#When The Music Mattered

[thislovintime]

At the premiere of Head, November 1968.

“The first time I met Peter was at the Troubadour where he performed, long before the auditions. I’ve always liked his warmth and honesty. And he’s always been very kind to me. Both Davy and Peter have lived with us and Peter was always very considerate, helping with the dishes and all. One night Mike just brought Davy home to dinner and that was how I met him. It was at a very early period, right after the guys had been chosen. Davy was so charming and nice. He would walk the dog, play with Christian and compliment my cooking — really nice to have around. Christian liked all of them right from the first. He’s always so happy when any of the Monkees drop over. When Davy and Peter lived with us it was kind of a family atmosphere. They just all kind of pitched in — and even babysat for us!” - Phyllis Nesmith, Fave, January 1968

“I remember staying at Mike’s house in Hollywood when we first started filming the series. It was the upper story of a two-story building on a little hillside. Mike’s wife, Phyllis, was wonderful. Mike and I laughed a lot and played music together. I remember that time very fondly.” - Peter Tork, When The Music Mattered (1984)

“Michael was very kind to me at the outset. He put me up through the entire shooting of the pilot process. He and his wife had a wonderful little apartment just big enough for a guest on the day bed, which overlooked Hollywood. I remember a Thanksgiving Day when the air was crystal clear in a way that I’ve never seen it before or since in L.A., and you could see all the way out to Catalina. It was wonderful. That crystal clarity symbolizes the whole era for me. Mike and I wrote a few things together. We were very comradely and very buddy buddy, and it was a wonderful time, with Mike’s then wife, Phyllis, and Christian, their little infant baby. The early days of the pilot shooting were just great by my lights and I had a wonderful time.” - Peter Tork, quoted in Hey, Hey, We’re The Monkees (1996) (x)

Q: “Being that your tastes were similar, and you both were the first to leave the group, why didn’t you form a group with Peter Tork?” Michael Nesmith: “I don’t like Peter Tork — never have liked him, I don’t like him as a man. I have to qualify that now: Me not liking somebody doesn’t mean that they’re bad people — he could do a lot of wonderful things for and to me. Not liking someone to me is a very gut reaction — a very visceral attitude. The first reaction to Peter was one of dislike. I don’t like him, I have never liked him, and I probably will never like him. I didn’t enjoy playing in a band with Peter, and I still don’t. Our tastes were much the same, our political beliefs were similar, our ideas of fun, pleasure, our intellectual capacity, our ability to talk to each other — we were very much alike. I have a great respect for Peter — his technical abilities on an instrument and the positions he took were well conceived ideas, always a posture with a motive, never emotional. I don’t like my mother. She happens to be a very nice lady — never done anything that would make me not like her — but I don’t. I like my wife.” - Hit Parader, February 1972 (x)

“[We were] partners in silence.” - Michael Nesmith, Rolling Stone, December 3, 2019

“I have a great deal of respect for Mike as a musician and a songwriter. He’s very good. He could make it on his own easily. Also he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.” - Peter Tork, Flip, August 1967

"I have a lot of respect for Michael.” - Peter Tork, The Sacramento Bee, April 20, 1997

“I still have a lot of respect for Michael.” - Peter Tork, WDBB, February 2006

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The musical episode.

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[transannabeth]

btw if you borrow dvds or cds from library you can rip them onto your own blanks or onto your hard drive or whatever. librarians don’t care and they won’t know if you do it or not

[kwillow]

As an eligible young noble of no small fame, Ambroys had a number of arranged courtships and suitresses in his youth, but any nascent marriages always fell through.

It's not that he didn't try; he certainly knew how to court a lady (perhaps too well, according to many fathers and husbands), and when he lacked knowledge on the affairs of womens' hearts, he sought counsel from a young woman who was a dear friend of his (perhaps too much counsel, according to his own father). Nonetheless, all he garnered for his efforts was separation after separation.

Ah, well. Maybe it was for the best.

[lyculuscaelus]

So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking people to stop trying to make Odysseus look nice in their works cuz he’s a “messed-up person in the mythology”. Your opinion is valid however I have but one thing to point out:

You want to know who started all this? Who started to “make Odysseus look nice” in the first place?

It’s Homer. It’s nobody else but Homer himself.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would try to murder people out of his own interests. He’d murder Palamedes without remorse (and we’d be cheering over this but it’s a murder after all), he’d attempt to murder Diomedes just to get the Palladium himself, he’d volunteer to kill Astyanax…meanwhile you wouldn’t find any mention of either Palamedes or Nauplius in Homer’s poems, neither did he mention anything abt the Palladium heist (and Diomedes necessity did not happen until Conon’s version), the death of Astyanax, the distribution of war prizes, etc. And all the details in the Odyssey seemed to deny the existence of Nauplius’s vengeance at all, so Odysseus would not take any of the blame.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be depicted as “cruel, treacherous”, meanwhile in book 10 of the Iliad Odysseus was not mentioned to have killed anyone during the marauding, neither did he promise Dolan anything at all. The negative interpretations are denied by these details subtly put by Homer.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be widely known as a “coward” for only shooting arrows from afar. But Homer gave him a spear and had him absolutely slaying in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. That part of Ajax’s speech was invalid already.

Most importantly—a non-Homeric Odysseus would be having kids everywhere else, and the loyalty to his own wife as seen in the Odyssey is no where to be found. Meanwhile his lineage was a single-son line made by Zeus in the Odyssey, and his love for Penelope was one of his main drives, especially seen in book 5 of the Odyssey. He loved his family as a loving parent—something you don’t get to see in most of the non-Homeric writings—for most of the time they followed a different tradition indeed, in which Odysseus wasn’t half as nice as in the Odyssey.

TL;DR: in case you haven’t noticed, the characterization of the Homeric Odysseus was quite different from a non-Homeric version of Odysseus. It’s not that Homer didn’t know of the existence of other versions—he knew them too well, which is why in his version of the story, you don’t get to see any mention of them.

[emotional-emotion]

Seinfeld (1989 - 1998) 6.23 The Face Painter

[lookninjas]

Pick a song from a bad description! You do not have to recognize any of the songs to vote (although tbh I feel like this is one of my most obvious ones -- there is an actual song title in one of the choices). Just go from the vibes. Pick whichever is funniest to you, or matches your current situation, or whatever makes a random bad song description appeal to you.

At the end of the week, I will take the poll results and use them to arrange the songs in a playlist, from the song with the lowest amount of votes to the song with the highest amount of votes. If you would like to hear the playlist, leave a comment or put it in the tags of your reblog, and I will tag you when the playlist goes up. And if you really can't wait to know what a song is, send me an ask and I will answer it.

And please reblog the poll! 'Cause this is as close as I can come to sending you guys a mixtape, so if you share it with your followers and they share it with their followers it's like we're all getting a mixtape, and that's fun. So let's keep the mixtapes moving.

[productofaritual]

Odysseus' level of simping is so fucking high that when he's half drowned, unconscious and sleep talking, he's STILL going on about his wife

[grissomesque]

I made this for my kid to show her why soundtracks are a Big Deal but uh if anyone has any requests I will happily cut your unhinged song into a Trek clip.

Music Matters: 1/?

[uniiiquehecrt]

Voice actors are NOT the same as actors.

It takes a specific kind of skill-set and training to be able to warp and meld the voice. It takes a certain kind of talent and dedication to hone that talent into the ability to meld the voice and invoke emotion with one's voice alone. Actors are used to using their voice secondarily to their body language and their facial expressions. It's all mirrored back on camera. They do have nuance. But it's a different kind of nuance and a different kind of training to produce that nuance.

Voice actors might get their likeness transposed on their character's design, and maybe their mannerisms might seep into the character's animation. But when it's all said and done: their presence is in their voice. They are bringing a character to life, showing that emotion in their voice, trying to keep a specific accent, drawl, pitch, tone in that voice and keep it consistent for their recording sessions.

The voice actor is like a classically trained musician who can play first chair in a competitive, world-renown orchestra. The actor (who fills the voice actor's role) is like a moot who played violin in beginner and intermediate high school orchestra and thinks they can get into Juilliard with that 2-4 years of experience.

This doesn't mean that the HS orchestra moot can't play. They can even be really good at it. Maybe they won competitions and sat first chair. But they are not in the same league as the person who's been training their whole lives and lives and breathes to hone their craft using the instrument and all of the training they've ever acquired to perfect it. They are not meant for the same roles. They are not in the same caliber. You do not hire the HS equivalent when you want to play complex music in a competitive orchestra.

Actors are not the same as voice actors.

And furthermore, actors - especially big name actors - taking the roles of animated characters for big budget films or TV pilots makes no sense anyways when - at least in the case of TV pilots - there's not a point to hiring a big budget actors anyways. That money could be used elsewhere (like paying your animators), and the talent that is brought onto the screen for X character could then be hired on to voice said character no recasting required.

I wouldn't say voice acting as a profession is in danger exactly, but it's certainly being disrespected and overlooked for celebrity clout, and this has ALWAYS been an issue. Shoot, even Robin Williams knew that much - which is why he tried so hard not to be used as a marketing chess piece for Aladdin and got royally pissed off when it happened anyways. People shouldn't go to any movie (but especially not animated films) because "oh famous actor is in it". People should go because it's a good movie and the voice acting is good.

People who honest to god think that voice actors are replaceable because "oh well anyone can voice act" or "I like xyz celebrity so naturally it'll be good" ... Honestly I just wish you'd reassess your priorities because you're missing the point and are part of the problem.

Voice Actors ≠ Actors.

[leonardcohenofficial]

you've almost definitely answered this before but i can't find it on your blog - do you have any film recommendations for people who are trying to move away from only watching hollywood blockbusters? i feel really stupid trying to find movies that are challenging but not so intimidating that i won't "get it". thanks in advance!!

i can definitely get more specific with recs but generally speaking there are lots of resources for finding films that are not just hollywood blockbusters out there! the 1001 movies you must see before you die list is a great start; i stay up to date on what criterion/mubi/other boutique services make available; seeing what gets nominations and awards at different festivals can be useful to see what new works people are getting excited about; looking at roundups/reviews/letterboxd lists of films by people of marginalized identities can help broaden your horizons; reading film blogs and talking to trusted friends about what they're into has also introduced me to tons of new-to-me films i might never have heard of let alone seen; if you live in an area where you have access to independent cinemas checking to see what's playing is also a good resource—all of this is to say that expanding your horizons does require active participation and effort but is not necessarily difficult to do! as said above i am definitely happy to give recs with more specifications (genre, decade, etc.) but this is what i do to find films that i might not have otherwise checked out

[thislovintime]

Backstage and onstage in Salt Lake City on May 17, 1968; photos by Henry Diltz.

“[In Head, there’s a scene, following the war sequence, where] we all dive into a tunnel, blow things up, come out of the tunnel, and we're all dressed up in white and it's a concert. We do a tune, and at the end of the song we put down our instruments and run. The kids come screaming onto the stage and start ripping the clothes off what turns out to be dummies. The overall view of the movie is Bob Rafelson's vision of the whole scene. He saw rock concerts as war sequences.” - Peter Tork, When The Music Mattered (1984)

[andoutofharm]

i’m pretty positive my pain isnt cool enough

[happytogigglealone]

Let’s just say I’m delusional to look at small details now, but I’m always impressed at how House shows affection to Wilson in a few times he has to use words. Like at this time when Wilson mentions that there are only 2 things that matter to him: His job and his friendship with House. Rather than just saying that only his friendship matters, like in ss5 when House persuades Wilson to stay at PPTH after Amber’s death, House said: “They matter”.

House is always highlighted by others that he only cares for himself, a selfish bastard. Yet, he really does care a lot, especially for Wilson. Not only does he treasure their relationship, but he also thinks of Wilson’s job and reputation. This also shows in ss6 when House drugs Wilson to stop him from giving the euthanasia speech. He cares for Wilson as an individual, completely separate from their relationship. And I think that it’s beautiful.

They can never fight back against the lover's allegation since this is how they care for each other.

[sadisthetic]

BURST💥

[seaglassdinosaur]

What’s so interesting to me about Odysseus’s transition in Monster is that he hasn’t changed all that much. He was always capable of violence and we know that because of everything he’s done in the war and in his journey. The only change that occurs is he’s chosen to no longer feel guilty, and to stop hesitating when it comes to violence.