Fake book titles #1

It takes a Rush fan to love Toronto: An Insider's Outsider's Insider's look

Why couldn’t my newspaper do that?

From Wired: LA Times Kills Column Advocating Princely CD Giveaway

Hugh Dillon is the man

The former Joe Dick and former Headstones frontman has come a long way. His new starring role, in "Durham County", has the former (still?) head banger taking on middle class suburbia not as a punk, but as a cop with a hidden secret. Set against the backdrop of wasteland suburbia, the Sweeney family begins their new life in a new county, with Dillon playing the patriarch Mike, looking for a fresh start after the death of his partner. Dillon's antagonist just happens to be an old high school buddy, (played by CanCon favourite Justin Louis) except the two had a falling out... and now they live across from each other! Conflict is character! Character is conflict!

Some of the highlights include dramatic, introspective scenes with Mr. Dillon dealing with family issues while his own music serves as the soundtrack! What a fucking cool job!

Links:
Durham County [imdb site]

Standing in the Shadows of Motown

One 2-hour documentary and one of my favourite groups finally has a name. The Funk Brothers. As Motown's house band from the early '60s to about 1972, they provided the backing instrumentals to over 240 hits. Astonishingly, the group has been forced to live in relative obscurity until 2002's Standing in the Shadows of Motown. The doc goes through the early days of the label's formation, the day-to-day of Studio A (aka the Snake Pit), and the people & personalities who added the true character of America's greatest pop machine.
The group pretty much disbanded when the Motor City Hit machine sold... er... moved out to sunny Los Angeles.
Say what you will, but after the Funk Brothers were no longer behind the hits, it took Lionel Richie and Rick James to bring the label anywhere near its former glory.

The film feels far too short, and despite bevy of special features (including 'Dinner with the Funk Brothers'), only a Ken Burns length documentary would provide any sliver of justice to their criminally underappreciated and virtually unrecognized career. The horn players are pretty much ignored, with the narrative focus on the rhythm players and Martha Reeves is the only vocalist from the era interviewed.
The best moments are the group playing together once again, specifically the moments in Studio A where they jam, or a great moment when Pistol Allen explains how you can tell which of the three drummers was on the kit for a particular song, just by listening to the drum fills.
A live, "reunion" performance, cut to throughout the film, is hit and miss. If you can put up with Joan Osborne and Ben Harper butchering classic performances for the sake of hearing the Funk Brothers play together once again, the show is electric.
Essential viewing for those interested in American pop music.

Links:
Standing in the Shadows of Motown [Official Site]
Standing in the Shadows of Motown [imdb Site]

Chris Cornell is not my lover

Here's another one from the 'bad covers' dossier.

Chris Cornell's rendition of one of the most influential pop songs of all time, 'Billie Jean', officially signals the death of irony. Where we might get the sense that Marilyn Manson somewhere, somehow, deep down, way deep down, MM desperately wanted to once again drink from the cup of skirting with self-parodizing, Cornell presents this as a fully-fledged album track.

I really want to give him another chance, I really do. But after the unimpressive Euphoria Morning, and down-in-flames-Zeppelin-crashing (and 5 years later, still one of the ultimate lackluster and unfulfilling titles in rock history) Audioslave, this yawner has got me stunned. The primary author of the grunge-era megasmash Superunknown settles in to mid-age mediocrity and he's probably loving it. But even though he's four bond themes removed from Tina Turner, and with the Billboard AC chart only two albums away, I don't blame him. After his substance struggles and pretty much hitting rock-bottom, it's his right to take the glass of lemonade instead of the Jack.

Links:
Chris Cornell - Billie Jean [Live in Toronto 2007] (Be warned; the audience is embarrassing.)
Artisan News Service: Chris Cornell on Billie Jean
Chris Cornell - You Know My Name
Audioslave - Original Fire

14 weeks and counting...

What a cruel world we live in where Linkin Park's pop-crossover attempt 'What I've Done' as remained at the top of the Billboard Modern Rock chart for 14 straight weeks, unseating Nine Inch Nails' 'Survivalism' after just one week.

Cruel indeed.

Linkin Park has always had a slick, manufactured feel, but this album feels closer to pop than metal (since screaming has become mainstream, that is). The next single 'Bleed it Out' looks poised for a similar run, with its radio-ready guitar hooks and hand claps. I really thought American pop was supposed to be done with payola? Almost makes me yearn for Meteora. Almost... almost.

I'd give the album a proper review, except I don't really care to listen to it, and Dan Silver at NME pretty much summed it up.

However, the medal for Worst Thing I've Heard in 2007 so far is Marilyn Manson's brutal, fucking brutal cover of Timb/a/erlake/land's What Goes Around... I've considered this career choice (and at this point everything for him is a career choice, when you're crawling up from rock bottom) and the only explanation I can come up with is the following thought must have run through his head: "hey, the hipsters like it, and maybe if I cover it I can be hip, too." Unfortunately, the touches of irony that graced his pre-Tainted Love covers are now totally absent and the track comes of as little more than embarrassing. No one would have blamed him for calling it quits after 1999, but it sure seems like that would have been the right career move.
Mechanical Animals is still in my top 250ish favourite albums... a bit bloated, but that was sorta the point.

Links:

Linkin Park - What I've Done
Nine Inch Nails - Survivalism
Marilyn Manson - What Goes Around... [on BBC Radio 1]