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Saturday, August 05, 2006 ( 8/05/2006 03:11:00 PM ) Bill S. WEEKEND PET PIC – A quick shot of Kyan Pup, taken outside this a.m.:  NOTE: If you wanna see more dogg blogging, check out the weekly "Carnival of the Dogs" at Mickey's Musings. And for a broader array of companion animals, there's Modulator's "Friday Ark." # | Thursday, August 03, 2006 ( 8/03/2006 04:03:00 AM ) Bill S. TWO WEEKS OF "FREE BIRD" – One quick comment on "You Know They've Got A Hell of A Band," the Oldies Show from Hell story that was used to conclude TNT's Stephen King Nightmares And Dreamscapes summer series: if you're gonna do a story predicated on the stultifying repetitiveness of the classic rock 'n' roll format, shouldn't you pay to have the actual over-familiar recordings on your soundtrack – instead of padding the hour w./ unsatisfying unreasonable facsimiles? Just askin'. # | Wednesday, August 02, 2006 ( 8/02/2006 12:56:00 PM ) Bill S.  "SINCE I WAS A BOY WEARING HIGH-HEEL SHOES . . ." – When I first read about Morrissey's drive to push the extant members of seminal rock band The New York Dolls into reuniting, I wasn't all that optimistic about the probable results. As a general rule, rock band revivals have been dismal affairs (pick yer least fave Sex Pistols reunion for a quick 'n' dirty example), and, besides, how many living members of the original Dolls are there? Big noise guitarman Johnny Thunders passed into Heroin Heaven years ago; Mormon bassist Arthur Kane has more recently died. That left . . .what? Frontman David Johansen and 2nd string guitarist Syl Sylvain? Color me doubtful.When I finally came across the revamped unit's first studio release, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (Roadrunner), the fanboy in me quickly nudged those doubts aside, though. I've been an avid follow of David Jo's solo work – even have a copy of that Latin rhythms disc he released in his Buster Poindexter persona – so there ultimately was no way I was gonna resist a new disc with his singing and songwriting all over it. May not be a for-real NY Dolls album, but it could be a decent Johansen – and that can be plenty funky/chic on its own. One week after telling my cynical self to shut the fuck up, I've happily embraced the New New York Dolls. From One Day's bellowy opening track ("We're All in Love"), it's clear this version of the Dolls isn't as enjoyably assaultive as the original model – lead guitarist Steve Conte just ain't as bracingly cacophonous as the late Johnny T. – but the group is a full-bodied unit, not just David Jo and a bunch of back-up musicians. Befitting their frontman's role as a sometime singer of trad blues with the Harry Smiths, the new disc has a more upfront emphasis on Stones-y blues growl, though Johansen's near all-encompassing love for old rock 'n' roll trickery pops up, too (the speedy sock hop rhythms to "Rainbow Store," the Bo Diddley beat on "Dance Like A Monkey," even the swatch of Harvest honed harmonica in "I Ain't Got Nothing.") A few of the slower tracks ("Plenty of Music," "Dancing on The Edge of A Volcano") sound like they could've appeared on an 80's solo Johansen disc, though then you wouldn't have gotten a Michael Stipe singing back-up to "Volcano," of course. (Nuthin' wrong with using yer elder statesman status to pull in younger admirers like Stipe – or punk folkie Tom Gabel – for a track or two.) To show they haven't just been sittin' around playing their old 45's, David Jo and Syl (responsible for much of the disc's music) even toss a slice of Ramones-ness into "Gotta Get Away from Tommy." Lyrically, the songs reflect Johansen's usual concerns – heart-felt paeans to trashy street life, riffs on being broke and horny, melancholy love songs – though the filter we hear 'em through is thirty years older than the jet boys of old. Now, when our head Doll tells his audience to dance, it's more cajoling than the shrieking entreaties of old. The whole thing sounds way better than any of us had a right to expect. Makes you wonder. If the Stones, say, had taken a twenty-plus hiatus after releasing Some Girls, could they have returned with an album as tuff as this? Probably not. One Day may not be the groundbreaker that the original New York Dolls was – how could it be? – but it still beats the snot out of much of what passes for rock these days. Turning out to be a damn fine year for us rockin' geezers . . . UPDATE: Longtime booster Robert Christgau (he gave both the debut album and Too Much Too Soon an "A+" grade!) has a swell Village Voice column on the elder Dolls and their new release . . . # | Monday, July 31, 2006 ( 7/31/2006 01:50:00 PM ) Bill S. KILLER GEEKS – (Note: I don't usually do SPOILER ALERTs, in large part because I traditionally try to keep from blowing big secrets when I summarize what a book's about. But this time, it's unavoidable.) This summer, I've been working overtime doing clean-up on the unread book piles in our study: I have two large stacks, in particular, of used mystery novels sent by other members of the fam. Some of these (J.A. Jance's Arizona Highways set mysteries, for instance) are so forgettable that they barely register long enough for me to write about 'em; others (Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone books, say) make for diverting muggy summer reading. Perfect for the kind of day when your eyes feel too unfocused to stick to a dense graphic novel and your brain's too muzzy to take in anything more strenuous than a book that's two-thirds snappy dialog. This weekend, I attempted a series that was new to me: #1 New York Times Bestseller" novelist Janet Evanovich's To the Nines, the ninth (natch) in a series of comic mysteries New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. Evanovich has a slickly self-deprecating writing voice that pulls you through her sparsely connected plot – and a nice sense for humorously chaotic family scenes (I could do without her mouthy comic relief sidekick, though) – but the mystery in this outing was strictly from hunger. Soon as we learned that one of the potential suspects was a grown-up comic book fan with a pronounced love of Spider-Man ("I have a whole stack of original Spider-Man McFarlanes. Man, I wish I could draw like him!"), it was obvious he was the killer – particularly since the murder victims all were connected via laptops. (Comic Book Fan, Big Computer Geek – they're interchangeable, right?) Like the Too Helpful Guy, sometimes personality trait is all you need to identify the villain in an especially lazy whodunit . . . # | Sunday, July 30, 2006 ( 7/30/2006 05:31:00 AM ) Bill S. "A GIRL SO EAGER TO EXPAND" – So we're driving around doing errands and I've put Bleu's Redhead in the Cruiser's CD player because that damn Chili's ad has me wanting to hear "Get Up" (from whence comes the commercial's guitar lines). Hidden track "Dance Dance Babydoll Dance" comes on, and midway into the song's catchy chorus I note with the tone of pop geek authoritativeness my wife has learned to tolerate that the track is about a guy's love for his blow-up love doll. Which later gets me mentally ticking off other rock songs that've been written about blow-up love dolls. Off the top of my head, I'm able to come up with three more: Frank Zappa's (but, of course) "Miss Pinky," Roxy Music's "In Every Dream House A Heartache" and Stewart Copeland's track for the Police's debut elpee, "Be My Girl – Sally." Surely, there are others . . . # | |
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