Not Big — Yet
She’s postively glowing
As the London Times is reporting today, Lily Allen is pregnant. Sorry, Staticblog reader Phil (the younger), Ed Simons of the Chemical Brothers beat you to it.
This is unlikely to derail the release of the next Lil disc (presumably containing her cover of “Mr. Blue Sky,” but who knows?) or the launch of her chat show on BBC 3, “Lily Allen and Friends.”
Amy Winehouse is hereby advised not to follow suit on any of this. Congratulations to Lily and Ed. That is going to be one sassy, beat-boxing baby. And “Staticblog” makes a great name, regardless of gender.
There, In a Hole in the Ground, Lived a Hobbit — Actually, Two of Them
Los Angeles, CA (Tuesday, December 18, 2007) Academy Award-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson; Harry Sloan, Chairman and CEO, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM); Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, Co-Chairmen and Co-CEOs of New Line Cinema have jointly announced today that they have entered into the following series of agreements:
* MGM and New Line will co-finance and co-distribute two films, “The Hobbit” and a sequel to “The Hobbit.” New Line will distribute in North America and MGM will distribute internationally.
* Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will serve as Executive Producers of two films based on “The Hobbit.” New Line will manage the production of the films, which will be shot simultaneously.
* Peter Jackson and New Line have settled all litigation relating to the “Lord of the Rings” (LOTR) Trilogy.
Said Peter Jackson, “I’m very pleased that we’ve been able to put our differences behind us, so that we may begin a new chapter with our old friends at New Line. ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is a legacy we proudly share with Bob and Michael, and together, we share that legacy with millions of loyal fans all over the world. We are delighted to continue our journey through Middle Earth. I also want to thank Harry Sloan and our new friends at MGM for helping us find the common ground necessary to continue that journey.”
“Peter Jackson has proven himself as the filmmaker who can bring the extraordinary imagination of Tolkien to life and we full heartedly agree with the fans worldwide who know he should be making ‘The Hobbit,’” said Sloan, MGM’s Chairman and CEO. “Now that we are all in agreement on ‘The Hobbit,’ we can focus on assembling the production team that will capture this phenomenal tale on film.”
Bob Shaye, New Line Co-Chairman and Co-CEO comments, “We are very pleased we have been able to resolve our differences, and that Peter and Fran will be actively and creatively involved with ‘The Hobbit’ movies. We know they will bring the same passion, care and talent to these films that they so ably accomplished with ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Trilogy.”
“Peter is a visionary filmmaker, and he broke new ground with ‘The Lord of the Rings,’” notes Michael Lynne, New Line Co-Chairman and Co-CEO. “We’re delighted he’s back for ‘The Hobbit’ films and that the Tolkien saga will continue with his imprint. We greatly appreciate the efforts of Harry Sloan, who has been instrumental in helping us reach our new accord.”
The two “Hobbit” films – “The Hobbit” and its sequel – are scheduled to be shot simultaneously, with pre-production beginning as soon as possible. Principal photography is tentatively set for a 2009 start, with the intention of “The Hobbit” release slated for 2010 and its sequel the following year, in 2011.
The Oscar-winning, critically-acclaimed LOTR Trilogy grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide at the box-office. In 2003, “Return of the King” swept the Academy Awards, winning all of the eleven categories in which it was nominated, including Best Picture – the first ever Best Picture win for a fantasy film. The Trilogy’s production was also unprecedented at the time.
Random 10 for Dec. 18, 2007
1. Battles, “Tonto.” Mirrored is the most challenging disc I’ve heard this year — I’m fascinated by it, but still trying to wrap my brain around its intricacies. “Tonto” is the most instantly contagious track on the disc, even though its Hollywood-style tribal chant is a big chunk of cheese.
2. Radiohead, “All I Need.”
3. Tilly and the Wall, “Nights of the Living Dead.”
4. Rogue Wave, “Postage Stamp World.”
5. Au Revoir Simone, “The Lucky One.” Ah, the sweetness of twee pop, complete with a beautiful singalong chorus. I love Au Revoir Simone, but they make the Postmarks sound like Lamb of God.
6. Dr. Dog, “Weekend.”
7. Robyn Hitchcock, “Viva Sea-Tac.”
8. The Clientele, “Joseph Cornell.”
9. Led Zeppelin, “That’s the Way.”
10. Matthew Sweet, “Magnet and Steel.” Lindsey Buckingham shows up two days in a row, first in that Trailmix chop of “You Make Lovin’ Fun,” and now on this cover of the late-’70s Walter Egan single. Buckingham sang back-up and c0-produced the song with Rumours helmsman Richard Dashut. I’m starting to feel a little like Jason Hare around here, but the iPod does what it will.
Matthew Sweet’s version is actually a bit better than Egan’s original, which should not come as much of a surprise — the melody is straight from Sweet’s playbook, and Buckingham returns to play the leads and sing backup, but the key here is that the Egan single had Buckingham in smooth Rumours mode, while Buckingham’s performance here is quite a bit more Tusky.
The appearance of Susanna Hoffs in the photo is purely gratuitous in this context.
Dan Fogelberg, 1951-2007
Dan Fogelberg, the folk-pop titan of ’70s and ’80s adult-contemporary radio, died Sunday after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 56.
A few Fogel-facts:
1. Fogelberg launched legendary manager Irving Azoff’s career. In the early ’70s, Azoff was managing REO Speedwagon in Illinois when he heard Fogelberg playing at a frat party. Azoff decided he needed to take this folkie to Los Angeles and start working the guy. By the end of the decade, Azoff was managing Eagles and Steely Dan, and by 1983, he was running MCA. That’s right: with just the power of his (non) rocking, Dan Fogelberg set the tone of the music business for the next three decades.
2. Did more for flute than Zamfir, but not as much as Jethro Tull. In 1978, having recorded three albums but not yet going great guns, Fogelberg decided to record a duet album with flautist Tim Weisberg — this was at a time when left-field side projects with the appearance of financial disaster were not discouraged by the industry. The album was a big hit, and FogelWeisberg scored a huge mellow-rock single with “The Power of Gold.” Try something that crazy in 2007, and before you know it, Doug Morris will exile you to a permanent engagement at a Holiday Inn in Kuala Lumpur.
3. Mom and Dad loved them some Fogelberg. Young George fell asleep. Until Fogelberg landed his big hit “Longer,” the sleepiest song on radio was probably Judy Collins’ “Send in the Clowns,” with Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” running a close second. But “Longer” could send me into Snoozeland faster than either of those plodders when I was stuck in the back seat of Mom and Dad’s sedan, listening to Tulsa’s KRAV. Something about the flute, I think. And “Same Old Lang Syne” threw a serious wet blanket on New Year’s Eve. What was that guy doing in the frozen food section on New Year’s, anyway? Clearly, he was trolling for bad vibes.
At any rate, Staticblog’s condolences.
Random 10 for Dec. 17, 2007
1. Patton Oswalt, “80s Metal.” In which Patton makes some observations about pop-metal videos by late-’80s groups such as Damn Yankees that are so spot-on and hilarious that it puts Chuck Klosterman to shame. Squibbly flabbledy doo!
2. Ghostface Killah, “Dogs of War.”
3. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, “Rich Woman.”
4. Beach House, “Apple Orchard.”
5. Trailmix/Fleetwood Mac, “You Make Lovin’ Fun.” This represents possibly the most transformative remix of the year. Trailmix took the old Christine McVie Rumours mellow gold classic, chopped out the chorus and stiffened the beat a little, and the result almost sounds like Daft Punk or Ratatat. Weird and eminently cool.
6. YACHT, “See A Penny (Pick It Up).”
7. Hey Willpower with Annie, “Chewing Gum.”
8. The White Stripes, “Little Cream Soda.”
9. Josh Rouse and Paz Suay, “The Ocean Always Wins.”
10. St. Vincent, “Your Lips Are Red.” Unimaginative reviews compared Annie Clark to Leslie Feist, probably because many critics and music business executives can only pay attention to one female artist at a time – do a Nexis search for ”Regina Spektor” and “Feist” to see my point.
In truth, 2007 was the year of Kate Bush 3.0 (Tori Amos was 2.0), in which female art-rock took a major leap forward with St. Vincent’s Marry Me and Bat for Lashes’ Fur and Gold. Clark also spends time with the Polyphonic Spree, Sufjan Stevens and Glenn Branca — about the only things missing from Clark’s art-rock bona fides are resume bullets from Robert Fripp’s League of Crafty Guitarists and a stint with Yes.
Mike Patton “Bungles” the Creature Noises in “I Am Legend”
When the mutated victims of a plague come after Will Smith in “I Am Legend,” the malevolent noises they make all come from Mike Patton.
“It just fell out of the sky, to be honest,” said the former lead singer of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. “The only thing I can cite really is, I had a friend who was working on the movie, and he probably threw my name in the hat at some point, because a lot of the sound people were frustrated with the sonics, the sounds of these infected beasts.”
If anyone could summon the sound emanating from formerly human creatures, it was Patton. As the frontman for the experimental hard rock band Faith No More, Patton became a star with “Epic,” a 1989 hit that melded majestic heavy metal and progressive rock with old-school hip-hop.
But “Epic” only skimmed the surface of Patton’s musical ambitions and abilities. Before, during and after his tenure with Faith No More, Patton led Mr. Bungle, a band prone to Frank Zappa-esque musical twists that could incorporate Middle Eastern melodies, avant-jazz workouts and Beach Boys harmonies — often within one song.
He went on to form the adventurous metal band Fantomas with members of the Melvins and Slayer, started his own influential record label, Ipecac, and collaborated with producer Dan “The Automator” Nakamura on two genre-bending hip-hop projects, Lovage and Peeping Tom.
And somewhere in the middle, Faith No More scored a mellow hit with “Easy,” an extremely Faith-ful cover of the Commodores ballad.
This bizarre resume led the producers of “I Am Legend” to Patton, 39. He was called in to remedy a common problem with the creature sound on big-budget movies.
“Apparently from what they tell me, everybody uses these stock … sounds of pitch-shifted animals, basically. They layer them to varying degree, but he just cited 10, 20 movies that all used that formula — pigs, horses, whatever,” Patton said before letting out a combination horse whinny and pig snort. “They wanted something that was a little more human and a little more organic. I said, ‘Well, I’ll do my best.’ I didn’t know how it would pan out.”
Patton was invited to a studio in Los Angeles where “looping” takes place — the process of re-dubbing dialogue and sound in films. He stood in front of a giant screen as the filmmakers played raw footage from “I Am Legend.” He improvised the noises based on what he saw, but Patton said the images flashing on screen were almost comically unfinished.
“I was trying to embody these creatures that weren’t even creatures yet,” he said. “Like, on the screen, what you’d see was 30 guys in motion-capture suits. Literally, you’re watching 30 human beings in tights, trying to be scary.”
Patton is known for working on four or five projects at once, and his latest wild swing into new territory includes writing the score for a 25-minute film noir titled, “A Perfect Place.” The music ranges from horror themes to free jazz workouts and off-balance Al Jolson-style crooning. In short, Patton is in his wheelhouse.
“That is kind of all over the place, because the director told me from the get-go, not only did he want me to do the score, but all of the source music, like, every time anybody walks in the room or turns on a radio,” he said. “He wanted me to take one theme and milk it to death, which is an old technique, but fun and challenging. The movie is 25 minutes long, and I probably wrote 40 minutes of music.”
Patton is currently strategizing for the next Peeping Tom album. The last one included a collaboration with Norah Jones on the extremely non-Norah Jonesy song, “Sucker,” and while he has a list of new Peeping Tom partners, he’s playing it close to the vest.
“As ugly as this is, I have my superstitions,” Patton said. “If I start talking about it, it’s not going to happen. There’s a lot of leg work that needs to be done, and I don’t want to put the hex on it.”
Random 10 for Dec. 13, 2007
1. New Young Pony Club, “Ice Cream.” Confectionary electro-pop that is huge in Britain but was marred by an annoying Microsoft mersh. Fans of CSS or Diplo should line up.
2. Mercury Rev, “Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp.”
3. Vince Guaraldi, “Fur Elise.”
4. Amy Winehouse, “Teo Licks.”
5. M.I.A. featuring Timbaland, “Come Around.”
6. Lily Allen, “Mr. Blue Sky.” No word on whether this Electric Light Orchestra cover is Lil’s next single. It’s serviceable enough, though her way with covers tends toward meeting the obvious needs of a song without stretching or adding anything new — her version of the Pretenders’ “Don’t Get Me Wrong” fell along the same lines. What we need is honest-to-goodness new material. But hey, can you beat that photo? It’s like Lily and Wino jumped into the Seth Brundle machine together.
7. Silver Jews, “Let’s Not and Say We Did.”
8. Curtis Mayfield, “Pusherman (Alternative Mix).”
9. Slobberbone, “Engine Joe.”
10. Ween, “Pink Eye (On My Leg).” From “The Mollusk”: a nice little waterlogged 4/4 synth figure punctuated by deathly moaning and dog barking. Just like Mom used to make.
I have seen the future of rock ‘n’ roll and its name is The Most Serene Republic
One of the few Toronto bands not officially affiliated with Broken Social Scene, this sextet delivers a broad range of melodic and orchestral pop on its third disc, “Population.” Check out “The Men Who Live Upstairs” for pure geeky gorgeousness.
Ice Pod
When the lights go out, the heaters grind to a halt and everyone wanders out of their houses to see if their neighbors also just waved goodbye to their modern, technology-enabled comfort, it always delivers a real gut check as I’m forced to assess my bionic life.
On Monday morning when the ice storm hit, I awoke on my own steam at dawn, mainly because the digital alarm clock set on KRXO’s “Bob and Tom Show” for maximum, chucklehead irritation was dead. Based on the air temperature, we probably lost power two hours before, and the cold was starting to overtake the warmth. There would be no coffee, no CNN, no checking of e-mail, no DVR-delivered episodes of “Little Einsteins” for my son, and no podcast updates for the ride to work.
Later that day, we arrived at my in-laws’ house in far northwest Oklahoma City and started to enjoy all the comforts of home circa 2007. I programmed my father-in-law’s TiVo to record “How I Met Your Mother” and “Journeyman,” and settled in for something akin to normal life that night, reading to my son and getting him ready for bed.
Then around 8:30 p.m., everything whirred to a stop — we could hear the modern world running down around us. Then there was that awful micro-moment of hope so commonly experienced in blackouts when the electricity makes a last valiant effort to return and the lights pop back on. But then that hope abates as the grid goes down and you can almost feel the power failure digging in for the long haul.
Now, this should normally be the moment where I have some kind of sky-opening epiphany over how I’m far too media-saturated and technology-enabled. From here, I am supposed to transform into a neo-Waldenite like Bill McKibben, author of “The Age of Missing Information,” and embrace the natural, freezing life experienced by my pioneer ancestors. My energy footprint becomes the size of a chipmunk’s (real, not singing and computer-generated) as I crush my cell phone under the heel of my hiking boot and warm my family by burning my entertainment center.
That’s not how it works here. This week of ice-encasement and unreliable modernity leaves me literally cold, like Jack Nicholson at the end of “The Shining.” I keep pining for the phone, the broadband connection, the TiVo and everything else that went away on Monday and has yet to come back — somewhere, George Daniel Lang I, a courageous man who settled the Cherokee Strip in 1893, is scowling at his disgustingly powerless descendent. And still, we somehow harnessed those last few implements that could give us sight.My father-in-law located a flashlight, but it would need fresh batteries. I recited “Green Eggs and Ham” to my son by memory and tucked him in, and then my wife and I grabbed our cell phones and held them aloft as if we were at the Led Zeppelin reunion concert during “Kashmir,” giving us barely more glow than a lightning bug.
Suddenly, I had an epiphany. I found a trusted electronic friend in my pocket, and when I pressed the “menu” button, a bold and bright light came pouring out of its two-inch screen. I found the “artist” category and just started moving the click wheel from A.C. Newman to Zero 7 and back as Laura and I washed our faces, brushed our teeth and fell into bed without injuring ourselves on anything sharp, dark and unseen.
We were safe. And by the light of the iPod, we found our way through the darkness.
DVD Review: “Once” * * * 1/2
The bare beauty of “Once” is that it is a musical that never feels like a musical. This story about a Dublin busker (Glen Hansard of the Irish band The Frames) and an Eastern European pianist (Marketa Irglova) unfolds with such natural, unforced grace, it almost feels like director John Carney is eavesdropping. And since the story involves songwriters working on heartfelt music, “Once” never has that unreal “spontaneous song and dance” element so intrinsic to most musicals.
“Guy” and “girl” never do tell us their names as they go from being strangers to becoming collaborators, friends and potential soul mates. Still, as the relationship develops through Carney’s careful, documentary-like storytelling, it becomes clear that “Once” is not a fairy tale romance. But it is as lyrical as the sweet and sad music Hansard and Irglova create together.
There is an inevitability to “Once” that makes the film even more magical: before he was a director, Carney was the original bassist for The Frames. One year after Hansard started that group, he acted in his only role prior to “Once,” playing in the Irish soul band fable, “The Commitments.” And Irglova and Hansard are now a couple after having met through music. For “Once,” a musical reflects real life and love.
