Sideways

Alexander Payne (USA, 2004)

FilmFour recently put on a ‘NEEEWWW HOLLYWOOOOOD!’ season, because the future of da bidneth is apparently represented by the cinematic equivalent of Nemo music. I either missed (Lost in Translation, probably other stuff) or decided against watching (I ♥ Huckabees, Brick) a lot of what I was originally interested in, but I caught a couple of films; this is one of them. And no Napoleon Dynamite, because I can barely bring myself to look at Jon Heder.

I don’t get the deal surrounding this film at all. Reviewed when it came out as a great low key film full of character and characters, it left me wanting more. More what? Not sure really. At two and a half hours on FilmFour, not more of the film, that’s for sure. Not to say it’s a bad film (that’s coming next), but it is neither here nor there, and that is arguably even worse.

I was tempted to get shot of it on the premature tip, but decided to stick with it so I could write it up for the blog; the temptation, though, was always there and really came about because nothing happened in the first half an hour. I mean little happened in the whole thing, but the first thirty minutes or so was pure exposition and nothing else. Yeah, we get it: it’s an odd couple comedrama about an ageing former star lothario who’s about to get hitched, and a cartoony nerd character. Together they are giving the former his last week of freedom in Wine Country!

I think the draw with the film was that middle aged Guardian readers (and whatever their equivalent is in America – New York Times?) watched it and wanted to drink some fine wine. Well, it had quite the opposite effect on me; I specifically didn’t want to get into wine for fear of turning into the loser of the Sideways pair (Mike, played by Paul Giamatti; I remember him from The Truman Show and Donnie Brasco, playing various control room nerds. Maybe you do too!).

Thankfully a plot was found before I turned over the channel, and it proved reasonably engaging, and pretty well written. The deal was that the engaged character (Jack, played by Thomas Haden Church) was desperate to get laid with another woman before getting married, and only slightly less desperate to get not-so recently divorced Mike in the sack with another woman before he died. Not that his death was imminent or anything – this isn’t a terminal illness flick – but that’s the point.

So it turns out that Mike has a thing for a Wine Country waitress (Maya, Virginia Madsen) (see, while I felt nothing for the wine element of the film, I was a big fan of the leafy Californian environs housing the story), who has a reciprocal thing for him. Ergo Jack tries to get them together while intending to get himself with local wine store owner (Stephanie, played by Sandra Oh off Grey’s Anatomy – you have nothing to fear from me writing that one up, unless some major changes occur). And they get together, sweet.

Or is it? See, while Mike and Maya are on a date, he blurts that he and Jack hae to be back home soon for the rehearsal dinner, and all hell breaks loose. Stephanie is well gutted, as she thought she was in a cool relationship, so she batters him with a motorcycle helmet. Meanwhile Mike, still hurting over the recent news that his ex wife has remarried and will be at Jack’s wedding, goes on quite the downward spiral. See, it took what felt like forever, but the film finally got interesting.

In fact, it went a bit further than I thought it would, plot wise, for which I doff my hat, which I’m not currently wearing. It would be pretty amusing to have a computer hat, though, which I wear only for blogging and chatting to folk. Maybe a deerstalker, which I can pair with a bubble-blowing pipe and possibly even a monocle. Anyway, the downward spiral segment of this film was way more compelling than, say, the second half of the insanely over-loved Goodfellas (I always preferred the Salad Days half, myself), as Jack bedded an overweight fan of his before making his nude escape when her shift-working hubby turned up. And then he and Mike having to return to the scene of the crime because Mike had left his wallet – and his wedding rings – in the house.

Yes, the final third of the film was quite the act of salvation, as I was finally given a reason to care about my characters and what happened to them. More importantly than unfortunate plot twists, the characters became fleshed out: I started sympathising with Mike, and actually quite disliking the otherwise charismatic and winning Jack; similarly, Stephanie and Maya were transcended from the status of dual plot devices to the most sympathetic characters in the piece. Stephanie especially, the free spirited single parent who just wanted a bit of stability in her life, really came into her own with the aggravated battery scene.

There were also laughs in the film; intentional, belly laughs at that. The apparently quite infamous ‘if anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!’ line was excellent, as was Mike’s dash for (in)glory, steaming out into a field with bottle in hand upon news of his ex’s new life. Further, the drunken phone call to said ex was handled really well; potentially the most awkward phone scene since the Swingers answer-phone message.

But while it developed into a very decent film (‘romp’, if I was a Guardian hack), it was way too slow to get going and therefore too bottom heavy for me to consider a good overall film. Sideways is uneven and overlong, but damn it if didn’t end up charming me beyond the lovely scenery.

Interval. Interval Time


Nuff said. ‘Sometimes selling out is waking up’, indeed. And Albini said signing to a major was always bad news…*

* Cue Kerbdog/Wildhearts/Cave In-style bad news.

Supergroup

I appreciate that I am hella late with this one, but bear with me por favor. Supergroup first aired in the UK last summer on VH-1, that wonderful summer of metal, wherein the channel got with the documentaries, talking heads and video countdowns, all on my favourite of genres. It was great. I also got Guitar Hero for the PS2 last summer, so it was a stellar time of kicking out the virtual jams and listening to the oldies on the Death Deck.

Anyway, GH is a topic for another time: today is where I talk about Supergroup, easily the best of that Metal Month, and my favourite ‘reality’ show of them all. I should probably state at this time that I am writing on it now because I missed the grand finale last summer, and it has been repeated this week on VH-1 Classic. The life I lead, eh?

I will happily admit that I am a big fan of eighties rock, referred to by the intellectually challenged as ‘hair metal’ (think about it for a second: every fucking metal band in the eighties had big hair. Even Slayer and Megadeth). As a result, I like Sebastian Bach a great deal, and I support (theoretically) anything he gets involved in. But before I bang on about him, I will mention that I love that gradual reveal at the start of some reality shows: like on The Ultimate Fighter or America’s Next Top Model, when the contenders get selected. UK Supergroup rip-off, Totally Boyband*, had a great reveal: band members turned up blind to a filmed press conference one by one – our reveal was their reveal, though it was less of a revelation to some: New Kids On The Block alumnus Danny Wood amusingly mentioned, ‘before I came on this show I had no idea who I’d be in a band with. Now we’re all here, I still have no idea’). This show had each band member driven up to their Las Vegas mansion and start jamming on the respective instrument.

This approach had mixed success. It was a success for me, obviously, and everyone involved knew guitarist Ted Nugent. I’d imagine everyone recognised Seb Bach, too. Personally, I would have had a hard time identifying Jason ‘Son of John’ Bonham, as I last saw a picture of him in Metal Edge in 1997 (when I was in Vegas, coincidentally enough) and, while I could spot them a mile off, I’m not sure this trad trio knew who either Biohazard bassist/porn dude/Oz actor Evan Seinfeld or Anthrax axeman Scott ‘Not’ Ian were. Anyway, I loved it.

The idea was to stick this lot in a house for twelve days, in which they would hopefully come up with a name, an original song and be tight enough on covers to play a set on the last day. they were initially such an incompatible mix that this did seem like a hell of a job for even seasoned veterans such as these. Along the way, they had to deal with publicists, stylists and other peripheral parties who would get in the way of rocking out.

Rather than critique the show, I figured I would just write about the little events and scenes that stuck out to me; we’ll see how that goes.

One of my favourite scenes of them all came very late in the series, when Bonham was attempting to learn the drum parts to Biohazard’s ‘Punishment’ anthem. He had expressed no small amount of trepidation at learning a song with so many changes (cut him some slack, his day job is playing with Foreigner), but got down to it and acquitted himself well. He is a really good drummer, after all. I fact, one of the most heartening things about the whole programme was the way each member expressed respect for the others: this peaked when Bonham, practicing the tune on his own with the iPod on, suddenly stood up at the kit and screamed along with the ‘I can’t deny reality / As life gets smothered!’ sequence. Also notable was infamously stubborn Nugent rocking the tune at the season-finale concert, as well as hard metal dudes Seinfeld and Ian singing backing vocals for Skid Row classic ‘Youth Gone Wild’. And Nugent playing ‘Punishment’ at the gig. It was all good really.

In fact, Nugent as a whole was a bit of a revelation. Prior to the show I only knew his music from the musical nod Dimebag Darrell gave ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ on that live Pantera album, and had the ranch living old school rocker pegged as a hunting/rifle right wing survivalist nut. And he pretty much is (well, I wouldn’t go as far as to call him survivalist), but I dunno; I can respect his forceful personality on an individual basis. He is a man who knows his mind and is unafraid of standing up for what he believes in. He had a ton of respect for his less famous Supergroup band-mates, became a surrogate father for Bach, and showed great respect for native Americans and various deities. Sure, he also seemed more than a tad sexist, and I wouldn’t particularly get on with him, but he came across as far more of a well-rounded person than I originally gave him credit for. I actually want to get his first album now, too, as ‘Stranglehold’s guitar parts were pretty engaging.

Scott Ian was pretty damn cool, as I figured he would be. He said one really funny thing, but I sadly cannot remember that right now. Hopefully it’ll come in time. Anyway, he represented something of a new school on the show, which is odd considering anthrax was about in the early eighties, but they were more progressive than any other thrash band. He is from New York, too, which I figured would lend a touch of bonhomie with Evan Seinfeld. In reality, viewers heard more about how Ian looked up to the Nuge when he was a kid, but that general element of modernity was a blessing in the face of so much of an old guard atmosphere.

Seinfeld himself was my second favourite player on the show. I have always had a soft spot for Biohazard (I even prefer them to Sick Of It All, and tunes like ‘Punishment’, ‘Authority’ and ‘A Lot to Learn’ (great video featuring what seems to be Richard ‘Jaws’ Kiel, for which the song was actually edited to be longer than the album version) are total bangers), and Seinfeld seems like a cool bloke. In fact, he seems to be something of a renaissance man, as he makes (presumably) way more money working with porn star wife Tera Patrick (SFW) than he ever did in Biohazard. Anyway, he’s got that combination of short chunkiness and slightly funny voice (and I mean before his vocal chord issues, so I’m not going poor taste or anything) that just seem really endearing to me. That and he really looked out for Seb in terms of dealing with band manager (and ex Bon Jovi/Skid Row svengali) Doc McGhee.

What was slightly odd was seeing the members of Anthrax and Biohazard in action. Now, I’m well aware that those bands are hardly Genghis Tron or Converge in terms of modernity, but the song Damnocracy came out with was very old fashioned in sound. I can understand that from Bonham, Nugent or Bach, but Biohazard sounded more modern than ‘Take it Back’ when they started. Even Doc McGhee said it sounded like it was from 1982. Maybe old age (and sex with a porn star) has turned Seinfeld into an old fashioned kind of guy. I have to admit, though, he has an ear for a tune, and the Ozzy-influenced melodies he was humming to Seb were really quite affecting. It’s just a shame Bach didn’t heed the advice to slur down at the end of lines.

I fully appreciate this is a thousand and a half words of rambling, but I don’t care; this was a fantastic show that I would definitely buy if it ever came out on DVD; especially if it came with the full, season-ending, gig as a bonus. I loved pretty much all the main characters involved, there were some moments of real emotional impact (Bach’s drinking as a coping mechanism with his father’s death, and the ‘adoption’ by Nugent of him), the pace never dropped nor did the rock star antics ever get old, and I just love pretty much anything to do with rock music. Proper rock music, that is.

I suppose I should write something of a ‘what are they up to now?’ thing, seeing as this was all filmed in early 2006. Well, Damnocracy (I really do prefer the more amusing Chesty Puller as a moniker) has a MySpace page, though sadly nothing much seems to have happened in the last year or so. Anthrax has reunited with old singer Joey Belladonna, which sucks as his replacement, John Bush, was great (indeed, the Anthrax song covered in the Damnocracy gig was ‘Only’, from the John Bush era). Seb Bach, seeing as he was fired from his own band, which has been touring with some sucker on vocals, has released a solo album produced by Roy Z. I really want to listen to that, actually, as Roy Z is a great invigorator of old rock souls, as can be evinced by his complete creative renaissance of Bruce Dickinson in the late nineties. Seriously, he’s like Rick Rubin, but for real instead of beig a charlatan. I presume Nugent is still shooting stuff and eating steak, while Seinfeld is shooting his wife and… eating… her (I’m sorry, I really am). I guess Bonham is still touring with Foreigner, but I don’t want to know, to be honest.

And I guess that’s that, other than to say, as soon as I get my turntable in, I’m getting the early Nugent and Skid Row albums in. And nobody is going to be able to stop me! I won’t go as far as to grow my hair, though, not again…

* Weirdly, the Viacom Ouroboros is about to air a Totally Boyband offshoot for America, Mission: Man Band. Considering it features someone from Color Me Badd, I think it will be essential viewing. Also, gotta love the ‘related product’ shill being an LFO album on Warp (for those unaware, there was an American ‘LFO’, a.k.a. Lyte Funky Ones).

The Wildhearts – Fishing for Luckies


Round Records, 1996

Pretty much every circumstance surrounding this album suggests that it shouldn’t be much cop: released on the bands own Round Records label in late 1996 after they acrimoniously split from East/West, I bought it as a cut out for a fiver back when Way Ahead was still a music shop. It’s technically not a proper album; the sleeve-notes suggest listeners take it more as bric-a-brac of various songs written in various years and then collated. Instead, it’s the best thing they ever did, probably will ever do, and I would rate it above all but one or two British rock albums of the nineties.

Funnily enough it is that almost random feel to the collection that really appeals. I would say the pressure was off for this one but, as most of it was written at the same time as P.H.U.Q., that’s not strictly true. Nevertheless, this album represents a melting pot of ideas, both the most minimal and epic the band ever had. Some of the ideas work better than others, but it is rarely less than utterly compelling.

Further, this is also the album that opened my eyes to what an amazing musical mind Ginger was, and is still. Before I deal with the music, though, it’s best to clarify which version of the album I have, and am reviewing. It is not the original six song version that was released to fan club members. It’s not Fishing for More Luckies that their stupid record label sneaked out after P.H.U.Q. was such a surprising success: that version had nine songs.

My version was released in late 1996 on the aforementioned Round Records label. It differs from the original in quite a big way, actually. The four epic songs (between seven and eleven minutes in length) that form the heart of the album remain, with all other tracks completely changed, to a total of ten. Coincidentally, the inclusion of so many short, noisy songs to contrast with the epics is similar to Mike Patton’s contribution to the next years Faith No More album, in that he added a bunch of two minute noisy songs to what he thought was otherwise a bit of a grand rock album. More on that when I do my planned 1997 countdown anyway.

So, on this album, the originals are ‘Inglorious’, ‘Schitzophonic’, ‘Do the Channel Bop’ and ‘Sky Babies’. Added are hit singles ‘Sick of Drugs’ and ‘Red Light, Green Light’, as well as the thrashy punk rock songs ‘Soul Searching on Planet Earth’, ‘In Like Flynn’ and ‘Moodswings and Roundabouts’. The album culminates with the brief, lullaby-like, ‘Nite Songs’ followed by half an hour of a looped few seconds of laughter. I think I listened to the latter once all the way through. In fact, that is similar to the half-hour loop Brutal Truth attached to their grindcore classic Sounds of the Animal Kingdom, again the next year.

As I mentioned in the P.H.U.Q. review, the older songs on here were intended by the band to be part of a double CD release in 1995. Perhaps it was fortunate this was not the case. For a start, it means I get two great albums, but the inclusion of these insane epics would have aggravated what I see as an almost subconscious (Freudian) streak in Ginger to alienate the masses. On one hand he offers catchiness and anthems galore, and on the other he mixes in the kinds of noises and song fragments that would alienate the Oasis/Blur fan of the time. As we’ll see when I get to Endless, Nameless, this issue was to be infinitely emphasised the next year.

So the real meat of this album comes in the form of the four epics, cornerstones that are permanent through every issue of this title. Opener ‘Inglorious’ sets the tone for what will form the majority of the album (this quartet of songs account for over thirty-five minutes of the albums fifty-one minutes). I bought this about a month after I got Neurosis’s Through Silver in Blood and was quite taken aback by the similarities. When I stuck this disc in the CD player, the full CD length for ten songs struck me as odd from what was apparently a ‘Britrock’ band (think Skunk Anansie, Feeder, early Terrorvision et al). It transpired that twenty minutes or so was the then-usual ‘let’s fill the disc’ japery, but the songs that were long were true sonic adventures.

In fact I don’t limit the parallel to Neurosis either. 1996 was pretty cool for bands stretching their creative legs and seeing what could be done: the year was notable for career best records from not just Neurosis, but also Tool and Type O Negative, as well as epics from Swans, Burzum and Godflesh. There must have been something in the water that year. Anyway, ‘Inglorious’, while long, ushers listeners into the record in an un-frightening enough manner. In what is definitely a departure for the band, they decide to write the song as an epic thrash piece, from the quasi-classical, clean picked intro, to the staccato build, to the eventual shred-fest to close. All that’s missing is the extended soloing one might expect from such a song, but this – as well as the performance itself – is where the fact The Wildhearts is a punk rock band has influence.

And it’s brilliant, as the tempo builds and builds over the course of the song. The one point where the speed drops – when it has already reached breaking point – is one of those momentary breathers, effectively dropping you into the freefall of a cliff jump, where all concerned collect their thoughts before catching you and hurling you back into the maelstrom of riffage (with even an eight bar tribute to the excellent ‘Mouth for War’ by Pantera). To say it is energising would be an understatement, as it’s a pretty wild seven minutes.

The next semi-epic, still only seven-ish minutes, is the far sweeter ‘Schitzophonic’*, which ploughs an altogether far more pop-orientated furrow: the common-tone modulation in the first verse sounds in 2007 as almost a precursor to the excellent chorus of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’. Like ‘Inglorious’, this is an epic take on a traditional rock form – in this case power pop. While it is inordinately well-composed, and does enter into epic sounds as the song enters an aural ‘arena’ (sadly lacking overdub crowd noise) the guitars slowing to emphasise the epic stature of what’s going on, the title echoing while the riffs curlicue up again like swirls of smoke, the band is still on the launching pad; still on Earth.

The ambition grows with ‘Do the Channel Bop’, which is almost too absurdly good to be true. It begins, weirdly enough, with a portion of singing that actually sounds like a really good Liam Gallagher impression. At the time I chalked it up to bitter satire, but on further thought I realised it was originally released in early 1994 – before Definitely Maybe was even out. Maybe it was just a coincidence, then, but the similarity is eerie.

The track stops being the best Oasis song ever a couple of minutes in: at this stage, the boys from Manchester would just repeat things a bit and then leave the studio in order to ‘ave it. The South Shields boys, on the other hand, sent their song into orbit. And this isn’t even the song about space. One little touch I like, which really emphasises the sense of size on this record, is the chorus that sounds like the whole world’s singing on it, or at least a bunch of kids. The massed vocals motif continues when the song takes its aforementioned leap into zero gravity when wordless singing punctuates slo-mo synth jumps up the register that crescendo with switches to staccato guitar.

Despite the excellence on show earlier in the album, it is only on ‘Sky Babies’ where the listener becomes privy to the enormity of Ginger’s talent – and boldness. The track again starts life as a regular, albeit really good, rock song (though the intro, with various voices talking in as many languages, hints at greater ambition), and goes through the stage-after-stage format of the lengthy preceding songs.

However, after the rate of changes that would fit Metallica’s …And Justice for All set, including a thrilling, Coalesce-esque, segment of tech-riffing, Ginger sees fit to launch the song into the stratosphere, as it goes quite Floydy. The rhythm guitars are jettisoned from the mix like a brace of solid rocket boosters, as a slow, spacey, lead guitar line is accompanied by throbbing synths. The track alternated between such floaty concern and more earthy melody, as Ginger’s verbal rumination switches from a dreamy self awareness:

Back on my planet you cannot tell lies
‘Cos everyone can see it by the look in your eye
Parties all last for a couple of days
No one sleeps ‘cos beds are prohibited


…through sci-fi fantasy:

…Look into those eyes, it comes as no surprise
‘It’s little more than science fiction’, the government replies
They could be taking our daughters, they could be taking our ladies
Making sky babies


…before a scintillating syncopated staccato** segment in which guitar pick strokes and vocal syllables/joint tokes synchronise as paranoia hits full flow:

This is it in layman’s terms, phenomenon of UFOs
Is well acknowledged by the state but secret to the president
Employed to be a public face and keep the public feeling safe
But higher powers in government hide something a million times
The size of the killing of JFK, the CIA are aware that higher
Powers exist with untold knowledge of life and death dimension
It could alter public awareness of religion, which is the only faith
That keeps us all in true control, and that’s why we can never know


With that off his chest, Ginger heads back on foot to Hookville, playing us out with the minutes-long sequence of adventurous desire that alternates each new line with the mantra of a ‘take me with you when you go’ refrain. I’m partly gutted that the song fades after all that, but am also fully aware that if it didn’t, each new segment would be followed by another. It’s a truly awesome piece of work.

The more traditional Wildies fare comes in the form of hit single tag team ‘Sick of Drugs’ and ‘Red Light-Green Light’, while punky speedcore is the name of the game for the invigorating, breakneck ‘Moodswings and Roundabouts’ and ‘Soul Searching On The Planet Earth (Different Kind Of Love)’ (longest title for the shortest track).

‘In Like Flynn’ alternates between punk rock angst and jaded cynico-grind: ‘back in ’89, they said “You’ll be fine / Just suck a little dick…” Why the hell did they wanna sign me? / I’m a liability / Goodbye East-West, God bless…’ It’s a generally aggressive coke high of boasts and firing shots off at their old label – ‘In our souls (arseholes) we trusted’. The album is rounded out by the aforementioned lullaby of ‘Nite Songs’ and, the more I think on it, the more convinced I am that it is the finest British rock album of the last decade and a half. If you’re a rock fan who hasn’t heard this, you owe it to yourself to get that remedied.

* I am aware the prefix ‘schizo-’ usually omits the ‘t’ found here. I am equally aware, though, that ‘schizophonic’ isn’t actually a word, and is therefore not misspelled.

** Oxymoron?