Is This What You Want? - Top 10 Records of 2010 (Part Two)

6. Anagram - Majewski (Dead Astronaut)

Toronto is a really excellent city. There's a million things to do on any given night and hundreds of bands playing every week in every conceivable genre, be it bearded expeimentalists, or the next Drake. The one thing that I think Toronto is missing is a really solid rock & roll scene. Population-wise, the city is so large and fragmented that the impetus to try and do something different with punk rock is pervasive - so much so that the fundamentals often get forgotten. A common aesthetic and philosophical sensibility unties scenes and allows creativity to thrive, rather than encouraging copycats, as smaller cites like Ottawa, Calgary, and even Vancouver have proven.

Which is why, I suppose, that it took so long (not until the release of this album) for me to find out about Anagram, perhaps my favourite current Toronto band. It took them about three minutes to win me over at their album release show this fall, playing a hypnotically intense, casually powerful set. The urgency of Matt Mason's vocals are the driving force - confrontational without being obvious or forced. This is the kind of record that demands you to listen without being intrusive. In other words, Anagram is the sort of band that leaps out at you with instant intensity but respects your intelligence enough to let you figure out exactly what's going on. It's kind of the less speedier, more drunk and brooding cousin to The Bottom of the City.

I hesitate to say that there's something characteristically "Toronto" about it, but it does seem to have that certain combination of angst and avant that reveals something about the appeal of this big place. It's also punk rock enough to say, "Fuck that, fuck the city, fuck you, fuck everything. Just listen."


7. Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be (Sub Pop)

It's nice to follow a band from near-inception and watch them evolve. It can also be nice to see a band pick an aesthetic, refine it, and run with it. Dum Dum Girls' melancholy pop aesthetic is the product of Kristin "Dee Dee" Gundred's work with bands of a similar ilk, notably Blank Dogs (whose sole member she collaborated with in the band the Mayfair Set) and Vivian Girls. Dum Dum Girls kind of sounds like a cross between those two bands, mixing a constant, propulsive drumbeat, with simply played guitar chords and wistful vocals.

The songs here help set Gundred apart from her previous peers as I Will Be maintains a consistent, metronomic sensibility. The whole thing is heavily stylized, and it works to her advantage. It's easy for an artist to distrust their own sensibility, but a constant, pathological need to try and set oneself apart often leads to boring records. Dee Dee and her girls were smart enough to copy what everyone else was doing, and do it better.

It's nice to see female-fronted bands carving out their own niche. Along these same lines, I particularly enjoyed the more pop-oriented Best Coast, and more angular Effi Briest. But I think it was Dum Dum Girls who did it best by setting a goal and sticking to it. The record swings back and forth, keeping time with the beat of the heart, and by the time it reaches its lovely conclusion with a simple, unadorned cover of Sonny & Cher's "Baby Don't Go" mine's in pieces.


8. Puffy Areolas - In the Army 1981 (Siltbreeze)

Quiet. Quietquietquiet. ScrrreEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. NOISE NOISE NOISE. YellYellYell. RiffRiffRiff. POUND POUND POUND. Bleeeeaaauuurrrrrgh.

This is the heaviest, noisiest, and craziest record on this list. Straight out of Ohio (no surprise) and led by some guy named Krauty McKraut, this is basically classic, hardcore-influenced, riff-heavy garage punk with a hint of psychedelic noise-noodling here and there to give everyone a few minutes to breathe. The last band that did this on the same level was Comets on Fire, and there's your band analogy if you want one. The Puffys have that same wild-eyed, nasty, go-for-broke insanity that Comets had on their first few records, just without the same level of pedal fetish.

Simply, these guys are carrying on the tradition of fucking around with the punk rock template that started with, oh I dunno, let's say the Electric Eels, and injecting their smoke-choked rust-belt sensibility. This record is also really fun in that jump-around, arms-flailing, fuck-my-dumb-life kind of way. Beer-soaked godhead.


9. White Lung - It's The Evil (Deranged)

It seems in some way that this was the punk record everybody needed to hear in 2010. Well, maybe not everybody, as I'm not sure if it's ultimately going to break out of its ghetto, but it obviously seems to have struck a chord. Again, this is a record that I think is successful by returning the the basics and sticking to a formula. Each song is defined by a distinctive, simple riff, a insistent bass-line, precise percussion, and a crazy girl singing.

Another Vancouver act - a town that keeps pumping 'em out - whose urgency and dedication is palpable. This is a simple, classic punk record that sounds easy, but seemingly was born from a great deal of dissatisfaction with a scene, locally and globally. This kind of straight-up, unapologetically pissed-off stuff hasn't sounded as vital as it does now in quite a long time.


10. The Soft Pack - s-t (Kemado)

A straight indie-rock guitar record, taking its cues from Dunedin, Chapel Hill, and England in general. Indie rock has been cold, stiff, and lifeless for, oh, I don't know, fifteen years, so thanks go out to these fancypants-ed San Diego lads who took a few moments out of their days sitting out in the sun eating ice cream and sipping on gimlets to grace us with these ten hook-filled future classics.

In this case, youth is not wasted on the young, as these guys (formerly known as the Muslims) have put all their youthful vigor and misappropriated cool into their songs. They are kind of the sun-kissed version of the Strokes (of ten years ago), and, in fact, this may be the best record of its ilk since Is This It.

Endlessly listenable and full of promise, these guys are leagues ahead of the deathless boring mid-tempo Libertines clones that litter the landscape.

See my full list here.

Is This What You Want? - Top 10 Records of 2010 (Part One)

1. Nothing People - Soft Crash (S-S)

I'm not sure if this is the best Nothing People record, but it certainly feels like this is the right time for this band to be hitting their stride. I realized, when I was conceptualizing this list thing that I like them so much not because they sound like other bands that I like, but because they've created their own sound in the same way Pavement and the Flaming Lips did back in the early '90s, when I was first realising just how moving and fascinating weird music could be.

I've tried to pigeonhole this band and been completely unsuccessful. They are indebted to post-punk, certainly in the way they embrace a Joy Division-like darkness, but they also move faster than any of that p-p stuff, but not in that blatant, obvious, and certainly by now boring, one-two punch danceable kind of way. They are also indebted to wiley, snotty garage-punk, and fully entrenched within the vinyl g-p culture that established itself as another narrative for those who cared about rock & roll while people were still buying Black Rebel Motorcycle Club CDs by the 30-count box.

All it takes, really, is a listen to something like "Exploded View" to realise how these geniuses have created their own little campfire w/o needing anyone to say yay or nay. They seem to be happy, playing around with their pedals in their bizarre Northern California suburb, making apocalyptic music that no one seems to understand. I love them. They are the best band in the world right now.

2. The Fresh and Onlys - Play it Strange (In the Red)

I hope I've jimmied this band's collective wang in these pages enough already to make the curious go beyond just simple curiosity. At this point the most important thing to convey is that the best way to begin to understand these retro-futuristic fun puveyors is by settling in with their amazing mini-major offering, Play it Strange. This is the sound of a band at the peak of their powers, a band led by an eccentric bearded genius that sees months as years, and is maybe only ready to release his flower-power hook filled missives to the world as wax singles until the LP feels ready to go.

Said LP is Play it Strange, released with impeccable timing after a flurry of singles, (wonderfully) cobbled together albums and weirdo cassette releases. In the most wonderfully obvious way, this album contains F&O's braintrust Tim Cohen's best songs to date, including the harmoniously heartbreaking " Waterfall," and the epic epiphany of "Tropical Island Suite." These are insanely gorgeous pop songs, endlessly replay-able and eternally wonderful. If you'd like to recreate what, say, it was like to hear the Kinks' Face to Face for the first time back in 1966, this may be your chariot to the heavens.

Play it Strange is the at-peak offering from an artist (along with a group of other artists) that resists compromise and is unafraid to be lovely and heartfelt without forcing catharsis. This is one of a handful of records I played compulsively this year, guided by its lovely melodies, grubby fingers, and heart-brain references to pop music's past. Not all of the records on this list are for everyone. This one is.

3. Defektors - The Bottom of the City (Nominal)

Of the bands that have emerged from Vancouver's so-called "weird punk" scene, the most interesting have been the most straightforward - the neo-riot grrl paint-peeling of White Lung, the snotty shenanigans of Vapid, the death garage of Sex Church, the hippie-punk of Indian Wars, and the forthright punk rock of Defektors.

Regrettably, I left that city in a fit of boredom, depression, and ennui just as this scene was in its nascent stages. Had these bands been doing what they were doing now in late 2007 I might still be a west-coaster (a weird thought).

If there's an anthem for how I felt during my time there it's this record's "Bottom of the City," a terrific evocation of the wild anxiety and dark thrills of living moment to moment in a place where absolute destitution mixes with privilege on a barroom floor every weekend.

The record simmers to a boil wasting little time to makes its points. This is an urgent record, in the same way early Wipers records are, but also stream-lined in a way that few records dare to be, with just enough pedal wizardry to add that extra expressive dimension of hurtling through time.

Some have criticised this band (and others of their ilk) for coming off a little detached and not sufficiently weird enough. I say fuck that. This speedy, sincere, and super-intense (and also FUN) record is what I crave in my rock & roll.

4. Thee Oh Sees - Warm Slime (In the Red)

Another prolific Bay Area band, much like the Fresh and Onlys, with six LPs and numerous EPs, singles, and comp appearances to their credit in approximately five years of existence. This project is led by John Dwyer, who like Tim Cohen, is another prodigious talent who can't sit still. This band started out as the mellow, folky, j-ed out counterpart to Dwyer's Coachwhips, but has progressively gotten noisier.

Like most of this band's output, Dwyer's distinctively hungry guitar lashes lay in relief to a reverb-drenched background with an ever-so-slight bit of twang that gives the whole thing a vital danceability. But this record cuts the fatty meanderings of previous efforts. Warm Slime is the super-strong, super-tight record this band has been promising all along.

Anchored by the epic thriteen-minute crowd pleasing title track, and the punk roadkill blast, "I Was Denied," this is unabashedly fun music for fun people. There is a warm, woodsy vibe that runs through this despite the fact that it moves like a tiger and stings like a scorpion. A violent blast of punk love to the heart.

5. Sex Church - 6 Songs By Sex Church (Convulsive)

I'm calling it death-garage, because 1) there's nothing wrong with genre labels, even if (like my appellation there) they are hideously uninventive, because generic coding is a simple, easy to understand method of communicating a shared communal understanding - the simpler the better, in fact; and 2) it is hilariously inappropriate to label this "post-punk," as some have over-zealously done.

Oh yeah, also it's rock and roll, if you remember that stuff, and for all the bleating over how this sub-genre of sorts (see also: Nothing People) is so dark and moody there needs to be more bleating over how it captures the basic premise of early rock in roll inside its own dark psyche. This thing's got hooooks. Every Sex Church song thusfar has been instantly catchy and memorable (if not terribly easy to sing along to) because of the strict simplicity of the construction. The marvel here is that this is music rooted in ancient genres that allows itself to be forceful and experimental, yet retains its simple essence.

Largely this record is proof that slogging it out for years and years in punk bands bears fruit as these guys are all grizzled veterans who are now making the best music of their lives. These songs all seem like journeys that begin dark but end transcendent.

Frankie Rose & the Outs

Reviewed by this guy over at Exclaim.

Hated or Loved - My Favourite Singles of 2010

1. The Fresh & Onlys - Second One to Know / Hated or Loved (Woodsist), Vanishing Cream / Cloud 9 (Plastic Spoons), August in My Mind EP (Captured Tracks)


Ordinarily, I wouldn't go lumping a bunch of releases together by the same band, but the Fresh & Onlys, were so good, so consistent, and more importantly, so goddamn prolific this year, that it seemed unfair to consider each one separately. Besides these ten extraordinary songs, the band also released a full-length record this year, Play it Strange, on In the Red, which not only maintained the same level of quality and songcraft, but also positioned the F&Os as really, the most significant band of 2010.

Rather than pick apart these singles song-by-song, I think they are best digested together, in any order, as part of a larger body of work. The brainchild of San Francisco's Tim Cohen, the Fresh & Onlys seemed to burst forth fully-formed and ready to wow anyone within listening distance. These are not bits of high-treble abstract weirdness, or eccentric, impenetrable bedroom-fi, but they are unique, individual pieces of work that bear the marks of music that's been deeply constructed and poured over - so much so that the rapidity and consistency with which they are released to the public is nothing short of mind-boggling.

They say the hardest thing to do is write a catchy hit single. Lightning strikes so very rarely. The crazy thing here is that ALL of these songs are indelibly catchy, irresistible pop tunes bound for top-40 immortality (in a more clever alternate universe, mind) . My favourites of all these songs, "Second One To Know" and "August in My Mind" are stolen straight from the 1965 pop singles songbook, the former being a bouncy go-go number and the latter being the more introspective heart-breaker.

Everything the Fresh & Onlys did in 2010 was worth paying attention to, and a great deal of it was jaw-dropping. Do youself a favour and let their dreamy wizardry make your musical life a more comfortable place to be.

(I should also note that this band released three other singles that I've yet to catch up with at press time. I'm sure they're all wonderful too.)


2. Nothing People - Enemy With an Invitation / Reinstall (Permanent)

Speaking of consistency, Orland (?) California's favourite sons blessed us with more of their classic dark stuff this year, shuffling off this death-garage two-sider way back in January. I'll talk about the People in greater depth in my year-end albums wrap up, but let me say this: this is the most fun you'll have dreading getting out of bed all year.


3. Marvelous Darlings - Teenage Targets / Lagoons (Plastic Idol)

Toronto's best non-existent band continued their flurry of 7"ers this year with the final (?) of six slabs of life-affirming power pop. These two songs are two of their absolute best, recalling beer-fueled, basement jamz, and the ultimate elusive joy at singing along to a sing-along song at the top of one's lungs. Fist pumpers in one way and smooth swooners in another, this recalls the mighty Cheap Trick at their peak. These dudes need to put aside all their other side-projects, reform and please-please-please start playing shows again. They will rule the world.


4. Rot Shit - You're Welcome (Columbus Discount Records)

The best, closest thing to hardcore of 2010. These guys have been playing ultra-noisy, occasionally speedy, always intersting, often amusing, weird face-melting heavy gunk punk for about five years now, and the three songs on You're Welcome are their finest moment. "Dead I" is a fine pigfuck distorto ear-gouger - the kind of song that grabs you by the throat and shakes vigorously. The band moves into more hardcore territory of the B-side with "Hipster Grandma" and "Local Band Forever," and frankly do it better than anyone else out there. Go ahead, show me whatever hardcore you got, I'll put Rot Shit up against it and win every time.


5. Oblivians / Andre Ethier - Oblivion / Promising Rainbows AND Cheap Time / Bad Sports - Proper Introductions (Running Nowhere) / Would You Wait For Me To? (Scion Audio/Visual)

Not sure what the deal is with the sudden patronage of this mysterious car company (has anyone actually seen a Scion?) making the world safe for punk rock again, playing record label like the second-coming of Crypt and giving the venerable Oblivians a place to call home. Nevertheless, they can keep on keeping on as long as the stuff they're putting out remains this high quality.

The Oblivians song does come off a bit like a harder-edged Reigning Sound number, but the essence is definitely still there, and the boys tear through it like kids on Christmas. It's got that classic Obv's tom sound hat really drives the thing like a '69 Plymouth Roadrunner about to careen off a cliff into..... well, you know. Almost equally as impressive is the Ethier song, which is the Deadliest and Snakesiest thing to come out of the guy since.... well, you know.

Cheap Time's full-length this year was a pretty big disappointment, but their Scion contribution is a great return to form. Plenty of the classic snot-punk here that made their debut so compulsively listenable. Bad Sports turn in a classic here too - maybe the best of all four songs. The simply propulsive "Would You Wait For Me To?" graduates this band from the garage-punk glut into purveyors of potential classics.


6. Lamps - Niels Bohr (Dull Knife)

Oh Lord, what I wouldn't give to deliver a package like Monty Buckles. If I was his eye-ear-nose-and throat specialist I'd be worried cause it sure sounds like he's about to hack up a lung after every three minute slab of noise this criminal band delivers. He might lose his voice and hearing, but if he loses his vision he won't be able to make any more music videos. Won't someone help Monty Buckles!


7. Gentlemen Jesse and His Men - She's a Trap / I Won't Say Goodbye (Douchemaster)

Two totally unsurprising power pop classic from these absolute masters. "She's a Trap" would of course fit just fine like a missing puzzle piece along with the other classics on their debut of '08,and certainly leave one hankering for another LP of more of the same. The one that seals the deal here though is the heart-breaking B-side, which slides in nicely with the rest of the Jesse canon, but adds a particularly trenchant dose of melancholy that this band has only scratched the surface of thusfar. Yep, that means this band is quietly evolving, and more power to 'em.


8. Best Coast - Something in the Way (PPM)

This is probably the most melancholy Best Coast release, despite the bouncy beats and ooh-wah-oohs of the title track. Both tracks on the A are about being stuck in mediocre relationships. On "Something in the Way" Bethany's hopelessly attracted and attached to someone who treats her like shit, but has her running back with one small word ("something in the way you say my name"). "Wish He Was You" is the converse. Here she's hanging out with a nice guy who simply doesn't match up to the one that got away. It usually irks me when reviewers say that want to cuddle up some soul-bearing musician they don't even know, but she sounds so lost and confused here that when I saw her tiny little frame walking around at NXNE I kind of wanted to give her a hug and apologise on behalf of dudes everywhere for making her so miserable.

I think "The Road" is my fave track of the three, a dark-fuzz drenched minor-chord bummer that doesn't even pretend to be happy. It's seemingly more existential, more concerned with time, space, and being than her more pop stuff.

All told, this is quite the clever little niche that Ms. Consentino has carved out for herself, and while the album is remarkably solid, the best way to hear these songs are in the 7" format. This one is particularly moving.


9. Moon Duo - Escape EP (Woodsist)

And now for something a little different. The brother band of Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo are in fact a duo, that follow along the same heavy trip head nod lines The difference I suppose is the Duo are a bit more straightforward, what with being just a duo afterall. Finding a common, propulsive space rock groove is key with these four songs, yeah, just the two of them, bangin' away. Ripley and Sanae are their names. Crazy, right? What's that smell. Woah, it stopped playing. Heavy.


10. Wild Thing - Age Difference (Daggerman)

Wee-hah! What a classic way to end things off, with this fucking no-frills, no lollygagging around grimy, slimy piece of punk rock. This hits all the bases and covers all the angles from the Dead Boys onwards. "Age Difference" is the trash-punk anthem of 2010. FUN-FUN-FUN! Hey! Ho! Let's fuck!

Also great: The Chinese Restaurants - River of Shit EP (S-S), Cold Warps - Endless Bummer EP (Self-released), The Hex Dispensers - One Less Ghost / I'm a Ghost (Trouble in Mind), Mickey - s-t EP (FDH), Puffy Areolas - Rock N Roll Express (Stasi), Sex Church - 209 / Paralyse (HoZac), Wooden Shjips -What It Is / Buddy (Sick Thirst)

Complete list here.

Movies of the Year - 2010

In what is becoming a traditionally annual annual tradition, my look back at the art of the films of the cinema reflects not the contemporary year, but rather my most interesting journeys through the past. Is my interest in new movies waning? Perhaps. But everybody knows that old is good and new is bad, right? So, here are the....

TOP 10 OLDER MOVIES I SAW IN 2010 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER EXCEPT FOR #1 WHICH IS #1.

The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)

What a great film this is. I can’t believe I waited so long to see it, and I’d see it again in a heartbeat. Bogdanovich has had such a weird career, brought into greater relief now considering the incredible, un-self-conscious work here. The great cast here is the rock-solid foundation, and they are deftly handled, and the film is emotionally wrenching without being the slightest bit melodramatic. The rare film that just seems to unfold naturally without showing the slightest evidence of construction, yet is so obviously, methodically poured over and beautifully crafted. Also totally fun to watch, despite its often gloomy subject matter. A masterpiece.

The ‘Up’ Series (Michael Apted, et al, 1964, 1971, 1977, 1985, 1991, 1998)

Watched in rapid succession of one another, this series gets completely psyched-out as you see these socially stratified Brits age before your very eyes. Apted’s crazy pet project is at once fascinating and depressing, as dreams die and self-fulfilling prophesies become manifest. How tough is it to watch these 7 year-olds become exactly what they were destined to be, resigned to their shell-shocked lives? Yet as the series evolves it becomes less of a social experiment of more of a study of memory. ‘Up’ is not about these people’s lives, but rather the event of reflecting on their lives, and how the use of media changes this act. It’s a shame that Charles and Peter, two of the most interesting subjects, dropped out, but of course the heart and soul of this whole thing is Neil, whose totally unpredictable experiences throw a huge spanner in the socio-cultural works.

Shall We Dance (Mark Sandrich, 1937)

Until this, no classical Hollywood musical really gave me that warm-n-fuzzy feeling while at the same time wowing me with its artistic audacity. Singin’ in the Rain is cool and all, but it’s just so gosh darn squeaky clean, y’know? Top Hat, the most well-regarded of the Astaire-Rogers depression-era RKO musicals is a technical marvel and totally fun, and admittedly, if I hadn’t seen it I might not have enjoyed Shall We Dance as much, but I like SWD better, if only because it’s so self-aware. Fred and Ginger were mega-stars by 1937, and ergo, had a bit of creative-wiggle room. Essentially playing themselves (Fred is a gentlemanly goofball, Ginger is sweet but takes no guff), the stars subtly let the audience in on the meta fun, not only piss-taking the 1930s notions of celebrity, but also fooling around with the musical form. Each dance sequence here seems like an audacious gambit, particularly the eye-popping roller-skate in the park set to “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” Shall We Dance was considered a relative disappointment when it was released, and has yet to be critically rehabilitated (I guess since movies only started being self-referential in the ‘50s, right?) Regardless, this is an incredible, blissfully romantic, wall-to-wall fun time.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates, 1973)

Oh man, the early ‘70s. This piece, from journeyman director Peter Yates, fits in seamlessly with all the gritty and grim urban crime flicks of the era. This is one of those films that weaves its suture magic so that it seems like real events are unfolding as the frames click by. The mundane details are here, regarding the daily life of being a career criminal, but this thing is anything but mundane. It’s a full-blown tragedy. Robert Mitchum, who I thought could never top The Night of the Hunter, does so here.

The Naked Prey (Cornel Wilde, 1966)

The Naked Prey was described to me with the simple promo cliché, “non-stop action.” There is no greater, more essential description of this totally nuts movie. Cult matinee idol Cornel Wilde shepherded this vanity project turned wild ethnography turned brutal nail-biter that’s basically a 90 minute chase scene. You will not believe what the fuck you just saw every five seconds.

Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)

A wild, weird noir that seems to have been made on the sly, exclusively to satisfy the perverted whims of millionaire studio execs and H’wood power brokers. With the sex and violence amped up, and atomic hysteria running at a fever pitch, this is all the repression of the ‘50s materialized as an iron-jawed detective story. This one is a fucking jaw-dropper.

Love and Death, Stardust Memories, Alice (Woody Allen, 1975, 1980, 1990)

This year I started on a (now on hiatus) project of filling all my gaps in Woody’s filmography in chronological order. Of the six films I caught up with, these were my three favourites. It is of course an auteurist boner to look at how a director evolves and seek out those little narrative threads that reveal their oh-so subconscious intentions. This guy’s a pretty singular director, like a one-man first-year liberal arts seminar, pastiching literature, psychoanalysis, existentialism, and slapstick. Love and Death is one of his best, bridging the gap between his “early, funny” movies and his more introspective realistic work of the late ‘70s. Diane Keaton makes for a perfect foil, and if you dug what she was up to in Annie Hall (who didn’t), this is where is begins. Stardust Memories, Woody’s 8 ½, was initially off-putting, triggering my allergy to rich people complaining about their lives, but the extraordinary melding of the real and the imaginary, and our hero’s remarkable – I can only describe it as “British” - ability to criticize his audience while seeming ultimately vulnerable won me over. Alice is just a sweet little film from his nostalgia period, before his life imploded.

Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971)

Another grim n’ gritty early ‘70s actioner, directed by one of the greatest genre specialists of all time. Some seem afraid to embrace this one because of its supposed politics, which is bunk because a) it opens up a dialogue of disconent in the post-hippie era, and b) Harry Callahan is obviously fucking nuts! What more is this than a representation of the darkest impulses of our collective unconscious shooting it out at each other?

Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932)

Okay, I realize this is a pretty testosterone-heavy list (I swear I will punch the next person who brings that up), but indulge me for one more. I guess I’m still viscerally impacted by unique depictions of violence, be they uncharacteristically out of context or shockingly real. Scarface, a go-for-broke motion picture in every possible way, is both strikingly realistic and ridiculously over-the-top. Bullets fly every which-way, as anti-hero Tony Camonte ascends through the underworld like a classic 20^th century robber-baron. Hawks’s lightning-fast touch is complimented by his usual deft ensemble casting, crafting instantly memorable larger-than-life types that transcend caricature. Miles better than Brian DePalma’s bloated remake, this fantastical critique of killer capitalism traversing the layers of hell is as good as gangster gets.

The T.A.M.I Show (Steve Binder, 1964)

I had already seen the truncated VHS version of this, presented in typically crass ‘80s style by a bored-looking Chuck Berry, but this year’s complete re-issued version is a different animal. The line-up is of course a who’s-who of pop music in ’64, save the Beatles, and it’s a simple testament to how much (and how seemingly effortlessly) these people owned the world. Berry kicks off the show guns-a-blazin’ as the official representative of the history of rock & roll (a mere nine years after his first single), which just goes to show how quickly things were moving at the time, and just about everyone tries to keep up, except for the Motowners, who got their own thing going. Conventional wisdom suggests that the Rolling Stones look foolish after James Brown, but I think James Brown (although great) was at a bit of a creative lull at this point and the Stones something to behold, setting the template for dangerous rock & roll for the next thousand years. This film made me giddy from the sweet innocence of the performers, as well as a little melancholy for a moment in pop music that I didn’t live through and can never be replicated. Recommended if you like fun.

Also great: Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984), The Boss of it All (Lars von Trier, 2006), La dolce vita (Federico Fellini, 1960), The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003), Forty Guns (Sam Fuller, 1957), Hard Core Logo (Bruce McDonald, 1996), The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004), Martin (George A. Romero, 1977), The Son (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2002), The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973), You Can’t Take it With You (Frank Capra, 1938)

Lyrics of the year - 2010

Timmy's Organism - I'm a Nice Guy Now

(Transcribed by yours truly. Copyright by the original authors).

(I'd like to think that if Violence Gang was still a band this is the kind of stuff I'd be writing).

I used to eat garbage
Now I eat steak
Used to steal from the thrift store
Now I donate
I'd punch old ladies
Now I walk 'em across the street
I'd kick down the door
Now I have to knock

I'm a nice guy now
Such a good good guy now
I'm a nice guy now
Such a wholesome boy

I'm a nice guy
Look at my face
Smilin' at the human race

(x2)

I liked to roll in the dirt
Now I take showers
I used to sniff lots of glue
Now I'll stop and smell the flowers
I'd drink from the sewer baby
Now I drink lemonade
Used to dig rock & roll
Now I dig classical

'Cause I'm a nice guy now
I'm a nice guy now
I'm a good guy now
Such a wholesome boy

I'm a nice guy
Look at my face
Smilin' at the human race

(x2)

Drinking rubbing alcohol
Punching holes in the wall
Screaming and stomping on the floor
I don't do that no more

I'm a nice guy now
Such a wholesome little boy
Such a good guy now

I'm a nice guy
Look at my face
Smilin' at the human race

(x2)


Timmy's Organism - I'm a Nice Guy Now! by scumrock