(Items from the Vault)
Cheers: The Complete First Season Paramount
Starring Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Nicholas Colasanto, George Wendt, Rhea Perlman, and John Ratzenberger.
Original Release: 2003
Reviewed by Adam M. Anklewicz
Cheers is a Boston bar where you can go and feel at home. The NBC sitcom, starring Ted Danson and Shelley Long, began its eleven-year reign in 1982 and it was arguably the best sitcom since The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Through its long run, Cheers told great stories with a great heart and a lot of laughs. While some television series take a few years to get into their groove, this one started with a bang. After a slow pilot that stumbled to introduce the characters properly, the first season of Cheers had some great episodes including “The Coach’s Daughter,” which featured Coach’s daughter wanting to marry an asshole, and “Pick A Con… Any Con,” which featured guest star Harry Anderson (as Harry the Hat) helping Coach get back his money from a card shark.
What made Cheers so great in the beginning was the chemistry between Diane Chambers (Long) and Sam Malone (Danson). Sam seems obsessive about a challenge, feeling he can get any woman he wants. Diane proves the first challenge in his romantic life, and whether or not he actually likes Diane, he feels he still must conquer. Diane and Sam are so obviously wrong for each other, yet the audience enjoyed watching their relationship as their personalities clashed.
The romantic tension helps build two very strong characters in Sam and Diane that are supported by the one-liner quirkiness of innocent and simple bartender Coach (Nicholas Colasanto), the bitter barmaid Carla (Rhea Perlman), self-depricating barfly Norm (George Wendt), and his cohort Cliff (John Ratzenberger), the know-it-all mail carrier. All of the characters marvel in watching Sam, the master of seduction, get the ladies and provide the humour as Sam works to advance the plot.
After watching Cheers: The Complete First Season on DVD, it became apparent that some of the best moments of the series were during this season, and it’s a great laugh. The worst part of the DVD set is the lack of special features. The fourth disc features a handful of clip compilations that compress the season into 10 minutes and a short interview with Ted Danson telling the audience that he likes all of his fellow cast members. Paramount could have done a much better job at digging up old interviews with the cast and crew and/or putting in audio commentaries.
All in all a great season that loses points for its lack of extras, but definitely deserves a place on the DVD shelf.
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The Kinks - Muswell Hilbillies Velvel
Original Release: 1971
Reviewed by Adam D. Miller
Simply put, The Kinks are one of the most underrated British bands of the 1960s. To many, they are a ‘greatest hits’ band with an early output that was largely comprised of hit singles like “You Really Got Me” and “All Day And All The Night.” Meanwhile, music listeners continue to soak up the albums of The Who, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones without paying any notice to the albums of The Kinks.
The truth of the matter, however, is that by the mid-1960s Kinks leader Ray Davies had established himself as a true craftsman of pop music, writing songs as good as (and at times even better than) John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Some of these proved to be minor hits, like “Waterloo Sunset” and “Sunny Afternoon.” Others were not so popular. Albums like Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur are both loaded with brilliant songs, but came and went with little attention at the time. Today they are hailed as true masterpieces of British pop music, but their music still has a lot of spreading to do before it receives the recognition it truly deserves.
The main reason The Kinks have yet to be regarded as true legends in North America is simple. Their music, although incorporating elements of American rock ‘n’ roll, blues, folk, and country, has always remained thoroughly British, probably more so than any other British group of the time, especially as far as the lyrics are concerned.
1971’s Muswell Hillbillies is considered by many to be The Kinks’ last ‘essential’ album, although the band would go on to record studio releases well into the 1980s. The album is a true marriage between American musical styles (folk, blues, country, and even vaudeville) and rural themes that can be applied to both America and England. It is also an album that for Kinks brothers Ray (lead vocals, guitar, songwriter) and Dave Davies (backing vocals, lead guitars) is more autobiographical than anything they had done before. The title track is a spoof of The Beverly Hillbillies and is loosely based on Muswell Hill, the London suburb where the Davies’ grew up. Songs like “Have A Cuppa Tea” are vignettes of the Davies’ youth; in this particular case, their grandmother, whose answer to all of life’s problems was a cup of tea.
The album’s most poignant track is “20th Century Man”, a song about the inability to fit into present society. It is a song that is relevant well into the 21st Century:
“This is the age of machinery,
A mechanical nightmare,
The wonderful world of technology,
Napalm, hydrogen bombs, biological warfare”
In these times of war and woe, Muswell Hillbillies stands up in more ways than one. It stands for nostalgia and for sanity in an insane world and is a joy to listen to. Discover it now, it’s not too late.
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Roadkill Music Video Distribution
Starring Valerie Buhagiar and Don McKeller
Written by Don McKeller & Bruce McDonald
Directed by Bruce McDonald
Rating: Not Rated
Original Release: 1989
Reviewed by Adam M. Anklewicz
Roadkill is part of a rock ‘n’ roll trilogy. This film was the beginning. Bruce McDonald’s story and Don McKellar’s screenplay became an immediate classic Canadian film.
Ramona (Valerie Buhagiar) was born and bred in Toronto. Having lived in a big city and never really travelled, she had never even learned how to drive. Her boss sends her to Northern Ontario to end The Children of Paradise’s tour. Hailing a cab to take her to the train station, Ramona realizes that the cab driver wants to take her all the way to Sudbury. Ramona meets some interesting characters along the way, including a young man who has taken a vow of silence (Shaun Bowring); Russell (Don McKellar), an aspiring serial killer; and Bruce Shack (Bruce McDonald), the documentary filmmaker. Ramona must realize what her role is in this story as she wanders from character to character. She realizes that she is what everyone is missing and figures a way to solve their problems.
As with most Canadian films, not many people have heard of this film or seen it. Not even Canadians. Shot low budget on 8mm film in black and white, the film immediately has a style of its own. More attention seems to have been focused on the visuals and audio is ignored. This does leave something to be desired as the audio levels drop during conversations.
The Roadkill DVD has more extras than would be expected from an independent Canadian film made in 1989. Two short films are added, Elimination Dance and Fort Goof, both of which were directed by Bruce McDonald. A very funny audio commentary is also available with Don McKellar and producer Colin Brunton.
McDonald’s rock ‘n’ roll trilogy began with this film, continued with Highway 61 (which was also penned by McKellar), and ended with an adaptation of Michael Turner’s book Hard Core Logo. Each film seems better than the one that preceded it, but the bare elements of Roadkill and Ramona’s story make Roadkill a classic.
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BE - Thistupidream The Orchard
Original Release: 2001
Reviewed by Russell Bartholomee
I’ll let you in on a well-kept secret. BE’s self-produced album Thistupidream is a very nearly perfect record. It is not only one of the best releases from 2001, it is also one of the best releases of the last ten years. I find it almost impossible to begin the album without listening all the way through. Intelligent enough to avoid being dismissed as disposable pop, any of the tracks would nevertheless hold its own against most of what has dominated the alternative rock airwaves since Radiohead reintroduced Britpop to this side of the Pond.
You’re probably asking yourself, “if they’re so good, how come I’ve never heard of them?” That’s a good question, with no satisfactory answer. This gifted group of three brothers and their boyhood friend deserve all the success that bands like Coldplay and Interpol have had. Forming BE over a decade ago in Louisiana, the Summerlin brothers (Talley on vocals, Mark on guitar, and Paul on bass) and Duke Boyne (on drums) paid all the dues you’re supposed to pay and then some. They moved to Arkansas together for college, made a bit of a splash on the local scene, and brought their finely-honed, road-tested songcraft to Dallas. They slugged it out for years and ultimately created an absolute masterpiece of modern rock, only to be completely ignored by all but a lucky few. Even though they broke up in 2002, Thistupidream is more than worthy of your attention.
Every one of its ten songs is masterfully crafted. The production is stunning, the instrumental performances flawless, the vocals gorgeously moving, the lyrics poetic. You can hear BE’s influences on display in many of the songs – and the BE-boys have good taste. They manage to do what so few artists can; they blend their many influences without losing their own distinct voice. Drawing from Peter Gabriel, R.E.M., Michael Penn, Radiohead, and the Beatles, the album excels at both languid, moody introspection and adrenaline-fueled rock.
A fine example of the latter is “Confession,” which features Boyne’s pounding rhythm, Mark’s innovative and driving guitars and vocalist Talley’s irresistibly infectious melody. Sounding a bit like March-era Michael Penn, Talley belts “If I had a best friend / If I could keep only one / It would be you.” The lyrics are ostensibly sweet. But the music has a subtly sinister sound that hints that all is not well in this relationship. Penn himself hasn’t written a song this deceptively dark yet danceable since his debut. I defy you to sit through the song without bobbing your head and singing along with its chorus.
But as great as “Confession” is, the best tracks on the album are those in which BE explores more pensive paths. The brooding “Raincoat” is the album’s centerpiece, both geographically (track 6 of 10) and emotionally. The song’s foundation is a tense and mesmerizing rhythmic sentence composed of phrases of quiet staccato acoustic guitar chords punctuated by finger snaps. On top of this, Paul plays fluid jazz bass while Talley sings an intoxicating melody in a haunted, hesitant voice. As the song progresses, the tension builds, as does the confidence in Talley’s voice. At the song’s climax, Talley sings, “When my wings broke / You came to mend” again and again, joined by heavenly harmonies. Without warning, the song explodes with a burst of full-volume drums in a hypnotic rhythm, only to implode just as unexpectedly. After the coolest use of the drum roll I can think of, we are left with the same contemplative cadence that began the song, as well as more than a few goosebumps. It’s the aural equivalent of a scene from Hitchcock. You know the bomb is about to go off, you just don’t know when. And when it does, it is as unnerving as it is exhilarating.
If “Raincoat” is the album’s best song, it’s the title track that seems most fitting considering how little success BE had before they split up. “It’s all we do it seems / Love the stupid dreams we have…Most days it’s all we have and all we will.” Talley, his brothers, and his best friend make richly clear that even though commercial success eluded them, pursuing Thistupidream was worth every brilliant moment.
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