#me choosing martin as the first movie i discuss about in depth is certainly a choice for me . i can't tell if its a good or bad one but it

[downsteepy]

martin you will be the death of me

[nedraggett]

Thoughts on 2018

No need for me to be fancier than that!  And yeah I realize that nobody should be using Tumblr any more but until I figure out a proper revive of my old Wordpress site, this will do for now.

So anyway: I wrote this up for a private email list reflecting on the end of the year in terms of things I especially enjoyed culturally. Well, why not share it?

My year went very well — steady at work and in life, being 47 means more aches and pains but you have to learn to live with it.  The state of the world is something else again of course and we need not spend more time on the blazingly obvious.  That said, the history bug in me has been constantly intrigued by the slow drip of the investigations (and revelations) and were it all fiction, I’d be thoroughly enthralled instead of quietly apprehensive, of course.  November did provide some partial relief on that front so bring on the new year.  In terms of my own written work, nothing quite equalled my heart/soul going into last year’s Algiers feature for NPR, but my two big Quietus pieces this year — on Gary Numan’s Dance  and Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings  — were treats to write, while my presentation on the too-obscure Billy Mackenzie at PopCon was a great experience.

In terms of music this has been one of the most concert-heavy years I’ve spent.  Even having moved to SF in 2015 I only did the occasional show every so often — there was so much going on (even in a local scene lots of long-timers say has been irrevocably changed) that I was almost spoiled for choice, and part of me also just wanted to relax most nights.  But deaths like Prince’s and Bowie’s among many others served as a reminder that there’s no such thing as forever, and you never know what the last chance will be.  More veteran acts than younger ones in the end for me — greatest missed concert regrets this year included serpentwithfeet, Lizzo, Perfume Genius and Emma Ruth Rundle among the younger acts, while being ill when Orbital came through will be a lingering annoyance, still having never seen them live.  But the huge amount of shows I did see outweighed that, ranging from big arena stops like Fleetwood Mac to celebratory open-air free shows like Mexican Institute of Sound to small club sets by folks like Kinski, Six Organs of Admittance, Kimbra and many more, including, for the first time in years, a show in the UK, specifically a great performance by Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera.  If I absolutely had to grade my top picks among shows, Cruel Diagonals, Johnny Marr, Wye Oak, Peter Brotzmann/Keiji Haino, John Zorn/Terry Riley/Laurie Anderson, Laurie Anderson again separately, Nine Inch Nails, VNV Nation, Jarvis Cocker, Beak and, in terms of no real expectations turning into utter delight and thrills, a brilliant set by Lesley Rankine under her Ruby guise, with Martin Atkins on drums.  Best damn combination of righteous ire, hilarious raconteurism and compelling, unique approaches to how performance can work I’d seen in a while.  (As for recorded music in general, uh, endless?)

TV, as ever a bit sporadic, with a few things on my to-do list — still need to catch The Terror for sure, and what I saw of The Alienist looked good; I love both books so I need to see how it all worked out, similarly with the just-dropped version of Watership Down.  Pose I definitely need to catch up with since it sounds like Ryan Murphy stood out of the way to let the best possible team do the business on it, but my real unexpected delight of a show this year was also Murphy-based, American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace.  While not down the line perfect, it was absolutely more compelling than not, and in fact at its best was a shuddering combination of amazing music cue choices, a reverse structure that helped undercut any attempt at making Cunanan seem sympathetic or an antihero, and, at its considerable best, a ratcheting up of terror and horror that a friend said was almost Kubrickian, and I would have to agree.  And, frankly, Darren Criss really did the business as Cunanan, a controlled and powerful turn. Only a few of us seemed to be following it at the time, but when it scored all those Emmys, then while it was as much a reflection of Murphy’s status, it honestly felt well deserved.  Meantime, you’ll pry my addiction to all the RuPaul’s Drag Race incarnations from my cold dead hands but it’s the amazing online series that Trixie Mattel and Katya do, UNHhhh, which remains my comedy highlight of the year, with at least a few jaw-dropping/seize up laughing every episode. (Kudos as well for Brad Jones’s The Cinema Snob, ten years running online and still funny as fuck while digging up all kinds of cinematic horrors.) Also, tying back into music a bit, late recommendation for something you can only see on UK TV/streaming so far, but get yourself a VPN and seek out Bros: After the Screaming Stops, in which the two brothers in the late-80s monster hit pop band Bros (never had any traction here but pretty much owned the entire Commonwealth and beyond) try for a comeback.  It’s an unintentionally hilarious and harrowing portrait of two twins who have a LOT of issues, have clearly been through a LOT of therapy, but are still…not quite there.  UK friends said it was a combination of Spinal Tap, Alan Partridge and David Brent and they were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. 

Movies, less specifically to choose from — I remain an essentially sporadic populist when it comes to what I see in theaters, but I can say for sure that Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse is a hell of a thing and will almost certainly prove to be a real year-zero moment down the line.  Possibly the most affecting watch was Bohemian Rhapsody, in that I also saw this in the UK — in Brighton, which besides making me think of the band’s song “Brighton Rock” is also notably the country’s most LGBT-friendly city; those I was with felt the movie’s themes, successes and flaws/elisions deeply, and the constant discussion of it for the next few days was very rewarding. As for books, John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood, delving into Theranos and the amoral duo behind it, was properly enraging and compelling, while Beth Macy’s Dopesick, if not perfect, nonetheless adds to the good literature on the opioid crisis, while as ever indirectly calling into question who’s getting the focus and care now as opposed to in earlier times and places. My favorite music publications as such probably remain the two I most regularly write for, The Quietus and Daily Bandcamp, while Ugly Things is the print publication that I most look forward to with each issue, and am never disappointed. 

Podcasts now consist of a lot of my regular cultural engagement, kinda obvious but nonetheless true.  Long running faves include My Favorite Murder — Karen and Georgia are an amazing comedy team who have figured out how to reinterpret their anxieties in new ways — The Vanished, which at its best often casts a piercing eye on how official indifference from law enforcement is almost as destructive as their more obvious abuses (recent discovery The Fall Line does this as well, even more explicitly), Karina Longworth’s constantly revelatory Hollywood histories You Must Remember This, Patrick Wyman’s enjoyable history dives on Tides of History, my friend Chris Molanphy’s constantly excellent investigations into music chart history Hit Parade, the great weekly movie chats by MST3K vets Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu along with Carolina Hidalgo on Movie Sign With the Mads, and The Age of Napoleon, which really has hit my history wonk sweet spot.  New to me this year was It’s Just a Show,  a really wonderful episode by episode — but not in exact order — deep dive into every episode of MST3K ever, by two fun and thoughtful Canadian folks, Adam Clarke and Beth Martin. (Adam also cohosts a new podcast, A Part of Our Scare-itage, specifically looking at Canadian horror. It’s not just Cronenberg!). Among the excellent one-off series this year: American Fiasco by Men in Blazers’ Roger Bennett on the failed US World Cup attempt in 1998, Dear Franklin Jones, a story about the narrator’s experience growing up in a California cult and how his parents came to be followers in the first place, and the Boston Globe’s Gladiator, their audio accompaniment to their in-depth story of the life and ultimate fate of Aaron Hernandez. Finally, totally new series this year that quickly got added to my regular listening: American Grift, a casual and chatty look at various scams and schemes, overseen by Oriana Schwindt, The Eurowhat?, a running look at the Eurovision competition throughout the year from the perspective of two American fans, and The Ace Records Podcast, an often engaging series of one-off interviews with various musicians, fans and so forth by UK writer Pete Paphides (I highly recommend the interviews with Jon Savage and Sheila B). Hands down my two favorite totally new podcasts of the year were The Dream, a more formal story of American grifting in general hosted by Jane Marie — this first season’s focus was on multilevel marketing, and Marie and company’s careful way of seemingly backing into the larger story makes it all the more compelling and ultimately infuriating, especially in the current political climate — and the hilarious Race Chasers, a RuPaul’s Drag Race-celebrating podcast by two veterans of the show, Alaska and Willam, loaded with all kinds of fun, behind the scenes stuff, guests and an easy casualness from two pros that strikes the perfect balance between going through things and just shooting the shit.  Returning podcast I’m most looking forward to next year: the second season of Cocaine and Rhinestones, hands down.  Check out the first season for sure.

And there ya go!  Keep fighting all your respective good fights.