'John Prine'

One of the few country legends, who was a postman. Prine grew up in Illinois, served in the U.S. Army and eventually wound up in the United States Postal Service for five years in the 1960s. 

His music career took root when he attended an open-mic event and was asked if he could do any better. He got up and sang and played guitar. He became one of the main protagonists in the Chicago folk revival of the era. 

After this album was released, he was called “the new Dylan,” which is bullshit because there’s almost zero elements of the former in the latter, at least on that album. 

John Prine is plain, good country music with guitar, bass and fiddle. Not that Dylan was not capable of the same, but I think Prine’s DNA has much more Hank Williams than Bob Zimmerman.  

One of the more brilliantly good albums I’ve listened to during this project. 

'Beach Samba'

I just need to write about this son of a bitch and move on with my life. 

I’ve probably listened to this incredibly boring album about a dozen times because I always feel I’ve never listened to it. I’m sure is Astrud Gilberto read that sentence she might feel a little bad. Or she might could care less considering I’m some dope writing about her album anonymously on the Internet. Tell you the truth, I don’t blame her.

As I go through this project, I find that sometimes you’ve just got to do it: Watch or read or listen to whatever, digest it and write about it. I’m fairly certain I’ll never listen to Beach Samba ever again. Needless to say, if I do, it’ll be beyond my control. 

It doesn’t sound bad or anything. It’s sorta cool mood music. Like a score, it’s hard to really notice with all the action on screen. I often start this album, blink and it’s over. Of course, if it were any longer I’d go berserk. 

As a side note, Gilberto was married to guitarist João Gilberto. They divorced and she started getting involved with jazz Stan Getz and that more than soured whatever working relationship the three had. The Yoko Ono of jazz. 

'The World Is A Ghetto'

The band, War, conceived albums that correctly mirrored the times and pop culture of their era, particularly the 1970s. 

Not being born until 1980, I can only judge this time period based on the pop culture of the time. Although writers had been chronicling the plight of the poor (and that of the African American) for decades, it wasn’t until the 1970s that music, TV and film followed – all a decade after the Civil Rights movement, Great Society legislation and the ebb of the folkie/hippie protest movement. 

There seemed to be a settling here, and I’m talking out of my butt here. Things were “better” because the Vietnam War would start to wind down, legislation for rights fought for in the 1960s were taking root. On paper, things were “getting better.” 

However, it also appears that this time period is when the poor started associating themselves – with an overwhelming amount of pride – with their neighborhoods, or ghettos. It’s seen first hand during the busing riots in Boston. Granted, it had a lot to do about race. It also had a lot to do with how we identify ourselves with where we live, the people that live around us and how poor (or rich) we are. 

I find it interesting that a lot of sitcoms from this era (and even the 1980s) would show the front of the house during the opening credits. Many show a car ride’s view of the surrounding area. This is notable in All in the Family. Overhead view of the Good Times neighborhood is prevalent. 

The World is a Ghetto is a dark soundtrack to these streets and alleys. There isn’t the canned laughter of sitcoms. There aren’t the heroes of the films. It’s a group of guys telling an honest story of people that are stuck with almost no hope. 

War actually started in Los Angeles, unique for being multi-cultural in the line-up. They first backed up Los Angeles Rams defensive lineman Deacon Jones. Then they were discovered by former Animal Eric Burdon, who recorded two albums and toured with War. He left the band mid-tour in Europe and a year later they released their own record. A year after that, they gave us The World is a Ghetto. 

'The Idiots' & 'Breaking The Waves'

The films are directed by Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier and are part of his “Golden Heart Trilogy” along with the previously reviewed Dancer in the Dark.

Both films are also part of the Dogme 95 genre, partially started by Von Trier in an attempt to make as natural of a film as possible: All shot on location, no artificial lighting, no soundtrack or score, no filters, no special effects and all in color. Basically, trying to make the film as much like actual life as possible. 

The Idiots was the first of these films for Lars Von Trier and depending on your definition of success, it was a relative failure. Both films had multiple infractions including sets, altering of light and the such. Doesn’t make the films bad, but it does sort of cheapen what those filmmakers were aiming to do. If your first movie can’t follow the rules, does it matter if the others can? Doesn’t seem any film has fit the Dogme 95 platitudes. 

The Idiots is about a group of young Danish men and women who go into public and act like mentally disabled (and physically disabled) individuals. Sort of ironically, they’re more anti-bourgeois group as much as they’re proponents for understanding and respecting the rights of the mentally and physically handicapped. They do it to waylay their inhibitions and to live freer. 

This film is notable (not only is it really, really good) for having unsimulated sex in a group sex scene, something brought on by Von Trier, but rarely duplicated. Due to the fact that it’s real people having real sex and folks can’t handle that. 

Breaking the Waves is about a religious woman – you sort of suspect that she’s extremely naïve or possible mentally handicapped – who marries a Norwegian oil rig worker and finds herself struggling with the time apart as he works in the middle of the ocean. After a brief respite at home, he returns to the rig and is paralyzed after an accident. 

After a failed suicide attempt, he urges his wife to take a lover. Maybe not so much for her as it’s for him in some sort of odd cuckolding fetish. She struggles with the request and eventually gets caught in this desire to be happy and the repercussions of being a harlot in a non-progressive religious community. 

Von Trier, in most of his movies, eventually puts the viewer no trial, so to speak. He challenges our beliefs in very raw, uncomfortable scenes. He places people in impossible situations that often fail and leave them has lost as they were before. 

'The Band Wagon'

This movie represents the whole genre of American musicals that drive me crazy in a way. I can’t put my finger on it and to explain my disdain would drive me crazy and, foremost, wouldn’t make any sense. 

Being quite younger and living in a world where the sheen of Hollywood was replaced with cynicism and jaded opinions of the stars that make films, I don’t understand movies of the 1950s. Knowing my mother, I do imagine it being a lot more “magical” for viewers. Films were star driven. Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Bob Hope and any other star of the era were well aware that people were spending hard-earned cash to watch their dopey movie. Therefore, you often saw thin plotlines broken up by unique dance routines and clever songs. 

The stars are not emoting for the sake of portraying a character because nine times out of 10 they were simply portraying some version of themselves. 

The Band Wagon is the perfect example. Astaire’s “Tony Martin” is a facsimile of himself: An aging star coming to grips with his own fading star. He’s portraying himself. Chances are, however, Astaire never actually acted like that. I wonder if he ever took time by himself and fully realized what this role actually said about himself? 

Astaire and other stars of his ilk and era were not idiots. They played the hopeless romantic or the star-crossed entertainer because that’s what people went to the movies. They wanted Astaire’s personal life to be like that of Tony Martin’s because it’s too disturbing to see someone we adored to crash in flames. Unlike the modern times. 

The Band Wagon is considered one of the greatest American musicals along with Singin’ in the Rain. Naturally, both co-star Cyd Charisse. And underrated accomplishment, I think, both being released within a year of each other. 

'Romper Stomper'

Russell Crowe was 28 years old when Romper Stomper was released. It was just his fifth film and it would be another three years until he had a break out with his co-starring role in The Quick and the Dead and L.A. Confidential two years after that.  

He was still eight years from his true break out in Gladiator. 

Crowe looks younger in Romper Stomper, an Austrailian film about the decline of a rabble-rousing Neo-Nazi  gang in Melbourne as they terrorize the community and battle the growing number of Asian immigrants. 

Based on a real guy and allegedly inspiring an actual murder, the film is eerily like the film This is England including the punk influences, the Neo-Nazism, the charismatic lead man and the veritable fall from grace. It’s also a screenshot of the psychology of crime not unlike Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Except the gang on the latter killed and pillaged indiscriminately. I guess the Neo Nazis can be credited for having a mission statement. A fine line between sociopaths and cultish personalities. 

'Autobahn'

This from a group of Germans making semi-electronic music (actual flutes and violins were played) in the 1970s and doing it pretty successfully. 

The actual song “Autobahn” is a 22-minute sprawling epic recreating the sensation of driving. It was cut down to three minutes for radio release and peaked at No. 25 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Not bad for a song with no real lyrics and zero hooks. 

This from a band doing the near impossible at a time when they were relatively alone on their tier of success and have wound up doing it for 40 years. Sorta makes you want to re-think that college education. 

This from a band where only one original member still exists with the group. The same man that took up cycling in the 1980s and urged the entire group to go vegetarian and to record an entire album dedicated to cycling. He later sustained a coma after a serious accident on his bike. 

This from a band, who built its own recording studio and kept its location a secret. There, they kept the ringer off on their phone and requested that anyone seeking to get in touch with them call the phone at a specific time. There and then, lead man Ralf Hütter would answer despite the phone not ringing. 

Another anecdote from Coldplay singer Chris Martin when he sent a letter to request their use of a melody from a Kraftwerk tune through various channels of attorneys and agents. Weeks later, he receives and envelope and a slip of paper with “yes” written on it. 

All of this makes it hard to not like this album.