Title: "Changes"
Artist: Yes
Album: 90125, 1983
Written By: Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Alan White
90125 was one of the more remarkable and unlikely comebacks in rock and roll. Yes were seen as the poster child of the bloated 70's by the time the streamlined New Wave 80's rolled around, and had been seemingly powerwashed away by the force of punk. But Yes, or this new version of Yes, led by new addition Tevor Rabin, reinvented itself brilliantly with their most successful commercial release. "Changes" is the centerpiece of the record, wonderfully combining elements of New Wave with Yes's prog-rock roots.
BELOW: I couldn't find an acceptable clip for the studio version, so here is a live version of the song that kicks quite a bit of ass, despite the 80's fashions.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Song #20
Title: "Everybody Wants To Rule the World"
Artist: Tears For Fears
Album: Songs From the Big Chair, 1985
Written By: Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley & Chris Hughes
Few songs capture their era better than "Everybody Wants To Rule the World" does for the mid-1980's. It is a tune that is completely of its time, yet is so good that it still sounds great today.
Artist: Tears For Fears
Album: Songs From the Big Chair, 1985
Written By: Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley & Chris Hughes
Few songs capture their era better than "Everybody Wants To Rule the World" does for the mid-1980's. It is a tune that is completely of its time, yet is so good that it still sounds great today.
The Dead Pool (and RIP Andy Griffith)
First of all, RIP Andy Griffith. Iconic star and from most accounts, as warm a man as his public persona.
My buddy Kyle and I recently set up a friendly wager with a celebrity Dead Pool. When I say recently, we drafted late last night. Dead Pools are quite popular, actually, and quite common. Rules vary, but generally each person picks a roster of famous people who they feel are most likely to move into the great beyond within the next year. You collect points for each one on your roster who goes, and the person with the most points at the end of the Pool year wins. Our year will go from 7/2/12 to 7/2/13.
ABOVE: Clint Eastwood and Liam Neeson in 'The Dead Pool,' the last Dirty Harry film in which Callahan (Clint) ends up on Neeson's Dead Pool list. Neeson is a wealthy psychopath who hosts a high stakes Dead Pool, and takes matters into his own hands to make sure he wins every year. But, do you really think anyone can kill Dirty Harry? Not even Chuck Norris can do that. I guess Callahan was in the news enough to qualify as a celebrity.
Kyle and I opened it up to several other friends, but were surprised and disappointed at how skittish some were about the whole thing. (To be fair, one of them was already involved in another one and he felt that two Dead Pools was a bit much.) But these others are people who are generally not uptight about most anything. I guess we all deal with death in different ways. It is inevitable, it is coming for us all. We can fear it, we can hold it with some religious reverence, we can try to ignore it, we can face it with a little humor...or some combination thereof. I have a great deal of fear about death, in part because I am still conflicted on my own religious beliefs. That is one of the primary issues addressed by religion, so since I am unsettled in that arena I find death unsettling as well. But that is a different conversation.
We've all lost people close to us at some time or another (I've lost a brother, an aunt to suicide, and others), so I do understand the magnitude of the milestone. And I think if you read my obituaries that I write here, I do have a certain reverence for the memory and accomplishments of those who have moved on. Being a historian, I am naturally a bit obsessed with the past to begin with. I teach it for a living, afterall. But at the same time, it is fun to speculate on those in the public eye. So, with one friend already involved in a Dead Pool, another not agreeing with our rules, and the rest not wanting to participate, it ended up being the two of us.
So, we draft last night. The rule was that you can draft any person whose demise would be noted in the national media. Here are our rosters, in draft order:
Dez: Hosni Mubarak, Bhumibol Adulyadej, Nelson Mandela, Jerry Lewis, Fidel Castro, Andy Griffith, Pope Benedict XVI, Harper Lee, Bashar Assad, Eli Wallach, Nancy Reagan, Herman Wouk, Stephen Hawking, Lindsey Lohan, Hugo Chavez, Olivia de Havilland, Todd Bridges, Bob Dole, Robert Mugabe and Dick Cheney.
Kyle: Kirk Douglas, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Billy Graham, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Mickey Rooney, Abe Vigoda, Prince Philip, Judge Joseph Wapner, Dick Van Dyke, Chuck Berry, Andy Dick, Queen Elizabeth, Ernest Borgnine, Fats Domino, Jimmy Carter, Stan Lee, Angela Landsbury, Courtney Love and Bobby Brown.
First, who do you think has the "better" roster? Now that Griffith is gone, I have added Aretha Franklin to take his slot.
Mubarak was an obvious first pick for me, as he is in a coma. I like my Assad pick too, I really feel that he will go the way of Qadaffi if the Syrian people can get their hands on the sonofabitch. And he is under 50, which is worth more points than people 50 or over. We have to have at least 3 people under 50 on each of our rosters. Kyle's first three picks are really solid, I think.
Imagine my surprise when I look at the news and not twenty four hours after our draft, Andy Griffith has left us. Griffith was much more, by the way, than a friendly sheriff of Mayberry or a lawyer in powder blue suits. Check out 1957's 'A Face in the Crowd' for a pretty amazing performance from Griffith.
ABOVE: RIP Andy Griffith. Mayberry has lost its most dedicated protector.
My buddy Kyle and I recently set up a friendly wager with a celebrity Dead Pool. When I say recently, we drafted late last night. Dead Pools are quite popular, actually, and quite common. Rules vary, but generally each person picks a roster of famous people who they feel are most likely to move into the great beyond within the next year. You collect points for each one on your roster who goes, and the person with the most points at the end of the Pool year wins. Our year will go from 7/2/12 to 7/2/13.
Kyle and I opened it up to several other friends, but were surprised and disappointed at how skittish some were about the whole thing. (To be fair, one of them was already involved in another one and he felt that two Dead Pools was a bit much.) But these others are people who are generally not uptight about most anything. I guess we all deal with death in different ways. It is inevitable, it is coming for us all. We can fear it, we can hold it with some religious reverence, we can try to ignore it, we can face it with a little humor...or some combination thereof. I have a great deal of fear about death, in part because I am still conflicted on my own religious beliefs. That is one of the primary issues addressed by religion, so since I am unsettled in that arena I find death unsettling as well. But that is a different conversation.
We've all lost people close to us at some time or another (I've lost a brother, an aunt to suicide, and others), so I do understand the magnitude of the milestone. And I think if you read my obituaries that I write here, I do have a certain reverence for the memory and accomplishments of those who have moved on. Being a historian, I am naturally a bit obsessed with the past to begin with. I teach it for a living, afterall. But at the same time, it is fun to speculate on those in the public eye. So, with one friend already involved in a Dead Pool, another not agreeing with our rules, and the rest not wanting to participate, it ended up being the two of us.
So, we draft last night. The rule was that you can draft any person whose demise would be noted in the national media. Here are our rosters, in draft order:
Dez: Hosni Mubarak, Bhumibol Adulyadej, Nelson Mandela, Jerry Lewis, Fidel Castro, Andy Griffith, Pope Benedict XVI, Harper Lee, Bashar Assad, Eli Wallach, Nancy Reagan, Herman Wouk, Stephen Hawking, Lindsey Lohan, Hugo Chavez, Olivia de Havilland, Todd Bridges, Bob Dole, Robert Mugabe and Dick Cheney.
Kyle: Kirk Douglas, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Billy Graham, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Mickey Rooney, Abe Vigoda, Prince Philip, Judge Joseph Wapner, Dick Van Dyke, Chuck Berry, Andy Dick, Queen Elizabeth, Ernest Borgnine, Fats Domino, Jimmy Carter, Stan Lee, Angela Landsbury, Courtney Love and Bobby Brown.
First, who do you think has the "better" roster? Now that Griffith is gone, I have added Aretha Franklin to take his slot.
Mubarak was an obvious first pick for me, as he is in a coma. I like my Assad pick too, I really feel that he will go the way of Qadaffi if the Syrian people can get their hands on the sonofabitch. And he is under 50, which is worth more points than people 50 or over. We have to have at least 3 people under 50 on each of our rosters. Kyle's first three picks are really solid, I think.
Imagine my surprise when I look at the news and not twenty four hours after our draft, Andy Griffith has left us. Griffith was much more, by the way, than a friendly sheriff of Mayberry or a lawyer in powder blue suits. Check out 1957's 'A Face in the Crowd' for a pretty amazing performance from Griffith.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Song #21
Title: "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?"
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Album: Pendulum, 1971
Written By: John Fogerty
So many great CCR tunes to choose from. John Fogerty is one of the great American rock songwriters. The two Rain songs are amongst his most poignant, this one and "Who'll Stop the Rain." While "Who'll Stop..." gets more airplay, this is the one that has always hit me the hardest.
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Album: Pendulum, 1971
Written By: John Fogerty
So many great CCR tunes to choose from. John Fogerty is one of the great American rock songwriters. The two Rain songs are amongst his most poignant, this one and "Who'll Stop the Rain." While "Who'll Stop..." gets more airplay, this is the one that has always hit me the hardest.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Dez Reviews 'Prometheus,' 2012
But that is the main problem with Prometheus. If you are familiar with the Alien series, and Alien (Scott) and Aliens (James Cameron) are two of the greatest sci-fi films ever made (with the follow-ups being among the worst), then what was once original, shocking and innovative has now become rather rote. It's all here: a large crew so they can mostly get picked off in gruesome ways, a dark and spooky place to explore that allows for dangerous creatures to jump from the shadows and attack, the nefarious corporation with the hidden agenda, the "company man" aboard who knows the "real" mission (except here it isn't the smarmy but great Paul Reiser of Aliens, it's the icy hot Charlize Theron, yet she doesn't even know the real, real nature of the mission), the unsettling android aboard with questionable motives and loyalties, the rather unconventional births, and the strong female characters that Scott is known for. The problem is that I could have listed those elements about Alien or Aliens before even seeing Prometheus. Perhaps this is somewhat fresh for a younger generation not raised on Alien, but it has become comfort food vs. a bold new dish for the seasoned moviegoer. Also Scott leaves much unexplained. I don't mind that in sci-fi, but this feels less like innovative, thought-provoking filmmaking and more like lazy storytelling.
There are two things about Prometheus that largely save it, though, and still make it a worthwhile sci-fi film. First it is absolutely stunning visually. One of the most beautiful and grand sci-fi film I've ever seen. I saw it in a small, rundown theater without the 3D, so I can only imagine it in an IMAX theater. Secondly, the performances are good. Michael Fassbender is especially good as the calculating android David. Ridley Scott seems to specialize in this type of sci-fi character. David sits alongside Ian Holm's Ash from Alien, Lance Henriksen's Bishop from Aliens (although James Cameron directed Aliens), and the replicants from Scott's Bladerunner as androids or replicants who dangerously long to be more human. Noomi Rapace is good in the other specialty role Scott pioneered, the strong unlikely female action hero who is not obviously an action hero in the beginning, but must fight and adapt. While it is impossible to match Sigourney Weaver's iconic Ripley from the Alien series, Rapace does a good job.
Worth seeing, but it falls short of Alien and Aliens, while improving greatly on the rest of the Alien progeny.
*** out of *****
Friday, June 29, 2012
Song #22
Title: "Light My Fire"
Artist: The Doors
Album: The Doors, 1967
Written By: The Doors
Most Doors-haters focus their disdain on Jim Morrison's childish antics and bad high school poetry lyrics. But they really miss what is great about the band. It is the other three guys. Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore were able to create a unique and fascinating musical backdrop behind Morrison. Jim Morrison is really beside the point for me. I'd like to be cool and pick a more obscure Doors tune ("Peace Frog," "Roadhouse Blues"), but it was their biggest hit that first grabbed me and still does. Again, the greatness of the tune comes after Morrison steps aside and Manzarek and Krieger play their extended solos to a mesmerizing groove. What great solos that build on eachother.
Artist: The Doors
Album: The Doors, 1967
Written By: The Doors
Most Doors-haters focus their disdain on Jim Morrison's childish antics and bad high school poetry lyrics. But they really miss what is great about the band. It is the other three guys. Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore were able to create a unique and fascinating musical backdrop behind Morrison. Jim Morrison is really beside the point for me. I'd like to be cool and pick a more obscure Doors tune ("Peace Frog," "Roadhouse Blues"), but it was their biggest hit that first grabbed me and still does. Again, the greatness of the tune comes after Morrison steps aside and Manzarek and Krieger play their extended solos to a mesmerizing groove. What great solos that build on eachother.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Song #23
Title: The In Crowd (live)
Artist: The Ramsey Lewis Trio
Album: The In Crowd (live) (1965)
Writer: Billy Page
The only jazz tune to reach my Top 24. Proves that jazz does not have to be complex. Ramsey Lewis takes this R&B tune and makes it all about the groove. My Dad introduced me to this amazing jazz record many years ago, and it remains one of the most engaging live recordings I've ever come across. Normally too much audience noise on live recordings detracts, but here it is just the opposite. The hand claps and hollering builds right with the energy of the band, feeding off eachother for an intoxicating jazz club recording. Crank it up and it puts you right in that D.C. club.
Artist: The Ramsey Lewis Trio
Album: The In Crowd (live) (1965)
Writer: Billy Page
The only jazz tune to reach my Top 24. Proves that jazz does not have to be complex. Ramsey Lewis takes this R&B tune and makes it all about the groove. My Dad introduced me to this amazing jazz record many years ago, and it remains one of the most engaging live recordings I've ever come across. Normally too much audience noise on live recordings detracts, but here it is just the opposite. The hand claps and hollering builds right with the energy of the band, feeding off eachother for an intoxicating jazz club recording. Crank it up and it puts you right in that D.C. club.
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