Remake, Remodel

I love the 80's

I'm a very vocal and unabashed fan of 80's music.  It's what I grew up with, never stopped listening to and it seems to be making a big comeback (Interpol, The Killers, etc.).

M83 is a band that seems to love The 80's a LOT more than me.  Their music takes from all of the classic New Wave artists that dominated the 80's (OMD, Pet Shop Boys, Thompson Twins, a-ha, etc.) and ends up sounding like a soundtrack to all of the great John Hughes films from that decade.  They've got a new album coming out called "HurryUp, We'reDreaming" and I was lucky enough to get an advance copy...and it's amazing.  It's a double album filled with some unbelievable songs.  It comes out next month and you should really look for it.  If you're a fan of that era, it won't disappoint.

In the meantime, check out their last album, "Saturdays = Youth", which is pretty awesome as well.

Flamingo

A while back I read an article about the upcoming Brandon Flowers solo project.  He said something to the effect that he submitted a batch of new songs to his Killer's bandmates and they rejected them.  Instead of going back and writing new songs, he decided to record the rejected songs and release them as a solo album.  This news excited me, mostly because I thought that maybe he had gone off into some new musical direction that didn't fit in with the Killer's.  Man, was I totally wrong...

Flamingo is not a great album...in fact, it's barely good.  Musically, it has the same power hooks that the Killer's songs have, but here they're pushed so far, that it's almost like I'm listening to The Final Countdown by Europe every 4-5 minutes.  The slower songs have a sort of pathetic, plaintive sound that makes me think of someone trying to imitate The Cure and failing.  This is a Killer's album, to be sure...but without any restraint of the other bandmates pulling Brandon Flowers back.

Lyrically, the same motifs are used over and over again.  We all know that The Killer's are from Las Vegas...they made that well known in their first few albums...but it's as if Brandon Flowers just can't get out of that city.  I assume they've toured the world, why not write about some of that?  San Francisco is nice...even Toronto would be a pleasant change of pace.  And enough with the gambling metaphors...they were tired two albums ago and just feel like the same old thing over and over again.  The Killer's albums were never all that exciting lyrically, but the hooks were enough to keep me listening.  With this solo album, the lyrics get in the way of some good music and push the whole thing into the realm of Billy Joel's territory...not someplace you want to go.

To be fair, there are some good songs, but sadly, they are few.  My favorite song on the album, "Jacksonville" is actually one of the bonus tracks, as is "The Clock was Tickin'"...sad that the two most original songs on the album were considered to be b-sides.

This year has produced some amazing music (Arcade Fire, Interpol and the new and final A-Ha album were amazing), but this was just kind of sad.  I hope The Killer's come back strong with another album soon to wash away this little side project.

I Heard Wonders

The past couple weeks I've been listening to two albums, the new Arcade Fire and the new David Holmes.

I was introduced to David Holmes by Transfatty in the New York of 2000.  TF introduced me a lot of new music that defined much of my first stay in NYC, but David Holmes' album, Bow Down To The Exit Sign, was the album that would always make me think of New York.  His subtle use of beats, drum machines, strings, keyboards and bizarre interviews with drug dealers, homeless people and juiced up weightlifters always had this air of danger and excitement that provided a soundtrack to my own NY experience.  David Holmes' latest album, The Holy Pictures, is a much more toned down version of his early work.  The music is much more instrumental (maybe it's because he's been doing film scores for Steven Soderbergh) and the cool (and sometimes horrifying) interviews are gone.  In their place are lyrics that are sung by the man himself for the first time, but that's not a bad thing.  Overall, this feels more like a Moby album...and that's not a bad thing either. 

The new Arcade Fire album, The Suburbs, really feels like a sequel to their first album, Funeral.  Neon Bible was a good album, but it felt a little disjointed to me.  The songs on The Suburbs are more intertwined with each other and it feels like it has a narrative that flows throughout the whole thing which is something I never got from Neon Bible.  It's an amazing album (maybe my favorite of their releases so far) and has been on a constant loop since I got it.

For the past month, I've been obsessing about the music for Sketch and the David Holmes album really inspired me.  There are a couple tracks on there that are close to what I want and will make for good temp music.  I'm getting a local Austin musician (Andrew Rosas) to write music for the opening credits and the close, and will definitely give him some of The Holy Pictures to use for inspiration.

The short is coming along nicely.  Myself, Matt and our new D.P. Michael Morlan (our old D.P. had to drop out due to scheduling issues) went to the location today to scout.  We figured out what furniture we're keeping in the space and what we're moving out.  Also, I finally found an AC and Grip, so the crew is all set.

We shoot in 2 1/2 weeks and I've got a lot left to do, but I'm getting really psyched.