Phineas and Ferb: Glory Days Are Here Again

By Cait Brennan

Everything was better when we were kids. Ask anybody.
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The Kid Is Slayed? The Crash Street Kids’ Supersonic Star Show

By Cait Brennan

Reductivism is the great tragedy of history. As the years pass and firsthand knowledge dies, the rough grain of history fades to white. Nuance is forgotten and arcane knowledge is lost. An infinite palette of color and shading fades, first to primary colors and eventually down to broad, ill-defined strokes—gouges in sandstone. Our life spans are too brief, our memories too quick to fade.

Thus in 2011, that perfect pop moment called Glam Rock is mostly reduced to flickering B-roll of Ziggy Stardust circa 1972, bless him. Or misremembered entirely as that thing Poison was doing in 1989, whatever that was. Some kid who fancies himself a music historian may mention T. Rex. But the amazing spectrum of bands and artists who made up the first glitter-rock era—from Sparks to Suzi Quatro, from Slade to the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, the Sweet, Mott The Hoople—what self-respecting 21st century boy, not even born when Marc Bolan died, could possibly hope to truly know that world?

Ryan McKay does. He’s the front man for Phoenix’s Crash Street Kids, and—along with band mates A. D. Adams, Ricky Serrano, and Ryan “Deuce” Gregory—the last, best hope for glam rock and roll.
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Christmas Songs For A Future Generation: The Superions, Destination . . . Christmas!

By Cait Brennan

Fred Schneider rarely gets his due as a rock legend. One of the most original voices and imaginative storytellers of the New Wave, Schneider brought weird and wonderful absurdist lyrics, a fearless outsider sensibility, and his unique sprechstimme delivery into the rock mainstream. The discrete charm of Fred’s voice and lyrical style are lost on some people, but despite an army of jokesters’ best efforts, Schneider is truly inimitable.

Sad, then, that despite a relentless touring schedule, in the past 18 years his groundbreaking band the B-52s have managed only one new studio release, 2008’s Funplex. The prolific Schneider has participated in dozens of other projects during those years, but none have captured his own brand of madness better than Destination . . . Christmas!, the new album with his band The Superions.
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It Runs Like A Dream: Used Cars

By Cait Brennan

It’s hard to believe that once upon a time, at least in mainstream studio movies, gross-out comedy pretty much didn’t exist. The Motion Picture Production Code dutifully garroted impure creative expression from the early ’30s through most of the 1960s, and when the Code was finally broken, New Hollywood spent ten years making mirthless character studies about sexually dysfunctional bank robbers, suicidal Vietnam casualties, and internecine crime syndicates. There were hints of what was to come in movies like Michael Ritchie’s The Bad News Bears, but for the most part, auteur baby-boomer navel-gazing was the order of the day.

All that changed in July of 1978, when a no-budget frat comedy called Animal House belched its way into theatres with no real stars and zero expectations. It grossed over a million dollars a week and ran for a year and a half. Like a flatulent Trinity explosion, Animal House set off a raunchy-comedy arms race, with every studio in Hollywood frantically green-lighting anything with a dick joke. 1979’s Meatballs struck more box office gold, and by 1980 the marketplace was near-flooded with “adult comedies” from Airplane! and Caddyshack to the Tony Danza/Fran Drescher classic The Hollywood Knights. Even Mad magazine tried to copy their effete Ivy-League “betters” with the nakedly imitative Up The Academy (directed, almost beyond the limits of human credulity, by Robert Downey, Sr.)

In a year like that, it’s not surprising that a great movie might have gotten lost in the crowd. One did, and it might be the best of the bunch: director Robert Zemeckis’ 1980 comedy Used Cars. Zemeckis’ second feature (after his inventive and joyous Beatles tribute I Want To Hold Your Hand), Used Cars stars Kurt Russell and Jack Warden in a merciless send up of American corruption in the pre-Reagan era, with a razor-sharp script penned by Zemeckis and Bob Gale.
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What Are YOU Doing On Record Store Day 2010?

April 17, 2010 marks the third year of Record Store Day (they grow up so fast). According to the event’s website, it was founded as:

“. . . a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally. . . [t]his the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music.”
—Record Store Day.com/About Us

The first official Record Store Day was held at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008, christened by none other than Metallica. It is now celebrated on the third Saturday of every April. This year it will be held on Saturday, April 17.

This year, Sonic Boom in Toronto, ON will be hosting various in-store performances by Sloan, Adam Green, The Meligrove Band, Metz, Buck 65, and Valery Gore, beginning at 3:00 p.m. Admission is free, but they encourage everyone to bring non-perishable food donations for the Daily Bread Food Bank, which is running low on inventory at this time.

Here are some shout-outs to favorite record stores from Popshifter readers and writers. Next time you’re in that town, be sure to check them out!
—Less Lee Moore

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The Remakening: Movies That Should Be Remade

Intro by Less Lee Moore

A February article on Horrornews.net proposed a list of 13 movies that need to be remade. While I didn’t agree with all of the films listed, it got me thinking.
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Lost & Never Found Again: Elmo The Comb

It is 1978. I am nine years old, a lonely, rootless kid riding in the back of a dilapidated Trailways bus rumbling across dusty Wyoming, and the whole of my life is a magical-realist, country-and-western version of David Copperfield. I’m talking about Dickens, though in retrospect I did seem pretty good at making people disappear.

Everything is television. It’s the only reliable thing. We go from town to town. I know nobody, and my inherent weirdness goes a long way towards keeping it that way. But when I turn on that TV, I know everybody, everything is funny or interesting or comforting. It doesn’t matter what town I’m in, or who I’m with: there is always Fred G. Sanford. As long as his heart can take it.
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