Hello, fair reader. I haven't turned this laptop on in a week, so I know it's been a week since I've written. So, what's up?
Last week was "back to work" for us gubbimint employees. Monday went much smoother than I thought it would. I figured after five weeks off our computer systems would be F.U.B.B. (thank you, Wishbone Ash), but to my surprise, no. I signed on with the usual effort and all seemed good. There was a small problem with updating my GERS password, but I'll deal with that later. (I know that last sentence might as well have been "I snortered my lubiar, next to the myutra" to the non-government employee.) So, work was resumed. Not a whole lot of work, mind you, as our projects schedule is pretty much fried now. And that was fine, as I managed to get sick during the latter part of the week, and having something meaningful to do during the day might have been a bridge too far. I'm still feeling a bit ill but have been better the last couple of days.
Tuesday night, the Hickoids had our first rehearsal in a while. We started going over ideas for recording at Dale Watson's studio in Memphis, which will happen in May. Danny Grace will guest, and it should be a blast. Of course, Tuesday night is when I began to feel ill, so by the end of practice, I was just wanting to get out of there. Still, we accomplished.....something, I think.
By Thursday, I felt terrible. I guess a low-grade cold had finally taken hold. Michelle had the same thing a couple of weeks prior; it just took its sweet time getting to me. Thursday night, Pocket FishRmen rehearsed, but up until three hours or so before rehearsal time, I didn't think I was going to make it. But I did. The way the rehearsal room is set up now, I only have to replace the snare drum and kick pedal, and I'm ready to play. Very easy. If I would have had extensive setup to do, I would have cancelled. And I'm glad we rehearsed; it went really well. I went back to the hammered double kick during the "We Kill Evil" chorus for the first time in years. The band (and I) preferred more of a tribal approach during the choruses, but after years of trial and error, I never came up with a way of playing that which felt right. I just went back to the double kick metal part. Sounded fine to me. It's manly, too. And after practice, I felt somewhat better. The cold has lingered since then, and I'm still not fully well....but close.
Wednesday, I received the Severin bundle which was technically my birthday present but had been held up by a manufacturing delay. I'm still going through all of that, but damn, is it nice! The bundle included Blu rays of "All the Colors of the Dark" (a Sergio Martino classic), "All the Colors of Giallo" (a feature-length documentary on...guess what?), a quartet of cheap American Mondo movies, and "Skinner," a 1993 horror movie that...well, it's interesting. There were also two enamel pins, one of Sergio Martino, and one of Edwige Fenech. The quality of these surprised me....they're heavy suckers! There was also a t-shirt of "All the Colors of the Dark" characters, created by my buddy Craig Merritt's company, Pallbearer Press. And.....black gloves, so you can dress as a giallo character yourself. I would have left off the "All the Colors of the Dark" logo, but hey, they fit my gnarled old drummer hands!
The "All the Colors of the Dark" release includes two cuts of the movie, a DVD version, and the soundtrack on a separate CD. There is a commentary by Diabolique Magazine's/Daughter of Darkness Kat Ellinger, and several other interview features (none with Edwige Fenech, though.....boo).
The "All the Colors of Giallo" release includes four hours of giallo trailers with optional commentary by the aforementioned Ms. Ellinger. I'm about 60% through those now, and man, is that some entertainment! I won't spoil it here, but Ms. Ellinger makes an observation about Lucio Fulci during a "Don't Torture a Duckling" trailer that would have caused a full spit take from me if I would have had liquid in my mouth upon hearing it. Hilarious! There is also a DVD containing a number of Krimi (German crime films, which largely pre-date and inspired the giallo genre) trailers; I haven't watched any of those yet. There is also a third disc, which is a CD sampler of soundtrack music.
The American Mondo collection contains these four films: "Mondo Bizarro," "Mondo Freudo," "Ecco," and "The Forbidden." I've watched "Mondo Bizarro" and about 40% of "Mondo Freudo." Both of those contain optional commentary from Johnny Legend and now-deceased memorabilia collector Eric Caidin, which must have been recorded at least ten years ago. I watched about half of "Mondo Bizarro" with the commentary on, and I'd suggest doing that. Johnny, as a scenester in Hollywood during the 60s knows a lot of the locations and a lot about the people involved in the making of these movies. For the uninitiated, these films were inspired by the Italian Mondo craze of the 60s ("Mondo Cane," etc.), but whereas those movies largely had "real" footage (I suppose that might be up for debate a bit), these American Mondo movies were largely the opposite. "Mondo Bizarro" closes with what is supposed to be white slave trade going on in Saudi Arabia.....with the hills of Los Angeles clearly visible behind the setting. It's rather hilarious, especially with Legend's commentary. When the legendary Vito of the Hollywood scene appears, I remembered I'd seen shots from this in a Zappa/Mothers documentary. Legend is certain that some Mothers are in the movie in other places. There is also a nice video interview featurette on the disc that documents the.....documentaries. I still haven't popped in the "Ecco"/"The Forbidden" disc yet.
"Skinner" was a trip. A film directed by Heidi Fleiss' boyfriend when that scandal broke, starring Ted Raimi, Ricki Lake, and Traci Lords. What else do you want to know? In many ways, it's very reminiscent of "The Silence of the Lambs," but at the same time, I think it's its own movie. I was surprised at how well made it was, especially since it seems very low budget. But it's effective. I'll watch it again, I feel certain. Creepy. The KNB guys worked on the special effects, but one of the special features explains that they weren't there on set; they just sent the stuff over to be used. Nice practical effects, though.
Another thing occupying time is that I'm continuing to transfer old cassettes to mp3 format. I finished the Lather transfers and have begun the Puffy Brutha Man transfers. So far, I haven't found the "Pump First Then Pay" cassette amongst many others I have, but I still have the original master tape of the recording. I need to get that transferred, and now I have more motivation. So far, the sound quality of the tapes hasn't been as bad as I had feared. The tapes (so far) have been in pretty good shape. Whew. I thought most of them might turn to powder when I started the transfer process. So far, okay. It's a slow process, though, being real-time conversion. And I have to pretty much babysit the transfer. It'll be a while before I'm done with this.
And that's the report......two more weeks of work. Maybe more.....who knows?? End, cold, end!
