I’ve been a fan of the Schramms since moving to Hoboken back in 1994. I’m thrilled that they’ve released their first studio album in nearly 20 years, and was quite honored to write a review for hMAG.
Aquarium Playlist, 6/18/19
EPISODE #335: SUMMER 2019
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
The Cars — “Magic”
Colour Me Wednesday — “Queer for the Summer”
Me in Capris — “Summer of Scowling”
Secretary Legs — “Rerun Summer”
First Base — “Don’t Let Me Down This Summer”
Kate Jacobs — “Slacker Mom Summer Song”
Phil Ochs — “In the Heat of Summer”
Jad Fair and Daniel Johnston — “Summertime”
Thee Speaking Canaries — “Summer’s Empty Resolution”
Ruen Brothers — “Summer Sun”
The B-52’s — “Summer of Love” (original mix)
Richard Lloyd — “Summer Rain”
The Clientele — “House on Fire”
Peter Wolf featuring Neko Case — “The Green Fields of Summer”
The Lovin’ Spoonful — “Summer in the City”
Jack’s Aquarium podcast is proudly recorded in Hoboken, NJ.
Aquarium Playlist, 6/11/19
EPISODE #334: HEY
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Little Richard — “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey”
Karyn Kuhl Band — “Hey Kid”
Basic Bitches — “Hey Kid”
Alvvays — “Hey”
OutKast — “Hey Ya!”
Rocketship — “Hey, Hey Girl”
Louis Prima & Keely Smith — “Hey, Boy! Hey, Girl!”
Eels — “Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living)”
Luna — “Hey Sister”
Bruce Springsteen — “Hey Blue Eyes”
Honeybunch — “Hey Blue Sky”
Johnny Cash — “Hey Porter”
Hank Williams — “Hey, Good Lookin'”
Ian Rubbish & the Bizzaros — “Hey Policeman!”
Kimberley Rew — “Hey, War Pig!”
They Might Be Giants featuring Elma Mayer — “Hey Now Everybody”
Leonard Cohen — “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye”
Dr. John — “Tipitina” [r.i.p. Dr. John]
Jack’s Aquarium podcast is proudly recorded in Hoboken, NJ.
Review: ‘Hey Kid’ by the Karyn Kuhl Band
The new EP by Hoboken’s own Karyn Kuhl Band, Hey Kid, will be released on June 21, but is available for pre-order now. I wrote a review for hMAG.
Movie Review: Godzilla — King of the Monsters
4 out of 5 stars
As the very beginning flashes back to 2014, I wondered if I was watching a sequel to some Godzilla movie I’d never seen. Later, when David Strathairn shows up as a serious military dude, I thought, “Hmm, I do vaguely remember him as a serious military dude,” and worried that I was in the middle of some sort of Marvel Universe Except With Monsters. (Should I have finally watched Kong: Skull Island off my DVR before coming to see this?) Sure enough, there was a 2014 Godzilla which I did in fact see and enjoy and then completely forgot about. But Coach Taylor and Vera Farmiga weren’t in it. But they are in this one. Got it?
Godzilla’s 2014 destruction was real September 11th-y, and Coach and Vera lost their son and split up. Now Coach is off “finding himself” but Vera, with their teen daughter Maddie in tow, sticks with the Monarch team (which Wikipedia tells me was in the 2014 movie) to study the “Titans” which is the politically correct term for monsters. But when mom and daughter are kidnapped by… hmm it’s not Max Von Sydow, and Christopher Lee is dead… some villainous old guy, Coach Taylor… just when he thought he was out, is pulled back in!
In addition to Strathairn, returning from ’14 are Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins as Monarch researchers. They’re joined by Bradley Whitford (because every science team has one guy who talks super casually) and Thomas Middleditch, trying to sell everybody a Verizon plan. Absolutely holding her own with the grown-ups is Millie Bobby Brown (I don’t watch Stranger Things but that’s my prerogative) as daughter Maddie, with sort of a young Natalie Portman vibe. Stay away, Moby.
And oh yes there are monst… uh, Titans. (Even though the new mystery super-creature is officially labeled “Monster Zero.”) The plot overlaps with the Jurassic films — should we destroy or protect these beasties? Plus the standard Godzilla nuclear stuff and that’s updated with a “it is us humans that are destroying the planet” message — but the monsters here are way better. Godzilla! Mothra! Rodan! And Monster Zero is hella scary!
Of course it’s not a perfect movie. Just when I was seemingly settling into a thoughtful “family trying to recover from tragedy” vibe, we enter one of those giant underground sci-fi command centers and I was instantly reminded, “oh yeah this is a big dumb Hollywood movie.” Also, security is very, very lax in this world; a savvy teen girl can basically evade any and all protocols.
But overall, it’s good! Especially for a monster movie, it’s really good. Dark and stormy and foreboding and you get the sense the world is actually ending. The action and monster fighting is pretty awesome and it builds and builds and builds. Plus on the soundtrack we get some Pixies, and updates of the Blue Öyster Cult “Godzilla” song and Mothra’s theme. Solid summer entertainment. Bring on the big ape!
Aquarium Playlist, 6/4/19
EPISODE #333: HALF DEVIL
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Sputnik — “333”
The Rolling Stones — “Sympathy for the Devil”
Robert Plant — “Angel Dance”
INXS — “Devil Inside”
The Mighty Lemon Drops — “Like an Angel” (original 7″ version)
Steve Earle — “The Devil’s Right Hand”
Rogue’s March — “If I Was an Angel”
The Beatles — “Devil in Her Heart”
k.d. lang — “Angel With a Lariat”
The Dramatics — “The Devil Is Dope”
Lucinda Williams — “Drunken Angel”
Smoking Popes — “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground”
Roky Erickson — “Don’t Shake Me, Lucifer” [r.i.p. Roky]
Jack’s Aquarium podcast is proudly recorded in Hoboken, NJ.
Movie Review: The Souvenir
3.5 stars out of 5
Two generations of Swintons? Count me in! Tilda has a relatively small role in this, but it’s all about her daughter Honor Swinton Byrne. She plays 24-year-old Julie who wants to make films. Ah, but not about her relatively comfortable existence; she’d rather focus on a boy in the northern industrial town of Sunderland.
Julie likes discussing her ideas with Anthony (a very good Tom Burke, who I think I’ve only seen before in the 2003 British crime miniseries State of Play). He’s posh with pin-striped suits and that worldliness is part of his appeal. He’s also married but that doesn’t stop them from beginning a romance. Early on it’s rather charming but becomes less and less so, and that’s the crux of this story.
There’s an interesting subtext of identity politics here. Middle-class Julie is actually from an upper-class family, while fancy lad Anthony comes from a working-class background. (Crikey, he’s even got kin in those shipyards she fancies so much!) Meanwhile, in film school, professors insist that you have to reveal something of yourself in your art.
The film school scenes don’t quite jibe with the rest of the movie. (Beware films about filmmaking.) But overall there’s a pleasing realism here. Setting the tale in the 1980s reminds us how much more organic life was without computers and smartphones everywhere. Music is very well deployed: Images of rundown shipyards summon Robert Wyatt’s “Shipbuilding.” When Julie is falling for Anthony, we’re tipped off by Graham Maby’s iconic bassline from Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” Later, Julie switches off stuffy Anthony’s opera and slips in a hiphop cassette.
In her debut lead role, Honor Swinton Byrne does indeed honor thy mother. She’s innocent and soft where the Tilda we usually see is knowing and angular — but they share a certain boyishness. The arc of the plot tests Julie’s pleasant demeanor, so Honor gets to test out confusion, fatigue, disappointment, and anger. Tilda steps up late in the game, exuding motherly love. It’s the role she was born to play!
At the end of the credits, we learn that The Souvenir: Part II is coming soon. Huh! I don’t think I’ve seen a dramatic sequel since the early 90s Blue/White/Red trilogy which introduced me to Juliette Binoche. I do wish Souvenir: Part I was a little stronger, but writer/director Joanna Hogg and the Swintons have hooked me enough for the next installment, provided there’s no Thanos.
Aquarium, 5/28/19
EPISODE #332: CIGARETTES
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Benny Spellman — “Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)”
Karyn Kuhl — “Cigarette Song”
Karl Hendricks Trio — “Some Girls Like Cigarettes”
Spoon — “My Little Japanese Cigarette Case”
The Insomniacs — “The Long Cigarette”
Hefner — “The Hymn for the Cigarettes”
My Bloody Valentine — “Cigarette in Your Bed”
The Minus 5 — “Cigarettes Coffee and Booze”
Son Volt — “Highways and Cigarettes”
Rufus Wainwright — “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”
The Smithereens — “Cigarette”
Benji Cossa — “Hearts and Cigarettes”
Withered Hand — “No Cigarettes”
Patsy Cline — “Three Cigarettes in the Ashtray”
Dramarama — “Last Cigarette”
Yo La Tengo — “Buckner’s Boner” [BONUS TRACK] r.i.p. Bill Buckner
Jack’s Aquarium podcast is proudly recorded in Hoboken, NJ.
Movie Review: Asbury Park—Riot, Redemption, Rock ‘n Roll
4 stars out of 5
The story goes that, a couple of years ago, Mr. Bruce Springsteen saw a rough cut of this documentary and said, “I should be in this.” His ample included commentary in the finished version certainly lends the film some legitimacy and authority, but the story presented here is worth telling regardless.
We learn of Asbury Park’s creation in the late 19th century, carved out between wild Long Branch and reserved Ocean Grove. (To compete with Long Branch as a resort destination, Asbury got a little wilder itself, and the reputation became set: You went to Ocean Grove to pray, and Asbury Park to play.)
Segregation enters this tale early, whites on the east side of town and blacks on the west side (and love on the wrong side, and darkness on the edge?). Both areas thrived, music providing the heartbeat, and Asbury became a required tour stop for the major white and black artists of the mid 20th century. (Some of the most impressive footage here is of the Rolling Stones and the Doors performing at Convention Hall in the mid-1960s.) The concept that music has the unique power to bring people of different backgrounds together is stressed repeatedly.
The film spends a lot of time on the founding of the Upstage club, a veritable petri dish for E Street (another successful interracial example). This is where Bruce-o-philes such as myself get their ticket price’s worth. In addition to the Boss, interviews include Little Steven (often carrying his little doggy), Garry Tallent, Max Weinberg, David Sancious, Ernest “Boom” Carter, and Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez, as well as Southside Johnny.
Indeed, just when it seems like the movie is becoming another Springsteen biography, the riot mentioned in the title comes into play. It was 1970, and the racial inequality that had exploded elsewhere in the country — Detroit, Newark, etc. — hit Asbury and hit it hard. I’ve been in New Jersey a long time and never knew this history.
I appreciated that the filmmakers give credit and significant screen time to the LGBTQI community and its major role in the slow but certain revitalization of Asbury. However, I was annoyed that the film didn’t also shine a spotlight on the local indie music scene, centered around the original Asbury Lanes, that has played such a key part in drawing a younger, artsier demographic to town. To represent the next generation, I would’ve loved to see Dentist or Algebra II on the big screen, instead of just the little-kid musicians that the movie spends way too much on. Eh, but it’s hard to get too upset about a movie where one of the producers is Jersey Mike’s.
Click here to find a screening near you.
In Real Life w/ Kimzilla & Emily: Happy Jack
What an honor to be interviewed on the great WFMU program In Real Life about my disability, recovery, and more. An extended podcast version is available here.
Jack Silbert, curator