DOLPHIN/SHARK

COVER STORY

(In Which We Cover Covers)

The Edge - “Suspicious Minds”

Whatever you expect to get from the above video, I think I can guarantee that you won’t get it. The title of the video promises U2 guitarist / Spider-Man librettist The Edge singing Elvis Presley’s post-movies comeback hit “Suspicious Minds.” You might think that sounds promising, or at the very least interesting.

But you also failed to notice that the title also tells you that this is from a live show in 1997, which means that it comes from the band’s PopMart tour. If you’re unfamiliar, this tour was U2′s grand attempt to double down on the sensory overload of their Zoo TV tour, ironically skewering consumerism by creating the most absurdly gaudy spectacle that they could.

In one sense, it was a great success, in that it was an absurdly gaudy spectacle. But the whole thing also toppled into literal Spinal Tap levels of absurdity, including multiple times that the band got stuck inside a forty-foot-tall motorized mirrorball shaped like a lemon. Yes, you read that correctly.

But anyway, the fact that this cover took place on that tour should probably tip your hat to the fact that things are gonna get weird.

After The Edge has brief heart to heart with the audience and a pre-recorded guitar track comes in, Huey Morgan, frontman of supporting act Fun Lovin’ Criminals, tells the crowd to put their hands up because “THIS IS THE EDGE!!! THIS IS THE EDGE!!! YEAH!!!” He will not stop for the duration of the song.

What follows can only be described as the biggest karaoke concert in history, with the guitarist of biggest band on the planet moseying through a perfectly acceptable rendition of pop hit as the lyrics appear on the jumbotrons behind him (presumably to allow the audience to sing along). 

You gotta admit that I was totally right, though. 

When you started this video, I’m certain that you were not expecting “guitar-free karaoke, but with an incessant hype man.”

But that’s exactly what it is.

- TWG

RIFFS AND VARIATIONS

(Alternate Takes, Live Versions, and Early Mixes)

Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz feat. Daddy Yankee & Pitbull - “What U Gon’ Do (Latino Remix)”

The remix above is one of two official regional reworkings of the track that tied the original’s of-the-moment head-stomping crunk to another of 2004′s biggest sounds: reggaeton. That’s one of the reasons that I find the track so fascinating. It’s a musical time capsule, bringing together two of era’s biggest hitmakers in Lil Jon and Daddy Yankee.

And yet, given the fact that our current musical era has Drake hopping on tracks with Bad Bunny, it also sounds strangely prescient. The interplay between reggaeton and American rap spend most of the last decade in hibernation, but these days it’s back with a vengeance. (Just ask Cardi B, who’s bridging the gap with more grace and energy than any artist ever.) The remix might not feel current (Lil Jon is a bit of a human timestamp) but it certainly feels akin to what’s happening on rap radio right now.

The other reason I find this track fascinating is that the Pitbull it features is very, very different from the Pitbull of 2018. I mean, isn’t it weird to hear Pitbull curse? Much less to hear him on a track where the answer to it’s titular question is an emphatic “SHIT!” Pitbull’s been such a corporate mission statement of a rapper for so long that it’s hard to remember that the lead single for his debut album was called “Culo.” 

But isn’t that the ultimate message of Pitbull’s whole Insta-life? That a guy who rapped about how “Your blow ain’t shit” can eventually be corporate partners with Walmart? Ain’t that the America dream?

EARLY WORKS FOR ME

(First Steps, Starting Points, and Juvenilia)

Bonnie Jo Mason - “Ringo, I Love You”

You probably don’t recognize the name “Bonnie Jo Mason.” And that’s because it’s a fake name, chosen because Phil Spector didn’t think that “Cherilyn La Piere” was American enough.

Later, the singer chose to go by a different nom de guerre.

Cher.

You probably recognize that one.

But before she was the only artist in history to top the Billboard singles chart in six consecutive decades, she a teenager working odd jobs and scrounging for a career. Through her future husband and collaborator Sonny Bono, she wound up in the studio with legendary producer / legendary psychopath Phil Spector.1 The first song she ever recorded is the Spector-penned track above: a fan girl torch song for Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

The track itself is a sloppy little ‘60s garage rock number, the sort of song that would wind up on a bargain bin singles compilation if it weren’t for Cher’s subsequent career. It’s a novelty song through and through, aiming for an of-the-moment spike rather than any sort of enduring impact. That’s not to say that it’s an unpleasant listen: it’s just the definition of inessential.

But the fascinating silver lining of the track, comes down to the possible reason that it never wound up being a hit. Cher and others have speculated that because of her low voice, disc jockeys mistook her for a man, thus making the song a homosexual ode to Ringo, which isn’t the sort of thing that got radio play then (or, let’s be honest, now).

So, although this song seems like a odd place to begin Cher’s recording career, it also makes a little bit of sense. The woman was born to be a queer icon, and that was clear right from the start.

- TWG

D/S Monthly Round-Up

Howdy, pard’ners! Here’s what we rustled up on D/S this month!

Eminem sounded like he was actually having...fun?

Tag Team rapped about the Addams Family.

Cromagnon invented black metal before Black Sabbath invented metal.

Chumbawamba popped up in a Dick Tracy strip.

Yosuke Yamashita played a burning piano.

Dave “Baby” Cortez riffed on “Shortenin’ Bread.”

Shonen Knife covered The Carpenters.

We boogied to spooky organ music.

A Holiday Playlist For You From Dolphin/Shark

Halloween 2018

“Spooky Organ Grooves”

Inspired by my recent post about Dave “Baby” Cortez, I put together a fun a little Halloween playlist of songs with electric organs that sound like they’re straight out of Count Von Count’s castle. ‘50s R&B boogies, ‘60s stoner headrushes, and a couple of Halloween song effects tracks thrown in for good measure.

Happy Halloween, folks.

COVER STORY

(In Which We Cover Covers)

Shonen Knife - “Top Of The World”

Recently, after checking out (and really enjoying) Pink, the debut album from all-girl Japanese pop punk act Chai, I was inspired to take another look at the first song I ever heard from the all-girl Japanese pop punk band, Shonen Knife: their cover of The Carpenters’ “Top Of The World.”

The fact that I was hip to Shonen Knife, and their contribution to a 1994 Carpenters covers record sounds significantly cooler on paper than it actually was. My introduction to the band didn’t come from, say, Kurt Cobain’s fifty favorite albums list. No, I first heard it on the soundtrack to the Lindsay Lohan version of The Parent Trap.

Along with the Charlie’s Angels soundtrack, Mariah Carey’s Christmas record, and the Spice Girls’ Spice, the Parent Trap soundtrack was constantly on repeat in my mom’s life, and (as a result) mine as well. She danced with my sisters to Jakaranda’s “Never Let You Go,” cleaned the house to The La’s “There She Goes,” and once choreographed us kids in a routine to Nat King Cole’s “L O V E” for my dad’s birthday. 

He was underwhelmed.

When I was listening to it regularly, I didn’t know it was a cover, or that it was by a Japanese band, or anything about it at all, really. I just knew that I enjoyed the punky bounce of it’s rhythm, Naoko Yamano’s way of tapping out syllables, and even the little analog crackle over the opening guitar lick. Listening to it today, I’m taken with the same elements, but now that I’ve heard The Carpenters’ version, I also appreciate how Shonen Knife transformed the song, beyond simply giving The Carpenters’ slide guitar ‘70s gold a shot in the arm.

First, Yamano puts a little pause between the rest of the chorus and the title line, whereas in the original, Karen and Richard Carpenter’s harmonizing vocals glide right through the chorus. Instead, Shonen Knife drop the instruments at the end, leaving the last line dangling, before jumping back into their jangling riff. It’s a nice little shift, but what it sets up is even better.

That moment comes from the outro, where Shonen Knife rearrange that chorus into a overlapping call-and-response bit straight out of a Ronettes song. The backing singers repeat that highlighted final line, as Yamano’s vocals dance freeform over top. It’s such a delight that the first time I heard The Carpenters’ version, I was surprised when it didn’t appear. 

In the end, whether it’s just from my childhood indoctrination or from a genuine adult preference, the Shonen Knife version of this song will always be the true version for me.

So, thanks a bunch to my mom and to Lindsay Lohan, I guess.

-TWG

COVER STORY

(In Which We Cover Covers)

Dave “Baby” Cortez - “The Happy Organ”

If you were a public school kid like me, you probably spent a good month or so in fourth grade music class learning to toot out simple folk songs on a plastic recorder. And among the Klazzik Recorder Jamz, alongside hits like “Hot Cross Buns” and “Go Tell Aunt Rhody,” is the immortal “Shortenin’ Bread.” 

It’s basically one of those songs that you know even if you don’t know it.

Way back in 1959, a little known Detroit doo-wopper named Dave “Baby” Cortez had the biggest hit in the nation riffing on “Shortenin’ Bread.” He twists up the melody, throws it atop a rollicking boogie-woogie R&B groove, and turns it into an earworm of the highest order. Seriously, this thing must’ve killed at the sock hops.

Not bad for a song that was originally boring enough for recorder class.

A tip of the hat to Stereogum’s Tom Breihan, whose excellent series The Number Ones turned me onto this joint, and pointed out that it’s title totally sounds like a boner joke.

MEDIUM WELL

(Music and Other Media)

Yōsuke Yamashita - “Burning Piano”

In 2008, jazz pianist Yosuke Yamashita improvised a piece on a burning piano, and in doing so, launched a thousand news reporter puns about his “burning” passion for music ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) .

(I’m filing this under Medium Well, because the art really isn’t in the music, it’s in the act itself. Thus, it’s a lot closer to performance art than it is to a concert.)

What I love about the performance is how Yamashita mirrors the growing fire and the disintegration of the piano in his playing. Part of it, of course, comes from the fact that as the flames grow, the piano wires begin to snap and twang, adding little arhythmic stabs to the piece. But watch and listen to how he’s playing. As the flames grow, his playing becomes more frantic and panicked, rushing over the keys as though he’s desperately trying to find the ones that still make sound, trying to find the music before it’s lost.

But, like everything, eventually it is.

MEDIUM WELL

(Music and Other Media)

Chumbawamba in Dick Tracy

Apparently there’s a member of Dick Tracy’s rogues gallery who goes by Blackjack, dresses like a ‘30s gangster, and uses Chumbawamba’s novelty hit “Tubthumping” to soundtrack all of his robberies. No, I don’t know what to do with that information either.

According to the Dick Tracy Wiki, Blackjack does this to control the timing of his robberies. Okay, I get that. You know you gotta be behind the teller’s desk by the first chorus, out the door by the bridge, etc. That makes sense. I used to time my morning showers much the same way back in high school.

But why “Tubthumping?” It certainly doesn’t fit with Blackjack’s Depression-era bank robber aesthetic. Nor was it in the cultural zeitgeist during his creation: Blackjack first appeared in 2012, more than a decade after the song’s release. The closest guess I have is that since Blackjack occasionally adopts the practice of purposefully robbing banks with unethical business practices, he was a Chumbawamba tru-fan who really vibed with their anti-capitalist message and chose the song to add a intertextual layer to his low rent Robin Hood-ing.

Or maybe it’s just random nonsense.

Compare, Contrast, Consider

(In Which We Analyze Analogues)

Cromagnon vs. black metal

One of my favorite musical discovery moments is when someone finds an obscure recording that accidentally presages an entire genre that was years or even decades away from actually coming into existence. For example a few years ago, English producer Sir Pixalot posted that a boss theme from the Super Nintendo / Sega Genesis game Wolverine: Adamantium Rage sounded a lot like a grime track, despite the fact that was written nearly a decade before Youngstar’s “Pulse X,” widely cited as the track that spawned the genre.1 It’s a bit like the old thought experiment about infinite monkeys eventually typing Shakespeare. With all of the musicians creating music all over the world, is it really that surprising that someone happened to put together a certain set of sounds even before they became codified into a genre?

Of course, it’s still disconcerting to actually come across. The most recent experience I’ve had with this comes from a forum post I randomly came across while looking for something else. The post asked for help identifying a song from the sixties that presaged black metal, and (because the internet is occasionally not awful) someone replied with a link almost immediately. The track the poster was looking for was “Caledonia” by Cromagnon, the opening track from their sole record Orgasm. Naturally, I was intrigued. Orgasm (later reissued as Cave Rock) was originally released in 1969, beating Venom’s genre-christening “Black Metal” by thirteen years or so. Hell, it beat Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut by a year. Forget black metal; this track came out before metal was a genre.

Compared with the rest of Orgasm, “Caledonia” stands out starkly. Shockingly, it’s probably the album’s poppiest track. The rest of the record hews toward modern acts like Black Dice, Prurient, or Animal Collective at it’s earliest and least pop-oriented moments. To put it simply, it’s the sort of music that’s born of the question “What’s the most interesting noise I can make?”

“Caledonia” feels like an attempt to make an actual pop song. There’s, like, a rhythm and verses and rhymed words and everything! Compositionally, it’s probably closer to a folk song than an actual metal track, but it’s amazing how closely its arrangement presages the aesthetics that would even converge to become black metal. After some easy listening radio samples, the song launches into a hammering beat overlaid with blown-out guitar ripples, a blaring bagpipe riffs, and whisper-rasped vocals. The lo-fi gutter drums and guitar feedback, are obvious hallmarks of black metal, but the other elements work out a kind of convergent evolution. The cutting timbre and lo-fi buzz of the bagpipes wind up as a weird approximation of tremolo picked guitars, while the strange duet of vocals combine hushed whisper and a strained yowl into something that sounds strangely akin to a shriek. 

Again, you’d probably never mistake it for like an Emperor b-side or whatever, but it’s still a strangely uncanny listen. Like the musical equivalent of finding an Australian cockatoo in a European painting from the 15th century.

- TWG

RIFFS AND VARIATIONS

(Alternate Takes, Live Versions, and Early Mixes)

Tag Team - “Addams Family (Whoomp)”

I recently watched both The Addams Family and Addams Family Values for the first time in twenty odd years, and it was quite the eye-opening experience. My memory of the films was essentially limited to the fact that Christina Ricci had essentially single-handedly introduced me to the concept of being attracted to women. Beyond that, it was all a blank.

Therefore, I was surprised by how much the second film improved on the first. The Addams Family is a complete misfire of a film, completely inept at elements as basic as understanding that the appeal of the Addams is watching them juxtaposed with normal folks. Addams Family Values, on the other hand, builds both it’s A and B story such clashes of culture. (The fact that it also improves the pacing, story structure, and gags also helps.)

But the real surprise came at the end of Addams Family Values.

Specifically, I mean when the credits start to roll and Tag Team’s “Addams Family (Whoomp!)” started to play. If I’m being honest, I lost my mind a little bit. How could I not? The only acceptable response is maddening laughter. I mean, who watched Raul Julia and Angelica Huston vamping around and thought “I’ve got it! Miami bass music!”

What makes it even more hilarious is how seriously Tag Team takes their job of providing a theme song to the film. Some film songs are barely related to the movies they support, but not this one. This one has references to every major character in the film, and even relays major plot points. DC and Steve Roll’n were paid to do a job and they were gonna do it, by God! No one was gonna forget Cousin Itt on their watch!

When you really think about it, though, the song makes a bit more sense. While on the surface the marriage of gently creepy kids characters and horny Miami bass rap sounds like an odd leap, it’s actually pretty much in line with Tag Team’s general M.O. After all, as we’ve noted before on this blog, “Whoomp! (There It Is)” is essentially a pseudo-cleaned up reworking of 95 South’s “Whoot, There It Is.” If sanitizing booty-shaking music got you to the top, wouldn’t you consider doubling down on it? Tag Team sure did. They followed up “Addams Family (Whoomp)” with “Whoomp! (There It Went)” which featured Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Goofy, and “Pig Power In The House” from the movie Gordy (aka The Pig Movie That Isn’t Babe).

That, of course, does nothing to diminish the joy that can be found in listening to a dude talk about a family of kindly spooky goths the way that ScHoolboy Q talks about Hoover Street.

Addams Family runnin’ thangs, indeed.

- TWG

PS: Charles Addams, the creator of the Addams Family, is one of my favorite cartoonists of all time. If you’ve never checked out his work, this postscript is officially encouraging you to do so.

FEATURED FEATURE

(Guest Spots That Steal The Spotlight)

Eminem on Terror Squad’s “Lean Back (Remix)”

Eminem’s music is one of those things that I feel like I’m unable to engage with critically due solely to how present it’s been in my life. There are those certain songs that you’ve heard over and over again to the degree that they just become wallpaper. Rather than being actual pieces of music they’re just these...things. Sonic events that unfold over a couple of minutes in the same way that they’ve unfolded time and time again.

It is, of course, possible to break through such a mental block. In fact, doing so with the Beach Boys is essentially a universal milestone for any music fan. But when it comes to Eminem, I’ve never been able to find the wonder and appreciation I’ve eventually discovered for songs like the Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman” or the Who’s “Baba O’Riley.” I suspect that it’s because Em’s Greatest Rapper Alive stint coincided with my preteen years, an era in which I inhaled music, but hadn’t yet developed my own taste. (Peep my P.O.D. and Alien Ant Farm CDs.) So, while I’m intimate familiar with Em’s music, it’s hard for me to engage with it or be impressed by it.

But maybe that’s changing. I’ve recently been revisiting Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz’ early 00’s output, and rediscovered the remix to “Lean Back” that I’d not thought about in a decade or so. And I’ll be damned if I don’t love Em’s verse.

The whole thing sounds like Marshall’s drunk on assonance. Sure, he’s still spitting traditional raps (this is Eminem we’re talking about, after all) but he’s way looser in his deliver that he usually is. Rather than grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and joylessly forcing you to appreciate every syllable, he sounds like he’s actually...having fun? He smudges his way from one vowel to the next, turning the whole verse into a big slurry of schwa sounds.

It might not be the same as really hearing “Good Vibrations” for the first time, but it was still a pleasant surprise.

A Post That Doesn’t Fit In Any Of Our Regular Categories

(Whatever, Man.)

Music Of The World - “Dolphin Vision Quest”

This is a post about how a cassette tape about dolphins made me cry.

Last week, I was cleaning my apartment and decided to play an album I’d downloaded from the great new age music blog Sounds of the Dawn. I needed a unobtrusive soundtrack for sweeping, and I’m an admitted fan of new age bullshit, so it seemed like the perfect idea.

Now, the thing about new age bullshit is that there’s an inherent roll of the dice you make whenever you throw on a new album. The line between good new age and bad new age is a thin one. Sometimes you get a perfect synthetic ocean to sink into, and sometimes you get a tacky curglaff right to your embarrassment glands. 

The difference often hinges on the involvement of a rainstick. 

When I first put on “Dolphin Vision Quest” I was immediately sure that I’d found the latter. The sample SotD posted was from the b-side, “The Deepening Mystery” which gave a good indication of the music on both sides, glacial synth hums, gentle exhales, and a backdrop of tape hiss. What the b-side lacks, however, is the a-side’s guided meditation journey into the land of the dolphins.

When the narrator first informed me that I’d be “having a rendezvous with beings of intelligence...and feeling...and sentience...” I laughed. This wasn’t just bad new age; this was hilariously bad new age. A guided meditative encounter with dolphins is like something that a woo-woo therapist would try to foist upon Jim Belushi’s character on According To Jim.

But I left it playing.

As I swept, the narrator explained how I need to prepare my energies to meet the dolphins. (Various chakras were involved.) He shepherded me to the beach, where I met the dolphins, who gave me a sand dollar that allowed me to breath underwater. We dove into the depths and I followed the dolphins to the sunken ruins of an ancient city. There among the worn pyramids and crumbling arches, it becomes clear that the dolphins are taking me somewhere special. That’s where it happens.

You enter through a low arch.

And there in the center

in a glowing, golden-green light

is somebody you have once known

and have always loved.

You move towards the figure

as the figure moves towards you.

Such love fills you.

Such memories.

Such wonderment.

Such beauty.

Then one

suspended

wonderful moment.

The light and you become one.

Maybe it was that I’d actually accidentally entered some sort of weird meditative butler-zen state, cleaning my energy while cleaning my bathroom. Or maybe it’s just that a quarter century of life has left me a fragile, emotional being who has wept at no fewer than three wrestling matches. Maybe dolphins really are beings of intelligence, feeling, and sentience.

But whatever it was, it absolutely punched me in the gut. I was wholly, and undeniably wrecked.

The phrasing of “somebody you have once known / and always loved” conjured a person to my mind so perfectly that I was imagining them before me before I even had time to comprehend what the narrator was saying. It’s a near perfect distillation of the feeling of losing a person who means a great deal to you. You once knew a person, but even now that you no longer do, you love them all the same.

It’s especially effective as a invocation for people you’ve lost, but still hope to have closure with one day. Even if true reconciliation is impossible, perhaps you hope to one day apologize, or to just share a moment to reminisce.

But the real reason that that section kills me is that the scenario it presents is one of closure, standing before a person who you love, but no longer know, and accepting it.

That’s a helluva heavy thing to plop in the middle of exploring a underwater city with a bunch of cetaceans.

- TWG

MEDIUM WELL

(Music and Other Media)

David Bowie in an ad for Luv ice cream bars.

Blink and you’ll miss him, but this black and white British ice cream advert features an early appearance by the future Ziggy Stardust, Thin White Duke, and 2016 Dolphin/Shark Album of the Year winner: David Bowie.

(Check out the guys running up the stairs at the beginning to get the best glimpse of him. Look for those dreamy, dreamy eyes.)

Now, it’s possible to see this is as a case of a struggling artist taking a commercial gig to sustain himself while he was working on the whole “becoming pop music’s most multifaceted artist ever” thing. You know, because it is.

But I think it’s also telling that Bowie chose to get a gig in an ad. After all, he could’ve painted houses, or slung pints.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into this (which should be the subtitle of the site) but, Bowie’s dad worked as an adman, and I’ve always thought that had a bigger influence on his work than one would assume. After all, wasn’t one of Bowie’s greatest skills his ability to control and morph the way he presented himself? Not to get too crass about it, but what is Ziggy Stardust but a repackaging? Or even (gasp) a rebranding?

Since we’re both the scions of real estate agents, my girlfriend and I often discuss how our fall back plans are always SELL HOUSES!!! It’s strange to think that an artist of Bowie’s caliber may have felt the same influence from his parents.

Oh and the ad was directed by Ridley Scott.

COVER STORY

(In Which We Cover Covers)

The Cro-Tones - “Tea Machine Dub”

The past few days, I’ve been enjoying a playlist of early drum machine tracks compiled by film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky. It’s a wild and far-ranging collection, jumping from skating-rink-organ gospel, to twinkling proto-dream pop, to The Song Drake Sampled For “Hotline Bling.” Familiar names like Brian Eno, Fleetwood Mac, and Sly Stone rub elbows with unknowns like Key & Cleary, Guitar Red, and the band above, The Cro-Tones.

According to Discogs, “Tea Machine Dub” is the only song that the band ever put to wax, as the back half of a split single with “I Married A Cult Figure From Salford” a new wave gag song about marrying punk poet John Cooper Clarke credited to Cathy Le Creme (aka British actress and comedienne Jenny Eclair). The connection between the two remains unclear.

But regardless, “Tea Machine Dub” is a great track. The drum machine pulses out a brushed-snare beat that sounds like a percussion pit of match strikes, which are eventually joined by piano stabs, nervy, chicken-scratch guitar twitches, and a heady acid-surf bassline. As the song progresses, a stoned shamanic vocalist wanders around the track, calling out random, wordless ululations. The effect is somewhere between a psychedelic krautrock vision quest and a paranoid post-punk freak-out.

Oh, and halfway through, somebody whistles the chorus to “O Tannenbaum.”

Yeah, the Christmas song.

It’s more than a little inexplicable. But then again, “Tea Machine Dub” is a little closer to a mood than a song, a druggy, pulsating jam more interested in the groove than piecing together any kind of structure. In that kind of framework, whistling a traditional German yule tide carol makes just as much sense as anything else. So why not throw in a little Weihnachten spirit, then?

You can find “Tea Machine Dub” only on the original 45, or Optimo Music’s 2015 compilation [Cease & Desist] DIY (Cult Classics From The Post-Punk Era 1978-82).

Ten Movies That Made TWG Love Film

(I wrote all of this to post on Facebook and figured I’d SYNERGIZE™ it.)

1.) Armageddon (1998)

[First Viewed Circa 1999]

Michael Bay’s star-spanglin’ dick-swangin’ Paris-obliteratin’ ode to Average Joes saving the world from a big-ass asteroid served as an important mile marker in my development as a film fan: it was the first film I ever watched and thought, “That was bad.” See, when I was a kid, I emerged from every film I saw with the same take, something roughly akin to, “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.” I was vaguely bewildered whenever I would see a film with some of the impossibly erudite elders of my neighborhood kid gang (some as old as 13 or 14!) and they’d spend the car ride home pointing out how terrible the film we just saw was. So naturally, the distaste I had for Michael Bay’s “Budweiser commercial directed by Leni Riefenstahl” style came as a massive relief. I wasn’t stupid! I could dislike something! And lemme tell you, dear reader, I haven’t stopped disliking things since.

2.) Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

[First Viewed Circa 1999]

Given the fact that I watched this film at least once at any sleepover from roughly 1999 to 2004, Monty Python’s digressive, and deeply, deeply silly magnum opus is still the film that I’ve watched more times than any other. It was the first movie that I was obsessed with, which is not surprising given that it’s the exact sort of film that rewards obsession. It’s filled with absurd background details you only catch on the fifth viewing (the countless extras beating cats against walls), long streams of absurd riffs ripe for memorization (the list of animals vanquished via the holy hand grenade), and the sort of nonsensical humor that makes you feel like you’re part of a special group of those who Get It (...the whole film, really). While this whole list is full of films that defined my taste in film, this is the only one that feels like it defined who I am.

3.) Signs (2002)

[First Viewed Circa 2002]

Most people remember Signs as the last good M. Night Shyamalan film. Or the first bad one. Or the one with that really good scene where Joaquin Phoenix freaks out watching TV and not much else. I remember it as the first time I ever thought, “That was a cool shot.” It comes at the end of the film, where Joaquin takes baseball bat to an alien who falls backwards into a table, knocking over a glass of water, the liquid we’ve spent the whole film learning is poisonous to this breed of extraterrestrial. But what was cool was that Shyamalan shot it from the alien’s perspective. Looking back, it’s not exactly the bone-to-spacestation match cut, but it was the first time that I found myself actively aware of the man behind the curtain, and the first step in my journey to be one of them.

4.) Rear Window (1954)

[First Viewed Circa 2003]

During my middle school years, most every weekend involved a trip to the video store with my mom. Our local store was End Zone Video, named in honor of the fact that every facet of life in Knoxville, Tennessee, must revolve around University of Tennessee football. Each week I’d comb the aisles, careful to avoid looking directly at the covers for Evil Dead 2 or April Fool’s Day, and select a tape to rent. Sometimes, though, Mom would suddenly realize I hadn’t seen a film that she’d call a classic and decide we needed to rent it RIGHT NOW. So, the two of us either wound up watching a recent film for which she had an irrational amount of affection (Ever After, Sliding Doors) or an older film that was part of the Official Canon. Rear Window was the first of these older films that snuck up on me and hit me over the head with a sock filled with batteries. (In a good way.) One minute my mom was explaining how the fact that we could see Miss Torso strip down to her slip was once scandalous, and the next I was asphyxiating because Grace Kelly didn’t know that Thorwald was right outside the apartment she was searching. From then on, I was allowed two movies, and one of them was always a Hitchcock.

5.) Fight Club (1999)

[First Viewed Circa 2006]

I first watched Fight Club with Jen and Samantha while lounging on the massive sectional in Jen’s basement. Before we started it, Sam turned to me and said, “Taylor, this is the day you become a man.” And, folks, she weren’t wrong. For a lot of people of a certain age, Fight Club was one of those movies that landed in your lap like an A-bomb. It wasn’t just a movie—it was a life event. It gave you a whole new definition of nihilistic macho cool. It pulled the rug out from under you with a twist that made you salivate over any movie described as a “mindfuck.” It made you post pictures on MySpace of yourself with a stage-make-up lye-burn on the back of your hand. And it was only years later that you realized that hey, maybe we’re not supposed to like this Tyler Durden guy?

6.) The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

[First Viewed Circa 2006]

I become aware of a thing called indie rock sometime in the summer of 2003 when my ex-girlfriend changed her AIM buddy icon to a picture of Death Cab For Cutie. About three years later, I found my cinematic Death Cab buddy icon in the form of Wes Anderson’s third film, playing in the middle of one Saturday afternoon on Comedy Central shortly after my dad finally caved and got cable. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen, fussy and formalist and packed to the gills with bespoke flourishes (dalmatian mice, the 375th Street Y, etc). The characters didn’t look or act or sound like real people, but somehow one of them saying “I’ve had rough year, Dad,” could drive me to tears. I’d taken fledgling steps exploring the world of film, and this was the movie that made me realize that there was this entire other world that I’d never glimpsed before.

7.) Hostel (2005)

[First Viewed Circa 2007]

When I was in kindergarten, we watched a children’s VHS entitled There’s A Nightmare In My Closet. Based on a book by Mercer Meyer, it told the story of a boy who learns that the monster in his closet is actually nice and just wants to be friends. The horrific implication of this was that A) monsters are real, and B) nice monsters are definitely not the norm. I slept with the lights on until middle school. Growing up, even the VHS box of most horror films would freak me out (April Fools Day, Evil Dead 2). In short, I was a big chicken, even into my teen years. Then one day Sam, Travis, and I piled into Travis’s living room and put on Eli Roth’s infamous gut-ripper Hostel. I braced myself, determined to play it as cool as I could. (After all, I’d been sleeping in the dark for years at this point!) Then the movie turned out to be...not as bad as I thought? I mean sure, it had people getting their achilles tendons cut, and their stomachs chainsawed, and their eyes popped out of socket. But I survived. In fact, I enjoyed it. And thus a former chicken metamorphosed into an absolute horror junkie.

8.) Grindhouse (2007)

[First Viewed Circa 2007]

I don’t think I’ll ever have a better time out at the movies than I did seeing Grindhouse. For three hours, Sam, Travis, and I cackled our way through exploding zombie heads, fake British horror trailers, and guys getting off to car crashes. There were only a handful of other people across the aisle in the smallest theater in Downtown West, which only made it seem more obvious that this movie was made for us. For a bunch of movie crazy kids who got together to watch Robot Monster and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! back to back. It was like a gift from the movie gods. A movie that was every bit in love with the idea of movies as we were. No wonder every film we shot that summer wound up covered in fake film scratches and ‘70s R&B needle drops.

9.) The General (1926)

[First Viewed Circa 2010]

By this point in my life, I was well acquainted with classic film. I knew that The African Queen wasn’t a monarch, that The Thin Man wasn’t Nick Charles, and that The Maltese Falcon wasn’t a real bird. But even so, I was still an utter neophyte when it came to the pre-sound era. Sure, I’d suffered through The Birth of a Nation a couple of times in history classes, but the silent era was very much unexplored territory for me. So, when I settled down on my parents’ old couch in my college apartment and listened to Robert Osbourne introduce The General, I was expecting a night of eating my cinematic vegetables. But then, I found myself chuckling when Buster sat on the titular engine’s churning connecting rods, then cheering when he used one railroad tie to see-saw another off the track, then completely cracking up at the final (literal) twist of the cannon sequence. By the time Buster dropped the entire train in river, I was hooked. Fast forward eight years, and suddenly I’m the guy who’s not sure that the advent of sound wasn’t a mistake.

10.) La Jetée (1962)

[First Viewed Circa 2013]

TWG’s Favorite Faves of 2018: A Mid-Year Countdown List-A-Go-Go

The Top 10 Albums

Beach House - 7

Against All Logic - 2012-2017

Cardi B - Invasion of Privacy

Pusha T - Daytona

DJ Taye - Still Trippin’

Grouper - Grid of Points

Mount Eerie - Now Only

Mary Lattimore - Hundreds of Days

Nipsey Hussle - Victory Lap

Burna Boy - Outside

The Album That Could’ve Been #1 (Or #2, At Least)

Migos - Culture 1.5 (curated by TWG)

The EP That Could’ve Made My Top Albums List

Hatchie - Sugar & Spice

The Top 25 Tracks

Rae Sremmurd feat. Juicy J - “Powerglide”

Mitski & Xiu Xiu - “Between The Breaths”

DJDS feat. Khalid, Uncle Charlie Wilson, and Charlotte Day Wilson - “No Pain”

Nipsey Hussle feat. YG - “Last Time That I Checc’d”

Migos - “Gang Gang”

Drake - “Nice For What”

Hatchie - “Sugar & Spice”

DJ Taye - “Trippin’”

Sevdaliza - “Human Nature”

Beach House - “Dive”

BlocBoy JB feat. Drake - “Look Alive”

Janelle Monae feat. Grimes - “Pynk”

Childish Gambino - “This Is America”

Sophie - “Immaterial”

Dirty Projectors - “Break-Thru”

Oneohtrix Point Never - “Black Snow”

Burna Boy - “Streets of Africa”

Against All Logic - “Know You”

Titus Andronicus - “Real Talk”

Valee & Jeremih - “Womp Womp”

Dorian Electra - “Career Boy”

BLACKPINK - “DDU-DU DDU-DU”

Creek Boyz - “Trap Digits”

James Blake - “If The Car Beside You Moves Ahead”

Playboy Carti feat. Lil Uzi Vert - “Shoota”

The Top 2 Albums By The Body I Feel Guilty About Not Listening To Yet

The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer

Uniform &The Body  - Mental Wounds Not Healing

The Top 10 Films

You Were Never Really Here

Hereditary

Thoroughbreds

Isle of Dogs

The Commuter

A Quiet Place

Leave No Trace

Annihilation

Upgrade

The Incredibles 2

The Top 10 Wrestling Matches

Kazuchika Okada vs. Will Ospreay at NJPW 46th Anniversary Show

Ronda Rousey & Kurt Angle vs. Triple H & Stephanie McMahon at Wrestlemania

Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka at Wrestlemania

Andrade “Cien” Almas vs. Johnny Gargano at NXT Takeover: Philadelphia

Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho at Wrestle Kingdom 12

The Men’s Royal Rumble at Royal Rumble

Will Ospreay vs. Hiromu Takahashi at New Beginning in Osaka

Asuka vs. Sasha Banks at 1/29/18 Raw 

Will Ospreay vs. Marty Scurll vs. Hiromu Takahashi vs. KUSIDA at WrestleKingdom

Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito at Wrestle Kingdom Note: I am way behind on NJPW, and haven’t finished the New Japan Cup, Best of the Super Juniors, or Dominion.

The Top 5 Wrestling Matches I’ve Seen Live

Jeff Cobb vs. Joey Janela at Threemendous V

Pentagon Jr. vs. Rey Horus at Threemendous V

The Young Bucks vs. The Rascalz at Threemendous V

Pentagon Jr and Fenix vs. Willie Mack & Scorpio Sky at Bar Wrestling 12: Aunt May

DoomFly vs. Brian Cage at Bar Wrestling 12: Aunt May

The Top 3 Discs of SR3MM

SR3MM

Jxmtro

Swaecation

The Top 2 Cover Songs

Titus Andronicus - “(I’m) Like A Rolling Stone”

Titus Andronicus - “Where Everybody Knows Your Name > Theme From ‘Cheers’ (Live)”

My girlfriend singing Daniel Johnston’s “The Story Of An Artist” with warbly cat meows instead of lyrics.

The Most Convenient Things

Kanye deciding to drop his worst two albums in the same year as all of his worst opinions.

The Top 2 Facts That Paint A Bleaker-Than-Accurate Portrait Of My Feelings About A Certain Artist

My favorite song on Dirty Computer is “Pynk”

My least favorite song on Art Angels is “Venus Fly”

The Artist To Whom I Should Apologize For Using His Work As A Header Image