Songbook Xtended: Boo-Hoo

Russ Morgan - Boo-Hoo (1937) [Original Post]

I watched the 1987 Canadian movie Crazy Moon recently and Boo-Hoo was reprised throughout. I feel no better than one of those freaks discovering Phil Collins through a Grand Theft Auto video game, but hey. Give me credit for at least finding it in a slightly more interesting way. You gotta make these discoveries where you can. It might be lame, but it's growth. I enjoyed hearing Boo-Hoo.in the film, which is about an awkward, bullied young man who likes old fashioned music, suits, wears boxing head gear & goggles while driving a motorcycle (or riding in the sidecar), and falls in love with a deaf girl who helps him overcome his fear of water. Taking photographs of dogshit almost gets him thrown in a sanitarium. It's a trip -- and hard to believe it was released the same year Kiefer Sutherland was appearing in The Lost Boys. The song is great and gives us our first selection from the thirties. The late thirties. The time when the Second World War was brewing. Did I mention I've been reading up on WWII? Don't worry. I haven't been taking any photos.

TrailerClub: Clockwatchers

Clockwatchers (1997) [Original Post]

I haven't seen this, but after the good turn of Party Girl -- I would like to. This time Parker Posey is a temp agent working in an office. Hijinks ensue. Lisa Kudrow and Toni Collette are along for the ride. That sounds good to me. Maybe it isn't, but who cares? This is the nineties. Anything is possible, and 1997 is really the time to be alive. Nostalgia is a factor, but I really think this might be a good watch. I'm toying with picking it up on DVD. It's $5, but it's 4:3, so I'm not totally sold.

Songbook Xtended: Sunset

Fatboy Slim - Sunset (Bird of Prey) (2000) [Original Post]

We take Fatboy Slim for granted. He was in the country, I listened to him on Triple J radio. It got me to thinking and I was thinking about Bird of Prey -- or Sunset, as it should really be referred to. I remember my friend Dave telling me about a sketch on the radio using the "Bird of Prey" soundbyte to punctuate prank calls -- or something. I still think of that fondly, and I still think of this song fondly. 2000 was a spectacular time. My kind of time. Orange, and yellow, and grey, and blue. Music was for dancing to, and the world was bursting with excitement and possibilities. I think the Olympics helped, down here. The new millennium clearly inspired the world in the final years of the nineteen-nineties, as well. Sunset probably isn't the best of it, or the best of Norman Cook, but it does capture some of that feeling. Flying high, flying high. I'm shocked this isn't already in the CDClub Songbook, but like I said. We take Fatboy Slim for granted. He really did get an awful lot of airplay It's nice to be back, though..

Songbook Xtended: Sunchyme

Dario G - Sunchyme (1997) [Original Post]

In 1997 I enjoyed the hell out of Sunchyme. It's the kind of song I think we're supposed to forget. A cheesy dance song resting awfully hard on an obvious sample. Life in a Northern Town is arguably the better song and you should make sure you hear that before you imprint on this. Then you can appreciate it with proper diction and class. Because I still like Sunchyme. It's joyous with just a hint of melancholy. The kind of song that feels like the end credits for real life. Or maybe I'm still just getting over a personal loss. Maybe one way to do that is to reclaim an old pleasure. Check that video. Take it for what it is. An amazing expression of the natural world. This was years before the Long King took broadway. Good stuff.

TrailerClub: Party Girl

Party Girl (1995) [Original Post]

I was happy in the nineties. Obnoxiously so. I consumed the world ravenously, but I missed Party Girl. A lot of people did, apparently. It's become a bit of a rediscovered classic. I think it's part of the Criterion Collection now. I'm glad it is. Sure, it's nostalgic to revisit a 1995 that means something to me, but isn't always on screen. I'd like to think there's a little bit more than that in play, though. Parker Posey cracks me up. She's subtly hilarious and in fine form in Party Girl. I still haven't decided how best to compare this to Clueless -- the better remembered "chick flick"from '95. Clueless, but for cool people? Clueless, but for twenty-somethings? Clueless, but in New York? I don't know. It's just the kind of movie that Clueless kinda eclipsed, against better judgment. Music, fashion, a whole scene. Enjoyed the heck out of this. Even with Liev Schrieber playing a very dubious English would-be sex offender.

TrailerClub: Baraka

Baraka (1992) [Original Post]

I used to see Baraka in the video section all the time. It always caught my eye. It came out a year before Mortal Kombat II clumsily appropriated the word, but that kind of thing occurs to a young man. These days I view it differently. With more gratitude and respect. Our world doesn't feel the same as it used to those many years ago. Cinema like Baraka, Samsara, and the Qatsi trilogy capture this world in flux. The majesty and the horror. The exoticism of Baraka's voyeuristic slice of life from elsewhere on the globe gives it an instant appeal. I enjoy sampling other cultures, and it offers that visually and audibly. A good selection for Earth Day, and the kind of movie you can just put on and appreciate to your own degree, with grim foreboding, or wonderous joy.

TrailerClub: The 10th Victim

The 10th Victim (1965) [Original Post]

They used to show weird, cult cinema from around the world on television. It was a good time. I can't really remember if The 10th Victim was one of the movies I saw, or just similar to something, perhaps another Italian offering from the sixties or seventies. It seems ahead of its time. Sixties futurism with a nihilistic edge. Dead men killing for reality television. The Running Man a couple of decades early. There's another movie I'd like to find. I saw it late one or two nights. I think it might've been Italian, but I don't remember anything significant about it. Red walls. An apartment high rise with an elevator inside and large walled walkways outside. Modern, paranoid, mysterious. The 10th Victim doesn't seem to be it, but hey. At least there are jazzmen standing on cubes playing saxophone. That's the kind of thing I like.

Songbook Xtended: Smoke

Caroline Polachek - Smoke (2023) [Original Post]

Once again Caroline Polachek makes catching the charts & new releases worthwhile. If I had reservations about Welcome to My Island, Smoke delivers exactly what I needed. A full sound, consistent throughout. Big drums like CocoRosie's Rainbowarriors, with a jubilant Enya does End Credits vibe that makes me want to dance in the dirt in the setting sun. Or is it rising? I don't know if anybody cares about making music for me any more, but Polachek at least gives me hope and lifts my spirits. I only wish this single were longer. Its euphoric context over too soon. A hot, wet euphoric sound captured in a video that doesn't seem all that dissimilar to some of Polachek's live stage production. I believe she said somewhere she wanted it to reflect how it feels to perform the song. It seems pretty amazing to me. So does she. I hope it continues.

Songbook Xtended: Passion Babe

Aldous Harding - Passion Babe (2022) [Original Post]

There are many sounds that come out of Aldous Harding, each projecting different modes and characters. I have mixed feelings about this one. A little too seventies and elementally earthy for this boy of who identifies as steel, or at least something more cold. Affectations of folksy naivete bordering on the disingenuous. I don't know if it's entirely necessary to purse "costs a lot", but I'm not going to tell her to stop. Nobody else is singing like this and I like it. In total Passion Babe is an undeniably catchy number. Interactive with its occasionally difficult lyrics painting pictures of life and sex. Or am I imagining that? I read a review that effectively said Harding's lyrics are obtuse and don't say much. I disagree and question whether the reviewer actually listened to this album. It seems to me a lot of Harding's lyrics have sexual subtext. This one sounds like it could be an ode to a full and passionate relationship, or perhaps even a grappling with the constraints of commitment, and the gravity of infidelity. There's a story here. Favourite lyric: "Of all the ways to eat a cake, this one surely takes the knife."

TrailerClub: Conan The Destroyer

Conan The Destroyer (1984) [Original Post]

A pulp and mythology binge inevitably brings me to Conan The Barbarian, but through ignorance or forgetfulness, I prefer the 1984 Schwarzenegger sequel. My vague memories of the two films has Arnold more present in the second one, with more robust adventures. It doesn't hurt that this is also the one with Grace Jones and Wilt Chamberlain. Larger than life characters on an epic quest. This is part of my sweatpants phase of viewing, but that's just fine by me. Why wouldn't we want a good time?

Songbook Xtended: Destroy Everything You Touch

Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch (2005) [Original Post]

I find it hard to believe anyone will hold the mid-2000s with the same nostalgic regard we currently seem to view the eighties and nineties with. Yet, here I am. Reminded of one of the noteworthy contributors to mid-2000s music. There's always a slightly unpleasant metallic aftertaste to Ladytron, but I was thrilled to stumble back upon Destroy Everything You Touch while researching the Second World War, and Irish mythology. It provided a welcome soundtrack. A song to excise building dissatisfaction with, and imagine barbaric adventures. Nice video. Not sure why I find a sunken, expressionless face miming the title quite so hilarious, but here we are. There's stronger audio on a version posted to the LadyTron YouTube, but this one has the better video. Make your choice accordingly.

TrailerClub: A Very Long Engagement

A Very Long Engagement (2004) [Original Post]

Artificial, unrealistic, hopelessly romantic. What a pleasure it is to watch a film. Audry Tatou reunites with Jean-Pierre Jeunet for more acid yellow cinema. I don't really like war stories, but I like this one. A tale of love and hope told through multiple narrators as Tatou's Mathilde searches desperately to learn the fate of her beloved Manech on the battlefield. I don't see what's so "Great" about this war. It was a great movie, though.

Songbook Xtended: Welcome to My Island

Caroline Polachek - Welcome to My Island (2022) [Original Post]

I wasn't immediately sold on this song the way I was Billions. It's not as clever, or interesting. Even if that wide-eyed, operatically orgasmic wail at the start immediately hooks me in -- it's the dips that bother me. The quiet moments. The small, mortal chatter. It reminds me of the shackles that burdened Chairlift songs I just couldn't quite get on board with. Caroline Polachek is an undeniably compelling talent. Her voice a siren song. When it takes full flight she is a force to be reckoned with. A force of nature. As singles from the Desire, I Want To Turn Into You album continue to appear - I think it will be an unrivaled favourite. I'm now fully tuned in to paying attention to Polachek's work. I've visited her island and so far I like it. A rare thing these days. I'm just looking for a more even, intriguing, enticing experience from her singles. The Desire sections of this song, without the muttering.

Songbook Xtended: Found a Job

Talking Heads - Found a Job (1978) [Original Post]

I found myself on a bit of a Talking Heads kick, watching Stop Making Sense multiple times, as well as Trues Stories. Found a Job isn't a Talking Heads song I think of often, but its inclusion in Stop Making Sense clearly brought it to mind. I enjoy the unexpected inflection, ups & downs of the song. The lyric "They've enlisted all their family" is especially nice.