May 30, 2012 · 10:29 pm

The British Invasion Soldier That Didn’t Make It: The 1960s EP (Part 1)

In the old days — I’m talking mid-90s — when record companies were riding high, stuffing themselves with money (mostly mine, it seemed) from ridiculously overpriced compact discs, and iTunes was still a gleam in Bill Kincaid’s eye, I would say to anyone who’d listen that the EP was the ideal way to package and consume music, especially from new or unestablished artists. Anyone who’s ever bought an entire CD after seeing one video on MTV’s Buzz Bin should sympathize with me here. Paying $17 (after tax) for an overlong album when you know damn well there will be only about four songs that you really like? Why couldn’t bands and their record companies put out their four or five strongest songs on a $5-7 EP? I would’ve bought a shitload of those.

By this point, the person who was listening to me was hurriedly walking away, so I would grab on to his sleeve (my hypothetical listener is a he — a girl wouldn’t even have let me start talking about EPs) and explain how the humble EP never really caught on in the United States. EP stands for “extended play,” which in the ancient era of vinyl and record players, meant that although the record was seven inches across and spun at 45 rpm like a standard two-sided single, they managed to squeeze an extra song (or even two!) onto each side, and it cost only a little bit more. An interesting format, but one that seemed to leave the American market cold. But across the Atlantic…

1964… The British Invasion was wreaking havoc across the American music scene, and never were the differences between British and American record companies more apparent. If a British band (or “pop group” in the parlance of the time) was lucky enough to warrant a full-length album, they would go into studio and record sixteen or so tracks for their British label. The more ambitious bands would include several original compositions, but there would also be plenty of old American R&B standards that every British band could play in their sleep. Even the Beatles had to pad their early albums with chestnuts like “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Money (That’s What I Want).” Ideally, the bands would stockpile enough material for a 14-track album and the A-side and B-side of a single. According to custom, British singles were not included on original albums and considered a separate entity. This rule was informal and not always observed, but in the U.K., if you wanted the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” or the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black,” you either got the 45 or waited for a greatest hits album.

It would seem simple for the band’s American label (often a subsidiary of their U.K. label) to go ahead and put out the same album for U.S. consumers, but American record companies were a little stingier. They carelessly chopped up and re-ordered the carefully sequenced British albums. Ten- or twelve-track albums were the order of the day, and singles were always included, pushing four to six songs from the original running order. So for every two albums produced in Britain, the Americans squeezed out three or even four (they were not shy about re-using a few songs here and there.) As a result, cobbled-together stateside favorites like Beatles VI or the Stones’ December’s Children were a source of bafflement and irritation to their creators, who viewed them as crass bastardizations and underhanded cheats on their American audience. Even if an American album bore the same title as its British counterpart, it often had different songs (and was, of course, slightly shorter.)

Hey, where are you going? You’re not walking away now, are you? Yes, OK, back to EPs. The thrifty British embraced the format. Early on, they were used as a kind of greatest hits collection (who could envision a pop group having more than four hits in the early ’60s?). Sometimes they featured album tracks as a kind of sampler, to whet the appetites of their intended teenage audience as they saved their shillings to buy the full-length version (or waited until Christmas.)

But every once in awhile, one of the top-tier British bands was so bursting with ideas and material that they put out stand-alone EPs, featuring new songs unavailable in any other format. And what’s more, these provided even more material for the American record companies to cannibalize, so although they wouldn’t sell EPs, they certainly didn’t discourage the artists from making them. Let’s take a look at a few of the most noteworthy:

The Beatles — Long Tall Sally. (Tracks: 1. “Long Tall Sally.” 2. “I Call Your Name.” 3. “Slow Down.” 4. “Matchbox.” Released June 1, 1964). Continue reading →

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April 30, 2012 · 4:16 pm

“I thought the sticky thing was the Capitol”: The Holy Bee’s Adventures in Washington D.C. and New York City, Part 2

The Library of Congress (Thomas Jefferson building)

The bibliophilic Holy Bee comes home

Tuesday, October 23, 2011. The Library of Congress. 9:38 am. After a night’s sleep that was as good as could be excpeted, considering I was on a hotel sofa bed just a partition away from four loud-mouthed, giggling, snorting, farting eighth-grade boys, I was definitely looking forward to the day’s first destination: The Library of Congress. Regular readers know I’m a library junkie, making at least a trip per week to one of my local branches just to nose around. So a visit to what is essentially the national library of the United States would be as close to a religious experience as it’s possible for me to have. The Library of Congress began because former president Thomas Jefferson was a spendthrift with a taste for pricey imported French wines, and, like most of the Virginia planter class, lived on credit. By 1815, creditors were breathing down his neck.

The Library tour guide is giving details on “the richest interior in America.” Heather looks dubious.

So he sold his entire book collection — 6,487 volumes, the largest private collection in the country at the time — to the fledgling U.S. government. From there, it’s grown to over 22 million books housed in the Thomas Jefferson Building (built 1890-97) just across from the U.S. Capitol, and in three other (massive) buildings nearby. Continue reading →

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March 23, 2012 · 10:23 pm

“We’re First Class, right? Aren’t we supposed to be First Class?”: The Holy Bee’s Adventures in Washington D.C. and New York City, Part 1

SIX MONTHS AGO…

The private school that has been gracious enough to employ my (questionable) services as a Social Studies teacher has never restricted itself to what can be accomplished in the classroom alone. Although I would hesitate to call it a truly elite establishment, we’re aware that parents are shelling out a more-than-modest sum to ensure their little snowflakes get the best overall educational experience — and that includes a few trips beyond the shady suburbs of Sacramento as part of our “Learning Without Walls” curriculum. Our year-long LWW project for the 2011-2012 year was to conceptualize, design and produce a product in keeping with the National Design Museum’s “Design For The Other 90%”. From their website:

“Of the world’s total population of 6.5 billion, 5.8 billion people, or 90%, have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted; in fact, nearly half do not have regular access to food, clean water, or shelter. Design for the Other 90% explores a growing movement among designers to design low-cost solutions for this “other 90%.” Through partnerships both local and global, individuals and organizations are finding unique ways to address the basic challenges of survival and progress faced by the world’s poor and marginalized.

Designers, engineers, students and professors, architects, and social entrepreneurs from all over the globe are devising cost-effective ways to increase access to food and water, energy, education, healthcare, revenue-generating activities, and affordable transportation for those who most need them. And an increasing number of initiatives are providing solutions for underserved populations in developed countries such as the United States.”

A traveling exhibition of the National Design Museum’s work in this area was on display at the United Nations. What better way to inspire a group of 8th grade social entrepreneurs than a flying visit to New York City to view the exhibits — and squeeze in a visit to Our Nation’s Capital while we’re at it.

A pensive Cade at the Sacramento airport.

Sunday, October 23, 2011. Sacramento, CA. 6:55 am. In the pre-dawn darkness, nineteen eighth-graders gathered at Sacramento International Airport for an 8:20 am flight to Dallas, and the subsquent connecting flight to Washington, D.C. The eighth-graders in question were a great group of kids, undoubtedly one of the best groups I had ever worked with, but being the age they were, and belonging to the (ahem) social class that most of them did, there was a decided element of sheltered-ness to them. Even if they had made trips around the country and perhaps abroad, those trips were a round of plush rental cars, unlimited luggage, and 100% parental supervision and control at all times. This promised to be a little different for them. So there were nineteen students (including my son Cade, who will be featured in many of the pics, as I photographed in Parent Mode, not as much in Teacher Mode), and three faculty chaperones (myself, our esteemed Language Arts teacher MDG, and Our Principal). Each person was restricted to two small items of luggage (they had to fit on the train from D.C. to N.Y.C.). Student Hillary immediately tested the limits of this by showing up with a suitcase approximately the size of a Kenmore refrigerator.

The first sign of overall group cluelessness was when at least a half-dozen of them plopped down their baggage as soon as it came out of the security scanner, and proceeded to wander toward the gate, as if they expected a phalanx of liveried porters to appear and bear it for them. We had to round them up and explain to them that they were, indeed, expected to actually carry their carry-ons from start to finish. (And at some point between checking in her behemoth suitcase and arriving at the gate, Hillary managed to lose her boarding pass.)

“Now boarding all first-class passengers for non-stop service to Dallas/Fort Worth,” came the announcement. Tucker immediately gathered up his things and headed for the jetway.

Some of our girls preparing for departure

When halted in his purposeful stride by me, a look of genuine bewilderment crossed his freckled face. “We’re first-class, right? Aren’t we supposed to be first-class?” When assured we were flying coach with the rest of the serfs, he settled back in to ponder his new lot in life, which was rammed home to all of us as we squeezed into our seats on board. It’s been a while since I’ve flown, but I have to wonder if there’s been an on-going secret project of gradually miniaturizing commercial airlines. I’m no bigger than average, yet it felt like my knees were around my ears and my shins were driven into the upright folding tray in front of me.

Dallas/Fort Worth International Aiport, TX. 2:05 pm. Massaging circulation back into my lower limbs, I immediately switched into Professional Chaperone Mode upon arrival, counting and re-counting our awkward, gangly pubescent ducklings and chanting the mantra that would become ingrained in my skull over the next five days: “Nineteen…nineteen…nineteen…” D/FW is the eighth-busiest airport in the world, and to facilitate the movement of huge hordes of humanity, they have installed a people-mover monorail system called Skylink. As our Skylink glided to a halt, I stepped off in advance of the kids and began the count. And then failed to step back on after the kids had departed. The doors swooshed closed and the Skylink hummed on to the next gate.

With my suitcase on it. Continue reading →

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February 27, 2012 · 7:01 pm

Top 20 Albums of 2011

#20. The Beastie Boys — Hot Sauce Committee, Part Two. A welcome return after a cancer scare for Adam Yauch, and their overwrought and just-no-damn fun-at-all previous album, 2004’s To The Five Boroughs. Although the Beasties love an epic sprawl, you gotta admit their albums are often about five tracks too long. Hot Sauce Committee is succinct and tidy, never wears out its welcome, and the wordplay and beats are more reminiscent of the classic Paul’s Boutique than anything they’ve done in between now and then.

#19. Raphael Saadiq — Stone Rollin’. Sometimes it’s hard not to hold a person’s artistic past against him or her. (For example, in order to finally be taken seriously as an actor, Mark Wahlberg had to take years to overcome the stigma of being the tighty whitey–flashing teen rapper “Marky Mark,” which — to his credit — he did with grace and good humor.) Raphael Saadiq started out as a member of the ultra-slick, super-shallow New Jack Swing outfit Tony! Toni! Tone! in the late 80’s. He finally hung up his poofy Hammer pants in ’96, and began making solo records that hearkened back to ’60s soul — not so much in the smooth, jazzy Motown mold (which is great in its own way), but the more stripped-down, beat-oriented sound of Memphis R&B (with occasional flashes of funky West Coast psychedelia — love that Mellotron!) Saadiq plays most of the instruments himself. He’s a passable guitarist, and a great bassist, but the most immediately noticeable thing on most of the tracks is his absolutely gleeful bashing around on the drum kit.

#18. Cut Copy — Zonoscope. My love/hate relationship with electronic music comes down pretty firmly on the “love” side regarding Cut Copy. Human fingers moving across real instruments made of wood and metal will never (ever, ever, ever) be bettered by mouse-clicks and microchips, but the artifice and machine-assisted pulse of such creations can weave their own weird spells. Like Frankenstein’s Monster, true humanity reflected in a less-than-human simulacrum can be riveting to experience, if concocted by people still connected to emotions rather than simply sounds. This is why artists such as Cut Copy (with songs like “Take Me Over,” one of the best singles of the year) will always have longevity and resonance, as opposed to shallow sonic dog-shit like Skrillex. (I’m going to start a Kickstarter page to raise money to hire someone to punch that stain in the face.) Continue reading →

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January 20, 2012 · 5:36 pm

Top Albums of 2011: Honorable Mentions

I thought 2010 had been a great year for music, but it was really just a prelude to the embarrassment of riches 2011 has brought. As always, my Top 20 of 2011 list will be brought to you some time in early 2012 long after everyone has stopped caring, and as always, I begin December by taking a quick look at the albums that are worth hearing, but didn’t quite make the cut.

THE VETERANS:

R.E.M – Collapse Into Now. We all had to say goodbye to one of the cornerstones of modern rock when R.E.M. called it quits after 29 years. In this writer’s opinion, they should have done it after original drummer Bill Berry quit in 1997. The three albums after Berry’s departure were lackluster and hollow. (Some people still like Up, though.) But just when they were about to be written off as totally irrelevant, they came back to life with 2008’s aggressive Accelerate, and now this — their final album, which recaptures their signature sound. (“Oh My Heart” is the R.E.Miest song R.E.M. have ever done.) Glad they’re going out on a high note.

Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto. Always commercial-oriented (remember when “Clocks” was everywhere?), Coldplay doesn’t lose a step, putting out an album that captures the sound  of  “Top 40 Radio in 2011,” but proving those big, glitzy pop/R&B grooves don’t have to restrict themselves to brainless fun. If you program your ‘pod to skip some of the weaker Melancholy Ballads (TM) that are also Coldplay’s stock in trade, this would make a good “summer” album.

THE THROWBACKS:

Black Lips

Pains Of Being Pure At Heart — Belong. Some great hooks to be heard here, but man do these guys wish it were 1988 and they were opening for My Bloody Valentine. Belong is a meticulously crafted homage to those halcyon days where straightforward pop like The Outfield began co-mingling in listeners’ ears with the stuff coming from the fuzzy underground. They re-create it so well that it’s almost distracting.

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears — Scandalous. Retro soul of the Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings variety, but lacking that outfit’s dark edges. This is a party record through and through.

Black Lips — Arabia Mountain. A Georgia punk band formerly known more for their onstage antics than for their music, they’ve finally began developing some real chops over their last three albums. They’ve dug a nice little niche between the primal garage rock of the 1960s and the hardcore sound of 1980s acts like Husker Du and the Minutemen. They’re still a little inconsistent over the course of an entire album, but I predict their arrival in my actual Top 20 within their next few releases (if they don’t electrocute themselves or OD in the meantime.)

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January 1, 2012 · 2:51 pm

Books of the Holy Bee, 2011

I’ve always known my reading tends to skew toward biography and memoir. What I didn’t realize is how completely it’s taken over my reading list. Of the 31 non-fiction books I got through this year, 24 of them were someone’s life story. But what’s not to like? You learn not only about an interesting person, but also about the era they lived in and its cultural context. I’ve considered trying to break away and broaden my palette, but why bother? Bios have it all. I hereby declare 2011 the Year of the Biography.

Here’s some highlights from my 2011 reading list (I’ve included a few pics of the Holy Bee’s personal library so you can see what I’ve chosen to surround myself with rather than actual people):

BOOK OF THE YEAR:

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Craig Marks & Rob Tannenbaum

I don’t know if he invented it, but writer Studs Terkel certainly perfected the concept of an “oral history.” He would go out and interview a wide variety of people who created or influenced an aspect of American culture, and piece together a book on that topic out of their own words. In (relatively) recent years, two landmark works of oral history have been published — 1995’s Please Kill Me told the story of the rise and fall of punk rock in America and Britain in the words of the scene’s (surviving) participants, and 2002’s Live From New York dealt with the seemingly unkillable NBC late night comedy show Saturday Night Live. Marks and Tannenbaum acknowledge the influence of these two books in the introduction to their own (yes, I read the introductions to books), which gathers recollections from hundreds of artists, directors, executives, and on-air personalities (“VJs”) to explore the glory years (1981-92) of the revolutionary cable network Music Television.

MTV was a huge part of growing up for me, both through childhood and adolescence. In its early years (1981-85), my older sister and her friends would sit and stare at it for hours. It was a time for them to socialize, yes, but often they just watched, sometimes offering a little pre-Beavis & Butthead commentary. Occasionally, grade-school Holy Bee would join them as a welcome guest. Other times I had to sneak down after dark and hide behind the couch, half-listening as they talked about incomprehensible high school things, and watching images of Van Halen, Madonna, Lionel Richie, The Thompson Twins, The Eurythmics, and many others unspooling before my eyes as I peeked out through the crack between the couch and the wall. (Looking back, I’m pretty sure they knew I was there, but ignored me.)

Then, when my sister went off to college and my family moved to a rural area with no cable — no more MTV. As a result, there’s a noticeable gap in my knowledge of music and pop culture from 1986 through the first half of 1989. When people bring up the likes of Rick Astley or Frankie Goes To Hollywood (as they often do), I go a little blank. I wasn’t missing much, though. Evidently, ’86 to ’89 was hair metal’s time to shine, and the two biggest VJs were the absolutely odious Downtown Julie Brown and the pompous blowhard Adam Curry. (Want a quote from Curry straight from the book? “I called MTV ‘The Big M…’ I thought that was genius of me.” He’s serious. It’s on page 375.)

Starting high school and a return to a cable-friendly area coincided perfectly for me in the summer of ’89. I was back on the grid, literally and figuratively. These were “my” MTV years — ’89 to ’94. I didn’t know the behind-the-scenes issues that were slowly and imperceptibly changing the network even back then, I only knew it was on my bedroom TV from the time I got home from school at 3:30 to the time I nodded off shortly after midnight, and it was on in the background of every social occasion I attended.

It’s been a long-lamented fact that MTV no longer shows music videos. The way people my age and a little older (the original “MTV generation”) wail about this has become tiresome. I’m sure there were scroll enthusiasts who pitched a fit when moveable type was invented. Some things just can’t be viably saved, no matter how much they remind us of our rapidly-fading youth. The book makes it clear that just showing videos was ultimately a dead-end. Fewer people were tuning in to watch them. As video games became more sophisticated and popular, they became the after-school activity of choice for slack-jawed teenagers. And music genres were becoming increasingly separated — rap fans wouldn’t watch rock videos, and vice versa. The big, happy melting pot of the 80’s was long gone — as dictated by the viewers themselves.

The cold, hard numbers showed that the channel was slowly dying by the early 1990s, and original programming like The Real World saved it, at least as far as its ad revenues were concerned (which is the only reason any show is on any network, ever.) Kids who would no longer watch music videos would watch six over-entitled shitheads squabble in kooky-looking house. We can rail against the lack of “M” in “MTV” all we want, but its (d)evolution was absolutely inevitable. Why is still called “MTV” if there’s no “M”? Same reason it’s still “AT&T” (the second “T” being “telegraph.”) It’s just a name now. Or, in the words of Duran Duran keyboardist Nick Rhodes: “Now it stands for Money.”

Still, it was fun while it lasted. I’ll leave you with a quote from late-period VJ Dave Holmes: “I don’t think kids twenty-five years from now will be talking about a specific episode of My Super Sweet 16 the way we remember things about videos.”

People are getting stupider, though. They probably will, Dave. They probably will. Continue reading →

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December 15, 2011 · 4:13 pm

The Holy Bee Recommends, #8: Best Versions Of The 25 Best Christmas Songs (Part 2: 10 Through 1)

The King of Christmas Music, and my role model in everything except parenting: Bing “If You Hit ‘Em With A Bag Of Oranges It Doesn’t Leave A Mark” Crosby

#10. “Merry Christmas, Baby.” Possibly because of their gospel roots, R&B singers seem to love Christmas music, and there are several worthy compilation albums out there that bring together some of the best R&B takes on classic Christmas music. (Sadly, there are also compilations that bring together some of the worst, so buyer beware.) In addition to R&B renditions of the traditional carols, there’s also a huge array of original R&B  holiday songs, from Charles Brown’s heart-breaker “Please Come Home For Christmas” (also covered in a hit version by — yeeesh — The Eagles) to Louis Armstrong’s goofy “‘Zat You, Santa Claus?” But the grandaddy of them all is “Merry Christmas, Baby,” originally recorded in 1947 by Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers, and covered by everyone from Chuck Berry to Christina Aguilera. BEST VERSION: Otis Redding. Recorded at his peak with the powerhouse Stax-Volt house band, Redding schools them all. You can find another version on Elvis Presley’s second Christmas album, 1971’s Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas, which can’t hold a candle to his first. Elvis sounds tired and jaded, and probably has one eye on the gingerbread at this point, but it does contain a version of “Merry Christmas, Baby” that’s worth hearing. If you can get past the quasi-blues musical arrangement that probably sounded fine in ’71, but today sounds exactly like a Cialis commercial, you’ll be treated to a casual and funny version of the song, something that sounds like the band warming up in the studio prior to recording whatever they were supposed to recording. It also sounds like the band thought song was going to be faded out for its ending, but the take that made it onto the album goes way past that point, with Elvis (whose pharmaceutical assistance is quite audible) tossing out increasingly bizarre asides to the musicians, and attempting to scat between verses.

#9. “Christmas Must Be Tonight.” Apologies to Creedence Clearwater Revival, but there simply was no better (North) American band from 1968 to 1971 than The Band. Which I guess is a moot point here, as “Christmas Must Be Tonight” dates from their less-consistent later years. Originally intended to be a special, non-album single release for Christmas 1975, it was dumped at the last minute, and ultimately included on their patchwork final release, Islands, in 1977. Good thing, too, as the dire Islands needs a lift, and “Christmas Must Be Tonight” re-visits the strengths of the Band’s glory days — Rick Danko’s soulful vocals, Garth Hudson’s mystical organ, and a rural, rustic arrangement that hearkens back to an era (music writer Greil Marcus calls it the “old, weird America”) that none of the Band members could possibly be old enough to remember — half-history, half-fantasy, it all comes from chief songwriter Robbie Robertson’s fertile imagination. BEST VERSION: The Band. My research indicates Hall & Oates also took a stab at it, and there’s an iTunes-only version by Band heir-apparents My Morning Jacket that just came out a few weeks ago.

#8. “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” At this point, we should discuss the merits of Christmas albums. There’s always a few new ones each year, generally by flash-in-the-pan mediocrities (most often from competition TV shows) hurriedly shoved out as a cynical cash-grab to pad out their sales figures, which will soon go into steep decline when the American public, with its squirrel-monkey attention span, moves on to the next TV-endorsed mediocrity. When it gets right down to it, the best Christmas albums all came out between 1945 and 1965. I feel that way not because I’m necessarily the world’s biggest Andy Williams or Gene Autry fan, but because by comparison, the newer ones sound kind of vapid and overly slick. Working beyond this Golden Age, your best bet is compilations — collections of songs by various artists. And even during the Golden Age, one of the best Christmas albums was a compilation. Well, sort of. All of the various artists were on the same label (Philles Records), all of the songs were recorded at the same time for the same record, and the whole project had a single producer: Phil Spector, the label’s co-founder. The future convicted murderer gathered together his top four artists — The Ronettes, The Crystals, Darlene Love, and, uh…Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans (how did that happen?), put together amped-up versions of some Christmas favorites featuring his big, booming Wall Of Sound production technique, and let loose this gleeful explosion of holiday bliss — on November 22, 1963. Understandably, it kind of fizzled at the time. But A Christmas Gift For You From Philles Records (later pressings of the record replaced “Philles Records” with “Phil Spector”) had staying power, and now it stands proudly atop the Christmas album heap. BEST VERSION: When that creepy cat lady Susan Boyle is deservedly long-forgotten, Darlene Love and her “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” will continue to have eternal life. (Two or three Christmases ago, Boyle was a household name, but just for a moment there, you thought to yourself, “Susan who?” didn’t you? See? It’s already happening. And what Christmas song did she do definitively, for all time? Exactly. Not a damn one.) Continue reading →

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November 23, 2011 · 10:46 am

The Holy Bee Recommends, #8: Best Versions Of The 25 Best Christmas Songs (Part 1: 25 Through 11)

All right, kids, pull your chair up next to the fire, make sure your hot cocoa has a liberal splash of peppermint schnapps, mute that horrid eunuch Michael Buble warbling away on whatever passes for a network Christmas special these days, and lend an ear to the Holy Bee’s Top 25 Christmas Songs — and the artists who did them best. And even though I say “25,” faithful readers know I always throw in extra.

First of all, let’s dispense with those 3 Perennial Chestnuts that are more jingles than songs: “Jingle Bells,” “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” and “Deck The Halls.” A staple of grade-school recitals, these super-simple ditties that anyone can pick out on a piano after few minutes of fooling around barely qualify as “songs.” We can acknowledge that they’re a huge part of the fabric of Christmas and move on.

Second of all, while I cast a pretty jaundiced eye on religion, the music lover in me has a lot of fondness for some of the Jesus-oriented songs. Some would say that the sentiments expressed in the religious songs are the whole reason for Christmas to begin with, and to them I say feh. Solstice festivals at the end of the year had been a facet of civilization since time immemorial. Then the Christians came along and, with no scriptural nor any other kind of evidence, high-handedly plopped their savior’s birthday right on top of the year-end celebrations that predated their belief system by several millenia. They co-opted it because they knew people were already having a good time around that time of year, and they wanted a piece of the action for their golden boy. Well, I’m co-opting it right back, and I’m taking the term “Christmas” and several of the songs with me. Secular humanism for the win!

#25. “The Nutcracker Suite.” Not really a song per se, this is a sort of sampler of various musical pieces, hitting the highlights from a much longer work, Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker. Originally a flop at its 1892 debut in St. Petersberg, Russia, the U.S. took the The Nutcracker to its collective bosom when it began regular Yuletide performances in the 1950s. BEST VERSION: The Brian Setzer Orchestra knocks the hell out if it with an arrangement that combines rock & roll energy with big-band swing.

#24. “A Holly Jolly Christmas.” Simple to the point of imbecility,

Burl Ives

this sounds like the ramblings of a friendly guy on the barstool next to you. “I dunno if there’ll be snow/Have a cup of cheer…” The singer sounds as if he’s had a few cups already. BEST VERSION: Burl Ives’ 1965 recording is the one most people are familiar with, having been written for the Rankin-Bass Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special which featured Ives as narrator/singer the year before. The TV version is slightly different, and the later recording became the definitive rendering.

#23. “Christmas Time Is Here.” The slow, sad-sounding theme to the 1965 TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s healthy to have a little melancholy injected into your year-end celebrations. You’re one year closer to the grave, after all! (Ho ho ho.) A Charlie Brown Christmas has become so firmly entrenched as a holiday tradition, some people even think of the jauntier “Linus & Lucy” theme (i.e., “The Catchy Peanuts Piano Music Everyone Knows”) as “Christmas music,” but I associate more with Halloween. The Great Pumpkin special opens with it, whereas it’s buried halfway through the Christmas special. Best Version: The original by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

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October 20, 2011 · 10:35 pm

The Holy Bee’s 2011 Halloween Special, Part 2

The house is getting a warmer, so the Snuggie comes off. Maybe I should put some pants on. Naaaah…

As his motives become somewhat clearer, I am still left with the nagging question: Why is Michael Myers immortal? The other two horror super-franchises, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street make no bones (pun intended)(not really a pun) about their villains (heroes?) being of the supernatural realm. But Michael Myers is supposed to be a simple, flesh-and-blood serial killer. As of now, he has at least ten bullets in his torso, and two fired right through the eye holes of his mask. And he definitely bleeds. What’s going on here?

1:50 pm. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988). The coffee has long since been consumed, and I pry the first twist-top off a Bud Light Golden Wheat. (I keep trying to interest Anheuser-Busch in my tagline for this product: “The Cadillac of Shitty Beers.” I haven’t heard back from them yet.)

The swtich from Roman numerals to our more familiar Arabic numerals in the official title indicates our return to the familiar territory of Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis. No Laurie Strode, though. Jamie Lee Curtis was busy making one of my all-time favorite movies, A Fish Called Wanda. It would have been nice to have her, but she clearly made the right choice. Her character is killed off in an unspecified accident about a year before the events of 4, along with the husband she must have married right out of high school. (I suspect it’s supposed to be Lance Guest’s EMT character, Jimmy, who flirted with her in II.) Laurie’s eight-year-old daughter, Jamie Lloyd (daughter of “Jimmy”?),  is adopted by the Carruthers family, and becomes the sister of Rachel Carruthers.

Rachel is played by Ellie Cornell, and manages a performance of wit and toughness almost equal to Curtis in the original. She is, however, outshined by Danielle Harris as Jamie. Harris is pretty extraordinary for a child actress, and really gets put through the wringer in this flick, but is never over-precocious or unnatural. Pleasence once again hams it up delightfully (he usually takes about three syllables to say his favorite word, “eeee-vy-il.”) Non-John Carpenter-related work appears to have dried up for Pleasence, so now instead of shamefacedly slumming in quick-cash slasher flicks between Shakespeare engagements, he appears to have made the Halloween franchise the centerpiece of his career.

2:30 pm. I fix a ham sandwich in honor of Donald Pleasence.

The hellish immolation of Myers and Loomis at the end of Halloween II ten years before is dismissed in the first five minutes as both of them “almost dying” in a fire. Loomis now has a bit of scarring and a limp. Myers has been in a coma under heavy guard. Naturally, he wakes up. With amazing navigational and driving skill for someone who has spent most of his life locked in asylums or comatose, he comes after his lone remaining family member — his niece Jamie. Although it has none of the atmosphere and subtlety of the first film, it also keeps the gore at a pretty tame level. The deaths here are actually milder than a Stallone or Schwarzenegger action flick of the same era. The movie is not good, but after Halloween III it seems like Citizen Kane. Rachel acts as a valiant protector of her adopted sister Jamie, and Michael Myers gets another “death” in a hail of gunfire (and another sheriff’s daughter gets offed in the process.) In a little epilogue just before the credits, it seems Jamie has inherited her uncle’s murderous tendencies.

3:28 pm. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989). Remember when they used to call empty beer bottles “dead soldiers”? Well, I’ve got three dead soldiers on the floor next to the couch, and a fourth about to fold under my enhanced interrogation techniques. Myers survives his most recent death and appears to have established a telepathic bond with Jamie. Jamie has been thoroughly and understandably traumatized by the events of 4, and after a (failed) Myers-style knife attack on her adoptive mother, now lives full-time in a children’s clinic, experiencing nightmares, seizures, and a total loss of speaking ability. Rachel and her “free spirited” sidekick Tina visit her frequently. (Lots of hairspray and dangly bracelets = zany free-spirit in 80’s movies.) In a move that’s pretty shocking, when Myers hits Haddonfield again one of his first victims is — Rachel. The smart, intrepid heroine of 4 is scissored to death in the first fifteen minutes of 5. Bummer. But in making Myers’ victims someone the audience cares about rather than the typical random stupid teen of the run-of-the-mill slasher movie, there’s some added gravitas that raises the Halloween movies a little above their contemporaries.

When Rachel meets her demise, the scream-queen torch is passed to wacky Tina for no logical reason, but Tina does not survive the film, either (she nobly sacrifices herself so Jamie can escape.) Pleasence has moved beyond merely chewing the scenery and is now devouring it in great slabs. “I prayed that he would burn in Hell. But in my heart, I knew that Hell would not have him!!” is a typical Loomis line, delivered with spittle-emitting intensity. One of the Jackass Boyfriends is supposed to be a brooding, dangerous punk, but dresses exactly like the Fonz. (Horror movie creators are oddly old-fashioned at times.) The killings come quicker in the later sequels. Fonzie is dispatched with a gardening implement five minutes after being introduced. Ayyyy! Continue reading →

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October 18, 2011 · 3:55 pm

The Holy Bee’s 2011 Halloween Special, Part 1

The concept for my 2011 Halloween Special came to me when I was still writing my 2010 Halloween Special, and I was a little depressed that I would have to sit on such a great idea for a whole year before I could implement it. But October has finally rolled around at last, and now that it’s time to complete what I had planned, I’ve realized that it’s much easier to conjure up these things that to actually do them.

But I’m committed, come hell or high water, to watch every movie in the original Halloween series in a single sitting. That’s eight feature films. None of them are of epic length, mind you, but it’s still a pretty decent chunk of time to have an ass parked on a couch. Luckily, my skill at sitting almost motionless for hours at a stretch is unparalleled, except by certain species of reptile and the more dedicated East Indian fakirs. So all it will really take out of me is time, and I’ve got that. If, last October I had decided that for my 2011 Halloween special I would run October’s Portland marathon in a Jason-style hockey mask you would most assuredly be reading a list of excuses right now.

This is at least somewhat uncharted territory for me. I’ve seen the first Halloween many times, and I actually saw Halloween 5 in 1989 on an ill-advised high school double-date. The rest will be all new to me, because I’m not really a horror aficionado. A well-made one can be great, but too many rely on the lazy technique of someone/thing suddenly lunging into frame accompanied by a loud sting of music. To make an audience jump as an involuntary physical response to a sudden change in volume or visual stimuli is not “horrifying” them, it’s triggering a simple reflex. And it’s poor filmmaking when used too often. From what I’ve heard, the Halloween sequels range in quality from dubious to wretched, so I’m expecting a lot of it-was-only-the-cat “ha ha made you jump” moments.

On with it, then. On Saturday, October 15, armed with only my notebook, a Snuggie, DVDs of Halloween 1 through 6 (and the remaining two  streaming on Netflix Instant View), and a variety of nearby beverages, I settle in to complete the challenge I had set for myself the year before.

8:53 am. Halloween (1978). The sound of the coffee pot beginning to drip in my kitchen blends in with the classic Halloween theme. Not the first mainstream “slasher” movie (most people give that credit to 1974’s Black Christmas), it’s certainly the best. The opening credits are pretty iconic — a slightly battered, grinning jack o’lantern against a solid black screen with the credits in orange text. And of course, that music.

We start with a Prologue: Haddonfield, Illinois, 1963. Six-year-old Michael Myers is in the side yard of his house, observing his teenage sister and her jackass boyfriend necking on the couch. (All the teen girls in the Halloween franchise come packaged with horny, boorish Jackass Boyfriends as standard equipment.) We don’t see Michael yet, but we see what he sees, in what film geeks call a “POV shot.” (And for it being 1963, the Jackass Boyfriend is certainly rocking some post-Beatles hair. What is it with 70’s actors and their precious, precious hair? Beginning in about the mid-80’s, actors went ahead and committed to accurate period haircuts for TV shows and movies set in the past. But in the 70’s, it didn’t matter if the story was set in the Korean War or 1950’s Milwaukee, you were going to get guys with muttonchops and Jewfros and girls with feathered Farrah Fawcett ‘dos. Had someone with the hair length of a, say, Chachi Arcola actually shown up in 1950’s Milwaukee, he would have been beaten within an inch of his life as a suspected deviant. I’m not saying that’s right, I’m just saying it’s a likely scenario.) Continue reading →

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