Kathisms:
Believe it or not, George Michael’s Faith is 80’s soul-pop by a guy who makes it sound a lot less pale than you’d expect. In fact, if ole George keeps turning out songs like these, the GUYS might start liking him, too.
Kath on Run Westy Run’s album Hardly Not Even:
Imagine another bunch of limesuckers making another record to clog the drain that is college muzak. Imagine a world without clownholes. Imagine Run Westy Run is secretly bummed out that Journey broke up.
Alonso:
I hope that, years from now, I’ll be embarrassed by this column: after all, Gone with the Wind and Star Wars had their nay-sayers before they won over the world. Nonetheless, it seems that the richness and creativity of Basketball Diaries and Watchmen are what makes them inherently unfilmable.
(The film Basketball Diaries, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, met with numerous pejorative comparisons to Jim Carroll’s book when it came out in 1995. Watchmen is now in production, scheduled for a 2009 release.)
more Kathisms:
On the major-label debut of Jane’s Addiction, Nothing’s Shocking:
Perry Farrell’s voice sounds like the face you make when you open spoiled cottage cheese.
The first outdoor Cat’s concert in three years was quite an event, according to the few survivors we at the FWJ spoke with. First up was Clockhammer, who were in the middle of a fantastic set when all of a sudden 21 Guns jumped onstage and kicked Clockhammer’s ass, then they jumped offstage, kicked the entire audience’s ass, then kicked their own ass, and then Guilt bounded onto the stage and threw wine bottles at the audience while the crew, in an effort to halt West End traffic, climbed onto the billboard and chipped their teeth. In the meantime, Grandmaster E got onto the stage while Mr. Zero held up the Kwik Sak and Mrs. Zero had to go make bail. By that time, 21 Guns had gone to Sal’s and kicked LA Guns’ ass in an attempt to acquire more hair. Luckily, Simmonz had been in the back of the club sipping tea when the members of LA Guns wanted to kick Simmonzass. Then Jet Black Factory got onstage and it rained and they became Wet Black Factory and they played under a plastic bubble.
Nicki:
The Probability (P) that a couple will go home at any point in the evening is a function of the Sobriety factors (S) of the two parties (S1 + S2), where (S) is a number on a scale of 1 to 10, multiplied by the Hour (H), which is calculated on a special 24-hour clock, where noon = zero. Then multiply by the Bitch factor (B), the measure of friction between you two if you stay out versus go home, on a 1 to 10 scale. Then divide the whole thing by the Activity factor (A), or the interest value of the possible activities if you stay out.
Regina:
Is Nashville the new Athens? I don’t think so. Out of Athens came a couple of good quirky pop bands and many self-conscious arty tagalongs. We have many highly individual bands here, and because in Nashville music is a business, these bands have the resources to make this city a home base from which to expand.
Lee:
CURTAIN
Marcia: Would you look at these FAB PIX AND FAX about Davy? He has the grooviest smile.
Jan: And the cutest hair! Golly, he’s the dreamiest!
Cindy: That wimp? Give me a major break! My God, he’s such a candyass. Now give me Iggy Pop any day. I’ll bet he’s hung like a Clydesdale!
Marcia: Pay no attention to the BABY, Jan. Honestly Cindy, will you ever grow up?
Cindy: Fuck you, Marcia. This isn’t 1972 anymore and our careers have died violent deaths since then.
Jim:
Empire of the Sun, Steven Spielberg’s film about a boy separated from his parents in Shanghai at the beginning of World War II, came out at the same time as The Last Emperor and was virtually ignored. That was a shame, because this is a far more interesting film, as brilliant and foolish as the best of D.W Griffith.
John:
Change of scene, Gray says.
I’m like, where to? It’s nearly one-thirty a.m.
The Urban Lounge, Gray goes.
So when get there, we have just enough time to hear last call. Gray’s freaking out a little and cuts out to the ladies room to do a bump or two while John tells me about Jay McInerney.
McInerney was talking about Alison Poole as like a stereotype of a girl like you who lives all over the country, John goes.
Really? I say.
Yeah, He goes. McInerney said that Alison Poole was this character generated by this voice. This sort of slangy, American idiom, which is not unique to Alison and her friends, although they’re richer and wilder and a little more extreme than say their peers in Omaha or Ann Arbor.
And I’m like, no kidding.
Addison:
Fact. The #1 selling album at the Fan Fair record store was by Ricky Van Shelton. “Insignificant,” you snort. Scramble the letters of his name and see who laughs. ELVIS OK. TRY CHANN is the message. Now, loop it by joining the final word with the beginning again. ELVIS OK. TRY CHANNELVIS OK. TRY CHANNEL 5 IS OK. TRY CHANNEL 5 IS OK. The rest is up to you. Is this a rendezvous code, or does the King just prefer Chris Clark and Brenda Blackmon over Fred Graham, like most of Nashville’s TV-watching swine?
A July news story revealed that more than 2,000 Nashville residents are licensed to carry a gun. The ballyhooed list of pistol-packers includes, sadly, one of this reporter’s last remaining idols, Johnny Cash. Don’t laugh, Mama DeWitt used to play his songs on the harpsichord when we tired of Mozart. God, what a letdown.
God Bless the U.S.A. Yes, sensitive artiste Lee Greenwood, who botched the National Anthem at a spring Vanderbilt Basketball game, also is cleared to throw lead, as is ass-kicker Hank Williams Jr.
Hank, named the Country Music Association’s 1987 Entertainer of the Year, recently released the socially conscious single “If the South Woulda Won.” In this hypothetical nugget, Hank says he’d ban all the cars made in China. See, “made in Japan” just don’t rhyme with any southern states. Bocephus also postulates that killers would “quickly swing” in his perfect world. Hank avoids the sticky issues of cotton tariffs, states’ rights, and apportioning 3/5 representation for slaves.
To repeat: he is licensed to carry a gun.
Addison, on the dissolution of Conway Twitty’s fan club:
In his tear-stained form letter to fan club members, Conway wrote that he didn’t want to raise dues again, so he just decided to call the whole thang off. Not since the Clash’s early days has an artist eschewed profit margins with such integrity. Word has it that Conway recently got a mohawk, fired off an “eat me” letter to MCA Records and demanded that his concert backdrops read “Conway’s Not for Sale, You Wankers.” Some area Baptists sold their worldly possessions in preparation for September’s predicted Biblical Rapture, flooding the market with clear plastic upholstery sofa covers and white Chrysler K-Cars. Meanwhile, the man who wrote 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Happen in 1988, the book that fanned the flames of fervor, was busy closing land deals with profits from his highly successful work. Take that, Iacocca.