She was also in China Moon, another moody (if predictable) thriller with Ed Harris which I enjoyed. She was a good tragic figure for a few years. And beyooteeful too. I saw Blink about ten years ago - loved the mood of the piece, and the music, and made a point of buying the soundtrack (which I never do), and then one of the Drovers records. I'll dig the CD's out...play it for you at the CD club.

And kudos to you for the City Girl choice - a great song. I've only started listening to it in the last month or so, but love it.

Re Gian's latest list - I took a look, and am, not surprisingly, not impressed. The overlap with the as yet unpublished (also undecided, unconsidered, and unexistent) BD 50 are 4 strong winds, Heart of Gold, Suzanne, The Weight, Universal Soldier, Echo Beach, Rise Up, and definitely Coax Me. A number of other goodies on the CBC list but not good enough for my Top 50. Hey, they had a chance to put on Pagliaro and they blew it.

What ever happened to Madeleine Stowe? She was in some decent films in the early '90s...Short Cuts, Last of the Moochachas (okay, Mohicans, but Sarah prefers pronouncing it thusly so I follow), 12 Monkeys....and then just sort of disappeared. I enjoyed 'Blink' (though the best blind woman thriller has to go to 'Wait Until Dark' w/ Audrey Hepburn) but I don't remember the song at all. Did you see it recently? Do you own the album? If so, I'd like to hear it again.

And one more movie song - from the little-seen but quite excellent thriller "Blink" (1994 - Michael Apted...great rental), there are three memorable songs by Chicago based Celtic rockers "The Drovers", who appear in the film as well. Each of them is good in its own way, though my fave is the opener "The Boys and the Babies", energetic trad-Celtic beat mixed with an angsty-punk vocal, and a rollicking trombone to carry it along. And it didn't hurt to have a beautiful, blind (well, not really) Madeleine Stowe playing violin in the band. Ar.

'Play Misty for Me'! What a great film, and a sad reminder that I still do not own a cool black convertible porsche like mr. eastwood drives through monterey in that flick. Great song as well.

A more recent film that I forgot to mention was 'Lost in Translation', which featured 'City Girl' by Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine (as well as some older gems from MBV and Jesus & Mary Chain).

On a purely administrative note, I have to change the next music club date from april 7th to, well can we do the following thursday, april 14th? I'm hoping that won't be too big of a problem for everyone.

Also, I didn't get a chance to listen to it all over the weekend but I thought I'd invite your comments on CBC's 50 Tracks . Here's the twist: Though no doubt there will be much teeth-gnashing and the urge to lambast Jian et al for what is clearly a flawed list, I'm asking you to point out the tracks you thought were good picks.

Thanks for the tips Brian,
I do have most of the Parsons, Byrds stuff, but Ill check out the other stuff (i,ve read numerous refs to the New riders)
s

Another quick thought on movie songs - Roberta Flack's "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" from Play Misty For Me.

Interesting that you should mention Gene Clark, because I've been going through a small GC phase recently myself - though just from Kazaa downloads so it's a bit hit and miss. Re second tier artists / records, I do like a lot of it, but I've always assumed that you knew all of the same music. I'll pretend for now that you don't.....Some of the thoughts that come into my head are: start with the Byrds. Certainly "Sweetheart of the Rodeo", the first album on which Gram Parsons joined in, and then get your hands on "Ballad of Easy Rider" if you haven't already - it's a beautiful country rock record. Their reunion record from 1973 (cleverly entitled "The Byrds") is not nearly as good but has a few gorgeous folk/country rock (FCR from this point forward) tracks, particularly two Gene Clark numbers ("Changing Heart" and "Full Circle").

If you haven't worked over the early Grateful Dead records you should - I'm sure you have...but Workingman's Dead and American Beauty are quintessential. A lot of my other fave FCR artists come out of that San Francisco scene. New Riders of the Purple Sage made some very appealing FCR in the early seventies - I own two albums, the first one and the "Panama Red" one, and they're both very engaging and well worth a listen. Loved Moby Grape, and although it's not as purely country as Gene Clark etc, a lot of it is very bluesy-country and fits the bill. I have a great box set that I can lend you. I know you know all the Springfield stuff but for those following along at home it's all excellent. Another record (well, records) I would highly recommend is the Beau Brummels "Bradley's Barn", as well as its predecessor "Triangle", from '67 or so. The BB's are best known these days for some light pop around 1964 ("Laugh Laugh" and others), but they made two great country-rock records a few years later. The Youngbloods (you know "Get Together") also made a couple of very nice FCR records in the late sixties as well.

Re Stills etc, his work with Manassas is really very good, particularly the first record (there are two I think). And re solo records, I picked up some related stuff last year - the first solos for David Crosby (If I could Only Remember My Name) and Roger McGuinn (self-titled) and they were both very very good. Not FCR strictly speaking but diverse and interesting.

Enough for now...Any that you want to mention?

Okay, I cringed but I kept on reading, and then I thought I should write something, lest your post be greeted with that horrible wall of silence we've all experienced from time to time on this blog. Though I'm not a great fan of country rock, I'm open minded and in possession of a turntable so I encourage you to bring some Gene Clark and Steven Stills to the next cd/music club, Stuart.

I asked for submissions for music from films and then quietly buggered off for the rest of the week, which I will blame as always on my hectic travel sched. Since I'm back in the office for the rest of the month, I have no such excuse for the next week or so.

There are probably some good all time greats like Mrs. Robinson or Night Fever that I could mention but these seem a little obvious so I'll go with some more recent choices:

-Jaan Pehechaan Ho - Mohammed Rafi (‘Ghost World’) - great way to start off a film and set the tone
-Trees Lounge – Hayden (‘Trees Lounge’) - while it appeared only at the end, it seemed to sum up the general feeling of the film and the slack desperation of Steve Buscemi's character
-Fight the Power – Public Enemy (‘Do the Right Thing’) - again, an opening credits sequence, set to a young woman dancing, signaled the forthcoming bombastic and righteous storyline to follow
-Miss Misery - Elliot Smith ('Good Will Hunting') - there were a few more of his tracks sprinkled throughout the film but this was the one that was nominated for an award and was consistent with the turmoil and tension between Matt Damon and Minnie Driver's characters (how do we keep working this woman into the blog....)

Gotta say I love the Lulu pick, would agree that most of the Tarantino soundtracks are solid and that there's a big difference between a song that is tacked onto the soundtrack (ie. U2's "Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me" from Batman Forever, which is a decent enough song, but had nothing to do with the movie--not that its inclusion would have improved the film as a whole) and one that enhances the scene in which it plays (ie. the original music by György Ligeti and Jocelyn Pook in the underappreciated 'Eyes Wide Shut', without which, the nerve-wracking creepiness in almost every scene wouldn't have been half as palpable).

This will only be of interest to some of you, however, I have found myself listening to a Gene Clark cd I bought a few years ago and loving it to death. Its called white light. Clark is ex Byrds and has been a principle guy in the early country rock, (if you just cringed stop reading here),a founder some think. I have also been listening to Steven stills first record (self titled) which I picked up last winter ($5 for an old LP), and loving it too. Stills is not unrelated to this whole genre perhaps coming more from the folk point of view , but also county influenced. In short, I was wondering if any of you had any recommendations for this second tier level of artists in this genre (ie crosby, nash, messina, other ex birds, etc ) . I think the public has missed out on some truly great stuff..... ( I realise this blog will probably be greeted by a great wall of silence and thats Ok..)

Or Clint Eastwood's score for Million Dollar baby. (Yes, he composed it. The man is a genius. But I digress.)

I assumed Kyle was looking for songs that were written for the movie, and not necessarily Oscar candidates or winners, thank God...so my first few choices, more to follow, were:

(1) To Sir With Love - Lulu
(2) Alfie - Cilla Black (c. Burt Bacharach)
(3) Georgy Girl - The New Seekers

All set in swinging London in the sixties. Obviously a fave period of mine.

There aren't too many films where I can recall an original song being a big part of my enjoyment of the film. The music that tends to make an impact with me is incidental music scored for the entire film such as Jon Brion's "Punch Drunk Love", Thomas Newman's "American Beauty" or Yann Tiersen's "Amelie" to name 3 recent examples. Songs that register with me tend to be older tracks that have been used in scenes where they make perfect sense as opposed to being tacked on to add some extra value to the CD that accompanies the film. So with that in mind some of my favourite movie/song moments are:

"Son of a Preacher Man" - Pulp Fiction
"Stuck in the Middle With You" - Reservoir Dogs
"Lust for Life" - Trainspotting
"Sing Sing Sing" - Bright Young Things
"Moon River" - Breakfast at Tiffany's"
"Everything You Do is a Balloon" - Morvern Callar


And one that still resonates to this day "Man in Motion" from St. Elmo's Fire.

Kyle do the songs have to have been Oscar winners (dammit! theres always somethin about me and rules....)IF so I can only think of one song in my lifetime that I thought worthy, and believe it or not its Philadelphia by Springsteen. This song is unlike pretty much anything he has ever done and tied in beautifully with the film itself. It supported the movie rather then being a distraction from it. The film I thought was the first and last really good film Hanks has ever done. Ive never understood his appeal at all. This film runs the risk of being shot down for sentimentalising such a serious topic (AIDS) however I bought into it completly and the film and song have remained forever linked since, which is I guess the whole point of an "oscar" song....hold on.... i think our boy elliott smith had an oscar song with miss misery? ....also....I think Shaft- Issac Hayes was an oscar winner , and aside from political correctness issues ....man that song still knocks my socks off.
s

Bah humbug. I think the difference between our opinions starts a lot further back than this particular film - it's about the American film tradition. The whole aesthetic in fact. Your reference to Hallmark Movie of the week is quite appropriate - but only in that light. It's naturally naive, cliched-sounding at times, but when done well, which this was, it can still resonate. It's a style I can enjoy - a similar film that comes to mind in tone and allegorical style is Shawshank Redemption, love it or hate it (I actually didn't like it that much). Anyway, gotta say I found MDB very moving, which means I had fun, and you didn't. So nah nah nah nah nah. Guess I'm just a softy.

Sorry to harp on about movies but MDB was as riveting as any other Sunday night Hallmark movie of the week, which is to say not at all. Some of the scenes previously mentioned were cringe inducingly bad. And apart from these scenes what did we have but more Rocky'esque scenes of hyper-speed boxing and wise tired old words exchanged by Clint and Morgan. I didn't buy into it one bit. About as moving and relevant as "The Other Side of the Mountain".

Great idea for a list....I'm on it. I'll start with the sixties.

Re MDB...you say contrvied, I say thematically consistent. Not to say that there weren't a few trite moments (you've identified the worst of them, though I don't agree about the "MF beating the shit out of the punk"), but I found the mood to be brilliantly evoked, the inevitable sadness profound, and the build up to a few critical moments agonizingly well done.

way to embrace your inner youth, bri, or alternatively, your dirty old man's penchant for the young and nubile (welcome to the club).

have to say though, that i wasn't as impressed with either 'million dollar baby' or clint's performance. to me, it seemed like more of a showcase for his teeth-gritting, lone wolf tough guy act more than anything, and found the story as a whole a little too contrived, especially with its moments of catharsis (morgan freeman punching the lippy boxer, hilary swank telling off her greedy mother). i'll grant you hillary swank's oscar worthy performance, though i always find her equine features a tad unsettling.

never saw 'the aviator' or 'ray', mostly because i find biopics tiresome...they all seem to follow the same narrative arc (obscure guy shocks the system, rises to fame, runs into problems, has fight with wife who breaks an item of furniture, finds redemption). all more or less variations on the story of christ, i guess. never saw the mel gibson movie either, a recut version of which was recently re-released. not sure if i'm into prolonged scenes of torture without any kind of self-referential tarantino-esque humour accompanying it.

since we're on the topic of movies, and since i mentioned some of the other films that were nominated for oscars this year, and since this is a music blog and since we've been without a list query for awhile and since...okay okay i'll get to the point. the 'best original song' category always causes me to gnash my teeth and wail because of the piss poor quality of the nominees year in year out. but clearly, there have been some great songs from great films and not so great films so i ask you, what are your top 5 songs from a film, alltime?

Yeah!! What? Oh right, Minnie Driver. Getting on a bit on wouldn't you say...why, she must be mid-thirties?? At least. Wow.

re Shins, I'll still go. Love hanging out with the OC gang. Such nice skin.

And very belatedly, I saw "Million Dollar Baby" on the weekend and thought it was very (surprisingly) strong. Very American cinematic, with a powerful, operatic sort of a script. Clint was outstanding in it - and I don't use that term lightly, he's a fucking terrible actor most of the time...and I'm a fan anyway - and Hillary was even better. Amazing range she has...she gets my nod (well, this week wnyway) for best female actor working today (sorry Derek, I like Samantha Morton too).

Derek maybe you can splain the Ms Driver thang. I saw a picture of what I took to be the actress in Now claiming her band was coming to the Drake as you mention. Is this really the actress, if so does she have any merit other then her beauty )Not that theres anything wrong with going to the Drake for that reason alone...)

didn't realize it was an all-ages gig. maybe you can get minnie to belt out 'kissing the lipless' or better yet [insert joke about kissing her].

Since we're doing lists these days:

#1 - I just read the bleedin' listing last night
#2 - Yes its a good album (maybe two?) but $21??
#3 - Going to concerts south of the Gardiner is just so 90's
#4 - It's an all ages show which means it will be full of kids who just dig them because they heard them on the O.C.
#5 - I'm saving my money to see the divine Ms. Driver at Lee's a week later

okay, since my last post seemed to slam the doors shut on any conversation, let me pose this question:

how come no one told me that the shins were coming on april 17th?

my excuse for not knowing is that i'm never in the effing country. what are your excuses?

now that the smoke has cleared, let me chime in to say:

1) Thursday April 7th is a go for the next cd club meeting at my place, directions to follow as we approach that date
2) i'm in for the spinatra or whatever the hell was suggested, unjustly or otherwise, by mr. doyle (will follow up the link and spelling in due course, bri)
3) i don't mind if stuart picks the next classical piece and in fact will happily grant him my turn in the rotation as well
4) marc, you're this close to having your blogging priviledges suspended if you keep clicking the publish post button everytime your screen doesn't load
5) actually, i don't have a fifth point but thought there should be one anyway

am in seattle for the next couple of days and may try to see m.i.a. tonight, if they still have tickets available. will be away for the bclub on wednesday so have fun at bettys and enjoy the wings you bastages who will be in attendance.

Hey marc, at least you didnt get dissed 4 times in a row. I thought you were just trying to really make your point.... OK Apologies to Brian, I didnt realize Derek picked the last one. Never-the-less I'd like a shot at picking the next one after Janacek , if thats OK w you Brian, Ill probably need the next 3 months anyway just to find something you guys dont have already....
yours humbly (and suitably chastised!)
s

OK boys, the 7th is officially fine for me. We haven't got the go ahead from our host yet, so I'm assuming it's tentative for now.

As for classical selection, Stuart, stop trying to control everybody.

...and apparently i have a propensity for repeating myself!...not exactly sure how that happened; repeatedly said it could not publish and then went ahead and posted them anyway...boy do i i feel silly!

Stuart's propensity for rule making must be a backlash to the Ontario Building Code compliance examinations he is being forced to write...so Stuart, what's the setback from the sidewall to the lot line on your proposed classical music survey?

Stuart's propensity for rule making must be a backlash to the Ontario Building Code compliance examinations he is being forced to write...so Stuart, what's the setback from the sidewall to the lot line on your proposed classical music survey?

Stuart's propensity for rule making must be a backlash to the Ontario Building Code compliance examinations he is being forced to write...so Stuart, what's the setback from the sidewall to the lot line on your proposed classical music survey?

Stuart's propensity for rule making must be a backlash reaction to the exams he is writing for Ontario Building Code compliance...it's all about the rules you see!...so Stuart, what's the setback from the side wall to the lot line on that classical music survey?

First things first. Yes Stuart you are out of your fuckin mind. Secondly I would normally be the last guy to come to Brian's defence (after all he is indefensible) but he did not select the classical music piece that we listened to several months back. The Honneger was selected by yours truly.

Janacek sounds good to me.

Count me in for the janecek but.....I beleive this makes 2 choices in a row for you brian, and as I am a democratically minded fellow (unlike your passive fascist character)......for the next time...... I vote for a rotation on this classical music survey that we are doing.
I realise Brian and Derek have large amounts of classical so they or anyone may veto suggestions that are not new or interesting. I know I know rules again......
what do you guys think? am I out of my f...mind?
s

Here's a link to a description of the Sinfonietta if you're interested.
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=42:29360~T1

Archer Who?

OK, you smug bastard (sorry, lovely smug bastard), you got one of 'em. But there are many many more than that. Well, five. Anyway, I think you need to hustle out and buy a few new ones to keep up.

Is everyone on board for the Janacek?

It's just possible that the 7th is less than perfect for me. Given Stu's issues we might have to move it to the next week (I've got my M-I-L visiting from Oz that week). I'll confirm the date later today.

The 7th is OK for me, but not sooner as I am studying for an exam which takes place on the afternoon of the 7th. ( I will be in the mood for drinking after this so dont count on any usefull dissertations on music .....like I usually provide??)
s

guy, guys!...where's the love...show a bit of da' love!

Hey buddy bring it on!! Hopefully you've got more than the latest Archer Prewitt in your arsenal. Sign me up for the 7th.

once again, at the risk of sounding like nothing ever happens in my life, yeah the 7th is fine for m, as are any of the 4th through 8th...from now on you might just want to assume that i can make it...how sad is that!

Oh for the love of Pete how many tickets can one man have?? Time you settled down like the rest of us and snoozed on the couch in the evenings. Highly recommended. I'm a little sleepy now come to think of it.

I just had a successful Soundscapes outing and am feeling the need to duke it out with Derek manna a manno - number, quality, variety, I got it all.

So, reluctantly, and with the full undertsanding that multiple beers will be bought by the Scotch Man at the next opportunity for his lack of consideration, I suggest we look at the week of April 4 - 8. How about Thursday the seventh?

Sorry to put a spanner in the works boys but I wont be able to attend a CD club prior to April 3. Feel free to go ahead without me although I know that the music I planned to bring kicks ass. Well it's better than the new Jennifer Lopez album at any rate.

Precious little purchased by me in the past couple of months, Kylie. I need the excuse of the CD Club to go and lighten my wallet a little bit. Definitely a few things I'm curious about right now. I'd tell you but.....

i may scoff, scorn, or mock and i frequently deride but i never sneer, stuart.

and i'm in for april 1st. we can have the meeting at my place, say around 7:30pm. i'll email the details as we get closer to the date. i'm also fine with Janacek's Sinfonietta (thank god for copy&pasting functionality--you typed that, bri?)

anyone pick up any interesting music lately, apart from obvious solo projects from lead singers of bands that were cool 16 years ago (note to sw: this officially qualifies as a 'dig')?

'the digital urn for a digital age' or whatever its called by bright eyes is decent but doesn't exactly rock my work. i'm told the more acoustic release is better. is this true? i'm enjoying the latest 'stars' disc. also, anyone catch the new beck tunes on 'the oc' hier soir?

Frankly,
I am just so happy not to have Kyles sneering email to me (on Ian Brown), everytime I check for life on metabeats that .... Ill agree to anything. April 1 is fine for me....

April 1st???????...are you trying to pull a fast one on me?...ok, the 1st will do just fine. I think i have to get a life...Evidently i do not have enough scheduling conflicts.

How's the 1st for everyone?

No can do on the 31st I'm afraid. I have tickets for a show that night. And the 30th if I'm not mistaken.

I'm good for the 31st.

OK boys, seriously...I know we're capable of this......when's the CD club? I'll throw out a date to get the ball rolling. Thursday March 31st?

Going to hit the shops tomorrow to buy "CD Club music".

Are we going to try a classical piece again this time? If so, I nominate Janacek's Sinfonietta.

Ian Brown reminds you of Oasis?! No, no no no no! Oasis reminds you of the Stone Roses!!!

Sorry to italicize there, Stuart but you had it coming... I'm not sure any band ever lives up to the hype but the first Stone Roses album is at the very least, one of the better pop releases in the last 20 years. Revisit it. Now!

Also, my apologies for my recent absence from the blogosphere and my non-committal on a cd club date but 1) I've been really busy with work and travelling like crazy 2) i have been itching and scratching for the past 6 days due to an unforeseen and wholly irritating allergic reaction I'm having due to, what is presumed at this point but cannot definitively blamed on, new fabric softener sheets, and 3) i'm waiting to hear back from some clients before i can firm up my schedule for the end of march. Are there any dates the week of March 28 to April 1st that won't work for any of you?

Regarding the NYT Magazine article and the quote that you posted, Derek...

It's a rule of thumb that marketing people are completely full of shit but in this case, I think Ms. Fishman has her head completely up her ass. While I don't dispute the usefulness of demographic segmentation, attributing the lack of enthusiasm for a Motley Crue revival among my cohert to bad parenting and schooling is a bit much. I'd like to think it's because generationally, we're less lame than the Boomers, whose endless evocations of Woodstock and 60s nostaglia become more grating with each 'For What it's Worth' soundtracked, 'bombs dropping on Vietnam and prostesters putting flowers in gun' montage that crops up on tv every other week.

But I think the main reason for the low attendance at these nostalgic tours is mainly a numbers game. There are a lot more Boomers than GenXers so the market is just smaller for the kind of self-absorbed, remember-when-we-were-cool navel-gazing that would precipitate the purchase of a Billy Idol revival ticket.

On another note, has anybody heard any music from a NY band called, "Brazilian Girls"? I almost picked up the disc a few weeks ago after listening to a few tracks and reading a lot of hype but was put off by the cd cover. Is this wrong? Am I shallow? You can see what I mean here. You can listen to them here.

Hope to have some dates suggested soon.

Bill bought a cd into work recently that his university girls have been listening to.-Ian Brown -solarized. ( popular with the kids). I dig it baby, sort of like Oasis but less formulaic at least to my mind. Also a bit seventies influenced, which is never a bad thing for me.
I checked out some of his other albums on allmusic and found him to be the singer of stone roses, which is odd, because as much as I have tried ( and I have put some serious effort into it) I just dont get what all the fuss is about the stone roses.
Maybe some of you could let me know how his work with them is so much better ( as I predict will be your response) then his latter solo stuff. or if you like his solo stuff, what is good?