BIG SATAN - Live in Cognito

First off, I gotta say that I prefer Tim Berne's live stuff to his studio work, although he still kicks ass in ANY setting. Some bands are just best experienced live and Tim Berne's groups are no exception. This isn’t BIG SATAN’s first live recording, but it’s definitely their best. Simply put, this fuckin' rocks out, balls to the wall.

Marc Ducret share's more compositional duties with Berne in BIG SATAN than other groups, but obviously drawing ideas from other Berne/Ducret-involved projects like Science Friction, as well as Bloodcount and Caos Totale, so a lot of that past has played a big part in shaping BIG SATAN's tunes. Tom Rainey doesn't contribute much to the tunes themselves, but he’s a vital player to shaping the BIG SATAN sound. He basically puts the "BIG" in BIG SATAN, providing much of the bottom end.

The music goes many places, from dark and spacious to dense and pummeling in others. Probably this is my favourite live album from Tim Berne since Bloodcount's 3-CD set "BLOODCOUNT UNWOUND". As always, awesome artwork from one of my faves, Stephen Byram (thanks for the comment on my blog : )))))

This is the NEW metal, motherfuckers.

SERGEI KURYOKHIN - DIVINE MADNESS

I first discovered Sergei Kuryokhin's music about 2 years ago. I was at a free jazz bar in Tokyo with my friend, who had heard his music before at this same bar. What came out of the speakers was unlike any other music I had ever heard. It was extremely odd, but refreshing to hear. It was totally unclassifiable. That particular CD was titled DON CARLOS. The music went in so many different unpredictable and bizarre directions, but always stayed tightly focused. The ensemble on this particular disc is Sergei's now legendary "Orkestr Pop-Mekhanika" (Popular Mechanics Orchestra) which he formed around 1984. The ever-changing project included musicians, bands and actors from Leningrad and Moscow, as well as from Europe, such as Vanessa Redgrave, "Akvarium" and Boris Grebenshchikov, "Kino" and Viktor Tsoy, "Igry", "Auktsion", Dzhungli", "Tri-O", Sergei Bugayev, even a Red Army Ensemble and many others. During "perestroika" under Mikhail Gorbachev, Kuryokhin was harshly attacked by the Communist Party ideologist Ligachev who called the Popular Mechanics show an "ideological and artistic jumble!"

Anyway, I have always been on the lookout for his CD's and had no luck until recently. I found Some Combinations of Fingers and Passion released on the Leo label a few months back, which is solo piano performances. The way he approaches any instrument, it seems, is by channeling everything into it. He just throws everything into his music. I've rarely heard playing so passionate and personal.

Just a few weeks ago, my firend in Tokyo pretty much discovered a gold mine of rare Sergei stuff, mostly on the Solyd label in Russia. So far, I've only listened to a few of these CD's, but they're all brilliant. Very odd but striking packaging. Some of the CD's come in jewel cases with a dayglo colored cardboard sleeve to house them in with a booklet of photos from the respective performances.

He also has a 4-CD box set on LEO called DIVINE MADNESS which contains the rare and long out of print titles: SUBWAY CULTURE, PIANO ZOOLOGICAL ELEMENTS, INTRODUCTION IN POP MECHANICS and POP MECHANICS NO.17. This is the next set I'd like to track down. These are all early works I believe.

Anyway, I urge any fan of avant-garde music to track down his music and wallow in the insanity. You'll be floored.

I'm too lazy to write my own biography so the following biography is taken from http://mitki.kulichki.net/recent/skiif/

"Sergey Kuryokhin, pianist, composer, band leader, actor, director and public figure died of cancer on July 9, 1996, at the age of 42. He first attracted public attention as jazz pianist, playing solo, with Vladimir Chekasin, Anatoly Vapirov and others. In the early 1980s, before he was allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union, his records published by Leo Records, as well as a number of TV programs made him one of the cult figures of the burgeoning Russian underground. In 1984 he formed Pop-Mechanika Orchestra - a band, a concept and a philosophy. The band, which could be anything from a modest trio to a full blown multimedia extravag anza complete with a full symphony, a brass band, a rock group, a circus, a zoo, a gypsy singer, and whatever else his fantasy could bring up at the moment, subsequently toured most of the world. Sergey Kuryokhin's discography counts more than 40 LPs and CDs, he composed music for dozens of films worldwide. His importance however stretches beyond his documented legacy. He was most known and valued as a tireless catalyst of artistic life, as a creative force which united and formed the artistic community, as one of the strongest and most vital voices of a rev olutionary era, the era which transformed the stagnant Soviet Union into new, yet unknown, but vibrant Russia.

Walls all over the world are coming down: cultural, physical and intellectual. As was the Pop-Mechanika Orchestra, the SKIIFestival will be of an interdisciplinary nature. Thus it is rather a Feast of Arts: the Festival stages will host Baroque, Classical , Jazz, Free Improvisation, Rock, Dance, Film, Theater & Poetry."

Recommended links:
http://www.kuryokhin.ru/skif_e.php
http://www.kuryokhin.ru/
http://www.discogs.com/artist
http://www.raig.ru/kuriokhin.asp

Ivan's Childhood

Awesome. I've been waiting for Criterion to release this. It's finally coming out as a special edition. This is Andrei Tarkovsky's first feature film. This is a great film from a director who was in full bloom by the time he made his first feature film. This is one of the most unforgettable depictions of how a kid deals with wartime. Goddamn genius! Check it out. it's coming out in July this year. One of my absolute faves.

and the MOTHER OF THE YEAR award goes to...

...whoever the stupid bitch was that left this kid outside in his stroller outside a record store. I was at King Kong records, noticed that this kid was sleeping, but no mom or dad in sight. OK. I was in the store for about 20-30 minutes, came back out, the kid still out like a light, but no one watching him. I just wonder what kind of fuckstick leaves their kid unattended for 30 minutes. In a pretty sketchy area too, Ame-Mura. I guess many people do recently. It seems to be the "in" thing to dump unborn babies in an empty toilet stall or garbage bin, or leave 3 year old kids home for 5 months by themselves. Fuck. If you don't want your kid, give it up for adoption. Don't bring up another little fucker with no manners to become another piece of shit just like you. Eat shit, mom. Then eat more shit.

key vocabulary highlighted in red

Tim Berne Mind Over Friction

In case you missed the originals, Tim Berne has re-issued the classic Science Friction studio and live album (originally released as "The Sublime And" in one nice package beautifully designed by Steve Byram on the Screwgun label.

This is one of my favorite projects from Tim Berne, the live stuff especially kicks ass. I think the standout track is "The shell Game" with some awesome slinky guitar playing, courtesy of Marc Ducret. Tom Rainey holds everything together as usual, in fine style. Anyhow, Don't pass it up a second time. For newbies to Tim Berne, this is as good a place to start as any.

Can't wait to hear the new torn+berne+rainey+taborn on ECM.

The Jesus Christ Action Figure™

Check this ad out. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Walk on Water Action!!!!
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Also, check out the Jesus Christ Superstore!

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Discarded Bird

What kind of fucking moron just leaves a bird on the road with a note attched to it saying "Don't Pick It Up"? If you don't want your pet anymore, give it to someone, or take it to a pet shop. Or just let it free. Really swift thinking, dicksmack. You've just been added to my list of people who I wish horrible unspeakable deaths upon.

BOREDOMS Super Roots 9

My review of the much anticipated new Boredoms release will probably not settle with a lot of people, but I don't really give a shit. In short it's better than "Seadrum/House of Sun", but not much. There just isn't a whole lot to chew on here, it just seems like a drum practice with EYE fucking around over top of it, it doesn't really go in many interesting directions.

There's a lot of people who fucking worship this band, no matter what they do, and I don't understand why. The Boredoms used to FUCKING ROCK, but they seem to have lost their burn, with their peak being Super AE. I remember seeing them in June 1999 in Vancouver and that show was unforgettable. Let's hope some of the old shows will get a proper release someday

First of all. Great artwork. Packaging is nothing special though, like liquid filled puffy cases or deluxe screen printed jewel cases with cool inserts. The booklet is just loose inside an oversize jewel box, so the booklet slides around, which is kind of gay. Don't quite understand the reason for this. it just looks like a big mistake.

Anyway, this was recorded on Christmas Eve live at Roppongi in Tokyo. Opens up with Christmas bells, then goes into a keyboard drone that sounds like a chorus from a Christmas carol with more layered Christmas bells and cymbals washing over it. This builds for about 4 or 5 minutes with the kick drums coming in gradually faster and faster. Around the 6 minute mark, the drums really start to kick in, building to a nice tempo, very reminiscent of "Shine In Shine On" from Super AE. The drumming is awesome, but I don't know, the Boredoms just ain't the Boredoms without the presence of Seichi Yamamoto's guitar, I guess that's why they changed their name to Voordoms. Duh!!! Anyway, the keyboards are pretty cheesy and they actually get on my nerves after awhile.

After around the 13-minute mark, the tempo changes and EYE starts screaming a bunch of shit with a lot of echo on it. Things start getting a little more interesting from here on in, with EYE doing some DJ-ing over the drums. Note, I said a "little" more interesting, not that much. It slows down, it speeds up, pretty much keeping the same keyboard progression throughout. The last 10 minutes builds to a somewhat unsatisfying climax, kind of like when you're jerking off sometimes, and you don't shoot it very far, it just sort of dribbles out or just hits your belly button.

Final verdict: The new Boredoms is pretty BORING overall. Don't waste your money, go grab Super Roots 3, 5 or Super AE, or anything for that matter, pre-Super AE. Or better yet, if you want to hear some real heavy psych rock, grab Mainliner's "Mellow Out" or some early Fushitsusha, the 4 albums on the Tokuma label being my favorites.

My introduction to the strange and wonderful world of Dusan Makavejev

I'd never heard of Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev until I heard that Criterion is going to be releasing 2 of his films, "WC: Mysteries of the Organism" from 1971 and "Sweet Movie" from 1975. After reading the descriptions and reading a few mixed reviews, I have to say I was pretty curious so I thought I'd see if I could find any torrents of his stuff and luckily I found 3 of his films, the 2 mentioned above and another titled "Man is Not A Bird" from 1966.

I'll start with MAN IS NOT A BIRD which is Makavejev's 1st feature film. The title refers to a hypnotist who makes people act like birds. The plot centers around an engineer named Jan (Janez Vrhovec), who travels to eastern Serbia to help out in a copper factory on some expert job. He falls in love with a young hairdresser in whose house he is boarding. As you will find out, the consequences of that relationship become very dire, especially after her parents catch them after being away from the house for a week. To make things even more complicated, Raika hooks up with a scummy truck driver dude while Jan is accepting an award for his stellar work ethic, angering Jan, her parents, and just about everyone. I've read that a lot of people find this "slow-going" or "boring" One of the reasons I love it is because of the dark and gloomy atmosphere it creates of the desolate Yugoslav world which is very, especially significant since the destruction of that world. In some ways this reminds me of Tarkovsky's "The steamroller and the violin" in atmosphere, I don't know why.

Next up is SWEET MOVIE, definitely my favorite film of the 3. It's kind of an inter-cut story of two women: a nearly-mute beauty queen who descends into withdrawal and madness, and another who captains a ship laden with candy and sugar, luring men and boys aboard for sex, death, and revolutionary talk. The beauty queen passes from a wealthy (and crazy) husband whose honeymoon delight is to urinate on her, to a muscular keeper who punches her, stows her in a suitcase, and ships her to Paris, to a lip-synching rock idol with whom she has a love spasm, to an Austrian commune complete with a banquet of vomit, urine, feces, chopped dildos, and wet nurses. Some of the antics are just retarded and you can't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. By the end of the movie, the girl who almost has a nervous breakdown does a fucked-up ad for a chocolate company (????) which is one of the sexiest scenes in the film, she's basically swimming in the shit. If you like "GREASER'S PALACE" by Robert Downey Senior, you should watch this. I gotta comment on the music. Some of it's quite strange, some indeed interesting, but all of it very pleasant. Without it the film wouldn't work half as well. I'd like to seek out the soundtrack for this actually.

My least favorite of the 3 films is MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM. Like SWEET MOVIE, this is indeed also a very dense film that cuts up footage of a primary plot of two young Yugoslavian girls, one a politico and the other a sexpot, and an affair with a visiting Russian skater. Mixing metaphors of Russia's relationship with Yugoslavia, intercut with footage and interviews with Wilhelm Reich and Al Goldstein of Screw magazine. The film applies Reich's theories of Orgone energy and analogies of Stalinism as a form of Freudian sexual repression. This was banned in Yugoslavia shortly after it was made. I don't know much about Dr. Wilhelm Reich or the subject of "Orgone Energy" or am I very interested in the theories to begin with and maybe that's why I didn't enjoy this film as much as the others. Reich was regarded by many as a "mad scientist" who died in prison for what he believed in. His ideas are too heavy on the psycho-sociological aspects and way too scientific at times so they are pretty hard for a dumb NB white boy like me to grasp. Regardless, this is still a very visually interesting film and I recommend giving it a view.

I look forward to seeing more...

Fuck You, You Fuckin Fuck!

Many of you probably already know that Michael Jackson lost his fucking mind many years ago. I don't have to tell you about all the strange things he's pulled in the last few years. Does he fuck kids? I don't know, I wouldn't doubt it though. Actually I don't really care. What you may NOT know however is that quite a number of his Japanese fans paid 400,000 yen just to go to an lavish event in Tokyo last week. The 400 snicker dicks who showed up were mainly diehard fans, and a bunch of orphans and gimps who were invited free. All this included was a buffet dinner, a show featuring several Japanese Michael Jackson impersonators and a chance to meet, greet and take photos with the ugly fuck. He didn't even perform.

OK, you tell me. Is that not fucking crazy? The people that paid that much money for that should be force-fed their own shit for a week straight, then have Michael's plastic surgeon have a crack at them. OK. Thriller's a great fucking pop record, but who wants to have anything to do with this smurf fucker now? Forget Michael. He's dead.

EVIL MOISTURE/HANATARASH - Fatanarchy On Airtube

Wow! You don't know how heppy I am to see this finally released. This is the long-awaited collaboration between Yamatsuka EYE and Evil Moisture, who I've never heard before, but from checking out the website, it looks like very early EYE-inspired fuckery. Forget picking up the OOIOO remix crap. This is the old EYE that I love delivering the noise and fuckedness, reminds me very much of Hanatarash 2.

I couldn't find a jpg of the cover,so I just stole some artwork from the Evil Moisture site which will give you an idea of how messed up it is. It's very similiar to EYE's older collage work. Check out the site here.

All I gotta say is go get it. It's limited to 500 copies. It's worth the price of admission just to hear their rendition of Survivor's Eye of the Tiger.

Here's the track titles, which are gold:

1. Atomichy in the LSD
2. Sleepwalking guaide book at Ohio
3. Antatack for sexpeople
4. Punk Yappie cutting tree
5. Fuckzotika
6. Ongaloo trackin'
7. Musica Club
8. Green Egg and Yellow Ham
9. Subatomic Party
10. UFOFF
11. Eat 'em used gum
12. Bonus Beats by DJ 100% Off
13. Bar Time with Eno
14. Fingertip Believer
15. Ever Mind the Overdosing
16. Plactice Youth
17. Fatanarchy on Airtube
18. Espimo
19. Bank Punks/Noise Bank
20. DJ Save Ear 50% Of21.My Superzone
21. Sonic Bonus
22. Bunch of Flash Food
23. Be Airport
24. Box Rok
25. Alphabetical Ray
26. Ultra Choice
27. Jawwalkin'
28. Eye of the Hanatarash
29. Banky Atmosphere

TOP 10 Snacks of all Time

1. Bits n Bites (the fucking boo yah)
2. Humpty Dumpty Party Mix
3. Frito's BBQ Corn Chips
4. Kara Mucho (from Japan)
5. Dorito's (any flavor, but cheese is still my fave)
6. Blue Diamond Smokehouse almonds
7. Cheez-It Snack Mix
8. Snyder's Pretzels
9. Ringolos (any flavor)
10. Sour Cream and Chives Crackers

FAST FOOD NATION (the movie)

What can I say? I had high expectations for this film, but it was one of the most boring films I've ever seen. I usually love Richard Linklater, especially SLACKER and DAZED AND CONFUSED, but this just sucks. If you've seen the trailer, you've seen the whole fucking film, so save your money.

There is no plot, just lots of crap info that I already know. The movie only has two ideas really. One is that Mexican immigrants are being injured, sexually harassed and otherwise mistreated in meatpacking plants (though the movie points out that they're getting paid 30 times what they'd earn back home, where working conditions are less safe).Boo Hoo, it's nothing I don't already know.

The other is that traces of shit can get end up getting mixed in with our burgers. "We all have to eat a little s - - t from time to time," is how Bruce Willis puts it. But about halfway through, the movie loses interest in that subject, since the bacteria are killed in the cooking process. And what are we supposed to eat if we don't want E. coli in our food - spinach? If you eat, you eat germs. No big fucking deal. If you don't like fast food, don't fucking eat it.

The film begins with Greg Kinnear (an actor I've never really liked) as an exec at the fast food chain "Mickey's" who wanders around Colorado asking questions about where his burgers are coming from. There's quite a few famous actors including Bruce Willis, Ethan Hawke, Kris Kristofferson but they just do a few stupid cameos.

I can't imagine author Eric Schlosser approving this film. I know it's based very loosely on the book of the same name, but don't bother with the movie, just read the book. The book is great.

HOSTEL (2005)

I just stumbled upon the trailer for Hostel 2 yesterday and had no idea this existed since I rarely check out the current trailers of the Hollywood scene. I have to say I was curious about it, so I tracked down HOSTEL, the first part, directed by Eli Roth. Quentin Tarantino had something to do with this film as well, and you spot his influences in different parts of the film. Also, there's an interesting little Cameo with Miike Takashi, who directed cult favorites like Ichi The Killer, Visitor Q and the Dead or Alive Series. You can't help but think Eli Roth got a few cues from Miike, because the violence and gore equals that of Ichi the Killer, possibly even tops it.

You should definitely check this out if your fed up with the current slew of substandard pg13 teen "horror" films. The story is kinda stupid and slow at first, but you don't really care because there's tit's and ass all over the place to keep you entertained.

The story is basically about 3 horny backpackers in search of European tail who,while traveling through Europe, they get a "tip" from this guy with a weird lip to go to a Soviet Bloc-era town where the women are stunning and horny and will do whatever with foreign men, especially Americans. So, the whole dick happy trio takes off for this haven of horny, easy, beautiful women and soon after they arrive, the film gets into some nice soft-core porn sequences. But mix these with small sequences like the women talking to each with strange looks at the guys, speaking in their own language so the guys can't understand hints of the dread and uneasiness. There's a certain sense of decay to the town and its inhabitants despite the normal scenery.

So you soon find out that the girls will also sell these young Americans to a company that offers victims to anyone who will pay to torture and viscously murder for profit buisness were wealthy people can act out their sickest fantasies on captured victims.

Needless to say, the film is not for everyone. The torture scenes are very brutal and some people may actually get physically sick watching it. The first guy gets his leg and torso drilled with an electric drill and his achiles tendon cut.

Another guy gets taunted with scissors and hit witha small garden implement and his fingers are cut off buy a chainsaw. then accidentally cuts off his leg with the chainsaw. Another guy has his fingers cut off and his neck sliced.

In the films most gruesome scene a womens face is burnt by a blowtorch, causing her eye to dangle out of its socket. The eye is then snipped off by a pair of scissors. Later in the film, when she discovers how bad her face looks, she jumps in front of train, which was a very well-done scene. I've never seen a train suicide up close, but I know it's probably a pretty unsettling thing to see. Happens in Japan on a weekly basis.

Anyway, if you can handle the sickness, it's a lot of fun. Go to http://www.hostelfilm.com/

County Medical Examiners - Olidous Operettas

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I just picked this one up on an impulse more or less because of the package design and the note on the sticker from Jeff Walker of Carcass. I thought the "WARNING: Corpse-scented disc inside" was just a joke, but sure enough, I smelled the it and it smells like a fucking mortuary.

Anyway, The County Medical Examiners are a trio who claim to be actual working pathologists with medical degrees. One guy is 63 years old. They have never played live, so the whole story could be fake, but it's definitely an interesting gimmick. The band started as a Carcass tribute group, so they sound a lot like old-school Carcass. So much actually that I'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference if no one told me. Some of the riffs even, are obviously lifted from Carcass songs, just mixed up a bit. But hey, don't let that turn you off. They'll be the first ones to admit it.

All 3 of the band members do vocals which is pretty cool, with a combination of low pitched gurgles and higher pitched rasps and screams. If you're into Carcass this CD is definitely worth checking out but any extreme metal fans in general will appreciate it.

OOEYEOO Eye Remix

Well, I took a chance on this knowing it was probably not going to be very good. And you know what? I was right! It's EYE's remix of some tunes from OOIOO's Taiga CD. If you like techno music, you'll love it, but if you're a fan of the old EYE, don't bother with this. I mean, it's not bad, it's just not that good either. Cool artwork. DJ Pica Pica Pica was pretty decent for a DJ album, it had some interesting twists and went many places, but this one just ain't happening for me. I don't understand the rave reviews this has received so far. It's good that EYE has gone into different directions, but I never thought he would get so heavily into the rave thing. Anyway, BOREDOMS (Voordoms) Super Roots 9 is coming out next month, let's hope it kicks more ass than this. Hopefully it's better than Seadrum/House of Sun too, which was a major dissapointment for me.

BACK IN KAN"FUCKING"SAI

Well, I finally returned a week ago from the frozen wastelands of Canada. I was in New Brunswick for 2 weeks, then in Vancouver for 2 weeks. All in all, it was a good trip. Other than being sick almost the entire time, I had a blast.

The day I flew from Kansai airport to Vancouver airport, I must've got that damn bird flu from someone at the airport or someone on the plane. On the flight from Vancouver to Toronto, I was really nauseous, had the shits and had the sweats something awful. When I finally got to Fredericton Airport, I had had enough of airplanes. I never slept at all that night at the hotel. I had the sweats, the shits and puked a few times.

The next morning driving home, I picked up some diarrhea/vomit medicine, then we headed home. On the way there, my my mom about 15 million stops, I just wanted to go home and lay down at that point. Then she decides to go through the car wash in Woodstock. Right before we went through, I had to chuck my cookies again, half of which I spewed all over the window and the seat before I even got the door open. The people behind us must've thought I was enjoying some Christmas cheer a little early.

Anyway, for the next 4 or 5 days, I had the shits and I couldn't stop farting. Not just farts either, they reeked something mighty. It was so bad that I had to frequently go upstairs when guests came over to visit just to hide my embarrassment and shame.

Anyway, by Christmas day I was finally over that madness. Had a pleasant Christmas day, didn't overstuff myself. Hung out with my grandfather that afternoon, went back home, and relaxed and got drunk with the old man.

Then 3 or 4 days later, I started getting a cough, mostly coughing up a bunch of green shit in the morning. As the holidays passed on, it got progressively worse and I still have it. Now the cough has subsided a little, but now it's in my sinuses, I can barely breathe through my nose. I've had this damn cold for over a month and it's not over yet.

The weather was pretty cold in New Brunswick, nothing record breaking, the coldest day we had was probably about -10 during the day, -18 at night. We had barely any snow, which was pretty unusual, considering the days when I was growing up, we'd get fucking 6 to 7 foot drifts of the shit. You'd spend half the fucking winter cleaning the shit out of the driveway.

Anyway, didn't do much else in New Brunswick, saw a few people, mostly just bummed around the house relaxing or walking outside.

On January 4th, I went to Vancouver and stayed with my friend, Ben Wilson for most of the trip. That's when my cough started getting much worse. We had intended to work on CCBE, but we only got as far as editing some of the drum tracks that Mike from Goatsblood did.

Met with Olaf and David from Hyphen, and I met with a few other companies while I was there just to check out the job prospects. Looks like there's lots of work there, but it'll probably be difficult to land work until I'm actually there.

The weather was absolute shit in Vancouver pretty much the whole time. The first day I was there, it snowed and then rained the night before, so I was trudging through half a foot of slush. I think I had one sunny day while I was there. It was cold almost every day, which I didn't mind, but the roads and sidewalks were treacherous for a few days. Vancouver is not set up to handle crazy weather conditions, so the roads didn't get salted or ploughed really except for the main roads. In the 5 years living there before, I had never experienced that kind of shitty weather in the winter.

I never did walk to Stanley Park to see the destruction that the November storm of last year caused, but I did see a lot on the news when I was there.

Anyway, it was a good trip but I am glad to be back in my own bed. I think this was a necessary trip to kind of discover some things and it's made me think Japan is not so bad after all. I just need a long break from Japan from time to time. I still haven't really changed my mind about Japan, I still know that it's not where I want to settle down, but I think I still have some thinking to do about a good many things like where I want to be and what I want to do ultimately.

I have hopes that this will be a good New Year for myself. I hope it is for everyone else too. Thanks Ben and Chris for letting me crash at your places. You're welcome to stay with us anytime.

Snazzy couple of the year

This is one of a few shots we had taken a few weeks ago. Pretty sexy couple, huh? We got 22 shots in total, so I'll post more later.

This will be my last blog for a few weeks as I'm off to Canada today for Christmas and New Year for a couple of weeks, then I'm going to Vancouver to hang out with some people. Also going to be recording tracks for the upcoming, eagerly anticipated (by Kelly Churko anyway) follow-up to CCBE's first album "Googoplex Goblets of Goatseed". The album will be title "The Wizened", hopefully we'll have time to record tracks for the 3rd CD as well.

So, I'll post some stuff when I get back. Everyone have a great Christmas and New Year. Drink, fuck and be merry!!! Cheers!!!

Tideland

I finally got around to seeing Terry Gilliam's new film, TIDELAND and I'd say it ranks right up there with his other epic masterpieces like BRAZIL, FEAR AND LOATHING and TIME BANDITS. This is classic Gilliam in every way.

First of all, I was extremely impressed by child actor Jodelle Ferland. She is amazing as the character of Jeliza-Rose and she also does all the different voices of her doll's heads, which she constantly talks to during the movie. I was surprised to discover that she's no stranger to acting. It's quite amazing considering she's still only 12 that she's built up an impressive resume filled with roles in television, film and commercials. Born in Nanaimo, BC in 1994, she started in an episode of CTV's "Cold Squad" (1998), before landing the lead role in her first film, Mermaid (2000) (TV) at the age of four. Her portrayal of the heartbroken "Desi" earned her a Daytime Emmy Award nomination, making her the youngest nominee in history, as well as a Young Artist Award.

Jennifer Tilly has a short, but very memorable role as Jeliza-Rose's mother who dies from a heroin overdose about 15 minutes into the movie. She has an extreme addiction to chocolate as well, having cases of chocolate bars around the house.

The other short, but very memorable performance is by Jeff Bridges, who plays Jeliza-Rose's father. The scene on the bus when Jeliza-Rose is being taken from the big city to her grandmother's rural farmhouse is total Gilliam. Bridges just disgusts everyone on the bus by farting, coughing, barfing on the floor and generally pissing everyone off.

As Jeliza-Rose tries to settle into a new life in a house her father had purchased for his now-deceased mother, she attempts to deal with what's happened result in increasingly odd behavior, as she begins to communicate mainly with her bodiless Barbie doll heads and Dell, a neighborhood woman who always wears a beekeeper's veil.

Then she meets Dickens played by BC actor Brendan Fletcher. Dickens is a crazy, jittery epileptic mess who has has a strangely unique kindness and lovability about him. There is some pretty sick imagery that some people will probably be offended by and no doubt some who will call Tideland a controversial film or a disturbing one, but that has more to do with those people than the actual film. There are some strange kind of sexual situations, especially between Jeliza-Rose and Dickens that to some adults would seem very dangerous and bordering on pedophilia. Again, that's up to the viewer.

Jodelle Ferland has played the most honest and innocent performance I've seen since "Spirit of the Beehive" (See my recent review in the archives). That's the last performance I remember when I've last seen a film that so honestly and accurately portrays a child's imagination.

Gilliam doesn't shy away or try to portray a happy life, but focuses on the darker side of her life and development. However, the film is not all doom and gloom, and that is one it's great strengths and Gilliam's gift of storytelling. Gilliam fills the whole film with a sense of mystery, charm and fun that makes the darkness seem more like going on a long, strange ride where you don't know where you'll end up, but you somehow know everything will be all right on the other side.