The final season of “House of Cards” could be subtitled “The Ghost Of You.” Kevin Spacey was fired from the series after sexual assault allegations surfaced, but the character he plays (Frank Underwood) is still very much part of the show — even though the actor playing him is nowhere to be seen in the six episodes. Instead, the show focuses on Claire Underwood, Frank’s wife, who became president toward the end of season five after Frank resigned in the wake of impending impeachment hearings.
Flash-forward to season six and Frank is dead, Claire is still president, but she is about as reviled as Frank was when he held the office. She also has to confront many of the debts Frank was set to pay as president — one of which is to the Shepard family who wants Claire to sign a bill that will benefit their Koch Brothers-like family business. Then there’s the death of Zoe Barnes in season two that lingers throughout the series as her editor tries to pin her murder squarely on Frank. Add to that Frank’s loyal foot soldier Doug Stamper plotting to kill Claire as she suspects that Frank was murdered. Oh, it’s all so improbable (or is it?), but that’s what “House of Cards” excels in. The scheming, the audacious acts, the ability of some characters (okay, really just the Underwoods) to see five or six moves ahead of their opponents in the political chess games they play, only accentuates the corrupting influence of power.
While “The Final Season” shows stresses and strains of milking drama from increasingly boilerplate characters, Robin Wright is the glue that holds this mess together. She doesn’t always succeed in her abilities to command the screen in the face of weak scripts, but she’s commanding enough to see it through to its revealing end.
First, there was “The Golden Girls” and now Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin are treading familiar waters as Golden Boys in “The Kominsky Method.” Tragedy and comedy alternate in this series starring two seasoned actors who know how to liven up sometimes mediocre material. The plot centers on Sandy Kominsky (Douglas) and his agent, Howard Newlander (Arkin). Sandy is a revered acting teacher in L.A. who can’t find any acting work — despite the fact that Howard runs a pretty successful agency (Think William Morris Endeavor). The episodes deal with spousal death, enlarged prostates, medication, dating when older, and a whole host of other situations that are pretty standard stuff.
If it wasn’t for the acting talent of Douglas and Arkin, the series would probably tank. As it is, the two keep the chuckles (but not belly laughs) coming, and it’s Arkin who shows some range in the series. He has to play grief-stricken, sarcastic, confused, and sympathetic while Douglas kind of plays the straight man who is trying to stay relevant and attractive while the years catch up with him. Arkin has always been a master at delivering comedic lines, and in “The Kominsky Method” he doesn’t disappoint:
Norman:So how’s your love life? You still seeing, uh, what’s her name? Triscuit? Sandy:Tristan…and no. Norman:Oh, that’s too bad. She was kinda cute. Sandy:Well, we didn’t have much to talk about…she was half my age. Norman:Listen, half your age is still an old woman.
There are a few more zingers in the series like this, but more often than not, the plots tend to cover very little new territory for what’s essentially a sitcom (without a laugh track) about old age. Still, if you’re in the mood for some predictable, but enjoyable, old man comedy, “The Kominsky Method” will do in a pinch.
WarnerMedia announced its streaming service FilmStruck announced last month that it was shutting down on November 29. The reasons WarnerMedia gave to Variety for the decision were, at best, unsatisfactory. “We’re incredibly proud of the creativity and innovations produced by the talented and dedicated teams who worked on FilmStruck over the past two years. While FilmStruck has a very loyal fan base, it remains largely a niche service.” This is the same as saying “Sure, Johnny deserves an A+ for his paper, but he’s still being held back a grade because the popular kids don’t hang out with him.” Now that I think about it, that’s a very accurate definition of adult life, but there’s no reason we should punish FilmStruck’s success.
Naturally, many cinephiles took this announcement as a personal attack. Oscar winners like Barry Jenkins and Guillermo del Toro rallied against the decision. Many other commenters wrung their hands and used this development as a rallying cry about media corporate consolidation. Petitions were created, and The Criterion Collection eventually came to the rescue and announced they’d start their own channel next year. But that’s likely not going to offer the same vast library that was available on FilmStruck.
But during all this, very few have taken a step back and examined what the shutdown of FilmStruck means for streaming. That may be because it’s going to force us to confront something streaming. It’s not going to be wave of the future that we all thought it was. In fact, it’s already making the same mistakes that cable made and will likely be mistakes that shape the future of these services.
1.)All the focus is on new content, preventing people from checking out older films – As many pointed out, FilmStruck was the only place to find Hollywood classics like Singing in the Rain or obscure titles like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover.
Actually, the latter film was available on Netflix for many years. So were a lot of classic films. In its early streaming years, one of the biggest complaints about Netflix was the fact that no newer releases were ever showcased.
But as time went on, Netflix started developing its own content, starting with Lilyhammer. Yes, there was production company Netflix owned that bought films for exclusive distribution, including the documentaries This Film is Not Yet Rated and Super High Me. But Lilyhammer and House of Cards really broke the dam for streaming platforms creating original content. Now, there are some undeniably classic television moments on Netflix produced shows. But it was an enormous change for their business model, and as a result, more and more classic titles are leaving the service. It means that classic film fans were getting increasingly left out because that was such a niche audience. Netflix didn’t bother renewing the streaming rights to many titles because they were encouraged by the success of Cards and wanted to develop more shows.
The result is an increasingly unsatisfactory film library. Yes, some great work still resides there – as of this writing, The Third Man and Touch of Evil are both streaming. But Stripes and Strictly Ballroom are also listed under “classics,” presumably because they’re more than 20 years old. Compared to what Netflix once was – a one stop shop for practically every film you could ever imagine – today’s Netflix is far more limited. It’s like what happened to cable channel AMC. It used to be a huge competitor with Turner Classic movies. Now, it’s more well known for airing shows like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. The movies it does air tend to be dreck and there certainly isn’t any special attention paid to them.
Ironically, Netflix somewhat addressed this complaint about classic films earlier in November when they finally released Orson Welles’ long lost The Other Side of the Wind, with an accompanying documentary about the film and Welles’ later career. This act shows how streaming services can still provide if they’re willing to do so. But that’s increasingly becoming an anomaly. And now, Hulu and Amazon are both creating new shows and not showcasing the classics. By its very nature, FilmStruck could not create any new narrative content. That, more than anything else, is likely why the service got the axe.
2.) Streaming is becoming increasingly fractured – It seems that media owners are eager to have their content move around to get fans to pay more. It happened when It’s Always Sunny and Archer moved from FX to FXX, which is a newer cable station notable for the fact there’s one more X in its name. There was no practical reason for this move except to acknowledge the fact that FXX existed and people should, despite their best interests, subscribe to it.
I mentioned Netflix a lot in my last point because that’s the service that drove every other decision by every other service. And in that decision process, more media creators started taking their content and creating their own streaming services.
That by itself isn’t a bad thing. People have different interests and may want to only focus on certain genres. That was certainly an advantage of FilmStruck. People who weren’t excited over the latest Avengers sequel had somewhere to go to watch the movies they wanted to watch.
What is troubling is that this meant, once content was removed from one service, people would have to shell out for multiple services just to get a film or TV show that had previously been available. Several classic TV shows that were formerly hosted by Netflix are now exclusively on Hulu, and it’s been promoted as something to be excited about rather than an acknowledgement that rights have transferred and that consumers have to spend more money.
During the dying days of cable, may people wondered why they couldn’t just pay for the channels they wanted to watch. After all, at most, people insisted they only watched five channels. Streaming was supposed to be the alternative to this. We would get the content we wanted without having all the useless appendages tacked on. Netflix didn’t include sports or live events, but it did include every TV show and film that almost everyone would want. Through a few specialized services on top of that and we’d be living in our future utopia.”
But it’s not to be. Disney has already announced they have a streaming service planned. Hulu has taken most of the classic TV content away from Netflix. And WarnerMedia is apparently dreaming of something so amazing that it will make FilmStruck look like a child’s toy. Meanwhile, Netflix wants to become the Marvel Channel. (We’ll see how long that lasts when Disney launches their service) and services like HBO Go, Shudder, and FilmStruck, while they do offer an eclectic range of programming, feel like they’re never going to have the staying power that the most popular streaming services do. I have a suspicion that streaming services of the future are going to be offshoots of current branded channels – like CBS All Access. That puts them in the same category as specialty cable channels. And that means that we’re still going to suffer the same problems.
3.) There’s no longer a guarantee that your favorite things will always be available to you – Have you noticed how often I’ve mentioned content being removed from streaming services?
I’m sure many people reading this also recall when past shows would be removed from syndication on cable to make way for newer shows. Nick at Nite went through this when they stopped showing vintage sitcoms and started showing Everybody Loves Raymond. Cartoon Network went through the same thing when the yanked Looney Tunes in favor of Teen Titans Go!
One would think that streaming services, with their seemingly infinite capacity, do not suffer from the same issues. With cable channels, there are only 24 hours in a day people can program. But streaming services supposedly don’t have the same constraints. Yet, that’s what’s happening. Physical media is starting to fall out of fashion. One advantage it will always offer is that a Blu Ray will always be available for you to watch. Studios can’t suddenly not make the disc work.
But we’ve accepted a world where content is removed from a service at random. Even FilmStruck did this – and for a time, didn’t indicate what titles would be leaving. I am sure there is an algorithm that could explain why. But it doesn’t address the biggest problem we’re running into. We’re once again at the mercy of studios to legally provide us what they want to provide us.
That was something FilmStruck could address. They specialized in films that did not interest a general audience. But that was the point. It was a playground for people to go to find obscure films they likely couldn’t see anywhere else. And that may have doomed it.
4.) Advertising is becoming the most important thing for streaming platforms
Remember when earlier this year when Netflix started experimenting with promotions for their shows in between TV episodes? Seemingly everyone reacted negatively to it, as though it was a new idea. Amazon has already been doing that same thing. And many cable channels, like AMC, introduced commercials in the same way.
I’m not necessarily stating that Netflix will introduce commercials. But so many other streaming services have added it that it we’ve barely noticed. I’m not just talking about the giants like Netflix and Hulu. Look at YouTube, the most popular video sharing site in history. Originally, there were no ads on any videos. Then they added skippable commercials before the video started. And, increasingly, they’ve interrupted videos with soap commercials. In November, YouTube added a selection of free movies for people to watch – movies that would be interrupted by ads. Is a movie like Jiro Dreams of Sushi truly enhanced by advertising interruptions? Not to mention the fact that Hulu’s basic service includes ads even after subscribers pay a price for its content.
Using films as a showcase for advertisement is another FilmStruck would never do. They don’t have any original content that needs to be promoted and no subscriber would allow a Bergman film to be interrupted by a five second commercial. But that’s what every basic cable channel eventually did because it was incredibly lucrative.
And now? It seems inevitable the only streaming services that will survive are the ones that will be able to monetize their content beyond what subscribers pay for. That means the cost of commercial free plans will likely go up and other services will slowly start introducing regular commercials into their content. It already happened on cable and I challenge anyone to find someone who notices the difference.
I hope we can get back to a time when streaming genuinely offered a glimpse into the future – a future where people could access seemingly unlimited content. But, with the trends we’re seeing, that’s becoming increasingly unlikely. Maybe buying your favorite film on Blu Ray isn’t such a waste after all. I’m thankful for the two years I got out of FilmStruck, but now I’m concerned that’s a moment that will never be equaled.
If there’s one word that describes the members of Fleetwood Mac through the years, it’s this: drama. The band’s rise to superstardom has been chronicled many times, but the continued tension between band members (most notably Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham) has been a source of ongoing conflict since they joined the group in the mid-’70s. However, any sense of lingering acrimony between the players after Buckingham’s dismissal from the group in January (and subsequent lawsuit by Buckingham citing breach of contract) was absent on Sunday night in Oakland. Not that one would expect pros such Fleetwood Mac to air their dirty laundry in front of a paying audience, but it was pretty obvious a major component of the group was missing. To fill the gap, the current Buckingham-less Mac found replacements for Lindsey who both hit all the right notes and brought a heavier sound to songs that are more Adult Contemporary in flair. Mike Campbell and Neil Finn are from musical backgrounds that are quite different from one another. Campbell’s career is mostly known for being the lead guitarist and songwriter of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Finn’s success is more new wave, with stints fronting Split Enz and Crowded House. Finn ably sang Lindsey’s songs and played mostly rhythm guitar, while Campbell filled the guitarist role Buckingham used to play in the group. Their addition to the group, while kind of a puzzler on paper, worked well in practice. Finn could sing in Buckingham’s key, and Campbell provided a more raw lead guitar sound to Fleetwood Mac classics. Would I have like to hear Buckingham singing “Monday Morning,” “Go Your Own Way,” and “Second Hand News?” Well, duh. Yeah. Of course I would! But Finn sang the songs with such gusto that the choice to put him in front of classic heavy hitters was the right one. In short, not only could he handle the job, he excelled at it. Sure, there are going to be purists who long for Buckingham’s return to the fold, but Fleetwood Mac has weathered changes in their line-up — with Buckingham, Nicks, Christine McVie leaving at various times. This tour, however, there are no pretensions the group can produce new music that can match the heyday of their 1975-1987 output — so they stuck to the hits on Sunday night, with a few deep cuts thrown in for good measure.
The band played for over two hours, and they started strong with “The Chain,” followed by “Little Lies,” “Dreams,” and “Second Hand News.” The hits kept on coming through “Black Magic Woman” and “Rhiannon.” And then, something unexpected happened: they played a deep cut from 1970. “Tell Me All The Things You Do” is a blues rock song that sounds like a heavier version of The Grateful Dead. But in the hands of the altered line-up, the band made it a blistering jam that reflected their more free-form ‘60s roots. Paired with an extended “World Turning” from the 1975 self-titled album, it proved to be a great transition into a Mick Fleetwood drum solo where he trotted out his Mad Dogs and Englishmen energy to really raise the energy level of the Oracle Arena. Mick Fleetwood may be the drummer of the band, but during his solo, he was clearly a leader who had the audience in the palm of his hands.
Mike Campbell was even given a moment in the spotlight when he sang lead on “Oh Well” from the 1969 record, “Then Play On.” His nasally voice sounded like a cross between Petty and Bob Dylan, but the guy just killed it on guitar; taking what was already a very heavy blues rock song and adding more crunch — with the band responding in kind. This tour is clearly a retrospective that leans a lot on the hits, but the deep cuts gave the setlist variety. Speaking of variety, Neil Finn got to dust off the biggest hit of his career (“Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House) after Mick Fleetwood gave it a detailed and heartfelt introduction. Although Mick didn’t come out and say it outright, he obliquely spoke about the importance of the song’s lyrics and how relevant they are in today’s world.
“Landslide” proved to be the most popular song of the evening. Though it’s been a staple of Fleetwood Mac’s setlists since 1975, the song wasn’t a single until it was re-released as a live version in 1997. Smashing Pumpkins were the first to cover the song in 1994, but The Dixie Chicks really brought their harmonies to the song and made it a hit again in 2002. After that, it seemed everyone and their mother-in-law covered the song — either professionally, at karaoke night, or in a car listening to the radio. That was clear when most of the women in the audience belted out a sing-along with Nicks. The rest of the set kept the heavy hitters coming until the last song on the encore, “All Over Again.” An odd choice for a duet between Nicks and Christine McVie since that song appeared on the record “Time” — an album that Nicks did not appear on.
Overall, Fleetwood Mac sounded fantastic on Sunday night. All the players are seasoned pros, but they played with vitality and didn’t have any hiccups — like the show in San Jose where Nicks forgot the lyrics to “Landslide.”
Wow! Stevie Nicks kinda lost it here… Said it’s her nerves playing in San Jose #FleetwoodMac #Landslide pic.twitter.com/54YIBwSyEE
— Mariecar Mendoza (@SFMarMendoza) November 22, 2018
As a critic who listens to music professionally to assess the merits of the work (and not someone who slags something just to slag it), I will say that Fleetwood Mac delivered a production that was excellent. I’m not a big fan of their music, but I am a big fan of people who craft great songs, can play with passion and precision, and bring an audience to their feet with solid performances. That’s exactly what Fleetwood Mac did at Oracle Arena on Sunday night. I went in expecting a ho-hum greatest hits rehash, and came out thrilled by the experience of a wonderful show full of drama — that played out in the song’s lyrics and the music.
Encore: A cover of “Free Fallin’” in honor of Tom Petty.
Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode Ninety
As both Rob and Jon gear up for the Thanksgiving holiday feast, here is their gift to you – something to enjoy and savor, like a traditional turkey dinner, for the long holiday weekend! Another tour de force, as the boys ruminate on such topics as Jacob deGrom’s Cy Young Award triumph in a dismal season for Mets fans; the passing of Marvel comics legend Stan Lee; the post-election continuation of vote counting; the continuing embarrassment of New York City’s downward spiral under deBlasio; Jon and Rob reflect on Thanksgiving with touching personal perspectives, plus “In Our Heads” and still more…
So enjoy your leftovers, sit back and dig in with this ninetieth installment of Radio City… It’s an aural feast!
Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode Ninety
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.
One of my favorite things about my adopted home state of Rhode Island is the state motto. It’s not really a motto at all in the expected sense of a phrase or a sentence. It is simply one word … Hope. The motto is thought to have been derived from the biblical verse that states that “we have this hope as an anchor for the soul.” This is borne out by the fact that Rhode Island’s symbol is an anchor.
It seems to me that hope is something that is in short supply these days, not only here in Rhode Island but throughout our divided country and the entire world for that matter. We arrive at Thanksgiving today at a dark time in our history when no one is really sure whether our democracy can survive. And that’s where that single word, hope, comes in.
So I set about to find a way to mark this holiday with a song about hope. There are many of course but the one that has always moved me the most is “Ooh Child.” The song was written by Stan Vincent and originally recorded by the Five Stairsteps in 1970. At the time, the A-side of the record was the Stairsteps cover of the Beatles “Dear Prudence” with “Ooh Child” on the flip side. But it was the B-side that broke out in several markets and by the summer of 1970, the record’s message of hope had reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. Released by Buddha Records, “Ooh Child” was the only Top 40 pop record the Five Stairsteps ever had.
I’ve written about the Five Stairsteps version of the song previously in the column but the song has had many cover versions over the years. Among the other artists who have recorded “Ooh Child” are The Spinners, Nina Simone, New Birth, Richie Havens, Valerie Carter, Hall & Oates, and the Edwin Hawkins Singers. I chose the Hawkins Singers version for today because out of all the fine covers of the song, the group’s gospel roots help to instill in an even greater sense of hope in me.
Ooh-oo child Things are gonna get easier Ooh-oo child Things’ll get brighter Ooh-oo child Things are gonna get easier Ooh-oo child Things’ll get brighter Some day, yeah We’ll get it together and we’ll get it all done Some day When your head is much lighter Some day, yeah We’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun Some day When the world is much brighter
And there it is … hope.
My hope is that this Thanksgiving Day finds you in the warm embrace of family and friends. It is my strong belief that despite the darkness that sometimes seems to surround us, we have much to be thankful for.
Matthew Sweet feels like it might be time to take a little bit of a breather and you can hardly blame him for that. “I’ve had so much stuff,” he chuckles, late in our conversation. “I feel like taking a break would be good for all of us. Meaning, me and the fans.”
In the past two years, he’s released Tomorrow Forever and its companion album, Tomorrow’s Daughter. Fans can get their hands on a third album of new songs, Wicked System of Things, which will be in stores for Record Store Day this coming Saturday, November 24. The album, as Sweet tells us, is one that worships inspirationally at the feet of bands like Cheap Trick, Shoes and the Raspberries.
At the same time that Sweet is adding so many new chapters to his body of work, Intervention Records has been offering up an extended look back at his classic ‘90s trilogy of Girlfriend, Altered Beast and 100% Fun, issuing incredible vinyl reissues of all three albums, plus the Son of Altered Beast EP that came out during the same time period. The titles have been fleshed out with bonus tracks, many making their first appearance on vinyl. Sweet accurately terms the new versions as “gorgeous and comprehensive.”
Featuring 100% analog mastering from the original master tapes, the new reissues were mastered by Ryan K. Smith and pressed onto 180 gram vinyl. Album art was faithfully restored by Intervention’s art director Tom Vadakan, printed on heavy film laminated “Old Style” gatefolds by Stoughton Printing (who snagged two Grammy Awards this year, one in the category of Best Boxed Set or Limited Edition Package and a second for Special Packaging). The three albums will also be available on SACD from Intervention.
The reissue project, like all of Intervention’s output, has been a true labor of love for head honcho Shane Buettner. “I love all of those albums,” he tells us in a separate interview. “To me, it is kind of fascinating. Girlfriend is an amazing thing of its own and everybody knows that. But I think for me right now, Altered Beast is the one that I look at and I think by the time the extra tracks are on there, it’s about 75 minutes or more. He damn near had a double album. He could have Smashing Pumpkined it up and probably done two double albums. It’s a tremendous amount of material and the quality of it from top to bottom is just off the charts.”
Fans can order the reissues directly from Intervention as a subscription package where they’ll receive all of the titles as they’re released. Both 100% Fun and Altered Beast are available now with Girlfriend and Son of Altered Beast set to ship in the coming months. All four titles are also available individually.
We spoke with Sweet to talk about a plethora of topics, including Wicked System of Things, the new reissues and the 25th anniversary of Altered Beast.
You’ve got this cool new record coming out for Record Store Day. You’ve got to tell me some details about it — because I love that the idea for the project starts at the core, with Cheap Trick.
We did a show with Cheap Trick at 30A, the songwriters festival that my manager Russell has. I’m a little bit friendly with them from kind of a long time back. They were doing radio shows when I was in the ‘90s and in particular, I knew Tom Petersson a little bit. So it was fun to see them and they were of course, amazing. I just said, “You know, I’d love to write an album and just record vocals and guitar and then have you play bass and then Rick [Nielsen] could play lead guitar. So it would be like you guys playing on a record that I made, or something. And they were like, “Yeah, we’re totally into it!” So I was really excited about it.
I wrote a bunch of songs really quickly in [about] a week’s worth of time and got Ric Menck to come down to my house and we did these drums and guitar and singing of this album’s worth of songs. There’s 11 songs and that’s all there is. There weren’t extra songs. Then I found out that they had to bail from it. They were trying to finish a Christmas album and this was right before they had an album came out at the same time as Tomorrow Forever. So we were both releasing in June [of 2017] and I did this in March or something. So there wasn’t that much time. Rather than have it hanging around unfinished or later on trying to get them to do it, I just decided [to] play bass on it and I got Jason Victor, who I was about to go on tour with, to play lead guitar on it. So the whole thing is just me, Ric Menck and Jason Victor.
I really just kind of made roughs of the whole thing and that’s what this record is. It’s just kind of a “lost record” and I wanted it to somehow come out without it really being “my next record.” It’s something that I sort of had and it was kind of interesting. So I don’t know what people will think of it. But the intention, it was kind of a nod to Midwest power pop groups from the era when I was a teenager and it was guys like Cheap Trick, Shoes, the Raspberries, all of these groups that came from the Midwest.
The album is called Wicked System of Things. Where does that come from?
It actually comes from some kind of a Jehovah’s Witness thing. They have this really apocalyptic sort of vision about the world ending. Like, it’s about a paradise, but first, the world has to be totally destroyed. So they have this way where they take all current events and make it into some idea that they have of the world ending is coming true. It was something I just read offhand and in among a bunch of other words, I saw, “wicked system of things.”
A friend of mine is a screenwriter in L.A. and he and I were talking about it and I just thought, “‘Wicked System of Things,’ that sounds really cool” and he’s like, “Yeah, I really like that for an album title!” So I called it [that]. It doesn’t have a real meaning other than just, I guess the time of when it is is a turbulent time, sort of, I guess, in the world. At least for us here. We’ve got the worst thing going on here! [Laughs] Anyway, it just got pulled out of a random place, the title. There’s a song on the record that has a little bit more of that jargon in it. “Counting The Days,” it’s like, “Counting the Days/ ‘Til the end comes,” you know? [Laughs] And “The last days of the last days,” that’s another thing in the literature, it’s like, “We’re living in the very last days of the last days,” so I just thought that was sort of crazy and I used those words in that song as well. So there are a couple of places where it came from, scary to me, end of the world kind of Jehovah’s Witness stuff. [Laughs] And I mean no disrespect to them.
Another song title that jumps out at me, tell me about “The Biggest Lies.”
“The Biggest Lies” are like, “the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves,” is kind of the gist of the chorus in the song.
That’s a very Matthew Sweet kind of gist. I like it.
That one’s got a moody thing, it’s got some interesting kinds of feelings and things going on in it. I don’t know what to claim about it, other than it’s a lost album that I felt was worth getting out there.
Looking at this Wicked System of Things album, you wrote these songs in a short period of time……
….[It was] very crammed together and really quickly and just kind of one batch of things that we recorded. It’s just 11 songs and that’s everything. So there might be some B-sides in there. [Laughs] But you know, I honestly kind of liked it. So like I said, I felt enough about it that I liked the idea of it coming out. And the cover’s going to be really cool, it’s these paintings from the era of Keene and those Maio harlequins of what we call “last man on Earth” paintings, where there’s one guy in sort of a desolate landscape. It opens up gatefold and the one inside is this crazy version of one where the last man guy is standing in a field near a house and his family are around him, the daughter on her knees on the ground, pulling on him. Off in the distance coming is this gigantic tornado. [Laughs]
So it’s like, they’re begging him not to go into the tornado or something. It’s really freaky. These paintings, you know, I think, started out as just kind of a surrealist thing. There was a guy in San Francisco that did it and then people sort of co-opted it, other artists, and it became more about dying or something. Being alone and whatever comes next. But that one to me, was sort of the most perverse version of that with the tornado, that I ever found. So it’s kind of fun that I’m getting to use that artwork on a record. It goes with the title, “Wicked System of Things.” The whole thing probably sounds [more] wicked than it is as a record.
It sounds like the perfect artwork for the album title. That rules.
Yeah, I don’t know that it’s really a dark record, but I guess there’s some dark-y things on it.
“Baby Talk,” is that the Cheap Trick song?
No, do they have a song called “Baby Talk?”
Yeah, they have a song that came out as a bonus track on their ‘97 self-titled record, so it would be lesser-known.
Wow, I had no idea. I’m surprised Ric didn’t tell me, because he probably has every record.
It’s a B-side of sorts, so I was thinking, if Matthew was going to pick something random from Cheap Trick, that would be random.
No, it’s not the same thing, but it makes me wonder if they thought, “Hey, that’s our song, ‘Baby Talk’!” Because I sent them the raw skeletons at one point. But no, that’s just by accident. It’s kind of a rock riff song. And you can imagine why I would have thought Tom Petersson would be cool on this, because it’s kind of [imitates the riff] and you can sort of hear him doing the runs along with the chords when they change. So there are some things where I was thinking about them a little bit, but you know, I didn’t try to make it all about them. I was really just trying to think of that general time. And then I told Jason Victor, “Play like ‘80s power pop stuff” and then he just got “‘80s,” not really like Midwest power pop, from me telling him that. So it has some of these spooky clean guitar lines that he played on it that give it an interesting quality too that maybe is ‘80s-like. I don’t know.
I think it’s really cool that Intervention Records is doing a series of album reissues for Girlfriend, Altered Beast, 100% Fun and obviously, the Son of Altered Beast EP as well. I think that folks kind of look at those albums as your ‘90s trilogy and it’s great to have the extra tracks that go with each of those albums collected with those records for the first time on vinyl. I wanted to have you talk about your involvement with these reissues a bit.
The honest truth is that I’ve been somewhat of a bystander during the whole process, just because I could be. I was kind of busy doing a lot of other things. I met Shane [Buettner, CEO of Intervention Records] and he was great. They got the rights to do reissues from the original label and he really wanted to work with us. My manager, Russell, worked closely with him initially, coming up with the idea of doing a Pledge campaign. Really, someone who has been so instrumental is Russell’s youngest son, Adrian Carter. He is the one who really dug through all of the tapes and called me all of the time and had real dedication to being super hands on. So it kind of made it so I didn’t have to be so much. I just got to listen to the masters and hear these songs that I didn’t hardly remember. [Laughs] What’s so amazing is how they’re coming out. They’re just so gorgeous and comprehensive.
I’ve got 100% Fun and Altered Beast so far, and as you say, the packaging is just unbelievable.
It really, really looks nice. Very, very high quality. So I couldn’t be happier with Intervention. You know, somebody released Girlfriend on vinyl in the last few years and I wasn’t even involved in that one. I don’t think they came to us. I think they just got the rights and put it out. And I would kind of go, “Yeah, I’ve heard that around” and people would occasionally come and have one. But this is such a huge step up with what it offers.
Obviously, printing technology has come so far, but the treatment that they’ve given these records, it feels like if these records would have come out in the ‘70s as glorious gatefold records, this would have been what you would have taken home.
Yeah, super deluxe!
What comes to mind for you when you look back at these three albums now and the period as a whole?
I remember the time mostly in the general feelings that I was going through. With Girlfriend, everything that first happened was new, coming from Girlfriend. I learned what it really meant to work hard all of the time and to be really busy in your life. [Laughs] That was sort of a big shock to my system. In the middle of that, we went right in and made Altered Beast, so Altered Beast was kind of born of a slightly crazy, unhinged-ness, which really is, that I’m bipolar.
But at the time, I just thought, there’s an evil me and a nice me. [Laughs] I couldn’t reconcile the two. So Altered Beast was the most I ever felt that way, like here’s a song from one guy and there’s a song from the other guy. I don’t know how much it really seems like that when you listen to it as an album, but that’s how my feelings were going and I was just sort of trying a lot of different things and a lot of different musicians and being in the studio out in L.A..
Richard Dashut was teaching me all about the different areas in Los Angeles and what the canyons were like. It had a really great history that he kind of introduced me to during the making of Altered Beast and that’s when we moved to Los Angeles, so we were there for 20 years and that was the beginning of a long affair with Los Angeles.
100% Fun, the record was in some ways for me, I heard a lot of “not as good as Girlfriend” during Altered Beast, even though I’d really poured myself into it, it was just regarded as, like, maybe it didn’t sound as good, it just wasn’t sort of as good. So that’s why I ended up getting together with Brendan O’Brien, because I’d really liked some of his engineering work and knew about him through my manager Russell, who knew him really well. Russell thought the two of us would get along really well, because we both love loads of weird old instruments and everything. And in fact, we did really hit it off. But because Brendan was at a time when he was having actual giant hits with Pearl Jam and all of those other bands, it gave it sort of this thing with the label where it was sanctioned. They sort of weren’t worried the way they were worried from Altered Beast a little bit, I think. What was great though, about 100% Fun is that I did “Sick of Myself.” That really did something that I liked, which was, it got a sort of unusual, slightly twisted sentiment, into something that became a radio song. So that was something I was really proud of and it was kind of an unexpected little resurgence on 100% Fun. Those records happened pretty quickly over the course of three or four years and they very much to me, are like a time capsule of that time.
It’s the 25th anniversary for Altered Beast and you mentioned working with Richard Dashut on that record. How did he come on board and what was the process of going over material with him for the album?
I was over-recording, so I was recording most of what I came up with. I guess that there were some songs that we didn’t use. But there wasn’t a ton that I didn’t record. You know, because I didn’t live out there, it was sort of like, I showed up and we went in the studio. We just kind of took our time at Sunset Sound Factory recording that album. I was pretty driven at the time about the way I wanted things to be and not as good as I would understand now, how it’s important to just let things be what they are. [Laughs] I really look back and wish I would have made Dashut engineer more on it. You know, he was really just acting as the producer. I wish I would have milked him more for the sound of Fleetwood Mac or something. At the time, you know, I got him because I was such a huge fan of Tusk and all of that Lindsey Buckingham era of Fleetwood Mac. I didn’t even realize at the time that he had produced [the band] Shoes, which is so cool. But he was a great, great guy and a wonderful friend to hang out with in the studio and a real cheerleader. You know, you can see how he took a dysfunctional situation in Fleetwood Mac and sort of acted like the glue for those few records, the Fleetwood Mac album, Rumours and then Tusk, an incredible trio of records, there.
Tell me about working on songs with Mick Fleetwood, Jody Stephens and Pete Thomas, did you have kind of a vision what songs you wanted them to play on?
I don’t know how I chose who to play on what exactly. Mick came in, amazingly, through Dashut. We were just so starstruck over him. You know, like, this is a great example. If I had recorded with Mick Fleetwood now, I would do whatever it was and just let him play whatever he did and that would be it! [Laughs] Whereas then, I was kind of trying to work him to do something specific. So I feel like I was sort of annoying. Although, we did all have fun together. He might not have bad memories of it, but if I had it to do over, I would have been a little bit more careful. Jody Stephens, I knew, because I’d met him through people that knew Big Star and he would come out to L.A. on trips for Ardent Records, who he was working for. He’s probably still involved with Ardent. He guested on a live show that I did that was sort of a Zoo showcase at a smaller club in L.A. He came on and played “Don’t Lie To Me” with us, I think. We played together live and then I just asked, “Will you come in the studio and do some songs?” What’s cool is that they all sound like them.
When Mick Fleetwood is drumming, it’s like, it’s him. And now, when I hear those records, I even more hear him and the way that his drumming propels them. Same with Jody Stephens, he had such an identifiable feel and style to how he played drums. And you know, I was a huge, huge Big Star fan, so it was a total pleasure to get to do it. Those are the kinds of things I used what little power I’d amassed in that short time, the year of success from Girlfriend, to sort of say, “I’m doing this and this and this.” [Laughs] And nobody said no. You know, it was just so crazy amazing with Nicky Hopkins playing piano on that album. He was just one of the most amazing musicians I’ve ever seen, if not the most. He came in and I would play him a song and while he was listening to it, he would chart it out, without having to go to the keyboard and go, “Oh, it’s this note, with this note.” He just knew what the notes were. It’s like a perfect pitch, like beyond perfect pitch. So he wrote out his thing and then he’d go in the other room and could play the entire thing perfectly the first time. It was the most mind-blowing thing. I’d just never seen anyone quite like him. Greg Leisz, who played steel guitar on a lot of my records, did some of those sessions with Nicky and I. Greg’s a genius musician, so those two were two peas in a pod and they did so much cool stuff. Somewhere, I have DAT recordings of just them jamming with me. I don’t know if I’m even playing, or if it’s just them, I’m not sure exactly. But you know, we’d run the tape when people were doing interesting stuff, just in case we wanted to use something.
Nicky Hopkins, Ian McLagan, those were just guys who were cut from a special cloth.
Yes. Very amazing, those British piano players from the ‘60s. I got to play with McLagan too, he was great. Glen Hardin, who played piano for Elvis in the ‘70s, charted out and played on a Carpenters cover that i did and he was also super-amazing. Like, he wrote charts for everyone. Old school, how it used to be done.
What was it that Ian played on?
He plays on a song called “Silent City.”
That’s right!
Yeah, it’s like a slang term for the graveyard, the “silent city.” It was recorded right during the L.A. riots when the Rodney King verdict came out. We were at the studio that day. I’m not sure if he was even in on the day of…he may have been in there during the riots with us or it might have been the day before. But people were running down the street, like, “They’ve taken the 7-11. It’s on fire.” It was really crazy. All of the looting was going on and we were just freaked out to get to our cars. I was staying at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel and they locked everybody in. But you could go to the windows and see people looting all of the tchotchke stores across the street and running around.
One thing that’s interesting, looking at these new reissues from Intervention Records, is how “Superdeformed” popped up as a demo in the Girlfriend period and it’s there again as a B-side in the Altered Beast period. On paper, it seems like it was in consideration for inclusion on both of those albums and it’s really surprising that it doesn’t make either one of those records.
I don’t know what the exact timeframe of it is, but you know, we gave it to the AIDS benefit, for the No Alternative album. I think I did it for that.
It was on that record. The demo version came out at some point on an EP after Girlfriend was released.
Yeah, like maybe as a B-side or something. But I remember that song, it became big, because that [No Alternative] record, they made a video of [“Superdeformed”] because that album was being promoted pretty highly.
And certainly in that era, lots of people were asked for songs for one thing or another and in the case of that song for you, as you said, you made a video for it and it ended up being pretty big. It’s interesting the life sometimes that songs that you give away have, instead of being on a record.
They get kicked around a little bit, but they’re in the running and liked! [Laughs] It’s good to have those extra things.
Was it complicated to clear that Caligula excerpt that goes in front of “Ugly Truth Rock?”
Now, that’s a complete Fleetwood Mac thing. You know, Dashut would tell me all about Fleetwood Mac and then when Mick was in with us, then they would do these things. You know, Dashut was like, “Sweet, have you ever seen Caligula? It’s so funny, it’s this crazy thing.” He used to do routines from it where they would talk like them. They would have sword fights with each other, Dashut and Fleetwood, so there was kind of a joke. It kind of matched my attitude in the studio, that I would do whatever I wanted. That sort of insane speech in the Caligula movie, which we had watched, I just kind of thought it was funny. It became in my mind, that it had to go on there. I don’t know how much it made sense to anybody. I don’t remember it being difficult to get the clearance for it. I guess they probably had to have him say it was okay. I know in those days, as much as ever, legal affairs was always really worried about getting the okay on everything. Otherwise, Girlfriend would have been called Nothing Lasts. Until somebody told Tuesday Weld, “Is it okay with you that it’s called Nothing Lasts?” And then they were like, “No!”
How did Byron Berline end up on the record playing fiddle?
I think I must have had a connection to him through Greg Leisz. Or maybe we just went straight to him. You know, he was a guy kind of from that era that I really loved [of music and figures like] Gram Parsons and that would have been an influence from that. He was another person who was just crazy amazing. We really dug what he did and that might be part of the reason why there’s two [versions of] “Ugy Truth” on Altered Beast, just because Byron did this cool sort of country one and then there was the rock one with Richard Lloyd. I don’t know, I wanted them both.
I think the Altered Beast album is such a cool left turn of sorts post-Girlfriend. Sonically, it’s just such a cool record. The other record that I hold up in that way is your In Reverse record.
Oh, that’s great. Jim Scott is such a great engineer and co-produced that with us. I’m glad to hear that sounds really good. I haven’t listened to it in a while.
Those are the two records from your catalog that they seemed like they were albums that were kind of “out there” to release at the time in the major label system and I’m glad that whatever you had to run up against to get those two records out, that they came out.
I always felt very lucky. [Laughs] To get to do what I was doing. It’s just crazy that now we’re looking back at it and it’s so long ago.
What’s next? I know you have some shows and then this record that’s coming out on Record Store Day, which you’ve said you don’t really classify it as your next album, but you wanted to get it out there. Are you thinking towards your next record yet?
You know, I’ve started saving up little ideas and stuff for whatever I do next. So I have some of it. But I haven’t started doing any recording. I’m imagining next year that I will start something. We’re going to go to Spain and do a few shows in December and I think we’re going to play a show in London, which we haven’t done forever. And then we’re back in early January, we’ll do two or three weeks of dates with Dream Syndicate and then I’m not sure what we’re doing after that. I’m sure I’ll tour next year, but I’ll getting a new record started. I’ve had so much stuff backed up with Wicked System on top of Tomorrow’s Daughter and Tomorrow Forever, you know, I feel like taking a little break would be good for all of us! [Laughs] Meaning, the fans and me!
Following its splashy relaunch in 2016, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is returning for its second post-revival batch of episodes (its 12th season overall) on Thanksgiving Day, November 22. Turkey Day, of course, is the day MST3K premiered on humble KTMA in Minneapolis/St. Paul, way back in 1988, a milestone which the new episodes commemorate with a jaunty “Celebrating our thirtieth year!” announcement now incorporated into the title sequence.
Fellow MSTie Tony Redman and I will return in a week or two with a detailed, episode-by-episode recap. What can I tell you in the meantime, without spoiling the pleasures to come? The major change from last season to this one is already public: Netflix ordered just six episodes, making this the shortest in the series’ run since season seven, (correctly) interpreted by fans as a sign of Comedy Central’s waning interest in the show, which they promptly canceled. What this presages for the future of MST3K: The Return is not known, though given Netflix’s recent push to denude itself of its third-party productions, I for one am a trifle uneasy.
But that’s a worry for another day. Whether six episodes or sixteen, any new season of MST3K is cause to celebrate, and these new shows make a good argument for a hypothetical season thirteen. Series creator and showrunner Joel Hodgson tries to make a virtue of the shortened run, framing this season’s movies as one continuous experiment dubbed “The Gauntlet,” in which Jonah (yeah, he survived apparently dying in the last season, and no, absolutely no narrative energy is wasted on explaining how) and the Bots supposedly watch all six films basically in one go. “Forget binge-watching the show,” Max boasts, “we’re binge-making it!”
While the extra dash of momentum does make the show a little more bingeable, the most noteworthy improvement to the show is the pacing. Joel evidently listened to fans’ complaints that the riffing in the new episodes was too dense and too fast, as the jokes now come at a more manageable pace and volume reminiscent of the Mike years. (Now if we could just get them to make fewer Uber references.) In an equally welcome development, Hampton Yount and Baron Vaughn have made even more progress in making Crow and Tom Servo their own, respectively. Vaughn, in particular, has really made Servo his own; I’ve long thought Kevin Murphy was irreplaceable in the role, and with season 12, Vaughn’s finally won me over, giving Tom a wider range and carving out a more distinctive space for himself in the theater segments.
As for the movies, I won’t attempt to predict which ones will turn out to be fan favorites. The season’s bookend features, Mac and Me and Ator: The Fighting Eagle, are predictably strong (OK, I’m predicting Ator in particular will be a fan favorite), while the movies in between vary somewhat, as you might expect. Not every episode is a home run, but the quality overall is encouragingly high, and fans streaming this new season as a backdrop to their Turkey Day festivities will not be disappointed.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Gauntlet streams beginning Thanksgiving, November 22. Watch the new episodes, and then check back here in a week or so for Dan and Tony’s episode-by-episode recap.
In 2009, a website called Faith No More 2.0 launched to share news I never thought I’d hear, mainly that Faith No More had reunited for a European tour. The website promised to inform us fans about any other tidbits they caught wind of. Adrian Harte, the man behind the website, became my go to guy regarding all things FNM. He parsed daily information under the blog heading “Links for A Day (Cool For A Lifetime)” a nod to the band’s 1995 album King For A Day Fool For A Lifetime. When I took charge of Chuck Mosley’s daily affairs I communicated with Adrian on a regular basis and found a kindred spirit as excited by the band as myself.
As I toured with Chuck, Adrian disclosed he was working on a full book about the band from their earliest days to the present. Released by Jawbone Press in September of 2018, Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More has become THE guide to my favorite band. I shot Adrian a few questions, and this is what he had to say:
Douglas Esper: Why were you the right person to write this book?
Adrian Harte: Not sure there is anyway of answering this that does not sound pretentious, but I’ll have a go!
I think music biographies require a number of things: good writing, the ability to dig deep in research and ferret out new information, contacts, and a smidgen of fandom. So being a fan of the band (as music writing cannot really be wholly objective), but with the writing, research and analytic skills of a journalist, really helped.
DE: Why did the world need a book about Faith No More?
AH: Not sure if the world needed it, but fans needed it, and I’d argue that the band needed it, and I certainly needed it. The band haven’t really told their own story since 1993, and a lot had happened since then. I wanted to give Faith No More the book I feel they deserved and I hope I did that. On a more esoteric and even morbid level, stories need to be told when they still can be told.
And the world certainly needed a definitive Faith No More more than a new Beatles, Bowie, Dylan or even Metallica book, which what most publishers seem to want to foist on readers.
DE: What was one fact you learned while putting this book together?
AH: That not one but two huge rock stars came close to joining Faith No More at different times.
DE: Have you ever enjoyed a Hamm’s? (The beer made in Faith No More’s early practice space.)
AH: Unfortunately not.
DE: Who did you speak to that changed/informed/strengthened your love of the band?
AH: Everyone I spoke to helped enormously. Speaking to the bad members underlined how much they care about the band and their colleagues, and about the fans. But speaking to the Faith No Man line-up, Wade Worthington and M Morris, was a real privilege. They had nothing to gain from helping out, but did so anyway, and they really heightened the understanding of the band’s early days.
Equally, Chuck Mosley was a delight to speak to, and I’m glad I got some of his voice in the book and helped educate both fans and non-fans about his key role in the band’s story.
Oh, and Matt Wallace’s insights were essential, but his love of the band really came through, and was infectious.
DE: What was one storyline/fact/moment you researched but weren’t able to fit into the narrative?
AH: Stories of some shows and a little detail about the later albums were lost along the way, but I would have needed another few hundred pages to get everything in, and the editors did a wonderful job.
DE: Give us five songs to get to know the band for someone who has never heard Faith No More:
AH: Midlife Crisis
Ashes to Ashes
The Real Thing
Everything’s Ruined
Chinese Arithmetic
DE: Why should a non-Faith No More fan read this book?
AH: The book is written in such a way to appeal to all music lovers. It is an unusual band story that subverts a lot of biography tropes, but, in its way, it tells the story of rock music, “alternative” music, the then most popular music, in the 1980s and 1990s and beyond.
If you want to know more about Metallica, Soundgarden and Guns N’ Roses, it is here.
How did bands evolve in the 1980s, how did they get signed, how did the record industry work, what happened in the studio or on big stadium tours in the 1990s, how were videos made, and how big a role did MTV play in rock in the 1990s – all questions answered in the book.
And I hope and I think that the individual Faith No More characters are brought to life in such a way as you’ll be rooting for them, and eager to get to know their music.
DE: After reading the reviews and getting tons of feedback from readers do you look at the book differently/would you change anything?
AH: The reviews have been great and very gratifying. The criticism and feedback hasn’t really pointed out anything I was not aware of before, or things that I could conceivably change. I know that, like many of the great albums, the book is front-loaded in going into more detail on the band’s early and peak years. That was intentional, but maybe an updated edition in the future would allow me to focus more on recent times when sufficient time has passed.
DE: What’s next for Adrian Harte?
AH: I’m back to the day job, but I’ve also got the bug for more writing. I may work with a soccer player on his biography next, but I’d like to work on more music writing projects too.
Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode Eighty Nine
This one was so hefty; so meaty that it took our heroes two nights to record! So on a very special, elongated (!) Radio City…, Jon and Rob get down to the nitty gritty with the post-election post-mortem; 50 years since the premiere of “Head” – an under appreciated, misunderstood stroke of genius; Pamela Anderson slams #metoo; “Bohemian Rhapsody” movie – why?, plus the usual sports, chat and, of course, “In Our Heads”.
What more could you possibly want? Aside from more Radio City…? Nothing – so enjoy!
Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode Eighty 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.
