Tom Reviews

Here's the latest couple of reviews I've written for Artrocker. Firstly I went to see The Zombies a couple of weeks ago. They were good in places and dull in others. Rod Argent and his rock 'n' roll ancedotes from the 60s reminded me a little of Les McQueen from the League of Gentlemen. "He was ever such a nice chap. He said to me Les, to you it's 80 sheets." Here's my review.

Secondly I reviewed The National's DVD 'A Skin, A Night'. Now I love The National, but the film was hugely disappointing. A lot of arty pish in the main. However it's not a total loss as it comes with a decent 12 track EP. Here's my review.

Orny

Still on the subject of comedy, those of you who watched Jerry Seinfeld's documentary Comedian will be well aware of Orny Adams, the comic on his way up whose journey is juxtaposed with Seinfeld's in the film.

He of course comes off as a bit of a dick, although I always thought he seemed pretty funny. So putting the dickish behaviour to one side I purchased his debut DVD/CD The Path of Most Resistance. And the good news is it was very good.

He performs a tight, joke packed set that really hits the mark on several occasions. He also includes a 16 page booklet that quotes from Dostoefsky. The trailer is down below.

Dick Cavett: Rock Icons

I make no apologies for this being a bumper post raving about an American TV Show from over 30 years ago.

Some time ago I raved about the DVD set The Dick Cavett Show Comedians. Through my subscription to Love Film I rented Dick Cavett: Rock Icons. This three-disc set comprises several full-length episodes of the DCS featuring some of the major music stars of the time.

The first disc features a musical special with Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Joni Mitchell. Cavett, a good decade older than the hippies in his studio, looks like a dad hanging out at his kid’s birthday party.

There’s then a fascinating episode featuring Sly and the Family Stone. After performing Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) Sly joins Cavett and Debbie Reynolds for a chat.


Although the former Sylvester Stewart isn’t completely all there (in an interview on the disc Cavett suggests his brain had been beaten by an egg whisk) he still manages to be an entertaining guest, frequently telling Cavett how much he likes him.

The third episode is an all-David Bowie one. Interesting as it was in the period where Bowie, although having moved on from Ziggy Stardust and now performing as himself, still wished to maintain an aura of mystique. The interview is a little slow but throughout it Cavett manages to coax more and more personality out of the Thin White Duke.

Disc Two is all-Janis Joplin. I couldn’t claim to be a big Janis fan and even after watching these shows I’m still not converted to her music. However I could listen to her talking all night. In the each of the three shows featured she’s a warm and engaging interviewee who oozes enthusiasm for what she does and helps to create some lively debate.



In the first episode she’s joined by writer Michael Thomas and improvisational sketch group The Committee. The second sees her chat with Raquel Welch, Douglas Fairbanks Jr and newsman Chet Huntley. At the time he was about to retire from his role as co-anchor on The Huntley Brinkley Report. (A news show that Alasdair Milne claims was the blueprint for Reporting Scotland).


In the third show, filmed just two months before her death, her fellow guests are film legend Gloria Swanson, a young and kooky Margot Kidder and American footballer Dave Meggyesy, who had just written an expose on the sport.

The third disc kicks off with Stevie Wonder, though he’s the least entertaining thing on the show. Elsa Lanchester, Bride of Frankenstein and wife of Charles Lawton provides numerous amusing anecdotes from her acting days as well as some catty but funny tales concerning Isadora Duncan.

Then Alain Delon doing his first chat-show in English, joins in as Cavett playfully banters with him over the language gap. We then get Tex Ritter performing the theme song from High Noon.

The second show is a George Harrison special and it’s an interview you’ll never see on a chat show of today. He jokingly mocks John and Yoko, laughs off the suggestion that there were no internal problems in The Beatles before Yoko and suggests he was relieved the band split up. He then talks of delays in publishing The Concert for Bangaldesh LP, before inviting his distributors’ head to sue him as he intends to release it through another label.



Cavett asks him if he feels responsible for The Beatles’ drug use possibly encouraging their fans to try drugs. Some of the audience boo. Harrison chastises them, saying Cavett can ask that question if he wants. He then goes on to discuss LSD and numerous other drugs prevalent in the music scene.


The final show sees a change of format. The first half is all Paul Simon, who plays some songs and chats to Cavett about songwriting. He then plays two verses of a song he was then writing, asks Cavett for lyric suggestions and explains the chord progression choices he felt he had available in order to complete it. The song was Still Crazy After All These Years.

The show was recorded in September 1974 and Cavett had just completed his book ‘Cavett’. So, in the second half of the show he turned the tables on himself and had a selection of authors interview him about his writing process in an attempt to illicit some of the personal side of him he was often accused of concealing from the viewers.

Anthony Burgess, Barbara Hower and Jerzy Konsinski are the authors in question. Burgess particularly is fascinating. Erudite and authoritative he proves a compelling conversationalist as he praises and quizzes Cavett while also throwing in some literary stories and myth busting.


Due to the discs containing complete episodes this isn’t just a package for fans of 70s music. There’s something to entertain anyone interested in films, music, books, sport, news and intelligent conversation.

Cavett really is a first class interviewer. Even although some of his guests seem slightly reluctant to talk Cavett never seems frustrated and with his excellent ad-libbing skills he’s never short of something to say himself. These kinds of conversations just don’t appear on television anymore. Actual debate breaks out, discussion, arguments, differing opinions, guests listening to and being entertained by other guests. There are several Dick Cavett DVDs out there. I just wish there were a lot more.

Here’s an excellent article by Danny Miller on the Huffington Post discussing the Janis Joplin disc.

In the bonus interview on the disc where Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Bob Weide takes him through some of his memories of the show he briefly mentions the time one of his guests died on the show. Cavett writes about it here in the New York Times.

And here’s the rest of his blogs for the NY Times.

The New York Cosmos

While I'm on sabbatical from mundane office work, I've been taking this opportunity to research and write a book on Scottish footballers. As part of my research I purchased a couple of DVDs of the legendary New York Cosmos.

One of the discs was the complete coverage of a game against Tampa Bay Rowdies in 1976. It's amusing for several reasons. For it looks like a cross between a game in the park and the biggest sporting event in the country. The match was played at Yankee Stadium, home to the baseball giants the New York Yankees. The pitch therefore was still marked with a baseball diamond and a flattened down pitcher's mound. So around a quarter of the pitch was basically dirt.

As this is a game from 30 years ago TV coverage of soccer was in its infancy. There are no captions on screen for the score etc, and no close-ups. The commentary too is unusual in that the two guys haven't the best grip on what's going on, unsure of the score at one stage. Whenever the ball reached the baseball diamond the commentators would then refer to baseball terminology. "The ball played in to the shortstop." Commentary also routinely stopped for the commentator to read out sponsors' messages.

"Pele and Marsh are having a real contest in the centre of the field...throughout July get free air conditioning with every purchase over $50 at Joe's Tyre Yard...Smith swings a cross over..."

There are some stills from the DVD below.

An Evening With Kevin Smith

Having the big bucks to throw around, such as I do, the other day there I chucked away £5 on An Evening With Kevin Smith. A double disc DVD Q & A with the ‘Clerks’ director that came out in around 2002.

When he gets going he is very entertaining. However much of the discs’ 3 hour plus running time is taken up by fanboys asking him if he wants to smoke weed with them afterwards or about how much they love him and would like to orally pleasure him.

Smith also seems to insult practically everyone who asks a question. When he’s allowed to tell stories of crazy Hollywood people the DVD is well worth the money. His story of filming a documentary with Prince is worth the five bucks alone.

The best portion though is probably this bit below, a near twenty minute tale of how he came to write a draft of Superman.

Saturday Night Live 25 Years of Music

Recently I bought volume one of Saturday Night Live 25 Years of Music. Featuring live performances from bands from 1975 to 1980 I enjoyed it so much I ended up buying all 5 volumes.

As well as music there’s a good sprinkling of music related SNL sketches. All the clips are held together by links from one of each particular era’s alumni.

Volume one features Carly Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, Patti Smith performing ‘Gloria’ and Joe Cocker performing alongside John Belushi doing an impression of him. It also features a controversial performance from Elvis Costello, which allegedly got him banned from the show. Although went on to appear again.

The set features a lot of acts at the peak of their powers, doing one of their most recognisable songs.

Rick James doing ‘Super Freak’, Neil Young performing ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’, Nirvana playing ‘Rape Me’ and Talking Heads doing ‘Take me to the River’.

Even bands I initially wasn’t interested in offer gripping performances such as Live, Blind Melon, Randy Newman and Fine Young Cannibals.

It also includes Sinead O’Connor’s infamous performance of Bob Marley’s ‘War’.

The sketches include Bill Murray singing ‘Star Wars’, Steve Martin as King Tut, Kevin Spacey, Michael Palin and Beck in a sketch called ‘Weed Doctor’ and Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze auditioning for the Chippendales.

At only 3 quid per disc, take a trip into your nearest Fopp or Music Zone to pick one up. Below is Elvis Costello and the Attractions.

When Chat Shows Were King

With some money that my Mum gave me for my birthday I decided to invest in some entertainment. After some debate I plumped for The Dick Cavett Show:
Comic Legends. It’s 4 discs and 14 hours of legendary comics.

The box has such treats as hour long interviews with Groucho Marx, Bob Hope and Mel Brooks. It also includes pre-Cosby Show Bill Cosby, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny and Woody Allen.

Where else would you get to see Woody Allen take questions form the audience before rolling up his sleeves and doing push-ups? "I can’t take my shirt off. I have a pornographic tattoo on my chest. It can’t be seen on any major network."

Truman Capote appears unable to get a word in as Groucho talks incessantly. Cosby discusses race relations. Mel Brooks and film critic Rex Reed get into a lively debate with a film censor over the censor’s role in movies. Jerry Lewis discusses his fall out with Dean Martin. At the time of the show Lewis mentions his next picture, ‘The Day the Clown Cried’ a film that was infamously never released. Coincidentally in the next episode Capote talks about ‘Answered Prayers’ the novel he never finished, "Either I’ll kill it or it will kill me".

This is the kind of stuff you don’t get anywhere these days, probing questions, proper discussion and legendary performers entertaining the audience not merely fielding questions.

Cavett is a great interviewer too, a top comedian in his own right, he’s respected by all his guests, so they’re happy to open up to him.

Here’s an appreciation of Cavett by Clive James from Slate magazine.

Below is ten minutes of Cavett and Woody.

Following on from that, when I got in from last night’s gig I watched ‘The Year in Chat’ on BBC Four. This was a compilation of interviews from UK chat shows in 1973.

It was mainly made up of clips of Parkinson and Russell Harty. It featured a lot of legendary figures and some fascinating and entertaining chat.

Oliver Reed shows that he could be a charming raconteur offering anecdotes about George Bernard Shaw and impressions of Orson Welles and Michael Winner. Another famed drinker, Richard Harris provided some insights into the craft of Marlon Brando, that included an uncanny portrayal of Brando as Marc Antony.

Parkinson attempts to discover why Eartha Kitt performed in apartheid era South Africa, a line of questioning that the singer hotly objected to. Russell Harty and Malcolm McDowell get into an argument over the violence in A Clockwork Orange and Sir Matt Busby tells Parky how he ‘wanted to die’ while lying in hospital after the Munich air crash.

Some of the line of questioning was far funnier though, as Parkinson asks Liberace in all seriousness, "Why have you never married?"

Mathematician Jacob Bronowski discusses the coming to power of Hitler and the dropping of the atomic bomb as the two single worst events in the 20th Century. Jonny Speight, Kirk Douglas and Ingrid Bergman were also some of the many clips included.

Kenneth Williams was featured going on a rant to Parky about the TUC and the numerous strikes that were taking place in Britain at that time. Although the argument gets heated, at one stage Parky tells Williams he is talking ‘crap’, it never gets out of hand and Williams always manages to milk every available comedic moment.

Just like Cavett this is the kind of stuff that you don’t see on television nowadays. Not even Michael Parkinson is Parkinson anymore.

Below Dick and Woody is that heated argument between Parkinson and Kenneth Williams.

And just as a bonus after that there’s Jonathan Ross when he fronted a relevant chat show The Last Resort, speaking with Terry Gilliam around 1987.

Support Tupac Shakur Boulevard

I knew they'd release this sooner or later.

He Used to Give Me Roses

All you DVD lovers out there it has arrived! Only £588.14.

No Flipping

This is a really good interview with Garry Shandling. He has put together a Best of Larry Sanders box set of 23 episodes. He’s also made a warts and all documentary, where he went around apologising to the people he felt he let down during the duration of the series.

A shame though that they don’t seem to have released all the seasons in their entirety. In the UK all we got was a 6 episode ‘Best of’ DVD, while the US got the whole of season one, though it appeared to stop there.

I would also love for someone to release a DVD of Shandling’s earlier, and in my opinion much funnier show, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show.

Librarian Stills

You may (or may not) remember that I took part in a short film last year called The Librarian. Well it’s been edited and assembled and a DVD arrived through my door a few days ago.

So here for your delight are a few screenshots.

McLibel

Again back at my Mum’s for Christmas I wandered into the local branch of Blockbuster, where they were selling a shed load of ex-rental DVDs for a few pounds.

In my haul I picked up McLibel for £1. It tells the story of what became known as McLibel trial, where two protesters Helen Steel and Dave Morris were taken to court for libel by McDonald’s over a handful of leaflets they had distributed in London.

It was originally released in 1997, but this version takes the story right up to 2005, when they took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Denied legal aid the pair defended themselves against McDonald’s and their team of big fuck-off lawyers. It’s a very interesting story filmed over ten years, which shows the pair throughout the trial with occasional dramatic re-enactments of what went on in the courtroom.

Since Super Size Me I literally haven’t set foot inside a McDonald’s but when I saw inside the McDonald’s chicken farm during McLibel it started to put me off meat completely.

Here are a couple of interviews with the films’ director Franny Armstrong. First from the BBC’s Storyville site then from Shooting People.

You can read the whole story on McSpotlight the website Dave and Helen set up to highlight their battle.

As a footnote the courtroom scenes were directed by Ken Loach, who in the 1980s, when he couldn’t get work as a filmmaker, directed an advert for McDonalds.