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THE DARK MUSIC OF BURZUM

Uranium Willy — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:11:16 +0000

I came to learn a little about Metal music a bit late in life. I Have always felt there is no need to close doors to music simply becasue we get older. I think the first real Metal I bought (not counting stuff like Metallica or Megadeth) was an album by Naplam Death and I recall not liking it at all but thught the cover looked cool. As many years have gone I have developed a curious interest in the Metal genre and its different movements though I am by no means a true fan or follower. If I had to select a style I prefer the most it would be the Black Metal music of Norway over, lets say, the Death Metal style of the bands out of Florida like Cannibal Corpse. I do like some of the Morbid Angel material but they sound more European than American in their approach (in my opinion anyway) and I like some of the stuff by British band Carcass who is supposed to be a Grindcore band. I have read rabid forums posts about which bands are Thrash and which are Death Metal and which are Grindcore and so on. But I certainly have some fascination with bands with wild names like Carpathian Forest, Emperor, Mayhem Darkthrone and Satryicon. The songs are often epic in their scale and delivery and the sound is tastefully augmented with synthesizers, something not found on the hard core death metal albums. The lyrics typically focus on Norse mythology and similar grand themes.

About seven years ago I read the book Lords of Chaos by by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind. It has been too long to remember the book in any detail but over all it did not paint a very favorable image of the Black Metal scene that was developing in Norway at the time. The off stage lifestyles of the band members were probably tamer in many ways than the lives led by jaded L.A. rockers but nonetheless the bands and members seem to have been uniformly portrayed as Satanic devotees of Aleister Crowley or Anton LaVey. The Black Metal musicians where Nowegian and probably had little interest in the occult views of an Englishman or an American. And who knows, maybe a lot of this was true and maybe a lot was media hype and even public hysteria generated by the church burnings in Norway and Sweden at the time. Of the personalities discussed in the book the open I have followed and whose music I have accpeted the most is Varg Vikernes. Under the pseudonym of Count Grishnackh he was the force behind the oen man project Burzum. Vikernes did not much like performing live and preferred to explore his own style of music which drew it sources from Norse Mythology and the writings of J.R.R Tolkien. While Vikernes was an active member whatever Black Metal scene there was in Oslo at the time –even playing uncredited bass on the powerful Mayhem album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas- he preferred going to techno style music clubs and avoided the whole sex and drug scene that attracted most of the Black Metal musicans –if not most rock and roll musicians in general- at the time. And in case you do not know the full story Vikernes would wind up spending 16 years of a 21 year sentence –he was released in 2009- in Norwegian prison for the brutal stabbing murder of Øystein Aarseth (Euronymous) of Mayhem as well being conencted with some church burnings. I have opted not to go into details on this aspect of Vikernes’ life. I have also decided to side step any comment son his political views, or his views on race and religion. I am in no way condoning the murder of Euronymous but prefer to not delve into that subject here simply because there is all sorts of information on the net about that and I am really not clear on how accurate all the versions of the story are, including Varg’s own account found here. Varg, in this review, dimisses the Lords of Chaos book as propoganda utter rubbish.

Certainly being convicted of an infamous murder and having allegations of Satanism and Nazism surround you can only adds to a character’s notoriety and legend whether those claims are completely true or false. But what about the guy’s music? What I like about his music is that his early albums are exceptional Black Metal albums and all the ore so because he played all the instruments himself. He was not keen on having impressive instruments and equipment like Marshall amps and used what ever he had available to create his music, even borrowing drum kits. His early works were Black Metal to be sure but they had a hypnotic almost trance inducing effect not found in most music of the same style. The musical themes were usually minimalistic and repetitive and some songs went on for as long as 14 minutes and in one case of a song from the album Filosofem a song goes for 25 minutes with little variation. After his incarceration he had limited access to musical equipment. All he could only use was a synthesizer and tape recording machine and yet he created, while in prison, two very interesting albums, Dauði Baldrs and Hliðskjálf. Some areas sound more like something you would hear from Brian Eno than from a Black metal musician. And I think Vikernes would not mind hearing something like this.

He released the album Belus not long after his release from prison and it shows a return to fuller musical productions and a little more aggressive music but it still has the strange magic quality found in most Burzum albums. I have not had a chance to listen to the new album in depth but I did put one track from it below t o be sampled. Vikernes has retired to a small farm with his family since his release and plans to continue writing and making Burzum style music. I cannot agree with all of his positions on issues and why would I. I think it is not too wise to follow the ideas of musicians and movie stars anymore than politicians. But I cannot disagree with all of them either. But regardless of all that I enjoy most of his music and find him to an interesting personality. In my opinion he is older and has 16 years to sit in a prison cell and think about what he has done. I would like to think he has changed for the better in some ways. I I am 51 now and I can certainly look back and see how foolish much of my younger life was. Of course I never stabbed anyone in the head but I made my share of terrible errors I regret. In any case I will look forward to new music projects from Varg Vikernes and Burzum.

SAMPLES FROM THE MUSIC OF BURZUM

From Aske: Feeble Screams From Forests Unknown

Download audio file (FeebleScreamsFromForestsUnknown.mp3)

From Dauoi Baldrs: Dauoi Baldrs

Download audio file (DauoiBaldrs.mp3)

From Dauoi Baldrs: Hermoor A Helfero

Download audio file (HermoorAHelfero.mp3)

From Hvsi Lyset Tar Oss: Hvsi Lyset Tar Oss

Download audio file (HvisLysetTarOss.mp3)

AUDIO FILES FOR THE COMPLETE ZOMBI OST BY GOBLIN REPLACED

Uranium Willy — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 08:50:39 +0000

Click on the album cover above to get to the original post featuring the complete seventeen track version of Goblin’s Zombi (Dawn of the Dead) original sountrack. Tracks are joined to make three longer -but easier for me to deal with- files. A couple tracks had some technical issues and had were uloaded separately. I probably could have solved the problem but just wanted to get this stuff up. Still have to update my Jimmy Page Death Wish II OST and the Sream for Help OST by John Paul Jones then I am pretty much caught up with all my old audio files that went belly up when my last ‘free’ hosting service deactivated them for no reason. The fielsa re hosted now through my site and as long as I make my payments once a year they will be available to the needy public.

SAMPLES FROM THREE SOUNDTRACKS BY TANGERINE DREAM: THIEF-SORCERER-THE KEEP

Uranium Willy — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 04:58:04 +0000

I was watching The Keep last night and was struck by the film’s soundtrack by Tangerine Dream. I have the soundtrack, and almost all of their music, but have seldom listened to it as I tend to listen to the same things over and over. I mostly listen to Stratsofear, Phaedra, Ricochet, Exit and Force Majeure. I also, however, listen quite a lot to the Thief and Sorcerer soundtracks. I recently got in both the AVI files for Thief and Sorcerer but have not had a chance to rewatch them as I ahve them them both a few times already. I also got in The Keep at about the same time and it is all a matter of strange coincidence that Tangerine Dream did the soundtracks to the three films. The group would undergo many lineup changes and the once three man outfit at some periods had four or more musicians. The lineup for Sorcerer is Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann and Christopher Franke. As far as I am concerned this is the lineup that did most of the groups most memorable music during the 70’s on the Virgin label. The first Tangerine Dream album I bought was Stratosfear with the original Virgin label designed by Roger Dean on the vinyl. Some parts of Sorcerer sound like very similar to sections of Stratosfear. The lineup for Thief and The Keep – both films directed by Michael Mann – is still Froese and Franke but with Johannes Schmoelling taking Baumann’s place here and on much of the work done in the 80’s. I am not an authority on the group and later there are many lineup changes and the mood of the music changed at times but not too drastically. I tried to supply some more upbeat selections from the recordings here rather than some of the meandering incidental music that is nice to listen to while blogging but not the best examples to try and hook a new listener with. This style of music is what really helped me move from being a believer in vinyl and analog to someone who prefers digital music. The music of Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, Vangelis and Philip Glass has to be heard without surface noise and skips. I know there are the true believers who see digital as the end of music as we know it but I am not one of those. I welcome evolution and the necessary extinction of the BSR turntable and the 8-Track tape in order to bring forth a fitter form of listening pleasure. Enjoy the selections here in all their sacrilegious digital glory.

SOUNDTRACK SAMPLES FROM TANGERINE DREAM

Thief: Dr. Destructo
Download audio file (DrDestructo.mp3)

Thief: Burning Bar
Download audio file (Burning_Bar.mp3)

Sorcerer: Search
Download audio file (Search.mp3)

Sorcerer: Vengeance
Download audio file (Vengeance.mp3)

The Keep: Sign in the Dark
Download audio file (Sign_In_The_Dark.mp3)

The Keep: The Challenger’s Arrival
Download audio file (The_Challenger’s_Arrival.mp3)

HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND SAVE AUDIO/VISUAL FILES FROM THE URANIUM CAFE:
If you want to download and save an audio (or even video) file this is the easiest way to do it:
1) Use Mozilla Firefox
2) Install any number of add-ons that capture Flash Media. I use Fast Video Download. It is straight forward and easy.
3) Play the file let it buffer a bit then click on FVD in your status bar and select the file then rename it after the download completes.

MP3 LINKS REPLACED FOR DEAD HORSE POST

Uranium Willy — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 05:37:22 +0000

Finally got around to updating my links to an old audio post that I got a comment on earlier today and therefore some motivation. That post is gets lots of hits still and a regular comment here and there. That is my posts with MP3 samples for the Texas metal band Dead Horse. There are Rapidshare links on the site for the complete albums Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers and Horsecore. Click the image below to get to that post:

THE URANIUM CAFE DOUBLE FEATURE: SLIMY JOE SPINELL STALKS POOR CAROLINE MUNRO IN TWO FILMS: 1980′s MANIAC AND 1982′s THE LAST HORROR MOVIE

Uranium Willy — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:34:50 +0000

THE LAST HORROR FILM aka FANATIC

1982/Director: David Winters/Writers: Judd Hamilton, Tom Klassen

Cast: Caroline Munro, Joe Spinell, Judd Hamilton, Devin Goldenberg, David Winters, Susanne Benton, Filomena Spagnuolo( Mary Spinell)

I am certain even the most modest horror film fan has heard of Hammer and Bond girl Caroline Munro. Her long brunette hair and statuesque features are simply stunning and she has starred in some fairly memorable horror flicks like The Abominable Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Slaughter High and the shlocky Italian sci-fi film Starcrush. One of her co-stars in Starcrush was New York City veteran character actor Joe Spinell. Spinell’s name may be less familiar to many except for the cognoscenti of b-films. He is more known as a supporting actor and had small roles in The Godfather, The Seven-Ups, Rocky and Taxi Driver before he had his first starring role in the 1980 William Lustig splatter film Maniac. We will get to Maniac in the second part of this double feature and instead will start off with what is sort of a follow up to Maniac pairing Munro and Spinell up again. That film is 1982’s The Last Horror Movie or Fanatic was it was originally released as on DVD. I got a hold of the Fanatic version of the film and not the new Troma release of the movie that is supposed to include a few extra minutes of scenes and some extras including commentaries and interviews. I have to be honest I never listen to DVD commentaries. Simply never. So I do not know if I going to go out of my way to find the Troma release but we will see. I would be interested in the interviews with Spinell’s buddy Luke Walter and Maniac director William Lustig who seems to have stopped directing films (his last being Uncle Sam, which I liked, in 1997) and now produces and is the head honcho at Blue Underground DVD.

I have seen Maniac a few times actually and was excited when I recently read about The Last Horror Movie and that Spinell and Munro had teamed up yet again for a horror/stalker type of film. Of course I expected it to a gore fest like the often over the top Maniac was and was surprised to find that the film was modest in the shock department. There are some gruesome deaths and blood shed to be sure but the film is actually a rather clever poke at slasher film cliches, the world of obsessed fans and the snooty films film makers they pursue. The film is a horror film but is a comedy as well and yet never becomes a wittless spoof. The film was shot guerilla style (i.e. without shooting permits and permission) at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival and that in itself makes the film a curiosity. Slasher type films usually are relegated to a few overused locations, the most notorious being camp grounds or high school/college campuses. The backdrop of Cannes adds a little excitement to the low budget production it would not have been able to achieve in yet another sorority house. And while Munro looks gorgeous as usual and it si fun to look for the fleeting faces of celebrities scuttling from ceremony to ceremony the star of the show is Joe Spinell. He is creepy and pathetic as cab driver and loser Vinny Durand who is beyond hope in his delusions that he is a great film director and that horror queen Jana Bates (Munro) will star in his ‘next’ (actually first and only) horror feature if he could only get the opportunity to talk to her and pitch his idea. He does not get much support from his co-workers or his mom (played by Spinel’s real mother Filomena Spagnuolo). The early scenes of the film of Vinny pleading with his mother to support him were shot in Spinell’s real New York City apartment. Mom just wants Vinny to give up his obsessions and have a plate of macaroni but Vinny is off to Cannes France to meet Jana and shoot his brilliant horror film.

All he has to do now is have the chance to talk to Jana and he is certain she will go along with the project. But first he has to contact her and that is not easy as she is the hot time at this year’s film festival with the judges even selecting her performance in her new film Scream over actresses like Meryl Streep and Jane Fonda. She is always accompanied by her entourage that includes her current boyfriend Alan (played by Munro’s real life husband at the time Judd Hamilton who also wrote and produced the film). Also hovering just outside the shadows is her estranged and former mentor husband Bret Bates. While the relationship is on the skids Bates still manages Jana and produces her films. As well Jana is the object of adoring horror fans and paparazzi. Vinny begins having melt downs as his attempts to pitch his idea to Jana or her agent are foiled one after the other. Soon bodies start popping up and Jana is stalked by a masked cameraman. Notes are sent telling future victims ‘you have made your last picture show’. Among some of the people stalked and eliminated is director David Winter (formally Mr. Linda Lovelace) who plays Stanley Kline a horror film director with a popular but revolting, in Vinny’s opinion, slasher film.

Now I am trying to change some of my approach here and I am giving less spoilers to films and shorter synopsises. I do not think there is anything terrible about spoilers but I am just trying to do something different for some reviews. I feel it is sort of hard not to give something away here and there but in the case of The Last Horror Movie there are actually a couple little twists and turns that would be ruined if I gave them away now. While the film is low budget it has some clever little moments. It works as a satire of the whole horror film business as well as the superficiality of awards ceremonies in general. In moment we will explore Mania which came out before Last Horror Movie and, as I said already, also featured Munro as Spinell’s object of obsession. While Vinny is obviously an extension or reinterpretation of the character Zito in Maniac there are differences to be sure. I would actually recommend seeing Maniac first then this film so you can see some of the similarities and, I believe, deliberate differences in the characters. Spinell is a bit funnier in this film and the conflicts with his mother who admonishes him constantly for his ‘crazy ideas’ is funny without ever becoming corny or contrived. The last line of the film between Vinny and his mom is worth the wait. An interesting little film.

MANIAC

1980/Director: William Lustig/Writers: C.A. Rosenberg, Joe Spinell

Cast: Joe Spinell, Caroline Munro, Abigail Clayton, Kelly Piper, Rita Montone, Tom Savini

For my article about the William Lustig film Maniac I simply scanned over the disk for some new screen captures and watched a few scenes over to refresh my memory. I will probably rewatch the film in its entirety soon but I have seen the movie a few times in the past and will rely more on my general impressions of the movie from past viewings than from a fresh rewatch. I first rented the film on VHS back when I lived in San Antonio Texas. It was time when I was renting stuff I read from films books I owned, like The Psychotronic Video Guide and my collection of horror books. There was no Internet back then to learn about films. The reason I watched the film was because Tom Savini did the effects and it was a period when I wanted to see every film Savini had something to do with. Sadly the guy now has decided to be an actor rather than a special effects master. In fact even back then he appeared in many of the films he worked on, such as George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Martin. Savini’s make up work on this feature are some of his goriest to be sure. One classic scene is almost universally reviled by critics and it features Savini himself getting his head blown off by a point blank range shot gun blast. It still looks horrible three decades later.

Now the real problem with this movie is not Savini’s graphic make-up effects or the over top performance by star and co-writer Joe Spinell. Both Savini and Spinell are great, as is Carolyn Munro as Anne who is pursued by Spinell’s psychotic Zito but it is with Lustig’s often shoddy direction and the overly bleak story by Spinell and C.A. Rosenberg. Of course I still recommend the film. All films here at The Uranium Café are recommended and films I like. But there is some reason I did not want to sit through it yet one time to do a better review. And yet it must say something about me that I have seen the film three or four times already. I just am not in the mood for the film’s despairing atmosphere right now is all. The same issue with the German film Necromantik. I have been wanting to rewatch it for a review but do not want to put myself through the experience right now. And I may be too harsh on Lustig’s direction since the film had a very low budget of about $350,000 and was shot, like The Last Horror Movie, guerrilla style (meaning usually with out filming permits fro locations). But some of the editing and production gaffaws are simply creative negligence. There is one scene near the beginning of the film where Zito picks up a hooker on the street and rents out a hotel room. After minimal foreplay Zito is on top of the gal strangling her to death. Seems simple enough and yet as the scene switched between shots of Zito’s maniacal face and the struggling hooker it is clear that there are two actresses being used in the close up shots. It is stuff like this that could be corrected or avoided with a little patience. And yet those glitches give the film some much needed campyness as the overall tone is unrelentingly grim and depressing.

The story is about a lonely and schzoid landlord named Zito who keeps a collection of mannequins in his apartment. He likes to adorn the mannequins with the scalps of real women and then have conversations with them in his bed. He has monologues with his dead mother who was a cruel, over bearing prostitute. After a while Zito gets bored with his current bed partner and set off to find a new victim. Any film like this requires suspension of disbelief and acceptance of certain implausibility’s. But the relationship that develops between obviously sleazy Zito and photographer Anne is a little too much. Anne accidentally snaps a photo of Zito and while attempting to retrieve the picture, for whatever reason, Zito develops an appreciation for Anne’s work and soon he and Anne are dating and she actually seems attracted to the scum bag in some scenes. Now whether Zito is a twisted serial killer or not is beside the point. It is stretching things a little too much to think hot looking professional photographer Anne would waste much, if any, time on him or give a damn about any of his opinions on her work. The gore sequences are great if you like that sort of things and Spinell is over the top in a fun sort of way but the film lacks any of the wit or humor found in The Last Horror Movie and one wonders if Spinell is trying to deliver a film similar to Taxi Driver in which he a small role.

An interesting piece of trivia is that the song Maniac, used in the film Flash Dance, by Michael Sembello was inspired by the film. It was not, as some sites report, written specifically for the film. Nonetheless the score was disqualified for an Oscar award after it was discovered it was not written specifically for Flash Dance. In fact some lyrics were altered for the Flash Dance version. Here is an example of before and after Maniac lyrics:

Before:
He’s a maniac, maniac that’s for sure,
He will kill your cat and nail him to the door
After:
She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before

The movie was released without a rating and it is felt it would have received an X rating at the time of its release for its extreme violence. Spinell wanted to do a sequel to the film but died in 1989. It was certainly a film role only he could pull off. However that has stopped Lustig from sealiong a deal in 2009 to do a remake of the film. I just think one Maniac is enough and who in God’s name could ever weep over a mannequin wearing a bloody scalp the way Joe Spinell could?

CHHOM NIMOL AND DENGUE FEVER DELIVER SOME FINE 60′S STYLE CAMBOBIAN POP

Uranium Willy — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:18:41 +0000

Lately I am not too much in reviewing films though I have more than a few reviews in the draft folder I am finishing up and should be back to some film material with my next post. But for now I am happy to be back to being able to post audio files and I am going to try to promote a band I really have come to enjoy since hearing their rendition of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now. The song was played over the closing titles of the excellent Matt Dillon directed film City of Ghosts. The story takes place in Cambodia and I highly recommend the film and while it is a newer film I am planning a review of it here at the Café in the future. The band is Dengue Fever (I think pronounced dung-yi fever like the mosquito borne disease) and the band is the creation of brothers Zac (guitar and vocals) and Ethan Hotlzman (classic surfy Farfisa organ). While traveling through Cambodia the brothers were so enthralled by the style of music they heard they decided to form a band that played 60’s based Cambodian pop music with a slightly psychedelic San Francisco twist to the sound. They decided they needed a genuine Khmer singer and searched the clubs and karaoke bars of Little Phnom Penh in San Fransisco until they found the vivacious and talented Chhom Nimol performing with a small group of singers. She had a presence and voice that stood out and the brothers approached her. Nimol’s Cambodian friends were a little shocked and concerned at the wild appearance of the Hotlzman brothers and warned her to stay away but she took the chance and a friendship and tight band were quickly formed. Nimol was a very successful karaoke singer and was able to support herself and was trying to have her family sent over to the States with her earnings. The little band has earned a good degree of success now and is on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label and I hope Nimol has been able to move her family closer to her. Most of the songs are covers of classic Cambodian pop songs but there are some originals and a few songs in English as well. As you may or may not know I live in Kunming China and I traveled to Laos for a month before and was so delighted to hear some style of music down there that was not the crappy J-Pop style music that is copied all over China these days. These are great songs and Nimol is a fantastic singer with heart and soul and you do not have to understand the words of the songs to understand the message.

BOTH SIDES NOW

Download audio file (bothsidesnow.mp3)
SEEING HANDS
Download audio file (seeinghands.mp3)
LOST IN LAOS
Download audio file (LostInLaos.mp3)

FLOWERS

Download audio file (Flowers.mp3)

SOBER DRIVER

Download audio file (soberdriver.mp3)

VIDEO FOR SEEING HANDS

HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND SAVE AUDIO/VISUAL FILES FROM THE URANIUM CAFE:
If you want to download and save an audio (or even video) file this is the easiest way to do it:
1) Use Mozilla Firefox
2) Install any number of add-ons that capture Flash Media. I use Fast Video Download. It is straight forward and easy.
3) Play the file let it buffer a bit then click on FVD in your status bar and select the file then rename it after the download completes.

AUDIO FILE UPDATES: JIMMY PAGE’S LUCIFER RISING OST FILE REPLACED

Uranium Willy — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:07:32 +0000

I am finally getting around to replacing most of my audio files thought the process is one post at a time and will take a little time. I have decided the best way to do audio files is to host them yourself. Do not rely on all those ‘free’ file storage services out there. Too many size and bandwidth rescritctions and after a lot of work you may find one day that all your files have been removed for no particular reason. I upgraded my package at Maiahost.com and now have more storage than I should be able to use any way soon. The links should be more reliable load a bit faster on a decent connection. There are download instructions at the bottom each post and if you have issues downloading I will try to help you. Best thing to do is work with a media downloader add-on in Mozilla. You can get audio or video from here if you figure it out. Realplayer and the full version of Quicktime have some options for downloading and saving audio and visual media as well. I may not replace all old audio posts and I will just have to wait and see. I will begin first by replacing album length features since those take a lot of time to do and I can get them out of the way. Some I will replace file in posts featuring hard the find albums Death Wish II by Jimmy Page, the rock opera Flash Fearless vs the Zorg Women parts 5 & 6, John Paul Jone’s Scream For Help and the European version of the Zombi (Dawn of the Dead) soundtrack by Goblin. But first I will link you back to one of my most visited posts ever, the one featuring Jimmy Page’s soundtrack to the Kenneth Anger film Lucifer Rising. In my original post I could only feature a version in two parts with about five trimmed off of it but now, for the first time ever, I present the entire uncut and unedited Lucifer Rising OST. While it is not impossible by any means to find this online some people just do not know how to search for this stuff or how to use things like bittotrrents or Rapidshare. So if you have been looking for this all your life and simply cannot find it anywhere then follow the instructions at the bottom of the post and you should be able to download the album with no major problems. And if you have some issues leave a comment and I will try to guide you through the fairly painless process.

CLICK HERE FOR THE POST FEATURING THE SOUNDTRACK TO LUCIFER RISING

ENGAGING BRIAN ENO DOCUMENTARY FROM THE BBC4

Uranium Willy — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:17:50 +0000

I have not actually seen all of this fine looking Brian Eno documentary in its entirety but what I have seen looks great. I have sent the last day or two trying to edit the full film down to manageable sizes and then getting it uploaded to my trusty Viddler account. it covers the range of his career from the glam days of Roxy Music to his more modern recording. The guy is absolutely brilliant and interesting all the way through even when he is wearing women’s clothes. The film also touches on some of his non-music related interests such as art, his curious journals and odd little inventions. I am about to finally sit down and watch the entire documentary with my wife. Renaissance man hardly begins to describe Eno and the vast contributions he has made to the areas of experimental and popular music. I have another Eno documentary whose quality is far from the level of this BBC4 production but I may edit it up and get it up here as well one day if anyone is interested.

Later: I finished watching the video just a moment ago and cannot recommend this enough to both Eno fans and to people who hardly know the guy or his work. But I am sure most anybody has heard one of the songs he has produced for U2 and maybe for the less super-popular Coldplay. I was so inspired I am getting some hardware and software I have long needed in order to finally (I hope) be able to record my own original music onto my computer. I do that now with prerecorded loops but I want to make my own loops. And this Eno documentary got me off my lazy rump and shopping on line for the weird gadgets I will need to do that. A gentlemen, a musician, an artist and a philosopher.

ENO DOCUMENTARY PART 01

ENO DOCUMENTARY PART 02

ENO DOCUMENTARY PART 03

THE CRAZY BUT HIP JAPANESE GIRL SURF GUITAR BAND FROM KILL BILL: THE 5,6,7,8′S

Uranium Willy — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:35:01 +0000

Here are some selections from the album Teenage Mojo Workout by the surf/rock-a-billy style girl band from Tokyo called The 5,6,7,8’s. So named because they focus their sound on music from the 50’s to 80’s. The core of the band are sisters Sachiko on drums on and Yoshiko (aka Ronnie) Fujiyama on guitar and lead vocals though the girls often take turns wailing into the mic. There have been some lineup changes as far as bass goes but Akiko Yomo has filled the slot since the 1990’s. The band has a garage sound and Quentin Tarantino used them in his Kill Bill film during the House of Blue Leaves sequence. The sound is definitely raw but it is a side of Japanese music I welcome over the sappy J-Pop stuff you hear all over Asia these days. American culture, with good reason, has been more noticable in Japan than any other Asian culture. This is for better or worse and there is a strong fascination with good ol’ Yankee kitsch in Japan that is noticeably absent from countries like China. Their album covers are clever take offs of old 60’s covers by girl bands like the Ronnettes. The songs are usually sung in Japanese but sometimes in a pretty rough English that you will either love or hate. Part of the band’s underground success is their appearance and attitudes. They stay in character most of the time off stage and they sport teenage-deb type tattoos. The gals all typically wear groovy retro hairdos and rolled up blue jeans or sleek leather outfits. And hell they’re just cool Japanese chicks so that is a super plus no matter how crumby their songs are. Not for everyone’s taste and that is why there are here at The Uranium Café. More 60′s style Japanese pop music coming in the future.

TEENAGE MOJO WORKOUT
Download audio file (TeenageMojoWorkout.mp3)
HARLEM SHUFFLE
Download audio file (HarlemShuffle.mp3)
GREEN ONIONS
Download audio file (GreenOnions.mp3)

SERGIO LEONE’S 1966 MASTERPIECE WESTERN: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Uranium Willy — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:55:56 +0000

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo)

1966/Director: Sergio Leone/Writers: Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone

Cast/ Eli Wallach, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè, Luigi Pistilli, Rada Rassimov, Enzo Petito

I was living in San Antonio Texas where my dad was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base when The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was released. We all packed ourselves in his Valiant station wagon and went to the Valley-Hi Drive to see the film and it left an impression on me that was to linger for the rest of my life. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a film that falls into a very narrow category for me. Films that I feel are not only great films but films worthy of deeper introspection and multiple viewings and each viewing seems as fresh as the first one. It is a film I am not even comfortable commenting on here. There are a few others as well that would make me shudder to do a post here at my humble site about: Apocalypse Now, The Last Picture Show, Dr. Zhivago, Lord Jim and even Blade Runner and other films of the same caliber that have left such a lasting impact on me that I simply feel unworthy to expound on them in any fashion. And is another reason and that is that films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Apocalypse Now have been critiqued and reviewed to death on the net. I usually try to select more obscure and little viewed films of an often trashier variety here at the Café to pander. Also I try not to be too pretentious with my comments and speculations. I will leave all that to the experts. Certainly many films deserve deeper philosophical reflection but I am not the sort of person to publicly delve into all that sort of thing. In simple terms I like to proceed with my foot as much out of my mouth as possible. But when I watch a film like this one I am usually transported to another world all together. So with that as an introduction let’s take a look at this western masterpiece by maestro Sergio Leone.

Sergio Leone is one of the most influential directors of all time and yet his total number of films numbers only about half a dozen. There is debate on the net about what his best film was with some commenters saying things like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a great film but not Leone’s best film. Well I disagree and there are always people who want to sound like they are more into the ‘inner’ information by making some sort of staggering denouncement like that. Like people who say that the Beatles were not really a great band or that Marlon Brando could not act. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the work that all of Leone’s other films are measured by. The film falls into the spaghetti western genre but like any truly great film it transcends genres and categories and goes to not only be a great western film, spaghetti or burrito, but a great film period. A great epic motion picture. Period.

But guess what? It is still a fun film to watch. That’s right. It is a great film and full of all those deep meanings the ‘thinking’ film reviewers like to sit around and hash over and debate about but it is succeeds on a very basic level as well. It is a classic adventure story that has at its core the most simplest of themes: human greed and the pursuit of gold. The film is the third of Leone’s westerns that starred a young Clint Eastwood in the role of the Man With No Name. Eastwood had been playing the cowboy Rowdy Yates in the TV series Rawhide. The series came to an end after Eastwood had completed the first two Leone westerns A Fist of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More and Eastwood was weighing options when Leone and his wife flew to the California to negotiate his return to the character in the third film of the trilogy. Eastwood was never one to be shy or quibble and after a couple days of talks Eastwood flat out said he would make the film for a payment of $250,000 and 10% of all North American profits. Leone was not happy with the deal but wisely went ahead and made the picture with the brash young actor and soon to be filmmaker. It is debatable the film would have succeeded the way it did had Leone decided to go with another actor at this point. The film also had a huge budget, for the time, that would climb to about $1,300,000 in the end. The film would be shot in Spain and the majestic panoramic shots by cinematographer Totino Delli Colli actually resemble much of the American southwest. The film simply must be seen in widescreen format.

As I said the film takes one of the simplest of themes, the pursuit of instant wealth, and turns it into an epic adventure that uses the American civil war as a backdrop. There was very little actual campaigning between the Union and Confederacy in the state of Texas (which remained neutral during the war) the territories of Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona but there some early skirmishs, like the Battle of Glorietta Pass in new Mexico, that the Confederacy lost. The film may exaggerate the scope and range of some of the Civil War here but it is acceptable since the film does not purport to be historical drama. It uses the Civil War as a vehicle for something else the way Apocalypse Now did with the Vietnam War. A shipment of Confederate gold was robbed by a band of men led by Baker. There was some double crossing and the gold was stolen from the thieves by a man named Jackson. On the trail of Jackson (now under the name of Bill Carson) is the hired gun known as Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef). Angel Eyes is a cold blooded, remorseless killer. We are introduced early on as well to the Mexican bandit Tuco (Eli Wallach) who is a wanted man always being pursued by bounty hunters. Bounty hunters became a recurring motive in spaghetti westerns. Tuco soon becomes partners with the laconic ‘Blondie’ (Eastwood) who is himself a sort of bounty hunter. Blondie seems to be more of an opportunist than a bounty hunter and strikes up a strange partnership with Tuco whereby Blondie ‘captures and turn in’ Tuco for the growing reward money only to set him free from the gallows rope with some sharp shooting. Maybe I can spend a brief moment with each character before I continue with my film comments.

The Good: As anyone who has seen the film realizes the term ‘good’ here must mean not so bad when compared to the two other mongrels. Blondie’s ethics are as flexible as the other two characters when dealing with the prospect of instant wealth but he does not kill unless drawn on and shows acts of compassion the other two characters seem unable incapable of. With sympathy in his eyes he hands a dying Union Captain a bottle of whiskey, he shares a smoke with a dying young soldier and in the end shows mercy to Tuco when Tuco probably would not have done the same if the tables were turned. He is not above a double cross himself or leaving a buddy stranded in the desert without food or water. We really never learn anything about the character in any of the films except that he is essentially motivated by money. He tends to be a little smarter than the other people around him and is always faster on the draw.

The Bad: In For a Few Dollars More Lee Van Cleef played basically a good guy. While Eastwood’s bounty hunter character in that film was motivated by reward money Van Cleef’s character was equally motivated by revenge (and money). In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly his Sentenza/Angel Eyes character is a killer who thoroughly enjoys his work. He does not always do his own dirty work and often has some partner or gang to back him up. He is shrewd as well and maybe as equally shrewd as Blondie but lacking any compassion or sense of mercy. He is patient and predatory as his tracks the trail of the gold that finally leads him to Tuco and Blondie. The character was originally top be played by Charles Bronson but Bronson was committed to The Dirty Dozen. He would eventually star as the mysterious harmonica player in Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West.

The Ugly: No doubt the most interesting of the three characters, or at least most entertaining, is Tuco as played by Eli Wallach. Wallach was not overly excited about playing another bandito type character like the one he played in 1962’s How the West Was Won but he finally agreed to the role after talking with Leone. Tuco’s character is the most developed in that we learn things of his past; his brother is a priest, he stayed at home and helped while his brother studied the priesthood and he himself chose the other option… a bandit, his parents are dead and that he is wanted for a comically long list of crimes. Wallach’s performance adds some comedic relief to the film but Tuco is as tough as they come and handy with a gun himself though probably the slowest of the three. He becomes evilly vindictive when he is betrayed by Blondie and left to die in the desert. One wonders if his revenge may have been less, or at all, had Blondie not basically screwed him over so bad.

Most of the story centers on the relationship between Tuco and Blondie with Angel Eyes being a menacing presence that seems to be lurking just outside events on the screen. After the strange business arrangement between Tuco and Blondie is severed after Blondie concludes his partner will never be worth more than $3000 Blondie all but leaves Tuco for dead in the desert. Tuco does not die so easily and winds up in a small village where he re-equips himself with firearms and ammo and a spiffy new sombrero. With vengeance on his mind he sets off after Blondie and finds him working with his new partner Shorty who Blondie is forced by Tuco to, well, leave hanging. Tuco decides to take a walk through the harshest section of the desert with Blondie. Of course Tuco will have a horse, an umbrella, a few guns and lots of water. Blondie will be on foot and that is about it. It does not take too long for Blondie’s gringo skin to start burning and peeling much to Tuco’s amusement. The way one may shoot a dying dog Tuco finally takes some slight degree of pity on Blondie and is going to end it all with a bullet when a dark wagon being pulled by panicked horses appears on the desert’s horizon. This is the second time fate has intervened to save Blondie from Tuco. The first was earlier in the film when Tuco had Blondie with a noose around his neck in a hotel room and canon ball strikes the building allowing Blondie to escape. During the course of events at the wagon Tuco gets the name of the cemetery from Jackson (Bill Carson) while Blondie gets the name on the grave. They are now bound to each other again and Tuco takes Blondie to a nearby monastery that is run by his brother. Blondie recovers slowly and witnesses a scene where Tuco’s brother, Father Ramirez, all but curses Tuco and slaps him (for which he gets punched in the face) and Tuco leaves heartbroken but tells Blondie how much his brother loves him. In another act of compassion Blondie does not pull the rug out from under Tuco and allows him to have his version of things and shares a smoke with him.

They are soon captured by Union soldiers since they are wearing Confederate uniforms as disguises. They are led to a POW camp where Angel Eyes has secured a position, somehow, as a Sergeant. Angel Eyes got information from beating Jackson’s girl friend Maria that led him to believe Jackson was being held in a POW camp. As it is Jackson is dead but Tuco has assumed his Bill Carson identity and Angel Eyes is quick to seize the chance to beat information out of him with the help of one a eyed prison guard who Tuco vows to get even with and eventually does. Angel Eyes get the information he needs from Tuco and rather than beat Blondie half to death he sets off with to get the gold and split it up with his new partner. Tuco and Blondie are later reunited and out gun Angel Eye’s gang in a small town being blasted by artillery fire. Angel Eyes decides he is no match for the two of them and decides to bide his time and disappears. Tuco find themselves in the middle of a Civil War battle for an unimportant bridge. While the bridge on the one hand is the senseless cause of casualties on both sides it is also an obstacle between the two men and their gold. They cannot really go get their treasure in the middle of a bloody battle and so they blow the bridge up in a spectacular scene that actually had to be shot twice because it was not captured on film the first time. The film moves towards it conclusion at a perfect pace. Not rushed or hurried and the scene where Tuco runs through the cemetery looking for the grave of Arch Stanton is one of my all time favorite dramatic scenes. It could have gone one for another couple minutes even. Of course what all this is leading up to is the immortal three way showdown in the center of the cemetery. The scene cannot be over praised in how the tension builds up between then three men. Leone’s editing along with the perfect score by Ennio Morricone has yet to be duplicated in my opinion. The scene slowly builds up to the blaze of gunfire that is over in a heart beat. Blondie decides to sever the partnership yet one last time but as I said earlier he shows he is different in this sense from Tuco in that he shows a little mercy at the films conclusion that Tuco may not have had in him in the same situation.

And of course before closing this article off something must be said of Ennio Morricone’s exquisite soundtrack. He scored the first two Man With No Name films and, I believe, Leone’s remaining films (Once Upon a Time in the West, Fist Full of Dynamite and Once Upon a Time in America) but his score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is as perfect as a film sore can be for a film. By this I mean how the sore seems to describe the characters themselves and helps to bring the scenes to life. Another composer for the film would have been like another actor in the place of Eastwood. It would not have worked. I have posted a few samples from the soundtrack. Most people are aware of the theme song but not know some of the other tracks. I included an image of the Hugo Montenegro album versiosn, with Moog Synthesizers, as I used to own that LP. I guess I could ramble on and on about this film. If you have not seen it then see it. If you have seen it then see it again. I saw it with my wife and she loved it and it is possible she may even see it again someday she said. This is as good a recommendation as you are about to get since she is one of those people who can only see a film once in a lifetime.

SELECTIONS ROM THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY SOUNDTRACK BY ENNIO MORRICONE

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY-TITLE THEME
Download audio file (01-ennio_morricone-the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly-jce.mp3)
THE SUNDOWN
Download audio file (02-ennio_morricone-the_sundown-jce.mp3)
THE ECSTASY OF GOLD
Download audio file (20-ennio_morricone-the_ecstasy_of_gold-jce.mp3)
THE DUEL
Download audio file (17-ennio_morricone-due_contro_cinque-jce.mp3)