I’ve been either too busy or not inspired enough to post anything of substance over the last couple of weeks, but my media consumption has continued unabated.  So here’s a summary of some of what I’ve been experiencing:

Fang Island (Self-titled album).  I downloaded this off of itunes after Zach and I saw this Brooklyn-based happy metal machine open for Red Sparowes in Sacramento a couple of months back.  There’s something both heartwarming and ludicrous about this quintet, which aptly describes their music as “the sound of everybody high-fiving each other.” While Fang Island on record is good, they are even more of a beer-swilling, head-banging, vocal-harmonizing guitar-soloing juggernaut live.  Like Styx for hipsters…in a good way.  Fang Island provided a welcome palate cleanser at the Red Sparowes show by essentially bursting the bubble of avant metal humorlessness.  Also, the whole band is originally from Rhode Island and one of the guys in the band used to work at this great video rental place in Providence.

Battlestar Gallactica (the first three or so seasons of the series).  Holy Lords of Kobol is Battlestar Gallactica good!  Sci-fi of the highbrow/refracted mirror kind, and amazingly great considering the poor quality of its source material.  Plus, Edward James Olmos literally captains the ship as Commander Bill Adama, who is about as stoic as they come, but isn’t above punching his son in the gut while sparring in the gym.  BSG has all of The Next Generation’s high seriousness without its sometimes cloying moral clarity, and tackles a series of topical issues including torture, electoral politics, civilian command of the military, and journalistic ethics.  And the character development is great.

Inception. Roaring Shark West Coast saw Chris Nolan’s latest exercise in self-serious conceptual weirdness a couple of nights ago.  I had heard some devastatingly bad reviews of this movie, so I went in with low expectations, and was consequently pleased.  The plot is ridiculous but nonetheless entertaining, though it annoyingly manages to recycle a whole lot of Freud, whose theories on identity projection, the subconsciousness, totems, etc. are ransacked for the purpose of making art (or artiness).  The sets are predictably elegant and the cinematography clean, though my favorite part of the movie involves what can only be described as Nolan getting his way with a big budget and inserting a protracted ski and snowmobile-based battle in an alpine forest.  This is probably the closest I’ve ever seen Nolan get to goofy humor.  Nolan brings out his repertory company for this one – Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and, oh yeah, Michael Caine show up for the dreamy madness.

Mini-blog: Don’t mean to bump Rob’s world cup post but I’ve been wanting to post some reviews. Especially to keep the front page updated for the month of shadoweyes. I’ve got a lot of stuff I can talk about and hopefully this week I’m more productive than last week which had pretty much floored me.

I’ve been in contact with Leonard recently and he’s been turning me onto some new music. I’ve especially been digging this video. Which is as fun to shred to than bon jovi.

Shinichi Osawa, Our Song

It’s very glamour which is not something I’m sure I know how I feel about. Hopefully I can get around to reviewing some albums.

It Might Get Loud: Imagine you’re back in high school, sitting in the cafeteria at lunchtime. The vice principal announces over the intercom 3 new initiatives to raise school spirit and fight student apathy: 1) additional study hall period on day of your choosing (with you so far) 2) hourly stretch breaks (uh…) 3) hip new school colors fuschia, orange peel, and slate (facepalm).

This is basically how I respond to the guitarists chosen to participate in It Might Get Loud. A brief summary: a documentary chronicling a meeting-of-the-minds of three famous guitar players, Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White. Biographical segments and interviews with each subject are edited together with a jam session (if you can call it that) with all three present. In a certain sense, the film is exactly what you’d expect knowing that it’s made by the people behind An Inconvenient Truth–a browbeating, pious look at rock music viewed with the cloudy prism of boomer nostalgia. Dumb all around, the Jack White segments are particularly heinous. Not only does he dress up like he thinks he’s still in Cold Mountain but his entire demeanor and everything he says comes off as cover-up-your-eyes embarrassingly contrived. And he’s so full of himself over ideas that have been exhaustively explored in the pages Rolling Stones and other cultural monoliths. Seriously, you’re authentic because you like roots music?

This is not a movie for people who are into guitar. While I can understand deference given to someone like Jimmy Page, none of the three are really shredders. They are primarily known for their songwriting I would say as opposed to their technique. And that’s fine. The only reason I even bring it up is that the jam sessions, which should be the saving grace, are just completely boring. My point being that, even if technically accomplished metal and shred guitarists like Paul Gilbert and Yngwie Malmsteen aren’t celebrated by the middlebrow hippies for which the director is aiming, you could at least sit them down in a room with their instruments and expect to hear something interesting.