Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Strange Christmas Song of the Day #4
Posted by Alison Fensterstock on Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 11:52 PM
A lot of great and hilarious music came out of Atomic Age paranoia (click here for some great examples, and if anyone is looking for a holiday gift for me...), and as today's song shows, the Cold War gets even colder when it reaches the North Pole. After all, Santa's transnational flight plan has him flying through plenty of enemy airspace, and as was common knowledge back in the day, the Russians don't believe in Christmas. Luckily, since 1955, NORAD has been tracking Santa's annual rounds, and even providing fighter pilots as escort to protect him from enemy fire. Their totally deadpan website should be required holiday viewing. ("Amazingly, Rudolph's bright red nose gives off an infrared signature which allows our satellites to detect Santa.") As Christmas lagniappe, today's post includes an excerpt from a NORAD broadcast during which regional air defense commanders followed Santa's flight on Christmas Eve 1961.
"Blagojevich Makes Edwin Edwards Look Like An Amateur"
Posted by Kevin Allman on Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 11:11 PM
...or so says this Shreveport blogger.
While much has been made of the (allegedly) corrupter-than-thou governor of Illinois and how his (alleged) malfeasance, if proven, would make our Louisiana politicians look like pikers, little has been written about another, more personal matter in which Rod Blagojevich bests another of our hometown boys:
Holy Rug Doctor. No one from Chicago can ever laugh at Vince Marinello's topper.
Gumbo Fest
Posted by Kevin Allman on Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 10:26 PM
Get a jump on your holiday shopping (and eating) at...well, just read the poster:
Sat. Dec. 13, 9:30AM to 6PM
The Jazz & Heritage Center (formerly the Tharp-Sontheimer-Laudumiey Funeral Home) 1225 N. Rampart St.
The first annual Tremé Creole Gumbo Festival celebrates the history of Faubourg Tremé as a hotbed of New Orleans musical and culinary culture. Admission is free.This unique event features outstanding musical performers, including:
9:45 am The Heritage School of Music Allstars
11 am Davis Rogan
12:30 pm The Tremé Brass Band
2 pm Shannon Powell Quartet
3:30 pm Shamarr Allen
5 pm John Boutte, Leroy Jones, Paul Sanchez and Todd Duke
In addition, two famous Creole chefs will demonstrate the secrets to making the perfect gumbo:
11:45 am Chef Alfred Singleton (Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse)
1:15 pm Chef Leah Chase (Dooky Chase Restaurant)
Several outstanding New Orleans Creole restaurants will be on hand selling their own takes on gumbo and other local delicacies. Participating restaurants include: Dooky Chase, Dunbar's Creole Cooking, Li'l Dizzy's and Olivier's Creole Restaurant. Locally made wearable art, jewelry and fine crafts for the home will be featured in the festival's Arts & Crafts Market. The festival also includes the third annual Jazz & Heritage Holiday Bazaar - a special sale of official Jazz Fest t-shirts, posters and other collectibles.
My secret to making the perfect gumbo? Going to Dooky Chase to get it. But if Carl Arredondo is right -- we'll all be wanting a big bowl of gumbo by this weekend.
G-n-R's Chinese Democracy review: extended remix
Posted by admin on Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 9:06 PM
My shorter review of this album appears in this week's Gambit. But trying to say all there is to say about Chinese Democarcy in 300 words is fairly impossible. So here's the rest.
Chinese Democracy: The Good, the Bad, and the Dated
By Michael Patrick Welch
Whew, the new Guns-n-Roses album is officially not bad! Axl could have so easily tarnished the name. But even Slash is now left mumbling vague compliments about Chinese Democracy, which is ambitious, interesting and unique, if not always good.
As feared, this now mythical album is one-third nu metal. Meaning: unabashedly inorganic, monochromatic, Korn-influenced guitar riffs. Luckily, thousands of truly twisted guitar solos decorate said riffs, attacking from all angles, as Chinese Democracy's songs twist, break down, and morph. A woman sings over what could be a Garbage outtake that suddenly becomes a heavy blues ballad. Symphonic trip-hop with funky nylon string guitar leads Axl's layered voices into a capella metal do-wop. Pro-Tools makes sure that even the album's bad parts boast at least something interesting.
But Pro-Tools also drowns the gentle guitar of "Sorry" in gross digital gravy, and helps "FBI" sound like Sarah McLachlan. In the time this album took to make, the studio trick where a song (in this case "Prostitute") dramatically shrinks for a moment, into a tin can, before suddenly expanding back to its regular size, became tired. The new G-n-R sometimes reeks of the 90’s, when reactionary producers started thinking even heavy metal needed little dance beats in it.
Axl's voice heroically saves much of his material. Some of the terrible ballads (where he feigns trying not to cry during lyrics like, "I don't know why / she didn't say goodbye / I saw it in her eyes,") should compel Rose's piano to seek a restraining order. But for the most part, his dynamic, layered, downright killer singing/shrieking is not only metal real and true, but proves Axl’s a singer's singer. Especially with Pro-Tools on his side. Too bad the music he's singing over isn't nearly as melodic as what he can do with his voice.
As far as this sounding like Guns-N-Roses? No way. But that's probably the biggest reason the album doesn’t suck; thank god Axl got as far away as possible from the old G-n-R sound. Axl blatantly choose aural perfection over inspired performance so that even Lose Your Illusion sounds more “live” than Chinese Democracy. The songs on Appetite for Destruction were mostly recorded live and then tweaked, whereas these new songs are all tweakage. Many of the guitar solos come in the same interesting spots where Slash would have put them, weaving perfectly between Axl’s phrases. Still, Chinese Democracy definitely should have been Axl Rose’s solo album.
Essentially, this ambitious, interesting album is far better than the sad, crappy one many expected. But were it not Guns-n-Roses, many of us wouldn’t give it two listens. Axl mostly just one-upped Korn, augmenting heavy guitars with computer trickery that sometimes makes Chinese Democracy feel as dated as Axl's neat red goatee. Not saying it looks bad on him per se…
On the chopping Block
Posted by Lauren LaBorde on Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 8:45 PM
Walter Block, Loyola economics chair and former adviser to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, is no stranger to incendiary opinions. I interviewed him for my Gambit article “Safe or Sorry?”, about a proposed piece of legislation that would allow guns on college campuses, because of his widely-known, staunchly libertarian views. In discussing the role of firearms on campuses he also brought up, interestingly enough, feminism:
"Where the hell are the feminists (regarding this issue)?" he asks. "They're always taking about, you know, women are exploited and they aren't equal and this and that and the other. Well, the gun's a great equalizer. Men are taller than women, men weigh more than women, men have more testosterone than women, men are more likely to fight and rape than women. That's what [feminists] would affirm, that women are powerless — they need to seize power. Well how better to seize power than to seize a gun? That's a very powerful implement."
(Later in the article appears a quote from Loyola sociology professor Marcus Kondkar — who conducted a campus-wide study last year on rape and sexual coercion — refuting this claim, saying that the majority of sexual assault instances occur among acquaintances and dating partners.)
Now Block is under fire for his views, which also involve women — and also, African Americans.
Strange Christmas Song of the Day #3
Posted by Alison Fensterstock on Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:14 AM
Staying with the theme of '70s-style Christmas oddities, please enjoy this particularly funky yuletide gem I grabbed from the awesome Christmas music blog (oh, there are many of them!) Musical Fruitcake. In a spectacular example of Me Decade values, Santa and Rudolph decide that gift delivery is for squares... so they plan a disco-style Christmas Eve instead. (Note: I couldn't find album art for this particular song, so I chose what I thought was an appropriate photo to accompany this post. The "Yuletide Disco" album itself can be downloaded here.)
One-Sheet to the Wind
Posted by Noah Bonaparte Pais on Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 12:05 AM
It’s time once again for your semi-regular fill of press release fantasia. In this edition, Walmart — hyphenless and loving it — reminds you to buy local this holiday season. What’s next, Burger King espousing the benefits of vegetarianism … wait, they have what?
Holiday movie preview
Posted by Lauren LaBorde on Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 12:01 AM
Go to metacritic.com, find its list “Wide Releases Now in Theaters,” click “sort by score” and there you have a pretty good idea of the lack of decent film offerings as of late: “Wall-E” and “Dark Knight” — both summer releases — still claim the top ratings spots, with “Milk” sliding in only a week ago. While there has been some quality limited release offerings, those tend to have the shelf life of an un-refrigerated carton of milk at New Orleans theaters. But fear not, moviegoers, because with the influx of gifts, confections and unabashed gluttony that comes with the holiday season also comes (usually, at least) an influx of quality, mainstream film. Finally, something worth the 8-dollar Diet Coke.
However, as a fairly avid movie-goer, I find the annual offerings to be pretty formulaic. In fact, I’ve found that all of the Oscar hopefuls (and wannabe hopefuls) can usually be grouped in the following categories:
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