Saturday, March 21, 2009

the best tapes you never had part one

In high school it was all about punk rock and cassettes. tape your 7"s onto em and play them in the car... right? I don't know. maybe it was just us. Anyways, part one in the list not only serves as one if my most overplayed cassettes from freshman-junior year, but also as somewhat of a partial discography before the band here broke up. i'm talking about THE MUSHUGANAS.
there is a cd collection that was supposed to be all of this stuff but now isn't, but who knows if that will even come out. it was supposed to come out on harmless all the way back then. i got most of these songs from scott harmless himself on two loving cassettes, which i then sequenced into partial chronological order on one giant 120 minute cassette..... anyways. here goes. separated by release listing.

S/T DEMO cassette
1. black sabbath/no applause
2. she's got a man
3. downfall
4. donny most
5. old school
6. lousy day
7. don't talk to me
8. public animal #1 (you hate me and i hate you)
9. killers
SPLIT 7" WITH CHEMICAL BLUE SONGS
10. her boyfriend
11. downfall
12. motivation
DUMPSTERLAND 7"
13. she's got a man
I EAT GEEKS LIKE YOU FOR BREAKFAST 7"
14. theme from mushugana
15. paul deluxe
16. spoonfed
17. iowa
FUCKIN FUCK LIVE JERK cassette
18. spoonfed
19. donny most
20. motivation
21. iowa
22. her boyfriend
23. she's got a man
24. I wanna get cancer
25. theme from mushugana
26. public animal #1
27. ass kissers
DROPOUT GIRL 7"
28. dropout girl
29. 18
30. maybe
31. it's raining
YACKETY SCHMACKETY BLAH BLAH BLAH
32. disappointed (extra vocals)
TASTE OF CHICAGO
33. disappointed
DAD, ARE WE PUNK YET?
34. ass kissers
ACHTUNG CHICAGO DREI
35. breaking tradition
UNRELEASED RECORDING FOR COMPILATION
36. theme from mushugana
37. donny most
OOOH YEAH!
38. i want attention
??/CHECKS IN THE MAIL
39. when i'm here with you (parasites)
WHERE THE KIDS AREN'T LP
(became mushuganas s/t posthumous pre rock and roll period LP about 2 years after i got this tape)
40. followers (renamed: shut yer fucken mouth)
41. shit city
42. aimed wrong
43. i want attention
44. another girl, another planet (only ones)
45. wright city
46. everyone
47. donny most
48. cute (renamed: the consequence of overplay)
49. mistreated
DICK JOKES
50. strawberry shortcake

Thursday, March 05, 2009

BAD BIOLOGY.

Opening a movie with the line "I was born with seven clits" is going to be a pretty bold move no matter what. And this is what Frank Henenlotter's movies are all about. You have to give leeway to their B grade special effects and take in the fact that NO ONE has or ever will make movies like this, aside from maybe Rinse Dream, who hasn't made a movie since 1990's Dr. Caligari. My history with Frank's movies stems all the way back to childhood, much like many movies I will praise. Looking to rent horror movies at dollar video and running to "Basket Case" was not a mistake. These are the kind of movies that were made for viewers like me. The effects were horrid, but the plot made up for it. Duane Bradley and his mutant brother, separated at birth, come back to the big city to take revenge on the people who tore them apart. Following this movie nearly a decade later was a sequel that was full of camp schlock which included Belial, the "freak" brother falling in love. Lo and behold the Basket Case series was extended again two years later when Belial became a father. His other movies are just as good... in Brain Damage a hideous ancient "brain" becomes attached to a host who he has kill for him in order to release the "drug" said host needs. Frankenhooker speaks for itself in the title alone. Imagine the title as a person and you'll know exactly what kind of a movie you are in for. Frank Henenlotter is a genius. Enough said. The problem was that after Basket Case III, he seemed to disappear into thin air. How I made it through my high school years without any new offerings from old Frank, I have no clue. Now I've grown into early adulthood and he's finally back. It's like running into an old friend after not seeing them in what feels like forever.

Bad Biology, which is yet to be released on video in the states, has already hit DVD in the UK. And I finally got to see the movie that I've been waiting for two years and hoping would be as great as my personal hype for it was going to make it. It didn't let me down. Like his other movies it deals with genetic/sexual monstrosities including the girl born with seven clits and the boy with the monster penis. And how they inevitably meet up and what happens after that. Of course, in between that meeting is a whole movie worth of laughs and odd situations, including a "pussy face" photo shoot, two girls discussing penis size and arguing over whether or not John Holmes was freak or a god. There is so much more to be said for this movie but I don't want to spoil the fun. You'll just have to watch it for yourself. R.A. the Rugged Man seemed to come onto the scene in the special features on the Basket Case where he was shown with Mr. Henenlotter going to these places where they filmed it, showing what little places were left from the modest little movie that could back in 1982. "What is this white rapper doing with a legend?" I thought when I first watched it, not knowing that this was going to be the guy that gave the extra push to lead Frank out of his premature retirement. As producer of this film he has committed a miracle, that being getting this movie made.

See Bad Biology when it comes out on DVD here. Buy it so these guys can make another movie. Frank, it's been a long decade and a half in the making and it didn't let me down. I hope the rest of your fans feel the same way. R.A., thanks for making it happen and getting this unheralded genius back in the directors spot. In a rap song R.A. wrote about the process of making the movie one of the last things he says "Do I really wanna make filmmaking my career? Aw fuck it, me and Henenlotter will be back next year." I really hope so.


TRAILER:

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

How's Your News?

I don't come here very often anymore but I wanted to point out a note of interest for anyone who may or may not be reading.
How's Your New's? started airing it's first season on MTV this past Sunday night. I'm not sure how successful the rating are, though I would hope they are well enough for them to get at least another season. I would like to see them come through Chicago, whether it be for them to play a live show or to be filming for their television show. Why didn't that happen yet? I would love to meet them. These people are better than you and despite their disabilities, they are worlds ahead of most of us. When's the last time you had a television show airing on a major network? That's what I thought.

Anyways, i'll tell you the same story any old press bio will probably tell you as well. Camp Jabberwocky (which probably would be the coolest place to work, by the way) had been making videos for fun for years before they caught the eye of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park. They decided to give them a certain ammount of money to make a full length movie based on the travels of a handful of people from the camp. I'm not sure which came first - that offer or the "Pilot episode" of HYN (available on the DVD which came out in 2004), but the basics of it are putting these people with disabilities in situations where they not only get to see the world but meet people and do street interviews with them. The show is a little more high scale, as in the first episode alone they got to go to the Grammys and also had guests such as John Stamos, Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel, but the documentary is just as good. Here is a clip from that which includes the amazing Sean Costello telling us some of the highlights of what you can do and see in Texas. They also visit an auction.



Bobby bird has invented his own language which is all he can speak. He can, however, understand most of the things that are said to him. With the people who don't just walk away due to not understanding him, you can hear some words of English slip out and understand how happy he is to be doing what he is doing. This is NOT exploitation, and while I'm sure plenty of people will be laughing at them and not with them, they also are very aware of this. They get to put themselves out there and have the times of their life, all while capturing it in a format that they not only get to meet very important people, but will be able to look back on and watch when they are older.

Larry has cerebral palsy and can't speak. When they set him up with interviews, he holds a microphone while someone else assists him in holding up the questions for the interviewee to read. In the case of the documentary, most of the times he was just placed in a high volume area with a microphone holding a sign that simply read "How's your news?" The reactions he gets from people who decide to ignore him are just as interesting as the ones where people take a moment out of their day to talk to someone who is obviously there wanting to communicate with them. You can learn a lot about what a person is like by watching something like that happen.
Like Bobby, Larry can understand things on the same level as the rest of us, but he has been put on this earth in a body that does not let him communicate that so easily. Once again, when people stick it out and spend time with him while he is conducting an interview, you can tell that he is very excited to be where he is.

Sean is one of my favorites, though I really can't pick and choose because they all have their high points. He is very soft spoken and polite, likes fried chicken and baseball, and also has Down Syndrome. My favorite Sean moment may be in the documentary when he is interviewing some ladies who are on a bench, and when one of them starts to grill him a little too hard about what he is doing and tell him they maybe shouldn't be filming her because she doesn't have her makeup on Sean get's seemingly frustrated and throws his hands up and lets her in on it "Lady, this is pretrend. It's like... How's Your News? It is not real." The thing is though, it is VERY real.

These are only a few examples of the amazing people that comprise the HYN team. Get more acquainted by watching them.

They also have a full length album out which you can direct order from them or listen to in it's entirety on their website.>


This is the trailer for their series.


You can watch the whole first episode right now at
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/hows_your_news/series.jhtml
I would imagine as the weeks go by you will also be able to watch each episode after its television premiere. Do it. Chances are you won't regret it. So watch their show on MTV, buy their movies and music from them, or netflix the original movie. Please?