WHO: Dog Party WHAT: Dangerous WHY: If you want straight up Ramonesy punk rock (an easy thing to find) done well (NOT an easy thing to find), look no further than Dog Party. It’s got all the catchy melodies and heavy riffs you’d want, but these ladies put their own flare on it all. Their new album Dangerous sees them treading new waters: it’s more mature, has a country twang to it, yet it retains all the fun and identity...

East of Eden East of Eden might be one of the most celebrated books ever and Elia Kazan one of the most celebrated directors ever, but boy did they botch this one. I hate to come in so hot, but this movie just brought it out of me. It’s one of those cases where I have so many thoughts on why I didn’t like a movie that I just want to get it out into words. Why are people...

Philip K DickSelected Short Stories I consider myself a sci-fi book nerd. Or at least I used to be. A new job can be a stressful thing. So much so that I haven’t read any books this year…period. At one point I was reading 50 a year! What happened to me? Oh, yeah, the new job. I read this a few years ago and just now am getting around to reviewing it. But back when I had the time,...

WHO: Kurt M Spieler/Vinegar Syndrome WHAT: New York Ninja WHY: Look, the point of SPOTLIGHT was to focus on music, not movies, but there’s a first time for everything. Imagine a man discovering 6 hours of footage, without sound, of an abandoned martial arts movie from the 80s and taking it upon himself to re-edit it, rewrite the script (sometimes by reading lips), rerecord the dialogue and sound effects, and find a band to write a score that would fit...

To Kill a Mockingbird Let’s think of a simpler time: 2020 mid-pandemic. To pass the quarantine, my wife and I had taken up watching all the movies from the AFI 100 list. It’s really a great way to get exposed to great movies you would otherwise never see. And it really puts new cinema into perspective and just how ridiculous mainstream movies have gotten. To Kill a Mockingbird came on the queue, and honestly, didn’t make much of an...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Mantra” b/w “Surfers On Acid” 7” single by Trabants. It’s impressive how engaging Trabants prove they’re capable of being on their “Mantra” single, particularly given that the first which tends to hook listeners is the thing that is noticeably absent from the band’s construct: a singer. Usually, a band’s singer is the first thing that engages listeners and brings them into the music but, without that, Trabants finds a way to...

WHO: The Clash WHAT: Live at Jaap Edenhal, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1981 WHY: We’re not accustomed here at GC to recommend bootlegs, but this one is probably the mother of Clash bootlegs. Live at Jaap Edenhal is a live bootleg recorded from the console, and catches the Clash still at the height of powers still. This is finally a cohesive, high quality, complete capture of the band playing mostly their entire catalog (Combat Rock excluded). It’s interesting both as a testament...

Enter the Dragon Boy, was I ever on a Bruce Lee kick. That Criterion box set succeeded both in content and design. It was the perfect way to get into his movies and learn a lot about who he was, how he approached his film career, and his lifestyle. The thing is, though, that the more I saw and thought about it, the more it seems like he was kind of a scam artist. I mean, “Jeet-Kune-Do”? “Be like...

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YOLO. You only live once. And for a music fan that’s important. A few years ago I realized how important it is the seize the moment, get off your ass, and see a band you like, because you only live once. They only live once. I once drove 2 hours to Western Mass to see Lee Scratch Perry and then beat myself up about it a little because I just could have seen him in Boston the next time. But...