// Category Archive for: Retrovirus

Music Review: Game Theory, Lolita Nation (Reissue)

By Chelsea Spear

Since its release and quick deletion, Game Theory’s third official LP, Lolita Nation, has carried with it a mystique. Is it because it’s the third album, as producer Mitch Easter has suggested, or because it’s been impossible to find and prohibitively expensive for so long? Now that Scott Miller’s magnum opus is widely available, will we discover that this is actually an average album for the era and subgenre? Happily, Omnivore’s long-awaited reissue reveals an idiosyncratic and breathtakingly ambitious release by a cult-favorite songwriter and band who deserved a greater place in the 1980s college-rock firmament.

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Blu-Ray Review: Gilda

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto residents can watch a special theatrical screening of Gilda at The Royal tonight at 7:30 p.m., presented by the Ladies of Burlesque.

Without Gilda, my life would have been very different. As a naïve young English major at UC Santa Barbara, I registered for a Film Noir class to fulfill a requirement for my degree. I wasn’t new to old cinema; the giant poster of James Dean on my bedroom door and my stash of Gary Cooper movies recorded onto VHS were a testament to that. I didn’t know, however, about German Expressionism, Jim Thompson novels, the word “chiaroscuro,” or how important Citizen Kane was to the development of the noir style. I would soon learn.

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DVD/Blu-Ray Review: Frightmare (1981)

By Jeffery X Martin

Think about something you hate, or try to remember something that made so little of an impression on you that recalling details about that thing is difficult or impossible. The shocking truth is that thing is someone else’s favorite thing in the whole wide world. It could be a song, a book, a movie; it doesn’t matter. Somewhere out there, someone’s thinking of that thing you despise with a fondness you will never understand.

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Music Review: JD Souther, John David Souther

By Melissa Bratcher

It’s strange to hear a reissue of an album from 1972 that sounds as current as Omnivore’s reissue of JD Souther’s John David Souther. It’s not a difficult argument to make that Souther’s cult-classic albums were precursors to present day Americana. It’s all here: thoughtful lyrics and a high lonesome voice (on occasion); momentary fiddles and bottleneck guitar. JD Souther is a songwriter’s songwriter, known for writing for the Eagles (all of their good songs? Souther had a hand in those, like “New Kid In Town” and “Heartache Tonight”), and his songs have been covered by artists from Glen Campbell to India Irie to Linda Ronstadt.

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Blu-Ray Review: Edgar Allan Poe’s Black Cats

By Jeffery X Martin

“The Black Cat” isn’t usually the first story that comes to mind when people think of Edgar Allan Poe. It tends to get overshadowed by his poem, “The Raven,” or his story, “The Tell-tale Heart,” which actually shares a lot of plot devices with “The Black Cat,” but that’s not important right now. What is important is that Poe’s work is public domain. No one owns it. That makes his work ripe for the gutting by film producers and writers. Slap Poe’s name on it somewhere and you’ve got a built-in audience of horror fans and American Literature majors.

Roger Corman certainly made his nut making quickie Poe flicks, but that’s not important right now, either. What is important is what happened to “The Black Cat” in the hands of two stylistically different Italian directors, horror maestro Lucio Fulci and giallo king Sergio Martino. Their two versions of Poe’s old tale can be found in one beautiful box set from Arrow Video.

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Best Of 2015: Less Lee Moore

For more discussion about the items on my list, check out the Popshifter Best Of 2015 Podcast!

Many thanks to the following: All the writers at Popshifter but especially Melissa Bratcher, Brad Henderson, Tyler Hodg, Jeffery X Martin, and Tim Murr for being so generous with their time and talent; all the fantastic PR folks that help make everything possible (too many to list!); Kier-La Janisse and Paul Corupe at Spectacular Optical for graciously publishing my essay on Ricky Kasso in their Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s anthology; the kind people of Rue Morgue for publishing my music reviews in the magazine as well as my Frightful Flashback column on the blog; the good folks at all of the websites who invited me to write for them this year: Everything Is Scary, Nerdy Stuff, Modern Horrors, Dirge Magazine, and Biff Bam Pop; Colin Geddes and Carol Borden for being terrific and for letting me write for the TIFF Vanguard and Midnight Madness blogs again; and last but certainly NOT least, Shaun Hatton for being a generally awesome person.

And now, for the lists!
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Best Of 2015: Jeffery X Martin

By Jeffery X Martin

When you compare and contrast 2015 with other years, it really wasn’t half bad. It was a great year for movies, an absolutely stellar year for music, and television reached new heights of creativity and watchability. Sure, there were some celebrity deaths that shook me to the core (these are still hard times, Dream), but there wasn’t a whole lot to complain about in 2015, except how difficult it was to choose the best things of it.

So let’s start with the movies, shall we? In ascending order, please, Maestro. (more…)

Best Of 2015: Ronnie Barnett, The Muffs

Reissues of the Year:

1. Various Artists, Ork Records: New York, New York (Numero Group): The complete output of the amazing 1970s label finally compiled with perhaps the most lavish and beautiful packaging of any reissue, ever. Essential.

2. Bad Company, Bad Company/Straight Shooter (Swan Song/Rhino): A fucking revelation! These two disc sets offer remastered versions of both albums alongside a multitude of (gasp) previously unheard alternate takes & unreleased songs. Oh my…

3. Suburban Lawns, Suburban Lawns (Futurismo): At last this classic finally gets reissued for the first time. Hopefully this will renew interest and inspire a disc of demos and unreleased tracks. I can dream, can’t I??

4. Continental Drifters, Drifted: In The Beginning & Beyond (Omnivore): Perhaps the greatest widely unheard supergroup of all time. The talent and songwriting in this band will be a revelation to the uninitiated. Better than the Band… they’re that good.

5. Really Red, The Complete Collection: 1979-1985 (Alternative Tentacles): This Houston group were very special. Their music is far beyond “punk” and has not aged a day. My childhood heroes!

6. Velvet Underground, The Complete Matrix Tapes (Universal): Soundboard tapes from 1969 spread over four discs, enough said. The inside word is that it’s already out of print and Universal is not doing another pressing. Grab it if you still can.

7. Game Theory, Real Nighttime (Omnivore): The reissue of the catalog of my favorite band continues. So much more than merely a power pop band. The campaign continues next year, get ’em all!

8. Dictators, Go Girl Crazy! 40th Anniversary Remastered & Expanded Edition (Epic/Real Gone Music): The title says it all. Long overdue overhaul of one the most classic and influential albums of all time. I am right!!

10. Bruce Springsteen, The Ties That Bind: The River Collection (Columbia): No explanation necessary.

11. The Professionals, The Complete Professionals (Virgin UK): The collected works of the highly underrated band Steve Jones and Paul Cook formed after the breakup of the Sex Pistols. You might not have heard them; now is the time.

12. Yes, Progeny: Seven Shows From Seventy-Two (Atlantic/Rhino): Some might find a 14-disc box set of seven shows with identical set lists recorded in the same week to be a bit excessive… not me.

Runners Up:

Saved By The Bell: The Complete Works Of Robin Gibb 1968-1970 (Warner Brothers)

The Sound, Jeopardy/From The Lion’s Mouth/All Fall Down… Plus (Edsel UK)

The Sound, Shock Of Daylight/Heads And Hearts/In The Hothouse/Thunder Up/Propaganda (Edsel UK)

Faces, 1970-1975: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything… (Warner Brothers)

The Jam, Fire And Skill (Polydor/Universal UK)

The Muffs’ self-titled debut was reissued by Omnivore Recordings in June with oodles of extra tracks.

Retro Review: Ghost World

By Less Lee Moore

I first saw Ghost World when it hit theaters in 2001. I had just turned 30 and going through a particularly tumultuous period, questioning my choices in pretty much every aspect of my life… like you do when you are about to turn 30.

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Today In Pop Culture: 50 Years of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

By Jeffery X Martin

Not only does it have the greatest dance scene ever committed to celluloid (you know it’s true), but A Charlie Brown Christmas is also one of the most well-loved television specials of all time. It works on many different levels and, even though it has definite Christian leanings, the cartoon crosses those potentially limiting boundaries with a sophistication that bursts through the lines of what was expected of a child’s entertainment.

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