Review: 'The Horror Show Guide: The Ultimate Frightfest of Movies'

All right, Mike Mayo, you got me. Based on your rave review in The Horror Show Guide (and I’ll admit, the presence of Naomi Watts), I watched 45 minutes of Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering. That must be the horror guide version of a Rick Roll. I should have known better. Mayo’s taste can be a bit questionable. While he gives the thumbs up to garbage such as The Lawnmower Man, Hollow Man, and the aforementioned Corn movie, he’s pretty dismissive of many of the best movies in his book, among them Bride of Frankenstein, Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Haunting, and Eraserhead. His problem with most of these movies? They’re “dated.” Woo-ee! Does Mike Mayo love that word! There’s barely a review of a film made before 1960 in The Horror Show Guide that escapes it. Gee, a movie from the ’30s is dated? What insight! Well, I can say the same about 1992’s Lawnmower Man, but there is a big difference between its dated early-CGI effects and the “dated” effects in, say, James Whale’s The Invisible Man: Claude Rains’ disappearance remains incredibly charming and impressive, while the sub-ColecoVision frogs and sex robots in Lawnmower Man look like shit. Mayo’s not having any of that, though. The effects in The Invisible Man are “dated.” The humor in Bride of Frankenstein is “dated.” The acting in The Haunting “has aged poorly” (nice variation!).

Still, I can’t completely write off The Horror Show Guide. Mayo has seen a lot of horror movies (though not all of these are horror movies. Whatever their tenuous connections to the genre, Dolores Claiborne, Fellini Satyricon, Ed Wood, and others don’t belong in this book. I was kind of tickled that he included Passion of the Christ, though). Like any good horror guide, his book should be read with a pen and paper in hand to jot down intriguing and unfamiliar titles for future viewing. Just be sure to take his assessments with a big grain of salt, or you may get suckered into seeing something like Children of the Corn IV, or worse, steered away from something like The Haunting.

Review: 'The Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of The Misfits'

This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of The Misfits is a real-life This Is Spinal Tap and author James Greene, Jr., is the Jersey horror punks' very own Marty DiBergi. With a straight face (and a tendency toward clunky wording) Greene tells the tale of a group that started as the eighties' best punk band and ended up bizarre self parodies. Glenn Danzig comes off as an inflexible, homophobic dick not above telling his biggest fan "I SHOULD FUCKING KILL YOU RIGHT NOW!" (those are Glenn's caps, by the way). Bassist Jerry Only is even zanier, fronting a Christian Viking metal band called Kryst the Conqueror as "Mocavius Kryst" and transforming the reformed Misfits into pro-wrestlers. His band mates were so dismayed by his obsession with pro-wrestling that they considered replacing Only with Vampiro... a pro-wrestler. Greene doesn't really play this absurd story for laughs, but it's so funny he doesn't really need to. This Music Leaves Stains is respectful, informative, and thorough (despite its wee 120-page length) enough not to alienate hardcore Misfits fans as humorless as Danzig, but pretty much anyone will get a kick out of it. 

'The Who FAQ' is Officially Rough!

Well, after months and months and months of work, I've just completed chapter one of The Who FAQ. Not too impressive, eh? I'm a real procrastinator, you say? Well, smarty, chapter one will be the first chapter in the book (as chapter ones tend to be), but it's the last one I wrote. I now have a complete rough draft of The Who FAQ. 

The work, of course, ain't over, and there is still much trimming, expanding, and shredding to be done before my book is fit for human consumption, but the heavy-writing phase is over, which means that if I can muster the strength, I will soon resume regular posts about non-Who FAQ matters here on Psychobabble. But not right now. Right now I have to go and pass out for a few days.

Long Live Rock!

"Twin Peaks" Panel Discussion at USC: Part II

Last weekend was the second "Twin Peaks" panel discussion at USC, and once again, it has made it to You Tube and Psychobabble. So here's Mädchen Amick, Dana Ashbrook, Jill Rogosheske Engels, Russ Tamblyn , Charlotte Stewart, Gary Hershberger, and Robert Engels fielding a new round of questions:

Review: 'Led Zeppelin from a Whisper to a Scream'

Dave Lewis has written a half-dozen books about Led Zeppelin and has been curating the Zep ‘zine Tight but Loose since 1978. So who am I to refute the “UK’s foremost expert on Led Zeppelin” claim on the cover of his latest book? Well, I don’t doubt that Dave knows his stuff, but after reading the mere four or five books I’ve read about his favorite band, I already knew most of what he had to say in Led Zeppelin from a Whisper to a Scream. I would have loved to see Lewis put his expertise to work a bit more while discussing Led Zeppelin’s discography song by song—more insight, more analysis, more trivia! Instead, we get a skinny volume of less than 150 pages with two timelines that don’t just repeat each other’s information; they repeat information found elsewhere in the book. Lewis should have gone all out with a Revolution in the Head-style study. Led Zeppelin certainly warrants one. As a primer for the Zeppelin newcomer, From a Whisper to a Scream gets the job done. It’s well written and fairly well reasoned (though Lewis evaluates the band’s work with a super fan’s forgiveness), and it covers all the bases from Zeppelin’s official LPs to their reissues and bootlegs, taking us right up to date with the recent 02 Arena concert. Nevertheless, this book is an hors d’oeuvre when I’m pretty sure the hardcore Zep freak is going to want a decadent ten-course banquet.

More "Twin Peaks" at USC on February 10

The "Twin Peaks" retrospective at USC continues on February 10 with viewings of the remaining episodes from season one (eps 3-7) and another Q&A. This time the guests will be Mädchen Amick (Shelley Johnson), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Peggy Lipton (Norma Jennings), Charlotte Stewart (Betty Briggs), writer Robert Engels, and casting director Johanna Ray. Once again the admission is free and open to the public. 

February 10, 2013, 2:30 P.M. 
Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall 
3507 Trousdale Parkway 
Los Angeles, CA 90007

"Twin Peaks" Panel Discussion at USC

Last week I came out of Who FAQ-induced hibernation to report a screening of several episodes of "Twin Peaks" at USC and the panel discussion with Mark Frost, Grace Zabriskie, Duwayne Dunham, and Ron Garcia that followed. Yesterday, someone was kind enough to post footage of the full half-hour interview--complete with new vague comments from Frost that has re-stoked the "Twin Peaks" revival rumors Frost himself recently stoked then tamped out--on YouTube. Here 'tis:

"Twin Peaks" Retrospective at the USC School of Cinematic Arts in L.A.

Lately the "Twin Peaks" Season Three rumors have been flying, and while Mark Frost debunked them almost as soon as they got rolling, he mostly definitely is not done visiting his pleasant little town in which no one ever gets murdered or demonically possessed or hit with soap. On January 27, series co-creator Frost and a select group of TP alumni will be appearing at USC's Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre to present the pilot episode plus episodes "1.2 and 1.3" (or in more official "Twin Peaks" parlance, episodes one and two). Duwayne Dunham, who directed episode one, will be present, as will pilot-cinematographer Ron Garcia and Grace "Sarah Palmer" Zabriskie, who is pretty much the greatest. After the episodes, Frost, Dunham, Garcia, and Zabriskie will take part in a Q&A, which will no doubt consist of nothing but "Is there going to be a third season?" asked over and over and over until Mark Frost slams his head into the bathroom mirror. 

Coffee and pie served during intermission.



This amazing event is totally free and totally open to the public, so you might want to to camp out for a few days to ensure you get a seat. 

Here are the details from USC's site: 

Twin Peaks Series Retrospective: 

4:00 P.M. on Sunday, January 27th, 2013

Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall

3507 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90007

FREE ADMISSION. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

There will be a 30 minute intermission between the Pilot and Episodes 1.2 & 1.3, during which coffee and pie will be served in Queens Courtyard.

The Q&A will directly follow the screenings of Episodes 1.2 & 1.3.

Review: 'Songs That Saved Your Life: The Art of The Smiths 1982-1987'

The Smiths didn’t make a lot of records during their flashing five-year career, but the ones they made were sublime enough to intoxicate an enduring cult. And like so many groups with relatively few proper LPs—The Velvet Underground, The Clash, and Jimi Hendrix, for example—The Smiths have a rich enough reservoir of singles, B-sides, and outtakes to warrant Simon Goddard’s track-by-track analysis The Smiths: Songs That Saved Your Life. As first published in 2002, the book did not fully please its author, baring a few errors and a title altered by the publisher. A tick over a decade later, Goddard has nudged his tome closer to his original vision and Titan Books is giving it a fresh republication.

Some Updates on That Small Faces Box and Other SF News for 2013

A regular Psychobabble reader by the name of Pete recently asked me if there are any updates on that long-gestating Small Faces box set we were hoping might see a late 2012 release. Well, Pete, you inspired me to do a little research, and a little research was all it took to bring up a message recently posted on Mick Taylor's Small Faces facebook page (not that Mick Taylor, of course). The message, which I read second-hand on the Steve Hoffman forum (posted this past November 14), apparently came from reissue producer Rob Caiger, who informed Mick that the box is still in the works and he's "still recovering tapes" (!). Disc One is to "cover all the Immediate worldwide singles A, B's, and EP's" and Disc Five will feature alternate takes and live recordings.  The set will also include a hardback book, "red, white and blue coloured vinyl, facsimile 'Mystery' acetate, a facsimile Ogdens’ press kit, poster, art prints, postcards." No word yet on what Discs Two through Four have in store, nor is there a release date. 

If this message is legit, then the set definitely sounds like a work in progress, so let's be patient and allow the team to give us the very best and most comprehensive Small Faces set imaginable. In the meantime, there will be special vinyl releases for this coming Record Store Day as well as a double-disc reissue of The Autumn Stone, which will also appear on 180g vinyl. Here come the nice, indeed!