Right now, I have 75 or so movies on the Netflix queue, so trying to decide what I want to come to me next gets difficult. There is about 10-15 that I have had on their since I originally got the service and I will probably never get to. But the ones that I get most excited about and get bumped up are usually the awesomely bad movies. I know I’ve never seen The Bridge Over The River Kwai, but it was put on hold so I could see Youngblood, with Rob Lowe as hockey player named Dean Youngblood trying to make it in the minor leagues with the help of Patrick Swayze. It barely made a release as a DVD, but was first on my list to watch.
Same is the case with Firestorm. Joan is the one that found out about this, and thank god. I don’t know how I could go through life having not seen Howie Long as firejumper Jesse Graves.  It seems like the makers thought it would be a decent movie, they spent the money on actors like William Forsythe (great character actor from Raising Arizona, The Rock and Dick Tracy) and Scott Glenn (Axe from Backdraft).  But when watching it, Kelly’s superiour knowledge of crappy movies helped her figure out the plot in the first ten minutes and confirm how awesomely bad this movie really was.   So if your the type of person that enjoys movies like 4 Brothers or The Marine, I would give Firestorm a watch. (I was going to change the picture of Howie’s face to Neil’s, but that confused look is too good to change)

And if you have free time, but not enough to be watching whole crappy movies, you can watch good shorts: here is a site with some short nifty videos, and here are the animated shorts that were nominated for this past year’s oscars. (more…)

To bring up rants once again, here are two pretty good rants:

From one of my favorite comedians, Patton Oswalt, a rant about people who don’t complain about the Watchmen movie (which could be applied to many movies) and shows that people should be watching. The only one I’ve seen is Eastbound and Down, and it is spot on assessment. If anyone else seen any of the shows he mentions? I was considering watching Burn Notice based on Bruce Campbell being in it.

I found this while watching a bunch of Conan O’Brien clips on Hulu.  It’s Louis CK on Conan:

It makes business sense that if something works, then find out what made it work and do it again. The entertainment industry gets criticized for this, but this is how the system works. One example I discovered today was this new “indie” movie called Sunshine Cleaning. They didn’t really need to say “from the people who brought you Little Miss Sunshine” when they are obviously the same thing. There is a dysfunctional family trying to make ends meet with a tell-it-like-it-is with scarcasm sibling and Alan Arkin as the crotchety father. Oh yeah, the fucking name also has Sunshine in it. The worst part is that this movie seems like something I want to watch.
I digress. The point is of this rant is that I have always thought of the band, The Yeah, Yeah Yeah’s, as a product of this business sense. I always thought that the only reason that the trio got a major record deal was because the music industry wanted further cash in on the success of a The Strokes. New York bands were getting popular in the 90’s and they wanted to see how profitable and “indie” band could be. Whether that is true or not, I never really gave them a chance. However I did get a hold of their first cd, Fever to Tell, and it is amazing.  The lead singer, Karen O, sings some pretty weird stuff, but it works really well with the songs.  They have a new cd coming out on March 31st, called It’s Blitz.  A couple blogs have posted that the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s myspace is streaming the entire album to listen to, but that promotion my be over now.  The myspace does have their cover of Sheena is a Punk Rocker they did for the War Child Heroes album.  There are bunch of the new songs on the HypeMachine if any of ya’ll are interested.

As it happened, the last time I took a road trip to Toledo, OH, I found myself at a bar called Mickey Finn’s. It’s a nice bar in one room, and in the next it’s got a stage, kinda like something you’d find at a bar in Wrigleyville where small bands can rock your Friday or Saturday nights. I liked the atmosphere (lots of punk-esque, undergrounders and hippies and other liberal music enthusiasts), and was digging on a band I knew nothing about. Turns out it was Johnnie Walker and a back-up band. The guys that played before him were pretty good, too – lots of modern blues/rock. So it was only natural for me to want to return to Finn’s this Friday when my friends picked me up from the train station. It was late, so I only got to catch the last band, a kind of Appalachian twangy folk group called the Rumpke Mountain Boys. Maybe I’m a sucker for banjos and harmonicas, but I really enjoyed kicking back and tappin’ my toes to their shit.

The next day, while we were driving back from lunch, I asked my buddy Eric who Andrew W.K. was. He immediately put in the album, “I Get Wet.” Maybe I was just out of the loop for the last years, but this metal / scene / rock is the kind of thing that would have made every frat party in college the party to be at. The lyrics are repetitive, sure, but sheer energy that pulses from their sound makes me want to see them live should they tour again. It’s a beer chuggin’ head bashin’ good time.

Finally came Sunday, and after a long conversation about The Darkness at the bar on Saturday night, Eric burned me a copy of their second album, “One Way Ticket to Hell…And Back.” I remember Kevin telling me that after “Permission to Land” came out he had seen them at Summerfest and that they played some songs not yet released, but I had never known they put out a second album, because well, I guess I just never did the research. Either way, the “One Way” is pretty good, though it’s no “Permission.” I guess in my opinion the songs are all the B-sides that would have been on “Permission” had there been enough room. Too bad Justin Hawkins had to depart. I feel like they were on to something.

So there’s my weekend music-discovering recap. Check out the Rumpke Mountain Boys and Andrew W.K., two styles of music from opposite ends of the spectrum, but both are pretty enjoyable…at least I think so.

Among many other things, I am a sucker for strip down rock ‘n’ roll, kick-drum,snare,kick-drum,snare drum beats and raw R&B/soul sounding music.  Hopefully that made sense.  The point is that King Kahn & BBQ Show is all of that.  They are just two dudes.  When they perform live, one plays guitar and sings and the other plays the high-hat, bass drum, guitar, and also sings.  Their name has gotten around a lot since The Black Lips, another awesome band, sited KK&BBQS as one of their favorite bands.  King Kahn recently did a video for Pitchfork interviewing a inspiration of his: The Mighty Hannibal.  I found the video through a site called The Sailor Jerry Blog; if you like this kind music, check it out.  After the jump, I’ll put up two of my favorite songs. (more…)