We lost a great musician yesterday ... Lonnie Mack

Very sad about Prince's passing, but I figure the rest of the world has his mourning covered. I'll instead take time out to remember guitarist Lonnie Mack, who also died yesterday. His big hit:

New Music Friday: Guided By Voices; Petra Haden; Bill Evans, more

Click the links to order discounted CDs, vinyl or downloads from Amazon.







Pop Culture Roundup: Charles AtlasJack Kirby; Dick Tracy; Jonny Quest

See a selection of Charles Atlas parody ads.

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A new Canadian theatrical production, "King Kirby," tells the tale of Marvel Comics genius Jack Kirby. There's a review here.
The scene in which Lee robs Kirby of his credit, royalties and dignity is powerful because we see the result of the shift in status these two men went through in their relationship as Klein melts into himself and LeReaney puffs up.
As Roz Goldstein, the woman who became Jack’s wife, Cheryl Hutton is one feisty broad as well she needs to be to keep bolstering Jack’s resolve and shielding him from all those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

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The crazy goodness of Dick Tracy.

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Listen to a vintage Jonny Quest kids LP.

Surviving Monkees get heavyweight help on new LP - out May 27

Good Times, a new LP by suviving members of the Monkees Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith is out May 27. You can pre-order it from Amazon here.



Here's the skinny:

The Monkees can now reveal the full track list for their highly anticipated new album GOOD TIMES!, their first new album in 20 years, tied to the group's 50th anniversary and extensive North American tour.

All three surviving band members (Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork) have written new songs for the album as well as providing vocals and music performances.

The unmistakable voice of the late Davy Jones is also included with a vintage vocal on the Neil Diamond-penned "Love To Love." To produce the new album, the band found the perfect musical co-conspirator in Grammy® and Emmy®-winning songwriter Adam Schlesinger (Fountains Of Wayne, Ivy).

Much like The Monkees' early albums, GOOD TIMES! features tracks written specifically for the band by some of the music world's most gifted songwriters, including Rivers Cuomo of Weezer ("She Makes Me Laugh"), Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie ("Me & Magdalena"), Andy Partridge of XTC ("You Bring The Summer"), as well as a song co-written by Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller ("Birth Of An Accidental Hipster").

GOOD TIMES! finds all three band members taking turns on lead vocals, playing a wide range of instruments, and sharing new compositions, including Nesmith's "I Know What I Know" and Tork's "Little Girl." In addition to producing the album, Schlesinger also penned "Our Own World" and co-wrote the album's finale with Dolenz, aptly titled "I Was There (And I'm Told I Had A Good Time)."

To help bring the 50th anniversary full circle, The Monkees completed songs for GOOD TIMES! that were originally written and recorded for the group during the 60s. Harry Nilsson wrote the title track "Good Times," which he recorded at a session with Nesmith in January 1968. The production was never completed, so the band returned to the original session tape (featuring Nilsson's guide vocal) and have created a duet with his close friend Dolenz. "Good Times" will mark the first time Dolenz and Nilsson have sung together since Dolenz' May 1973 single "Daybreak." GOOD TIMES! also includes the Neil Diamond-penned "Love To Love," the Carole King and Gerry Goffin collaboration "I Wasn't Born To Follow," "Whatever's Right," written by legendary songwriting duo Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who were responsible for many of the classic Monkees hits, and "Gotta Give It Time," by Jeff Barry and Joey Levine.
 Track Listing
1. "Good Times" (Harry Nilsson)
2. "You Bring The Summer" (Andy Partridge)
3. "She Makes Me Laugh" (Rivers Cuomo)
4. "Our Own World" (Adam Schlesinger)
5. "Gotta Give It Time" (Jeff Barry/Joey Levine)
6. "Me & Magdalena" (Ben Gibbard)
7. "Whatever's Right" (Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart)
8. "Love To Love" (Neil Diamond)
9. "Little Girl" (Peter Tork)
10. "Birth Of An Accidental Hipster" (Noel Gallagher/Paul Weller)
11. "I Wasn't Born To Follow" (Carole King/Gerry Goffin)
12. "I Know What I Know" (Michael Nesmith)
13. "I Was There (And I'm Told I Had A Good Time)" (Micky Dolenz/Adam Schlesinger)

Pop Artifact: Batman trading card box





Good deal: Upcoming Doctor Strange Omnibus from Marvel for $45

Amazon is currently listing Marvel's Doctor Strange Omnibus, out in October, for $45.46 - nearly $30 off the list price.

The 456 hardcover collects the entire run of Stan Lee-Steve Ditko Doctor Strange comics, and then some.

 



Pop stuff: The legendary John Peel; Batman v. Superman

What I'm reading, hearing, watching, etc.


Good Night and Good Riddance: How Thirty-Five Years of John Peel Helped to Shape Modern Life. From psychedelia to Sonic Youth, John Peel was always a few steps - and sometimes years - head of his fellow disc jockeys.

In numerous cases, he was the first person in Britain - and, often, the world - to play music by now legendary acts. The list stretches from the mid 1960s, when he was a disc jockey on pirate station Radio London, through his long tenure on the BBC's Radio 1, and it includes everyone from Elton John, Davie Bowie, T. Rex and the Faces up through the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and his beloved Undertones, to Joy Division, the Smiths, Nirvana and the White Stripes.

And those are just the big names. Peel's wide-open ears and broad tastes also exposed audiences to world music, electronica, jazz, avant garde, comedy and numerous other, often uncategorizable, sounds. If Peel hadn't died in 2004, who knows what he'd be playing us now.

Today in Britain and even the United States, where listeners tuned into his shows on the BBC World Service and are familiar with releases of his "Peel Sessions" featuring live-in-the-studio performances by numerous acts, Peel is seen as an icon.

There's an annual John Peel Lecture in Britain, which has been delivered Pete Townshend, Brian Eno and Iggy Pop, and the BBC's eclectic Radio 6 Music was built on the Peel template, delivering sounds of all sorts 24 hours a day.

Yet, during his long radio career, as this book by David Cavanagh details, Peel was largely taken for granted and often shabbily treated.

The BBC allowed Peel to say and play essentially whatever he wanted for more than 30 years, yet the network confined him to the wee hours of the evening, often cutting back the length of his shows and bouncing him around the schedule to make more time available for safer and more predictable fare.

In numerous cases, daytime jocks got credit for introducing hot new acts that Peel had played on his show, late in the evening, months before.

Yet, he persevered, listening to the thousands of records and cassettes unsigned and otherwise unheard of musicians sent him in the mail and playing those he liked best on the air.

Cavanagh's book isn't a biography, but a tour through Peel's nearly four decades on the air. Rather than conventional chapters, we're presented with chronological entries in which the author details highlights from Peel's shows, including his remarks and some of the music played, and contrasts these with a news story from that particular day.

Through the Irish Troubles, the 1970s energy crisis, the British miner's strike and the Falklands War, we see how Peel's musical choices reflected the temperament of the times.

The book also highlights some of Peel's most legendary exploits on the air. He wasn't a wild, frenetic U.S.-style deejay, but a soft spoken, self-deprecating, often mordant, wit. And full of nerve.

When the BBC banned the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" and Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax," Peel played them anyway. And when he got excited about music, he let it show. He once played five Chuck Berry songs in a row and, upon playing the Undertones "Teenage Kicks" on the air for the first time, wept with joy and immediately played it again. The tune's lyrics are on his tombstone.

As Cavanagh makes clear, we'll be scrutinizing Peel's set lists and gaining a better understanding of his huge influence for decades to come.

It all goes to show that, sometimes, its not just the players who make music history, but the fans as well.


Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice has been roundly trashed by critics and crowds alike, but I had to give it a look. After all, World's Finest was one of my favorite comics titles as a kid and I've been a Batfan since nearly birth - I had see who won!

Nobody, it turns out. Unless you count Wonder Woman. I agree with the many viewers who thought Gal Gadot's portrayal of the Amazonian princess was the highlight of the movie. So there's five minutes.

The rest of the film is nearly three hours of humorless, joyless set-up and execution. We need to get these two guys at odds, have them fight for a bit and then team up. But couldn't it have been done with a bit of fun and pizazz?

There's not one laugh in the picture - nothing to diffuse the overwrought, soundtrack-fed tension and let us know this is all for fun. No "you're light, I'm dark banter" that might provide either of the title characters with a little (super) humanity or character. By the time the heroes finally battle, you don't really care who wins, because both are so glum and cardboard it's tough to muster up much emotion over either of them.

Director Zack Snyder and the film's writers take it all so seriously. The intention, it seems, is to make this improbable story as "real world" as possible. But doing so just highlights how ridiculous it all is.

The movie is distractingly full of real people: Charlie Rose, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace - it's like flipping through cable channels. And the film's efforts to amp up it's real worldiness via scenes of terrorism, including blowing up the U.S. Capitol, are outrageous and tasteless.

The perpetrator of all this destruction is Lex Luthor (played by Jesse Eisenberg), though he might as well be the Joker - he's more unhinged chaos agent than scheming super scientist.

After the whole bombastic, predictable ordeal of watching the film - seriously, the soundtrack nearly pummels you with pounding percussion - I came away thinking about how much Marvel does this stuff than DC.

Marvel's films, while full of high-stakes action, are always winking at the audience. The characters joke, falter and triumph. Unlike this Batman and this Superman, they are identifiable and full of personality. You want to hang out with them - maybe not for three hours, but for two. I wouldn't want to chat with this film's Batman or Superman for two minutes at a cocktail party.

The comparison between Marvel's and DC's films today is much like the one between their comics of the 1960s. Back then, Marvel came along with books that were fun and full of interesting, flawed, "human" characters. And, until they started copying Marvel, DC's heroes were old-fashioned, dull, interchangeable cardboard cutouts. Hasn't DC learned anything in 50 years?

Before they screw up a could-be-great Wonder Woman movie and fully launch a Justice League franchise, DC should take a close look at what Marvel's been doing - and copy like crazy.