Jerry's Record's store is kewl. The only record store i could compare it to is Bill's. Jerry has a vast collection of LP's spanning every genre all over the place, but (unlike Bill's) his records actually have prices on them. Reasonable prices, too. I went to this fine independent record store at the end of April and picked up a few records. Unfortunately, i let one of my friends (Babyvine!) take them home for me on the first leg of the trip. What a mistake. Here we are three months later and i still don't have my rex :(
Here's an article about Jerry's from a while back my friend wrote.
If i was a baller (shit, i sound like Skee-lo), I definitely wouldn't flinch at the $49.95-79.95 (+ service fees) ticket price to see Jamie Foxx at Nokia on September 25th. The "Blame It Tour" boasts comedy performances and singing. (i wonder how serious he takes his music career. He seems to still be doing comedy even when he's singing: check the "Slow Jamz" video or listen to the lyrics in "Blame it"). I'm curious what this show will be like?
Here's a few JF career highlights and reasons i'd like to see this Terrell, Texas native perform:
early career. Wanda was funny as hell, too
with Oliver Stone and Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday
And you can't forget his breakout performance singing the chorus with Kanye and his latest single that cracks me up every time
*note the likeness between Waingro from Heat to Stefan Gonzalez from Akkolyte
Eat Avery's Bones, Personal Victories, Darktown Strutters, Akkolyte, The Great Tyrant, and Fight Bite
What a fun birthday show for Ben Rogers. I was really looking forward to this all week. Unfortunately, i got there late and missed Eat Avery's Bones and Personal Victories. Bummer. I know Eat Avery's Bones is always great, and all i heard were positive responses to George Quartz and Co.'s new band Personal Victories. Oh well.
I walked in during DarktownStrutters set and was instantly feeling those dark disco grooves. They played a couple songs i had not previously heard and i was surprised by the clear and evenly amplified sound. The Chat Room has always been a super fun, small space to see bands play, but the audio can be lacking sometimes. I suppose booking shows at the Firehouse Gallery (a la Metrognome Collective) instead will improve this aural predicament.
Akkolyte killed the audience with their blasts of metal/grind so hard that it was tough to believe this was their 3rd set of the evening (both earlier shows were in Dallas, one with Yells at Eels and one with Akkolyte). What hard hitting troopers those Gonzalez bros are! After some fun jokes about God in between songs they ended their set by bringing the jovial Ben up and serenading him with a metal as fuck rendition of "Happy Birthday".
Up next were the dirge rockers The Great Tyrant. These guys' thunderous and sludgy sound always get me feeling like i'm watching a bigger balled Nick Cave make love to Bauhaus era Peter Murphy. Yum. Daren has a great sounding voice (i'm surprised he didn't get further along on American Idol) that mixes well with their eerie synthesisers and powerful presence. Glad to see that their bass player Tommy is back in action after i heard he had some health problems. They were a great addition to this show and truly another one of my favorite local acts.
Last up were the omnipresent Fight Bite. It can be bittersweet having to play last out of six local bands but they should have felt somewhat honored to have that slot. I know i wouldn't wanna play after all these other local bands but i do believe FB are well respected and have deservedly earned such peer and audience approval. After seeing Leanne dance around all night, it was nice to see her have her moment to shine. Like Birdman and 'lil Wayne say, girl, "Get your shine on".
This biased essay was written by Travis Hurst, aka Tattered Curtains.
Who is the greatest (white) action hero of all time? Sly or Arnie? I am laying down my argument for Stallone in a point by point. To the argument!
The garbage: Both actors have certainly made some regrettable career choices. But while Stallone is largely responsible for only ridiculous cop movies and other such action garbage, Schwarzenegger has given us such unclassifiable pics as Junior. C'mon, how do you not punish Arnold for his indulgencies.
Ridiculous Sly Flicks: Basically everything he has released since 2000 has been garbage, I haven't seen Rocky Balboa, but I'll accept the Irvine Bros. contention that its terrible. However, Stallone does appear--in my estimation at least-- to be about to redeem himself with John Rambo. Stallone did some pretty unforgivable garbage in the 90s, most notably Stop! or my mom will shoot, Cliff Hanger, and Judge Dredd, but for every horrible movie Stallone produced something that was at the least watchable, Cop Land, vastly under rated in my opinion, Demolition Man, while dated now when we actually live in the future, was good when it came out, and Assassins and The Specialist were both at least worth watching on Showtime. The late 80s were the worst for Stallone, Tango and Cash, Lockup, Over the Top, and Cobra, are all irredeemable pieces of garbage, with the possible exception of Over the Top, because it is pretty sweet to crack wise on that movie. Who the fuck makes a movie about arm wrestling?
Ridiculous Arnie pics: Kindergarten Cop? Are you kidding me? The 6th day, Eraser, Batman and Robin, and Jingle All The Way? C'mon Arnold. Junior? Last Action Hero? I mean, Sly put out some crappy movies, he even went so far as to let his sidekick be the main characters mother. But at least he never got knocked up. At least he stayed true to form and put out crappy action flicks. Arnold starred opposite Sinbad! Arnold starred in just as much crap as Stallone, and Schwarzeneggers turds stink much worse. Analysis: Point Stallone
Now onto the real nuts and bolts of the case, each actors best. Arnold's best movies are certainly more diverse than Stallones, but any criticism of Stallone on this part is misguided. Why should we punish Stallone for giving us not one, but two franchises? That being said I forgot just how many great movies Arnold made, Total Recall completely slipped my mind, and the results may be much closer than I had originally anticipated.
Arnold's Best: Commando, one of the greatest kill fests of all time. Also features Arnies Best one liners: "Let off some steam Bennet!" "Don't Bother my friend, he's dead tired." Great movie, action packed, one of my all time favorites for sure. Total Recall, amazing movie, one of the most violent flicks of all time. Predator, one of the greatest supporting casts of all time. Dope alien. Predator was the shit, undoubtedly. However, did Arnold really bring that much to the table there? What would Predator have been without The Body--"Y'all a bunch slack-jawed faggots, this shit here will make you a god damn sexual Tyrannosaurus...Just like me"--also, Arnold's guerilla tactics come up wanting when compared with Stallones in the Rambo trilogy. The Conan movies are both pretty tight for their era, and of course we have the Terminator series, more to come on that front later. Stallone's Best: Although Stallone did release a few pretty good flicks in the 90s, he's essentially fighting back at Arnold with nothing but Rocky and Rambo, but what more do you need? He wrote and starred in Rocky which won 3 oscars including best picture, and introduced the single greatest underdog story of our time. Who doesn't empathize with Rocky? The end of that movie chokes me up every time. Try watching Rocky I and II back to back and not crying when Rocky beats Apollo. Its the most triumphant scene in movie history, I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. I mean, the guy goes 30 fucking rounds with the greatest fighter of all time and finally takes the monster down. Who is more menacing than Carl Weathers in those movies? Who? I'd rather box Darth Vader. Add to that Rocky III which introduced the world to Mr. T, thus paving the way for the A-Team, and Rocky IV, and Stallone defied the odds and made 4 bad ass Rocky movies. Who else could have pulled that off? Add to that Rocky V, which is way over-maligned, and Rocky Balboa which I haven't yet scene and hear mixed reviews about and Stallone is easily holding his own. Analysis: Edge Schwarzenegger this round, despite how awesome the Rocky series is, Arnold was actually probably in more quality flicks. Score after 2 rounds: Stallone 1, Schwarzenegger 1
Final Round: The First Blood Trilogy vs. The Terminator Trilogy The Terminator is undoubtedly a classic, and Arnold is completely terrifying as the Terminator. But, the movie really isn't even about Arnold, and his acting ability isn't exactly being tested here. However, that being said, the Terminator is awesome. Both spawned a quality follow up, and a ridiculous third movie. T2 might just be better than the original, and certainly goes down in the sequel hall of fame. I'm hard pressed to think of one better at the moment. T3, while ridiculous, was at least kind of entertaining for the first viewing, and Arnold was running for governor at the time so its hard to blame him for it sucking. Then we have First Blood, a poignant tale about a vietnam veteran, drifting across the US, that is surprisingly relevant in the current political climate. Great characters, great archetypes, sweetest forest survivalist combat of all time, which is probably the sweetest type of combat. If there ever was a sequel as dope as T2, it was Rambo. The ultimate kill fest movie. The body count is beyond impossible to maintain? How many does he butcher in that helicopter? How many men does he burn alive in that field? The world may never know.(Note: the one time Wadeking and I attempted to keep a body count we gave up around 150) I bet Murdock shit his pants every night before bed for the rest of his life. Piss off John Fucking Rambo? No way. Rambo III, while not nearly as good the first two, is much better than T3 and came out in 1988 which makes it way easier to forgive. Add to that the fact that John Rambo is going to be attacking in 2008, and Arnie will most likely never redeem the Terminator series, and it puts Stallone over the top, pun intended. Final score: Stallone 2, Schwarzenegger 1 In the end, though the final result was admittedly closer than I had originally thought, it is as I had expected. Stallone number one.
This essay originally appeared as a blog on Afro-Leninist Eco-Marxist's myspace. thanks again Travis for contributing ;)
Yuh. So this is the track local DJ Tommyboy uses in one of his mixes...
Hopefully this video isn't as poorly recieved as the last one i posted-where even an atheist called it "God awful". sorry.
So this is supposedly one of the first mash-ups from way back. Mixing (obviously) Pink Floyd with The Alan Parsons Project. This version is played on instruments instead of using the two records like this producer originally did in the club to make this the hot jam in 1982 Italy.
man, i still haven't seen the new Terminator movie. Even though i haven't heard anything but lukewarm reviews and it's PG-13, i still want my Terminator fix.
I really like the clip in here from Rescue Dawn where he's eating the snake.
Nasty:(btw-I believe that this song is a better idea than actual track).
I didn't think i would be able to attend this show, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, I was able to catch this Brooklyn MC at the Lounge. This shit was H-O-T. Literally. Hot as a motherfucker (although maybe i shouldn't have been wearing a polyester shirt).
J-Live didn't hit the stage until close to 1:ooam. He opened with the "Peace, ya'll" chorus off of "First Things First" from the killer album All of The Above (2002). What a fitting album title for a former 8th grade teacher. After a few older cuts, he played some tracks fom the the previously mentioned album (and, sorry, the only album i'm familiar with) including "Mcee" and "One for the Griot". He asked for female audience participation on "Like this Anna" and kept things pretty fresh. Later into the set, he let his DJ take a break so J could show off how he can DJ (including scratching, cutting) while rapping. You don't see many multitalented MCs like this often. The theme of this evening's show was "Save Hip Hop" and J is definitely doing his part to do just that.
Local opening actHeadkrack sounded great as well as Homeboy Sandman, even though i think his set was a little long. (Maybe i was just hot and cranky and ready to see the headliner, ya know?)
I could go on and on about how New Order and Joy Division are so important to this genre of music yadda, yadda, etc. but i won't beacause this was just a DJ set. I will say that i think "Temptation" is my favorite song of all time. Hooky was really into this set and i think it's a shame there weren't more people to bear witness to this living legend DJ. (I thought the same thing a few years back when i saw him spin at Haileys). Maybe the Church (as the Lizard Lounge is known as on Thursdays and Sundays) crowd dug it. (I know i definitely had more fun people watching at this than any other recent events.)
He started the set off around 12:30am with a slow dance jam and then mixed in a cover of "She's Lost Control" with the original. Something he would go on to do more in the evening with his own material (i.e."Love will tear us apart"). Mixed into his 2 1/2 hour set were New Order songs such as "Confusion", "Bizarre Love Triangle" (of course), "Crystal" and more. Some of the Joy Division songs he spun were "Transmission", "Disorder" and a bastardized version of "Atmosphere".
Incidentally he did play a few inexcusable tracks such as Bodyrockers' "I like the way you move" (that will always make me feel like i'm in coke commercial). And maybe the back to back Killers songs he played were his way of giving back to a band that took their name from the "Crystal" video? Maybe? The "How soon is now" remix he played was funny. I would've rather heard Electronic, though. Or Monaco. He surprised me with his selection of one the 90s most popular dance songs "Born Slippy" by Underworld. He closed it out with (what i'm told was) a weak cover of "Temptation" while i was on the patio. (I gotta quit smoking.)
I think that this set fulfilled my expectations. I wanted a chance to see a member of one of my favorite bands and most of what he played was in good taste. The cover was not too pricey ($10) and the Church crowd was more than tolerable (probably more fun than a bunch of hipsters, although don't expect to see me there again anytime soon! Twice in two months will suffice for some time). Good job, Hooky.
