The Cult Of Hunter S. Thompson

By Paul Casey

“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”

Coupled with Bruce Robinson’s Withnail & I, there is no more cherished catharsis for the teenage crowd than the work of Hunter Stockton Thompson. Or the drunk crowd. Or the drugged crowd. Or the drunk and drugged teenage crowd. Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the wonderful Terry Gilliam adaptation starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, are the blueprint for so much debauchery and casual destruction. Apart from the compelling joys and miseries of sucking from the Gonzo cock of hyperbolic substance use, Thompson is one of the most emulated crusaders in the truth game.
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Prince’s Dirty Mind

By Paul Casey

Those who are only familiar with Prince as a traveling hits tour; one who thinks that Biblical coincidence—hello! 3121 perfume—is a guarantee of good business; and who makes deranged cultish put-downs of homosexuality and his old friends may not be aware that he was once something else. Some omni-sexual thing that was an expert in transgressive pop music and performance. Some deviant, perverted thing that ejaculated guitar semen onto his audience. Some ballsy twentysomething who wore black underwear and a trench coat to a Stones concert. Some kind of genius.

From 1978′s “Soft and Wet,” the only sign of Prince’s genius on his debut For You, sex was the thing. Indeed, even now a decade following the misunderstood Jehovah’s Witness tribute The Rainbow Children, sex is still the thing. While most casual fans of Prince are aware of the mention of used Trojan condoms in “Little Red Corvette”—a song and line which is still performed today—or what “Cream” refers to (also still performed), there is a depth of perversion in his music which passes many by.

Prince’s sexual creativity touches areas which make even his longtime fans uncomfortable, including rape, incest, and turning lesbians straight. It has also turned out some of his greatest songs. This is an introduction to and celebration of that work.
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Suffering, Defeat, and Justice: Why You Should Care About Pro Wrestling

By Paul Casey

Professional wrestling reached the high water mark of its popular and critical acceptance in the late 1990s. Since then, the Internet has bypassed the crude elitism of the dirt sheets and allowed fans the world over to step inside the shoes of a failed sports journalist with a disregard for both style and skill. When Vince McMahon admitted the pre-arranged nature of professional wrestling, he hit upon a unique way to market his World Wrestling Federation. “Sports Entertainment” is an athletic display, a “male” soap opera, a comedy showcase, and supposedly has more in common with Saturday Night Live than it does with Greg “the Hammer” Valentine vs. Roddy Piper in a Dog Collar Match.

Lou Albano, Cyndi Lauper

This was probably true in the 1980s, when Cyndi Lauper was palling around with Lou Albano and Mr. T was teaming with Hulk Hogan. It was probably true in the late ‘90s when The Rock and Steve Austin were at the top of their game. We’re a living cartoon. We’re real life super heroes. We’re a magic show. The successful marketing term of “Sports Entertainment” was an obvious, calculated attempt to redefine a business which had fallen between the cracks of popular culture. “Do they really expect us to believe this is real?” Although people can appreciate the commitment of magicians such as Penn & Teller and David Blaine in maintaining the illusion, the confusion over what wrestling actually is led to a long period where the public liked to believe that they were simply too sharp to be fooled.
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Arkham City: World Of Echo

By Paul Casey

Arkham City, released October 21, is an important Batman story. While perhaps not as unexpected as its predecessor, Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady have turned in a Batman game that builds on that one’s many successes. As someone who has been obsessed with Batman for a couple of decades, with changing degrees of intensity, Arkham City is literally a dream come true.

To have an interactive slab of Gotham City with such extremely detailed and well observed parts of Batman’s long history concealed for your own brand of detective work . . . well, it makes me feel both old and lucky to have been around this long. That the game is actually a wonderful, expertly paced, physical experience is something else entirely. As with Arkham Asylum, it still seems quite unusual to have a great comic book like Batman finally tap into why video games are such an exciting medium.
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The Smile Sessions

By Paul Casey

As Paul Williams said in 1997—prematurely as it turns out—upon the release of 30 minutes of the SMiLE music on the Good Vibrations box set, SMiLE is Done. The release of The Smile Sessions by EMI and Capitol Records on November 1, 2011, is the end of a long strange journey. You can read my thoughts on the phenomenon of SMiLE in my other article, but this one is purely about the music.
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The SMiLE Meme

By Paul Casey

Smile logo
by Mark London

“SMiLE music is sacred. It is not to be messed with. Isn’t anything sacred anymore?”
—Sheriff John Stone

The Smile Sessions, released on November 1 from EMI and Capitol Records, marks in a significant way, the end for those who have centered their lives around the SMiLE Meme. The myth of the Perfect Album. The myth of the Lost Album. The myth of The Beach Boys (and their insecure fans) besting The Beatles (and their satisfied fans). While the reality of the music of SMiLE and the journey it went on is far more interesting to this writer’s ears, some continue to covet the picture in their head with fetishistic pride.
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thenewno2, EP002

By Paul Casey

Thenewno2‘s EP002 starts well. “Wide Awake” is an addictive opener, showing Dhani Harrison as a convincing front man. EP002‘s combination of meditative rock with electronic concerns works well here, as it does on the Regina Spektor collaboration “Live a Lie.”

Regina Spektor is a divisive talent, and in no short supply of the magic of Quirk. She does well here, proving her ability to go straight-laced and abandon musical jokes for a bit. As a taster of what thenewno2 has in store for the next album, these two songs are encouraging. The other two tracks, less so.
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Batman: Arkham City—The Album

By Paul Casey

Arkham City is the sequel to 2009′s Arkham Asylum, the very surprising critical and commercial success from Rocksteady Studios. This soundtrack of “interpretations of the stories surrounding Batman” features a set of Indie Rock Heads doing songs that are in no real sense representative of 1) why Arkham City has a shot at game of the year or 2) why Batman is such an enduring character. As a collection of low-grade Indie Rock, it is mostly intolerable.
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No Gods Or Kings. Only Man: Bioshock

By Paul Casey

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat on his brow? No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor. No, says the man in Vatican, it belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone.

I rejected those answers, instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose Rapture. The city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be restrained by the small. And with the sweat on your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”

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He Is the Night, He Is Vengeance, He Is Batman: The Animated Series

By Paul Casey

Batman: The Animated Series was the cause of my love of Batman, superheroes, and later, comic books. I had seen Tim Burton’s wonderful 1989 adaptation early on and went to the cinema to see the underrated and childishly maligned (though rather too scary for my youth) sequel, Batman Returns. I was also aware of the 1960s Adam West TV show.

Even though I enjoyed these, it was the Noir shadows of The Animated Series which got to me. The vision of Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski, Alan Burnett, and Paul Dini would stay with me. The opening is perhaps the most evocative and perfect definition of who Batman is as a character. Danny Elfman’s score is Batman.
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