July 30, 2008: There Will Be Blood; True West; We Are Jim

Recently viewed: There Will Be Blood (2007), written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. (I guess I'm a little behind the curve on my movie watching, but such is the life of a new father.) Daniel Day-Lewis never ceases to amaze me. I first saw him over 20 years ago in My Beautiful Laundrette, a cute little British romantic comedy-drama, and I can hardly believe I just saw the same actor channel John Huston in an American epic-tragedy about a morally dysfunctional oil prospector turned tycoon. Scanning Day-Lewis' career over at IMDB, I was actually surprised to see how few movies he's made in the past decade or so, at times letting five or more years go by between his carefully chosen projects. He's a treasure, and he turns in yet another powerhouse performance here, dominating the film (almost to a fault) with his intense physicality. The film itself is a beautiful and mysterious thing, wonderfully photographed, scored, scripted and paced, though the last 1/2 hour feels tonally at odds with the 2 hours preceding it. But it's not a major failing, and I found the whole to be a gripping American gothic, reminiscent of Charles Brockden Brown and Hawthorne. Grade: A-.
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Now Spinning: True West. Hollywood Holiday Revisited. Including Hollywood Holiday(1983), Drifters (1984), The Verlaine Demos (1983). Reissue, 2007.
Back in the mid-80's, my friends and I used to joke that when Hollywood finally got round to making movies about our lives (we had no self-esteem problems, you see) that they'd get the soundtrack totally wrong. Instead of Husker Du, it'd be Tears for Fears. Instead of The Minutemen it'd be The Thompson Twins. Instead of Camper Van Beethoven it'd be Cyndi Lauper. Indeed, whenever I catch one of those VH1 or MTV (is there still MTV?) specials on 80's music, all they ever seem to focus on is Madonna, Bon Jovi, and Boy George. Even in the mid 90's when I was teaching in Chicago, one of my students cracked wise at me as we discussed music, "You guys listened to some pretty fruity stuff back then." Oh yeah? Well it wasn't all Wham, buddy...

True West was one of those bands that time seems to have forgotten. But I haven't. In their rather short career, spanning roughly 1982 to 1985 (though there was some '86 stuff that featured the name True West but not quite the same line-up) they put out a fabulous EP, Hollywood Holiday, and a strong LP, Drifters. They were part of the so-called Paisley Underground, a group of L.A. bands that included The Three O'Clock, The Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, Green on Red, The Long Ryders, and The Bangles. I'm slowly collecting CD's of this old music, and some of it's surprisingly hard to find. I was pleased to get this, since I only have the old EP in a box and no way to play it. Hollywood Holiday is this band at its best, and 80's music--Paisley or otherwise--at its coolest. From the opening one-two punch of "Steps to the Door" and "I'm Not Here" to the damn-that's-good cover of Pink Floyd's "Lucifer Sam," this EP kicks considerable bootay. The soaring, echoing guitar work by Steve Wynn on "Steps to the Door" still blows my mind. The LP, Drifters, though strong in many spots, doesn't hold a candle to the EP, I'm afraid. It has many of the same elements--twangling guitars and driving rhythms--but few of the songs distinguish themselves. Still, this CD was well worth buying.

Listening to it brought me back to a curious incident from yesteryear. I saw the band live in the summer of 1985 at the Paramount in Seattle when they opened for R.E.M. on that band's Fables of the Reconstruction tour. Before the show, my friends and I were walking around the back of the theater and we happened upon Peter Buck smoking a cig (if memory serves) at an open door. We stopped dead in our tracks, completely star-struck as R.E.M. was our favorite band and Buck our idol. We caught his eye and one of us sheepishly said, "You're...you're Peter Buck, right?" He, of course, gave us a friendly hello. An awkward pause followed. Now it happens that of the four of us concert-goers, three were named Jim (years earlier in high school we were inseparable and known as The Three Jims). One of us Jims, Jim Tonkyn, suddenly filled the awkward pause by saying, chipperly, "Hi, we're Jim!" Peter Buck gave a nod, blew a plume of smoke into the night sky and said, "Glad to know you have an identity." How we continued to talk to him after that, I have no idea; I could have melted into the pavement. But one of the other Jims, Jim Marks, shared a few words with him about the tour and recent recordings and such: Buck was excited to be touring soon with U2; he was down-in-the-mouth about what he considered to be some pretensious French mono releases of some live R.E.M. material. Then one of the guitarists for True West poked his head out and talked guitars for a second with Buck. We just stood there basking in the coolness. It was a classic 80's indie-music moment. And two seconds later we were shuffling along into the theater to enjoy one of the best rock shows I've ever seen.



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Before you rip your house apart trying to find the source of that infernal beeping noise, take a moment to reflect on these five wonders of your world: (1) Dave Arbus's fiddle part at the close of The Who's "Baba O’Riley." I've heard it a million times but it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand-up. I saw an interview with Arbus on TV the other day and he improvised a little of it, just, well, fiddling about, and I was mesmerized. (2) Mario Bava’s colored lighting schemes. Every one of his color films have them--purple, blue, yellow, and green lights lurking in the corners or behind the doors or at the end of that tunnel that you'd better not venture down...(3) Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. A greater or more entertaining compendium of hearsay, half-truths, folk etymologies, and utter nonesense has never been published. (4) Robert Louis Steveson's poem "Where Go the Boats" from A Child’s Garden of Verses, especially as read by Bullwinkle Moose in the Bullwinkle's Corner segment of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. (5)The Scandinavian influences in English. Where would we be without oaf, scathe, kindle, crawl, wise, and scant? In an awkward situation to be sure.

Where Go The Boats?

Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating--
Where will all come home?

On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.

--Robert Louis Stevenson

Ciao,
JBF