My miscellany

Velvet Underground-Live at the Gymnasium, NYC (available on sendmedeadflowers.com)
From around 10th grade to my sophomore year in college the Velvets were my favorite band. Back then I always thought it would be cool to have a live recording from their somewhat under-recorded early years. I think this would have hit the spot. The sound is not really good, but it's not really good in a way that really fits the kind of rambling, bleeding, trudging, sound of a sick B-52 the Velvets were so adept at fitting into little pop songs at the time. "Sister Ray," supposedly its debut, is obviously awesome. One comment, though, on the words printed on the site suggesting this to be the "ONLY available live stuff from 1967." I could have sworn I used to own a Velvet boot from 1967. And I think the Symphony of Sound video stuff is from 1967. Could be wrong. Down, nerdiness.

Stack Waddy-Bugger Off!
Led Zeppelin or the Stones, or the Who, or the Groundhogs, fronted by Don Van Vliet, as a loose and jammy bar band playing drawn out blues numbers. Amazing drummer. The cover says it all. On John Peel's old label.

Sun Ra-Nothing Is
Space is the Place type stuff, played live.

Torso
Opening film at the Eli Roth film festival at LA's amazing Beverly New Cinema revival house (Commando and Caddyshack and Cannibal Holocaust in one month). In his introduction, Roth revealed that the film was originally called Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence. 'Nuff said. Everything a great Giallo should have from awkward dialogue to awkward stares to classicly bad lines (What you are looking at is not an abstract-expressionist painting but is, rather, evidence of a murder...or something like that) unnecessary lesbian sex scenes to equally unnecessary gore.

Pieces
Spanish slasher film set in Boston about a killer who not only kills people, but creates something along the way with their body parts. As Roth mentioned before it started, it's basically a constant barrage of candy for anyone in love with the genre. Endlessly creative death scenes that he obviously borrowed for the Thanksgiving trailer. Absolute WTF moments from the amazing scene one (I won't spoil it), through the mid-movie ode to Kung Fu B-movies, all the way to the incredible last scene. The nerdy contingent in the audience was playing MST with the film by the end, much to the chagrin of Roth who at one point, I think, yelled "Shut up!" It was still amazing. I really wish Mark and I had known about this one during our little Italian horror nights, even though it's Spanish.

Cannibal Holocaust
Uh...Can't say I would watch it again. But I can kinda see where they were going with it. I think maybe it's one of those movies where the history behind it is more interesting than the movie itself. The soundtrack is awesome in the same way as those other classics like Texas Chainsaw and all the Goblin stuff for Argento: bizarre, unsettling synths that the RZA probably heard a few times before he made the first Wu Tang album.

SM and the Jicks-Real Emotional Trash
My favorite SM record since Wowee Zowee. Up there with WZ, Slanted and Crooked Rain, in my book. If you were not so into the jammy stuff from the last few albums you might take a pass, though the jams are, in some ways, a bit more radio friendly this time around.

Mystics in Bali
I read about this one in the column that Byron Coley and Thurston Moore do for Arthur magazine, basically just little reviews of shit they get for free. I've watched at least one of the movies on the Mondo Macabre label. This one, though, is in its own league. Indonesian horror from the early 80s with Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park visual effects, black magic, a flying head that possibly goes down-on and definitely kills a pregnant(?) woman, and EXCELLENT translation (if you know what I mean). One of my old high school friends told me once about a low-budget, Mexican-made, pre-Alive version of Alive, called Survive. He stumbled on it somewhere around 3:30 AM on a Friday night on one of Birmingham's low budget stations. It was so bad, he related, full of cardboard sets and Z-grade values, but so amazing at the same time in that it kinda occupied it's own distinct corner of the universe. That's how this one is.

Madvillain-Madvillainy
One of the highest ratings ever on Metacritic. Deservedly so.

Johan Santana
Yeah!