On the surface, it looks like beloved young scuzz-rocker John Cozz has it all: He runs his own boutique Cozz Coffee roasting company; he co-runs the upstart Pizza Bagel Records label; he’s in a loving relationship with one of north Jersey’s most in-demand hair stylists, the saucy Sam Bolognese; and John still somehow finds time to fall off his skateboard. But like any true blue Jersey guy, there’s still plenty of agita in Cozz-akhstan. And John Cozz and the Rippers let it all hang out on the terrific new EP Relish on the Good Times, upping his quotient of both melody and (gasp!) maturity.
Oh, don’t worry, Cozz hasn’t transformed into a mopey singer-songwriter. This is is still a drunken punk rock party, well represented by the hilarious Rutt’s-ian cover art (by Sam Cardelfe) and the hot-dog pun title (which IMHO should’ve just been Relish the Good Times but hey, nobody asked me). But there’s more structure and concision than before to John’s songs, powerfully played by his loyal band the Rippers (the kid likes hot dogs, ok?): Max Rauch (of LKFFCT) on lead guitar, Nick Nucci on bass, and Kevin Donnelly (also of LKFFCT) on drums.
Lead track “Step In, Yer In” chronicles suburban splendor being rudely interrupted by dog urine, annoying neighbors, and an unresponsive landlord. Musically, it’s highlighted by a bright power-pop chorus and an insidious earworm main riff by Rauch which is sort of a modified “Peter Gunn Theme.”
Our narrator simply cannot catch a break. In “Take a Walk Duuuude” he’s hassled in the men’s room and then kicked out of the bar for no good reason, all set to fuzzy guitar and a Johnny Cash boom-chicka-boom beat. OK, but here’s that mature stuff I was talking about: He realizes he was having a better time at home with Sam. (Oh wait i get it the narrator is JOHN COZZ.) His head starts spinning, Rauch unleashes a wild solo, and the music veers off into Cozzadelic glory.
The alienation reaches its peak in “Italian Meats,”with the riff from “Step In” flipped on its ear creating a sense of heightening paranoia. Cozz paints a Springsteen-esque scene, a ghost town of QuickChek parking lots and blank teens on Xanax. His vocals sound like he’s losing his shit. He’s gotta get outta this place, if it’s the last thing he ever does. Tramps like Cozz, baby they were born to run.
But not without his woman. The bus-ride finale of “Greyhound” — a hit single in a fair world — is not the existential angst Paul Simon described in “America.” Instead it’s a happy ending for our hero, comfort and peace with his lover. Two against the world, shelter from the storm. Plus an absolute killer chorus! Check out the EP, it’s a real good Cozz.
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME] Justin Townes Earle — “Call Ya Momma” Pale Lights — “Mother Cries” The Shirelles — “Mama Said” Sarah Shook & the Disarmers — “Make It Up to Mama” Elliott Smith — “Wouldn’t Mama Be Proud” A Nero — “Moms (Hysterical Fiction)” Tommy Keene — “My Mother Looked Like Marilyn Monroe” Paul Simon — “That Was Your Mother” Low — “Mother” Sir Douglas Quintet — “I Wanna Be Your Mama Again” Guided by Voices — “How I Met My Mother” Courtney Barnett — “I’m Not Your Mother, I’m Not Your Bitch” The Magnetic Fields — “’75: My Mama Ain’t” The Maddox Brothers & Rose — “Mama Says It’s Naughty” Sun Kil Moon — “I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love” Hank Williams — “I’ve Just Told Mama Goodbye”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, New Jersey.
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME] Jon Langford’s Four Lost Souls — “Waste” The Lodger — “Wasting My Time With You” Marshall Crenshaw — “You’re My Favorite Waste of Time” Freedy Johnston — “Waste Your Time” Jarvis Cocker — “Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time” Best Coast — “Wasted Time” The Libertines — “What a Waster” Black Flag — “Wasted” Dum Dum Girls — “Wasted Away” Rare Books — “Waste Away” The Muffs — “Don’t Waste Another Day” Sir Douglas Quintet — “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” Bob Dylan — “Long and Wasted Years” Sonic Youth — “What a Waste” The Lost Crusaders — “Wasted on the Wind”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Peter Tosh — “Legalize It” [ALTERNATE THEME] Wavves — “Weed Demon” Temples — “You’re Either on Something” The Clean — “Are You Really on Drugs” A Giant Dog — “Get With You and Get High” Karl Hendricks Trio — “Naked and High on Drugs” The Magnetic Fields — “Take Ecstasy With Me” East River Pipe — “When You Were Doing Cocaine” The Fall — “Mr. Pharmacist” The Velvet Underground — “Heroin” Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers — “Chinese Rocks” Franklin Bruno — “Clean Needle” Neil Young — “The Needle and the Damage Done” Bert Jansch — “Needle of Death” The Modern Lovers — “I’m Straight”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Of the pandemic-era theatrical releases I’ve attended, Godzilla vs. Kong is the first one that really needs to be seen on a big screen. Too bad, then, that it’s not a better movie.
Which is not to say it’s awful. The vaguely intertwined Godzilla and Kong films from 2014 on have been generally pretty good. I even thought the most recent one, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, was very good. But, as they say, one Tokyo-crushing-step forward, two steps back.
We don’t even get Tokyo — it’s Florida (which, let’s face it, sort of deserves a Titan thrashing) and then Hong Kong. The basic plot: Last movie, we thought Godzilla was a good guy, so why is he being such a jerk now? They bring King Kong over from Skull Island to fight him. Well, that would have been an easy-to-follow plot. But what actually happens is they take Kong away from his home to Antarctica to find a secret power source in the hollow middle of Earth, which is mind-bogglingly stupid. And just wait till you find out what evil Apex Cybernetics, run by evil Demián Bichir (Marco Ruiz on The Bridge and he also starred in the Montefiore Health System adverfilm Corazón), plans to do with the secret power source!
Coach Taylor and daughter Maddie (Millie Bobby Brown) are back from King of the Monsters. Unfortunately, Kyle Chandler has nothing to do here except be an extremely inattentive dad. Which allows Maddie to yet again sneak off and evade ridiculously lax corporate security. This time she’s accompanied by talented actor Brian Tyree Henry (who had about 3 lines in Joker) as a giant-monster conspiracy podcaster. [Note to Hollywood: Please don’t portray conspiracy theorists as the good guys.] David Strathairn, who was in the last two Godzilla flicks, is MIA. On the Kong side, no actors are back from Skull Island because that was a period piece, kinda KK84. So we get the lovely and talented Rebecca Hall and a sign-language-wielding kid who has a special relationship with the big monkey. Blah! Also, these movies like to cast a token “elite” actor and this time it’s Alexander Skarsgård. But instead of raising up the material, he lowers his performance to it.
Luckily, the movie frequently lives up to its title, and the fight scenes are awesome. Genuinely thrilling! That’s why you wore a mask to the multiplex and used a self-checkout machine even to order popcorn, and they make it worth your while. Two sequences made me laugh out loud with glee. A third made me laugh with mockery but who cares! The action raises this movie from garbage to, you know, pretty good. You drive me ape, you big gorilla!
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME] Kermit the Frog — “Rainbow Connection” The Rolling Stones — “She’s a Rainbow” James Lindsey featuring Cicily Bullard — “Rainbows” Ernest Tubb — “Rainbow at Midnight” World Party — “When the Rainbow Comes” Calvin Johnson — “Bubbles, Clouds, and Rainbows” Luna — “Rainbow Babe” Built to Spill — “Bloody Rainbow” Talulah Gosh — “Looking for a Rainbow” The Ramones — “She Talks to Rainbows” Dolly Mixture — “Rainbow Valley” The Box Tops — “Neon Rainbow” Frank Sinatra — “Over the Rainbow” The Flaming Lips — “I Was Zapped by the Lucky Super Rainbow”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, New Jersey.
I’m trying to support the open movie theaters. The only problem is, there are no damn movies! So a while back, when I read that Godzilla vs. Kong would be released on March 26, I thought to myself, “There’s something I’d enjoy doing on my second pandemic birthday weekend.” Except it wasn’t released on March 26. Thanks for ruining my birthday, Gojira!
I skimmed the dreck for something else to see. The best of the bunch, for my tastes anyway, appeared to be Nobody starring Bob Odenkirk. I like Bob Odenkirk, all the way back to Mr. Show. I’ve been less interested in him as a dramatic actor but, I like Bob Odenkirk. And the poster had his face looking all beat up, surrounded by punching fists, so that looked pretty funny. Metacritic clocked in at 63. Acceptable.
Now, I’m a big fan of the “ordinary schlub thrown into extraordinary circumstances” genre. Perhaps the greatest of all time is Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, which I recently watched for a second time and found it to be just as excellent as I did when I was 18 — maybe more so. Nobody seems like it’s going to be that kind of movie, but then it isn’t. So that was a disappointment for me, and it took me a little longer to get into the groove (boy you’ve got to prove your love to meeeeeeeee). But when I did, I enjoyed the film.
Mind you, this is not a great movie. Was distracted from the get-go by the bad wig and Statham-stubble that Odenkirk is sporting. The writing is merely serviceable; Odenkirk makes the dialogue sound better than it is. Some characters, such as the brother-in-law, are too cartoonish and took me out of the story (which I won’t spoil for you). Odenkirk is solid but no other actors — including Christopher Lloyd and RZA — particularly stand out. The overall feeling is a bit too slick/phony.
But… it mostly works. If you like guns, knives, punching, and Russian mobsters, you will enjoy this. There’s a breathless, goofy momentum to the action, with enough genuine laughs tossed in. It gets over-the-top stupid toward the end but, you know, my expectations were pretty well shot by then anyway. Not everybody will love Nobody but somebody will.
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME] Temples — “The Guesser” Dany Laj & the Looks — “Don’t Keep Me Guessin’” [radio mix] R.E.M. — “Second Guessing” Martha Reeves & the Vandellas — “Love, Guess Who” Superchunk — “I Guess I Remembered It Wrong” Johnny Cash — “I Guess Things Happen That Way” Glen Campbell — “Guess I’m Dumb” Steve Goodman — “Just Lucky I Guess” [live] Nilsson — “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City” The Lucksmiths — “Anyone’s Guess” Thom Yorke — “Guess Again!” Papercuts — “I’ll See You Later I Guess” Midlake — “I Guess I’ll Take Care” Jack White — “I Guess I Should Go To Sleep” So Cow — “Guess Who’s Dead”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME] John Doe — “Take #52” Radiohead — “House of Cards” Robert Plant — “House of Cards” Patsy Cline — “Turn the Cards Slowly” The Clash — “The Card Cheat” Elvis Presley — “From a Jack to a King” Ben Carruthers & the Deep — “Jack o’ Diamonds” The Daily Flash — “Jack of Diamonds” Bob Dylan — “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts” Motörhead — “Ace of Spades” Super Furry Animals — “Show Your Hand” Wilco — “Solitaire” Leonard Cohen — “The Stranger Song” Robyn Hitchcock — “Fifty-Two Stations”
Jack Silbert proudly records the Aquarium podcast in Hoboken, NJ.
Jack Silbert, curator