Yippie Kay Yay, Mister Falcon

The best edited-for-TV scene ever:

Albums That You Should Own, But Perhaps Don't (And In That Case, You Soon Will): Jeremy Enigk - Return Of The Frog Queen

Jeremy Enigk - Return Of The Frog Queen

The whole purpose of the Albums That You Should Own series is to highlight lesser-known records that might not be a part of your music collection, but I gotta say, the selection process isn't exactly scientific on my end, it involves making some assumptions. In the case of Jeremy Enigk's Return of the Frog Queen, I have to assume that you already own several indispensable Sunny Day Real Estate albums such as Diary, LP2 and How It Feels To Be Something On.

And if you don't, then by all means, familiarize yourself with those gems before delving into Jeremy Enigk's solo work. But if you already own those albums and are ready to start digging a little deeper, you can't do better than by starting with Return of the Frog Queen.

This 1996 album was written and recorded after Sunny Day disbanded for the first time in '95 (they subsequently reunited in '97, disbanded again in '00, and are rumored to be reuniting again this year.) It was quite a departure from Enigk's previous work, mostly due to its orchestral arrangements and largely acoustic setting; miles away from Sunny Day's often bombastic guitar and drum-based rock (or emo, before it became a four-lettered word.)

The nonpareil beauty of Enigk's voice is front and center on all these songs as it is accompanied for the first time by a variety of melodical elements such as mellow violins, cellos and violas, resonant glockenspiels, and mellifluos woodwinds and brass. Stylistically, it's not too far from Syd Barrett's solo work (albeit without the insanity) mixed with some grandiose chamber pop. However, the structure of the songs is not entirely removed from the Sunny Day Real Estate songbook, especially on "Carnival" and "Shade and the Black Hat". The title track and "Explain" are definite highlights of the album for me.

Enjoy:

See Also: ATYSOBPDAITCYSW: The Label!

I See Your "Gambler" And Raise You An "Ace Of Spades"

Mazinga, Goldrake, Jeeg, And Other Japanese Super Robots From My (Italian) Youth

There was no Sesame Street for me growing up in Italy. I'm guessing this is because Big Bird translates literally into Uccello Grande, which is slang for "Big Dick", and who wants to learn anything from a walking, eight-foot-tall dick joke? Not me, that's for sure.

There were, however, a slew of Japanese cartoons that managed to keep my eyes on the television long enough for my mother to get stuff done around the house. Around the late 70s to early 80s especially, there was a huge influx of Japanese Super Robot anime to Italian television.

This genre is characterized by, as some nerd on Wikipedia puts it:

a giant robot, or mecha, with an arsenal of fantastic super-powered weapons... sometimes transformable or combined from two or more robots and/or vehicles usually piloted by young, daring heroes, and often shrouded by mystical or legendary origins... The Super Robot anime shows are usually named after the title robot, and tend to use a "monster of the week" format in that the villains introduce a single antagonist at the beginning of the episode that the heroes usually defeat by its end. Antagonists tended to come from either outer space or ancient civilizations... Many foes employed robot or cyborg henchmen, whom they often sent against the heroes in their robot. The goals of these antagonists varied, although many were megalomaniacal or outright genocidal in their ambitions.

The best-known example of this genre to American viewers is the 1981 cartoon, originally called Beast King GoLion in Japan, that was dubbed and edited in the mid-8os as Voltron to become a hit series and pop-culture icon in the States.

But before there was Voltron, there were oodles of other cool Super Robot series around—in fact, over 60 mecha shows were created in Japan between 1972 and 1988. These led the way for shows like Transformers, Mobile Suit Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and even live action Super Sentai shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

While most of the Super Robot shows were practically interchangeable, from their storylines down to their characters, each one managed to have at least a few memorable characteristics that have stuck with me throughout the years. I've listed some of my favorite Super Robot animes from the era, complete with their obligatory Italian-dubbed theme songs, below.

Enjoy:

Mazinga (aka Mazinger Z; Tranzor Z)

Original Run: 1972-74 (92 Episodes)

Legacy: The O.G. of Super Robot shows, Mazinga was the mold around which the genre was shaped.

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Tekkaman: Il Cavaliere Dello Spazio (aka Uchu No Kishi Tekkaman)

Original Run: 1975 (26 Episodes)

Legacy: Tekkaman was the first Super Robot that was a humanoid instead of just a big machine piloted by a human. However, this did not change the fact that, even at an early age, it was confounding to me that a civilization that possessed the technology to build giant space robots, would still choose to send them into battle wielding swords, instead of cannons, or lasers, or smart bombs, or anything remotely more sophisticated than a fucking sword.

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Goldrake (aka UFO Robot Gredinzer)

Original Run: 1975-77 (74 Episodes)

Legacy: Probably the most iconic Super Robot show that was ever shown in Italy, Goldrake was wildly popular. In fact, I still have my diecast toy figure from the late 70s; it's perhaps the only toy I've hung on to after all these years. Goldrake was also the coolest looking Super Robot, there was something art deco about its lines that really appealed to me.

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Jeeg: Robot D'Acciaio (aka Kotetsu Jeeg)

Original Run: 1975-77 (46 Episodes)

Legacy: The opening theme song is by far my favorite from the period. Even though it's dubbed in Italian, the phrasing is totally Japanese and it's fun to hear the singer try to match all the wild inflections. As a child, I made up my own gibberish version of the lyrics which I would sing ad nauseam to amuse/annoy my sister.

*Starting at 0:31 in the video, sing along: "Yak bau! Niraianisu. Yak bau! Niraianisu..."

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Daitarn 3 (aka Muteki Kujin Daitan 3)

Original Run: 1978-79 (40 Episodes)

Legacy: The 3 in Daitarn's name is derived from the three parts that make up the Super Robot. This tranforming and conjoining aspect was later borrowed by iconic shows like Voltron and Transformers.

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Gordian (aka Toshi Gardian)

Original Run: 1979-81 (73 Episodes)

Legacy: Gordian took the matryoshka (or Russian nesting dolls) approach to how the Super Robot would transform. The pilot would get into three progressively larger robotic body suits that eventually made up the largest robot, Garbin. They could have probably done away with the smaller suits and saved some time.

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Trider G7 (aka Muteki Robotoraida G7)

Original Run: 1980-81 (50 Episodes)

Legacy: I actually don't remember anything about this show except for the opening theme. Seriously, these shows were pretty much all the same.

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Baldios: Il Guerriero Dello Spazio (aka Uchu Senshi Barudiosu)

Original Run: 1980-81 (32 Episodes)

Legacy: This show had the most depressing ending to it than any other Super Robot series. Spoiler alert: the bad guys destroy Earth by triggering a giant Tsunami that floods the planet, killing everyone. The heroes lose, the end. That's some heavy shit for a child to deal with, believe me.

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Voltron (aka Beast King GoLion)

Original Run: 1981-82 (52 Episodes)

Legacy: Well, this one is easy. By far, the most popular Super Robot exported to America from Japan ever. They're even making a big budget live-action Hollywood movie about it, for chrissakes. Look for it in 2011 to possibly suck even more than Transformers and GI Joe.

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Stay tuned for a second instalment featuring non-Super-Robot-related Japanese cartoons from my youth, such as Devilman, Kenshiro, Knights of the Zodiac, and Tigerman.

Jason Lytle's "It's The Weekend" Looks To Dethrone Loverboy For Ultimate Weekend Song

Do you think hip radio stations across the country will start playing this at 5pm on Fridays from now on?

Let's hope so, because it beats the shit out of "Working For The Weekend".

Jason Lytle (formerly of Grandaddy) just released a new album called "Yours Truly, The Commuter" on May 19th.

Robert Sapolsky On The Evolutionary Basis For Religion

I've watched several lectures online by Robert Sapolsky, a professor of Biological and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. He is a very engaging lecturer and the topics he touches on are very interesting.

In this lecture he explores the evolutionary basis and social development of religious belief (which unsurprisingly, is based on a mild form of schizophrenia known as "schizotypal personality"), and also talks about obsessive compulsive disorder and the evolutionary function of certain diseases or disorders.

Fascinating watch, if you have an hour to spare. And think about how much the students in the class are paying for a lecture we get to watch for free.

[Via BoingBoing]

Bazookaluca Classics: One Thing I Love About Japanese People

Since writing new content for this blog takes time, energy and, let's face it, I'm inherintly lazy, I thought I would revisit some of my favorite entries from over the years.

Here's one where I examine my infatuation with a little Japanese program called Sasuke, better known in America as Ninja Warrior. I use it to make some parallels about Japanese culture versus American culture and how failure and success are evaluated in each respective society.

It's a fun piece, perfect for a nice little Saturday. Enjoy:

One Thing I Love About Japanese People

Obama Sucks At Socialism

A bit of a reality check:



[From The Atlantic.]

Concert Review: PJ Harvey & John Parish In Atlanta 6/2/09

It takes a lot to drag my lazy carcass to a concert these days. I've finally narrowed it down to six motivating factors:

1. I personally know the artist and feel obligated to attend.

2. Friends are attending and the artist is adventitious to the social interaction.

3. I am assured a padded seat with an unobstructed view of the artist.

4. I can get in the door for free.

5. I can get drinks for free.

6. The artist is on my shortlist of people I need to see play before I die.

If none of these factors apply, chances are I'd rather spend an evening at home listening to In On The Kill Taker for the five-thousandth time than go spend money and two hours of my life in a smoky club listening to the latest self-indulgent, experimental, gypsy/vaudevillian, furrycore, noise-pop septet from Brooklyn pretend to be artists. It's just not that appealing to me any more.

Fortunately, in the case of PJ Harvey and John Parish's June 2nd concert at Center Stage in Atlanta, several of the motivating factors above came into play. The first being that I had never seen PJ Harvey before and she was definitely on my short list. The second being that, through a bit of luck, I won two tickets to the show by entering an Idolator give-away.

This was key, because a main obstacle on whether I was going to go see her in the first place was the high admission cost—upwards of $130 for two tickets—very expensive for my domestic beer budget. Especially since she was only playing material from her two albums with John Parish, 1996's Dance Hall At Louse Point and this year's A Man A Woman Walked By; which are good and all, but not her best moments.

What I couldn't have taken into account having never seen her before is Harvey's stage presence and innate ability to transform even the most manic, aurally challenging dirges —such as the show closing "Pig Will Not"— into compelling vignettes on stage. Whether she's snarling, yelping, chanting, crooning or serenading, her voice is as good, if not better, live as it is on any record. I found myself a bit starstruck to see her so up close, a feeling I haven't experienced since my teenage years. I really felt like I was in the presence of greatness.

John Parish and his well-dressed band (Giovanni Ferrario on guitar/bass, Eric Drew Feldman on bass/keyboards, and Jean-Marc Butty on drums) played remarkably tight, like a well-seasoned and road-tested crew. Together with Harvey, they turned a mere 3 Bazooka record into an utterly spellbinding experience live.

Songs like the mystical "Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen", the droning "Cracks In The Canvas", and the almost free-form "The Chair", were elevated to a level well above their respective recorded versions.

It's seemingly a rarity these days to see a band that is able to live up to the often clichéd, "they're better live than on record" label; I often find the opposite to be true with younger bands that are aided by the insulation and discretionary capacity of the recording process.

With PJ Harvey and John Parish, it felt as if they made the record to promote their live show, and not the other way around. And that is definitely a motivating factor to go see them practice their craft in the flesh.

The set list:

Pearl Jam Plays New Song On First Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien

Pearl Jam was the first musical guest last night on Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show and they marked the occasion by playing a new song off their forthcoming album, Backspacer. The sound mixing was less than desirable (is it an NBC thing? SNL routinely subverts their musical guests), but the song is unmistakably Pearl Jam. 

Look for Pearl Jam's new album, Backspacer, later this year in the Fall.