Ultranormal

Category: entertainment

  • Overlooked Music From The Collection

    While working this week, I’ve been trying to go back and listen to some of the 20 gigs of music on the uberMac I haven’t touched in a while. Here’s a quick recap of great bands and albums rediscovered:

    • INXS: Listen Like Thieves – This album flat out rocks, Eighties style. Solid horn work, good beat, and punchy vocals. I really wish Michael Hutchence hadn’t killed himself. He had a perfect rock n’ roll voice. It’s hard to believe, but this album is even better than Kick, one of the first albums I ever bought with my own money.

    • Thievery Corporation: DJ Kicks – This is laid-back lounging perfection. It makes me think of sweaty people dancing the tango slowly. A great album to throw on if you have a headache.

    • Morphine: Yes – The band’s weirdest and rockinest album, this one takes some getting used to. The first song will get you on your feet, jumping around the room until you accidentally trip over a lamp and strangle yourself with the headphone cord. The end of the album stumbles into weirdness, like Marty Feldman after a three day bender… but the first two thirds more than makes up for it, right up until the weirdness (which starts with The Jury). The album ends up redeeming itself with the super-depressing Gone for Good, which was used in the movie Two Days in the Valley (it was actually good if you haven’t seen it – Jeff Daniels plays a depressed cop, and James Spader is creepy).

    • Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner – I don’t think any songs from this album ever made it to the radio, but it’s great. All the normal things to love about Ben Folds are there: great piano work, alternating pithey and touching lyrics, all wrapped up with a beautiful little bow. Overlooked, but worth listening to.

    Oh, and one more time, please go check out nonDependant. I’ll cry if you don’t.

  • Song of the Minute

    Right now, I can’t get over how old-school gorgeous Soul Coughing‘s Janine is. It reminds me of 50’s pop love songs, but with a modern twist that’s just wonderful. It brings back black and white memories of those dates I never wanted to end, driving home on empty streets with the smell of greasewood and mesquite in the air, lips tingling from kisses still fresh enough to taste and the smell of her perfume on my collar.

    Thank God I married her…

  • Favorite Albums

    In lieu of actual content today, I’ve decided to post my list of top ten favorite albums, for no other reason than every time I’ve tried to go through this exercise before I always fall into brainmelt trying to pick just ten (which is why I can’t really do my top ten favorite movies). Here they are in no particular order (and only one album per band, which makes this really hard), and why:

    • Morphine:Cure for Pain – This was the first Morphine album I heard and it just blew me away. From the opening sax on Dawna to the final notes of Miles Davis’ Funeral, it’s perfect. There isn’t one song this album could live without. Mark Sandman’s baritone is the fourth instrument in the band, and complements his crazy three-string bass, drums and sax perfectly. If you’ve never heard Morphine before, you’re missing out. I almost used The Night here instead, but Cure for Pain is more important to me, even though Night is a little more polished. The band’s at its best when it gets a little ragged anyway.

    • Phish: Billy Breathes – Augh, this one was hard. This could have easily been Farmhouse or Hoist. Like the previous album, I chose this one for the sheer impact. This was the first I’d heard of the band, and I was immediately hooked. I went out and bought Hoist, Rift and Slip, Stitch and Pass the day after hearing this album. This album is a great introduction to the band. It’s missing those long loopy jams that can annoy the first time listener, and all the songs are relatively short, independant and rockin’. It also has one of their best ballads (they’re totally underrated when it comes to ballads, check out Not Fast Enough for You on Rift and Dirt from Farmhouse). There are no duds on this album, and nothing you’ll want to skip through (ok, except maybe Wolfman’s Brother – but even that’s an awesome song).

    • Massive Attack:Mezzanine – There is no other. This is their best album, and the best trip-hop album ever. You’ve probably heard most of the songs already without knowing it from movies, TV shows and commercials who make liberal use of Angel and Teardrop (still… the album came out in ’97). It’s got a great techno-not-techno feel. There are real instruments behind everything, and a real voice. This is the easiest pick out of the whole list (I shouldn’t say that, I’m not done yet). If you don’t own this album, go out today and buy it. I don’t care what kind of music you think you like – you will like this. You will love it, and then spend the rest of your days finding anything to compare to it (OK, 100th Window is close, but Mezzanine is still better by far).

    • Bela Fleck and the Flecktones:Live Art – Some might say this is unfair for two reasons. It’s a live album containing material from other albums, and there are two disks. Pshaw on you. You can’t really grasp the complete and total mastery the band has of their respective instruments by listening to their studio albums. Live Art gives you a little glimpse into the greatness of their live shows, and will get your butt in a seat when they come back to Wolf Trap (or whereever they’re going to be locally). There’s only one dud on the album, and that’s just because they let Sam Bush (who’s a hell of a mandolin player) sing a song. No singing = good Flecktones. If you’re not into the live stuff, check out Flight of the Cosmic Hippo – it’s my favorite of their studio albums, and has the amazing Howard Levy on it.

    • The Crystal Method:Vegas – This album is almost as old as Mezzanine and people are still copying it. It’s the definitive techno album as far as I’m concerned and contains songs I’m sure you’ve heard before – probably in the same places you’ve heard Massive Attack or Amon Tobin. This album just plain rocks. You won’t be able to avoid tapping your feet and bobbing your head along with the amazing beats on this album. Also one of the best headphone albums ever.

    • Living Colour:Cult of Personality – I was going to cheat and put Pride here, but I just couldn’t. This was one of the first albums I bought with my own money that I’ll still admit to. Corey Glover’s vocals were a cure for all the girly pop boys of the late eighties. His soulful tenor over Vernon Reid’s genius guitar work blew me away, and still do. Cult of Personality and These Memories Can’t Wait are perfect hard rock that no one’s been able to match for me since. If you want to buy one album and get the whole Glover/Reid experience, get Pride. It has the best of their studio albums – the latter ones only contain two or three songs each that match the promise of their first album. Vernon Reid and Corey Glover’s solo albums are also good… but again, they were at their best together on that first album.

    • The Beatles:Sgt. Peppers – My dad still had a great record collection, and this was my favorite album in it. This was my first favorite album. Every song is perfect. I know the album by heart, but every time I hear it, it feels new and better. Another great headphone album.

    • The Housemartins:The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death – This one’s older, but a fairly new addition to my list. This is one of Jen’s favorite bands, and now it’s one of my faves too. Never heard of them? Yeah, I’ve heard that before. This is happy 80’s pop without the bubblegum. It’s bouncey, smart, funny and perfect. You’ll smile without thinking about it, and learn the words and start singing along in no time. A perfect pick-me-up after a long day at work.

    • Talking Heads:Sand in the Vaseline – I’m totally cheating on this one, I know, but I don’t own another Talking Heads album. This could have been Feelings from David Byrne, but I decided to go to the source. My wife and I danced to City of Dreams at our wedding reception. They were one of the most revolutionary bands in modern rock and set the stage for art rock and folks like Beck. Good, good classic stuff.

    • Henryk Gorecky:Sympony No. 3 – Ha, threw you for a loop on the last one, didn’t I? You’ve probably heard some of this on TV or in a movie too (it showed up in one of my favorite movies, Fearless and I’ve heard it in at least a couple dozen other places too). Written about the Holocaust, it contains Polish poems and prayers, and is one of the most haunting and beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard. It starts out with a double bass sawing slowly and quietly, barely audible. Then builds through three movements with other strings and the gorgeous voice of Dawn Upshaw (in my recording anyway). The second movement especially is just heartbreaking. If you like bands like Sigur Ros, love sad orchestral music, or strings – go get this album.

    That was hard. I know I shortchanged about a dozen of my other favorite albums here, but I won’t list them – because that would be cheating, it really would. What’s your favorite album?

  • Kill Bill

    This is unlike any movie you’ve ever seen. It may remind you a little of Pulp Fiction, but it’s just a twinge of a memory. It will nag you through the whole movie what this spectacle reminds you of. You won’t realize what it is until the end, as you sit through all the credits hoping for a Matrix Reloaded-like preview of the next film. It never came.

    Sorry… let’s talk about the flick why don’t we? But first, let me say that I’m an unapologetic Tarantino fan. I love Pulp Fiction and Resevoir Dogs. I even liked Four Rooms. So, this is a fan’s review. I’m not impartial. I went into this expecting to love the movie, and I was no disappointed. I loved it. It was awesome. It was the most fun I’ve had watching a movie in a long time.

    The action is intense, slightly cartoony (which I’ll explain later), and a lot of fun. Uma Thurman pulls off her best performance ever… ever. Everyone else is solid, especially Lucy Liu, who chews up the scenes she’s in with a lot of power, but with a very real sense of grace and lightness.

    A couple warnings… this is the bloodiest, most gruesome action movie I’ve ever seen. I don’t watch slasher flicks, but I’ll bet it outdoes some of them for the number of limbs violently removed and the gallons of blood sprayed per character. Even so, most of the blood feels cartoonish, and there are only a couple real cringe-worthy moments.

    Let’s talk about music… it rocks. All of Tarantiino’s movies have great music, and this movie is no different. There was only one place I wanted a song to go on longer than it did – that killer horn riff song from the trailer. It’s a great track, but it’s only in the movie for a minunte or so. Still, the rest of the music is great, and fits the scenes perfectly.

    Now, where have I seen this before? While I loved the movie, it felt very familiar. I realized near the end that it’s really a live-action anime. Behind the great acting, great production values and fight scenes, it’s anime. The spurting blood, crazy action, and forceful amputations are all nods to anime. This isn’t bad… it’s good. It’s great. I think more anime should be retold to American audiences. A live-action Akira rewritten by an American screenwriter with Hollywood stars? Awesome. Yeah, it would rule.

    Go see Kill Bill… go see it today. Movies like this deserve to be successful so they’ll make more like ’em.

  • FoodTV Used What?

    Now I’ve heard everything… FoodTV just showed a commercial using a song by Kosheen. I thought I was the only person in the world who knew who they were (ok, only other person in the world, since I heard them through a friend). It’s a good album, feel-good lyrical techno. It’s no Mezzanine, but it’s good.

  • Once Upon a Time in Mexico

    This afternoon’s “Movie Matinee That Jen Doesn’t Want To See” was Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and it was a blast. Johnny Depp was great as the effortlessly slimey CIA agent, Antonio should only play “El”, and Salma Hayak was beautiful in her short stay on the screen in flashbacks. The action didn’t seem as spontaneous or as un-choreographed as I would have expected, but it was still exciting.

    This is a go – in – sit – down – disengage – brain – engage – popcorn – popping – testosterone – action – guy – gene – and – enjoy movie. This is not a deep film, although it tries at the end – it fails completely to be politically relevant to anyone. I’m fine with that. This movie was a lot of fun. Willem Dafoe sneers his way through yet another villain role, and the side story with Mickey Rourke and Ruben Blades was more compelling and better acted than the main plot.

    Friday, I’ll be at the first show of Kill Bill if anyone wants to come with me.

  • School of Rock

    Today was a good day. I got up at 10:45 in the AM, showered, dressed, left the house and met the folks from work at Nagoya in Ashburn for some Hibachi action. It was good, but the Hibachi chef didn’t put on the show I was expecting. The two other times I’ve been there, the guy did the onion volcano, the egg-robatics, etc. This guy was aaa-aaall business. The food was just as good, I just like fire… especially flaming onions.

    After lunch, I went to see School of Rock. If you like Jack Black at all, even a little, you will love this movie. If you’ve ever loved rock, and ever wanted to be a Rock God, you will love this movie. It could have been super-cheesy, shmaltzy, after-school-special crappy, but it’s not. Jack Black pulls off hilarious earnestness, and the kids really do a great job. I laughed more than I expected. Oh, and Joan Cusack is amazing.

    Go see it with someone you love, or by yourself like I did.

    Tonight? I made a lovely butter-lemon salmon with curried tomato rice and it was super-tasty, if I do say so myself. I’m especially proud of the rice: just enough curry to give it a kick but not overwhelm the little pieces of tomato. Aaaaand now, I’m feeling sorry for Tony Dungy getting his butt handed to him by his former team, 21-nothing, and they’re still trying to run up the score with just a few seconds before halftime. What a way to spend your forty-eighth birthday.

    Tomorrow, I’m starting on the Honey-Do list Jen left for me. Lots of phone calls… and maybe I’ll go see another movie. Suggestions?

  • Porky’s Roasters

    I’m making a pork shoulder roast. Yes, I know it’s almost 11pm on a Saturday night. Max and I went out to breakfast this morning and then to the grocery store, where pork shoulder roasts were on sale! So, being the mad food scientist and Molto Mario fan that I am, I figured I would try braising. Mario loves him some pork roasts. The problem is, I don’t have a dutch oven. But, I figured I could brown the roast in a skillet, remove it, brown the veggies and mix in the broth in the skillet. Then, I put everything in the fridge (veggies in broth and roast on a plate). Tomorrow, before we go to church, I’ll throw it all in the crock pot, turn it on high and hope the house smells like Heaven when we get home.

    The roast already looks amazing. Oh, you wanna know what I did? Ok, here’s my “suit myself” version of Mario’s braising method:

    1. Turn the burner on medium high heat and throw your biggest skillet on it.

    2. After the skillet’s good and hot (you know, flick water on it – if it dances, it’s ready), put three or four tablespoons of olive oil in the skillet. If it starts smoking, it’s a little too hot, turn the heat down just enough to stop the smoking – no one wants a fire.

    3. Take the pork roast out of the lovely grocery store packaging, wash it off, and then liberally cover it in salt and pepper and plop it in the skillet. Be careful, the oil might splatter, so plop and run.

    4. Brown the roast on all sides… it should be a deep dark golden brown (Mario’s favorite phrase).

    5. While the roast is browning, chop up one onion, one red pepper, three celery stalks and one big tomato into pretty large pieces (these are all crockpotting tomorrow, so they shouldn’t be dainty little things).

    6. Once the roast is done browning, move it to a plate or pan.

    7. Now, add all those veggies to the pan and cook until the onions start to caramelize.

    8. If you don’t have vegetable broth handy, boil two cups of water, and drop two vegetable boullion cubes into the water. Once the broth is ready, pour it into the cooked vegetables.

    9. Scrape the bottom of the skillet to get up all the yummy stuck bits that didn’t come up with the veggies, and then pour the broth and veggies into a bowl.

    10. Put everything in the fridge until tomorrow.

    That’s pretty much what I did tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll get out the crockpot, dump in the veggies and the broth and then the roast and cook it on high for three to four hours. I expect much yumminess. I, of course, will let you know how it turns out.

  • Sick Movies

    Yes, I’m still sick. I couldn’t get to sleep until four AM this morning, and then, when I do wake up, I see that someone posted SPAM in my comments!!! Of course, it’s been deleted now, but that was not the way I wanted to start my sick day. I’m pretty tired of feeling crappy. I think that tomorrow, no matter how I feel, I’ll just deny that I’m sick and go back to work and pretend I’m fine.

    I was going to do the weekend entertainment roundup, but I’m gonna go lay down and watch an action movie on DVD (this weekend, we watched The Recruit, NARC, and The Lost World – we’re recording Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, which may be more crappy action than I can handle). I’m considering Twister. I’m not up for thinking.. so more Homicide is definitely not in order. Jen and I have this concept of good “sick movies”, of which Air Force One is probably the consensus winner for best sick movie of all time, followed closely by my personal all-time favorites, Jaws and The Great Escape. Sick Movies should be fun, full of action and should be either so rewatched that you know exactly what’s going to happen next and the story just washes over you. Right, got it? Ok, off I go. Wish me luck.

  • Queer Eye for the Straight Guy: It’s Faboo!

    Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is fab-u-lous. We watched out first episode this morning (while I languished on the couch with a headache), and it was great. Haven’t seen it? Ok, these five gay guys, each with a diffferent specialty (there’s the host/personal grooming guy, fashion consultant, food guy, and decorators) take on a poor boorish breeder (best gay insult ever) and turn them into fashion-conscious renaissance men by showing them that there are finer things in life than fast food and Wal-Mart deck chairs.

    The guy on this episode was so into it. He was trying to do something nice for his wife, who was tired of his old t-shirts, poor personal grooming and their mess of a house. She went away, and the fairy-god-queers (they call themselves the Fab Five, and they are faboo) went to work, teaching poor Adam all about spa treatments, cooking, furniture and keeping it together. While there were moments of really funny cattiness, the five guys were there to help (unlike the mean-spirited American version of What Not To Wear), and were overjoyed at the progress Adam made.

    It was funny, cute and educational… It’s definitely going on the Season Pass list! Oh, and yeah, I should probably apply to be a victim on the show. I could use the help.