RightWingTrash

A Christmas Without Fairness Doctrines

2010-12-22T06:49:00Z

I’ve disappeared from the site again, but you have to understand that it’s a real shock to start going to an office after nine years of working from home. It’s like I’m wearing pants constantly now. The good news is that I’m really enjoying myself, and I expect to have a lot more to talk about here—including the usual New Year’s recap of favorite things from 2010 that didn’t insult my intelligence.

But here it is Christmas, and time to write up a forgotten holiday film before I do my expected disappearing act for the last two weeks of December. I’m going with a full recap of Kings and Desperate Men, too. This one isn’t always easy to find on VHS , and it’s not likely there’ll ever be a decent DVD release. My editors even deleted a reference I made to Kings and Desperate Men in last year’s obituary for Patrick McGoohan. I was thinking the film clearly deserved mention as part of the politics found in McGoohan’s stint as the star and producer of the classic ’60s show The Prisoner.

The problem was that people still love to talk about The Prisoner. Nobody seems to care about this Libertarian romp from 1981. The sad truth, however, is that Kings and Desperate Men isn’t any great loss. The film is kind of plodding. The good news is that the plot is still plenty of fun as a synopsis.

First, it takes a while to figure out the film’s title. The first card says A Hostage Incident over the credits, with Kings and Desperate Men added as an afterthought. It seems the original movie posters referred to the film as Kings and Desperate Men: A Hostage Incident. So does the VHS cover art.

Whatever the film is called, it opens two days before Christmas in what seems to be British Columbia. McGoohan is a conservative Canadian radio host named John Kingsley. He has a judge as a guest in the studio. They’re discussing His Honor’s recent decision to refuse to overturn an imminent death sentence on a terrorist. We cut to the interior of a car, where a muttering man is listening and insisting that the terrorist is really just “a kid.” This man is driving to Kingsley’s house. That’s chilling, but our heart is warmed to think of a Canadian province that holds executions so close to Christmas.

After the show, Kingsley has a drink with the judge and discusses how bored he is with the radio show. Kingsley then goes to get drunk at an office Christmas party. Meanwhile, the guy in the car is now sitting outside of Kingsley’s impressive residence, and is muttering about how it’s wrong for anyone to live so nicely. Inside the house, Kingsley’s wife is arriving to find that her son and his nanny have been taken hostage by two gunmen.

Kingsley is still at the party, and chatting up a fur-clad gal who lures him back to his radio studio for a private conversation. Kingsley is about to get lucky, but the mood is ruined by a sallow young man with a shotgun. “My name is Miller,” he announces, “and we’re taking over this studio.” He then shoots a portrait of Kingsley that’s on the wall. “I never did like that photo,” responds Kingsley. “It always made me look sincere.”

Kingsley stays cool even after learning his would-be conquest is an associate of Miller’s—who explains that Kingsley’s next show will be an on-air trial for the terrorist that’s about to be executed. “You’re not a sort of moral crusader, are you?” asks Kingsley. “You don’t look the type.”

“I teach History,” Miller replies. “How it changes—which it does, faster and faster all the time.”

Meanwhile, Kingsley’s poor family is being lectured on how Spain used to own North America before they sold it to industry.

Back at the studio, Miller is contacting the media and announcing that Kingsley’s studio is wired with explosives for an upcoming Hostage Edition Show. (That would’ve been a good title for the film.) A police captain is assigned to the case, and he comments that Miller’s gang of “non-violent protestors” is the same group who earlier kidnapped the judge that Kingsley was interviewing. The police know it wasn’t a particularly non-violent kidnapping. A witness saw the judge getting his head cracked open during the abduction.

Miller is killing time by lecturing Kingsley about how unfair it is that one of them makes so much more money. He also keeps rambling about people who are destroying the Earth. “I’m tired of teaching history,” he proclaims. “I prefer to shape some small part of it myself.”

Miller would be disappointed to learn that savvy advertisers are busy trying to buy airtime on Kingsley’s Hostage Edition Show. (Seriously, that's a cool title.) Kingsley is entertaining himself by reflecting on his earlier career as an actor, and how that’s shaped his vanity. You might think that’s foreshadowing—along with that line mocking his own sincerity—but that will change once the on-air trial actually begins.

The actual radio show starts with Miller making an opening statement that sounds lousy—not just politically, but technically. Kingsley tries to help by teaching the professor how to speak into the mic like a human being instead of a creep pontificating in an auditorium. Miller’s not used to that, though. He doesn’t really pay attention until Kingsley yells, “Down the voice!”

Even then, Miller is poorly prepared. He fumbles through his notes about how the terrorist has been unfairly sentenced to death. It’s an embarrassing rant in front of a big radio audience—ending with Miller’s mention of how the terrorist was also caught with drugs in his possession: “I can prove—well, I can surmise that this was planted and produced evidence.”

Kingsley then cuts to a commercial, which surprises Miller. Kingsley patiently explains that his show always finds time for the advertisers that pay his wages. Kingsley follows up by taking an on-air call from a listener who tries to comfort the host by quoting Scripture. He politely thanks her for her prayers while Miller is desperate for her to be cut off. Kingsley takes more calls. That muttering crony of Miller’s—who’s now with the injured judge—is unable to get through on the phone. Miller didn’t think to ask about his stooges getting a direct line to the station.

Kingsley is mostly getting supportive calls. One suggests that the citizenry storm the studio. “The man here with me,” replies Kingsley, “wants just one thing: mob disorder. Please let the police handle it.”

The muttering psycho finally gets through to Kingsley with the judge, but only in time for His Honor to die on the air from his injuries. This inspires Kingsley to finally lose his temper and attempt to strangle Miller. He’s succeeding until Miller’s female friend reminds him that she’s got the shotgun now. A recovering Miller is indignant. “I believe,” he explains to Kingsley, “circumstance will prove that the good judge died from a heart attack.”

Then Miller wonders if Kingsley’s politics are all just an act. There’s a typically oblivious academic. Everyone else learned otherwise while Kingsley had his hands around Miller’s throat. Kingsley announces over the air that Miller is the leader of “a gang of misfits playing God by proxy.” They’re not very good at taking hostages, either. We see that Kingsley’s family has been rescued at home.

Kingsley still has a gun to his head, though. A police official calls in to announce that new evidence shows the convicted terrorist is innocent, and that the arresting officer will be disciplined. “Very noble, constable,” says Kingsley, but he won’t go along with the charade. At this point, there’s a divided count for Miller’s show trial. A few normal folks have played along with Miller by saying that the terrorist is guilty. That’s balanced by Miller supporters who’ve been calling in to insist the terrorist is innocent.

Kingsley announces that he seems set to cast the deciding vote. He then sends a loving Christmas message to his family, and begins to put on his coat—patiently explaining to Miller that he doesn’t have any intention of settling the matter. There’s nothing more Libertarian than throwing away your vote. Kingsley is almost out the door when an enraged Miller grabs the shotgun from his female cohort, and the audience hears the gun go off in the studio.

There’s silence, and then the audience hears Kingsley’s soothing tones: “Ladies and gentleman, the sound you just heard was the sound of Mr. Miller losing his head—all over the walls of my studio. Tune in tomorrow. The topic of tomorrow's show will be government spending. Please call in with your views. After all, this is your program.”

Miller had earlier mocked Kingsley’s usual sign-off of “This is your program.” Kingsley signs off looking like a true populist, though. Then the end credits roll as we hear people complaining about how the radio host is just too arrogant and so clearly a fake. And there’s your heartwarming holiday film that—as noted—is more fun to read about than to watch.

There’s some fun weirdness behind the scenes, too. Despite the film’s politics, McGoohan is just a hired hand. The film is directed by Alexis Kanner, who also plays Miller. Kanner appeared in several episodes of The Prisoner. The two probably bonded over some politics back then. The film was written by Edmund Ward, who also scripted a finely jaundiced look at Swinging ‘60s London with 1970’s Goodbye Gemini—which finally got a DVD release this year.

The gal who lures Kingsley into Miller’s trap is Andrea Marcovicci, who’d later show up in The Stuff . Kingsley’s wife is played by Margaret Trudeau—famous back then as the slutty spouse of a Canadian Prime Minister whose work would pretty much establish him as the country’s Jimmy Carter. McGoohan didn’t care much for Margaret.

And while Kanner was probably happy to have Trudeau on board as a bankable name, it’s okay to be suspicious of his judgment. Kanner would later sue the producers of Die Hard for ripping off the plot of Kings and Desperate Men. Don’t worry that I left out some exciting parts from the film. The lawsuit didn’t make any sense. There’s a Christmas connection, but Die Hard actually makes better points about the media. If it’s any comfort for the holidays, though, it’s pretty obvious that Kanner wasn’t the type to indulge in a frivolous lawsuit. He may have been a fruitcake, but he was our kind of fruitcake.

Day of the Dead Tired

2010-11-01T03:02:00Z

Yes, it’s very unusual for this site to take a break during Halloween—but there was a time when it was unusual for this site to take a break at all. The good news is that Kathy Shaidle has just covered my usual territory with a fine article on The Seven Top Horror Movies for Conservatives . Even her thoughts on familiar titles have some new insights. Shaidle’s kind enough to cite my own work within two of her entries, and now I feel less stalkerish for having bought her something at the Chiller Convention this weekend. It’s still interesting how her take on the patriotic-slasher epic Uncle Sam is so different from my own .

Meanwhile, Southern readers might enjoy this recent interview with Rick Miller of Southern Culture on the Skids. It’s a Halloween-themed piece that dwells on growing up as a hillbilly horror fiend—or at least one living below the Mason-Dixon line. I’m heading into another busy week, but I’ll hopefully find the time to post a link to my review of a CD reissue of my favorite album of 1967. That’s the same year that saw the release of Bee Gees’ 1st and The Left Banke’s Walk Away Renée/Pretty Ballerina, so you can be sure it’s something that strikes me all personally and politically.

Still worried about the upcoming "Mother’s Day," though…

2010-10-07T20:40:00Z

I had a thorough checklist of what I wanted to see in a remake of I Spit On Your Grave. The version that opens in select cities tomorrow exceeds my expectations. The closing credits even have a nod to how the 1978 original wasn’t totally packaged as an exploitation film. The female vigilante flick originally had its feminist intent declared with the title of Day of the Woman. Going with I Spit On Your Grave was just a smart move to ensure that audiences knew they were getting lots of savage action.

The remake stars Sarah Butler as the heroine who runs into rapists at her isolated cabin in the woods. Her living nightmare is handled as brutally as in the original. There’s no sense of titillation, and her subsequent revenge adds a great deal of logic to the fever dream that made up the original film’s second half. It doesn’t even hurt when the new I Spit On Your Grave starts swiping from a recent popular horror franchise. That franchise could have stood to swipe more from I Spit On Your Grave.

There’s still one way that the new I Spit On Your Grave could make me even happier. Maybe this remake will send Roger Ebert into another Leftist conniption fit. I’ve written before about Ebert being a creep, but my revulsion has nothing to do with the longtime film critic’s liberal politics. It’s actually inspired by how Ebert—along with Gene Siskel—tried to build their national reputation as part of the Reagan Revolution.

Naturally, the PBS film critics misunderstood Reagan. My first impression of Ebert was as a blustering fool attempting to become America’s Official Censor. He spent a lot of time whining about slasher films and, specifically, I Spit On Your Grave. Yes, it’s nice that Ebert wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. He’s still the petty little man who went on daytime talk shows and tried to stop movie theaters from showing some of the best films of my adolescence.

And he didn’t mean a word of it. By 1990, Ebert was rushing to catch up with the indie revolution, and dutifully gave a positive review to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Ebert admired the film’s nihilistic qualities and “flat, unforgiving realism.” He particularly liked the “unrelenting power” of the title killer, whose image remains nestled in some hipster’s t-shirt drawer next to Che Guevara.

The most important thing about I Spit On Your Grave—both the original and (thankfully) the remake—is that the villains are sleazy and pathetic. They are truly the scum of the earth. They’re so uncool that I would have been forgiving if the remake made one particular nod to political correctness. The remake does the exact opposite, which helps to create a final shot that equals the original’s. Ebert, of course, didn’t appreciate that final shot's impact back in 1978. Maybe he’ll be kinder to the remake. It depends on what’s cool now.

Fallen Season

2010-09-28T18:18:00Z

Another long break from the site, which can mostly be blamed on—well, this was going to be a clever paragraph about Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, but it’d probably just end up making me seem bitter. Instead, enjoy this interview with Richard Barone, who’s pushing a fine new album. Don’t take that for granted, either. A lot of old favorites have made horrible albums this year. And here’s a rare e-mail interview that actually works—mostly because it’s with the sci-fi surf-rockers of Daikaiju. They’re the best of what’s become a surprisingly crowded field.

In further news, things look uncertain for the most conservative new TV show of the Fall season. Running Wilde is FOX’s throwback of a sitcom about a nutty self-obsessed millionaire who’s chasing after the girl of his teenage dreams. The catch is that the girl has grown into a dedicated Leftist woman who’s equally nutty and self-obsessed. She can’t even figure out that her adolescent daughter doesn’t really want to keep living with an Amazon rainforest tribe. Even the tribe knows to be happy when the millionaire relocates them all into a luxury hotel as a goodwill gesture.

A lot of people are disappointed that Running Wilde isn’t as innovative as Arrested Development, since the two shows share cast members—including Will Arnett as the title character and David Cross as another loyal Leftist who’s also his romantic rival. Cross may be pretty annoying politically, but he’s great at playing annoying Leftists—which reminds us that Arrested Development was a fairly conservative show, too.

True Crime Stories

2010-08-23T23:17:00Z

Eric Roberts had another good weekend with The Expendables, although everything I had to say about the movie was summed up with two posts on my Twitter feed . That even includes what I just said about Eric Roberts having a good weekend. I’m still reminded that I recently added some new pieces to the “Articles & Interviews” sidebar here, including the wonderful/horrible story of how Eric Roberts once used me as his inspiration for a film role.

In more recent writings, people might want to check out my article on 1955’s The Phenix City Story. The notoriously Southern-fried film noir was recently (finally) released on DVD. I visited the famously crooked Alabama town a few times in the ’80s, so I’m fairly qualified to recap some of the true story that emerged in the wake of the movie. Film historians, however, will notice that I give Jack Warner credit for a notion that should really be attributed to one of the Mirisch brothers. I don’t know how I forgot that Monogram Pictures became Allied Artists.

Game Overt

2010-08-12T17:39:00Z

Sylvester Stallone finally won me over on the Rambo franchise, but he’s not the right-wing hero with a film opening tomorrow. That would be director Edgar Wright with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World . I have no idea if Scott Pilgrim is going to take off like Pulp Fiction or bomb like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. All I know is that Scott Pilgrim can stand proudly alongside Wright’s Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz as great conservative filmmaking.

Wright better hope for younger conservatives, though. Scott Pilgrim is a rock ’n roll comedy with a dated slacker aesthetic and an overblown video-game mentality. Despite a nicely amiable set-up, the film quickly becomes a series of high-tech battles between Scott and the Seven Evil Exes of his new girlfriend Ramona. That’s still not nearly as irritating as the miscasting of Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s hair as the object of Scott’s affections.

The big redemption is Michael Cera being perfectly likeable as the title character. A lot of that can be credited to the screenplay by Wright and Michael Bacall. We first meet our heartbroken hero when he’s enjoying a carefully platonic relationship with an underage high-school girl. Scott’s still in recovery from being ditched by an old-girlfriend-turned-rock-star. The romantic triangle with Scott’s platonic pal and the ravishing new Ramona ends up being one of the more adult love stories of the year—and that’s even as Wright wraps his characters in an adolescent fervor.

Despite the constant promise of sex and violence, Scott lives in a world where the two most important laws are No Infidelity and No Guys Hitting Girls. It’s typical of Wright that the latter is casually broken by a self-righteous vegan musician. The character of Ramona isn’t idealized, either. By the end of the film, the hipster goddess is revealed as a bit of a mess who’s far too easily controlled. The final scene might not be as ideal as I’d like, but others could have perfectly valid arguments otherwise (although I doubt they’ve dated girls with hair like Ramona’s.)

In any case, Scott Pilgrim offers plenty of important lessons for adolescents. Smart parents should be buying tickets for their teenagers right now. It’ll be a good sign if all the screenings are sold out on Friday night.

Southern Sausage Links

2010-08-06T03:34:00Z

He’s actually a paranoid Leftist, but this site happily endorses primal rocker Dan Sartain—to the extent that you can choose one of two interviews that I recently conducted with the guy. Also, it must take a shameless conservative to write a glowing review of the new Molly Hatchet album. I was the only person they could find to write the liner notes for the band’s Greatest Hits Live CD, too.

Fugitive from a Chain Gang

2010-08-06T02:42:00Z

Finally another entry, and there’s going to be plenty more if August holds up like it will for the next two Fridays. Of course, all good conservatives should avoid the new Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy The Other Guys. It’s directed by loyal liberal Adam McKay, and you can expect all kinds of snide attacks on conservatives throughout the movie. Probably more than usual, since Jim Treacher managed to piss off McKay via Twitter just as production was starting. For such a successful director, McKay sure is a bitter and small man.

The good news is a limited release title called Middle Men —which, sadly, will go ignored by sites like Big Hollywood because it’s the kind of movie that has boobies in it. There’s no getting around that Middle Men will be summed up by critics as the Boogie Nights of the internet age. Conservatives shouldn’t be frightened away, though. Middle Men is the kind of film where a starlet signs on to play an adult actress on the condition that her character never actually gets naked. The rest of the action is no worse than what you’d find in those erotic thrillers that the Playboy Channel showed back in the ’90s.

Luke Wilson stars as a (fictional) family man who stumbles onto a goldmine in the midst of the ’90s internet porn boom. His opening narration jumpstarts the film with all kinds of fun images. Interestingly enough, that includes a smear on conservatives in the film’s opening minutes. Wilson’s quick history of pornography has to invoke the terrible sin of hypocrisy—as illustrated by a moralistic politician who is carefully revealed to be both a Republican and a transvestite. (That image is made even weirder by the actor being manly exploitation veteran Martin Kove.)

A few seconds later, Wilson is talking about how all men masturbate, That notion is accompanied by a photograph of Richard Nixon. This is particularly weird, since Wilson’s narration is leading to 1995. It takes a special kind of baby-boomer obliviousness to throw back to Nixon when we’re getting to a year when our nation had a notably notorious Horndog-in-Chief.

Keep watching, though, and Middle Men becomes the most stirring tale of Texas morality since The Blind Side. The film is pretty unrelenting in showing Wilson’s hellish descent into massive rationalization and lowered personal standards. You also get a cameo by Kelsey Grammer where he seems to be paying tribute to Fred Thompson, and Kevin Pollak as an FBI agent who turns out to be the film’s most moral character—all leading to a closing scene that’s corny enough to be worthy of the Hallmark Channel.

The big caveat is that you can never trust the film’s narrative. Wilson’s errant family man never explains exactly how he started out in life working for a mobster, or how he happens to have a best friend who comes with a small army of gun-happy associates. Middle Men might ultimately be a detached meditation on Goodfellas and other crime sagas where the source material can’t be trusted. That overblown ending could be meant to be more sardonic than satisfying. It still seems awfully sincere, and a big part of what keeps Middle Men going as an enjoyable and overblown romp.

This Must Mean Something

2010-07-21T17:38:00Z

I don’t know who put the time into making The J.R. Taylor Story for YouTube, but if the idea was for nobody to tell me until I stumbled across it as a fairly impressive W.T.F. Moment—well, yeah, mission accomplished.

Yow.

2010-06-21T03:57:00Z

How did I manage to disappear from here for over a month? Well, my recent post linking back to all my Law & Order write-ups became pretty popular. That might have triggered my well-documented fear of success. It sure hasn’t been summer fun keeping me away. Still, I am about to attempt some kind of vacation, so I might as well just shut down for the rest of June. At least I’ll have some articles published that I can link back to at the start of July.

Meanwhile, since I’m writing this on Father’s Day, I’ll also note that Chuck Barris has just published a very sad memoir entitled Della . It’s the story of his doomed daughter, whom folks of my age might remember as a cute kid introducing her father on The Gong Show. I also remember People doing an article that noted how Della had chosen to stay with her father after Barris’ divorce. The book reveals the lie behind that story, and is a torturous look at progressive parenting gone wrong—culminating with Della’s overdose at the age of 36.

Della is a touching work that is both unbearably honest and creepy. That won’t be a surprise to anyone who’s seen how much Barris exposed of himself in 1980’s underrated The Gong Show Movie. Now the guy deserves to dwell on happier times. I’m hoping for a book about his long and lasting friendship with fellow good guy Dick Clark .

So effective you can skip a career…

2010-05-19T15:37:00Z

I’ve caught up on a lot of films over the past weeks, including 1973’s Ricco the Mean Machine—also known as just plain Ricco, or Cauldron of Death, or a particularly bizarre title as seen in this Italian-language trailer . The DVD got a nice repackaging from the Dark Sky label, with bonus features that include an interview with star Christopher Mitchum.

The star of Ricco—and the spawn of Robert Mitchum—had a busy early career that included roles in Chisum, Rio Lobo, and Big Jake. Those were three John Wayne films. Mitchum would win the Photoplay Gold Medal Award for Best New Actor in 1972. As the amiable actor notes in his Ricco interview, that would mark the end of his American stardom:

The phone never rang. I couldn’t get an interview, nothing. I finally—months, months later—went on an interview for a thing called Steelyard Blues, and the casting director took one look at me and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t interview you.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Well, you starred with John Wayne. I can’t interview you.” And basically, what it was, because Duke was very outspoken against guys burning the flag and the people throwing urine on our troops when they came back from Vietnam—it’s not that he was pro-war, but these are American kids dying for their country. He felt that we should support our boys. Because he was so outspoken about that, liberal Hollywood didn’t want anybody else with a strong voice. So anybody who starred with Duke, that was it. They were blackballed.

Mitchum is probably being polite by not noting that Steelyard Blues starred Jane Fonda.

He would later find work by doing foreign exploitation films like Ricco. A lot of those were huge hits, but that only helped to make Mitchum an instant B-lister in Hollywood. Of course, those who watch Ricco might have their own suspicions as to what stalled Mitchum’s career. It’s not a particularly dynamic performance. Just keep in mind that Ricco is really Hamlet vs. the Mob, and Mitchum’s blonde prince doesn’t have much enthusiasm for anything. You can find the actor having a lot more fun going after a mad doctor in 1987’s Faceless .

Also consider that there were plenty of other John Wayne films from the ’70s with promising young actors whose careers suddenly stalled. Bruce Dern did okay, but that’s probably because he killed Wayne in 1972’s The Cowboys.

Linked, Lank, Lunk

2010-05-16T01:04:00Z

I’ve wanted to write this article for a while, but everything would seem redundant after I’d start with the headline, “When Did Everyone I Used to Know Turn Into Prudish Leftists Trying to Impress Each Other?” Fortunately, some pandering creepiness from the New York Times recently gave me a decent hook. There’s even some film content with a reference to the upcoming Leftist fantasy of Fair Game. The piece won’t change anything, of course, except maybe I’ll get less e-mails from old acquaintances telling me to visit their Facebook page.

Trilogy of Terror

2010-05-16T00:52:00Z

With the show denied its record-breaking 21st season, everybody now bids farewell to Law & Order. It’s a real blow to Leftists who need weekly assurances that they’re the true good guys. I’m pretty sure they still have Cold Case on CBS, though, as well as pretty much everything else on network television. Anyway, I'm linking here to three L&O entries from this site’s olden days: 1) a fumbling attempt to address Islamic terrorism; 2) an attack on an ersatz Ann Coulter; 3) the show's truly defining meta-moment. Some of us will certainly miss Law & Order as a situation comedy.

Made in Canada

2010-05-16T00:49:00Z

I’ve never been a fan of summer songs, and I’m certainly no fan of “Walking on Sunshine.” Still, the story of Kimberley Rew and his big hit with Katrina & the Waves is pretty interesting. This article is running in the current issue of Atlanta, GA’s Stomp and Stammer, but also reprinted here since the article isn’t likely to end up on the website. No real political content, but there is a reference to the Iron Eagle soundtrack…

Waved Out
Kimberley Rew celebrates the 25th anniversary of his Summer of Hit

There are a lot of good songs by Katrina and the Waves. There are even good songs by The Waves, who made their debut in 1982 with Shock Horror! Katrina Leskanich’s didn’t get top billing on that one, but her vocals would convince The Bangles to cover “Going Down to Liverpool” in 1984. By then, Katrina and the Waves were signed to a Canadian label, and the UK act had already released 1983’s Katrina and the Waves (aka Walking on Sunshine) and 1984’s Katrina and the Waves 2. The band wouldn’t sign an international deal until 1985—long after any hipster cachet remained from songwriter Kimberley Rew’s work with the Soft Boys.

The good news is that the international deal provided exposure for Kimberly and the Waves’ most brilliant moment—that being the bluesy AOR stomp of “Maniac House,” which survived from Katrina and the Waves 2 to make it onto the soundtrack of 1986’s Iron Eagle. That alone would warrant the new CD reissues that cover all the band’s Canadian releases. But if you ask Rew about “Maniac House,” he’s suspiciously quick to bring up a different song.

“When you’re a new band on the scene,” Rew explains from his English home, “people will start sniffing around and be keen to put your songs on their films. They want to seem up to the minute. Of course, ‘Walking on Sunshine’ has been in lots of films, too, and keeps being played on the radio. I think it’s nice that people like to still hear it. It makes people feel good and happy, and I’m sort of proud to be associated with that. It’s a positive thing. It’d be great if that success was repeated ten times over with ten different songs, but having one hit is a lot better than having none at all.”

“Maniac House” should’ve been the first song to fill up the Top Ten all by itself. Still, since Rew mentioned it, “Walking on Sunshine”—which hit America in 1985 as a rerecorded (or remixed) tune—remains Katrina and the Waves’ most beloved hit. The current reissue campaign is built around the song’s 25th anniversary on the US pop charts. Rew is certainly correct about the terminally bouncy tune being in plenty of soundtracks and commercials. You’ve heard it on American Idol, and the cast of Glee recently returned the song to the UK charts. That’s kind of unfortunate. “Walking on Sunshine” swamped the band’s later singles, and nobody noticed that Katrina and the Waves were still making good music by the time of 1993’s Edge of the Land.

In fact, enough Americans had forgotten Katrina and the Waves—if not their biggest hit—that a younger generation was amused to learn there was a band with that name after New Orleans flooded in 2005. In truth, though, Rew is being modest in claiming the one hit. Katrina and the Waves scored a worldwide comeback in 1997 when the band won the Eurovision Song Contest with a Rew composition called “Love Shine a Light.”

“That was only in the UK,” says Rew, “so I didn’t think you’d know about that one. Factually, there you are. It was strange. We’d had our one hit, and we were just making music and doing shows all the time. We were aware that our career was on a downward trajectory, but we just kept doing it. We love making music, basically. If you’d asked me in 1995 if I was planning to enter the Eurovision Song Contest—and even win it—I would’ve explained how that’s not the natural career progression. But the system in those days was that anyone could send in a tape of a song and get a chance to represent the UK. There was nothing else going on with us at the time, so we did it. Funnily enough, winning made it easier for Katrina and the rest of us to move on to other things.”

Those other things would include Rew renewing the solo career he’d begun with 1981’s The Bible of Bop—which was essentially a Waves album without Katrina, and is also part of the reissue campaign. Rew has released several more fine albums over the past few years, while Leskanich has pursued a solo career. (Legal objections prevented her from performing as Katrina and the New Wave.) She’s pushing the 25th anniversary of “Walking on Sunshine” with a live album.

Leskanich is also spared Rew’s place in the pop and/or punk pantheon. He’s one of the few musicians with both cool cult status and an embarrassing pop hit. It was probably his Soft Boys lineage that got “Walking on Sunshine” into a scene from High Fidelity. The song was used as a gag, though, and wasn’t hip enough to make the soundtrack album.

Strangely, Rew hasn’t given any of this much thought.

“There may be a difference in perception,” he acknowledges. “So many things come of just meeting people over the years. I knew [Waves drummer] Alex Cooper before I met Robyn Hitchcock, when we were all in my hometown of Cambridge. Alex and I were already The Waves before I joined with Robyn. Then Robyn went on to his next phase, and I got back together with Alex. Robyn and I are both very creative people, but we’re very different. That’s why we get on. I met Katrina and [Waves guitarist] Vince de la Cruz and [bassist] Bob Jakins, and suddenly I was the songwriter for a new band. That’s the way it came out—at least, at first. The fact that the Waves weren’t anything like the Soft Boys is neither here nor there. It all makes sense in my head, but I can’t expect the rest of the world to fall in line with what’s inside of my head.”

There are some fun bonus tracks of The Waves in 1976 on the Shock Horror! reissue. Still, a misinformed music geek would easily contrive a simpler scenario. That would involve Rew having an officially acceptable heyday with the Soft Boys, and then awful commercial years with Katrina and the Waves. Rew is secure enough that he doesn’t mind an interviewer spelling all that out for him.

“Oh, yeah,” he muses. “I think I see what you mean. Oh, man. The Soft Boys were left alone as a band, ultimately. Robyn’s went on to do fantastically well, but it’s taken a long time, and all on his own terms. What you get is not in any way diluted. It’s the Hitchcock experience. When I signed to Capitol with the Waves, it was really new to me to be working for a large organization that wanted to have an affect on your work. I could never stand outside myself and see that we were going in a wrong direction. If you listen to something like Edge of the Land, you can hear how it’s more of that rock sound of the time. There’s that kind of feeling where we were blown hither and thither by circumstance. Of course, we’d break up in a couple of years, anyway, so not to worry. It turned out all right in the end.”

Besides, as noted, Edge of the Land was a pretty good album. Rew’s solo albums have been plenty catchy, too. With that in mind, it seems harmless enough to close things with a nod to a real low point for Katrina and the Waves—that being Break of Hearts from 1989, when the band were label mates to Vanilla Ice and Wilson Phillips.

“Glad you mentioned that,” replies the relentlessly mannered Rew. “That was the point where Katrina and the Waves sounded most like the year they were in. In 1985, we sounded like 1965. In 1989, we sounded more like adult-oriented rock. I’m 58 years old, and I’ve been making music for about 35 years. I suppose it’s only natural that some has been more successful than others. But I’m here in Cambridge in the house that I bought in 1985 when we had the hit, and it’s very nice to have a roof over your head.”

“100% Medically Accurate!”

2010-05-02T21:04:00Z

I’m having very minor surgery this week, but it was probably still a bad idea to catch a screening of The Human Centipede. Anyone who doesn’t know the gruesome details can let IMDB fill them in on the medical mayhem. It’s still a well-made film, despite a script that requires the protagonists to act in abominably stupid ways. I was also impressed by German actor Dieter Laser, who plays the film’s mad doctor. He explained in a Q&A afterwards that he enjoyed playing an absurd version of Dr. Josef Mengele, mostly as a kind of revenge on his country’s Nazi past. Laser went on to praise “the American heroes” of World War II who saved him from living “a terrible life” where he might have ended up as a true zombie.

Then he abruptly shouted, “Thanks, America! You have my respect!” That might not be much, but it was probably the most patriotic moment that’s ever been heard at the Independent Film Channel Center.

Catching up other news, since I’ll be distracted the rest of this week: The new A Nightmare on Elm Street is lousy, but not exactly lousy in the way I expected . The big change is that Freddy Krueger is now just a child molester instead of a child killer. That’s Hollywood’s way of making Krueger sympathetic, since so many industry types don’t even think child molesters should go to jail—let alone suffer fiery vigilante justice.

Also, as previously Twittered , I’m betting on a Dixie Chick as this week's upcoming Out Celebrity Lesbian. Queen Latifah has a romantic comedy to push, so the folks in Marketing wouldn’t approve. And since some people have had fun goofing on CNN’s Roland Martin this week, here’s an older Twitter where I noted what Martin was contemplating this past September 11th. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get ready to wake up in the year 2173...

Head Cheese

2010-04-15T03:19:00Z

I should post something to show that I’m back from vacation, and here’s an old music video that’s worthy of comment. Until recently, I didn’t even know Material Issue made a video for their cover of “Kim the Waitress” on 1994’s Freak City Soundtrack. It’s even more tragic to think the money was just wasted on what is clearly one of the most screwheaded videos in the history of rock. As you’ll hear, the song is a lovely pop ode. As you’ll see, the video is a paranoid Leftist fantasy.

Jim Ellison—who wrote plenty of great songs as Material Issue’s frontman—was then just a few years away from being a power-pop suicide. It’s a miracle this video didn’t kill him sooner. It’s a miracle that Jeff Kelly of the Green Pajamas (whose original version can be heard here) didn’t kill himself, as well. The video kind of has a happy ending, but you’ll marvel at how some idiot director heard this lovely tune and decided it was the proper setting for political allegory.

Despicable Me

2010-04-02T15:23:00Z

How few conservative rock critics are out there? So few that a has-been like me still gets trotted out as the sole name when someone decides to write a piece about the topic. It’s a thoughtful article, though—and, in the spirit of Good Friday, you’ll find that I’ve added a comment where I discuss my persecution.

Chilted!

2010-04-02T15:03:00Z

Verily I swore via Twitter that my Alex Chilton tribute would be the best, and now it is revealed as so—until I check this link to my article and find a whole bunch of things that I probably should’ve rewritten. The most nerve-wracking part of the piece was trying to verify that my story from 1986 actually happened in 1986. But here’s a link to another fine Chilton tribute where a commenter thinks my 1987 story happened a year earlier, so clearly everyone was addled that decade.

Glam Cracker

2010-04-02T05:25:00Z

I ran into Sal Maida the other day, and he mentioned that he’d recently been over to Iraq on a USO tour. Maida’s the bassist for Cracker, so they weren’t hanging out with the megastars. They were touring in jeeps and keeping their heads down. Anyway, it reminded me that my 2009 Stomp and Stammer interview with Maida had never been posted online. (That’s him on the far left, incidentally.) His weird career certainly needs to be covered, especially since he was left out of the recent Runaways biopic. So here’s the story of Sal, and apologies for the headline. It’s been several months, and I still can’t think of anything better…

Glam Cracker
Sal Maida’s March from Glam to Country to Whatever Cracker is Nowadays

“I was thinking the other day,” says Sal Maida, “that I was the fifth bass player for Roxy Music, and I’m pretty sure I’m the fifth one for Cracker.”

No other musician can make that claim—or anything close to it. Maida has had a stellar pop career by just about any standard. In a very short period in the ’70s, Maida managed the hipster hat trick of being in three of the glam era’s best bands. That’s before there were even hipsters. Maida now gets to be part of a hot band that should technically be an oldies act, with Cracker touring to rightful acclaim for their new Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey.

Maida’s no mere sideman, either. “I’m still the new guy,” he says from his Brooklyn home, “but this new record seems to make me a full-fledged member. I have co-writing credits on nine of the ten songs. A lot of people are saying this record is the best since Kerosene Hat, so I guess that’s considered their artistic and commercial high point. I always thought The Golden Age is underrated. It’s got a lot of great songs, and there’s some incredible playing and production. You can hear on that album why Cracker would be so perfect for me. This new one has all my old styles, from punk to glam to country-rock, and some new-wave and power-pop.”

Maida’s old styles are Cracker’s old styles, too, considering how much territory has been covered by founders David Lowery and Johnny Hickman. Maida gives them both credit for beating him to discovering country music, though. He spent the start of the ’80s in New York City while flirting with synth drums. Maida still managed an unfashionable early start on Americana with The Lovin’ Kind in the early ’90s.

Maida stayed with that ignored NYC scene, too, and that helped him land in Cracker for a 2007 tour. Sunrise makes good use of Maida’s complicated musical history, which began when the native New Yorker moved to England after getting his BS in Economics.

“I’d just gotten there,” recalls Maida, “and I saw Roxy on television doing ‘In Every Dream Home a Heartache.’ Like a lot of people, I thought they were the most intensely original band around. I knew they didn’t have a regular bass player, but it never entered my head that I could play for them. I was working in a record store when [Roxy drummer] Paul Thompson and [keyboardist] Eddie Jobson came in looking for a Family album. I hid the copy we had, and told them I’d order it for them so they’d come back to the store. We got to know each other, and then I got a call one day from Paul saying that their bass player couldn’t tour, and inviting me to audition.”

Fortunately for Maida, that would be one of the tours immortalized live on 1976’s Viva! album. Roxy’s revolving door soon had him looking for work, though, which is when Maida landed another classic gig—although it would take decades to become classic.

“I came back to New York,” Maida recalls, “and was approached about working with Milk ‘n’ Cookies. There was already a pretty big buzz about them as a glam-pop band. Then it took forever before the album was finally released in ’76, and the critics just killed us.”

It didn’t help when the band members made fun of the Bay City Rollers during a UK promo visit. Still, the sole Milk ‘n’ Cookies album is now a proper cult item, most recently reissued last year on American vinyl. Check out the album cover, and you can tell that Maida wasn’t getting by on his image. His imposing presence doesn’t suggest anything glam or twee about him.

“Yeah,” says Maida, “I was still this guy from Little Italy, so I had to shed some testosterone. I was always looking to Overend Watts for inspiration. He’s a big tall guy, and he was wearing five-inch platform shoes—so I figured, you know, that’s cool. I was standing out like a sore thumb in Milk ‘n’ Cookies. Roxy Music was a lot better. Phil and Andy and Bryan are all at least 6’ tall. I was 6’5” and 150 pounds. That emaciated look really helped.”

Maida didn’t have to look precious when he joined up with Sparks for 1976’s Big Beat. “They had the same manager and producer as Milk ‘n’ Cookies, so that’s the way it happened. Sparks had been a big glam band in England, but they were trying to crack the American market. Big Beat was their take on Aerosmith—or, you know, as close as they could get.”

Big Beat would also lead to more live immortality for Maida, as he’s featured onstage with Sparks during the climatic sequence of the 1977 disaster movie Rollercoaster—in SenSurround! Cracker doesn’t have anyone else with that kind of background. Lowery only has Camper Van Beethoven to his credit, while Hickman has an embarrassing history with the failed ’80s guitarslingers of The Unforgiven. Frank Funaro got his start drumming with the Del-Lords. Things still work out nicely with Cracker’s latest incarnation.

“We were playing all the time around 2007,” says Maida, “and the chemistry was really coming together onstage. It was still kind of a surprise to be told we were heading into the studio to write a record. They were just touring off Greenland when I joined the band, and that had gotten great reviews. Now there’s a real contrast with Sunrise. It’s completely different as a rock album. The reviews have been great, the airplay’s been great, and a lot of shows have been sold out. It feels pretty good knowing all that came together on the stage.”

As noted, a lot of what’s come together with Sunrise reflects on Maida’s bizarre history—which has a few unheralded chapters. Those include Maida’s unlikely stint as a member of The Runaways for 1977’s Waitin’ for the Night.

“I was in the Rainbow parking lot in L.A.,” explains Maida, “and [producer] Kim Fowley came up and asked me if I was Sal Maida. He said that he needed me for the new Runaways album. He had a dream that Vickie Blue was tied up by snakes around her arms—or maybe it was that her arms were snakes. Anyway, Vickie was the Runaways’ new bass player, and she couldn’t play in Kim’s dream, so he took that as a sign. I told him that I’d be happy to help out, but he was going to have to tell the girls before I showed up at the studio. So I walk in the next day, and all the girls are there. Maybe not Joan, but Vickie sure is, and they look at me and say, ‘Who are you?’”

Maida never told anyone about his work as a Runaway. Nobody knew until Waitin’ for the Night was reissued in 2004, when Fowley revealed that fun fact in the liner notes.

“Yeah,” says Maida, “Kim outed me. I wouldn’t have told anyone. That’s part of being a working musician. There are a lot of great musicians in New York who don’t have regular gigs. I’ve been spending the past few years with Cracker and working with Mary Weiss, so that’s been kind of great. People ask me if it feels weird, but I don’t know if that’s the word for it. I’m just appreciative."

Life in These United States

2010-03-28T23:47:00Z

The Ten Commandments is probably one of the greatest movies ever made. It’s over three hours long, but moves as quickly as any kiddie matinee. Still, it’s not the only movie worth watching as a Passover event. The Abominable Dr. Phibes is about a vengeful psycho who’s out to kill the eight doctors (and one nurse) he blames for the death of his wife. His elaborate murders are based on the Biblical plagues that God brought down upon the Egyptians. There were ten plagues, but that’s a plot point. The Jews aren’t having an easy time nowadays, so it’s nice to enjoy any movie that honors their proud history.

There’s also the matter of my wanting J.R. jr. to have strong Jewish role models. My 6-year-old likes mad doctors, and really likes Dr. Phibes. It’s pretty funny to hear a little kid robotically intoning, “I am…already…dead.” Anyway, I suggested to him that Dr. Phibes might be Jewish. “Dad,” he sighed, “Dr. Phibes is a bad guy. There aren’t any bad Jewish doctors.” Oy!