Blog — Page 253 of 278

In the midst of the opening credits sequence for Italian director Dario Argento's 1975 Profondo Rosso (a.k.a. Deep Red), the viewer is treated to a truncated scene appearing to show two figures in shadow in front of a Christmas tree. One pulls a knife and appears to stab the other, the bloody instrument then dropping to the floor where it's approached by shoes of a child. This sequence establishes much of the framework for the rest of the picture: a mystery centered around an English-born jazz pianist named Marcus Daly (played by David Hemmings, best known for 1966's Blow-Up, a picture somewhat similar to this one) who witnesses the violent murder of a clairvoyant woman in his apartment building. While attempting to put the pieces together to solve the murder along with a plucky reporter (Daria Nicolodi in a role that's largely an annoyance), Marc stumbles upon a legend about a haunted house, and after locating the building and digging around its decrepit interior, finds a drawing that seems to represent the Christmas-time murder depicted at the beginning of the film. This all leads to the expected showdown with the murderer, but the guilty party may not be the one the viewer was expecting.

Sometimes titled as The Hatchet Murders in its English-language prints since its killer occasionally uses a heavy butcher's cleaver as a murder instrument, Profondo Rosso clearly displays a mesmerizing, idiosyncratic visual style that would be utilized to perfection in Argento's later, undisputed classic Suspiria. Puzzling montages appear intermittently to provide a glimpse into the mindset of the killer, and the actual stalking/murder sequences are jarring and considerably violent (remember – this film was made before the explosion of slasher films in the early '80s). Clairvoyant Helga Ulmann's murder features several brief but graphic special effects shots of a cleaver being sunk into soft human flesh, and a later murder sequence features a man's face being bashed off the woodwork around a fireplace before a close-up of his teeth slamming into the pointed edge of a table. The final minutes also feature a gloriously grotesque death scene involving an elevator, but the film's best moment isn't so much disgusting as plain creepy. After being startled by noise while on the phone in his study, a man is rushed by a flailing robot designed to look like a smiling young boy. Forget the fact that it's illogical – this is about as unexpected a situation as could be imaginable, and definitely the film's most genuinely unforgettable moment.

Aside from providing unique vantage points throughout the film (the extreme high-angle views of a mysterious figure rushing through an abandoned town square after dark are especially good), Argento's camera frequently seems to “know” more than the characters or audience does, focusing on seemingly inconsequential detail that will shortly be of the utmost importance. Easily the best example of this occurs in a scene where Daly hurries through the Helga's apartment in an attempt to save her from her murderer. As he hastens down a hallway, the viewer's eye is drawn to a series of paintings, one of which looks substantially more life-like and bizarre than the others. Showing a groups of faces, only one of which truly appears to be human, the painting lingers in the viewer's mind even though its only seen onscreen for a second or so. Ultimately, solving the mystery comes down to this fleeting image – Daly's convinced it reveals the murderer's face.

Along with the tantalizing visual clues, Profondo Rosso also offers up a series of strange plot twists and turns. Indisputably, the painting being a key element in solving the mystery is the script's most masterful idea, but I also rather liked the moment when, while combing through the supposedly haunted house, Daly spies a drawing covered up by drywall and proceeds to chip away at it, slowly revealing the picture. That being said, the script by Argento and Bernardino Zapponi seems overlong: running 126 minutes in its uncut version, the picture has noticeably sluggish pace to it, with distracting moments of comic relief and romance interrupting the unfolding mystery. It's not at all surprising that some 22 minutes were hacked from the original Italian version of the film when it was imported to the US.

Profondo Rosso's almost dream-like atmosphere is complimented by truly magnificent sound design. Squeaking shoes, the ringing of phones, blustery wind, cackling birds, wailing childrens voices, and more figure into the ambient soundscape of various key scenes, and it's typically these background sounds that create the dark and unsettling mood which hangs over the film. Especially nifty are a few moments in which Daly attempts to talk on a phone – it seems the man can't get a word out without being interrupted by racket of every sort.

Also worth mentioning is the film's soundtrack. Originally, composer Giorgio Gaslini was attached to the picture, but a disagreement with Argento led to progressive rock band The Cherry Five being brought in to record the music. The band permanently changed their name to Goblin around this time and the rest is history: Goblin went on to provide extremely memorable scores for numerous horror and action-oriented films, and Profondo Rosso became one of the best-selling horror movie soundtracks of all time. The music here ranges from typical '70s progressive rock to more spooky cues. I think the main title is probably the best track – when the rhythm kicks in, the viewer knows something bad is about to happen...

All in all, Profondo Rosso is a worthwhile flick and a prototypical giallo that stands as one of the best of the genre. Still, it's overlong in my opinion, and isn't nearly as much fun as either Argento's best (the very spooky, if somewhat incomprehensible, Suspiria) or my favorite giallos (among which would be Umberto Lenzi's Seven Blood-Stained Orchids and Spasmo, the proto-slashers Bay of Blood and Torso, and the super-sleazy 1972 Delirium). Fans of Argento's work or Italian genre cinema should absolutely check this film out though: its combination of mystery elements with graphic horror violence helped solidify the path that many subsequent horror films (Halloween and Friday the 13^th among them) would follow.

Blood & Guts = 7/10

Smack Talk = 1/10

Fap Factor = 1/10

Cult Appeal = 6/10

The More You Know = “But... I'm just trying to understand, because... You know, sometimes what you actually see and what you imagine... get mixed up in your memory like a cocktail... from which you can no longer distinguish one flavor from another.”

Titus Andronicus

Brighton Music Hall, Boston, MA

October 15, 2015

Like any show I’m excited about, I was really scared of disappointment while driving to this Boston Titus Andronicus (hereafter +@) concert. Since The Monitor, +@ has been one of my favorite bands. They combine dynamic, epic rock songs with to-the-point chord progressions embedded in punk rock history; and Patrick Stickles delivers growly, Joyceanly specific lyrics that are nonetheless deeply relatable. I fell in love with their latest album, The Most Lamentable Tragedy (a punk rock opera about manic depression, in classic +@ style), and there haven't been many weeks since 2010 when I don’t listen to them at least once. On top of all this, my girlfriend - who has a tendency to shout +@ songs in their entirety whenever she hears a single word of a lyric - was going to the show, too. There was a lot of hype, and we weren’t the only ones - the show sold out months before. The comfy Brighton Music Hall was packed, and nearly everyone jumped, yelled, and danced in unison as +@ delivered a fantastic 90-minute set. There was loud, pit-inducing punk rock. There were quiet, somber moments. There were everyone-come-together anthems. It was one of the best concerts I’ve been to.

The show started with frontman Patrick Stickles and keyboardist Elio DeLuca coming on stage. Stickles was wearing that olive green jacket and 18th-century-German-philosopher beard we’ve seen him in lately and the classic black +@ shirt. Casually strumming his guitar, he looked into the crowd and said, “You know, I guess this is when I give a really long speech about how punk rock is about freedom, and having fun doing whatever you want, and being American. But those speeches are usually really boring. And I don’t have to say that anyway, because it’s already said up there.” He pointed to a sign that’s always been up at Brighton, and read it: “‘No moshing or stage diving. Keep your feet on the ground and have a good time. Violators will be ejected without refund.’ We don’t want anyone to get EJECTED, now do we?” Stickles went on for several more minutes, talking about punk rock and the idea of putting on a concert, and occasionally saying, “Those long speeches are so boring…”

Eventually Stickles started playing his guitar, but with only DeLuca on stage. It was quickly apparent that Stickles was playing a solo version of “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus,” a usually bolting, foot-stomping song about driving around the country and seeing people die on the highways while traffickers “sit and grit their teeth, hating that which comes between them and their coffee.” The room sounded like half the audience was sitting and gritting their teeth, hating that which comes between them and +@’s MAD RIFFS, while the other half sounded silently affected by Stickles whiningly crying out, “There are a thousand dreams never to come to pass, because dreams can’t be, nor people, indeed, built to last.” Regardless of which half of the audience you were, everyone chanted that last line, “Built to last,” over and over with Stickles.

After the odd-but-moving solo, the whole band came out - including Adam Reich, who I recognized as playing guitar for the So So Glos show I saw at Paradise a while back. The lights turned green and purple, and the band played the first three songs of The Most Lamentable Tragedy straight through, and then immediately jumped into “Still Life With Hot Deuce And Silver Platter.” At this point, the room was going nuts, and you could already hear people’s dry throats trying to keep up with Stickles you-gotta-sing-along growls. The only reason Stickles wasn’t totally dead after “Hot Deuce” was probably because he was chugging a water bottle after each song.

“Oooh, Dasani!” Stickles commercially said, taking a breather with everyone else. “You know, people come up to me and they say, ‘Yo Patrick, how do you stay so thin and tight?” He rolled up his sleeves, to show that he really was a twig of a man. “You want me to tell you how I keep it so tight? It’s all because my life is a FOOD FIGHT!!!”

The band jumped into the one-two punch combo “Food Fight!” and “My Eating Disorder,” which is one of my favorite +@ songs. It really was something else to have a dreadfully skinny bearded Patrick Stickles shout with hair covering his eyes, “I know the world’s a scary place, that’s why I hide behind a hairy face” and then constantly croon “My eating disorder, my eating disorder, my eating disorder it’s inside me!!” Already it's a rare treasure to have a songwriter pour out his emotional struggles in front of you - but to see hairy, skinny reflection of struggle staring and shouting at you is moves you to the point of terrified paralysis.

If everyone wrote down all the songs they hoped +@ played that night, I doubt many would leave without a checked-off list. There was the trio "Fired Up," "Dimed Out," and "More Perfect Union" that finishes off the first half of The Most Lamentable Tragedy; that eponymous song from their debut; "No Future" Part III" from The Monitor; "In A Big City" from Local Business. And looking back at that checked-off list: If +@ ever put out a Greatest Hits, a suitable title might be Anthems for Losers: Many +@ hits involve repeatedly shouting lines like “YOUR LIFE IS OVER,” “YOU’LL ALWAYS BE A LOSER,” and “I HATE TO BE AWAKE,” which have a self-deprecating euphoria that made the show feel like a Shaker worship service for unfulfilled twenty-somethings.

One of the best moments was “A More Perfect Union” (not to be confused with the aforementioned "More Perfect Union"). “Now let’s travel back in time, back to 2008!” Stickles shouted. “I was 23 years old, and - true story - I lived here in Somerville, MA for a brief but formative period of my life. I was living with this girl and commuting to New Jersey every day, which was plenty of thoughtful time to write lyrics. Then one day the girl broke up with me, and I fled Somerville, never to return again, except to rock you guys. Yeah...There isn’t really a convenient punchline to this story, but it’s true, all true.” Then the band started that perfect opener to The Monitor, and Stickles’ lyrics resonated with me more than they ever did playing through my headphones, as he yelled about “waiting for the Fung Wah bus” and standing “beneath the lights of the Fenway.” The whole place went crazy as people screamed “Give me a brutal Somerville summer, give me a cruel New England winter!” For a place to be stamped into the opener of an album that so many people love, and then to be in that place...I’ll never forget that moment.

Before their last song, Stickles idly said, “Yeah, rock is cool...Baseball is pretty cool, too. Let’s go Mets!” He pointed to the back of the venue, through the window, to the bar across the street, where you could see the Mets vs Dodgers game on a big TV. You could also see a few people trying to watch +@ in the Somerville cold. “And look at those sad faces in the window. We’re just going to play one more song. Can we let those people in? Just for one song??” Sure enough, they let those ten people in for “To Old Friends and New,” one of the softer songs on The Monitor with that final, Velvet-Underground-influenced chant “Well it’s alright, the way that you live - it’s alright, the way that you live” that’s perfect for a final +@ moment.

The band left the stage, and I really wasn’t expecting an encore. The band already played a fantastic 90-minute set, and I figured +@ was above cramming in a bunch of hits into another 20-minute encore. The audience kept shouting, though, and +@ came back. “Alright,” Stickles said, “One more, but that’s all you get! It’s the bottom of the eighth inning - we gotta get outta here. Here’s one more song for you, Boston!” Stickles yanked off his shirt, revealing his incredibly pale, nearly emaciated body, and danced as the band burst into a cover of The Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner,” by far the most fitting song for the end of a Boston punk show (and, fun fact, the song I got my first speeding ticket to). And they kept their word, walking off stage after that - and Stickles got to see the Mets beat the Dodgers a minute or two later, who went on to win the NCLS and play the Royals in the World Series.

+@ is one of the fun bands keeping rockin’, fervent punk alive, along with their buds The So So Glos and Diarrhea Planet. Please keep coming to Boston, +@ - I’ll always see you.

Run The Jewels

First Avenue

Minneapolis, MN

October 23, 2015

“I’ll apologize now. If you are wearing glasses, you might want to put those away. If you hate being slammed into by people, you might want to make your way to the back. If you’re rocking brand new sneakers, I’m sorry. I’ve been there. I understand. But you’ve been warned. I’m sorry in advance about your new shoes.”

The speaker is El-P. He and his partner in rhyme Killer Mike are known as Run The Jewels. Maybe you’ve heard of them. No doubt a result of their relentless tour schedule—this being their fifth appearance in the Twin Cities alone in just three years—Run The Jewels have mastered the art of house-rocking. We’re midway through their headlining set at a sold-out First Avenue, where they’ll give this seemingly honest and understanding forewarning just a moment to sink in before Zach de la Rocha’s sampled machinegun-fast vocals crack from the speakers, signifying the arrival of “Close Your Eyes (and Count to Fuck)." “Run them jewels fast, run them jewels fast, run them, run them, run them…fuck the slow-mo...”

And then it happens.

BOOM!

Trackstar The DJ drops the beat and the audience explodes into a frenzy of neck-snapping, pogoing, fake gun-in-the-air-firing, fist-pumping lunacy…again. This is how it’s been since they took the stage. You wouldn’t think it could any crazier, any sweatier, or any OMG-ier. But it does.

Louder than fuck and with enough sub-rattling oompf to run a nuclear reactor, RTJ perform on this night—the second to last of their current tour—as if they are auditioning for their first record deal. Keeping the eager crowd enthusiastic for an hour plus in stifling heat, the duo themselves are intense and furious and restless and command the proceedings instinctively; reaffirming that they are thee force to be reckoned with in the hip-hip pantheon.

The openers Fashawn and Boots fill their roles adequately. The former, clearly understanding the importance of high spots, brings locals Prof and Brother Ali on for one song each. Meanwhile the latter’s The Weekend meets Nine Inch Nails gimmickry (about all the was missing was a bunch of mud and keyboards on boomerang stands) seems a tad out of place, but provides ample time to hit the bathrooms and grab last-minute drinks. And oh boy, the drinks are being had tonight.

RTJ enter the stage as they always do: with Queen’s “We Are the Champions” playing over the PA. They seize control immediately, doing “Run The Jewels”, and then “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry”, and later “Blockbuster Night, Part 1” and “Banana Clipper.” They bark out lyrics like Southern gospel preachers while Trackstar The DJ works the decks, providing a hard-thumping backbone and flexing his turntable dexterity.

Following “Love Again (Akinyele Back)”, the track with the famed hook “She wants this dick in her mouth all day”, El-P and Killer Mike spend an inordinate amount of time trying to drive home the point that it’s not the misogynistic sex rap it’s been mistaken for. “That’s the stupidest lyric for a love song we ever wrote” says El-P. Killer Mike adds, “But don’t get it twisted; it’s a love song. And if Gangsta Boo was here she’d tell you the same thing.”

Okay guys, whatever you say.

The set, which by my estimation contains just about every RTJ song there is—including “Lie, Cheat, Steal”, “Pew, Pew, Pew”, and “All Due Respect”—closes out with a rousing rendition of “A Christmas Fucking Miracle.” And when all is said and done, the crowd is left swaying in their own sweaty puddles, kind of drunk, and in complete awe.

“Dude, that was so awesome. My brand new Jordan’s are fucked. But I can’t wait to see these guys again.”

The speaker is my friend; a young Nebraskan transplant who has just witnessed his first rap show.

Follow Nathan on Twitter at @OMG_NOB

Sick Of It All

Manning Bar

Sydney

October 10, 2015

In this very real world, good does not drive out evil.
Evil does not drive out good.
But the energetic displaces the passive.

Sick Of It All.

The quintessential live hardcore band.

In a live environment, it does not get less passive than the Koller brothers framed by Craig Ahead and Armand, the engine of the band.

Yours truly had his first clobberin' time with SOIA at the German equivalent of a youth centre in the early Nineties with no stage.

24 years later, and many encounters in between on three continents ranging from big festivals to small venues, the quartet from Queens seems to not have lost any steam

Au contraire:

SOIA seem to have somehow managed to be more agile than ever before.

---

Photo by KAVV

Lucero

Lee's Palace

Torononto, Ontario

October 15, 2015

In support of their new album All a Man Should Do, Lucero have been pulling double duty on their latest tour and playing two sets a night. Walking into Thursday’s concert at Lee’s Palace, the first of a two-day stint in celebration of the venue’s 30^th anniversary, I had a couple of questions. I was wondering whether or not after seventeen years Lucero had enough fire in their bellies to pull them through two hours of stage time. I was also wondering whether or not as a casual listener I wanted to sit through two hours of Lucero.

The show that night was solid: a well-played and well-rounded mixture of slow jams and up-tempo tacks from through out the band’s extensive catalogue. I enjoyed myself, but not half as much as the rest of the audience. This is because Lucero fans really love Lucero. I don’t mean love in the way that you might love McDonald’s soft-serve or your grandparents. I mean love in that all consuming Annie Wilkes style that makes you afraid someone is going to get stabbed.

The crowd fucking loved the show. A group of about thirty burly dudes in denim pressed themselves against the front of the stage and sang along with every goddamn word to every goddamn song. Behind them a couples danced with a reckless disregard for rhythm, holding each other close during the ballads and shaking ass during the faster tracks. The highlight of the night came when a staggering thirty something, double fisting her rum and Cokes, turned and informed me that Lucero’s singer Ben Nichols is so fucking beautiful that she can’t even fucking date anyone else in real life. She then proceeded to finish both her drinks and sprinted off into the night.

It might sound like I’m making fun of these people, but I’m not. At least not entirely. That environment is kind of amazing. Like any good punk I’ve been known to get drunk and misty to the kiss the bottle cover, but at best I had always been a casual listener of Lucero. But watching the band with those kinds of fans made me feel like I was watching something special. It was like being at a wedding if everyone at the wedding was your drunk uncle and your drunk uncle was fucking stoked on the people getting married.

It’s a cop-out on a review to state that the people who like the band enjoyed watching them play their songs. But what I’m saying is that if you get the chance to see Lucero on this tour you should probably head out and see them. The band sounded great and it’s worth the price of admission for the people watching alone.