Appreciation... The Good Things

I had the misfortune of having most expensive bad date of my entire life this past weekend, but fortunately I got to see an amazingly talented and very fun bunch of guys play. The guys are Ryan Cox, John Morales, and Steven Christopher, their band is called The Good Things and they're from Detroit, MI. Never thought I'd find anything with them on YouTube, but hey I guess every thing's on YouTube, so here they are! I gotta say when they did this track at the show the drum solo was the coolest damn thing I've experienced at a show in a long time!



This band was just so great! I do wish the venue had been a place where you could've gotten up and really danced, but I'm just glad to have seen them. The $3.00 I spent on their EP was easily the best money spent that night.

Wish the actual "date" part of my evening had gone better, but that tale of utter loserdom I'll reserve for myself. Thanks to a few Stellas and The Good Things, I'm going to try and remember that I at least had a good time. If you know this band's playing anytime, anywhere in your area, check out their show! These guys even played the second song of their set a second time because some folks that showed up late missed out. How many bands would ever do that?

Distraction... Video Alphabet "R"

I've done this blog a serious disservice not keeping up with regular posts lately, but I'm going to try harder here in this month of July. June was off to a fine start, but I really stumbled there towards the end of the month.

But enough about that... onto the good stuff!

R is for R.E.M. - "I Believe"



Wow! I am so happy to have found this on YouTube! Seriously, R.E.M.'s Tourfilm is one of my all time favourite concert recordings, but I haven't seen it since watching it years ago on a friend's VHS tape. It's been on DVD for a few years now, so I think this is a disc I need to finally buy.

One more from Tourfilm... my favourite R.E.M. song, and like "I Believe" this song is also from the album Life's Rich Pageant, "Fall On Me".



R is for Radio 4 - "Dance to the Underground"



NYC had quite a scene of bands crop up there around 2000 or so, and Radio 4 is still going strong. I could spent several posts just covering bands from NYC... in fact, that might not be a bad idea for after I hit "Z".

R is for Radiohead - "Idioteque"



Radiohead is a band I was absolutely loved years ago, but my attention wane after Kid A. Lately though I find I'm thinking about them more and more, and I had an overwhelming desire to hear this track for some reason a few days ago hence the inclusion of the video here. My favourite Radiohead album though is The Bends, so I'm including another video from that phenomenal album.

"Fake Plastic Trees"



R is for Ride - "Twisterella"



I had such a hard time picking a Ride song because there's so many great tracks to choose from, but as I see this as being such a summer song, I had to go with it! What a great pop song!

R is for Rogue Wave - "Eyes"



My last choice tonight... I've got to work tomorrow morning or I'd say more!


Again, I am really going to try hard to post more this week. I've been wasting a lot of my time lately and just generally feeling down, but I'm trying to bounce back. So it will be onto "S"... lots of great bands there!

Appreciation... The World of Linnen

Fellow comic book fanatic, 80s synth-pop music lover, rookie co-worker, and all around nice guy, Brian Linnen, maintains a swell page and has a 30 day blog challenge on to post everyday and keep it interesting.

Visit his page from the links on my site!

Distraction & Frustration... No "Q" Bands in My Collection?!?

I've got nothing, so I give you this...

Question Mark???



Onto "R" and finishing this alphabet business soon! Sorry for the lag in posts, I've been incredibly social lately, which is hell for blogging.

Stay tuned!

Fascination & Jubilation... A Complete Version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis has been found!

Metropolis, the most important silent film in German history, can from this day on be considered to have been recovered! It was announced today that film archivists at the Museo del Cine Pablo C. Ducros Hicken in Buenos Aires have just recently discovered the complete 16mm negatives of Fritz Lang's 1927 film! The most complete restored version audiences have been able to see of this film has been the 2001 restoration which Kino Video released on DVD. This effort still did not contain nearly 25% of the film, despite the addition of scenes that were found and restored in Europe from the film version from Film museum Munich, the additional materials of the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv (Federal Archive / Filmarchive), Berlin, and partners of the Deutscher Kinematheksverbund (Association of German Film Archives).

ZEITmagazin gives this story of how the film managed to survive.

"Adolfo Z. Wilson, a man from Buenos Aires and head of the Terra film distribution company, arranged for a copy of the long version of “Metropolis” to be sent to Argentina in 1928 to show it in cinemas there. Shortly afterwards a film critic called Manuel Peña Rodríguez came into possession of the reels and added them to his private collection. In the 1960s Peña Rodríguez sold the film reels to Argentina’s National Art Fund – clearly nobody had yet realised the value of the reels. A copy of these reels passed into the collection of the Museo del Cine (Cinema Museum) in Buenos Aires in 1992, the curatorship of which was taken over by Paula Félix-Didier in January this year. Her ex-husband, director of the film department of the Museum of Latin American Art, first entertained the decisive suspicion: He had heard from the manager of a cinema club, who years before had been surprised by how long a screening of this film had taken. Together, Paula Félix-Didier and her ex-husband took a look at the film in her archive – and discovered the missing scenes."



This is truly great news! I will certainly be anxiously awaiting a re-release now from Kino, who were already in the planning stages of a Blu-Ray edition sometime in 2009. I can only imagine that release will be slated now to carry the restoration version of this new complete negative, and finally allow modern audiences to see this film only as German audiences were able to enjoy it over 80 years ago!

Distraction... Video Alphabet "P"

Alright... back to it... posting and such as I pass a hot summer evening blogging and doing my laundry. It's an exciting night, indeed...

P is for Peter, Bjorn, and John - "Objects of my Affection"



I was going to post "Young Folks" because the video's animated and cool, but I have heard that song a million times and could kind of go without getting the whistling in it stuck in my head for the rest of the night. So since these guys are awesome and obviously have other songs, "Objects of my Affection" it is!

P is for Placebo - "You Don't Care About Us"



A trip to an aquarium these boarding school kids will never forget, and my worst fears -deep water and sharks, all in one video.

P is for Portishead - "Sour Times"



I was absolutely obsessed with Portishead when they debuted, and I'm so glad they gave us fans a new album this year. I loved this video, it fit their sort of heartbroken songs for spy movies feel to their music.

P is for Pretty Girls Make Graves - "Speakers Push Air"



Do you remember what the music meant? I hope you do! I think I'd be lost without it.

P is for The Primitives - "Crash"



I had to laugh when I went searching for this video, because I was totally unaware some bunch of emo/pop punk kids have covered it. I'll just stick with the original though, The Primitives suit me just fine. I thought having this track on the Clueless soundtrack years ago, might give the band a boost, but they never really got the attention I thought they deserved as a band.

Now for the finale... It's damn difficult to pick one Pulp video, so I'm including every video I can find for a track from their incredible album, His & Hers, here to close the post. As far as albums that hit in 1994, this disc was in good company with Portishead's self-titled debut hitting that year and Oasis' Definitely Maybe.


"Joyriders" (Track 1) - Live on The Beat from 1994.



"Lipgloss" (Track 2)



"Acrylic Afternoons" (Track 3) Live ...the intro to this is amazing!



"Have You Seen Her Lately"(Track 4) -Live from Glastonbury 1994



"Babies" (Track 5) - The original video version



"She's a Lady" (Track 6) - live on Channel 4's "Butt Naked", from 1994



"Happy Endings" (Track 7) I love this song, but could find no video representation for it.

"Do You Remember the First Time?" (Track 8)



"Pink Glove" (Track 9)



"Someone Like The Moon" (Track 10) & "David's Last Summer (Track 11) ...again great songs but no video representation.

"Razzmatazz" (Hidden Track - US Edition)



"His 'N' Hers"



This track isn't on the standard edition of the album. It originally appeared on the Sisters EP, which was a re-release for the "Babies" single. However this track was later included on the deluxe edition of His 'N' Hers, hence why I'm including it here. I especially love the bit when Jarvis polls the crowd... he's brilliant!

And that is that for this post! Just trying to redeem myself a bit for recently neglecting my blog so much... I shall endeavour to do better!

Fascnation... "The Mystery of Marie Roget" by Je Suis Animal

This is probably my favourite video right now because how often can I indulge my fascinations with Edgar Allan Poe, 1920s & 30s Avant Garde & Silent Cinema, Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel, Man Ray, Indie Pop Music, and toutes les choses Françaises in one piece! It staggers the mind... Je Suis Animal is a band composed of two girls from Norway and two boys from England who got their start as a band with a French name while attending art school in the UK -which is apparently how most really great bands get their start!

Their album Self Taught Magic From A Book is available through the website for Perfect Pop Records, but you'll need to be a Paypal user.

Back to the Video Alphabet postings tomorrow with P for Portishead, The Primitives, Pulp, and other good, good stuff!