// Category Archive for: Issues

Duran Duran, Three To Get Ready

By Jemiah Jefferson

“No obscure cheeses.”
—John Taylor, giving directions of what the band wants on its tour rider

The film opens on a very dry, very droll Nick Rhodes rejecting most of a series of recent photos of the band. We see that he’s joined with Simon Le Bon, just as dubious about most of the pictures, but he does helpfully supply, “I like the shape in the middle.” The empty space might have once been occupied by their departed band mates, Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor. Without even meaning to, this signals a new Duran Duran than expected by the legions of loyal global fans seduced by their mixture of surrealism, style, and raw sensuality, but accustomed to the five faces and iconic mops of expertly teased hair.

This is Three to Get Ready, the 1986 documentary depicting a band all too aware of their market share, refusing to be fractured, and yet straining towards expressing the creativity embodied in the core members of Le Bon, Rhodes, and the remaining Taylor: John, a former art student, lover of punk rock and disco, and at this time, in the grips of raging cocaine and hashish addiction yet no less tenderly gorgeous as he manifested in the earliest days of Duran Duran (and was barely out of his teens).
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The Matrix Revisited

By Lisa Anderson

Seraph: Did you always know?
Oracle: No, no I didn’t. But I believed. I believed.
—The final lines of dialog of The Matrix Trilogy

In 1999, the movie going public got its mind blown. The Matrix, directed by Andrew and Larry (Lana) Wachowski, used cutting-edge technology to draw on a range of stylistic influences, from Hong Kong action movies to Cyberpunk. What really set the film apart, though, was it’s heady blend of ideas and symbols from Christianity, Eastern spirituality, and Western Philosophy.
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Pop Music: The Balkans

By Jim R. Clark

There has been quite a bit of interest in Balkan music lately due to the popularity of such bands as Gogol Bordello and Balkan Beat Box. If you’re one of those music nuts who’s heard everything, then hopefully this article can introduce you to something new. Here is a taste of some of the great musical offerings popular in the Balkans today. Maybe you will get hooked and want to start your own Manele band!
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Trio The Band: Their Greatest Hit

By Emily Carney

Trio is a band generally known for two momentous things. First, they were obviously a trio (consisting of singer Stephan Remmler, guitarist Gert Krawinkel, and drummer Peter Behrens). Second, they had one of the biggest hits of 1982, even if you’ve never heard of them before reading this little tribute.
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Words, Guitar, and Passion: The Music of Sleater-Kinney

By Laura L.

I remember where I heard about Sleater-Kinney for the first time.

It was in the unlikeliest of places: Seventeen magazine. This was in 1997, when they were promoting what’s now my favorite Sleater-Kinney album, Dig Me Out. I wanted to know more about them, but for some reason, I was afraid. I was so self-conscious at the time about listening to a band I’m sure none of my friends would have heard of.

Photo from The Sleater-Kinney Archives

Fast forward three years later. I was in college, and it was the height of Napster’s heyday. Sleater-Kinney had another album out, All Hands On the Bad One, and, after sampling a few tracks on Napster, I decided to finally buy the album. I was hooked from “Ballad of a Ladyman” all the way to the last track, “The Swimmer.” As soon as I could, I bought all the other Sleater-Kinney albums.
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Do You Want Trombone Or Do You Want The Truth?

By Jimmy Ether

In the documentary Kill Your Idols, Lydia Lunch expressed her frustration with the current music scene:

“The commodification and homogenization of especially bass, guitar, and drums is the downfall of music. Where’s the fucking tuba? A trombone! Anything but a bass, guitar, and drums!”

That seems an odd statement coming from someone who very successfully used those very instruments with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks to challenge rock conventions along side bands like D.N.A., Mars, and many of the other bands from the influential New York City No Wave scene. To a certain extent, she has a point.
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Summer Cocktails

By Jemiah Jefferson

Whaddya know—it’s summer again! And if you’re bored with drinking the usual longneck beers and dodgy box-wine sangria, give these party-worthy drink recipes a try. All of them have been extensively vetted by the author and her pals during the chillier months of spring, but a touch of hot weather should only improve the sipping experience.
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Dublin on A Dime

By Julie Finley

“In Dublin’s Fair City. . . where things cost a lot of money. . . but you can set your eyes on sweet Molly Malone (for free). . . ”
—Sung in the style of the old traditional Irish song, “Cockles & Mussels”

Julie Finley and Molly Malone
Photo © Julie Finley

Dublin, the capital city of Ireland, is quite a charming place, but it can be expensive. However, if you play your cards right (and do some thorough research), it doesn’t have to be.
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Ten Reasons Why You Should See In Bruges

By Michelle Patterson

In Bruges, a delightful and surprising film out of Ireland that won critical acclaim in 2008—winning a Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Golden Globe for Colin Farrell, gaining an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and winning numerous awards in its native country—deserves much credit for being a genuinely black comedy.

When it is funny, it creates guffaws a-plenty and when it is black, it is inky, friends. What is most astonishing is how it manages to allow the proper amount of depth within the characterization. Yet, when one considers that the filmmaker, Martin MacDonagh, is a well-established playwright and has a Best Live Action Short Film Academy Award under his belt for his first foray into film, Six Shooter, it isn’t really that shocking. We’re also reminded that Colin Farrell can act. So, let’s settle into the Top Ten Moments of one brilliant piece of Irish filmmaking.
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Irish Folk With A Twist: Frank Tovey and The Pyros, Grand Union

By Emily Carney

Starting in the late 1980s, Frank Tovey (also known as Fad Gadget, whose music and general adventures were chronicled in a past Popshifter article) departed from avant-garde synth-pop, and started making Irish folk records.

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