I got to see the UK skinhead drama This Is England a couple of weeks ago.  It's the story of a preteen boy in the 80's trying to find sense out of his dad's death during the Falklands conflict by keeping company with a bunch of skinheads.  At first, the group was just fine with hanging out and having a good time.  Things turned sour though as one of their own got to return from prison spewing hatred--and rhetoric wasn't enough to drive the point home.

I think my expectation for this movie was going to have the same moral complexities that American History X had.  Unfortunately the film only delivers what we already know about racist factions and their self-loathing ilk.  If anything, the viewer gets to realize the way the subculture contradicts itself, especially with their music choices. I'll have to admit that the reggae soundtrack including Toots and The Maytals was what made me enjoy the film marginally.  I also did like the final scene with The Smiths' Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want playing in the background.

Here's a version of that song as covered by Deftones (since you guys and gals may already have heard the original so many times).

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want - Deftones

This supplementary post is for all the loyal returnees suffering from music download withdrawal.

So I came across this post from I Am Fuel, You Are Friends that alerted me about what looks like a secret Green Day side-project called Foxboro Hottubs.  I never really was a GD fan perhaps partly because their rise signaled the end of the 90's Seattle sound, but whatever...I thought I'd give this thing an open-minded listen and actually enjoyed what was going on in the background.  The music has Billy Joe's usually overbearing sneering vocals only set to stun for this one.  Check out the mod-retro stylings of the group as they try to kick it retro.

The good part about all this is that the mini-album Stop Drop and Roll is available for download for free (thank you, Radiohead for starting a trend!).

They're all elements in the new Baroness video for Wanderlust from Red Album.  I've been raving about these boys for the past few months now, so here's another one to puff them up.  I know...I've been scouring Youtube for quite a bunch of stuff, thanks for the observation.

I'm melting down over the awesomeness that is Machine Girl.  Revenge plot?  Check.  Gatling-gun arm attachment?  Check.  Killer Ninja?  Check.  Drill bra (you read that correctly)?  Check.  Gratuitous violence?  Check.  If any of this is turning you on so badly, go ahead and look at the preview below.  You'll thank me later.  Put me down for a DVD or five.

Yeah, how about another post today to make up for the drought?  Here's a great video I found which reimagines Iggy and The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog in peculiar fashion (yes, pun intended).

First off, allow me to apologize for not posting for a while.  It looks like some malicious shit was happening to blogdrive's servers, redirecting all the client computers to an unscrupulous search site--screw the opportunists for this, I hope The Feds bring down the hammer on the bastards for their shenanigans.

Anyway, I'd like to extend my congratulations to all awardees at this year's NU 107 Rock Awards.  Bamboo seemed to have taken quite a bunch of the awards on the individual achievement departments (even if I didn't care much for their covers album--maybe save for last year's Tatsulok single).   I'm glad that there's diversity as evidenced by Radioactive Sago Project (this band, IMO should've gotten more awards) and Sinosikat? bagging some of those accolades.  I'd like to really congratulate Marie Jamora again for taking the Video of The Year award for DVDX.  It couldn't happen to a better person who also happened to be my music/CD trading contact in Manila way before the days of more convenient P2P filesharing, Youtube, and mail-order (girlfriend, I still have those copies of the Eraserheads fanzines you edited!).  Anyway, check out the results:

Best New Artist - Hilera

Vocalist of The Year - Kat Agarrado of Sinosikat?

Guitarist of The Year - Ira Cruz of Bamboo

Bassist of The Year - Nathan Azarcon of Bamboo

Drummer of The Year - Vic Mercado of Bamboo and Mark Escueta of Rivermaya

Best Live Act - Bamboo

In The Raw Award - Reklamo

Song of The Year - Will You Ever Learn by Typecast

Album of The Year - Moonlane Gardens by Orange & Lemons

Artist of The Year - Bamboo

Video of The Year - DVDX by Sandwich (Director: Marie Jamora)



Best Album Packaging - Sarah Gaugler and Clementine for Moonlane Gardens (Orange & Lemons)

Producer of The Year - Lourd de Veyra and Francis De Veyra for Tanginamo Ang Daming Nagugutom Sa Mundo, Fashionista Ka Pa Rin

Listener's Choice Award - Bamboo

Hall Of Fame Award - Mike Villegas and Angelo Villegas



Get your Emo on!

Will You Ever Learn? - Typecast

If you don't have anything to do tomorrow...and are inclined to brave the cold weather (not to mention the potential snow dumping we may get), head on over to Neumos to check out Portland's The Thermals.  I'm sure they'll be playing quite a bunch of songs from their latest, The Body, The Blood, The Machine.  The whole album is a skewering of the overzealous religious right and their influence over the current state of affairs we have all over our country.  Makes you think about how some folks in this part of the world aren't that much different from the Taliban, huh?

Pillar of Salt - The Thermals

Here's Your Future - The Thermals

Carbon/Silicon has been Jones' on-and-off project with ex-Generation X man Tommy James.  Their latest release is the mini-album The Crackup Suite.  I pretty much like all of the tracks, some of which actually remind me of The Replacements in some parts.  I've only got a few reservations about Falun Gong Love Song--some of the lyrics just seemed hastily put-together and not entirely fleshed-out.  Who am I to judge though?  These guys have been at this whole songwriting business while I was still learning to walk, so I'll shut up now and let the music do the talking.

Here are tracks off the mini-album:

TF Madness
Pier 51
The System
Buckethead
Prophet
Falun Gong Love Song

Album covers--front and back

In between dating supermodels, appearing on various issues of OK! and NME (for mostly unrelated reasons), and taking hits of...whatever poison he's into right now, former Libertine Pete Doherty managed to whelp out a helping of songs for a second album from his present outfit, Babyshambles.

The Babies seem to enjoy more of a Stranglers/Kinks kind of vibe as opposed to the nervous jangle and swagger that we got from the Libs.  What remains the same though is Pete's amazing ability to come up with lyrics that are strung together as wordplay but still connect with wit.  Another thing constant with these bands apart from Pete is that this new record is also produced by Mick Jones of The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, etc.  The Robert Downey, Jr of rock seems to hit it out of the ballpark again with these familiar musical phrases coupled with catchy wordsmithing. 

If You Talk was twice as fast, it would be a Libertines tune.  My opinion.

You Talk - Babyshambles

Dave Gahan recently released his second solo album called Hourglass.  The music on this record doesn't stray much from the programmed beats and blips that people the world over have heard with his day job fronting Depeche Mode.  That observation isn't a bad thing at all.  Sometimes the fans wouldn't mind familiarity.  Some solo albums by artists associated with a certain sound get the cold shoulder from long-time loyalists because of how "off" the music sounds due to sonic references.

I think the payoff to listening to Dave's solo albums is that he gets more of an outlet to exhibit his lyric-writing prowess. He doesn't get much of that chance to show it off in DM since Martin Gore is in charge of that task. I've also enjoyed the arrangement and production on Hourglass thus far. I got to really listen to this record on the ride home from the Thanksgiving Day weekend. Today's download from the new platter has kind of a NIN vibe to it with it's quasi-industrial feel.

21 Days - Dave Gahan