METAL DAD: THE BOOK IS AVAILABLE NOW. COLLECTS YEARS 3 & 4! Click here.
METAL DAD shirts! Click here to get yours.
METAL DAD: THE BOOK IS AVAILABLE NOW. COLLECTS YEARS 3 & 4! Click here.
METAL DAD shirts! Click here to get yours.
Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode Seventy Nine
With no shortage of time or events unfolding, Jon and Rob hit the ground running and very hard – so much so, you could consider this instalment of Radio City… as a mini-marathon. From the embarrassment and ego-blown MTV Video Awards to the Manafort verdict to The Eagles now having the biggest selling album in history to Rob spending a few hours with Cyndi Dawson from The Cynz and, of course, “In Our Heads”, this show has everything you could want and even more.
There is a lot to listen in to; a lot to digest. Some of it you’ll like, be entertained by and be amused – some of it you may bristle at, become annoyed or just plain angered. We’re neither right, nor wrong – we just deliver as objectively as possible and let you decide for yourselves. As it should be.
Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode Seventy Nine
The podcast will be on the site as well as for subscription via iTunes and other podcast aggregators. Subscribe and let people know about Radio City, as well as Popdose’s other great podcasts David Medsker’s Dizzy Heights and In:Sound with Michael Parr and Zack Stiegler.
METAL DAD: THE BOOK IS AVAILABLE NOW. COLLECTS YEARS 3 & 4! Click here.
METAL DAD shirts! Click here to get yours.
In years past, I’ve typically used this space to treat you to an essay on the state of the US economy and the plutocratic banditry so rampant therein. This year, though, that seems kind of redundant. If you pay any attention at all to the news, you can’t help but be aware of the tensions and inconsistencies in this nation, where the stock market soars and the president brags of sustained economic growth even as his billionaire friends reap the benefits before they can trickle down to the common man, even as his trade policies destroy middle-class industrial jobs by the thousands.
The mask is well and truly off, now, and the failings of the capitalist economy are increasingly apparent even to those who have traditionally been its staunchest defenders. There’s something changing in this country, for good or for ill, and we will not understand the scope of that change until it is behind us.
So let’s all take a moment before we plunge into the full-on madness of election season to breathe, to reflect on the sacrifices and the victories of the organizers who came before us, and to wave goodbye to summer as it slowly begins to recede.
Select individual tracks provided for reference only; as always, we encourage you to download the full mix (1:20:55) for best enjoyment, and support the artists by purchasing their music.
Collect ’em all!
Download the full mix for 2017 (1:17:20) — see details here
Download the full mix for 2016 (1:14:42) — see details here
Download the full mix for 2015 (1:26:24) — see details here
Download the full mix for 2014 (1:15:39) — see details here
Download the full mix for 2013 (1:08:31) — see details here
Download the full mix for 2012 (1:12:37) — see details here
Download the full mix for 2011 (1:20:57) — see details here
(prelude – beach ambience)
Simple Minds – Someone Somewhere In Summertime (extended remix) original track on New Gold Dream (1982)
The Mooney Suzuki – It’s Showtime Pt. II from Electric Sweat (2002)
The Pretenders – Back On the Chain Gang from Learning to Crawl (1984)
David Bowie – Day-In Day-Out from Never Let Me Down (1987)
The Afghan Whigs – The Lottery from Do To the Beast (2014)
Phoebe Hunt and the Gatherers – Lint Head Gal from Shanti’s Shadow (2017)
Bill Wilson – Pay Day Give Away from Ever Changing Minstrel (1973)
Leisure Process – Cashflow (1982 single)
Bachman–Turner Overdrive – Takin’ Care of Business from Bachman–Turner Overdrive II (1973)
The Smiths – Frankly, Mr. Shankly from The Queen Is Dead (1986)
King Missile – Cheescake Truck from Mystical Shit (1990)
Bon Jovi – Work For the Working Man from The Circle (2009)
Jeff Beck – Guitar Shop from Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop (1989)
Lucinda Williams – Fruits of My Labor from World Without Tears (2008)
Steely Dan – Glamour Profession from Gaucho (1980)
The Editors – Fingers In the Factories from The Back Room (2005)
The Easybeats – Friday On My Mind (1966 single)
Wall of Voodoo – Lost Weekend from Call of the West (1982)
(interlude – summer night by the water)
coda: R.E.M – Nightswimming from Automatic for the People (1992)
Dedicated to the memories of Walter Becker, George Young, and Joe Hill
Artists making their Dizzy Heights debuts this week: The Assembly, The Association, Shirley Bassey, The Buzzcocks, Aretha Franklin, Deborah Harry & Iggy Pop, Raphael Saadiq, The Stranglers, Walter Meego, and my cat Harvey! He hops up at the 1:05:55 mark.
Thank you, as always, for listening.
In 1999, when The Sixth Sense came out, I was the only one in my group at the movies that evening who figured out the surprise ending from the moment Haley Joel Osment’s character uttered the famous line, “I see dead people.” I bring this up because when I watched the premiere episode of Sharp Objects on HBO, I made a quip about a minor scene that could be viewed as transitional as holding the key to the show’s mystery. I was joking at the time, but that quip turned out to be true in the end — and that disappointed me. Well, the entire series of Sharp Objects was a disappointment. Riding on the success of the book and film adaptation of Gone Girl, author Gillian Flynn’s debut novel was adapted into an eight-part series for HBO. However, instead of a taut thriller about a mediocre journalist — who’s borderline alcoholic with severe psychological baggage — on assignment investigating the murder of a young girl (and another who is missing) in her childhood home, we get eight glacially paced episodes where the narrative barely budges week after week. Indeed, when the big reveal came at the end of the series, it felt more like a relief rather than a “Holy Sh*t!” moment.
Sharp Objects was created by Marti Noxon (writer and executive producer of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series) and directed by Jean-Marc Vallee — whose success with HBO’s Big Little Lies made him a good choice to handle this twisted drama. However, even with a powerhouse production team and a powerhouse cast — led by Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson — the series was mired with bloat that used the atmospherics of sound, stark colors, dreamy flashbacks, and sweat to mask the fact that most of Sharp Objects is filler. However, buried in all that bloat is a story that could have been compelling as a two-episode limited series.
The story is moved forward by the small town murder in Wind Gap, Missouri, where the corpse of a young girl is found with all of her teeth missing. What kind of sick f*ck does something like that? A town drifter looking for a quick thrill? A local serial killer? Camille tries to extract information from the town locals, the police, and even an out of town detective working the case, but she runs up against roadblocks in her quest to find out what happened. While doing her gumshoe work (and getting drunk), the missing girl is found dead in an ally. She too has had all of her teeth extracted, and so it’s clear that these murders are connected since the bodies have been killed and mutilated in the same way.
However, if this was the story of the murders of a couple of teenage girls and an alcoholic journalist reporting the story, it would be a rather boilerplate narrative. Laced into the tapestry of Sharp Objects are Camille’s troubled relationship with her family (mostly her mother, Adora) and her recovery as a cutter who etches words into her body with razor blades, pins, and other, well, sharp objects. Throughout the series, Camille is haunted by the flashbacks of her sister who died when she was a teenager, suffers psychological trauma because her mother doesn’t love her, and is troubled by her half-sister’s (Amma) nymph-child behavior. In short, the characters present themselves as complicated white people with money whose secrets are made all the more mysterious because of their southern roots. But in reality, they are just psychotic. Now, this is all fine material to create an interesting story since no author worth her or his salt wants boring characters to dominate their work. And while Flynn has been accused of misogyny in her novels, she hasn’t been accused of creating borning lead characters. However, that’s exactly what has happened in this adaptation of her novel. Characters who shouldn’t be boring or uninteresting, are hampered by a long-winded arc that takes way too much time to get to the point. Along the way, viewers have to suffer through episode after episode of depressing scenes that do very little to move the plot forward. As I wrote at the outset, when the big reveal comes at the end — and I mean literally at the end and during the credit roll — it was both laughable and somewhat disturbing. It felt very B-movie in the way it was wrapped in a rush. Certainly, that was by design so viewers could chew over the previous seven hours and 58 minutes of story and piece together the clues that led to the conclusion — much like The Sixth Sense. However, it would have been a much more satisfying experience if we didn’t have so many interminable hours to parse.
METAL DAD: THE BOOK IS AVAILABLE NOW. COLLECTS YEARS 3 & 4! Click here.
METAL DAD shirts! Click here to get yours.
Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode Seventy Eight
The response to Episode 77 was overwhelming, as you very kind listeners took our message to heart – we were starting to feel fatigued with all the constant negative energy and remembered – we’re here to entertain as well as inform you. So with that in mind and the need to keep things upbeat, installment 78 is the first completely “unscripted” show we’ve done in a while.
For those who don’t know, Jon and Rob usually hash over a list of topics to discuss for the upcoming episodes and cherry-pick from there. This week is the first time (in a long time!) that the show is completely improvised. And, like #77, it’s still in a positive-momentum, forward thinking frame.
So tune in and enjoy – you will, again, be very pleased by what you hear!
Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode Seventy Eight
The podcast will be on the site as well as for subscription via iTunes and other podcast aggregators. Subscribe and let people know about Radio City, as well as Popdose’s other great podcasts David Medsker’s Dizzy Heights and In:Sound with Michael Parr and Zack Stiegler.
METAL DAD: THE BOOK IS AVAILABLE NOW. COLLECTS YEARS 3 & 4! Click here.
METAL DAD shirts! Click here to get yours.