Music Monday # 18: I Don’t Know Why I Love You – House of Love

I have a playlist on my iPod called "Indie Faves" and I put it on when I'm feeling slightly uninspired. I always know that some of my favourite indie alternative songs from the past 30 years will come up and I certainly wasn’t disappointed this week. 

This song came off House of Love’s epic 1990 self-titled album The House of Love.  It is pretty much an anthem and I certainly sang it with great feeling many times in the past.  I’m happy to say that I got over all of my college romances and I know quite well why it is that I love my dear husband.

Find more Music Monday posts at Lady Java's Lounge or by clicking my label below.

House of Love - “I Don’t Know Why I Love You”

The House of Love (1990)

I don't know why I love you
Your face is a hammer in my head
I remember every word you said
I just don't know why I love you


I don't know why I care
I never even liked your hair
I feel like a cell in air
But I don't know why I love you

Television turns me on
When the summer's hot
And the spirit's long
So how can I get close to you
When you got no mercy
No, you got no mercy
No you got no...

I don't know why I love you
Your face is a foreign food
I really don't know if I should
I just don't know why I love you

I don't know why I care
I duck and I weave and I fight
I work just to treat you right
God, I don't know why I love you

Rock, rock, rock

I don't know why I love you
It might be your soul or your heart
Maybe it's the way that you speak
I don't why I love you


Television turns me on
When the summer's hot
And the spirit's long
So, how can I get close to you
When you got no mercy
No, you got mercy
No you got no...


I don't know why I love you
I don't know why I care
I don't know why I love you
I don't know why I love you
I don't know why I love you
I don't know why I love you
And I don't know why I care

These are the correct lyrics taken from the album sleeve.

Film news: Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Click on the image for the full 1600 x 2400 poster

An all new reimagining of A Nightmare on Elm Street is due for release on April 30th in the US and May 7th in the UK.  A Nightmare on Elm Street was a massive horror franchise that was first released in 1984.  The evil serial killer Freddy Krueger is murdered by a lynch mob and comes back to haunt the children of the people who killed him.  He appears in their dreams and murders them wearing a trademark glove with knives embedded in the fingers.  The original starred Johnny Depp and Robert Englund and was directed by Wes Craven.

The remake is directed by Samuel Bayer who has directed primarily music videos and commercials before and stars Kellan Lutz (The Twilight Saga), Katie Cassidy (Melrose Place) and Thomas Dekker (Sarah Conner Chronicles).  Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen) is playing the role of Freddie Krueger.

It is doubtful that it is going to be an award winning production but hopefully it will be as much of a scream fest and as much fun as the original.

They’ve released four creepy stills from the film. 

Black Francis returns with Nonstoperotik

Nonstoperotik  is pretty much an album about sex and like its subject matter, it’s not quite an album you’ll get the first time you listen to it.  You’ll need to try it at different times and in different places, with different company or perhaps alone but soon you’ll find yourself unable to think of anything else as you hum along to its infectious tunes.  In fact, it is a good measure of how good a Black Francis album is as everything he has ever released from the Pixies through Frank Black and the Catholics to this takes time to grow on the listener who may be unsure at first but is soon addicted.  The difference between Nonstoperotik and Black Francis’s other solo material, however, is that this might just be his best album yet.

Born Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, Black Francis was the former front man for the massively successful alternative rock band Pixies.  When the band split in 1993, he embarked on a solo career as Frank Black and released roughly an album a year until 2007 when he began recording under the name Black Francis again.  His albums have not always been well received but many people believe that his recent albums represent a return to form that coincides with the reformation of the Pixies.  Nevertheless, he has an extremely strong fan base that has been waiting with bated breath for this latest release.

Nonstoperotik was recorded in Los Angeles, London and Brooklyn and was co-produced with Eric Drew Feldman who has collaborated with Captain Beefheart, Pixies and PJ Harvey in the past.  The album will be released on the Cooking Vinyl label on March 30th in the USA and April 6th worldwide. 

If there was any doubt that the album was about sex and his love of the female body, Black Francis has this to say about the album as he effectively sums up all eleven tracks in one breath:

“When I was a boy the plant we boys called a fern was code for vagina, and to this day I love fern plants.  In my heart the vagina is almost everything, and almost everything else could be summed up in what cock and seed have to offer; and everything else?  The love of the father, dead or alive, the pain of too much pleasure, till death do us part, the voice of another song man from the other side, with or without God, Teri and the Possibilities, where ever you may be, the smell of sex in the air, seduced, slain, on my knees in prayer, sucking at the only thing that matters, my own personal Meret Oppenheim, I am Man Ray and I want you and to be all the way inside you, the cameras whirring as we put some elbow grease into the scene, the audience watching us in the dark”.

It is always going to be hard hard for Black Francis to follow an act like Pixies as his solo material is constantly compared to the phenomenally popular Pixies sound.  Indeed, it is great when Francis does sound like the Pixies on his albums but he also has an edgy, crazy sound of his own which has come through in his previous solo albums.  Nonstoperotik is something else though and features a tenderness and maturity that we’ve not seen before.  It is an incredibly varied album that takes you on quite a journey and each song is worthy of mention:

1. “Lake Of Sin”:   the album begins with the classic, driving sound that we heard on earlier Frank Black material.  The lyrics bring to mind secret knocks, forbidden liaisons and awakenings.  He talks about a gentle lapping before the song erupts into barely being able to control it and then final release.
2. “O My Tidy Sum”: this is the second best song on the album in my opinion.   It is a slow, sensual song but it is not in any way boring or average.  It is quite beautiful and talks of lazy afternoons and drinking in the sun.  In a typical Black Francis, it is also quite twisted and hints at negotiation and the exchange of payment.
3. “Rabbits”:  this is a song that has being doing the rounds in live shows for some time and fans have been begging to have the song released on an album.  Originally called “Rabbit Holes”, this is a surreal song that brings to mind both Lewis Carroll and Donnie Darko.
4. “Wheels”:  a cover of the old country rock song by The Flying Burrito Brothers, this is a fun song with a definite bluegrass feeling but I have to wonder what it is doing on this album!
5. “Dead Man's Curve”: another song that has been doing the rounds in live shows since about 2006.  Like “Wheels”, this song has a definite roots feel to it but it is also definitive Black Francis with grinding guitars and screaming lyrics.  
6. “Corrina”:  this is an excellent song and the synths and backing vocals give it an emotional and energetic feel.  It’s not unlike the old Roger Waters materials but undeniably Black Francis with obscure references to raincoats and tattoos.
7. “Six Legged Man”:  similar to “Bailey’s Walk” from the B-Sides album, this song has that classical Pixies sound and will appeal to fans with its noisy guitars and lyrics.   
8. “Wild Son”: the best song on the album in my opinion.  This is an incredibly sensual song that is excellent on so many levels.  It is perhaps here that Eric Drew Feldman’s influence can most be heard as the sound of the Sixties emerges with complex levels of drums, bass, piano and rhythm. 
9. “When I Go Down On You”: this is a pretty intimate song that feels slightly uncomfortable at first.  In the end, it is one of those sweeping, nostalgia-inducing songs and is not unlike Tom Petty (don’t shoot me for saying that!).  Whereas a lot of Black Francis’s material is chaotic and rebellious, this is a pretty standard song about the transcendence of love and being with your soul mate.
10. “Nonstoperotik”: if the previous song was intimate then this is a million times so.  This is a pretty tender song and is the title track of the album.
11. “Cinema Star”: Black Francis finishes off the album with a return to his favourite topics of retro surf and futurism with an upbeat and energetic song.  There is a definite voyeuristic edge to the song and in his way, he reminds us that he’s not quite gone all soft as we’d imagined in the previous two songs. 

Look out for Nonstoperotik in stores from the end of March and definitely give the album a couple of listens.

This article was originally featured on BlogCritics.  I’d like to thank the guys at tell all your friends pr for sending me a copy of the CD to review.

Book review: A Yank Back to England: The Prodigal Tourist Returns – Denis Lipman

Part travelogue, part memoir, A Yank Back to England: The Prodigal Tourist Returns is a wonderful new book written by Denis Lipman.  Former magician and playwright Denis grew up in Dagenham which is a little town in Essex, England but he moved to the USA over twenty years ago to find his fortune.  A Yank Back to England chronicles Denis’s annual visits back to England to see his aging, Cockney parents.  While England is old news to him, his new wife Frances insists on seeing the countryside and convinces Denis to become a tourist in his old homeland. 

The book is divided into six years but actually covers eight different visits.  In all of the chapters, Denis and Frances hire out a cottage in the English countryside and are joined by Denis’s parents Lew and Jessie and often by Denis’s aunt and cousin too.  Denis and Frances’s gorgeous little girl Kate makes her appearance in Year Two.

Year One: A Tiny Home on a Large Estate - Year One sees the Lipmans visiting the homes of Charles Darwin and Winston Churchill. They take a trip to Aldeburgh which is in Suffolk and visit the eastern most part of England.

Year Two: A Tudor Cottage in East Anglia – In Year Two, the family travel over to the lovely Elizabethan town of Rattlesden in Suffolk; they visit Melford Hall, the home of Beatrice Potter and they travel through the university town of Cambridge on the way back to London.

Year Three: Hard by The Masters House – It is probably safe to say that the landlords of the cottage they stayed in this year were not their favourites but Year Three was one of my favourites with trips to Winchester (home of King Arthur’s Round Table), Chichester and Arundel Castle in West Sussex.

Year Four: A Carriage House on the Saxon Shore – While staying at the haunted Carriage House in Year Four, the Lipmans visited the wonderful Broadstairs for the first time, where Bleak House, the home of Charles Dickens, is located.  Before departing back to the US, they also visited Blenheim Palace and Woodstock near Oxford.

Year Five: A Coastguard's House on a Pebble Beach – In Year Five the Lipmans stayed in their most dodgy cottage so far but they visited the seaside towns of Sandwich and Deal, saw Walmer Castle and took a trip back to Broadstairs.

Year Six: A Regency Cottage on a Bridal Path – In the final year, the Lipmans stay in the glorious Madrigal Cottage which was Denis’s favourite (and mine).  They also visit the AA Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood which is pretty exciting even if there was nothing to see!

While reading this wonderful travelogue, I was overcome by a desire to spend a summer holiday in a cottage in the English countryside and this feeling hasn’t gone away.  In fact, this is the kind of book that makes you want to follow in the Lipman’s footsteps and the see all the things they saw, no matter how quirky or frustrating they were at times.

And they were quirky and frustrating.  A Yank Back to England details shockingly bad service, classic English mediocrity and unpredictable English weather.  Poor American Frances was quite bemused at times while I’m sure Denis was thinking “I told you so”!  The massive appeal of this book though is that it takes you away from all of the traditional sights and sounds in England to ancient towns, stately homes, magnificent castles and a country so breathtakingly gorgeous when the sun is shining.  The sense of heritage is amazing as the Lipmans encounter attractions from many different eras including Viking, Roman and several millennia of English history.

The most touching aspect of this story though is the relationship that Denis shared with his parents Lew and Jessie and how he came to respect and understand them over time.  At times hilarious and at times incredibly touching, this is an lovely book that will certainly appeal to anglophiles.  As I chuckled to myself while travelling on the London Underground each day, I realised that this is a book that will appeal to just about everyone but certainly lovers of travelogues, memoirs and humour.

Watch Denis Lipman read an excerpt from his book: “Tony the Cat”

For being absolutely delightful and enjoyable, I give the book 5 stars.  I don’t think I will read it only once and I definitely think I’ll be consulting this marvellous book when planning my next adventures for Emm in London.

Movie news: Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans is due out on March 26 in the UK and April 2 in the US and Warner Brothers have just released new images.  The massive remake of the 1981 classic stars Sam Worthington, Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson amongst other big names and the film looks to be explosive.
Sam Worthington is certainly a star on the rise and has starred in blockbusters such as Terminator Salvation and Avatar recently.
 
The Warner Brothers site describes Clash of the Titans as an ultimate power struggle where men are fighting against kings and kings in turn are fighting against gods.  It is the war between the gods themselves, the clash of the Titans, that threatens to destroy the whole world though and it is up to Perseus (Sam Worthington), the son of Zeus, to take on the vengeful god of the underworld Hades (Ralph Fiennes). So it is that Perseus races to save his family and leads a mission to defeat Hades before he succeeds in his plan to seize power from Zeus (Liam Neeson) and unleash hell on earth.

The release of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief this month and Clash of the Titans next month will be followed by a test on Greek mythology at the end of April to ensure that you’ve all been concentrating!

Movie review: Where The Wild Things Are

Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is a simple, illustrated children’s book with barely nine pages of text yet the notion of bringing this story the live-action glory on the big screen was incredibly contentious. 

As the news broke that Maurice Sendak had enlisted the services of Spike Jonze to direct the live-action version of the story and the first publicity pictures were released, many an adult spoke of the incredible impact that this simple story had on their lives.  It seemed that people were waiting with baited breath to see whether this version would do justice to this beloved book.

Although it was never explicitly told in the book, somehow Where The Wild Things Are appealed to all the children who had ever felt lonely, angry or frustrated.  Those of us feeling these emotions knew that adventure and social standing was just a short boat ride away.  Or was it really?

Spike Jonze directed the film and wrote the screenplay together with Dave Eggers.  Together, they created a rich film with incredible depth that tackles issues such as broken homes, anger, acting out, loyalty, betrayal, loneliness, love and home.

Max is lonely.  His teenaged sister has her friends and his divorced mother has her new boyfriend but all he has is his dog and his wild imagination.  In the opening scenes of the film he tears around in his wolf suit terrorising his dog in the manic rough-and-tumble way we all play with our pets and he builds a snow igloo in which to store his precious snowballs.  He starts a snowball fight with his sister’s friends and they dive onto his igloo crushing Max’s igloo and leaving him distraught. 

Life is never boring, often crazy and fun but with no one to share his ups and downs, Max finds himself feeling lonely and frustrated.  His mother encourages his madcap eccentricities to a point but his antics embarrass her in front of her boyfriend and he bites her when she tries to discipline him and then runs away.   (In the book, he is sent to bed without dinner).

Max discovers a boat which he boards and he travels to the place where the wild things are.  He narrowly escapes being eaten by the wild things by claiming to be a king where he comes from and by proclaiming to have special powers.  Thus begins an adventure of wild rumpuses, sleeping in piles, fort building and staring into the sun.

This film is incredibly well done.  The wild things were the embodiment of Maurice Sendak’s illustrations and were put together with a combination of computer-generation for their faces, animatronics and life-sized puppets.  They looked exactly like they did in the books, right down to their facial expressions. 

James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Michael Berry Jr., Chris Cooper and Lauren Ambrose provided the voices for the wild things and they were done really well. 

Special mention has to be given to the performance of Max Records in his role as Max.  This talented young actor is someone to keep an eye on in the future.  If you consider the he has very little previous experience and that most of the filming was done with puppets and little human interaction in the film then his performance really is phenomenal.  He was able to portray such a wide range of emotions from happiness, joy and craziness to loneliness, anger and sadness.  He definitely did crazy well and could possibly follow in the footsteps of Johnny Depp or Robert Downey Jr. in the future by taking less mainstream roles.

 

One of the best features of the film was the soundtrack.  I recognised Carter Burwell’s contribution as I had been a fan of his score in the film Twilight but it is Karen O and the Kids who provide the majority of the songs.  The soundtrack looks to become one of the most played albums in my iPod this year.

Finally, many complaints were made by parents saying that the felt tricked somehow into seeing this film and that their children didn’t enjoy the film.  It is certainly possible that the film will appeal to more open-minded children or children that have experienced loneliness or frustration in their lives.  I would say this is an alternative film that is set to become a cult classic in time.

The Blu-ray and DVD are set for release on March 2, 2010.  Special features on the Blu-ray include the short film Higglety Pigglety Pop! featuring the voices of Meryl Streep and Forest Whitaker.

Music Monday # 17: Sweet About me – Gabriella Cilmi

Wow – this song makes me so happy!  It is such an incredibly fun song and I have listening to it all weekend.

Find more Music Monday posts at Lady Java's Lounge or by clicking my label below.

Music Monday # 16: Razor Sharp - Collide

A couple of people were interesting in hearing how Collide sound after the smashing review I gave on Friday.  This is one of my my favourite songs of theirs and can be found on their own Noiseplus channel on YouTube.