There were definitely a lot of firsts and lasts for Madonna on the “Who’s That Girl” tour, from which this performance is taken: it was her first world tour, and the last time she was greeted quite so rapturously in Italy. It was the first time she used elaborate set pieces, and it was the last time they were so unformed and unrelated. It was the first time she was quite such a dominant presence on stage, and the last time she used purely live vocals.
It was, by her own admission, the first time she realized how big everything had gotten. And it was the last time she looked like she was really having fun.
“Into the Groove”, Torino, Italy, Sep. 4th 1987. Enjoy.
At one time, U2 was underground and edgy, inventive and fresh, ethereal and gloomy, atmospheric and evocative. That was thirty years ago. But thanks to the miracle of technology, it can be thirty years ago anytime you so desire, and you can travel back to those heady days, and hear “An Cat Dubh” and “Into the Heart” when they were essentially new and fresh and were so much more than nostalgia:
Tonight’s selection is a li’l slice of historical significance: the very first television appearance of the Police, performing “Can’t Stand Losing You” and “Next To You” live, February 10, 1978:
I’m as big a fan of the Apocalypse as you’ll find, and hence have consumed much much more than my fair share of post-Apocalyptic entertainment (any way you interpret that phrase will be correct), from timeless classics like The Road Warrior to timeless turdbombs like Where Have All The People Gone? and most others in between. Yes, I even sat through Waterworld. I also sat through Battlefield Earth, which makes Waterworld look like freakin’ Citizen Kane. In a just world, the makers of each film would be condemned to watch the other for all of eternity. But I digress.
Most post-Apocalypse films fall into some pretty familiar conventions: if you know the plot of Shane, you’ve basically seen half the post-’lypse movies out there (The Road Warrior, The Postman, The Book of Eli, etc). Another familiar scenario is the Small Band of People Just Trying To Survive, which inevitably has one of the group going full-on psycho on the rest (*spoiler alert*: there will only be two people left, one of whom will be horribly injured, and they will reach whatever Promised Land they’ve been trying to get to just in time for the credits to roll). The characters always seem doubly blessed with endless ammunition and no need to use the toilet.
In most such movies the emphasis is on action, the farther along the edge of your seat the better. There are a few, though, that step away from Apocalypse-as-Western and Apocalypse-as-70′s-disaster-movie tropes in some pretty interesting ways. Let’s face it, the end of the world is deeply rich storytelling material, and there are plenty of paths to trod.
The pearls I’m casting before you swine, then, are some end-of-the-world movies that view disaster from a slightly different angle.
Hopefully, this’ll be a reasonably regular series, at least as regular as anything ever gets around here. I just thought we’d occasionally toss up some live performances that are fantastic and transcend their immediate circumstances.
And yes, I’ve posted this clip before, but it was a couple of years ago, when the readers of Indie Streak were outnumbered by the writers. Not that that’s really changed.
This is Big Country playing “Angle Park” on New Year’s Eve 1983 at the Barrowlands Ballroom in Glasgow.
Politicians do photo ops running up to an election. That’s not news. As the teapot in Beauty in the Beast sings, it’s a tale as old as time. But Paul Ryan’s epic bungling of a soup kitchen photo op is a thing of majesty.And there’s video. Be warned: this thing is so awkward Larry David should be in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2WVJNxOpvY
He came. He saw. He conquered dishes that had already been washed and left within 5 minutes.
Adding insult to injury, Ryan wasn’t invited to appear at the soup kitchen, which is run by the St. Vincent De Paul Society, a faith-based charity. Volunteers let Ryan in after he swung by on his way from a campaign event. The society’s president, Brian Antal, says he wouldn’t have allowed Ryan in as the charity doesn’t participate in political events:
“Everyone is trying to turn this into a Republican vs. Democrat issue and that is the farthest thing from our original concerns,” Antal told the Post when asked late Monday about his primary voting record. “We cannot be associated with any party, and it has already cost us donations based upon the phone calls I have received this evening and that is from people on both sides of this.”
Not only did Ryan fail to actually do any work while he was at the soup kitchen, his stunt could cost the facility precious donation money.
Don’t worry. The Romney/Ryan campaign totally cares about the common man. Who could doubt a face like this?
FearNet sent me down the link rabbit hole earlier when it featured an Alien Egg treat envisioned by the food site Slash & Dine. S & D has recipes for a wide range of treats relating (albeit sometimes tangentially) to a horror movie or television show. The alien eggs above are dried figs filled with almond paste. Other featured treats include the Damn Fine Cherry Pie Milkshake (Twin Peaks), Irish soda bread with Guinness butter (Leprechaun), and Jason Voorhees Hockey Mask Cookies that were put on my “must make soon” list. The cookies are featured with a drink called Camp Crystal Light. I’ll admit to snickering over that one.
The posting at Slash & Dine is a bit sporadic, but we’d be the last ones to throw stones in that glass house.
Daniel Craig is on the cover of Vanity Fair promoting the forthcoming installment of the Bond series (as the large red BOND suggests). Craig looks dapper and calm, apparently undisturbed by the contorted headless woman behind him. Understandably, since the shadows suggest that the woman in question was near neither Craig nor anyone talented as a photo editor.
The image of headless (or most-of-body-less) women is common these days because someone somewhere decided it looks sexy. Even ignoring the dehumanizing aspect of cropping out a woman’s head….this looks creepy. It doesn’t scream “he just got laid!”. It suggests he murdered her, cut off the heavy parts, and slung her around his shoulders like a fox fur stole.
That probably isn’t the mental image Vanity Fair was trying to conjure.
It’s hard to be a working Koopa in the Mushroom Kingdom. You go to work with your brother every day and perform the mindless repetitive task of throwing hammers in the air. And for what purpose? To be killed or avoided by a diminutive plumber who can’t take a hint that his girlfriend likes things reptilian in the bedroom.
At least you get to wear a cool hat. This Hammer Bros. Fleece Hat from Game Punk Arts will keep your head safe from cold winds but won’t offer up much protection against hammers to the noggin. Color customization options are available but why get a Hammer hat if you’re not going to sport the correct colors?
Lana Del Rey performed on Saturday Night Live tonight, though her debut* album isn’t out until the end of the month. The overall verdict online was that she didn’t do a fantastic job with the two songs she presented, though exact opinions ranged from “oh, she was just nervous” to “there goes your career, asshole.” For the record, I’m in the former camp.
Del Rey’s voice is idiosyncratic even in studio recordings, where it can start out thick like a honeyed lullaby then meander up into girlish whispers. I don’t consider this a bad thing but I also favor Marina and the Diamonds, who has been accused of sounding like a Dalek in a nightclub. When Del Rey performed “Video Games”, it was clear that she was very nervous but the overall vocal performance wasn’t too far off how she normally sounds. The situation grew worse for “Blue Jeans”, where it seemed she started off far too low and was unable to recover.
Though she has performed on notable television programs overseas, Interscope shouldn’t have pushed her out into a gig this large on her home turf until further down the line. She’d been facing backlash prior to tonight due to the belief that her entire image was manufactured in a work shed of Jimmy Iovine. Her real name is Elizabeth Grant and she freely admits that businesspeople chose her new moniker. There was a genuine, slow build of interest in her music and Interscope should’ve ridden that at its natural pace.
The last performer to appear on SNL before her album dropped was Natalie Imbruglia with “Torn”. I think we can all remember how well her career went in the States after that single died away.
*The forthcoming Born to Die isn’t technically Lana Del Rey’s first album but it is the first with a major label She released a self-titled album last year on 5 Points but it didn’t gain any traction.
This post is sponsored by my crippling caffeine addiction and the cup of Starbucks Via that caused my current energy crash when it wore off. There might be cocaine in it. I’m afraid to read the label.
Tripping On ‘Meg: Wayne Curtis, contributing editor at The Atlantic, ingested a high quantity of nutmeg to test out its psychotropic properties. The verdict? “[N]utmeg will fuck you up” but not enough to be worth the effort.
Paradise Lost 3 Airs Tonight: The third, and presumably final, documentary about the West Memphis Three premieres tonight at 9 pm ET on HBO. Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were released from prison late last year after spending 18 years behind bars for the murders of three young boys. The men were forced to accept a plea deal that didn’t clear the convictions from record. The NYT reviews the new documentary here.
Now I’m Ordering Double Thin Mints: Feministe links to the story of a California teen raising a fuss because the Girl Scouts has declared they will allow transgendered girls to join. Said teen is calling for a boycott of the cookies. The usual religious nuts are jumping on the bandwagon. People who support equal rights, and enjoy sweet treats that involve mint and chocolate and wafery texture, say “STFO and gimme my overpriced cookies.”
The Dangers of Ron Paul: He isn’t just a cute old man who wants to legalize weed, despite what 19 to 35 year old white men would like you to believe. Kristin Rawls writes about Paul’s history of bigotry and how it can hide in plain site in Republican rhetoric.
It’s hard to be a working Koopa in the Mushroom Kingdom. You go to work with your brother every day and perform the mindless repetitive task of throwing hammers in the air. And for what purpose? To be killed or avoided by a diminutive plumber who can’t take a hint that his girlfriend likes things reptilian in the bedroom.