Song of the Week: (I Know) I'm Losing You

You wouldn't know it from his current crooner persona, but at an earlier point in his career Rod Stewart knew how to rock.  After rising to prominence as the lead singer for the Jeff Beck Group, Stewart followed his friend Ronnie Wood to Faces, the new incarnation of the Small Faces.  They did not last too long before Stewart embarked on a successful solo career with Every Picture Tells a Story, a very strong album indeed.

On this album is the song (I Know) I'm Losing You, written by Whitfield, Holland and Grant, and first performed by the Temptations, then by Rare Earth.  Stewart's version was recorded with his mates from Faces, including Wood on guitar, the late Ronnie Lane on bass, Kenny Jones on drums and Ian McLagan on keyboards.  This was a song that Faces had performed live, though they did not record it before disbanding.  Here is a live performance on the BBC:

I especially liked Wood's little riff at the beginning, and Lane's big bass sound when he joins in.  Unfortunately, the sound quality on this is not great.  If you want to hear the album version, try here.

Movie Friday: Dreddful

I posted on Dredd when it first came out, but did not get around to seeing it in the theatre.  I finally saw it last weekend, and hereby pronounce it to be entertaining dross.  It held my attention with a combination of interesting production design, occasionally flashy cinematography, and a minimalist script with several pithy exchanges.  Karl Urban was amusing, though one never sees anything except the bottom half of his face...interesting decision, though I guess  maybe true to the original comic.  Olivia Thirlby and Lena Headley were also good.

What it lacked was any particular depth.  Another action picture from 2012 that was at least as entertaining was The Cabin in the Woods, but that one was full of clever concepts that stayed with me long after I had watched it.  For that matter, even Looper had more going on underneath.  So, fun movie but nothing special.

Update (Jan 26):  this is funny, and the timing is perfect re this post from yesterday.

Song of the Week: The Lee Shore

On the great Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young double live album 4 Way Street, one can find many outstanding renditions of various songs by each of the principals.  Roughly speaking, the first two sides cover more of the acoustic material (Teach Your Children, Don't Let It Bring You Down).  On side one, nestled between Crosby's Triad and Nash's Chicago, is a less well-known gem titled The Lee Shore.  (Interestingly, the Byrds' reluctance to record Triad, which concerns a ménage-a-trois, contributed to Crosby's decision to leave that band.)

The Lee Shore follows a frequent theme in Crosby's music, which concerns oceans, ships and sailors.  It's a beautiful, contemplative number that I always enjoy listening to.  It was also recorded in live form from the Crosby & Nash period.  Below is a recording of those two, taken from a BBC program in the early 1970s:

Mass Transit Redux

Since I already linked to the animation of the London tube system, why not also highlight the New York subway system as well.  A couple of things I did not realize came to light watching this:  (1) the earliest fragments were actually some stretches of elevated train in Brooklyn; and (2) one of the very first subway lines was my old IRT (123) line running up the west side of Manhattan. Good times.

Update:  link fixed.

Movie Friday: Looper (Finally)

Some time ago, I expressed some enthusiasm for seeing the Rian Johnson film Looper. Sadly, a busy fall kept me from seeing it in the theatre.  However, I did finally see it on PPV, and I have to say that it was one of the more entertaining movies of 2012 that I have seen. Unfortunately, I could not buy the "Bruce Willis as older Joseph Gordon-Levitt" concept, but both were very good. I highly recommend this clever and original movie.

This film has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (95% top critics). Importantly, the idiot Cole Smithey didn't like it, which I take as a strong positive rating.

Song of the Week: Born, Never Asked

Laurie Anderson is an interesting character.  A graduate of Barnard College, with a subsequent MFA from Columbia, she became part of the avant garde art and music scene in New York during the 1970s.  Much of her work featured her violin playing, but also lots of experimental electronic effects, found sounds, etc.  She has been together with Lou Reed for many years.

I still remember the first time I heard Big Science in the early 1980s.  It was unlike anything else I had listened to.  Full of catchy tunes and occasionally over-clever lyrics (often in ironic spoken word), it was genuinely fun.  Unsurprisingly, it was subjected to quite a bit of criticism from the "serious" avant garde community as a sell-out.

Does it stand the test of time, thirty years later?  I gave it a listen recently, and found it to be quite enjoyable, though perhaps a little bit quaint.  For myself, I prefer her follow-up, Mr. Heartbreak.  But anyway, here is one of the songs from Big Science, titled Born, Never Asked, which I always found kind of spooky and profound:

What Jeremy Said

Jeremy very concisely states the issues facing the absurd situation of looming provincial budget cuts in a relatively booming economy.  Sadly, it appears that most journalists are not likely to make those connections.

One hand washes the other.

Movie Friday: Les Misérables

So, I saw Les Mis in the theatre over Christmas Break.  Since then, it has received 4 Golden Globe nominations, 9 BAFTA nominations and 8 Academy Award nominations, and lots of recognition from various film critic societies.  In particular, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway have been singled out for praise, and it is mostly deserved.  That said, the two who most impressed me were Samantha Barks as Éponine and Aaron Tveit as Enjolras.

In any case, I do not think this was a great film, and I frankly do not understand how it ended up nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, nor with a total of 8 nominations tying it for third behind Lincoln and The Life of Pi (neither of which I have seen yet).  It is telling that Tom Hooper was not nominated for Best Director.

All in all, it was worth seeing, but it will not go down as one of the best movies I saw in the last year.  Here's the trailer:

Yay Mass Transit

Great animation of the evolution of the London tube system.

Song of the Week: The Man With the Child In His Eyes

I have to confess to having something of a Kate Bush fixation.  Her music confounds and inspires me, most especially the amazing Hounds of Love from 1985.  Her sporadic output and idiosyncratic style have probably contributed to her periodic problems with highly dedicated stalkers, most recently about a year ago.

I still have a very sharp recollection of my first exposure to her, as a musical act on Saturday Night Live.  The song she sang was from her first album, The Kick Inside, which contains a number of songs written when she was 15-16.  This particular song, The Man With the Child In His Eyes, just bowled me over with its emotion and intimacy.  Sadly, that version (with Paul Shaffer doing the piano accompaniment) does not seem to be available online.  But here is another live version from 1979:

Pravda on the North Saskatchewan

Colloquy continues its tradition of publishing happy talk and avoiding any sort of substantive coverage of the many challenges faced by this institution with an end of the year post by President Samarasekera.  In it, she talks up the Rhodes Scholarship won by Megan Engel (a nice accomplishment for Megan, but not really something for which the University can or should claim credit); the dodgeball record (no comment; I've addressed this previously); and the establishment of the India-Canada centre of excellence (a reasonable thing to tout, though symptomatic of the reflexive drive towards internationalization of the University while neglecting our basic missions of providing quality education to Alberta residents and maintaining our status as a preeminent research institution).  It's hard to imagine that anyone involved in Colloquy ever really believed the hype about serving as a forum for discussion and debate of important issues.