I was already inclined to like Minor Victories based on the presence of Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. And then “Scattered Ashes (song for Richard)” is not only a swell song in its own right, but has video that punches all the Internet’s meme buttons at once.
I KAN HAZ SHOEGAZE?
In Vietnam, they had an elaborate premiere for the opening of Kong: Skull Island, with fire dancers and a large mock-up of King Kong.
Pro-tip: Try not to let your fire dancers get too close to your giant flammable King Kong facade.
They didn’t follow that guideline.
Skip to about 1:35 in if you want to watch everything start to go pear-shaped.
Another video of the debacle, with more dancing and less firefighting:
Been a while since I featured tears Run Rings, so here’s “A Question and an Answer”:
UK-based Presents for Sally is another St. Marie Records band, and here’s a piece from the Static Waves 4 sampler.
The Logbook of the Saturday Dining Conspiracy, the redheaded stepchild of the Dwight and Lawrence blogging empire, has shambled back to life this months with two bits of news:
You might want to take a look if you like dining in Austin.
We last featured Center of the Sun for their cover of Slowdive’s “Machine Gun”, but their only album, Machine Gun (which, ironically, doesn’t contain the Slowdive cover) is well worth picking up, and “Cease” is off that.
For your Sunday dose of Shoegaze, here’s Russia’s Blankenberg with “Feel Alive,” which reminds me a little bit of The Cherry Wave (i.e. a noise floor above which floats the melody).
Howard Waldrop called to inform me that SF writer Ed Bryant has died at age 71. This is a shame but not a surprise, as Ed had been ailing for many years.
Ed was in the category of “friends you only see once or twice a year.” He was a regular Armadillocon attendee in the early days, and I saw him read “A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned” before it appeared in Skipp & Spector’s The Book of the Dead. He was also an astute reviewer in the field for many years.
He will be missed.
I will update this when I have a suitable link to a proper obituary.
There’s such a fine line between clever and a crooked movie studio:
The three members of Spinal Tap and the director of the 1984 movie about the fictional band are involved in a very real lawsuit against the media company Vivendi.
Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Rob Reiner have joined an earlier suit filed by Harry Shearer that claims Vivendi and StudioCanal have denied them profits from the 1984 rockumentary.
The amended lawsuit was filed in California federal court yesterday, according to The Hollywood Repoter. Shearer filed a fraud and contract-breach lawsuit last October. The original damages set at $125 million have been increased to $400 million.
The three actors, along with director Reiner, state they were given only $81 in merchandising income and $98 in music sales over the past few decades. They also claim to have not received accounting statements for the past three years in regards to This Is Spinal Tap.
$400 million? Well, that’s just nitpicking, isn’t it?
In way of remembrance, here’s Joan jett covering the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore Show (“Love is All Around”) live on Letterman.
It was either that or the entirety of the “It May look Like A Walnut” episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show…