ain't no use to sit and wonder why baby

so i finally got around to watching I'm Not There, the wonderfully trippy biography of Bob Dylan. Six different actors each portraying a different dylan myth, none telling the true story, and none following any obvious chronology. Didn't always understand what was going on, but still a much more interesting film than Walk The Line, Ray, La Bamba or any other biopic that ties up a musician's life into one key theme and story. Lives just don't go like that. Besides Robert Zimmerman may have been a small town boy who moved to New York hoping to be Woodie Guthrie, but that doesn't mean that Bob Dylan was. Dylan is a fictional character by Zimmerman who can have any life story that Zimmerman sees fit.

Sometimes knowing too much truth about a musician is a hinderance. Right now i'm reading The Dirt - the Motley Crue story, where all four band members plus all sorts of hanger-ons dscribe their sordid experiences or rock, rape, drugs, stupidity, satanism, more rape, lots more drugs, and occasionally more rock and roll. As a young one i did like a few crue songs and its been interesting to have some perspective on what was going on (and down their throats) as they recorded each album. As a young music fan, i believed that if you liked a band then you should listen to all their albums and i kind of almost imagined that they were all made by the same band always trying to make the best possible album, but as this book illustrates really well, is that it was a different four blokes who made each cd, even if they always inhabited the same four bodies. they were in different places, taking different drugs (or none at all for their most boring records), and trying not to kill each other in different ways. Plus each album had a different producer with his own vision, different record company guy with his own agenda, and different wives with their own issues. I guess albums are like photos that you can't throw away, so you're stuck wearing that shirt and having that haircut forever.

These days i no longer assume that just because i like one album by a band that means i'll like everything they make. can't think of any band that has consistently made great albums. and making a bad disc doesn't take anything away from their earlier great ones. i'd love to hear anyone name a band that has made only good albums.

Shana Tova everyone

families

so i just discovered my brother has a blog. actually my other brother does too. guess we're a family of bloggers. but then while i just ramble on about random stuff, they both seem to be educating the masses about the weekly Torah reading, obscure Halachik facts or dodgy right wing politics. please don't judge me by their politics. in fact, please don't judge them on their politics, because they're actually nice guys.

but anyhoo, michael recently posted about songs for our sister's wedding (oh yeah, btw, my sister is getting married in Feb). you know stuff to walk down the aisle to, first dance etc. not sure if my brother's list is particularly helpful but its definitely more helpful than this list of particularly bad songs to walk down the aisle to:

Theme from Titanic - one because of the titanic motif and two because its a particularly bad song, although having said that i have been to a wedding where the bride did walk down the aisle to that song and if you're reading this, i'm relatively sorry.

Every Rose has its Thorn - Poison - this song was used on the simpsons when otto got married, with poison really performing it.

I've had the time of my life - dirty dancing soundtrack - actually don't even remember who sang this, but past tense is always a bad idea at the start of a wedding.

Han's fiancé suggested Jaws theme, which would be fun.

Far Q by Das Ben (in fact i don't think any das ben songs would make appropriate wedding music)

Woke up this morning - Alabama 3 - theme from Sopranos - actually that'd be quite a cool way to walk up the aisle. wonder how i can convince my sister to go for it. Down in a Hole - theme from the Wire would be equally as cool, as would a bond theme.

a few more suggestions like this and my invite may be revoked.

mudwords

so way back on 6 sept West London Writing Group (of which i'm a devoted member) put on a 2 hour performance of rehearsed readings at the West London Literary Festival. West London Literary Festival is such an impressive way of saying two tents on a muddy field, but the festival did feature big names like Andrew Motion (Poet Laurette) and Richard Briers (Good Lifer).

my short script Headed for a Heartbreak was impressively performed by a group of great actors, particular kudos go to David Sayers, who played the main part of Rikki Knight, and nailed the part, coming across with the perfect combination of bogan rock naivity and stoopid love-struck geek. The script tells the story of Rikki searching London for the city's finest Winger Tribute band so that he can impress the girls of his dreams. He finds tribute bands in such strange places as Southhall Indian Restaurants, primary school choirs and bag-piping buskers. but only once he finds London's best band is he able to win over Michelle's heart. Unfortunately not for him.

It was probably the first time a Winger song had been played through a Chiswick PA in years, and for that I am sorry, but the performance went well, and for that I'm proud, and in truth, as best as i can tell there are no Winger tribute bands in London and for that i am very relieved.

(btw if you don't remember how awful the song was, check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzuAKBu366k )

it goes exactly like this

so last night we went to see the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players, a NY family who buy up old family slideshows (and corporate slides from old conferences) from garage sales and write songs about them. Dad plays keyboards and guitar, mum works the slideshow projector and daughter plays drums. it was very sweet. they performed 3 songs based on mcdonalds 1977 marketing conference slide, worried that they weren't advertising enough. they also played a game where called who's wearing the cheapest outfit in the room. not the right crowd for the game, but luckily for them someone was wearing an outfit that altogether cost less than £10

made me wonder about theme or concept shows. always has bad connotations, but maybe it is an easier way to come up with song ideas during this sahara of lyric writing blocks i'm having write now. ideas for concepts? anyone?

ketchup

so i've recently discovered that someone has been reading my blog. is it you? no, its ron. unless you are ron. in which case it is you. hi ron.

which makes me feel semi-bad that i have not written up some of the fun things i've done in the past few months. so here's one of hopefully many catch-up entries.

in June i went to day 2 of the Love Box festival in Victoria Park, East London. Basically the whole day felt like an amazing Flaming Lips concert with too many opening acts because they were the motherlode whereas the rest of the sets i saw were a bit average. the first thing we went to was the new york dance party tent, a pumping sweaty nightclub filled with drag queens in cages and people in fake mostaches. it was going off like the fake tashes weren't. but it was too hot on a sunny afternoon to be inside a nightclub listening to cheesy beats so i didn't stick that out long. yup, i'm still a rock and roll boy.

Ebony Bones were a high energy funk outfit (with funky outfits) that look and sound like they are going to be huge within a year or two and deservedly so. The Dandy Warhols on the other hand looked like a bunch of grumpy has-beens who felt cheated that they weren't on the main stage, so they made the crowd suffer through average new songs which were further hampered by a bad sound system. A long time ago we used to be friends, but...

Eventually the Flaming Lips came on the main stage and holy crap were they fun. Wayne entered the show inside a giant bubble, which he rolled all the way out over the audience, and then didn't stop moving the whole show, he made the energiser bunny look like a lazy bum. meanwhile standing on the sides of the stage were 20 people dressed up in pink monk robes or iron man costumes. at the back of the stage was a screen showing old experimental films and above the stage was an impressive firework display. so i probably would have enjoyed the show even if i had been deaf. fortunately i'm not because they also sounded fantastic. rocking the crowd with Fanatical and the Yeah Yeah Yeah song and then moving us all to sing along to a slow version of Yoshimi. Beautiful from beginning to end.

Pity it had to end, but instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun don'-go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

what what

so each day on my way to work (yup, i've still got 16 more work days before my spain adventures begin) i walk past a person selling the Times newspaper and a person selling the Sun newspaper. they must stand next to each other for hours each morning, and i imagine their conversations sound something like this:

Times seller: Wot wot
Sun seller: Y'what?
Times seller: Wot wot
Sun seller: Whatever, do i look bovered
Times seller: I say
Sun seller: Say what...
Times seller: Wot wot

and so on, but i'll stop there because i'm finding it very difficult to transcribe different british accents.

speaking of newspaper sellers, wouldn't it be great if they returned to the old annoying days of shouting more:
'Extra extra, read all about it, Tories blame Gordon for lack of temperature stability over summer'
'Paper, get yer paper, TFL to invent new colour so they can build new tube line'
'Extra extra, Morrissey ate my budgie'

Actually, that last headline was a real one i saw in a Sunday Sport (i was reading a discarded copy on a train). Turns out some guy has a cat called Morrissey and the cat ate his budgie. There is a light that never goes out...