April 2004 Archives

What album is John Lennon carrying into Abbey Road studios for PEPPER sessions, 1967? (From I Love Music.)

Jane Dark has good stuff on Critical Karaoke, the latest teeny-bopper craze out of the EMP, including Greil Marcus doing Roxy Music's "More Than This" by way of Bill Murray.

And this is a decent single-page meta-blog directory.

The front page of Sunday's Seattle Times featured a photo of coffins containing bodies of US soldiers being secured inside a cargo plane at Kuwait International Airport. Tami Silicio, a contractor who took the photo, was subsequently fired from her job.

Here's a simple litmus test: papers that run this photo on the front page are good. All others ought to be ashamed. Story continues with ST's Air Force followup here.

Can't tell if the WPost had any coffins on its front page, but the story it ran did have a link to The Memory Hole, the site that ran pix in the first place (naturally, experiencing traffic clogs from all this).

...My feeling is that Deadwood will be an examination of morality. About men with an untouched world at their feet, with the power to turn it in the direction they wish. Some men, like Swearengen, want to spoil the land for their own gain. Law and order is a threat to his violent, corrupt existence. Other men, like Bullock, a smart, tough man born to lead, naturally gravitates to the exact opposite. He's inclined to protect, to aid, to do right by his fellow man. Deadwood is something of an analysis of the inception of law, and of how an insulated universe can numbly follow the rule of its sanctioned-or-not leader...-- Darwin Mayflower, on Underground Online, first decent piece of writing about David Milch's new HBO series.

I was kinda hoping this western would be about a lawless frontier where "respectable" eastern bluebloods trample the constitution and wage war on brown-skins, but I think Mayflower has a better sense of it. No Middle East allegories popping up just yet. But the male-female stuff is brutal, and the expletives are the most creative use of vernacular since LARRY SANDERS. Keith Carradine made a broodingly recessive and self-destructive appearance as Wild Bill Hickok, and Ian McShane's Al Swearengen swings between entertaining and psychopathic (you'll remember him from SEXY BEAST). The sleeper, though, is Timothy Olyphant, who's slowly revealing himself as a major star.

Sat 10 Apr 2004
John and Yoko. Her supporters are critical of lingering British dislike for the women they think stole their Beatle.

by TIM CORNWELL, ARTS CORRESPONDENT, THE SCOTSMAN
IF HE were alive today, he might well have approved. As Yoko Ono prepares to bring the most complete collection of John Lennon’s artwork to Britain next month, she is in pursuit of a long-held aim to turn the former Beatle into a global brand.

Lennon himself once said that one of his more notorious antics, the Bed-In, in which he and his Japanese wife lay in an Amsterdam hotel bed for a week, was an "advertisement" for peace. But would Lennon ever have envisaged his name and likeness being attached to a range of baby toys, jewellery and glasses?

(Scroll down for my quotes.)

Lotta traveling, lotta sleep disruption, good to be back. Britain was grand, especially the Elgar and the "adorable" little Fawlty Towers hotel I stayed at in Liverpool. Spencer Leigh invited me to appear on his Merseyside Radio show Saturday night with CP Lee, a very funny Dylan author from Manchester; alas, not available online. Erstwhile, headed WEST for a Spokane gig, return late tonight, and back in the saddle Thursday and Friday. Next week Moses is on spring vacation... Is it just me or do kids get loads more vacation than I did as a child? I don't wanna sound like Terry Teachout, but hey, events are in the saddle.

UK was overboard with news of Beckham's crumbling marriage, with exclusives from former concubines and dashing photos of his supermodel wife in her wraparound shades skiing Switzerland. There's a lot more newspapers over there, but if this is where competition pushes them, they can have it.

My beloved Pioneer DVD player, 563A, is now at the center of a firestorm of chat on various discussion here and here. High Fidelity ran a story. New format has emerged that won't play properly on it. So having researched the best possible player to play all available competing formats, newer formats still emerging; don't buy an audio SACD/DVD player just yet I guess. Pioneer offers to ship the unit to Long Beach and make a free upgrade, but it takes two weeks. Apparently no software fix, at least as yet. (But Rhino has offered to replace any of its discs with replacements.)

So I felt like such a maven: rented a couple DVDs to watch on the plane on the way out here, which takes at least as long as it takes to get to London. PREY FOR ROCK'N'ROLL, with Gina Gershon, is serious baaaaad, not even campy fun throw-insults-at-the-screen-bad. The kind of flick that makes long trips seem even longer. Next up: Rolling Stones 2-disc, 4-flick blowout on 2003 tour. Also will comment soon on that 1966 DYLAN HOME MOVIE thing from that drummer (not eye candy for sure).

The press is patting itself on the back for playing off each others' questions and building momentum towards the big "mistakes were made" lead item in this morning's news, but I stand firm: Bush needs to answer directly why he doesn't attend soldiers' funerals, and why there's no camera at the Air Force base where coffins arrive from Iraq. Is this too loaded a subject to confront head-on? What is up with these people? Imus had Frank Rich on and they were having great sport on it all. How does all that sport play with these grieving families?

4 April 2004, 7.30pm
Barbican Hall, London
ELGAR: The Apostles
LSO, Richard Hickox, conductor 
John Mark Ainsley, St John 
Alastair Miles, Judas 
Alice Coote, Mary Magdalene
Claire Rutter, Blessed Virgin/Angel 
Teddy Tahu Rhodes, St Peter 
James Rutherford, Jesus (Brian)
London Symphony Chorus

Several years ago in Chicago, Sara and I dropped in to hear the CSO even though we didn't know the piece, Elgar's FALSTAFF. I'm no big Barenboim fan, but it was an INCREDIBLE evening of music: he conducted without a score, which is dicey no matter how brilliant you are, and it was some of the most passionate and effective music-making I'd ever heard. We sat right on top of the orchestra, and it brought me a whole new appreciation of Elgar. One of those composers who, when done right, can be surpassing; done with only slightly less skill, seems somewhat lacking. So a new credo was born: never miss a chance to hear an Elgar piece live no matter how obscure -- even if it means singers.

Last night at the Barbicon, situated conveniently near a tube station near my dorm, I heard THE APOSTLES, and consider it my substitute for seeing THE PASSION. It was glorious. I don't know the piece, I don't recognize any of the singers, and pretty sure I've never heard Hickox on tape or live. I simply closed my eyes and drifted off to the kind of heaven Schubert usually promises. Place was buzzing as well, so I congratulate myself for figuring out which concert to catch on a night off research. And it recharged my melodic batteries for weeks to come. Off to Liddypewl.

So I arrive in London last night after an interminable British Airways flight after watching SHATTERED GLASS, that movie about the NEW REPUBLIC fiction scandal, which I stuck with only because people like Chloe Sevigny and Steve Zahn were in it. Lead performance was pretty decent, it was the writing again, alas. In a movie about WRITING.

But the thing is I came over with a new Nokia 3100 all ready to rock and the damn thing wouldn't work. It noticed THREE available networks but wouldn't get chummy with any. So I spent the morning at a global phone shop, spent 11 pounds getting situated, and learning from an overly forthcoming AT&T operator in the US that AT&T's internat'l service was basically nonexistent. She knew from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. I thanked her for being straight with me. She laughed and said it was too early for anybody to listen in on her.

Then I went to a phone shop for a new SIM card, but the guy showed me how the phone is LOCKED by AT&T to prevent just this type of thing. Later on I was wandering around and came across this sign: "Unlocking all phones to all networks." Bingo -- I head inside and it's like an old-fashioned head shop for geeks: row upon row of monitors and over two dozen hipsters surfing the web for 1 pound and hour. [Phonefixers, 07958-22-33-11, 138-140 Charing Cross Road.] This guy takes my phone apart, looks up the unlock code on the web, unlocks it, puts a new SIM card in, gives me a local number, and I'm off and running. If you're reading this and want to call, try [US: 011-44] 0794-445-2949. AT&T charges $5/month for its global service, and 99 cents a minute on every call. This service I picked up costs 19 cents a minute, and all Brits calling me have only a local dial to make. And I don't pay for any incoming calls.

Tonight I talked with Paul Du Noyer, who passed along a new issue of WORD; Mark Lewisohn, and Howie Casey. Tomorrow I get the London Beatle tour. My feet are already killing me.