Bradley James Weber

Startling Stories for All Ages

Blog

Audio Review: Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone

By

Flog me for an idiot — and for thinking this review was on the site when it’s been in the DRAFTS folder the whole time.

So, special thanks to the fine folks over at Brilliance Audio for sending the CDs and apy-polly-loggies to the same, O My Brothers and Sisters, for this  on-the-job fall down.

Right-right-right?

OK.

Having not heard any of Phil Gigante’s work prior to the F&L@RS recordings, I had no idea what to expect from his performance. Which is just as well, because it kept me from wondering how — or even if — he’d shoot for the infamous ‘Hunter Mumble.’

Gigante does, in a way, but not all the way — and that makes all the difference.

When performing Hunter’s words from the RS articles and related correspondence, Gigante delivers a clear and precise reading toward the lower end of his register. The words come quickly and in bursts typical of the good doctors rhythms on The Gonzo Tapes and in recorded interviews. And Gigante easily keeps pace with and conveys Hunter’s changing tone, knowing when to give a straight read, push some rage, or adopt a floating wonder about the future — that kind of verbal ellipsis Depp managed so well in the Vegas movie.

Reading from Jann Wenner’s intro and letters, or the material from Paul Scanlon, Gigante keeps it straight while maintaining an understated tension that may be a carry-over from his reading as Hunter or is his attempt to capture the energy of the time and place, and Hunter’s infectious whirlwind.

Whatever the rationale — and even if there isn’t one — it works. Brilliance Audio has done their typical high-end craftwork of assembling the right talent and crew for the job, making Fear & Loathing at Rolling Stone a terrific listen.

Browse the Brilliance Audio catalog and buy recordings here.

Rum Diary Soundtrack Outclasses Film

By

I’m having the strangest feeling of deja vu

Ninety percent of Christopher Young’s swinging soundtrack has been on high rotation in both my car and the writing cave — very impressive considering the track list is twenty-four songs long.

First, a little explanation for anyone who doesn’t regularly listen to movie soundtracks: the background music, the strings or guitars or horns or whatever providing an emotional bed and/or reinforcement to whatever is happening on the screen is written specifically for those several seconds or minutes of film, then taking cues from what happens next, the composer will truncate a melody or execute an abrupt change in tone. Listening to soundtracks by even the best movie composers (Elfman, Zimmer, Shore, Steiner, Howard, Korngold, Stalling, etc.) can be a disjointed and jarring experience.

Young (Preist, The Fly, Rounders, Spider-Man 2) on the other hand, expanded The Rum Diary‘s themes, beats, and incidental music into complete songs. Each one is fully realized  with a wonderful feel for the era’s music. Put them up against Ultralounge’s Bossa Novaville or Mambo Fever and you’ll see just how close Young gets.

Of the twenty-four tracks, a mere three fail to reach my ears:

1) “Volare” by Dean Martin — the only oldie on the list and a song which sets up a false expectation as it opens the film. It doesn’t come off as ironic, which I’m willing to bet was the point. Another one of Young’s fantastic tracks would have been better.

3) “Suckfish and Snake” — this is, in and of itself, really a fine track. Lots of great rhythms, heavy on sax and Hammond B3 . . . I just can’t stand scat singing. I get it, as a style and technique, but I can’t listen to it.

I hate scat singing. There, I said it. Burn me in effigy.

24) “The Mermaid Song” — there are two versions on the soundtrack:  an instrumental and one that is sung. The instrumental version has a wonderful music box air to it and is really something sweet and special. And and while Patti Smith’s vocals are fine, the lyrics are nothing much to sing about.

Like the O, Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, Young’s Rum Diary music should develop the following it deserves.  If this soundtrack doesn’t get airplay on jazz stations, there is something seriously wrong with the way it’s being marketed.

And when you hear some of these songs in commercials and trailers for other movies in a few months, don’t be surprised.

MP3s are available for download at most online outlets. The physical CD looks to be available sometime just before x-mas.

Soul Train Host Was Former Chicago Cop

By

Would you ever peg this man as having been on the Chicago P.D. ?

Me neither.

Here’s the story from IMDB:

Discovered by WVON Radio personality Ed Cobb. In the mid-1960s, Cobb while driving ran a traffic violation and was pulled over by Chicago Police officer Don Cornelius. While officer Cornelius was asking him the typical traffic stop questions, Cobb noticed his unique speaking voice and told him that he was in the wrong profession. Cobb suggested that Cornelius come down to the radio station and make a demo tape. Don took him up on it and was hired as an announcer.

And some comments on it from the Don himself:

No, no. Never happened. How I knew Roy, for the record, was that I grew up in a three-story building on St. Lawrence Avenue next to a three-story building he lived in for a time.

But he doesn’t deny being a Chicago cop . . . .

Goes to show you never can tell.

MysteriousPress.com

By

This just in from bookstore proprietor, publisher, and editor extraordinaire, Otto Penzler:

 I’m pretty jazzed right now. After two years of hard and often frustrating work, the website of my electronic publishing company is up and running. Click this link — http://mysteriouspress.com/  — if you’d like to see it and the terrific array of books and authors we’re offering. It’s the first day, so only about 40 books are up, but we’ll be adding hundreds more over the next few months.
Yours sincerely, Otto

For all you mystery fans with e-readers and i-Pads, Otto’s site has enough great titles to keep you busy for a good long while. And like he says, more are on the way.

Don’t forget: X-mas is coming on fast, and e-readers are cheap. Buy one, load it with mysteries, and give it to a friend. They’ll thank you.

 

Book Review: Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone

By

  

Assurances were made that a review would be posted on the 24th. It’s still Monday for a few more hours and, after a day of brawling with myself over issues peripheral — but bearing no direct relation — to the book’s contents, I’m back to take another swing.

For the uninitiated or casually familiar, F&L@RS is a fine introduction to The Good Doctor’s non-Vegas Gonzo pieces and a good place to find some of his most incandescent writing. And while the book doesn’t illustrate the evolution of Hunter’s style and craft, these repackaged Rolling Stone articles showcase the results of both the writer and his editors, past and present, in creating finished pieces. It also traces the astonishing climb, stall, and flame-0ut of one of America’s most prolific, insightful, and unstoppable humorists.

Much of the material for this book appeared in the same or similar forms in Hunter’s other collected works, most notably THE GREAT SHARK HUNT. In fact, of the 40 or so articles and letters listed on the contents page, nine were in SHARK HUNT and fourteen in CAMPAIGN TRAIL ’72.

(N.B. — I say, “same or similar forms,” because, according to Paul Scanlon’s warm and excellent intro, he’s re-groomed some of the articles for the new book. While editorial nit-pickers and HST fetishists will no doubt have their jollies with it, I have no time for a full-on stare-and-compare. One day, maybe — but not today.)

Where SHARK HUNT takes a somewhat shotgun approach to the groupings, F&L@RS has the advantage of presenting the pieces chronologically. Following the timeline lets readers see how Hunter’s writing for Rolling Stone fed the success and growth of the magazine, and was responsible for the growth and spread of the Hunterfigure. Readers get to witness the Legend being being printed along with the Truth and bound together, for good and ill, in the public consciousness.

For the hardcore fan or HST scholar, F&L@RS ultimately holds no surprises, though there are two pieces worth particular mention. First, is the inclusion of, “Polo Is My Life” — one of the truly essential pieces of Hunter’s writing that has been MIA for too long. Second is the exclusion of “Dance of the Doomed,”  Hunter’s meditation and final word on the war in Vietnam. The real reason why this was left out is anybody’s guess.