktor hooks cleaner Enrique up with immigration officer Dolores.
10) Smoke Gets In Your Eye (Always)
Spielberg may be famous for science-fiction and fantasy, but it’s drama Always that is arguably his least grounded film. A remake of Victor Fleming's 1943 romance A Guy Named Joe, it finds Spielberg indulging his love of the falseness of movies. Nobody is as quick-witted as Richard Dreyfuss’s maverick aerial firefighter Pete, nor as humorously earthy as his friend and colleague Al (John Goodman), or as sweetly spunky as girlfriend Dorinda. Nobody, that is, except the inhabitants of movie land. A film drenched in the moxy and occasional schmaltz of classic Hollywood, Always is the kind of movie you wish you lived in, but sadly don’t; a point best typified by an early scene in which Dreyfuss surprises Hunter with a party to celebrate her birthday. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is played by a cheesy band; Hunter, clad in a beautiful white dress, offers to dance with the rest of the pilots, encouraging them to, in unison, run off to clean their soot-ridden hands and faces; and Goodman and Dreyfuss roam about the scene cracking a bunch of ridiculously quick-witted jokes. Wonderful stuff in an imperfect but warm-hearted flick.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
READING, WATCHING, LISTENING TO
Find out what has been entertaining the Entertainment Manchester staff this week...
THE EDITOR
READING: I've got two books on the go at the moment, My Life by Fidel Castro (still) and Phra Farang by Phra Peter Pannapadipo. I've already talked about the former, so I'll focus on the latter, which is a very interesting book by a guy who used to be called Peter Robinson, an English businessman who gave up his superficial life in London to become a Buddhist monk in Thailand. It's a massive leap for him and his experiences not only as a monk but also a Phra Farang (foreign monk) in a completely different culture. It's warmly-written, amusing and inspiring story.
WATCHING: The only film I've really seen recently is The Frighteners, which I'd seen a long time ago on video. It was the Director's Cut on DVD (owned by The Writer), but to be honest I couldn't tell the difference. It's an entertaining enough flick, but there's not much below the surface, so it doesn't stay in the memory long. The main thing I've been watching, with a hell of lot below the surface, is the last series of Six Feet Under, completing my six-month marathon. Having watched it all the way through again, it's probably jumped above The Sopranos as my favourite TV show, so honest, funny, tragic, intelligent, spiritual, shocking and just downright awesome... I could watch it all again now. Maybe I will.
LISTENING TO: Since finishing Six Feet Under the main thing I've been listening to was a mix-CD I made of songs from the show, and it's very good indeed. From classic rock tracks like Journey To The Centre Of The Mind by The Amboy Dukes and Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult to modern stuff like A Rush Of Blood To The Head by Coldplay (which has taken a whole new lease of life since I watched series there again recently) and of course Breathe Me by Sia, every song is connected to a scene and the emotions of that scene. That's what makes great TV and that's why SFU will always stay with me while I have these songs...
THE WRITER
READING: In the last Reading, Watching, Listening To I said I was going through a bit of a Steven Spielberg phase. I’m still going through it, although this time my obsession is in book form only. Having finished Warren Buckland’s ‘Directed by Steven Spielberg’, I’ve moved on to Bob Balaban’s ‘Spielberg, Truffaut and Me’. It’s a fascinating diary from the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Balaban proves a fine host as he explains his role in the making of the film, the young Spielberg’s directorial style and, best of all, the friendship he built up with Francois Truffaut, who plays French scientist Lamcombe. Next up, Joseph McBride’s out-of-print biography Steven Spielberg. If I can find it…
WATCHING: Weirdly for me, I’ve not watched many films recently. I got through about fifteen minutes of The Phantom Menace the other day, but then Jar Jar Binks appeared and I gave up. So the last thing I watched was a TV show: Wonder Woman. And in a bid to hang onto the little shreds of credibility which have just been set alight and thrown into the air by that revelation, I’ll say it’s fun, frothy entertainment. Hardly classic television, but good silly stuff.
LISTENING TO: And on the other end of the superhero scale, I’ve been listening to the soundtrack for Batman Begins incessantly just lately, partly due to the fact The Dark Knight is tantalisingly close to being released, but mostly because of the fact I love the track Molossus. It’s the music used in the brilliantly orchestrated Batmobile chase about halfway through the film and is highly recommended if you want to make your weekly shop a bit more interesting. Composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are hard at work on the music for Dark Knight at the moment and I can‘t wait to hear what they‘ve come up with.
Find out what has been entertaining the Entertainment Manchester staff this week...
THE EDITOR
READING: I've got two books on the go at the moment, My Life by Fidel Castro (still) and Phra Farang by Phra Peter Pannapadipo. I've already talked about the former, so I'll focus on the latter, which is a very interesting book by a guy who used to be called Peter Robinson, an English businessman who gave up his superficial life in London to become a Buddhist monk in Thailand. It's a massive leap for him and his experiences not only as a monk but also a Phra Farang (foreign monk) in a completely different culture. It's warmly-written, amusing and inspiring story.
WATCHING: The only film I've really seen recently is The Frighteners, which I'd seen a long time ago on video. It was the Director's Cut on DVD (owned by The Writer), but to be honest I couldn't tell the difference. It's an entertaining enough flick, but there's not much below the surface, so it doesn't stay in the memory long. The main thing I've been watching, with a hell of lot below the surface, is the last series of Six Feet Under, completing my six-month marathon. Having watched it all the way through again, it's probably jumped above The Sopranos as my favourite TV show, so honest, funny, tragic, intelligent, spiritual, shocking and just downright awesome... I could watch it all again now. Maybe I will.
LISTENING TO: Since finishing Six Feet Under the main thing I've been listening to was a mix-CD I made of songs from the show, and it's very good indeed. From classic rock tracks like Journey To The Centre Of The Mind by The Amboy Dukes and Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult to modern stuff like A Rush Of Blood To The Head by Coldplay (which has taken a whole new lease of life since I watched series there again recently) and of course Breathe Me by Sia, every song is connected to a scene and the emotions of that scene. That's what makes great TV and that's why SFU will always stay with me while I have these songs...
THE WRITER
READING: In the last Reading, Watching, Listening To I said I was going through a bit of a Steven Spielberg phase. I’m still going through it, although this time my obsession is in book form only. Having finished Warren Buckland’s ‘Directed by Steven Spielberg’, I’ve moved on to Bob Balaban’s ‘Spielberg, Truffaut and Me’. It’s a fascinating diary from the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Balaban proves a fine host as he explains his role in the making of the film, the young Spielberg’s directorial style and, best of all, the friendship he built up with Francois Truffaut, who plays French scientist Lamcombe. Next up, Joseph McBride’s out-of-print biography Steven Spielberg. If I can find it…
WATCHING: Weirdly for me, I’ve not watched many films recently. I got through about fifteen minutes of The Phantom Menace the other day, but then Jar Jar Binks appeared and I gave up. So the last thing I watched was a TV show: Wonder Woman. And in a bid to hang onto the little shreds of credibility which have just been set alight and thrown into the air by that revelation, I’ll say it’s fun, frothy entertainment. Hardly classic television, but good silly stuff.
LISTENING TO: And on the other end of the superhero scale, I’ve been listening to the soundtrack for Batman Begins incessantly just lately, partly due to the fact The Dark Knight is tantalisingly close to being released, but mostly because of the fact I love the track Molossus. It’s the music used in the brilliantly orchestrated Batmobile chase about halfway through the film and is highly recommended if you want to make your weekly shop a bit more interesting. Composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are hard at work on the music for Dark Knight at the moment and I can‘t wait to hear what they‘ve come up with.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
ENTERTAINMENT ESSENTIALS: Temple Of The Dog
When Pearl Jam followed Nirvana out of Seattle and onto world domination, Kurt Cobain gracelessly called them sell-outs who were just cashing in on grunge, which was as wildly inaccurate as it was unfair. Indeed, Pearl Jam were much more entrenched in the Seattle scene than Nirvana ever were, because guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament had been in some of the bands who helped lay the foundations for the success that Nirvana had, like Green River and Mother Love Bone.
In March 1990, Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose just before their first album came out. That left Gossard and Ament to start setting up another band, initially called Mookie Blaylock (catchy name, eh?) while their friend Chris Cornell from fellow Seattle band Soundgarden went off on tour just after Wood's death and began writing some songs as a tribute to him. Those songs were called Reach Down and Say Hello 2 Heaven.
Cornell approached Ament and Gossard about getting together a group to record and release these songs as tribute single and they added Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron and a guitarist called Mike McCready, who had known Gossard since high school. Cornell had continued writing songs, meanwhile, and it was decided there was enough to make a full album, particularly as most of this material was much more melodic than he would normally be writing for his day-job band.
And so Temple Of The Dog was born, taking their name from a line in a Mother Love Bone song. The self-titled album came out in April 1991, and while it didn't particularly garner much attention at the time, its importance in the grunge timeline is unmistakeable. One of the best tracks and the only single released from the album is Hunger Strike, a duet between Cornell and an at-the-time-unknown singer called Eddie Vedder, who had been in town auditioning for Mookie Blaylock.
His now-unmistakeable vocals work perfectly alongside Cornell and make it one of the best and most significant songs in Seattle music history. Temple Of The Dog went their separate ways after the album came out, with Cornell and Cameron carrying on with Soundgarden until they split up in 1997 and Ament, Gossard, McCready and Vedder forming the band that soon became known as Pearl Jam. Fittingly, after Soundgarden's implosion, Cameron joined his former Temple mates as the full-time Pearl Jam drummer.
At a show in 2003, Cornell joined them for a show and performed Reach Down and Hunger Strike, while he also delighted this writer at an Audioslave show at the MEN Arena in 2005 when his solo acoustic mini-set included the beautiful Call Me A Dog, even if virtually no-one else seemed to know what it was. The effect that Temple Of The Dog had on Cornell as a songwriter can't be underestimated, as this period seems to be the pivotal moment in Soundgarden's career, where they stopped being a heavy metal group and moved towards becoming a hugely-popular grunge group with hits like the melodic Black Hole Sun.
For that reason alone, this is an important album, even without the effect it had in bringing all of the current members of Pearl Jam together for the first time. And, more than that, it's also a fantastic album on its own merits, and a fitting tribute to a now-mostly-forgotten talent in Andrew Wood. With rock supergroups like Audioslave and Velvet Revolver crashing and burning in recent years, Temple Of The Dog is a reminder of how something special really can happen when members of your favourite bands get together and make music...
When Pearl Jam followed Nirvana out of Seattle and onto world domination, Kurt Cobain gracelessly called them sell-outs who were just cashing in on grunge, which was as wildly inaccurate as it was unfair. Indeed, Pearl Jam were much more entrenched in the Seattle scene than Nirvana ever were, because guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament had been in some of the bands who helped lay the foundations for the success that Nirvana had, like Green River and Mother Love Bone.
In March 1990, Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose just before their first album came out. That left Gossard and Ament to start setting up another band, initially called Mookie Blaylock (catchy name, eh?) while their friend Chris Cornell from fellow Seattle band Soundgarden went off on tour just after Wood's death and began writing some songs as a tribute to him. Those songs were called Reach Down and Say Hello 2 Heaven.
Cornell approached Ament and Gossard about getting together a group to record and release these songs as tribute single and they added Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron and a guitarist called Mike McCready, who had known Gossard since high school. Cornell had continued writing songs, meanwhile, and it was decided there was enough to make a full album, particularly as most of this material was much more melodic than he would normally be writing for his day-job band.
And so Temple Of The Dog was born, taking their name from a line in a Mother Love Bone song. The self-titled album came out in April 1991, and while it didn't particularly garner much attention at the time, its importance in the grunge timeline is unmistakeable. One of the best tracks and the only single released from the album is Hunger Strike, a duet between Cornell and an at-the-time-unknown singer called Eddie Vedder, who had been in town auditioning for Mookie Blaylock.
His now-unmistakeable vocals work perfectly alongside Cornell and make it one of the best and most significant songs in Seattle music history. Temple Of The Dog went their separate ways after the album came out, with Cornell and Cameron carrying on with Soundgarden until they split up in 1997 and Ament, Gossard, McCready and Vedder forming the band that soon became known as Pearl Jam. Fittingly, after Soundgarden's implosion, Cameron joined his former Temple mates as the full-time Pearl Jam drummer.
At a show in 2003, Cornell joined them for a show and performed Reach Down and Hunger Strike, while he also delighted this writer at an Audioslave show at the MEN Arena in 2005 when his solo acoustic mini-set included the beautiful Call Me A Dog, even if virtually no-one else seemed to know what it was. The effect that Temple Of The Dog had on Cornell as a songwriter can't be underestimated, as this period seems to be the pivotal moment in Soundgarden's career, where they stopped being a heavy metal group and moved towards becoming a hugely-popular grunge group with hits like the melodic Black Hole Sun.
For that reason alone, this is an important album, even without the effect it had in bringing all of the current members of Pearl Jam together for the first time. And, more than that, it's also a fantastic album on its own merits, and a fitting tribute to a now-mostly-forgotten talent in Andrew Wood. With rock supergroups like Audioslave and Velvet Revolver crashing and burning in recent years, Temple Of The Dog is a reminder of how something special really can happen when members of your favourite bands get together and make music...
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