The Serfs are Putting Out a Record Next Year, Touring Now...

The Serfs are a band from Cincinnati Ohio

Event Preview

11/9- Memphis, TN @ Hi Tone*
11/10- Nashville, TN @ Third Man*
11/11- Cincinnati, OH @ Lambda Research*
11/12- Cleveland, OH @ Little Rose Tavern*
11/14- Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club*
11/23- Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle*
2/25-San Diego @ The Whistle Stop

       Vinyl production has been a total pain in the ass since I began making vinyl records, but it is particularly bad now.   Dream Recordings is putting out the new Serfs LP next February- it's a record that was paid for in January of this year.  The production factories won't even put you on calendar until you pay in full, and then you wait for a year or more.  It's crazy! What are you supposed to tell bands?  How are you supposed to plan for the future?  Anyway I am super excited about this band and I really think they have what it takes to go far down whichever path they choose.   Can't wait for them to hit the west coast next year, but if you are located in the midwest or north east or south keep your eyes peeled for additional dates, and try to make these dates, because the live show is tops, I've heard.

Event Preview: Cathedral Presents Mvtant, Mannequin and More!

 

Event Preview

Cathedral Presents

Mvtant (San Antonio, Texas)

Mannequin (San Diego)

Bricks Rock Bar 

3626 Fruitland Ave.

Maywood CA. 

Venmo: CathedralLA Code: 2465: Put Note: Mvtant

Limited advance tickets $10, Day of $20

     One of the long term things I've learned writing this blog is that nobody was interested in local music adventures, or at least in mine.  People were interested in local music gossip, to be sure, but publicizing local shows and bands is a gig best left to either professionals or no one.   Then, as I actually managed to put out a record by an artist that obtained national/international attention, interest actually dropped, and there was no long terms interest.  Vs. there very much is continued interest in book review I wrote about 18th century novels six years ok. 

    But I never really stopped being involved with putting out new music, I just stopped writing about it.  The other thing that happened is my partner works in the "real" music industry, and for the past several years almost all the shows have been at her invitation, as the guest of her companies' artists or the promoter.  It's hard to be honest and impossible to be funny or mean, which, frankly are the three joys of writing about music besides shining a light on unknown artists.

   Of course, like everyone, the past two years have been cause for much re-evaluation regarding those and other positions, and I can safely say that I miss local shows, even at the lowest levels, which is where someone like me is ALWAYS going to begin with artists, because any artist who isn't at that level would not contemplate putting out a record on a label I control.

   Mario Orduno started his label Dream Recordings a decade ago, and a couple years ago he invited me to be a partner.  We put out this Mvtant record- Gore + Mirrorshade- which was originally issued on an Austin area tape label, on digital and vinyl.  The record came out smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, making it impossible for Mvtant to tour, which was frustrating, but par to course for Dream, which hasn't made any kind of a national impact and only a limited local impact, entirely through the efforts of Mario.   It's clearly part of the dark wave underground- whatever you want to call it.

  Several of Dream's artists are playing the Substance 2021 Festival: O/X, Some Ember and Spike Hellis, a band we were supposed to put out but had to rethink during the pandemic.   I'm sure Dirty Beaches would be playing Substance if Alex was still around doing stuff under that name (he is not.)

I love the looks of this DIY show called Cathedral, where I'll have my first chance to actually see Mvtant live. 

Holiday (1938) d. George Kukor

Cover of the Criterion Collection edition of Holiday d. George Kukor

Movie Review

Holiday (1938)

d. George Kukor

  It's funny, but for all the translated literature and foreign films I take in, it is Hollywood movies from the mid part of the 20th century that often seem the most foreign to me.  Basically, movies, made by Hollywood before the Nouvelle Vague revolution swept through America in the 60's, are as strange to watch as anything.  Who are these people?  Holiday is best known as a foreshadowing of The Philadelphia Story, which was also directed by George Kukor and also starred Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

  Based on a 1928 play by Philip Barry, Holiday stars Cary Grant as Johnny Case, the fiancé of Julia Seton (Doris Nolan) and sister of Linda Seton (Hepburn), who as luck would have it, are the daughters of insanely wealthy New York plutocrat Edward Seton Sr.  Like every movie based on a play, the whole movie takes places in a series of interiors- mostly the Seton mansion.  The plot is more interesting than you might expect from the set-up, Grant, an up and comer in "business" only wants to work long enough to drop out and smell the roses, which does not play well with Seton Sr.

Stalker (1979) d. Andrei Tarkovsky

Criterion Collection Cover of Stalker d. Andrei Tarkovsky

Movie Review

Stalker (1979)

d. Andrei Tarkovsky

Criterion Collection #888

   Stalker is a huge movie for people who call movies "films."   In my mind it is one of the central movies of the entire Criterion Collection and it represents "World Cinema" in its purest form.  Stalker is unwieldy, difficult to understand, comes with an "only in Russia" production story and bears little to no resemblance to its source material, a science fiction novel, but it has still managed to influence a generation of writers and filmmakers- most notably in the movie version of the Jeff Vandermeer novel Annihilation, which is basically a remake/homage/rip off of Stalker. 

   Clocking in at a full 161 minutes (it feels even longer!) Stalker is "about" the central character- more of a guide than an actual Stalker, who is hired to tour the "writer" and the "professor" around a mysterious era known as "the zone."  The zone is a constantly changing, rearranging area that is never the same place twice, walled off from a sepia-tinged Russia that looks like it has just emerged from a World War.   If, like me, you are expecting some kind of action or excitement from such a set up, you are due to be disappointed since the bulk of Stalker is shots held for minutes at a time and the characters engaging in dialogue whose closest Western equivalent would be a Samuel Beckett play.

  It strikes me that Stalker is one of those movies where, once you make it through, you feel compelled to call it magnificent, but mostly I found it hard to pay attention.  Sad!

Movie Review: Great Expectations (1946) d. David Lean

Great Expectations d. David Lean, Criterion Collection Edition Cover

Movie Review

Great Expectations (1946)

d. David Lean

Criterion Collection #31

     The most interesting feature of the Criterion Collection edition of Great Expectations is the total absence of extra features.  Just the original trailer from the UK!  For the Criterion Channel they added a seven minute interview with director Julie Taymor, but other than that, nada.    Great Expectations was less controversial than his Oliver Twist, due to the absence of Alec Guinness as a broadly anti-Semitic caricature of Fagin,   Like Twist, Great Expectations frequently makes use of expressionist techniques, such as the treatment of the interior of Ms. Havisham's house- a nightmarish place that seems to consist entirely of Escher-like staircases.  

   

Movie Review: A Night to Remember (1958) d. Roy Ward Baker

Cover of the Criterion Collection edition of A Night to Remember (1958) d. Roy Ward Baker

Movie Review

A Night to Remember (1958)

d. Roy Ward Baker

Criterion Collection #7

   Billed as "the best movie ever made about the Titanic disaster" (take that James Cameron), A Night to Remember ultimately may be more memorable for it's low number position in the Criterion Collection: #7!!!  It was enjoyable to watch- every time I watch a Criterion Collection movie from the good old days I am struck anew by how much the digital restoration helps to appreciate the film.   Honestly, the ease that the Criterion Channel has brought to the watching experience makes me question why I would ever watch a contemporary film again.  

  One of the takeaways from this fact-based film is that a major cause of the disaster was the overloading of the telegraph office with orders from the finicky first class passengers, buying and selling stock, making travel arrangements, so that a warning from a nearby ship about an iceberg in front of them was ignored, and, in fact, never read. 

Movie Review: Oliver Twist (1948) d. David Lean

Criterion Collection cover for Oliver Twist, directed by David Lean

Movie Review

Oliver Twist (1948)

d. David Lean

Criterion Collection #32

   Generally acclaimed as "the best" Oliver Twist adaptation,  David Lean's Oliver Twist is less well known in the United States, perhaps because Alec Guinness' grotesquely anti-Semitic portrayal of Fagin kept it out for several years after release.   Grim and expressionistic, Lean's Twist is very grown up, with a haunting, expressionistic quality that emphasizes the strangeness of the Victorian milieu of the book.

   Lean does an incredible job- both in this film and in Great Expectations, his other Criterion Collection Dickens movie, in synthesizing the much longer book into a film that still feels like it captures all the important moments of the book.

Criterion Collection Review: A Taste of Honey (1961) by Tony Richardson

Cover of Criterion Collection #829 A Taste of Honey (1961) d. Tony Richardson

Criterion Collection Review

A Taste of Honey (1961)

d. Tony Richardson

#829

   The original idea for this blog was that I would read all 1001 Books and watch all the Criterion Collection films.   When I started, Criterion Collection still had titles on Netflix, then it moved to Hulu, then there was a brief Filmstruck period and now there is the Criterion Channel which you can install on your smart tv.  Criterion Channel far surpasses prior efforts, and it comes close to realizing the vision I thought I was getting into when I came up with the idea a decade ago.

   When I stopped watching Criterion Collection films the entire collection was at #703, A Taste of Honey, #829 came out in 2016.   That's the real problem with trying to stay current on Criterion Collection films- they come out five a month.  A Taste of Honey is a film example of the "Kitchen Sink" realism school of English art, unusual in that it takes place outside of London and the source material, a play, was written by a woman.   The story is about a high school student who lives with her louche mother in a succession of low-rent apartments in 1950's Manchester.   

  Part of the pleasure of A Taste of Honey is the Manchester locations- lovingly restored by Criterion of course.   The extras give the always interesting journey of pathbreaking films in the British film environment- marked by the absence of any first amendment protection and the ever-present British Film Censor.  Here, the controversy is obvious- an interracial coupling and an openly gay bff add to the native exoticism of the milieu.