(October 13, 1967; director: Pat Jackson)
Like my all-time favorite TV show, Twin Peaks, The Prisoner takes a turn for the dreamy in its third episode.
The difference is that this is a more scrutable dream. No one’s talking backwards or speaking in non-sequiturs, but this is still a mind-bending story in its own way. It’s one of the wildest trips of the series.
Guided by Voices
Tonics & Twisted Chasers
1996, Rockathon Records
In 1996, we thought that two albums, two EPs and a couple of singles from Robert Pollard in one year was a lot.
We were so innocent back then.
It was a year in which Guided by Voices ran Matador through their paces and released so many records that it became an issue for some people. The “Bob Pollard needs an editor” cliche started up around this time. Critics were running out of things to say about the band and ho-hum’d their way through reviews. I still remember a guy in my dorm in ’96 who said “I liked Guided by Voices for awhile and then Pollard got musical diarrhea”.
And it was in this climate that GBV put out ONE MORE FUCKING ALBUM at the tail end of the year.
The way I remember it, it was a surprise release. No ramp-up. It just showed up one day for sale on their website, announced first through their e-mail list. Mailorder only. Vinyl only. 1,000 copies in a variety of colors. Nothing that would compete for rack space with their other releases (and, thus, not annoy the Matador folks). The artwork was a crude black-and-white photocopy of the Sunfish Holy Breakfast cover photo pasted onto a plain white sleeve. The band put it out themselves just like the old days. The aesthetic was the pseudo-“bootleg” style that they used for live albums such as For All Good Kids, but this time it was an LP of nineteen new songs.
As for the music, Tonics & Twisted Chasers is the sweetly weird work of savages who never sleep. It’s a pile of lo-fi nutcase stuff that stands apart from the year’s other LPs.
It plays like Under the Bushes Under the Stars was a dream that never really happened.
Continue reading “Robert Pollard-Mania! #32: TONICS & TWISTED CHASERS”
The Monkees
Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. LP
1967, Colgems
Guilty pleasures are the best. I love everything about guilty pleasures. That’s why I have about 9,000 of them. Meanwhile, some others outright hate the very expression. “Why should I feel guilty about the things I like?” goes the usual argument. They seem to interpret it as a feeling of shame and ostracism, best avoided. In spirit, I agree, but I still think these people are all mixed up.
Guilt is an exciting emotion and I prefer to savor it.
Continue reading “Things I Will Keep #14: THE MONKEES, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.”
Blackouts can be fun. I learned this back in in 1988 or ’89 when God decided to kick the shit out of the city one summer night with one of the angriest storms I’d ever seen in my life. The rain landed like bullets on the roof of our house and the wind could have carried away your grandma. Somewhere in that assault our electricity conked out and we–my mother, my younger sister and I–had to step away from the TV and gather together by candlelight. The whole night after that was made up of firelight and faces and lots of pitch black space that we filled with conversation.
Nobody had a cellphone that was in desperate need of charging. Nobody had essential information sitting on a now inaccessible computer. All that we lost were the lights and the TV and the refrigerator and we could live without those for a spell. What we had was each other, and that was worth more than what we’d temporarily lost. We were in good shape.
I would have been 11 or 12 at the time and I think that night was formative in my present day love of the baddest of bad weather. An ice storm approaching. An evil black cloud taking over the sky in the middle of a spring day. Thunder. Lightning. Frantic reports from the weatherman.
Continue reading “The Great Dallas, Texas Blackout of June 2019”
Bubblegum Crisis came out way back in 1987, a year when the top preoccupations in my life were comic books, movies, reruns of The Monkees TV show and trying to get Ruby, the cute girl in my 4th grade class, to notice me for even a few seconds. I picked up on rumblings about anime while I browsed the racks at Lone Star Comics (R.I.P.) or when I read comics news ‘n’ reviews mags like Amazing Heroes (R.I.P.) that covered animation on the side, but I never touched the stuff myself.
I don’t know even know how I would have watched this in my little corner of Texas back then. I don’t remember it showing on television. Maybe it was at the video store (R.I.P.), most likely lumped in with Strawberry Shortcake and Inspector Gadget in the greasy kid stuff section.
No matter. Decades later, I’m now digging into some anime at what I’m sure we’d all agree is the perfect time in a person’s life for it: when you’re a broken down, washed-up old man.
SO, in this second episode, Mega Tokyo in 2032 is still in danger from killer robots, but there ARE two major differences from the debut:
a) cartoon nudity
and b) cartoon violent death.
In the US, it took us a lot longer to get our heads around the idea that every animated series didn’t have to be “just for kids”.
Meanwhile, this episode offers up boobs and blood casually, like it’s nothing. Go Japan!
Like many good things, “Born to Kill” begins with the sound of a drum machine.
