By Less Lee Moore
While many music fans were taking sides in the media-fabricated battle of the bands between Blur and Oasis in the early ’90s, there was one band who would eventually turn that war into a stalemate: Pulp.
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Interviewed by Less Lee Moore
Eric Weber is an incredibly interesting and inspirational person. He’s a cult movie junkie, horror film fanatic, Divine devotée, and luckily for us, he writes about these things for Popshifter.
He’s also a visual artist who includes sketching, painting, and photography in his repertoire.
When he’s not following one of his many artistic and creative pursuits, he reenacts scenes from some of his favorite films in Lego form and photographs them.
By Less Lee Moore
This piece originally appeared on the The CillianSite.com on September 14.
For our story of Cillian Murphy’s appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival, go here.
Criss- and double-crosses, lyrical-yet-unpretentious dialogue, and the black comedy of desperation crown the new film by Irish director Ian Fitzgibbon in Perrier’s Bounty, starring Cillian Murphy, Jim Broadbent, Jodie Whittaker, and Brendan Gleeson. If you liked 2003’s sardonic ensemble piece Intermission, also scripted by Mark O’Rowe, you’ll adore Perrier’s Bounty, though it’s decidedly darker, more violent, and more compact.
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This piece originally appeared on the The CillianSite.com on September 14.
For our review of Perrier’s Bounty, go here.
Toronto, Ontario is a big city. And as befits such a place, it has its share of big buildings, big festivals, and sometimes, big celebrities. They descend on the city every year for the Toronto International Film Festival, and for those two weeks, one cannot escape news coverage of which films are playing, what parties are being held, who was seen where (and with who), and what they said/did/were wearing.
For film buffs and celebrity spotters, it’s a dream come true. Truth be told, I’m one of the former not the latter. . . with one exception. Cillian Murphy has been my favorite actor for several years now, and for several of those years, one of his films has premiered at the TIFF.
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One of the best things about living in the greater Toronto area is that, unlike my native New Orleans, there are actually four seasons here instead of “hot and humid” and “slightly less hot and humid.” So when the wind turns cold and scatters fallen leaves throughout the streets, I begin to think of Halloween.
Okay, who am I kidding? I practically think about Halloween every time the thermostat dips into the high teens and a cool breeze blows by. It is by far my favorite holiday.
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By Less Lee Moore
Maybe he’s grown up a bit since the days when the Memphis music scene dubbed him “Little Lord Punkleroy,” but thankfully, Jay Reatard hasn’t become boring.
In a recent article on the Matador Records blog, he noted:
“A lot of bands these days, they approach the making of an album like it’s collecting songs, they don’t think about how all of the songs are going to work together. They sequence their albums on iTunes, wondering what songs sound best next to each other rather than putting them together as they were written. That’s not an album.”
If these songs were written in the order they appear on the album, then Watch Me Fall is a great achievement for Jay Reatard. If you listen closely enough, you can actually hear the sound of an artist evolving.
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By Less Lee Moore
Last year I recommended ten films to watch in “Ten Instruments Of Evil.” In this issue of Popshifter, I’ve upped the ante to a baker’s diabolical dozen.
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Idea by Matt Keeley
With contributions by. . .
In our last Halloween issue, we discussed morbid melodies and the music of the scares. But what of songs which horrify us accidentally? Some argue that songwriters who pair dark lyrics and bright melodies know exactly what they’re doing, but what about words and music which cause fright when they were only intended to delight?
For example, a few of our readers noted that “Mama” by Genesis was a bit squicky, but it’s unclear whether that creepiness was intentional or not. However, I think we can all assume that “Beep Beep” by The Playmates was probably not meant to panic small children, although it obviously has, judging on some of the replies we received.
Here are some examples of the various tunes that terrify. . .
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When I initially became a YouTube addict, Cheap Trick was one of the first bands I searched for there. As fellow addicts know all too well by now, it was quite frustrating being unable to find some of the videos I wanted, and it became more frustrating when the ones I did find disappeared the next day.
But Cheap Trick is one smart band.
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I haven’t bought a new Cheap Trick album since their 1997 self-titled release on the then soon-to-be-defunct Red Ant label. Now that I’ve copped to this embarrassing admission, the next one should be easier. I hate writing record reviews. That old chestnut comparing the ridiculousness of music writing to “dancing about architecture” worms its way into my brain and I start to panic. Panic turns to dread as deadlines quickly approach.
Look, it’s not that I don’t love the latest release from Cheap Trick (cleverly titled The Latest), it’s that I don’t know if I can properly convey how much I love it, or perhaps more succinctly, I don’t know if I can convince you to love it as much as I do.
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