Music
From Hurley Mountain: Professor Louie & The Crowmatix
(2020/Woodstock Records DVD*)/Sparks:
Balls
(2000) / Lil'
Beethoven
(2002) / Hello
Young Lovers
(2006) / Exotic
Creatures Of The Deep
(2008) / The
Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman
(2009/all BMG CDs)/Where
Are You, Jay Bennett?
(2021/Blu-ray w/DVD/*both MVD)
Picture:
C/X/B & C+ Sound: C/B/C+ & C Extras: C/B-/C+ Main
Programs: C+/B-/B-
Now
for some offbeat music releases....
Music
Professor Louie along with his band The Crowmatix collected, compiled
and composed a series of songs with ties to the history of the town
Hurley. The songs remind them of their history, past and heritage of
a rural farming community, from the first settlers, interaction with
American Indians, Revolutionary War and evolution of their town.
Bruce
Connors' Music
From Hurley Mountain: Professor Louie & The Crowmatix
(2020) is
about a town located in New York and its fertile valley. Original
settlers came and traded alcohol with American Indians to get them to
sign over their lands, and then beat drunken Indians from the land.
During The American Revolution, the town was burned, but the people
survived and rebuilt the community. As modernization came, they
dealt with chemical farming and sprays. People who grew up in the
community became pillar families who have farmed for generations and
they are proud of their history, culture and heritage to have
continued to be farmers and landowners.
This
was a documentary on a small town, but they reflected on its history
through its music. They interviewed the citizens and shared their
stories. Their music was like a mix of country folk rock blues. The
songs sang about their struggles and the hardships they had to
endure. Extras include music video songs composed by Louie and the
Crowmatix.
The
brothers Ron and Russell Mael, better known as Sparks, have been
making music since way back in 1966 (!!!) and remain one of the
longest-lasting music duos in music history. Working over the years
at times with some of the biggest names in the business, I noticed
them when Atlantic Records gave them a huge promo push as a New Wave
act with their In
Outer Space
album in 1983 that even got Mobile Fidelity treatment, but that did
not do well, though they've had far more success in the U.K. and
other non-U.S. markets.
In
between this posting and that release, they issued plenty of album
and five of them from the 2000s is getting extended treatment from
BMG demonstrating their remarkable ability to switch genres, styles
and more as they have been doing for 56 years and counting. We will
look at five of the reissues as follows:
Balls
(2000, pictured with this review text) has a cover where you can see
your face (somewhat) reflecting in the aluminum ball center (not
unlike the soundtrack for the 1968 Bob Rafelson film Head
with The Monkees) and was apparently issued in various colors. An
exercise of pure Alternate Rock with Electronic and New Wave
leanings, we get tracks like the title song, More
Than A Sex Machine,
Aeroflot,
Bullet
Train,
How To Get Your Ass Kicked and It's
A Knockoff
among its 11 tracks. Eight bonus tracks have also been added and
their unique, dark, even ironic sense of life and even humor is very
clear on this album.
Lil'
Beethoven
(2002) is an album they consider one of their best and most
important, definitely centered and even obsessed with the great
composer of the title and spans nine track, plus we get four bonus
tracks. More than a homage, it blurs the line between past and
present, has amusing songs like The
Rhythm Thief,
Your
Call Is Very Important To Us. Please Hold,
Suburban
Homeboy
and Ride
'Em Cowboy
and more than stays in the realm of their eccentricity, with the
musical chops to back it all up.
Hello
Young Lovers
(2006) might sound like a tribute to musicals or showtunes (The
King & I
in this case,) but instead, deals with the bitter side of such
romantic overtures, with ten tracks including Dick
Around
(the opening song signaling no Marni Nixon tributes either,) Here
Kitty,
Waterproof
and (Baby
Baby) Can I Invade Your Country?,
placing it somewhere in between Devo and Donald Fagen's The
Nightfly
in the best way possible.
Exotic
Creatures Of The Deep
(2008) has the duo in dress attire and a chimpanzee in a white suit
looking to be their singer for the night, surely at this time having
images to tick off Right Wing extremists and anti-evolutionists. The
original 13 tracks include Photoshop,
Likeable,
The
Director Never Yelled 'Cut'
and the ever-timely Lighten
Up Morrissey.
The five bonus cuts include Mr.
Hulot,
yet another one of their movie references, this time of the main
comedy character the late Jacques Tati played in hit many great
French comedies from Mon
Oncle
and Trafic
to Monsieur
Hulot's Holiday
and PlayTime.
Finally
we have The
Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman
(2009) with 24 tracks, no extra tracks and an amusing attempt to deal
with the filmmaker known for his stunning images and very little
dialogue or music in almost all of his many films. They show their
love of the legend, but this is for Bergman fans only, as they are
likely the only ones to get this album. Still, I give them credit
for trying.
They
have only made four more albums to date since Bergman,
including a soundtrack and collaborative release with Franz Ferdinand
and who knows what might come next, especially out of COVID
restrictions, but they always continued to try new things and stretch
to new areas, so that makes revisiting any of their works interesting
and worth your time... Now more than ever.
Beside
the bonus track where applicable, each album comes with an
illustrated booklet with tech information and liner notes. This
might not be music for everybody, but you should try it to find out
if it is for you.
Gorman
Bechard & Fred Uhter's Where
Are You, Jay Bennett?
(2021) is ironically entitled as the former member of the band Wilco
is no longer with us and famously was cut out of the band in the
controversial film I
Am Trying To Break Your Heart,
which I thought would show the break-up as temporary, the band would
get Bennett back and they'd go on. Instead, the band broke up, no
reunion featured Bennett before his death, the film was falsely
edited to manipulate the audience and make him look very, very bad
and it was all a disaster!
This
new documentary addresses that, though the director of the older
piece refused to be interviewed and we get plenty on how talented
Bennett was and all the struggles he went though with limited help or
support. It manages to show us he made Wilco's success possible (I
now understand the wave of animosity towards Jeff Tweedy) and this
makes the best of its 104 minutes correcting the record, showing
Bennett's true talent and all that we have now lost for so many
reasons that should have never happened.
Glad
to finally see and hear what was going on and he mix of great music,
amazing ambition and some choice adults never having grown up or
taken responsibility makes this quite a piece to view. Still, it is
definitely worth a look and I recommend it.
Extras
include Jay's
Mom Remembers,
separate interviews with Billy Bragg and Ken Coomer, Director's Q&A,
World Premiere Tribute Concert, Deleted Scenes and a few other
surprise pieces fans will like.
Now
for playback performance. The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
on Hurley
can be a little on the weak, average and soft side, making one wish
for a Blu-ray to get anything more out of the production, but it will
do.
The
PCM 2.0 16-bit/44.1 kHz Stereo on all five Sparks
releases sound as good as they can in this older format, though vinyl
has been issued as well, too bad no Super Audio CD or Blu-ray audio
versions were issued as of this posting, but no doubt they know how
to get their albums produced and engineered the way they want to.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on the Bennett
Blu-ray can have some soft spots, but looks the best of all the discs
here, while the
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the DVD version is softer
and harder to view. The vintage footage is usually as good as it can
look, but some sources are rougher than hey should be.
The
PCM 2.0 Stereo on the Blu-ray and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on
the DVD are a little weaker than I would have liked, but most of the
talking and music are clear enough, though expect some rough spots
and limits.
-
Nicholas Sheffo and Ricky Chiang (Hurley)
