The video for Generationals’ “Reviver” takes an interest in quaint old county-fair motocross races. The band has a vaguely ‘70s vibe itself—upbeat pop that you might play at the school dance. “Reviver” is on the new Generationals album Alix.
Monthly Archives: January 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Magic number: 31450
Magic word: spinny
Five Books I’ve Read That Feature Appearances By Their Own Authors
Clive Cussler, Crescent Dawn. Cussler loans his adventure hero Dirk Pitt his antique roadster.
Leslie Charteris, Salvage for the Saint. Technically, Charteris didn’t write this Saint book. But it has his characters, and was ghostwritten based on a teleplay for the Return of the Saint series starring Ian Ogilvy. It’s such a well-written story that it’s one of just a few non-Charteris Saint adventures reissued as part of the massive Saint e-book reissue last year.
Martin Amis, Money. Amis, who’s appeared in other of his novels, meets his fictional protagonist in a bar.
Joseph Payne Brennan, the Lucius Leffing stories. Brennan is the Watson to Leffing supernaturally inclined Sherlock in this New Haven-based series.
Oh, and the Kinky Friedman mystery novels.
Rock Gods #321: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene
The Hummel Brothers, a sibling folk trio, can intuit each other’s inner feelings the way only family members can. This leads to some gorgeous harmonies. But God forbid one of them forgets some lyrics. Because fighting is another thing families are good at.
When Joe Hummel missed the bridge “Heart of Kentucky” at a Bullfinch happy hour set Wednesday, brothers Bill and Jim both erupted. Four shattered pint glasses later, the set was abruptly over, and the brothers still had to grab their gear, drive home together… and prepare for tonight’s gig at the Fool You coffeehouse.
The BeSticks and Brass Kettle Professionals, college professor rock, at the Bullfinch. Yes, It’s “Soak Your Term Paper Night” again. … The Cohassets and All About Swing at Hamilton’s. More old people dancing. … An Evening With Yield on Green at D’Ollaire’s.
Riverdale Book Review
The Fox network has given the go-ahead for a pilot episode of a series called Riverdale, described as “a bold, subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica and their friends, exploring the surreality of small-town life — the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade.” Some of the talent connected to the project have some experience with that sort of thing. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa writes Afterlife With Archie, was on the writing staff of Glee, and combined both pursuits in the special comic series Archie Meets Glee. Producer Greg Berlanti has previously squired Green Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl to the small screen.
This won’t be the first live-action Archie TV series pilot. It’ll be at least the fourth.
In 1964, there was a sitcom with a lot of familiar TV faces (William Schallert, Roland Winters, Mary Grace Canfield, Jean Vanderpyl) playing various Riverdale parents and teachers; John Simpson played Archie.
In 1978 there was a sketch-based series starring David Caruso as Archie and Derrell Maury as Jughead. Essentially the same cast reconvened for a slightly different variety-show-style pilot.
Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again was broadcast in 1990 and released on VHS tape. It aged the teen characters into their 20s, a precursor of sorts to the recent Life With Archie magazine.
In 2012, a four-minute faux trailer for a realistic Archie film called Riverdale was posted on Youtube. It won a Canadian Comedy Award for Funniest Web Clip, but seems remarkably like what the forthcoming Fox pilot Riverdale appears to be going for in earnest.
For Tomorrow We Shall Die: Diary of a College Chum #271:
We have decided not to have a club.
Scribblers Music Review
Propulsive yet reflective is a neat trick, but “We’ve Come So Far” by A Place to Bury Strangers really stops to smell the neuroses. It’s a hasty, headlong, lyric, but controlled and focus within all that rhythm and noise, forming supernaturally into rough harmony-filled choruses. Five minutes long but feels like two.
Tuesday, Jan. 13
Magic number: 47329
Magic word: freeze
Twelve Shows I Saw at the Palace Theater in New Haven
There’s apparently some big announcement tomorrow about the future of the Palace performing arts space across from the Shubert theater on College Street. One of the people who’ll be there is Elissa O. Getto, who’s the president of some new non-profit organization called New Haven Center For Performing Arts, so that’s a big hint. Getto was on the administrative team that pulled the Stamford Center for the Arts out of bankruptcy. Also set to appear at Wednesday’s announcement: the leaders of two of the city’s biggest and most reliable bookers/promoters of rock shows, Premier Concerts and Manic Productions. Mayor Harp and city Ec. Dev. guru Matt Nemerson will also be there, plus (this is significant), Kip Bergstrom, who’s the big arts-funding poombah for the whole state.
It’s not all that long ago that the Palace closed its doors. It’s had a shorter nap than the Shubert did in the ‘70s. But it petered out slowly, so some may think it’s been closed since the ‘90s when actually it lasted into the ‘00s. It was kept going by gospel musicals, hip-hop shows and jam bands for its last few years. The place had been a popular downtown movie house, The Roger Sherman, since the 1920s, and became the Palace in 1984. The late ‘80s is when I started seeing shows there, and I saw some doozies.
Lou Reed. The Set the Twilight Reeling tour, 1996. I still have the T-shirt.
The Polish political cabaret troupe Piwnica pod Baraniami (Cellar Under the Rams). This was around ’86, ’87. Have that T-shirt too.
Tori Amos (at least twice, I think)
‘70s Soul Jam, with The Chi-Lites, Delfonics, Stylistics, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes and more. Major Harris turned up in three of the acts. This very long show was turned into a PBS special hosted by Jimmie J.J. Walker, and released as a multi-volume VHS tape set.
Joan Armatrading. A down-on-his-luck Graham Nash was the opening act.
Brian May, July 1993. The New Haven Coliseum was still open then, and May was probably wondering why he wasn’t playing over there.
Bjork, with Tricky.
Fawn Hall (of one of the Bill Clinton sex scandals) in a non-Equity national tour of O, Calcutta!
Meat Loaf introducing a community theater production of The Rocky Horror Show.
Cake and Crash Test Dummies. Why not?
The soul/gospel musical A Good Man is Hard to Find.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at one of the early Arts & Ideas festivals.
I saw many other shows at the Palace, but that’ll give you an idea of the range that can occur when you have a theater of that size in the center of New Haven. Even if they scale it down to a Toad’s Place-sized club, as was rumored years ago, that would still be a big deal.
Rock Gods #320: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene
It’s always fun to watch the faces of an audience when a band they’ve never heard of turns out to be a classical ensemble. We’ve witnessed this phenomenon several times, and while the reaction’s visceral, it’s not what you might think.
It’s expectant, not exasperated. Nobody’s expecting to be bored. Nobody thinks the band lost their way to the concert hall cross town. (How do you get to Symphony Hall? Practice!)
There is an air of anticipation, though, truthfully, there are really just two ways this will play out: the ensemble will either do an elaborate, classically tinged cover of a familiar hard rock song, or it will do a crazed, quasi-cacophonic new-music piece.
The Clown Classical did something different at the Bullfinch Sunday afternoon at the open mic, something that nearly got kicked out of the place. Rather than assuming the usual classical-in-a-club posture of groveling for acceptance, they showed off. They studied the four acts that came on before them, then improvised a medley of those prior songs. Only one of the adapted tunes was a well-known cover. The others were originals, which the Clowns had already processed and memorized and mentally arranged so they could recreate them virtuosically.
The quartet was extremely proud of itself when it finished its brief, beyond-impressive set. But they made the inexcusable error of appearing smug. They did nothing to acknowledge the composers of their impromptu concert. They didn’t say anything at all. They overdid the bows. They left right away, too soon even to see some of the more sensitive punks in the rooms reaching for their proverbial pitchforks.
More is to be heard from The Clown Classical. Maybe they thought they were doing a clever classical hit-and-run routine. But they’re too clever by half. Go to the back of the class.
Tonight: Barry Blatz, back with a new name and pick-up band, at the Bullfinch… Feature Creature at Hamilton’s, a ghoul-rock tribute… One Long Song at D’ollaire’s…