Review: 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen' Blu-ray

Terry Gilliam found the perfect vehicle for his peculiar brand of weirdness and silliness, as well as his 17th-century-engravings aesthetic, when he decided to adapt Rudy Raspe's Baron Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. The time period and oddness of Munchausen's fish stories were right up Gilliam's alley and perfect for providing some shape for his fancies. 

Review: 'The Jam 1982'

Just five years after releasing their decidedly punk debut, The Jam did what all the best punk survivors did: they experimented, diversified, and found a sound of their own. For the restless Paul Weller, this meant his band had reached a plateau he didn't want to rest on. Shortly after completing what would be The Jam's sixth and final album, The Gift, Weller told bandmates Bruce Foxton and Rick Butler that he was breaking up the act at the height of their popularity. There would be one more tour, and that would be that. Weller would emotionally detach throughout the last of The Jam's obligations, Foxton would quietly seethe, and Rick Buckler would accept his fate gracefully despite its uncertainty.

Review: 'Glam! When Superstars ROCKed the World, 1970-74'

As the sixties came to an end, psychedelic Sgt. Pepper's silks and ruffles gave way to denim and unkempt tresses. The ragtag Band was the most influential group, and even the ever-flamboyant Hendrix dressed down in jeans and floppy fringe. Guitar solos nattered on for hours, and drum solos tumbled along for weeks. Without a doubt, rock and roll had lost its pizazz. 

Review: Blossom Toes' 'We Are Ever So Clean' Vinyl Reissue

Blossom Toes began as a trio of apprentices at a scientific (not musical) instrument company, which will seem oddly logical when you listen to their first album. We Are Ever So Clean doesn't sound played; it sounds wired, more the product of mad scientists than a band. Of that original trio, only guitarist Alan Kensley played an instrument. Brian Godding had to figure out how to mess with a guitar a bit and Brian Belshaw learned to pluck a bass well enough that the guys could start gigging (and ultimately back the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson and Chuck Berry!). 

Review: 'Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination'

From this past October 4 through May the 4th of 2023, The Science Museum in London is running an exhibition called Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination. Those who might cry "blasphemy!" at the idea of a serious science museum paying tribute to a world of made-up monoliths and wookiees hasn't been paying very close attention to sci-fi for the past two-hundred years. Ever since Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, the genre has been raising serious questions about the role science plays in our lives, using fantastical scenarios as a means to discuss touchy topics, and inspiring the next generation of astrophysicists, paleontologists, and biologists. 

Review: 'The Jimi Hendrix Experience- Los Angeles Forum- April 26, 1969 '

Although The Beatles blew the ceiling off concert possibilities when they played the first rock show at a sports arena in 1965, it took a few years for such venues to play home to longhairs with any regularity. The sports stadium rock show was still somewhat novel by April 26, 1969, when The Jimi Hendrix Experience played the Los Angeles Forum, then home of the Lakers. 

Review: The 23rd Turnoff's 'Michael Angelo: The Complete 1967 Recordings'

The 23rd Turnoff were one of those other Liverpudlian artists of the sixties. And unlike Gerry and the Pacemakers or Cilla Black or You-Know-Who, they never managed to rack up a satchel of hits. Unlike even less successful locals like The Koobas, The Mojos, or Wimple Winch, The 23rd Turnoff didn't even manage anything more than one single. But what a single it was! Released on Deram in that most fragrant of years, 1967, "Michael Angelo" b/w "Leave Me Here" was a two-headed tab of atmospheric, tuneful acid folk-pop. These were the best songs band leader and future solo artist Jimmy Campbell managed, but the Turnoff had some pretty good other songs in a similarly psychedelic mode ready to go. Sadly, Joe Meek and George Martin passed on producing the group, leaving The 23rd Turnoff to shuffle off into cult-rock history with nothing more than that one single and a handful of demos. 

Review: 'Kurt Cobain: The Last Interview'

There's something exploitative and ghoulish about naming your anthologies of interviews with dead celebrities The Last Interview, especially when the last interview with Kurt Cobain in Kurt Cobain: The Last Interview is a pretty insubstantial four-page talk with a guitar mag. Yet even when doing his press obligations with something like Fender Frontline, Cobain couldn't help but move beyond the superficial to discuss his family, coming to terms with his audience, and his desire to move beyond grunge cliches. When he ends it by imagining himself fronting Nirvana as an old man opening for the Temps and Tops, you don't know whether to laugh because the image is so absurd or cry because he was clearly expressing his frustration with the limitations of fame that may have contributed to his fatal depression. Either way, that is a bill I would have paid good money to see.

Review: 'The Best of the Trashmen'

In 1962, four Minneapolis kids decided to cash in on the surf craze, and a year later, they bashed out one of the genre's defining records. "Surfin Bird" has that wet, wild sound surfers craved more than the clean-cut harmonies of The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. It is two and a half minutes of pure rock and roll insanity with its squawked chant, jackhammer pounding, and cheek-wobbling gibbering. It is punk fifteen years early, and a disc that drives my crazy in the best, best, best way.

Review: Prince's 'The Hits 1' and 'The Hits 2' Vinyl Reissues

In 1993, Prince's relationship with Warner Brothers Records began to sour, he changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph, and frankly, began nearing the end of his most artistically and commercially vital era. To commemorate the transition, WB put out two compilations simply and accurately titled The Hits. After sixteen years of record making, Prince certainly had enough hits to pack two CDs. There wasn't even room for his number one smash "Batdance", possibly because of rights issues tied to the Batman movie or possibly because it's the weirdest song ever to hit Billboard's number one spot (contrary to popular opinion, it's also awesome).