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Saturday, May 13, 2006 ( 5/13/2006 04:55:00 AM ) Bill S.  "IF THERE'S BEEN TROUBLE, I WILL PLEAD NOT GUILTY" – First time I heard about Wynonie Harris, it was as the subject of a column by pop music historian Nick Tosches (responsible for killer bios of both Jerry Lee Lewis and Dean Martin) in Creem magazine. Entitled "Unsung Heroes of Rock 'N' Roll," Tosches' column (later collected into book form) focused on those blues shouters and vocal groups who pushed the door open for early rock 'n' roll. Per this obsessive chronicler of hard-rockin' excess, the majority of these musical pioneers were one whacked-out bunch of high-rollin' lunatics – and Harris was at the front of the pack. When he belts out his first big hit, his version of Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight," you know it's gonna be a wild night . . .Harris' best tracks were loud jump blues songs devoted to sex, drink and all manner of illicit behavior. Hits in the late 1940's and early 50's on the so-called "race charts," they were not immediately meant to be appreciated by a teenaged audience but instead a more mature group of blues hounds: not so much a celebration of youth as they were a call to rock out in the midst of life's tribulations. Unabashedly ribald, it was decidedly grown-up party music. Not too surprisingly, during the nineties proto-swing revival, Harris's songs were regularly covered; Buster Poindexter made Harris' oeuvre a cornerstone of his repertoire. I've been playing Wynonie a lot recently – along his contemporaries like Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner – and getting quite a charge out of it. This isn't a nostalgic exercise for me since the music by and large predates my radio-listening youth, but clearly something there has been recently speaking to me. Harris shows up on a lot of jump blues collections from the nineties, but the best American overview of his hits is Rhino's Bloodshot Eyes: The Best of Wynonie Harris (1994): eighteen tracks of rollickin' R&B from King Records. (Unfortunately missing from this set: "Who Threw the Whiskey Down the Well?," which he sang for Decca as part of the Lucky Millander Orchestra.) Clappin' rhythm, hard-boiled sax and a dynamic belter are the basic elements to great jump blues, and Wynonie had 'em to the max on these King sides. Listening to the chorus to "Sittin' On It All the Time," with its irrefutable drumming and squonking sax punctuations, you can't help but be won over to a song that's essentially a taunting putdown of a lifelong virgin. Harris' pebbly bellow was perfectly suited to this stuff: it was the sound of a guy you knew had himself experienced both the joys and regrets of a too-fast life. In addition to the regular exhortations to let the good times rock 'n' roll, he also specialized in comic warning songs: in Hank Penny's "Bloodshot Eyes," he chastises a hung-over beauty whose eyes "look like two cherries in a glass of buttermilk;" in "Good Morning, Judge" (also a showstopper for David Johansen's Buster P.), his misspent ways repeatedly bring him up before the title adjudicator. Even at his funniest, there's a clear hint of rue in these tracks: jumpin' it all may be, but it still remains rooted in the blues . . . # | Thursday, May 11, 2006 ( 5/11/2006 07:40:00 AM ) Bill S. A THIMBLE FULLA GOOD NEWS – Sign me up as another swabbie excited by the news that Fantagraphics is coming out with a hardback series reprinting E.C. Segar's classic "Thimble Theater/Popeye" strip. I bought a couple of the paperback reprints back when the comics publisher first ran the series as part of its "Nemo Library," and I've since regretted not getting the whole set when I had the chance. Segar's Popeye adventures were a joy to read – wildly inventive and funny – and they definitely deserve to stay in print for perpetuity. I also suspect that Segar's leisurely storytelling style is more in tune with comics readers' tastes in these days of decompressed storytelling than it was when Fantagraphics did its first series of Popeye books. So when we getting the hardback "Pogo" reprint series? # | Wednesday, May 10, 2006 ( 5/10/2006 09:03:00 AM ) Bill S. THE TEEVEE RICH ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM YOU AND ME – The season finale for Veronica Mars aired last night, and – try as it might – it just couldn't provide the cure for the bad case of sophomore-itis the show's been displaying all year. The season's central mystery proved too convoluted and disjointed to work (requiring one of those five-minute explications that always play so believably when the heroine is delivering it to a desperate and just exposed killer), while the episode's denouement unsuccessfully tried to pass off a "he's still alive" moment that was nearly as unconvincing as the finale to Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Season Two's central problem from the start has resided in the fact that – no matter how many red herrings the writers may've served up – its mystery (the death of a busload of school kids) wasn't really connected to our spunky heroine. The killing of Lily Kane from Season One caused a seismic shift in Veronica's life: in addition to taking away her best friend (a figure who never, I must say, seemed that deserving of VM's loyalty), it also led to dad Keith Mars' fall from social grace and Veronica's descent from member of the high school elite into observing outsider. This drop in social status was probably ultimately better for her as a person, but it's hard to see that when you continue to live and work in a land where layabout rich kids continue to mindlessly play all around you. The show's writers have frequently been at their spiky best playing Veronica against these addle-pated nouveau riche kids, but a few good snarks do not a series make. Second Season's mystery attempted to make the setting's simmering class dynamics a more upfront part of the storyline, but it ultimately didn't add up to much. (A sudden revelation about our heroine's once resolved date rape seemed like just one more last ditch attempt at personalizing the puzzle.) In the end, the year's big mystery – like that of the year before – hinged on yet another creepy privileged adult male taking sexual advantage of the young. Those darn Baby Boomers! Make no mistake: I'm still attached to this series and hope against hope that the new recombinated UPN/WB net makes room for Season Three on next year's schedule. There's much to continue to love about Veronica Mars, most particularly the crystalline acting done by Kristin Bell, Enrico Colantoni & Jason Dohring. It's just that compared to its great opening season, Season Two had a few too many loose seams showing. The results may've been better than most of what passes for series television, but I'm still hoping Rob Thomas and the rest of his writing staff tighten things up on Season Three . . . NOTE: Nice moody use of Gravenhurst's cover of the Kinks' "See My Friends" on the soundtrack, incidentally . . . NOTE II: Tom the Dog has a more positive take on the season finale. # | Tuesday, May 09, 2006 ( 5/09/2006 09:08:00 AM ) Bill S. "I'M SO SICK OF PEOPLE TRYING TO BE MY BABYSITTER!" – So what about the not-so-funny freebies from our local Free Comic Book Day celebration? Well, I've taken a pass through 'em – and after reading the hodgpodge of incomprehensible and incomplete four-pagers that is IDW's Transformers collection, I can't help feeling nostalgic for the days when a Lee & Ditko could whip up a simple self-contained Doc Strange story in five pages. Among the other selections, I'm totally befuddled by DC's decision to reprint the first Superman/Batman - the book may serve to introduce the characters to kds but the continued story suddenly veers into heavy continuityville and isn't all that gripping. (Ohmigosh, Lex Luthor doesn't want to use Superman to stop an approaching kryptonite asteroid!) The stand-alone Justice League Unlimited only serves to remind us how padded these Cartoon Network spin-off comics can be: again, it's a full issue story that any passable Silver Age writer could've give us in seven-eight pages. What does it say when pure "funnybooks" like Donald Duck and Bongo pack more info per page than this stretched-out exercise? I will admit to being mildly amused by the Runaways snippet in Marvel's X-Men/Runaways sampler: transparent cross-promotion it may be, but scripter Brian K. Vaughn gives his protagonists some decent lines even if artist Skottie Young's take on the X-folk doesn't fully work. I was less entertained by the licensed property books passed out by Dark Horse (Star Wars and Conan), IDW (the aforementioned Transformers and Devil's Due (G.I. Joe: Sigma, which at least had the decency to give us a full story along with a tiny smidgeon of character). Can't imagine being pulled into any of these series as a kid, though, and I used to read Tomahawk comics! One fragmentary sampler did manage to pique my interest: Image's Future Shock, which gives us four-page fragments from some of its upcoming titles. The offering that got me curious was the four-page offering from Joe Casey & Tom Scioli's fan-fave pastiche Godland, a series that I hadn't previously followed despite a plethora of bloggy recommendations. What got me was the headshot panel where a gaping mouthed Kirby-esque lady astronaut gets caught in some kinda cosmic whatsit and begins flashing back to the time she lost her virginity "in the prep school laundry room." (Now, there's a line that the King woulda never thought to've given us!) Another title to add to my looming list of trades to read . . . # | Monday, May 08, 2006 ( 5/08/2006 08:52:00 PM ) Bill S. "I'VE BEEN UP, DOWN, ALL AROUND NOW . . ." – Our ISP, Insight Broadband, is currently in the midst of one of those annoying service upgrades that impact you in ways you hadn't expected (note the absence of our familiar friendly purple background and that jpg. of yours truly standing 'neath the Gemini Giant) along with the more predictable disruptions (any emails sent to popgadabout @ the insightbb.com addy are currently in limbo). Hopefully, this situation'll be resolved soon; that empty background just looks sad . . . # | ( 5/08/2006 02:34:00 PM ) Bill S. "YOU'LL BE ABSOLUTELY FREE/ONLY IF YOU WANT TO BE!" – Followed Saturday's dog park trip with a quick stop at Normal, IL's comic shoppe, Acme Comics, to check out the Free Comic Book Day pickings. The place wasn't as crowded as it'd been previous years. Jim, the store's owner, had decided to scale things back: just one table with thirteen freebies, most focused toward kids or mainstream superhero fans. Saw no parent/kid combos in the store (unlike previous years), but perhaps I'd missed 'em. In any event, the relative roominess made it easier for me to briefly browse and shop. Bought a copy of an Iron Wok Jan! GN (was looking for the last Battle Royale, but it still was on order) and a Love And Rockets comic in addition to my pile of freebies. Just to show that I'm not a complete freeloader. I haven't been as regular a visitor to Acme in the past year – that damn money thing – and of the current crop of mainstream titles, the only one I've bought regularly has been Morrison's All-Star Superman, which somehow seems most appropriate to read in that format. My superhero reading has been down considerably; though I have vague plans to catch up on some of the series that I once followed more diligently through trades, I haven't put this half-formulated plan into action yet. More often, if I go into the shoppe with some small amount of dough to buy some comics, I'm more liable to buy a manga title – at this point in my reading, even the most formulaic manga seem fresher than most American superhero books. As for the freebies, I read through half of 'em yesterday, delving into the "funnybooks" first. I was particularly interested in checking out Jimmy Gownley's Amelia Rules and Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim intro books since they've both gotten good blogospheric buzz. Found the first to be an appealing kids' comic that would probably make a decent NickToon, though the charm of the second, I must admit, eluded me: perhaps it was O'Malley's art, which seemed more suited to the digest format and too loose for the larger comic book page; maybe the characters need a larger story to grown on me. Whatever it is, Scott didn't take hold as strongly as Amelia. More familiar fare – a Donald Duck with a predictable but well-told Don Rosa duck tale, Andy Runton's quietly charming Owly, a story-free 65th anniversary Archie celebration written and hastily illustrated by Dan Parent (best known in Gadabout Land for The Carneys) that appeared primarily designed to hype the fact that Sabrina and Josie and the Pussycats are being done "manga-style" now, a suitably snarky Bongo Free-for-All with a cover story centered around Comic Book Guy ("Oh, Brian Michael Bendis, you've done it again!") – all made for a relaxing Sunday a.m. reading. After finishing 'em, I resolved to get a copy of Rosa's Life And Times of Scrooge McDuck, Runton's Owly trades and look to fill in those few missing issues of Archie Comics from my collection where the Carneys appeared as a secondary feature. (What can I say? I've got a thing for Rotunda!) Mission Accomplished, Free Comic Book Day! # | Sunday, May 07, 2006 ( 5/07/2006 10:15:00 AM ) Bill S. FOOL ME ONCE – So I'm standing in the line at Kroger's and I see the cover of the newest TV Guide is hyping that it has the full scoop on this season's Lost finale. "Half a mo'", I find myself thinking, "isn't this the mag that tried to tell us last year that the high school science teacher was gonna play a major role in Season Two?" NOTE: I do wanna go on record and note that the last five minutes of the most recent ep was a real oh, shit moment: nice fiddling with established formula to have the day's flashback character get fatally(?) shot . . . # | |
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