Splat! Ketchup.

August 5, 2002

Now that I’ve let Phil’s orgy entry marinate on the front page for a while, I guess it’s time to get back to the normal programming.

It’s been a slow time for flicks, so I haven’t really caught anything great lately. Eight Legged Freaks was disappointing, as there were too many spiders and not enough weird quirky people getting killed, which is really the only reason to see these types of movies (like Lake Placid and Tremors). The Crocodile Hunter, on the other hand, was bizarrely appealing, on a Jackie Chan, “DUDE DID HE JUST DO THAT” level. The makeshift plot was ridiculous, but a guy really wrestling a crocodile is just amazing. After watching Croc Hunter, I realized I have a real fear of snakes, much more than spiders or crocodiles. I’m gearing up for xXx and Blue Crush, both of which I will be mildly drunk watching, if all goes to plan.

This past weekend was nerd convention weekend apparently, as both the San Diego Comicon and computer hacker’s DEFCON went down. Congratulations to anyone that went to either and survived.

Anyone that’s not sick of me going on and on about Sleater-Kinney can now go to the KillRockStars webpage and listen to their entire album, streaming, for free. If you dig it, pre-order it straight from KRS and support your indie labels. They also put up the lyrics, which really helps me out, as I’ve been singing the wrong lyrics this entire time. “If you think like Thomas Edison, could you invent a world for me,” she says. All this time I thought it was “could you invent a word for me,” which makes no sense whatsoever and yet I was perfectly willing to sing it at 100 decibels to annoy my neighbors with. I’m used to this all, of course, as R.E.M.’s my favorite band and you couldn’t understand anything off the first three albums or so. “We could gather, throw a fit” vs. “We could gather through our fear” is probably my favorite misheard R.E.M. lyric, just because the misheard one is actually better (through our fear, in case you were wondering). Um, let’s detour back to Sleater-Kinney for a second, as LesbiaNation just ran a nifty interview with my new guitar hero, Carrie Brownstein.

Lastly, anyone that likes old school soul like Otis Redding needs to go buy the new Solomon Burke record Don’t Give Up On Me. The genre’s pretty light these days, the last thing of this genre I can remember being slightly huge was the Commitments. Burke is the real deal, the world’s greatest soul singer, this time singing songs written for him by the likes of Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, Tom Waits and Brian Wilson. It took me a while to get into the record, but it really is as phenomenal as it sounds. Despite the amazing pedigree of its songwriters, the real star is Burke, who is able to interpret all the tracks and make them his own, even though you can still hear the trademark songwriting techniques bleed through. It’s just an achingly good record, and Anti has it streaming and offers up a track for download, as well. E-Music subscribers can download the album in its entirety too.

Posted in From Blown Speakers, Moving Pictures