Garbage: one mile high…live (2012/Eagle Blu-ray)/Frank Zappa: A Token Of His Extreme (1974/Eagle DVD)
Picture: B-/C+ Sound: B-/C+ Extras: B-/C+ Main Programs: B-
Now for
two major music acts that challenged the conventions of pop music and became
critical favorites and found serious fan bases…
Garbage: one mile high…live (2012) features a recent concert
by the enduring band who gave us hits like I’m
Only Happy When It Rains, Special,
Queer and of course, Stupid Girl. In this Detroit
show, they play those and more (20 altogether) in a show that proves they are
as strong as ever. I just wish this ran
more than 90 minutes.
Lead
singer Shirley Manson still has one of the best voices in music, Pop, Rock
& otherwise, while Drummer/Genius Butch Vig, Steve Marker, Duke Ericson
(both on Guitars and Keyboards) and Eric Avery (guest Bassist from Nine Inch
Nails) deliver the sound and feel of the music the band has been known for at
almost 20 years and counting. They had
made some great albums and had some big, important hits (some of the best of
the time) when they recorded the title song for the lame James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, which was
written by Don Black (who wrote the classic Diamonds Are Forever and wacky Man
With The Golden Gun for the series among his movie theme songs) and it just
did not work. This derailed their
commercial path, but they still have it in them and I hope for a new album
soon.
Extras
include an illustrated paper pullout with brief text, while the Blu-ray adds two
Music Videos and six featurette clips including a warm-up and five on songs
from the show. You can read more about
them in our coverage of their great Music Videos collection Absolute Garbage at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6438/Absolute+Garbage+(Music+Videos/DVD
Then we
have Frank Zappa: A Token Of His Extreme,
a 1974 self-funded TV concert special that was never accepted by any network or
syndicator and never aired in the U.S., though it did well overseas
and was funded by Zappa himself. Like
Garbage, he was fighting standard Pop forms, but some of these can hardly be
called songs and instead come from a counterculture sense of humor and spoken
comedy not unlike the Firesign Theater, like the track Stink-Foot. The idea in
Zappa’s work is to be organic to the point of absurdity and possibly grossness,
depending on how you take things.
The show
includes then-odd video editing and some Claymation & Stop-Motion Animation
by Bruce Bickford, who did the same remarkable work five years later on Zappa’s
feature film Baby Snakes (1979, see
link below) issued on DVD a few years ago (Blu-ray please?) adding up to
something interesting, innovative and original from a great year for
international television. Saturday Night Live had not started
yet, or this could have been shown at 1 AM EST after a show or maybe added to a
late broadcast of SCTV as late. It was cutting edge and even if it is odd, including
ironic reference to older ways of band’s performing (Zappa and his African
American bandmates from Mothers Of Invention (who would fold by the next year)
mocking, referencing potentially racial Big Band Jazz-era moments) makes for an
interesting program that is not just wallowing in cynicism.
Many have
criticized Zappa’s visual work as nonsense that is meant to be head-trip
material for drug-users, but more is always going on in his visual projects
than he and his band get credit for, so now that the world of visual media has
somewhat caught up with im, those watching this will get more out of it.
This is
the ninth Zappa title we have covered and there are sure to be more. You can read about them and more to come at
this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/new/viewer.cgi?search=ZAPPA
Extras
include a nicely illustrated paper pullout on the show with some brief
informative text that spoofs the old TV Guide Magazine covers, while the DVD
adds a “Yes, And But Also” section with a great clip of Zappa joining Kenny
Rogers (as he was starting up his big solo success) and Jimmy Walker (at his Good Times peak) on The Mike Douglas Show in 1976 still
trying to sell the show, text Discography, text DVDography and FZ Note form the
booklet that quotes the Douglas Show appearance.
The 1080i
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Garbage
looks pretty good for such a recent taping with interesting color throughout
and though it can be dark, have some detail and depth issues at times, I liked
the look defying the generic look too many HD-shot concerts have. The 1.33 X 1 image on Zappa is from old reel-to-reel NTSC analog videotape which is
colorful, includes the animation and is softer, of course, but is a pretty good
transfer of what is there and plays back nicely.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Garbage is a little bit disappointing, sounding compressed and
oddly mixed, so I actually enjoyed the PCM 96/24 2.0 Stereo track more which
has more transparency. The PCM 2.0
Stereo track on Zappa shows its age
a bit more and still sounds good for its age, but has its sonic limits.
- Nicholas Sheffo