IFC.com - Indie Ear

Rebecca Schiffman

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:07:29 -0500

I recently attended a show for a band that was being sponsored by a well known studio/distribution company. They were well practiced, had a decent but formulaic pop radio sound, and that grey-toned American Apparel blousey cardigan look. They were so groomed and trend conscious that, far from standing out they were actually completely forgettable. The crowd was an odd mix of kids, old guys in suits, and those thick-necked striped shirt wearing club guys that certain Manhattanites describe as Bridge and Tunnel but everyone knows you only see those guys in the city so Manhattan owns them as far as I'm concerned. (Rebecca Schiffman. photo by Johnny Gembitsky) After the overly polished performance, a lone girl walked on stage in what struck me as a gown patterned off a medieval French Pikeman's tunic. I was about to leave but, being both a Francophile and connoisseur of weird girls I...

Soul Power

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:41:24 -0500

Zaire, Africa, 1974. An epic clash took place between reigning heavyweight champion George Foreman and living legend, Muhammad Ali. Ali had been stripped of his title and banned from boxing in 1967 when he'd been drafted by the army after the outbreak of Viet Nam, refused to go on religious grounds, and sensibly added "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong." But the supreme court had reversed the '67 conviction and all converged on Africa for Ali's shot at redemption, the big struggle, the "Rumble in the Jungle" as it became known. (Manu Dibango in "Soul Power," courtesy of Antidote Films ©, Property of Sony Pictures Classics, All Rights Reserved.) At the same time, Hugh Masekela and Stewart Levine convinced Don King to combine the massive event with a 3 night-long concert blow out, and the legendary music festival Zaire '74 was born. Director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, was an...

The King of Pop, Johnny Depp, Human Nature

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:54:31 -0500

It's no secret Johnny Depp loves to play freaks, and he plays them brilliantly. Poor pale Edward with scissors for hands, nerdy Ed (Wood) obsessed with cheap horror, Bon Bon the Cuban transexual drug smuggler, the extremely queer Willy Wonka. If his adoring babe fans met one of his film characters in real life they wouldn't even give him a chance to introduce himself. There are a few exceptions, like his pre-syphilis Earl of Rochester in "The Libertine" (whom it's no secret I've been modeling myself after on weekends = fail), but of course if Johnny plays a slick pimp like Rochester, he has to end up ghastly pale and his nose has to be falling off by the end of the film. (Johnny Depp's syphilitic Rochester in "The Libertine") So it's not surprising that rumor is spreading that he's a top choice to play Michael Jackson in a biopic...

Conquest of Paradise

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:02:08 -0500

The cabin of the outdated 757 grew dark as we passed through storm clouds on our descent into Jamaican airspace. Everything on the decrepit air ship began to creak and moan. The cathode ray tube screens from the 80's anchored to the ceiling shook with either Howie Mandel or colored static, it didn't make much difference. My stomach dropped into my balls, then tried to leave my body through my throat. I tried to focus on a point on the ceiling that wasn't in motion and noticed it was so antique it actually had a patina. A woman up in first class screamed. I wondered how many internal parts had patinas too and which ones were chaffed, ready to spark and blow a wing off. I grabbed the skymall catalogue and began frantically paging through it, looking for frivolous household products to ogle. I find that soothes me during tumultuous...

Best films to jam to before heading to the Caribbean (Pt. 2)

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:00:00 -0500

Wes Craven's "The Serpent and the Rainbow" is easily one of the most freaked out films of the 80's. If that's too bold a statement, let's say it's definitely one of the most freaked out 80's films set in the Caribbean. I'm pretty sure I was permanently scarred by it's voodoo... anytime I see someone who looks like Bill Pullman I feel like I can't breathe. But as horrifying as it's depiction of Haiti was/is, laying on a resort's white sandy beach there today is actually more disturbing. You can see some of the most impoverished people in the world along the border fences, walled off from the corporate owned beaches. If you try to feed them or help them in any way, you risk being responsible for one of the native "guards" (tasked with preventing contact) losing his meager, family-supporting job. Inflatable "icebergs" and other plastic eyesores adorn the...

Best films to jam to before heading to the Caribbean (Pt. 1)

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:00:00 -0500

I'm not the most well traveled person but I have been all around the Caribbean, several times even. Jamaica more times than I can recall accurately, Grand Cayman, Cozumel (I think that counts), even Haiti. Cruised around Fidel's Cuba trying to spy on Guantanamo Bay with some binoculars my 5 year old nephew picked out. I still don't know if I was trying to spy on the Cubans or Americans who have shacked up in their bay because the whole thing is confused, it plays with my steel sense of nationalism. How is it that we have a facility in foe-like Cuba when we don't even have normal relations with them? Didn't Bush see "Red Dawn?" Good times. Turns out I'm off on a plane to try and find all this out and more. Well, I'm going to Jamaica again for a bit of annual family time, and I'll at...

British Sea Power re-score 1934 film

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:00:00 -0500

"Man of Aran" is an early documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty depicting the rough, sea-sprayed life on the Aran Islands, "wastes of rock... without trees... without soil" off the western coast of Ireland. Flaherty had already won acclaim for his even earlier, 1922 documentary "Nanook of the North," considered an important milestone in filmmaking. Chances are good you've not seen either of them unless you went to film school, but the latter is as much a part of vernacular as "Birth of a Nation." I'd never seen "Man of Aran" until recently. The excuse was that it's been re-released with a new score by UK rock band, British Sea Power. The score compliments the film beautifully, sharpening craggy shores, wisping about the character's frayed knit sweaters, swelling around a monstrous basking shark the men hunt with harpoon and daring. Listening to the soundtrack solo is a treat too, and...

Best things about Iggy Pop

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:00:00 -0500

Iggy Pop has always been a real cool time, and he shows no sign of stopping. The Stooges are nothing short of awesome and everyone should have the experience of standing in front of a stack and having them blast your face off (live or recorded as long as the DJ isn't one of those knob meddlers - oh you think you know something Iggy doesn't about how this song should sound?). I just heard some of Iggy's latest work, a record inspired by a French novel that you'd file between Jazz and French Pop called Préliminaires. The album came out last week (but I bumped this because of Michael), Écouter. He sounds like a cross between Serge Gainsbourg and Wes Studi's Magua from "Last of the Mohicans" Singing in French on a few tracks (see embedded), and it kind of rules. While I'm on the subject, these are some...

Michael Jackson

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:26:32 -0500

Michael Jackson has stunned me all my life. I couldn't even tie my shoes when Off the Wall came out in '79 (my favorite MJ record) but I know I heard it. I know it made it into my consciousness because when I was older and played it seemingly for the first time, I found that I knew every song. The melodies were old dancing friends, the lyrics, arcane chants waiting to be remembered. Everything Michael did in the 80's and into the 90's was a huge event. The records were obviously colossal, the video premieres that accompanied them defined the art at the time. "Thriller," "Beat It," "Billy Jean," "Smooth Criminal," "Black Or White," "Man in the Mirror," each one fundamentally influenced the entertainment industry and set trends in music, techniques, art direction, choreography, etc. The man owns dance moves, he has patents on specialized shoes. Michael's videos were...

ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES - THE FILM

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:46:52 -0500

The concert festival, All Tomorrow's Parties, began in 1999 in England in answer to lame, corporate sponsored events (at say Reading or Glastonbury). It's brilliant locale is some kind of very British Holiday camp, at Camber Sands, East Sussex. Since '99 it's expanded to the US and if you were lucky, perhaps you were at Kutshers Country Club, Monticello, New York last year. But ATP is cool beyond it's idyllic locations, it's curated by a different artist/band each year so not only is it diverse but you get to check out what bands people like Devendra Banhart or Vincent Gallo like freaking out too. ATP notably hosted the return of My Bloody Valentine in '08 and had Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds programme it's debut in Australia earlier this year. Welly, welly, welly, well! A documentary on this now legendary festival screened at SXSW and just premiered in the...

DJ Spooky

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:28:28 -0500

IFC's Aaron Hillis recently spoke with DJ Spooky (aka Paul D. Miller) about his film project "Rebirth of a Nation" which is his scored, cut up, and remixed interpretation of D.W. Griffith's notorious 1915 film, "Birth of a Nation." I haven't seen it yet but I like this past quote about it from Margo Jefferson in the New York Times: "Silent film scores were grandiloquent, meant to heighten what we saw on screen. Mr. Miller's score, by contrast, deflects our responses, then alters them. A hip-hop drum beat pulses. (It sounds African and urban American.) A wash of industrial sound is joined by bells and cymbals; a dissonant violin; blues fragments. These are the sounds of history and racial complexity that Griffith tried to suppress. " (Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky. Photo by Richard Avedon. 2003) Hillis also asked him about his next record and seems to have gotten...

R.E.M. indie old timers

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:53:31 -0500

I'm not sure what college rock is anymore and I really don't want to know what Clear Channel's idea of it is anyway. But back when it was coined in the mid-80's, college rock was a good time. It was about discovery, not rehashing. The term made sense because it's what college radio stations played (and consequently, it was new, fairly underground, and played heavily by cool older brothers). It described something about the music in time and place, it was specific while being inclusive, unlike the Heinrich Himmler style label, alternative rock which followed. How subjective of you! I said GOOD DAY SIR. (R.E.M., cool in college. Photo credit Ed Colver) Technically, it could mean anything from The Fall to Camper Van Beethoven, but if college radio had a sound, that sound was R.E.M. Even a decade later when I was up in on matriculation game, they still defined...

Bad Lieutenants

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:10:46 -0500

New Order lost their edge a long time ago, and though they have some great records, they're a bit dull to my ear when compared with their first incarnation, Joy Division. Just as the remaining members went on with a new name and sound after Ian Curtis' death, so do they now after ditching bassist Peter Hook. Good on them, it's sure not New Order without him. In his stead, they've picked up Alex James from Blur and the name Bad Lieutenant. From what I've heard so far, they don't live up to the name. And make no mistake, there is only one "Bad Lieutenant" they could be referring to and that's Abel Ferrara's 1992 masterwork starring Harvey Keitel. Why you would want to take that name and then write namby-pamby songs about hurting and being a wuss, I don't know. Sure, those are the kind of songs I hum...

Hollywood's Greatest Year: 1939

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:50:41 -0500

The Academy's celebratory event for "Hollywood's Greatest Year" caught my attention 'cause I couldn't believe they were more jaded about Hollywood than I am. 1939 was the shit huh? What do these imperious folk think about the past 70 years of Hollywood pictures? I'd probably pick 1982 if I had to grab a year outta the air, I mean just look at it: "Bladerunner" "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" "Poltergeist" "Star Trek: The Wrath Of Kahn" "An Officer and a Gentleman" "First Blood" "Gandhi" "Conan The Barbarian" ...even "Tootsie" What a tough year. But anyway the Academy says its 1939, and when I think of the refuse that brings in big box office numbers, and producer/directors known by one word show names that sound like they were plucked from a turd burger wrapper from a fast food toilet, I'm inclined to just go along with their hyperbolic nostalgia. The event is a...

Tori Amos

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:03:41 -0500

If I was a girl I'd wear lots of simple black leather and tight boyish clothes. Maybe the occasional beret and definitely a dagger in my boot. I'd be unapproachable and dispassionate. But, alone in my room away from all the jim jims with nothing but my secrets and private inklings, I'd for sure put on a flowing medieval dress and play Tori Amos records, living out great fantasies in my bed chamber. Here's Tori talking about her new record "Abnormally Attracted to Sin," it's preoccupation with spiritual erotica and her journey to become a great female composer.