OZZFEST, ETC.

Ozzfest was pretty great. I got there around 2 PM, just missing Mastodon (and missing Trivium and The Black Dahlia Murder by hours, which kinda pisses me off because TBDM's Miasma has been growing on me a lot - initially, it seemed like a disappointingly metalcore-ish follow-up to their death-metal's-future-is-now debut, Unhallowed, but the more I listen to it, the more I like it). I got to see As I Lay Dying (dull), Killswitch Engage (duller) and Rob Zombie (pretty good, and very funny.)

Zombie's between-song banter was almost more entertaining than his thumping disco-metal songs, but he ended his set brilliantly, probably inspired by the late-Seventies setting of his movie The Devil's Rejects: he played a medley of the James Gang's "Funk #49," White Zombie's "Thunder Kiss '65," and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." (The band probably dug this part, as it was their only chance to play solos.)

As far as the main stage was concerned, Black Sabbath didn't play because Ozzy was sick, which was fine with me because I saw them last year and they probably would have done the exact same set, which would have sullied my 2004 memories. Plus, this meant an extra 20 minutes or so of Iron Maiden, and Maiden totally kicked ass live. The buddy I attended with had never seen them (it was my third time since 2003), and was blown away by Dickinson's energy and lungpower, not to mention the way the three guitarists and the bassist hugged the lip of the stage, really playing to the crowd, without ever missing a note.

Some of the other acts were really good (Mudvayne), and others were just acceptable (Shadows Fall, In Flames). Black Label Society's set was when I took my dinner break. Their music is nothing but a slightly heavier Alice In Chains, but their position in the metal scene is what pisses me off. Wylde gets on every Ozzfest bill because he's Ozzy's guitar player, and the crowd cheers for him (when I'm there) because he's from Jersey. He doesn't sell worth a shit, and would be second stage material, if that, without the nepotism. Grr.

In general, though, it was a very good show, despite the rain. I doubt I'll go back next year, unless they get Metallica to (like Maiden did this year) promise to play only songs from the first four albums. (Maiden could've gone with material all the way up to Powerslave, if it was up to me, but what the hell.)

In non-Ozzfest news, I wrote more about Mudvayne, Shadows Fall and In Flames here.

Oh yeah, you should go buy the new Stinking Lizaveta album. Instrumental heaviosity doesn't begin or end with Pelican, y'know.

CRITICS DON'T EVEN PLAY MUSIC, MAAAANNN!

Bought a bucketload of music software recently: Reason 3.0, ReCycle 2.1, and now Reaktor 5. (It seems to me that Reaktor and Reason are not, in fact, compatible, which means I'm gonna have to buy Digital Professional in order to make anything out of my Reaktor tracks, but I'll let that wait a year or two, until I've figured out Reaktor - it's incredibly dense and hardcore, especially compared with Reason, which is quick 'n' easy even for retards...like me.)

I don't know when I'm gonna have any real time to work with this stuff, but I've got some ideas, so why not? (Also kinda ironic that I'm taking an audio engineering class at the same time I'm learning to use music software that will keep me from ever having to enter a recording studio.)

Off to Ozzfest today. Predicted weather: 95 degrees, thunderstorm in the afternoon. Paaaaaar-tee!

POINT BLANK

Simply one of the greatest crime movies ever, and one of Lee Marvin's all-time Top Five performances. (Some of the others: The Big Heat, The Big Red One, Death Hunt.) I wrote about it here a few years ago, when it was run on TCM. They sent me a real nice widescreen VHS screener. And now it's on DVD, and in recognition of that, Charles Taylor has written a fantastic piece in the New York Observer, making many points I had no idea about until I checked out the commentary track on the DVD. Read the essay, then go buy the movie. You won't be sorry.

SOILENT GREEN, CONSTANTINE

I don't get the appeal of Soilent Green, but maybe you do. They're on tour; go see 'em if you want.

Another reason not to trust movie critics: I watched Constantine last night, and it was really fuckin' good. Sure, Keanu Reeves is kinda wooden - whoever the guy is who played "Spike" on Buffy probably would have been a better, if non-marquee, choice for the part of a guy who drinks, chain-smokes and battles demons. But the rest of the cast is terrific. You got Rachel Weisz, a little weird-looking but also totally hot, playing twin psychics; Tilda Swinton as the Archangel Gabriel (she didn't do as much with the part as Christopher Walken did in the first two Prophecy movies, but she was very solid); and best of all, Peter Stormare as Satan. No kidding, it's worth a rental just to watch him for about five minutes at the end.

I don't know why the movie got the reviews it did. Maybe people were pissed at Keanu after the overpowering stench of the last two Matrix movies or something. But for a movie based on a comic book based on Bible bullshit, Constantine is very entertaining and relatively coherent. And it's extremely well filmed; it looks great. Check it out if you have a couple of hours to kill. You won't be sorry.

NOW COMES THE WHORIN'

Spent about an hour on the phone yesterday with a few of the marketing people from Backbeat Books, who will be putting out Running The Voodoo Down: The Electric Music Of Miles Davis in October, not September as I originally thought.

They seem like nice folks, and I'll be glad to help them sell the living shit out of my book by whatever means I can. (Click here to preorder.)

But until it streets, I gotta focus on current work, which includes reviewing the new Bad Plus disc.

On first listen, I'm not loving it as much as I'm kinda shaking my head in genial bafflement. It's a piano-trio disc, with no guest vocalists or instrumentalists, so right away you're riding the bullet-train to Sameytown. But what really gets me about these guys is how influenced they sound by 70s radio-rock. The piano player, Ethan Iverson, sounds like he spent way more time listening to Billy Joel and Rick Wakeman than, say, Ahmad Jamal or Bill Evans. Basically, if Ben Folds would shut the fuck up for a minute, he'd be this guy. Is that "jazz"? Well, it's instrumental music featuring piano and upright bass and drums, so maybe. I mean, Matt Shipp's last few records have been beat-driven, slathered in electronic processing, and loop-like in structure, and there's no way I'd argue that they were anything but jazz albums. So there's room for the Bad Plus in the tent, for sure.

Bigger question: Would I listen to them if I wasn't being paid to do so? Probably not. Will this album excite or disappoint their fans? Can't say; haven't heard the last three discs. I'd bet longtime BP listeners will be pleased. There's certainly nothing here that's gonna shock or piss off the listener.