(A fan video, because in addition to writing awesome Zombie songs etc, Mr. Coulton releases his stuff under Creative Commons license which allows these cool fan vids to get made without fear of the dreaded Takedown Notice. You go Mr. Coulton.)

Here are all the mixes if you want to check out some other ones. The Torchwood one seems to be going over well. These are really just a bit of fun. I hope you like them though. If you could ‘Right-Click and Save As’ to help me preserve bandwidth, that would be shiny

• Captain John Hart
• Deviant – Angelus mix
• The Spark in Me – Spike Mixy
• Fists N Fangs
• Angelus Mix
• Spike Mix
• Angelus’ Passion Mix
• Angel’s Despair Mix
• Cheap Wine Lies – James Marsters
• Bones Mix
• The Bauer Mix
• And just because it makes me laugh – but is not a remix, Cavemen vs. Astronauts Debate

And here’s the Monty Python boys doing the same sketch:

Enjoy, and Happy Valentines day to you all.
xoxo

I’ll have a full post about the trip coming soon. Promise.

I made many attempts with tired clichés, but I couldn’t make anything work as a cohesive story. Until I thought about writing a story about a detective, like one of those old movies. At that time I’d never heard the term noir. I just remembered movies like Casablanca and Maltese Falcon and the atmosphere in those films. So I wrote my little detective story, used every clichéd scrap of language I could make up or remember, and turned it in.

The day came when he was reading out the stories, and I remember feeling slightly disappointed mine didn’t make it. Towards the end of class, he shut the lights off and turned the projector on in the back so it made a makeshift spotlight up front. Then he left the room. We were all quite puzzled and fidgety. When he came back in, he was wearing a fedora, a trenchcoat over a rumpled suit, and a lit cigarette. He walked to his desk at the front, leaned back in his chair and put his feet up.

Then he began to read my story. He read it while the smoke from his cig curled up around him. He spoke like Bogey. It was the most awesome moment in my high school career, and to this day, remains one of my best memories from those days, and began my appreciation for noir.

So when I saw the movie “Brick” I was blown away.

I absolutely loved this movie. The anachronistic use of noir-speak in a modern setting of high school was incredible. A loner kid tries to help his tragic ex-girlfriend who’s in trouble. He still loves her you see. Then she ends up dead and it becomes his mission to solve her murder. The movie’s got gangsters, thugs, dangerous dames, and beautiful tragedy. It was dark, it was funny, it was highly detailed and intricate.

See this movie. It’s fantastic.

Now, I hate the 70s. That’s an entire decade that makes me cringe. But I have “issues” that I’m now coming to terms with and I’m starting to give up some of that hatred. It was brought home to me while preparing for Music Madness at the paper when I realized that there are a rather large number of songs from the 70s that I actually love. In my defense, I didn’t know they came out in that decade. Most cases, I never heard them til i was older and more aware of music which didn’t happen until the early 80s for me.

But I digress. I was talking about Frampton and the Bee Gees and Aerosmith and Alice Cooper, all of whom appeared/performed in the movie. Now, my mother was a huge Beatles fan, and listening to her old records growing up sort of made me mildly interested in them. It was seeing this movie that cultivated that interest. It came out in 1978, when I was 7. I don’t recall whether I saw it in the cinema, but I do remember it being on TV. I was fascinated with it. I was sort of developing a bit of a crush on Peter Frampton and Shaun Cassidy at the time. Nothing major – I mean, I was 7 for frak’s sake. (Sorry, been watching Battlestar Galactica.)

I loved the music in the movie. The Bee Gees were HUGE back then so I guess that’s the sound I was familiar with. But most of all, I loved the story. They made real characters out of songs! That amazed me. Billy Shears. Mr. Kite. Strawberry Fields. The Hendersons. Mean Mr. Mustard. Basically it was like they were dabbling their toes in the video waters that were to come along in a few years.

The movie’s basic plotline is this: Sgt. Pepper and his band came from a town called Heartland, and their music and their instruments were imbued with some kind of peace-making magic or something. Anyway, the band enjoyed over 50 years of happy times and good music until the tradition was passed on to Sgt. Pepper’s grandson, Billy Shears (Peter Frampton) and his friends, the Henderson brothers (the Bee Gees.)

Now, Billy is in love with a girl named Strawberry Fields, who is sweet and pretty and wholesome and the whole town and it’s citizens are right out of Mayberry. Until the boys get a telegram telling them that some bigwig in L.A. heard their music and invites them out to record an album. The band goes, and are soon exposed to all manner of corruption – drugs, sex, lots of money. At first the boys are overwhelmed and succomb.

Meanwhile, back in Heartland, the town has been taken over by Mean Mr. Mustard, a corrupt real estate agent who turns out to be under the thumb of F.V.B. he turns the town into a hotbed of arcades, hookers and foreclosures. His main goal though, is to steal Sgt. Pepper’s instruments which are housed in a museum at city hall. F.V.B. orders him to take each intrument to other corrupt people, which he does.

Now, Strawberry Fields has left home (‘She’s Leaving Home’) to find Billy and tell him what’s happening. When she finds him, she gets jealous when she sees the chick from another band (Lucy and the Diamonds) draped all over him. But eventually, she tells him and the band sets off to recover the instruments.

I know I said “basic plot” but I’m finding it requires a longer explanation. It’s a weird movie

They get the instruments back (and we get a couple great scenes in which Steve Martin, in his film debut, plays a psycho plastic surgeon, Dr. Maxwell Edison, and his performance of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ is fun, and Alice Cooper plays a brainwashing ex-crossing guard called Father Sun, and he performs ‘Because’ in a trippy, acidic way.)

Anyway, the band holds a benefit (for Mr. Kite Kite is played by George Burns who is the town’s mayor and the film’s narrator.) for Heartland and Earth, Wind & Fire perform. But Mr. Mustard, who’s in love with Strawberry, kidnaps her and takes her to F.V.B. The boys are in pursuit.

Now, F.V.B stands for Future Villain Band in the standout scene that was my first-ever exposure to Aerosmith – and they scared me. Yes Aerosmith is F.V.B., and while Strawberry is tied to a wobbly electric dollar sign up on a platform, Aerosmith slither up the stairs singing ‘Come Together’ – and it’s fantastic and creepy and slightly sexually uncomfortable.

There’s a big fight between Billy Shears (Peter Frampton) and Steve Tyler and in the end, Strawberry is knocked off the platform and killed. As a seven year-old used to happy endings, this shocked me. It made me sad then, and I still get a little misty at this scene and the following scenes of her funeral (‘Golden Slumbers,’ ‘Carry that Weight,’ and ‘The Long and Winding Road.’) I’m afraid I always have and always will associate those three songs with the death of Strawberry Fields.

Gosh this is longer than I intended. Anyway to wrap it up, just as Billy is about to jump off a building to commit suicide, a Deus Ex Machina appears in the form of the town’s weathervane monument coming to life with magic powers to set everything right – including bringing Strawberry back to life. It’s actually Billy Preston performing ‘Get back’ and doing a nifty little boogie around the town square. Everyone’s happy again and for the finale, a plethora of Big 70s stars stand on a bunch of risers and sing ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’ Some big names in there too – like Tina Turner, Keith Carradine, Donovan, Carol Channing, leif Garrett (dreamy sigh – hey, I was 7!), Heart, Dame Edna, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Palmer, WIlson Pickett, Sha-na-na, and Wolfman Jack.

Now, I know I’ve made this out to be a very cool, very exciting movie not to be missed. I left out that it’s unbelievably cheesy, silly, requires some major belief suspension, and at times, kind of stupid. I revisit it every couple of years or so and it holds up for me, though some may beg to differ. But I will always love it.

This weekend, the kidlet performed with her tribal belly dance troupe at the city’s annual Ethnic festival (which is pretty much just a bunch of food booths and one or two places selling Native American stuff, along with all the educational stuff (Pro-life, pro-choice, Dems, Repubs, Library info) and some bouncy castles. And some bands and cloggers, and Highland dancers and belly dancers.

Here’s a couple videos of the belly dancers. The first one is the first song they did and the other one is four of the girls (including Shanster) dancing with their veils. I have more footage but man, youtube take forever to upload.