All hail The Wolf King

One of the most played albums at my house over the past several months has been John Phillips’ debauched 1970 solo debut, John Phillips (John, The Wolf King Of L.A.). I bought the album in October at the Amoeba Records on L.A.’s Sunset Strip, not far from where many of the record’s wondrously sad songs about bottomed-out hippies are set. I’ve been fascinated by Phillips for a long time—partly because he was a masterful pop songwriter with a knack for expressing spiritual and emotional crisis in the context of brassy, deathless pop songs, and partly because he was a monumental skeeze who rode the ’60s dream deep into the cold, hard depths of Hell. On John Phillips, he reminds me a little of a west coast Lou Reed, as he wanders in a heroin daze amid beautiful people whose souls are as empty as their drug-addled eyes. There’s also tons of steel guitar throughout, which is like catnip for me.

Holland Tunnel - John Phillips

"Pickup On South Street" (1953)

Amid the orgy of crit-writing that’s accompanied Scorsese’s new love it or hate it “waking nightmare” Shutter Island have been numerous references to another mind-bending nuthouse flick from nearly 50 years ago, Samuel Fuller’s lurid 1963 masterpiece Shock Corridor. I’ve long been a fan of SC and Fuller’s follow-up movie, the even stranger and probably better The Naked Kiss, but somehow I’m just now getting around to checking out other highlights of the cigar-chomping legend’s filmography. A few days ago I watched Pickup On South Street, Fuller’s hard-as-nails noir about Communist paranoia from 1953. It’s straighter than SC and TNK, but still boasts Fuller’s characteristic intensity, dazzling camerawork, and unabashed sleaziness.

My favorite part of the movie is probably the famous opening scene, where Richard Widmark (in a standout, truly assholish performance) oh-so-delicately steals Jean Peters wallet on a crowded subway train … and maybe something even more valuable.

As an extra bonus, check out the opening scene from The Naked Kiss, which is one of the great all-time attention grabbers in cinema history.

How am I not already a fan of Califone?

Don't sleep on opening acts, people. Last night I saw Califone open for Wilco at the Overture Center in Madison, and the skronky Chicago indie-folk band shamed me for my shockingly inadequate knowledge of its music. I plan on rectifying that, starting with last year's All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, which I picked up at the merch table. So far the record seems a touch less dynamic and powerful than Califone's live show, which built from broken-down country blues to blisteringly loud and roaring squalls of sonic riffage with the inevitable crawl of a land-choked mudslide. You can tell as much from the album version of "Funeral Singers," which is quieter here than the thrilling in-concert highlight it was last night. Still, good song.

Funeral Singers - Califone

Malcolm-Jamal Warner's top secret tips for how to be popular

YouTube recommended this for me. I think YouTube knows me better than most of my friends.

"Shutter Island": It's pretty great, actually

I don’t know where you come from, but where I live the arrival of a new Martin Scorsese is an event. So, I’ve been a little surprised by how Shutter Island has been mostly greeted with a sea of shrugs and a chorus of pshaws in the lead-up to opening night on Friday. I include myself in this—I had to half-drag myself to a free advance screening last night, for crissakes—and I place the blame squarely on the ad campaign, which makes the movie look like a sorta shitty mystery story set in a totally spooktacular insane asylum.

Sure enough, that description holds for pretty much the first hour or so of Shutter Island. As I watched the film unfold, I feared I had stepped in another ridiculous pile of Dennis Lehane’s kid-killing bullshit. But in the end I was expertly sucked in by a master filmmaker, who justified (and greatly improved my impression of in retrospect) the shopworn police procedural silliness of the film’s first half with a disquieting conclusion that puts Shutter Island squarely in the tradition of Scorsese’s portraits of obsessive men at war with themselves. It might not be Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, but it definitely belongs in the company of the underrated The Aviator, which Shutter Island ends up strongly invoking, and not only because Leonardo DiCaprio spends a lot of time in both films muttering to himself. (I can’t go on without venturing into spoiler-riffic territory.)

As my wife somewhat sarcastically said as we walked out of the theater, Shutter Island is a “twist” movie. But the twist really isn’t that shocking; what sticks in your mind after seeing Shutter Island is what sticks in your mind after lots of Scorsese movies, which is how the relentless demons inside of us never go away no matter how violently we beat them back. Honestly—and I say this entice movie fans and discourage the tourists—Shutter Island is a difficult and even alienating film at times. Without giving too much away, there’s definitely a devastatingly disturbing scene or two that will send some people scurrying for the exits. It’s a scary movie, but not the kind of scary movie people tend to like.

The obvious comparison point is The Shining; I can’t think of another film that goes out of its way so consciously not to deliver the usual thrills of the horror genre, and yet succeeds at creating a slow-building dread that starts in the pit of your stomach and spreads for days afterward. Shutter Island is an uncommon horror film in the Saw era; for Scorsese, it explores old themes with fresh verve and vital intensity.

Apologies mean nothing when the damage is done

I've been a huge Who fan since I was 12 and shoplifted cassette copies of Who's Next and Live At Leeds from this cool used record store across the street from the Valley Fair Mall in Appleton. If you know me, you probably know this is far from being my best shoplifting story. (If you're in the dark I'll give away the ending: I got busted taking something back that I stole because I felt guilty. What that something is, and the circumstances surrounding how I stole that something, will have to wait until we meet again in a less public forum.) Anyway, if it's not most entertaining theft, my Who swipe is certainly the most momentous, since the music contained on those four sides of plastic-covered magnetic tape would go on to form the basis of my understanding of what rock 'n' roll is supposed to be.

As an unabashed classic rock fan, I'm used to picturing my heroes not as they are but as they were. For instance, when I think about The Who, I picture this:



I also picture this:



I try not to picture this:



We all get old. I'm not going to knock Messrs. Townshend and Daltrey for their phlegmy cover band medley during the Super Bowl for ageist reasons. I thought they were pretty awful, but for reasons (mostly) unrelated to their questionable bladder control. (The "mostly" exception is Daltrey's voice, which is worn and torn worse than teenage wasteland these days.) I learned not to worry and love the two-man Who tribute act The Who has become nearly eight years ago, when Townshend and Daltrey overcome the truly horrid ickiness of the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park, Ill. (not to mention the very recent death of John Entwistle) to perform one of my favorite concerts ever. (Notice I said favorite, not best.) It had been my dream for years to see The Who live, but I was actively out to hate it before "The Who" went on. The $9 beers, the $40 T-shirts, the dead and seemingly forgotten bassist--this show was pushing all my cynic's buttons hard. And yet ... c'mon, we're talking about "Can't Explain" and "The Kids Are Alright" and "Baba (fucking) O'Riley" here. You don't let yourself get in the way of that kind of greatness, and I quickly gave myself over.

So, here's my sincere rebuttal to anyone who says the old Who can't still bring it. (Amazed this is from eight years ago. Looks like The Who is dragging me down with 'em!)

Extracting tender moments from Johnny Paycheck and Waylon Jennings

2009 wasn’t a great year for movies, but it was pretty good for DVDs. My favorite films from last year not called House Of The Devil or Inglourious Basterds—including Adventureland, Funny People, Humpday, The Girlfriend Experience, Moon, In The Loop, Racing Dreams, and The Informant!—were either talky thinking-man’s comedies that daintily picked apart the intricacies of human relationships, or muted dramas that daintily picked apart the intricacies of human relationships. Both kinds of movies tend to work better at home, where you don’t need the death-grip of a plot-driven narrative to keep you from noticing how uncomfortable your carpet-covered plastic seat is. There’s nothing like sitting in the same ol’ dip in the couch to make you appreciate a movie where likeable characters just sit around and say clever, insightful things about real people for 90 minutes.

I’d add Mike Judge’s Extract to the list of my favorite DVDs of 2009 after finally catching it over the weekend. Judge, after all, is the leading DVD auteur of our time, routinely turning out films that fail miserably in theaters only to find their proper homes at home. (By “routinely” I mean every five years or so.) Like Office Space and Idiocracy, Extract is a more collection of well-observed minutia than a cohesive film—but what minutia!

One of my favorite things about Extract is the soundtrack, which finds Judge trading the Geto Boys tracks from Office Space for ass-kicking (yet also tender) ’70s country, one of my favorite genres. Over the opening credits is Johnny Paycheck’s 1971 hit “(Don’t Take Her) She’s All I Got,” a personal favorite since it was included on the first really mushy mix CD I made for my wife. Over the closing credits is Waylon Jennings’ “Rainy Day Woman,” a chugging monument to the brilliance of steel-guitarist extraordinaire Ralph Mooney.

She's All I Got - Johnny Paych...

Rainy Day Woman (Live) - Waylo...