Semi Annual Drive by Truckers Posting Fit

Thanks to the magic of the internet you can easily listen to bootlegged concern tapes without going to any trouble or spending any money. Not news, but pretty awesome.

I did my annual Drive By Truckers thing over spring holidays, so I've been into listening them a lot lately. I discovered a great cache of bootlegs that you can stream. I've been using that at my office radio this week.

Here's a great show from 2005:

http://www.archive.org/details/dbt2005-01-22.km184.flac16


Here's the show I saw over spring break:

http://www.archive.org/details/dbt2010-03-13.km184.flac16


Listening to these reminds me that DBT is overdue for a live album. For my money, they are probably the best band of the past decade. I'd accept the contention that Wilco might be better, but I'm voting for DBT.

(Don't hand me that Radiohead shit. Radiohead is great, but they are a not nearly as consistent as the DBT. There aren't any BAD Radiohead records, but they aren't all essential. If you like DBT, you have to get all of them. Plus Radiohead are popular and fashionable. Nothing wrong with that, but DBT is much more idiosyncratic and interesting. Alt country+the Replacements+Lynyrd Skynyrd=the Drive By Truckers. That sounds completely absurd (Lynyrd Skynyrd?), but it works.)

Anywaaaay. . . .

DBT are one of those bands that have a huge rep as a live act, and they are really a bit overdue for an ambitious live record. They've released a live DVD and a CD/DVD of an Austin City Limits appearance. Both are great, but they haven't really done a definitive live document.

Since they have accumulated so much history, the idea of a definitive live document might be a little dodgy at this point, but here's my proposal:

A boxed set. The first disc would be a complete show from the band's early days, similar to the now out of print "Alabama Ass Whuppin" record, but all from one show. Then you'd include a show or two from the "Southern Rock Opera" period, when the band was playing embryonic versions of some of their best know work along with long chunks of the album in sequence. Then you'd do a particularly good show or two (probably a 40 Watt show like the one linked in this post. . . or do a the entirety of a three night stand!) from the "Dirty South" period. Then one show from 2009 or 2010. (Or do the three night stand thing, or do a pair of shows from the Variety.)

What I'm proposing would be a massive retrospective from the bands first decade. Is there an audience for this? Yep. Would it be awesome? Yep.

Of course, you could just dowload bootlegs and construct your own version of that, but wouldn't a professionally mixed version be better?

Just a thought. Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty have made huge, career spanning retrospective live albums like what I'm describing, so it's not an unprecedented or silly idea. (Tom Petty's is much more successful, by the way. The Live Springsteen boxed set came out during his 80's peak, and so it served the purpose of consolidating the first big chunk of the Boss's career. That' make it a bigger deal in his career, but Tom Petty's live anthology really puts him in a different, more interesting light. It's a lot better sequenced too.)

Anyway. I think it'd be awesome. Somebody call Patterson.

Thinking About Horror Films

I've seen a few really good ones lately and I was thinking about them.

Specifically, I've seen these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHvSkTDWFfk







Two excellent films and one pretty good one (Severence). What distinguishes all of these films is that they are actual movies that use classical editing without lots of stupid ass jump cuts or gimmicks. They are all very much waaay over in the horror category (even though they are a diverse lot), but they aren't narrowly conceived "horror" films designed to satisfy the fanboys or such in teenagers who think that cinematic violence has just recently been invented, and that Saw is "like, really graphic."

Don't get me wrong. I'm a fanboy. I'll watch a really assinine film if it's assinine in a good way. And extreme violence is enough to get me interested. But god almighty, the horror genre has gotten really, well, generic lately. These three films really stand out as offering some kind hope for new directions in horror. They are all fairly traditional, conventional films that fall into fairly conventional horror film subgenres. You've got a classy exercise in gothic surrealism (The Orphanage), you've got a retro thriller (The House of the Devil. . .it's a cool movie because it's so meticulous about really staying true to the visual grammar of films from the early eighties, but the idea of making a "throwback" horror film is nothing new), and you've got a gory horror comedy (Severance). Each of these films, like most horror films, can be considered formal exercises, but they are sincere, not wanky self referential formal exercises. Each of these films is made by someone who really understands and respects the subgenre he has chosen to work in, and each of these films has themes that resonate beyond "hey, that was a cool version of this or that horror movie trope."

Horror is interesting because its SOOO generic. We go to genre films because we want a certain thing, and a genre film that doesn't deliver is, in some sense, a failure. A porn movie without anything arousing in it is not a good porn movie. A horror movie that does not pay attention to certain expectations is a failure. But so many horror movies are JUST about delivering upon those expectation. I think because horror is so consistently marketable (at least in its straight to video-DVD incarnations), and because it has a well defined cult audience, you can really just churn out product. It's kind of like generic music. "Hey! You like punk rock! Here's some more punk rock!" Nom nom nom. . . .

The generically of horror and has empowered generations of oddballs, kooks and geniuses to make films, but really, the point of having horror movies is to allow for the possibility for somebody to make a movie that really shakes you up somehow. That might include films that unsettle you because they are nihilistic and violent, that unsettle you because they are surreal and disruptive to your ordinary way of making sense of the world, etc. The best horror films often end up working as black comedy. I think that's because the best horror often serve as grostesque, funhouse mirror views of reality. "Dawn of the Dead" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" for example.

I've seen too many horror films lately that were just about being mean or nasty. "Deadgirl," for example. Suck suck suck. It was advertise to be a reflection on misogyny. It was basically a gross soap opera starring unpleasant and unrealistic people. Now, if it were a GOOD gross soap opera, that'd be one thing. Not everything has to be George Romero. But that shit was just tedious. If you're watching a movie about people fucking a corpse and you are bored, it's not a good movie.

Necromantic, now there's a good movie about corpse fucking.

I'm drifting away from my point.