Waxing Nostalgic Connecting The Dots: The Moody Blues

By Jeffery X Martin

I can’t remember the first song I ever heard. It seems like very few people would. I can remember the first song I remember hearing, but I know that’s not the first song I ever actually heard. There’s no way to divine the actual first piece of music I ever heard, but I can get close.

From what I’m able to gather, the first album my parents bought after I was born was To Our Children’s Children’s Children by The Moody Blues. That record came out in November of 1969. I came out in June.

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Music Review: Barrence Whitfield & The Savages, Dig Thy Savage Soul

By Chelsea Spear

The legendary Barrence Whitfield cut a curious figure during Boston’s college rock boom of the ’80s. As the frontman for the Savages, Whitfield attracted a diverse audience with his raucous live shows. The man could rock a high noon set at a street fair like it was a tiny, sweaty juke joint, and his cover of “Stop Twistin’ My Arm” lit up left-of-the-dial rock stations like WBCN. Sadly, no recording studio could quite represent Whitfield’s talent and energy. The kindest thing one can say about the compressed, high-endy production on his previous albums is that he stayed away from synth charts and gated drums.

Whitfield’s shows with the Savages won him the Best Live Act award from the Boston Phoenix, and he frequently embarked on well-attended tours of Europe. In the past fifteen years or so, though, he’s remained more visible as a clerk at the Record Exchange in Salem, MA, than on the concert stage. With labels like Third Man, Dap-Tone, and Bloodshot releasing new material by R&B legends, an interest in new material from Whitfield seemed inevitable. And so it came to pass that the venerable Barrence Whitfield and the Savages would release Dig Thy Savage Soul, an all-new record, in 2013, showing listeners around the world how it’s done.

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Blu-Ray Review: Deranged

By Brad Henderson

Most people know names like Dahmer, Manson, Gacy, and Bundy, but one name always seems to slip under the radar when serial killers are mentioned: Ed Gein. Some might think that name sounds familiar; most people know of the films The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, and Silence of the Lambs. All were inspired by the slayings of Ed Gein and his weird, emotionally f-freaking-uped mind.

Arrow Films recently released a film called Deranged. It is also based on Gein’s life and comes pretty close to the actual storyline. Even for 1974, Deranged pushes all sorts of limits; it has a dark and unexpectedly twisted side. About midway through the film it takes a turn into the unknown, into the psyche of Ed Gein. We get to see his disturbed mind from the inside out.

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Music Review: Various Artists, Mutazione: Italian Electronic & New Wave Underground 1980 – 1988

By Less Lee Moore

For those of us who still listen to much of the same post-punk music we listened to in the ’80s, discovering new bands from that time is as exciting as hearing those new bands who are obviously influenced by those same sounds. The recent release of Mutazione by Strut Records is cause for celebration. Mutazione is a fabulous, two-disc compilation with 26 tracks of Italian post-punk music from 1980 – 1988. The arrangement of the songs is superb, like an excellent mixtape made by a music-savvy friend. For that we can thank Alessio Natalizia of Walls, who curated the collection.

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Music Review: Ty Segall, Sleeper

By Less Lee Moore

Ty Segall‘s music frequently shreds, so one wonders what the contingent of stage divers at his shows must think of his newest release Sleeper. Perhaps it’s the sonic antithesis to Fuzz, the upcoming project from Segall, guitarist Charlie Moothart, and bassist Roland Cosio, whose name describes the band accurately. Sleeper is mostly acoustic, but “Ty Segall Unplugged” it is not. There are amps and distortion, although both are kept to a minimum.

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Assemblog: August 30, 2013

Our beloved editor is typing her fingers to the bone, blogging for TIFF 2013, but that doesn’t mean you can’t check out all the great new stuff on Popshifter this week!

The Internet lost its hive-mind this past week when it was announced that Ben Affleck had been cast as Batman in the sequel to Man of Steel, but Paul makes a great case for why it doesn’t matter at all; Melissa gets greasy with Lux Interior; Chelsea gets ethereal with The Copper Gamins; new contributor Tim shines a spotlight on the venerable Pere Ubu; Brad goes into the light with his review of Fire in the Sky; Less Lee provides her recap of FanExpo Canada 2013; and finally, I start a new Waxing Nostalgic series and offer an essay about when movies were movies, not digital presentations.

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FanExpo Canada 2013: 100,000 Fans Can’t Be Wrong

By Less Lee Moore

Another year of FanExpo Canada has come and gone. As usual, the four-day event was jam-packed with people and panels, photo ops and paraphernalia. With so many things happening and so many attendees, there are bound to be a multiplicity of experiences. Here are mine.

Day One: Thursday, August 22

The doors opened at 2:00 p.m. and as usual, there was already a line-up. I don’t like to brag, but I enjoy being able to go through the Media entrance and not wait in the lines outside. Although, never fear, non-media folks: I still have to wait in a line to get onto the exhibition floor like the rest of you. (I do think it would be nice if media got to go in about an hour before the show opens, just to prepare for photos and video shoots.)

This year, due to the addition of the Sports segment and the expected increase in attendance, FanExpo took up multiple floors in both the South and North buildings. This meant a bit more walking across the bridge between buildings, but it also made for less cramped conditions (at least on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday; I didn’t attend Saturday).

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Our Lady of Imperfect Presentation: The Church of the Flicker Pics

By Jeffery X Martin

As the circle is drawn, the people feel a small rush of energy run from person to person, the familiar arousal of ceremony. The quarters are called. The fires crackle. The ritual begins.

The Tennessee Theater pushes itself back from the cramped Gay Street sidewalk, buried within itself like a wolf spider in a trap. The pavement changes color from grey to a dark brown, and patrons wander in like unsuspecting grasshoppers, awed by the intricacy of the architecture and the anachronistic ticket booth, separate from the rest of the building, like cleverly placed bait.

Customers wander in, dazed, hypnotized by the almost criminal use of fleur-de-lis. Ushers show them to their assigned spots, plush maroon seats that do not recline and defy the existence of cup-holders. The quarters are close, and smelling the person next to you is not difficult.

Sitting inside the auditorium is like being trapped inside a Fabergé egg. Sequins adorn the curtain that hangs in front of the screen. The ubiquitous fleur-de-lis runs in giant arches around the stage, as do depictions of castles, dancing bears, and crests of long-forgotten families. History lives in the Tennessee like dinosaurs live in Jurassic Park; its existence is undeniable, but remanufactured. A refurbishment project a few years back made everything bright and shiny again. Some grime would be welcome, a slight layer of stickiness on the floors. It’s a theater, not a museum.

Maybe it should be, though, and perhaps all of us gathered here on this Sunday afternoon should be on permanent display. Eighty of us, maybe ninety, here to see The Godfather, Part II, a movie released in 1974. I have this movie on DVD. I tend to think a lot of people do. I have a fairly decent home entertainment system, nothing too high end, but it is manly overkill for my small apartment living room. Also: I can, and do, quote this movie on a regular basis. What’s the sense of leaving my comfortable home, dragging my wife with me, to pay hard-earned money to see a movie already burned into my subconscious?

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Waxing Nostalgic Connecting the Dots: An Introduction

By Jeffery X Martin

I was born in 1969. When we imagine 1969 now, through the shattered lens of revisionist history, we think of hippies and acid and the overuse of the word “quagmire” when describing the Vietnam War. I look at things through a pop culture filter, always, so it isn’t really a surprise that I would, one drunken night, check the charts to see what the number one song was the week I was born. It had to be something cool, with lots of flanging and sitar and lyrics about flowers.

The number one song the week I was born was “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet” by Henry Mancini.

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DVD Review: Fire In The Sky

By Brad Henderson

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
—Arthur C. Clarke

In 1975, Travis Walton was abducted by aliens, and his abduction is one of the most well-known close encounters in history. Not only was a film made out of it, but those who conducted tests and the officers that were involved have also said it was not a hoax. This was due to the results of polygraph tests taken by those who witnessed the abduction.

In 1993, a film was made that scared the freaking crap out of me: Fire in the Sky. I was nine at the time of its release, and it has stayed with me to this day. If my memory serves me correctly, I saw it at the theater and again on a late night showing on HBO. I think being alone and watching it on HBO was what really did me in.

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