Pete Townshend - Who I Am [book review]

Released in October

Pete Townshend took 15 years to write Who I Am, a somewhat uneven memoir that recounts his difficult life and colourful career as the guitarist and creative force behind The Who. The book's early sections document Townshend's years growing up in the suburbs of London as the son of a bandleader who had a minor hit in 1956, dealing with the infidelity and alcoholism of his parents, and his feelings of abandonment after being sent to live for a period with his abusive grandmother as a young boy. Townshend refers a number of times throughout Who I Am to further sexual abuse inflicted by some of his grandmother's romantic companions - those details, however, are rather vague. Obviously, I'm sympathetic to how difficult it must be to dredge up such painful memories, but this alleged additional abuse informs an important latter section of the book and the murky intimations leading up to those parts undermine some of its narrative. It's especially puzzling when you consider how bluntly honest Townshend is throughout the rest of Who I Am, even when that candour frequently leaves the musician looking utterly foolish (like his cringe-inducing account of a show on his 1993 Psycho Derelict solo tour where he broke 11 years of sobriety by downing half a bottle of vodka to calm an anxiety attack before going on stage, was literally fall-down drunk while performing, ranted into the microphone at times, and caused many fans to ask for their money back). The hardships of Townshend's youth drive him to music as an escape, with an interest in the visual arts leading him to enroll in art school before abandoning education for a life as a working musician. That's a well-worn path also taken by a number of former art school students who went on to become central figures in the British Invasion movement, including John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Ray Davies, Jimmy Page, and Keith Richards.  

The early Who years are marked by rapid commercial success and tours supporting The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, where Townshend recalls a bizarre detail that I was amazed I'd never heard before about the venues smelling strongly of urine after the concerts, due to the female hysteria incited by the acts (also bizarre is that within a week of reading this in Who I Am, I heard the exact same detail mentioned in the recent Rolling Stones Crossfire Hurricane documentary). Some other notable recollections from The Who's early years:

• There's the story of how Townshend got the idea for his windmill stage move by watching Richards limber up with a similar motion before a mid 60s Stones show. Townshend incorporated it into his own performances when he saw that Richards didn't use the move during Stones gigs. Later in Who I Am, Townshend remembers the time on The Who's 1989 reunion tour where the guitar's tremolo (or "whammy") bar actually impaled his hand after an overexuberant windmill, causing his wife to ask him "Now will you stop all this stupid shit?"
• A recount of the band's infamous 1976 stay in Flint, Michigan, where they were banned from Holiday Inns for life after drummer Keith Moon, in high spirits while celebrating his 20th birthday, started a huge food fight with his birthday cake, drove a Lincoln Continental into the hotel pool, threw a lamp at an autograph-seeking fan that hit them squarely in the head, and ended up having emergency dental work after knocking out some of his own teeth. Townshend interestingly neglects to include the additional detail usually told with this story about Moon also allegedly blowing up his hotel room toilet.
• Also in 1967, Townshend recalls The Who's legendary appearance on The Smother Brothers Comedy Hour, where Moon loaded up one of his bass drums with gunpowder to add some extra showmanship to the end of the band's performance of "My Generation" and caused a huge explosion that singed Townshend's hair and seems to be ground zero for the guitarist's long history of hearing problems. 
• Townshend's unkind words for 1971's Who's Next album title ("pathetic") and the cover (which I always loved) that showed the band zipping up after relieving themselves on a slab of concrete ("...a joke in bad taste...I was utterly confounded when so many fans and friends I respected loved the title and the sleeve design.")
• Townshend writing about his attraction to Mick Jagger, with a somewhat unsettling description of Jagger's manhood underneath "loose pajama-style pants without underwear".

Townshend's 70s and the 80s with The Who are marked by hugely ambitious creative ideas (his proposed Lifehouse rock opera proves to be too unwieldy to organize, with some of the material from the project eventually finding its way onto future Who albums), many further occurrences of standard rock 'n roll excess (furniture being thrown out of hotel windows, copious amounts of alcohol and drug consumption, including one story about a three yard line of coke being snorted, too many mentions of Townshend's infidelity to keep track of, etc.), the guitarist becoming an early adopter of new recording and computer technology (The Who were also the first act to use lasers in rock shows), tragedies (including Moon's 1978 death from a drug overdose and 11 fans being crushed to death at a 1979 Cincinnati Who concert), and Townshend's growing unhappiness within the band. He quits in 1983, reluctantly returning in 1989 purely for the lucrative payday that will fund his solo musical projects and the expenses for a planned baby with his wife. Details on The Who's musical output throughout the book are surprisingly and disappointingly lacking in detail, especially coming from the man responsible for being the primary force behind most of it. Townshend does offer revelatory details about his perpetual uneasiness with his place in the band; his depressive personality and severe issues with self-esteem fascinatingly result in the guitarist always feeling like the odd man out within The Who, which clashed with the outside perception of him as their leader. 

Townshend's work outside of The Who finds him channelling his creative energies into further solo projects, publishing some of his short stories, working as an editor at a British publishing house, giving time to a number of charitable causes, and developing The Who's Tommy for the theatre. Despite the quantity and variety of these endeavours, Townshend's recollections of them fail to stir many moments of great interest, however. With reservations, Townshend rejoins The Who numerous times after first leaving, participating in their 2002 tour only because singer Roger Daltrey and bassist John Entwistle had financial problems. On the eve of the tour's first show, Entwistle dies in his hotel room from a cocaine-induced heart attack. Townshend's reflections on the bassist's life and their friendship turns out to be one of the few moments in Who I Am where Entwistle gets much of an in-depth reference. Even by the usual rock bio standards that inevitably seem to frame the bass player as a very peripheral character, Entwistle is mostly absent in Townshend's memoir, although it is worth noting that along with "The Ox" and "Thunderfingers", one of the bassist's other nicknames was "The Quiet One".

Some of the most compelling reading in Who I Am revolves around Townshend's dissection of his legal problems in 2003 after being arrested for paying £7 with a credit card to a website advertising child pornography in 1999. He maintains that the transaction was meant for research purposes (tying back to those childhood sexual abuse claims, which led him to get involved in charities combatting child sexual abuse and speaking out many times on the issue), that he instantly regretted his decision, and never browsed the website after paying for access. The colossally bad decision catches up to him with his eventual arrest, the seizure of 11 of his computers, and the inevitable media circus. After a torturously slow four-and-a-half month-long investigation that found no further incriminating evidence on Townshend's computers, he accepts a "caution" plea deal from British police that sees him placed on a sex offenders registry for five years. As interesting as this chapter of Townshend's life is, I must admit that I was hoping for a little more more insight into why Townshend curiously accepted a deal instead of fighting harder to clear his name (he says he wasn't up to the media scrutiny of a trial, but his reputation has never recovered) and also why he waited so long to give his full side of the story that is finally provided in this autobiography (Townshend writes that he had a hard time making sense of his "insane" behavior and thought briefly of suicide).

Pete Townshend's fully-lived life and his many contradictions should make for a slightly more grabbing read than Who I Am delivers. Along with the musical-genius-plagued-by-massive-insecurities factor is Townshend's ongoing clash between his self-destructive behaviour and notoriously prickly personality, and an almost lifelong quest for spiritual enlightenment and salvation through the teachings of Indian spiritual master Meher Baba. I also have to lay criticism for the book only providing a passing reference to one of the better rock stories out there, involving a Who show from 1973. Moon passed out on stage after overindulging in some drugs and alcohol and Townshend asked the San Francisco audience "Can anyone play the drums?". A fan named Scot Halpin stepped forward and played with The Who for the rest of the show (you can watch some of it here) and apparently stayed in contact with Townshend until passing away in 2008. Surely, a story that good is worthy of more than the brief mention it gets here. Although it doesn't match the more cohesive flow of say, Keith Richards' Life memoir, Who I Am is still well worth a read, though. Better yet, seek out the audiobook, read by the author himself. Shortly after beginning a tablet version of Who I Am, I switched to the audiobook and was glad I did, as hearing Townshend's words firsthand significantly strengthens your connection to the material and adds extra insight just from his intonation in certain parts, such as the emphasized disdain he adds to his voice when reciting the Who's Next album title.

Rating: B- 

Newsted - Metal [album review]

Released in January

Newsted is the name of former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted's latest project and Metal is the succinct title of their new EP (the group is rounded out by drummer Jesus Mendez Jr. and guitarist Jessie Farnsworth). Metal is a solid first release from the project headlined by a musician whose career since leaving metal's biggest act a dozen years ago has been rather underwhelming. Newsted had stints with Ozzy Osbourne's band and Voivoid, contributed to the awful TV-affiliated Rock Star Supernova project, and was the force behind the unimpressive Echobrain, among other musical endeavours.  

Metal's four songs sound much closer to the old school metal bands, like Black Sabbath and Motörhead, that influenced Metallica than Metallica itself. The sludgy "Godsnake" and grooving "Skyscraper" strongly evoke mid 70s Sabbath, right down to the latter's half-time tempo shift on its back end. There's still some Metallica-like elements in there, mind you, particularly on "King Of The Underdogs" and the thrashing "Soldierhead", which also has a mid-song bass breakdown that clearly pays homage to Megadeth's "Peace Sells". Newsted's punchy bass nicely stands out throughout the EP and his snarling vocals capably handle the lead singing responsibilities. As much as I'm a fan of Robert Trujillo, Newsted's replacement in Metallica, Trujillo's off-key background vocals in a live setting with the group can't hold a candle to the job Newsted did...and the less said about the even worse contributions in the same capacity of Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammet the better.

Although Metal scarcely has an original musical idea during its 22 minute running time, it's still an above average and quite promising appetizer from the Newsted trio, who are planning to deliver subsequent short form releases in the upcoming months.

Rating: B-

Skunk Anansie - Black Traffic [album review]

Released in September

England's Skunk Anansie, who Motörhead's Lemmy names as his favourite band, are emblematic of the "popular in Europe/totally obscure in North America" label applied to most groups from the 90s Britpop/Britrock scene. Formed in 1994 and eventually disbanding seven years later, the group's last two releases since reforming in 2009 never even got physical releases on this continent.The newest of those releases, Black Traffic, is their fifth studio album and none of them disappoint. 

Skunk Anansie's biggest strength by far is lead vocalist Skin, whose amazing set of emotively rich pipes ranks, in my humble opinion, with the best female rock vocalists ever, accompanying such talent as Heart's Ann Wilson, Pat Benatar, and relative newcomer Emily Armstrong from Dead Sara. Aside from her vocal chops, Skin stands out enough just for being a female singer in the male-dominated rock world (which continues to be an unfortunate thing to even have to mention). Add in the facts she's black, a lesbian, regularly wears attention-getting outfits on stage, was bald for most of her career, and tackles provocative subject matter (like the religion-knocking "Selling Jesus", "Little Baby Swastikkka", and "Yes It's Fucking Political", to name just a few) and she becomes even more of a compelling figure. In case you were wondering about that name, by the way, most of the band have one-name stage handles - there's also guitarist Ace, bassist Cass, and drummer Mark Richardson (all but Richardson, who joined shortly after the band originally formed, are founding members).

Black Traffic admittedly doesn't depart much at all from the sound of past efforts from the group, although that sound is a never-boring diverse blend of metal, hard rock, punk, electronic music, alternative, and power pop. Black Traffic's track breakdown roughly amounts to about 70% heavy material and 30% of the songs being in a more commercial vein, a formula also applicable to just about all of their previous albums. Standouts on the heavier side of things are "I Will Break You", "Sad Sad Sad (with some tastefully used drum 'n' bass elements offsetting the crunchy guitars and pounding live percussion), "Spit You Out" (featuring a vocal appearance from French electro-rock act Shaka Ponk), and "I Believed In You", one of the best showcases of Skin's multi-octave vocal range. I was a little confused by the song's lyrics, however - the pointed words seem to be aimed at bankers (Oh I hope when you're sleeping/Your guns are close at hand/Who knows who's cheating?/To steal your contraband/That you gained in abundance/From cattle living poor/One day they would take it no more), but it's unclear why the anti-establishment singer would have had any faith in such people to start with. On the less aggressive side of things, there's the pleasing "Our Summer Kills The Sun" and fantastic "Drowning", which features nearly all of the aforementioned genres in just this one track. Since the band isn't deviating from their old tricks, there's also the requisite strings-heavy ballad in "I Hope You Get To Meet Your Hero", a lovely number equal to Skunk Anansie's past similarly grandiose classics like "You'll Follow Me Down" and "Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)". The mid-tempo "This Is Not A Game" also bears mentioning, with its muted bass-driven verse sections and amped-up choruses.

More of the same from Skunk Anansie? Unquestionably. But while the band might somewhat deservedly take some knocks for adhering to their familiar creative blueprint (as a number of reviews from the vicious British press criticized them for, among other things), the excellent results produced once again on Black Traffic make it hard for me to make it too much of an issue.

Rating: B+

30 Rock [television review]

30 Rock's final episode aired on January 31st

30 Rock recently aired its 138th and final new episode that completed a seven season run and the television landscape, already embarrassingly depleted of quality comedic shows, is that much poorer with its departure. Inspired by creator/star/writer/executive producer Tina Fey's time as a head writer on Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock never managed to find large-scale viewership numbers on NBC, although it was always lavished with critical praise and was the recipient of many awards. Frankly, any awards show and their accolades are pretty meaningless to me, but for a change I found myself on the same page with TV critics when it came to their mostly high opinions of 30 Rock. 

The acting and particularly the writing operated at an amazingly consistent high level during the series' span and for a long-running television comedy to maintain such high standards is a rare feat, indeed. Credit, naturally, must go to the fantastically talented Fey (playing geeky show-within-a-show head honcho Liz Lemon), along with co-star Alec Baldwin (brilliantly playing network executive Jack Donaghy, whose staunchly Republican ideologies hilariously countered the actor's own outspoken liberal beliefs). If there's been better chemistry and performances from a pair of actors on a television comedy since Seinfeld ended 15 years ago, then I'm at a loss to recall who that twosome might be or have been. Over the show's seven seasons, there's been an outrageous wealth of memorable moments from each of their characters. Two of my favourites are the scene where Liz tries to get out of jury duty by dressing up as Princess Leia (complete with a full-on cinnamon bun/danish hairdo) and pleading to the judge "I really don't think it's fair to be on a jury since I'm a hologram", as well as Jack's scene in season two where he role-plays the mother and father of Tracy Morgan's character with exaggerated black voices taken from 70s sitcoms, which may be the funniest thing I've seen on TV in at least the last decade. That scene is a perfect representation of the offbeat and edgy humour that was 30 Rock's stock-in-trade and much of the risqué material that the show got away with in both their 8:00 and 8:30 evening time slot continually surprised me. I'm reminded of Jon Hamm's gut-busting performance in blackface on one of 30 Rock's two inspired live episodes (Hamm also had a guest stint as another character earlier in the show's run), a reference to trampolines as "hymen demolishers", and the show's last episode featured a Hitler sight gag. 

30 Rock also benefitted from great performances by its secondary characters, including weirdo NBC page Kenneth Parcell (played by Jack McBrayer), eccentric man-child Tracy Jordan (played by Morgan), and diva Jenna Maroney (played by Jane Krakowski). The only weak links in the cast were a couple of the lower profile writer characters, one being the spastic John Lutz (played by J.D. Lutz) and the other being the trucker cap-wearing Frank Rossitano (played by the very annoying and always unfunny Judah Friedlander). Really, these two lame characters eking out an existence for seven seasons on a show that otherwise made very few missteps is a curious anomaly. Other third tier characters that did make positive contributions to the show were producer Pete Hornberger (played by Scott Adsit), and the Grizz and Dot Com characters (played by Grizz Chapman and Kevin Brown, respectively). Fey also enlisted the help of a number of her former SNL co-workers: Rachel Dratch, Tim Meadows, Will Forte, Amy Poehler, and Chris Parnell's pricelessly incompetent Doctor Leo Spaceman character all made appearances, some on a recurring basis. The show also trotted out a long line of big-name stars for one-off or recurring guest roles: Salma Hayek, Michael Keaton, Steve Buscemi, Oprah Winfrey, James Marsden, Matt Damon, Susan Sarandon, Jim Carrey, Will Arnett, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Reubens, Brian Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, Matthew Broderick, and Margaret Cho (playing both late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il and his son, Kim Jong-Un) were all memorable. Less so were appearances by Steve Martin, Bryan Cranston and Catherine O'Hara as Kenneth's parents, Julianne Moore (using a terrible Boston accent), and Sherri Sheppard's irritating recurring role as Angie, Tracy's wife.

As immensely disappointed as I was to hear that 30 Rock was ending, I honestly never though the show would make it past season three or four with its quirky and fast-paced humour loaded with pop culture references, its unconventional single camera/no laugh track format, and those perpetually low ratings, so anything after that point has felt rather like a bonus to me. NBC didn't do 30 Rock any favours with their scheduling, either, moving the show around numerous times and, towards the comedy's end, putting them in the same time slot as ratings juggernauts American Idol and The Big Bang Theory, two more shows on my long "Why is this crap so popular?" list. Baldwin, frustrated with NBC's placement of the show on the TV schedule, tweeted before an awards show that maybe he'd win something for "Best Actor In A Comedy In A Shitty Time Slot". 30 Rock cheekily exploited their anemic ratings for laughs, naturally, making plenty of self-deprecating references to their low Nielsen numbers, and taking shots at other low-rated NBC programs (like the now-cancelled Harry's Law) and the network's overall inability to keep pace with the ratings numbers of CBS, ABC, and Fox. Saying goodbye to 30 Rock is also hard because the show arguably went out at the top of its game, with many of the 13 episodes from this final shortened season ranking up there with the series' best, right up through the highly satisfying final episode. While it stings to lose a show that was still turning out creatively rich and hilarious work, there's also a good feeling that 30 Rock went out still demonstrating exactly those qualities. Not many TV comedies or dramas that ran for seven seasons are able to make such a claim.

Some of 30 Rock's best quotes:

• "Trying on jeans is my favourite thing. Maybe later I can get a pap smear from an old male doctor." - Liz Lemon
• "I believe that when you have a problem, you talk it over with your priest, or your tailor, or the mute elevator porter at your men's club. Then you take that problem and you crush it with your mind vice. But for lesser beings, like curly haired men and people who need glasses, therapy can help." - Jack Donaghy
• "You didn't realize emotion could be a weapon? Have you not read the poetry of Jewel?" - Liz Lemon
• "Wow, that is some high level paranoid thinking...like Hitler or Willy Wonka." - Jack Donaghy
• "Now I'm heading home for a nooner, which is what I call having pancakes for lunch." - Liz Lemon

Rating: A

Related post: my February 2012 review of Fey's 'Bossypants' book

Horror movie fan? Check this out...

Mark Tumber is my best friend and a highly accomplished pencil artist who does amazing photorealistic work. I promised I'd give him a plug for his latest piece, a horror movie-themed collage titled "The Damned", which you'll see below (beside it is a version with a legend, click both to enlarge). If you're interested in a print of it, or want to check out some of his other work that ranges from wildlife to architecture to family members to celebrity pieces, head over to his website.

The Expendables 2 [film review]

Released theatrically in August; now available on all home video platforms

Why I keep watching new films starring Sylvester Stallone I'm not quite sure - God knows few actors have a worse track record over the past 30 years than Sly. A look at his filmography over that period lists roughly 30 features in which he's had the starring role, of which I've seen 25. Of those 25, I can count the number of good films on one hand and still have a finger or two left over (and that's with the generous assessment of 1993's Cliffhanger being considered "good"), with only one of those worthy of "excellent" status in my books. That'd be 1997's Cop Land, where Stallone gave the best performance of his career in a highly refreshing against-type role. The only reasons I can come up with as to why I repeatedly set myself up for such disappointing movie-viewing experiences from a markedly one-dimensional actor is: a) there's likely some sort of ingrained connection to him as one of the first big cinema stars I gravitated towards as a young kid just beginning to become a movie lover and b) I've simply always liked the guy.

Back in my 2010 review of The Expendables, I noted that the film "has the distinct whiff of Stallone trying to launch another franchise". With the unexpected success of it and the inevitable sequel, The Expendables 2 (the original made $274 million worldwide and the follow-up tallied $300 million worldwide), it's only appropriate then, given the militaristic nature of The Expendables films' subject matter, that Stallone's goal of creating another profitable movie series be acknowledged with a "mission accomplished". The sequel one-ups its predecessor's strategy of cramming as many action stars as possible into an 80s throwback action spectacle by expanding the cast even further and pushing the limits of how many actors can appear on a movie poster. Added to the returning mix of Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Jet Li (in a very limited role), Jason Statham, and Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger in expanded roles this time around are Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. Newcomers Liam Hemsworth and Chinese actress Yu Nan also contribute supporting roles and Nan turns out to be a solid addition, adding at least a little counterbalance to the testosterone surplus surrounding her. Sadly, Steven Seagal still apparently has better things to do.

Stallone, who once again co-wrote the (once again) thin screenplay hands off the directing role he assumed on The Expendables to Simon West, no stranger to unsubtle moviemaking with credits such as The Mechanic and the crème de la crème of turn-your-brain-off movies, Con Air, on his resumé. The Expendables 2 hits the ground running with a 12 minute long opening action sequence that finds Stallone's Barney Ross character and the rest of The Expendables breaking into a Nepalese prison to rescue some hostages, with subsequent plot lines involving the crew exacting revenge for the death of a comrade, and having to save the world from harm by getting their hands on both some plutonium and some high tech computer technology also playing out. The story, which is peppered with numerous eye-rolling "nick of time saves" moments, is purely incidental, of course. The main focus is having the ensemble mowing down their opposition with extreme prejudice, as often as possible, with as many bad one-liners as possible. It's probably redundant to say anything in a film like this is too over-the-top, but the overuse of those punny one-liners (like "rest in pieces" being proclaimed by Ross before he obliterates an enemy) deflates the initial "stupid fun" pleasure they deliver in the film's earlier parts. The corny, self-referencing lines also wear thin quickly, too, as we get an overdose of self-deprecating quips about the advanced ages of many of the movie's participants (I was amazed no one used an "I'm gettin' too old for this shit" line), multiple Terminator-related jokes from Arnie's character, "lone wolf" and Rambo references to Norris' and Stallone's characters, a "yippee ki yay" joke from Willis' character, and some backstory that reveals Lundgren's character is a brain (the actor actually has a degree in chemical engineering, if you can believe it). At first, I wasn't completely sure if all of the high camp that The Expendables 2 dispatches was completely tongue-in-cheek or just the general meatheaded nature of a killfest movie like this one. By the time I got to a little over 30 minutes into the film, I ended up going with the first theory. That was the point where Van Damme shows up, breaks out a single martial arts move that is downright hilarious for all the wrong reasons, and we find out that his Eurotrash villain character is named...Jean Vilain. Awesome.

As I was finishing up this review, it occurred to me that the takeaway impression I had after watching the aging action figures in The Expendables movies paralleled one of the observations I just wrote about in my last review for KISS' latest album - there comes a point where what both aging parties are still hanging on trying to do just seems rather undignified (even by the lower dignity standards of action stars and face-painting musicians) and it can frequently be painful to watch or listen to. The Expendables 2 isn't a complete waste of time, mind you. It still provides some decent entertainment in places and moderately exceeded my rock bottom expectations established by The Expendables. Considering the brutal box office returns this past weekend for Stallone's newest film, Bullet To The Head, plus the similarly anemic theatrical performance of Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand a couple of weeks ago, expect plenty more long-in-the-tooth action all-star team nostalgia trips under The Expendables banner in the foreseeable future.  

Rating: C     

KISS - Monster [album review]

Released in October

A few months prior to KISS celebrating their 40th anniversary, as happened last week, the band released Monster, their 20th studio album. The soulless Monster represents why I let my metaphorical membership in the KISS Army lapse (as stated in my other KISS reviews, I think it's relevant to mention that I was a hardcore fan of the group for almost 30 years before souring on just about everything they've done after about 2002). Monster is yet another empty vessel whose sheer reason for existing seems to be to act as more KISS product, while also qualifying as new music that deflects criticism of the group now being nothing more than a nostalgia act. Tied into the release of Monster is a book of the same name that is advertised as "Three feet tall and two and a half feet wide! As tall as a guitar!" and is so crazily expensive at $4,250 U.S. (!) that they actually offer low monthly payment plans for that undiscerning and unhealthily obsessive KISS fan who can't live without it. The band at least found it in the goodness of their hearts to offer free delivery on the tome.

Looking back on my review from 2009 for KISS' Sonic Boom album, most of the criticisms and observations from it could be cut and pasted onto this review. There's the embarrassing lyrics that are atrociously bad in many parts: I'll take you out of this world to the other side/On a midnight rocket 'til the morning light/Going up, going down, it's gonna be alright and You and me we're like TNT/Light the fuse that's inside of me (from "Outta This World"); I was just another child going wild in the city/Just gettin' by on a dream/I was thinking life was gonna be pretty/It was pretty mean (from "All For The Love Of Rock And Roll"); and I told her that I had a submarine/She said "I know exactly what you mean"/I told her that my ship was ready to ride/She touched my heart when she touched my thigh (from "Take Me Down Below"). I don't expect KISS to start writing songs about world peace and I'm also conscious of the fact that they and a handful of other classic hard rock bands are into uncharted waters as their careers carry on into decade number five, but there's something profoundly sad about a group whose two principle members (Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley) are now well into their 60s and churning out lyrics as lazily written, thimble deep, and icky as these. Also carrying over from Sonic Boom is the fact the only good song on the album is its first track and first single - last time around it was "Modern Day Delilah" and this time it's "Hell Or Hallelujah", both with Stanley on lead vocals. The song is an obvious attempt at capturing some of the songwriting and studio magic from the earlier days and succeeds, with a crunchy main guitar riff that feels and sounds like a sibling of the one from 1977's classic "I Stole Your Love". Monster's only other track worth listening to is the heavier "Shout Mercy", also with Stanley singing lead vocals. Aside from those two, it's one forgettable example of the band going through the motions after another, as the 70s formula of each band member taking their turns in the lead vocal slot is predictably executed.

It should be noted that KISS are in some pretty select company in terms of classic rock bands that are no longer capable of putting out a new album that qualifies as even merely adequate. Aerosmith, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and Heart are just some of the formerly prolific groups that can't write a good collection of songs any more to save their lives. It can be done, though, as demonstrated last year by inspired and stellar releases from the long-in-the-tooth Van Halen and Rush. Aside from a couple of instances, Monster just feels like a forgery of the far better music that KISS were able to make a long time ago, right down to them employing two guys (lead guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer) to look and musically sound like original KISS members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. At this point in their career, you can include KISS as another deserving candidate for the "musical euthanasia" I wrote about here. No doubt, the low-hanging fruit fan base that Simmons and Stanley depend on have already shelled out for Monster, as these diehards continue to turn a willfully blind eye to the hollow sham this band, sadly, now is. 

Rating: D-

Related posts: my October review of KISS' Destroyer (Resurrected) album

Danko Jones - Rock And Roll Is Black And Blue [album review]

Released in October

Danko Jones is one of maybe a dozen musical artists whose new album I'll buy without hearing a note off of it beforehand - that's how much I admire his work. By the way, talking or writing about Danko Jones can get a little confusing - it's the name of the lead singer/guitarist, yet it's also become commonplace for the entire band to just be referred to as Danko Jones. Either one works, but for the purpose of clarity, when I use the name I'll be referring to the individual. The group is the second best rock trio to ever come out of Toronto, with a tip of the cap to the city's most famous three-piece, Rush, and apologies to the third place Triumph. Unfortunately, the band is woefully unappreciated in their home town (where they once opened a Rolling Stones warmup gig at the Palais Royale ballroom prior to the Stones' 40 Licks World Tour) and the rest of North America, with breakout success coming for them relatively early in their 17 year career in Scandinavia, particularly in Sweden. 

Danko Jones' latest album is titled Rock And Roll Is Black And Blue, a reference to the generally poor state of rock music these days and if ever there were an apt band to fly the flag for an out-of-fashion-yet-always-resilient genre, it's this hard-nosed group. They're a must-see live band, with the frontman bringing the kind of intensity and commitment to his shows that found him actually detaching one of his retinas on stage in 2006 from the cumulative effect of slapping himself in the face every time the band performed the song "Bring On The Mountain (Become The Mountain)".    

Every one of Danko Jones' previous five full-length studio releases has been good for a minimum of three songs that are killer enough to warrant being staples in the group's setlists a decade from now and their latest doesn't disrupt that trend, with four more grade A songs. First on that list is opening track "Terrified", a prototypical Jones song featuring simplistic heavy guitars, a fat bass sound (from founding member John "JC" Calabrese), and aggressive, loud drumming. The drum stool this time around is occupied by newest member Atom Willard (who's played with Angels & Airwaves, Social Distortion, and The Offspring), which makes him the sixth drummer this band has had, giving Spin̈al Tap a run for their money. As much as I hated to see previous two drummers Dan Cornelius and Damon Richardson exit the fold, Willard's attacking drum style is similar to his predecessors and makes for a seamless transition...let's hope he avoids death by spontaneous combustion. Next up on the list of stellar tracks is "Get Up", then first single "Just A Beautiful Day" (a ripper with a massive-sounding chorus that's stacked with meaty guitars), and lastly, "The Masochist", which echoes the rawness and volatile attitude also conveyed on "The Cross" from Jones' best album, 2003's We Sweat Blood.  

A little less memorable, but still damn fine are "I Don't Care", "You Wear Me Down", "Type Of Girl" (Urge Overkill might be entitled to some royalties, though, considering how much this one nicks the riff from "Sister Havana"), the more commercial-sounding "Always Away" (again borrowing quite liberally from a classic song - this time it's the hammer on/pull-off guitar riff from AC/DC's "Thunderstruck"), "Conceited", and "I Believed In God". The latter track represents a surprising new wrinkle to Jones' mostly static sound by injecting a gospel choir into the mix. It's a little surreal hearing their heavenly voices complementing those of a man known for his over-the-top, swaggering persona and bad behavior-celebrating lyrics (indeed, the words on this one deal with both a higher power and how He pertains to the hot woman Jones lusts after), but the whole thing works quite well. Only two songs failed to win me over: the slower-tempoed "Legs" and "Don't Do This".  

Rock And Roll Is Black And Blue, aside from Jones doing a little more singing and a little less screaming, plus the rare and successful creative risk taken on "I Believed In God", mostly sticks to the trio's formula of power chord-based, punk-infused hard rock with few frills and loads of attitude, along with simple lyrics that unapologetically focus on the fairer sex. As Jones said in last year's fantastic bio doc Bring On The Mountain, "If you look at the development curve of my lyrics, it's one flat line. I've just always written about the same stuff and I always will". Taking a page from the playbooks of some of their most significant influences (AC/DC, The Ramones, and Motörhead), Jones, Calabrese, and insert drummer's name here don't really care if you find their unwillingness to evolve very much a negative - this is what you get. If growth and ambitious experimentation from a musical outfit is what you seek, then listen to a Radiohead album.

Rating: B

The Walking Dead [television review, part two]

The first half of season three aired on AMC from October through December of last year; the second half of season three premieres on February 10th

Warning: major spoilers ahead if you haven't seen up through the eighth episode of season three

I've written well over 200 reviews on this blog and none of them were as much of a challenge to complete as this one for The Walking Dead. As mentioned in the review's first part, I hit creative roadblocks in getting my thoughts from the brain to the keyboard, which continued as I wrote the second part of this review. I actually debated whether or not to just scrap posting this second part altogether because of my unhappiness with the end result. I opted against that due to the large amount of time invested in putting it together, plus the fact that what I wanted to say is all here - I'm just not thrilled with how the structuring and wording of it came out. It's a lot longer than I wanted and the editing process was dragging on as well and I just reached my limit of how much more patience I had to continue working on it. Basically, I just want to put this one to bed already. Yes, it's unusual for a writer to admit that what they're sharing is far from their best work (unprofessional, too, I suppose...not that I get paid for this), but I'm just being upfront. And yes, I get the irony of me bitching below about the show's lazy writing and then typing what I just typed in the previous sentences. On with it then... 

Frankly, I find the writing on this show downright terrible, which is one of the biggest reasons I dislike these characters so much. Season two was defined by far too much talking and bickering amongst the group members, along with an excess of stupidity from the characters. I can appreciate that one's ability to make rational decisions would be diminished in the challenging environment and circumstances these people find themselves in, but that doesn't excuse the many, many boneheaded choices and moves the writers saddled these characters with, resulting in behaviour that alienated me to the point of no return. For example: 

• Darryl riding a chopper that yes, would be great on gas and advantageous in getting places a bigger vehicle can't access, but is LOUDER THAN HELL and therefore a zombie magnet. Conversely, there was the decision by some of the group members to get around in an RV, which is just about the worst vehicle you could drive in terms of gas mileage (and it was a broken down RV at that). 
• At the end of season two, we find out that the group doesn't even have their vehicles loaded up with supplies in case they have to make a hasty exit if zombies attacked the farm, as ended up happening. Nor do they have an arranged meeting point should they get displaced from the farm, although that didn't keep most of the scattered group from miraculously arriving at the same time at the same place after the farm attack. In another example of extremely shortsighted planning, they wait until Lori's baby is born in season three before stocking up on baby formula, a commodity that strangely seems to be quite easy for the group to find in abandoned daycares and stores.    
• On several occasions (even on into season three when he went off alone to find medical supplies in the prison), Carl wanders off by himself with completely ineffective repercussions from his parents. The fact he keeps doing it might point to a kid with a rebellious and adventurous streak - I'll chalk it up to a combination of his not being very bright, crappy parenting, and lackadaisical writing.    
• In season two, Andrea, feeling empowered with her newly discovered supposed markswoman skills, mistakenly shoots Darryl from a distance because an already suffered injury has him conveniently shuffling along like a zombie and, uh, the sun got in her eyes. It was one of the many unintentionally hilarious moments this series has delivered. 
• In season two, Shane slices open his good hand to attract some zombies with his blood. I might have chosen the less useful hand I don't shoot or stab walkers with, but that's just me. 

More lazy writing abounds throughout the series, resulting in uneven story elements that eschew logic to accommodate the storylines and enhance the drama. Some of the following would also qualify under the "stupid decisions" category, but here's some examples:

• The reunion between Carol and the group in the seventh episode of season three after she'd been missing in the prison for an extended period didn't add up. Yes, it made sense that the group was happy and tearful at seeing her again - why, then, was barely any effort made to find her? It struck me as a case of the producers shortcutting their way to the reunion's easy emotional payoff.  
• In the episode previous to the aforementioned one, the scene between Andrea and a woman guarding The Governor's commune resulted in another unintentionally hilarious scene. The woman states that she's proficient with a crossbow, but then proves to be the anti-Katniss when she's incapable of taking out a slow-moving walker from a short distance. It's an amateurly executed scene both in its dialogue and acting that unimaginatively exists only to demonstrate Andrea's toughness and lack of regard for authority, as she climbs over the barricaded wall to handle the walker herself. The rationale of The Governor having this woman on guard duty, after it's been well established that he runs a very tight ship in regards to the safety of the commune, makes zero sense.    
• Lori, after stating in season two that the group should avoid making unnecessary trips off the farm, soon after irrationally decides to go after her husband who's out on a mission with some other members, all of whom have demonstrated an ability to take care of themselves. Naturally, she ends up flipping her car en route to saving the day, putting herself, her fetus, and anyone who has to rescue them in danger. Utterly ridiculous.
• In season two, some characters risk their lives and a lot of their limited ammunition to save the life of a guy that just tried to kill them who ends up impaled on a metal fence post. That was bad enough. Said rescuee is then walking amazingly fine just a week later after being patched up by a veterinarian (Hershel) coming off a booze bender following a decades-long period of sobriety. The comedy gold continues.   

I could continue to rail on about the other things I dislike about this show: its atrocious pacing (an interminable amount of time was spent on the season two search for Sophia, storylines were revisited too often, and many episodes were completely devoid of action until the last five or ten minutes, when the producers seemingly jammed any zombie killing in as an obligatory bone to action-craving viewers); the disgusting double standard that allows the most gruesome violence you could ever see on a TV or film screen air at 9 p.m. on basic cable, yet nudity and the word "fuck" are strictly verboten; how the novelty of the zombies wore off a long, long time ago; and the show's incredibly boring action sequences. You get the idea by this point, though.

I'm sure some of you still reading this are thinking that I need to stop taking a show about zombies so seriously and picking it apart. To reiterate what I wrote in part one of my review: trust me, I'm totally able to suspend my disbelief with a show like this and succumb to its charms. Unfortunately, The Walking Dead has next to none. And my critique is so nitpicky because I am holding the show to a higher standard, mostly based on its overwhelmingly glowing reviews, but also because of the rabid viewer following the show generates. Entertainment Weekly magazine says this of the series: "Pound for pound and thrill for thrill, The Walking Dead could turn out to be the greatest thriller ever produced for television" and "...the real star of The Walking Dead is its sharp, humane writing". Other adjectives I've read and heard to describe it (and from professional TV critics no less) are "brilliant", "great", and "genius". Like the similarly mystifying critical love given to Homeland, I simply don't understand how they're watching the same dumb show I am. During a recent conversation with a friend about the huge ratings and fan enthusiasm for the program, he said The Walking Dead had probably resonated so deeply with viewers because the horror genre was so underrepresented on TV and nothing like this had ever aired before. That makes sense on a certain level, but crap is still crap, so I'm still mystified why a show that's as hugely flawed as this one has connected on such a massive level with such a widespread demographic and those who write about the medium. And reminding myself about that whole "taste is subjective" thing doesn't make me any less perplexed. 

So why in the world am I still watching a program I've crapped over as much as this one? Partly, it's a bizarre fascination with the massive disconnect between where I stand on the show and where a hell of a lot of other people seem to stand. Another reason is I genuinely do get enjoyment out of watching for the unintentional laughs and colossal stupidity on display in almost every episode. Apparently, this practice has now been coined "hate watching" and has developed into a popular trend. Watching for the wrong reasons only has so much of a shelf life, though, so I'll probably only hang in there for a few more episodes when the second half of season three resumes next month. One other thing that does intrigue me about this show is the upheaval going on behind the scenes with some of the top people determining its creative direction. Showrunner Frank Darabont quit early on in season two and his replacement, Glen Mazzarra, either quit or was fired (the details are a little murky) earlier this month. Perhaps the instability explains the mess that appears onscreen. 

Finally, as much as I've criticized The Walking Dead, I'm not completely without some praise for it. Along with the likable Glen and Maggie characters I've already mentioned, the show consistently demonstrates great special effects and I've also been impressed more than once with some of the artfully composed shots that have appeared (one was an eerie long shot from the episode aired during the same night as the Oscars last year where a lone zombie walked through an open field, another was the death scene of Shane from season two set in another field bathed in moonlight with fog rolling around). And I must admit, the moment in the second season's mid-season finale where a zombified Sophia emerged from Hershel's barn and was gunned down by Rick was outstanding and almost redeemed the entire boring season that had led up to it, even if in retrospect, I felt as dumb as the rest of the characters were for not figuring out before that point that maybe they should have checked the mystery barn on the very land where they were staying. Also, the show has also made some bold moves in killing off major characters, even if that maneuver has now become rather de riguer on other cable dramas like Sons Of Anarchy, Boardwalk Empire, American Horror Story, Breaking Bad, and Game Of Thrones. Those last two sentences sum up my at-odds relationship with The Walking Dead - even when I'm attempting to find something positive to say about it, the compliments tend to end up coming out backhanded.

Rating: D 

The Walking Dead [television review, part one]

The first half of season three aired on AMC from October through December of last year; the second half of season three premieres on February 10th

Warning: major spoilers ahead if you haven't seen up through the eighth episode of season three

Record ratings for a basic cable show, along with critical and viewer raves be damned - I think The Walking Dead is one of, if not the most aggravating TV programs I've ever spent time with. I've tried to write a review of the show a couple of different times over the past year or so, but found myself repeatedly hitting a creative roadblock, as will happen occasionally when I'm trying to formulate my thoughts into words on a particular subject. So I've just been stockpiling plenty of observations and opinions over the course of watching all 27 episodes of the AMC drama during its two and a half seasons on the air. Because I have so much to say, I'll break up my review into two parts (as I've said on here before, most people look at a bulky 2000+ word review - which is what this full one would clock in at - and aren't exactly willing to dive right into it). Part one looks at the show's biggest weakness: a crippling lack of likable and sympathetic characters.

In my 42 year lifetime of being an avid TV consumer, I'm hard-pressed to come up with another show I've watched with a large ensemble cast that has so few agreeable characters and as many thoroughly unlikable ones as this one (The Newsroom would be a not-too-distant second). There's exactly two characters since the show began that I enjoy, who either haven't annoyed the hell out of me or made me shrug with indifference: Steven Yeun's Glenn and Lauren Cohan's Maggie (Norman Reedus' Daryl might qualify as half a likable character). Everyone else on The Walking Dead I've felt absolutely no attachment to and completely failed to be intrigued by, which is a huge problem as a viewer watching a program built upon the concept of rooting for the survival of the main group. Here's a rundown of the show's main characters and my many issues with them:

• Rick (played by Andrew Lincoln)...the show's protagonist has admittedly exerted more sensible authority in the first half of season three than he did during his bumbling time as de facto group leader in the first two seasons. Rick's stupid choices and numerous moments of indecision earlier on were obviously meant to complicate the character and convey the difficulties of navigating the changed world which the group inhabits - his actions just had me slapping my forehead repeatedly, though. This and Lincoln's tendency to overact has always kept me at arm's length from warming up to the character. 
• Lori (played by Sarah Wayne Callies)...Lori was a huge nag who repeatedly proved incapable of keeping an eye on her adolescent son Carl (played by Chandler Riggs), despite the fact that danger lurks around every corner since, you know, there's a zombie apocalypse going on and all. Plus she hooked up with Shane, Rick's best friend, a little too quickly when they thought Rick was dead after the world went down the crapper following the virus outbreak. It seems I wasn't alone in disliking the character, judging from the overwhelmingly negative reactions online from viewers.   
• Shane (played by Jon Bernthal)...the season one and two character, who was incredibly stubborn and irritatingly cocky, had "weaselly prick" written all over him almost immediately (see the Lori hookup, among many other examples). 
• Carl (played by Chandler Riggs)...I cannot remember the last time an actor annoyed me like the precocious Riggs has over the past two seasons. I know ripping a kid for being a crappy actor is mean, but screw it - he simply is. Like Keanu Reeves, you can practically see the acting mechanisms whirring in his head. Riggs didn't have much to do until about halfway through season two, at which point Carl started being worked more into the important storylines, usually as a result of his bratty behaviour (like wandering off again and taunting a walker stuck in the mud, an action that would come back to have major implications). Season three has unfortunately seen the show's writers establish Carl as much more grown up and able to take on bigger responsibilities, all while wearing his dad's sheriff's hat (subtle symbolism there, writers). That bloody hat has been glued to Carl's head for every scene Riggs has appeared in during season three's first half, which has somehow made the character even more intensely annoying to me. I doubt we'll see it, but I'm desperately hoping Carl meets a very grisly ending. 
• Dale (played by Jeffrey DeMunn)...while on the topic of grisly endings, such an occurrence thankfully befell this character in season two. When the sanctimonious Dale became zombie chow, I literally bounced off my couch, pumped my fist, and exclaimed "Yes!" with delight. I will give this to The Walking Dead - it definitely provokes some emotional reactions, even if they're not the ones the show's brain trust are necessarily looking for (the show also elicits plenty of unintentional laughter from me). 
• T-Dog (played by IronE Singleton)...the combination of a character with a lame nickname who was usually given less to do than the background scenery, played by an actor with an even stupider first name adds up to one more member of the group whose fate I simply had no investment in. I also always felt an uncomfortable "token black character" vibe with T-Dog, like the producers felt obligated to at least have some black representation on a show that looks awfully white for a story that takes place in Georgia, where one third of the population is black (in Atlanta, where the show started out, the black population is over 50%). And yes, I get that this is a show about zombies and one obviously needs to suspend disbelief about a lot of things - it's just an observation. Granted, the black Michonne character, a major one, was added in season three, but the "token" thing stood out to me even more after one of the secondary black prisoner characters was briefly given a more prominent role right when T-Dog was mercifully put out of his misery near the end of the mid-season finale from the most recent run of episodes. And as soon as that prisoner went down for the count, another black male character named Tyreese was almost immediately then introduced. It's interesting (and rather amusing) is all I'm saying.
• Michonne (played by Danai Gurira)...I'm just not caring whatsoever about this one-note character, boringly played by Gurira with a perpetual scowl. 
• Andrea (played by Laurie Holden)...Andrea feels like the female version of Shane - arrogant and unlikable from episode one of the series. It seemed fitting that the two got together for a brief fling, one that had all the sparks of a soggy Roman Candle.
• Carol (played by Melissa McBride)...one of the many examples of very poorly written female characters on The Walking Dead, Carol never really has much to do, all while doing it with quite possibly the worst hairdo in TV history. She's such an admired part of the group that they hardly bothered to look for her after she went missing during the zombie attack on the prison in episode four from this season. 
• Merle (played by Michael Rooker)...I had hopes for Merle, whose return to the series after being abandoned early in season one was entirely predictable. Since reappearing this season, he's been an uneven mixture of at times being his old, nasty redneck self and other times being a man seemingly neutered by his current overlord, The Governor. 
• The Governor (played by David Morrissey)...the writers can try to inject all the dark and complex duality into this character that they want - he's still forgettably dull.
• Hershel (played by Scott Wilson)...not quite Carl or Dale-level irritating, but Hershel's propensity for dispensing his folksy wisdom had me hoping that the zombie bite he took on his lower leg earlier this season would mark the departure of yet another hard-to-take character. No such luck. Hershel's addition of a priceless ponytail this season provided some good laughs, while having the same grating effect as Carl's ever-present chapeau.

Part two to follow...

Rating: D