Book Review: 'Roger Waters, The Man Behind The Wall' by Dave Thompson

This biography, by renowned rock 'n roll scribe Dave Thompson, (frequent Rolling Stone magazine writer and author of the Kurt Cobain bio Never Fade Away) says as much about Roger Waters, co-founder of Pink Floyd, as it does about his flagship rock band. It paints a cheery if psychedelic picture of the burgeoning progressive rock music scene of 1960s England, and examines, with blissful scrutiny, the in-studio and behind-the-scenes history of Pink Floyd's legendary albums and concerts.

The late and tragic Syd Barrett, one-time leader and co-founder of Pink Floyd, is given just enough biographical detail to emerge as a genuine human being and artist, as opposed to the impossible mythological demigod history has made of him.

While encompassing decades of the ascent of rock 'n roll as a true art form,  and name-checking nearly every major musician of the era, the book is still an expose on Roger Waters, the quiet musician and writer who rose through the ranks of Pink Floyd to become its unlikely leader and spokesperson following the exile of Syd Barrett. It traces his subsequent divorce from his band mates, (and his wives) and his confident attempt to be recognized as a solo artist, while the mammoth dinosaur Pink Floyd lay in broken bones around him.

The book is a treasure trove for a Floydian, the musical equivalent of a Trekkie.  While Thompson writes at an arm's length away from his subject, with no one-on-one interviews or correspondence with Waters, his insight into the music of Floyd, and his exhaustive research of the era including interviews with those closest to Waters, makes for a thoroughly engaging and often amusing read. When the famous Pink Floyd prop, a giant inflatable pig for the promotion of the Animals album, escaped from its mooring and floated off into the sky, Thomspson assumes the point of view of an pub patron stepping out the door, looking up to the sky, and seeing a giant pig floating by.


Pink Floyd's opus The Wall, a monumental album that crowned Pink Floyd's tremendous body of work late in their career, and forced The Grammy Awards people to nominate a progressive and unlikely rock music for Album of The Year,  is the theme the book revolves around. It covers the album's transfiguration into a movie version (a colossal dud I thought), it's impact on popular culture (The Berlin Wall came tumbling down), and Waters' seemingly endless live touring of The Wall which has been making the rounds of the globe for the last three years.

But it's the more detailed and intricate nuggets of Pink Floyd history that makes this book one of the finest rock 'n roll bios I have ever read. While Waters is no more "in the flesh" than he ever was after reading this, I have a deeper appreciation for his life and work. Specifically, the Wall-related loss of his father in WWII, before he was born, and the influence it had on his art. And I won't soon forget Thompson's description of a drugged-up, wild-eyed Syd Barrett playing his last gig with Pink Floyd at dawn in an English park.

And now I have an insatiable urge to listen to The Dark Side of The Moon for the millionth time.


this article was first published by the author at: http://blogcritics.org/book-review-roger-waters-the-man-behind-the-wall-by-dave-thompson-2/

Movie Review - 'Blackfish'

The orca that killed veteran trainer Dawn Brancheau at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010 before a packed horrified audience was an aggressive individual that had killed twice before and would likely kill again. So says the documentary Blackfish, a movie that examines the danger involved with domesticating orcas for circus-like entertainment at places like SeaWorld.

We all remember the tragic incident in Orlando. Initial reports stated trainer Brancheau was pulled by the whale or fell into the water when the aquatic matinee star, the killer whale Tilikum, dragged her under effectively drowning her. SeaWorld claimed Brancheau's pony-tail style hair was to blame, having gotten caught in the whale's teeth, an explanation echoed by local law enforcement. The whale was simply playing and unintentionally drowned her.

Blackfish disputes that explanation and rightfully so. SeaWorld's passive denunciation of the tragedy, modified several times since, is in bold denial of the facts. Brancheau's autopsy revealed she was attacked, thrashed about, and scalped. Her left arm was torn off. Witnesses say it was eaten by the whale. She suffered a lacerated liver and broken ribs. If not for the outcry of the unfortunate viewing public who witnessed the matinee show at SeaWorld, we may still be believing a whale of a tale.

Tilikum had killed twice before. In 1991 trainer Keltie Byrne was killed at Sealand of The Pacific in British Columbia when she entered the whale pool, and was tossed from mouth to mouth by Tilikum and two other trained whales. The official cause of death was drowning. Witnesses described a horrible death. The negative publicity from the tragedy forced Sealand, which was more a roadside attraction than an amusement park, to close. They sold Tilikum to SeaWorld who intended to use him as a breeding male.

In 1999 27 year-old David P. Dukes sneaked into Tilikum's pool and was found naked and dead the next morning draped to the whale's back. He had wounds and bite marks on his body and his genitals were bitten or pulled off.  Details of this incident are unclear with accusations that SeaWorld must have video surveillance of this attack which they claim they do not. SeaWorld's public spin on this tragedy suggested it looked like the whale had tried to save Dukes from drowning by putting him on its back. Believe!

Tilikum still performs at SeaWorld in Orlando to this day, although he now swims alone. While the documentary attempts to depict him as an aggressive individual who is spawning countless dangerous baby killer whales - a rather alarmist sci-fi notion - one suspects it is the breed itself and not some individuals who are a threat to their trainers. Director Gabriella Cowperthwaite notes there is not a single documented case of a killer whale killing a human in the wild. These tragedies occur only in captivity.

The film conveys the absurdity of capturing and training these magnificent beasts and then joining them in the water as if they are an air blown aquatic toy to be ridden on like a horse. Grainy video from old TV news reports, and colorful vistas from SeaWorld's promotional advertising, that depicts parents playfully placing their child on the head of the orca, are coupled with the very dark edited footage of the tragic events. The most compelling footage is the near death of trainer Ken Peters, who was dragged down by his foot to the bottom of the whale tank, held underwater, brought back to the surface and dragged down again. The entire incident, well known and immortalized on YouTube, lasted nine heart pounding minutes.

The movie is an aggressive and impelling argument against the capturing and compounding of killer whales. SeaWorld is depicted as an uncaring contemptuous multi-million corporation hiding behind a veil of ecological righteousness in their claim of promoting awareness and activism of marine wildlife. As a result of the death of Dawn Brancheau, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has made it mandatory that a physical barrier must be placed between the trainers and the killer whales. SeaWorld is appealing that decision.

Blackfish, which is a native-American word for killer whale, made its premier at The Sundance Film Festival and is currently in mass distribution by Magnolia Pictures.


this article was first published by the author at http://blogcritics.org/movie-review-blackfish/

Music Review: Sly and The Family Stone, "Higher!"

When record executives pressured Sly Stone into producing a hit single in 1968, mainstream audiences were rewarded with a new infusion of pop music - psychedelic soul. This new rock-infused genre of music, bending the beats of the old Motown sound with its reverberating guitar, druggy sound effects, and socially conscious lyrics, would become the blueprint many soul music acts would follow after Sly and The Family Stone's sudden popularity.

Sly and The Family Stone already had one critically acclaimed but low selling album under its belt -  1967's A Whole New Thing, but Epic Records, and particularly legendary company president Clive Davis, knew that composer and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone was capable of much more.  Reluctantly Sly Stone went into the studio with his band of family and friends and did exactly what was asked. He produced a single that would appeal to the mass record-buying public.

Although the band wasn't particularly proud or happy with the recording, "Dance To The Music" rose to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became a big global hit record. Strictly designed for public consumption, the record was still a delicious blast of infectious drum beats, blazing trumpets, hot guitar licks, and a bass line so low and deep, it threatened to blow the batteries out of the tiny transistor radios it played on. Horn player Cynthia Robinson's raw and demanding vocal to "Get up and dance to the music!" lent an electrifying radical edge.

There was a collective dropped jaw as Sly and The Family Stone then showed up on American TV and viewers witnessed the first multi-racial, multi-gender popular recording act. They looked as if they had just beamed in from another planet. Sly Stone, wearing psychedelic sunglasses in a shirtless vest with gold chains and a towering Afro haircut, and Rose Stone, sporting a remarkably unnatural platinum blonde wig, were just a few of the fashion and cultural statements Sly and Family revealed as they crashed into American living rooms.

With the release of Higher! a 77-track 4-CD package that chronicles the history of the band, listeners can trace the evolution of black popular music from '60s Motown (The Supremes, The Temptations) to the emergence of funk (Parliament/Funkadelic), which opened the door to a host of expressionist styles of music including Afro-punk. Sly and Family's hit records ushered James Brown's "funk" into the popular record charts.

The CDs offer 17 previously unreleased tracks, two of which - live versions of "Stand!" and "You Can Make It If You Try" - unfortunately sacrifice the original studio versions. Also missing is the deep funk meditation of "Africa Talks To You" from There's A Riot Going On, an essential track in my opinion. This major fan would have loved to see the Sly Stone-produced Little Sister records included here, but I suppose record executives would remind us you can't have everything in one package. There is still a bounty of music here including several early Sly Stone solo recordings.

The hits are wonderful to hear again -  "Hot Fun In The Summertime", "Everyday People", "Family Affair" "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" - all possess a timeless immediacy,  sounding as fresh as the day they were released. The early less commercial recordings reveals a gritty, urban sound that certainly inspired Marvin Gaye to evolve from a crooner to a visionary.

Higher! comes with a 104 page booklet with rare photos and other memorabilia. Amazon.com is offering an exclusive 8 LP - 1 CD version of the release.

this article was first published by me at http://blogcritics.org/music-review-sly-and-the-family-stone-higher-four-cd-box-set/

Movie Review: Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine"

Woody Allen's new film, Blue Jasmine is a disturbing, engaging, and finally dispassionate study of a woman buckling under the weight of social pressures. Jeanette "Jasmine" Francis (Cate Blanchett), the once privileged social matron reduced to a poorhouse state after her corrupt Wall Street executive husband (Alec Baldwin) is imprisoned, talks to herself.

When she indulges in her lonely diatribe, chatting with unseen friends at a party, on the street, or alone in a room, director Allen studies her with such cinematic scrutiny, we are forced to watch what we would all chose to ignore - the unfortunate soul talking to themselves. The public reaction to a person carrying on a conversation with themselves is treated here as if it's a disease one might catch. Strangers vacate her space and gawk as if viewing a leper.

Otherwise, for a pill popping, martini slugging woman whose adulterous husband's downfall forces her from the social elite to the dregs of society - from a posh New York City penthouse suite to a cramped low-rent San Francisco apartment - Jasmine is coping. She heads west and as if stepping off a trolley car named Desire, moves in with her sweet lower class sister who has a Stanley Kowalski-like boyfriend (Bobby Cannavale). With vague unrealistic hopes of a professional career, she enrolls in a night class to learn how to use a computer and accepts a lowly position as a dentist's receptionist.

She walks a tightrope over this Tennessee Williams scenario while spilling little doses of sanity, mostly revealed in her lonely conversations. Her bubbles burst, her half-baked dreams dissipate, and like Streetcar's Blanche Du Bois, her plans for a future renewed are terrorized by her complete inability to adjust to a social order that is independent of a class system. Without luxury to define her, she is a shell of a human being overwhelmed by the substance abuse that threatens to consume her. Her luxurious presence draped in top of the line fashion wear in her sister's modest apartment seems forever on the verge of departure, as if she is only waiting on a cab to whisk her away to a higher income bracket.

Blue Jasmine is a completely watchable, cringe-inducing blackest of comedies with a powerhouse performance by Cate Blanchett who consumes every scene as if in a battle for dominance over the mundane images that threaten her. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent including shock comic Andrew Dice Clay as Jasmine's scorned ex-brother-in-law, and Sally Hawkins as her naïve Stella-like sister. Javier Aguirresarobe's cinematography has a small, postcard appeal.

But the film is lacking a groundwork of history that justifies Jasmine's mental unraveling. Is it her highly publicized social downfall that causes her to talk to herself (her only genuine social taboo), or has she always been flirting with schizophrenia? It's a question never answered, as if she is as anonymous as the stranger you see talking to themselves on the street.

In the end I think Woody Allen is doing little else here than handing over the 21st Century Blanche Du Bois on a silver platter and asking us to marvel at the delicacy and fragility of the human mind. His delving into Jasmine's naked mentality borders on luridness as his imposing camera probes deep into the act of talking to one's self, hoping to reveal anything left of sanity. It's a cold little film with a defiant warm glow that blurs the line between comedy and tragedy.


this article was first featured at http://blogcritics.org/movie-review-woody-allens-blue-jasmine/

FROG WATCHING: INTO THE WOODS

Frog Watch USA is a national conservation effort to determine the populations of the various species of frogs by monitoring their audible presence in given areas. The citizen science project - a joint effort of scientists and amateurs - began in 1998 in response to the alarming declining numbers of frog species on a global scale. Data submitted by volunteers is put into a national data bank which  collectively should offer an accurate account of frog species (including the American Toad) populations in the U.S.

This year I signed up to be a participant in FrogWatch at Reinstein Woods, a 292-acre wildlife sanctuary in Depew, NY, known for its active and plentiful populations of beaver and deer. On a wintry March night I attended the prerequisite frog "class" at the lodge at the sanctuary where I became an official Frog Watch steward. I had to learn the nine species of frogs residing in Western New York State and familiarize myself with their various calls and songs. I felt like a kid with a badge when they handed me my ID tags that would allow me into the sanctuary after hours (sunset to dawn).

Into the woods, I had to hear the frogs, not necessarily see them. My first spring night of frog watching taught me one important lesson: Don't forget the insect repellent! I was carved up for dinner by mosquitoes. The FrogWatch program equipped me with a backpack containing a thermometer, map, data sheets, flashlight, headlamp, clipboard, pen/pencil, and tape recorder (I felt like a fully prepared Ghostbuster) - but no insect repellent.

Remaining perfectly still and silent while waiting for the sound of frogs allowed me to observe other wildlife. Aside from the young couple I observed making love in yonder brush, the first wildlife I saw was a remarkably tame deer. She slowly stepped right up to me as if I had been a small tree she was going to nibble on. Probably the result of well-intentioned people feeding her.

Some nights when the moon was full, the woods became a midsummer night's firefly lit fantasy world of shadows and sounds, alive with the activity of the creatures who lived there.  At one frog watching post, bats swooped so low and close to me I was certain I would soon be Tippi Hendren running down the sanctuary path pulling bats out of my hair. At first I was amused at how close they would come to my head, but when I could actually hear the swish of their wings, (and imagine their beady little eyes), the whole rabies/Dracula vibe overwhelmed me.

Get a hold of yourself, I countered my ridiculous fear. What kind of a frog-watcher are you?

The beavers would smack their tails against the pond, signaling danger to other beavers, whenever I would come close to the water's edge. It's an aggressive and alarming sound, but not as aggressive and alarming as the land-loving beaver who stood in my path as if refusing to allow me to pass. Did I imagine that he was hissing at me? Do beavers hiss? I had just read on the internet how a beaver killed a guy in Russia who was photographing it. American beavers don't kill, do they? I ain't afraid of no beaver!

But then I was certain he hissed again, and I chose another path.

I am in danger of becoming a woods coward.

But that's part of the allure of the woods. That shot of adrenaline from something mysterious, something undefined lurking around the next bend. I'm not sure I would enjoy the woods as much without that sense of the unknown.  And there is no sense in being foolhardy when a maniacal rabies-infected hissing beaver is telling you to go another way.

But the strangest encounter I had was with man himself. Occasionally I would come across a fellow frog watcher and we would flash our flashlights at one another to identify ourselves as frog watchers. On one fog-shrouded night, after a flashlight communique, I met up with a frog watcher who told me to beware of a strange man lurking in the woods. She said she had just talked with him, that he had no authorization to be in the woods, and that he appeared irrational, odd, and mysterious. She said he was balancing on a log and throwing stones into the pond. After telling me this, she disappeared into the woods like a ghost. It was like a scene out of Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog.

So now I'm looking out for low-flying bats, rabid beavers, and homicidal maniacs.

While I heard every species of frogs residing in Western New York State at one time or another, the actual number of species I heard during the program's designated clocked and recorded 3-minutes of time was smaller. I recorded the "jug 'o rum" call of the Bullfrog, the banjo string "gunk" of the Green Frog, the trill of The American Toad, the "snore" of the Pickerel Frog, the "peep" of the Spring Peeper, and the tinny trill of the Western Chorus Frog.

But, as important, I got in touch with nature. Ah, wilderness! Aside from the spooky thrill of the woods, there were peaceful and contemplative moments. During one sunset I watched a Great Blue Heron circle the sanctuary like a paper airplane, settle down into a crop of brush, and then slowly escape into the canopy to its hidden nest. One night a coyote, looking very much its legend of "ghost dog", trotted off ahead of me on the path under a moonlit sky as if guiding my way.

Next year I'm all up for the bat-watching program. They say confronting your fears makes you stronger. Expect for rabid bats and angry beavers. Rabid bats and angry beavers will kill you.


this article was first featured at http://blogcritics.org/frog-watching-into-the-woods-2/

Swans at The Tralf Music Hall - Buffalo, NY 7/26/2013

Saw "Swans" at The Tralf Music Hall in Buffalo on Friday night. It was the best concert I have seen this year. It was one of those shows where I am so completely absorbed in the music, so engaged in the rhythm of the band, so greedily lapping up my Blue drafts thirst quenchers, - and now that it's over, I am clueless to explain why it was such a great show. It just was.

It doesn't help that while I am a huge Swans fan, and I am cozy with the Swans songbook, I couldn't name by title one song they played. That surprised me. All the more in that I received a review copy of the album that proceeded this global tour - We Rose From Our Bed With The Sun In Our Head.

I jumped into the superb set of elongated anti-climatic guitar drone and secular primal philosophy and emerged completely invigorated, awash with a musical massage that felt like I had just been playfully assaulted by Godzilla. Given the loudness of the show, I also couldn't hear for several hours.

Michael Gira and his 5-man band were a sound prism of noise expertise. The drone, the effects, the noise were all calculated into the rhythm of the music as if they were traditional instruments. It was a wonderful sound that I heard as primal survival in a modern world.

                                   Photo courtesy of soundkick, although I never actually asked
                                 

When solo opening act Pharmakon stepped onto the stage, started fiddling with a laptop and proceeded to scream strange sounds into the microphone, I muttered into my beer, "What the hell is this?". I thought she was a stage hand having a nervous breakdown. She then stepped down into the crowd, lopped around, leaning on some, passively confronting some, her microphone chord threatening to lasso the crowd up by their feet, all while screaming (and I mean SCREAMIN'!) a weird indecipherable language into the microphone, as drone effects pulsated from her soundboard. It was brilliantly effective.

Swans leader Michael Gira hit the fan table after the show so I bought a cool Swans poster for him to sign. I always hate having a few moments to convey to an artist how their music has effected me, shaped my life, how brilliant, artistic, blah, blah blah, ... their music is. It always feels so pretentious. I said "blah, blah, blah", he stiffly but amiably responded with an Elvis impersonation - "Thank you. Thank you very much."

BOOK REVIEW: "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trees" by David More and John White

 

If you're contemplating trees and you want to know the identification of a certain species, you can pull out a pocket field guide for trees to aid you. It should be as simple as that.

But if you're tree-obsessed and the mere identification of a species doesn't quell your curiosity - when an elm tree isn't just an elm tree but a distant European hybrid cousin of an elm tree - then The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trees (Second Edition, Princeton University Press, 2013) should satisfy the deeply rooted dendrologist within you.
 
This mammoth book (832 pages) identifies nearly 2,000 species and cultivars (cultivated through selection for desirable characteristics) found in Europe and North America. It offers an extensive history of the collecting and dispensing of tree seedlings.

Readers will discover Johnny Appleseed is not the only name in tree seed lore. Seventeenth-century European explorers, as colorful and animated as the celebrated Appleseed, adorned Western Europe with a host of new species discovered in Asia, which eventually found their way to American shores.

David More (illustrator) and John White (writer) have produced a labor of love and their fascination for trees keeps the stiff scientific data from absorbing the pleasure of reading about these ancient mystical plants. Leisurely yet encyclopedic, the volume serves as a studied document of tree history beginning with ancient glaciers determining tree distribution in northern Europe and America. It also offers practical advice and knowledge for the average gardener and tree enthusiast.

David More spent more than a decade painting illustrations from real specimens. The result is a colorful array of nature's mightiest plants. A touch of whimsy graces the purely scientific illustrations as the artist includes attributes of a species, for instance a dog sitting lazily under the shade of a tree that offers protection from the sun.

While the book only studies trees of the northern temperate zone, it includes an illustrated chapter on southern tropical trees, an area of the globe greatly untapped in the identification, transfer, and planting of tree species. It seems a likely hint at the volume to come from these tree-worshipping authors.


this article was first published by me at http://blogcritics.org/book-review-the-illustrated-encyclopedia-of-trees-by-david-more-and-john-white/