Electrical Spectacle >> Krafty twerk

Electrical Spectacle - "Transcontinental"

(self-released, 2001 / 2002; Backporch Revolution, 20__)

Note: I wrote this post on the same day I made my last post, the Paradise Vendors song, July 31st.  The only reason I didn't post this one was the Palestine-vs.-Israel conflict, as well as the rash of beheadings by ISIS.  It just felt inappropriate to post such a fun and flippant song at that time.  Then the Mike Brown fiasco happened, etc., and everyone on social media turned into an idiot, and I ended up spending the summer and fall adjusting my entire sociopolitical worldview to these eye-opening realities.  (Key terms I learned: Cultural Marxism and Identity Politics.)  However, it's now New Year's Eve and this song is the ultimate party jam and this is America, so here you go.

Electrical Spectacle was a New Orleans band consisting of Mike Mayfield and Anton Gussoni.  They made party-friendly electronic dancescapes that answer the question: What would Kraftwerk have sounded like if they had originated in New Orleans rather than in Germany?  Since Kraftwerk literally contains the word "twerk," you know they were a deranged party band in an alternate universe, and New Orleans is an alternate universe, so do the math.  This song sure does sound like it was inspired by Kraftwerk's "Ruckzuck".  That was the theme song for the science show Newton's Apple, which I watched religiously in the '80s.  (Check out this mind-blowing comment about "Ruckzuck" on YouTube by user dabidosan: "Can't believe I'm going to put this out here, but.....This used to be the theme song to the children's show Newton's Apple. Well....when I was little, every time the show would come on......I would take my badminton rackets and flap them on my back while hopping on one leg to this song....it was my 'Mosquito Dance.'")

Mood Modulation EP (CD-R, 2001)

Electrical Spectacle (CD-R, 2002)

I heard this track a lot on WTUL in the early '00s.  I actually have it both on the Mood Modulation EP (CD-R, 2001) and the band's self-titled album (CD-R, 2002).  The mp3 I'm posting here is from the 2001 EP, just because it's surely much harder to find.  Both versions sound almost identical, though the first one was made entirely by Mayfield when it was a solo project, and the second version was made by Mayfield, Gussoni and drummer Louis Romanos when it had become a true band.  My copy of Mood Modulation has cool little pinholes punched into the cover near each corner around the atom design.  "Transcontinental" (even the title has an "international man of mystery" feel to it) is remarkably solid from an instrumental standpoint, down to the snappy drumming and the killer synth attack.  The fact that one person put this whole song together on his own is simply breathtaking.  Some vocals might've helped it to reach a wider audience, but may have also tarnished its aesthetic.  It should've been used in one of those Austin Powers movies, as Fantastic Plastic Machine's "Bachelor Pad" was.

L-R: Gussoni, Romanos, Mayfield; photo from 1/22/02 issue of Gambit

Local indie label Backporch Revolution says this (er, they did back in July... it has now been deleted) about the Mood Modulation EP: "From spaced-out krautrock to space age bossanova, the 2001 debut 4-track EP from Electrical Spectacle is arguably the most-played local release on WTUL in the last five years. It's never been readily available, though, so we're finally re-releasing it on the web."

Local newsweekly Gambit has a great article by Michael Patrick Welch (a.k.a. The White Bitch) which talks about how bands like Electrical Spectacle fit into the early '00s NOLA scene.

I never saw Electrical Spectacle, but I have seen Mayfield live, as a member of ambient droners Liteworks in 2009, and in '80s-style minimal wavers ((PRESSURES)) in 2014.  I don't think I ever saw any band featuring Gussoni, but I seem to remember talking to him about music right outside of the Loyola library in early 2001.  The full-band version of Electrical Spectacle featured amazing Jaki Liebezeit-esque drummer Romanos of chill local jazz/electronic duo Permagrin.  I saw the 'Grin three times, all in 2004, including once at Jazz Fest.

Planets with similar climates: Kraftwerk - "Ruckzuck" (1970), Fantastic Plastic Machine - "Bachelor Pad" (1997), Quintron - "Bug Attack" (1998), Telefon Tel Aviv - "My Week Beats Your Year" (2003), Aphex Twin - "Girl/Boy Song" (1996), Harald Grosskopf - "So Weit, So Gut" (1980).

Dome w/ Angela Conway >> The whispers grow into a solid shout

Dome w/ Angela Conway - "Cruel When Complete"

(Dome Records, 1980 / The Grey Area / Mute / Elektra Records, 1991 / The Grey Area / Mute, 1992)

I'm not much of a Wire fan at all, but this minimalistic side project of theirs was pretty intriguing, based on the few songs I've heard by it.  For a song that's barely even there, it makes a pretty big impression.  Too bad Wire couldn't capture this chilly, cinematic vibe in more of their own stuff.

I got this song 2 years ago on an interesting Mute Records compilation from 1991 called Tyranny Of The Beat.  The CD booklet aptly describes this song as "elegant blocks of sweet noise free-floating through space."  I have to wonder if this album was a big influence on A.R. Kane, Hugo Largo, Bark Psychosis, and other quiet, abstract groups that came along later in the decade.

Side A of Dome's 1980 self-titled debut LP. Note: The stripey block design is a grayscale version of the album cover itself.

Angela Conway also recorded under the alias A.C. Marias, and released an album under that name on Mute in 1989 titled One Of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing).  She is now "a successful music video director."

In 1991, Mute released a VHS home video concurrently with the Tyranny Of The Beat CD.  It featured this Dome video, which could be described as the most hilariously botched soundcheck in recorded history, or as brilliant deconstructionist pop art:

Yikes... Hopefully Conway didn't "direct" that one...

Sunday, May 6: Made a last-minute decision to go to Jazz Fest, with Em & Damion.  Had my dad watch the video for "Best Of You" right before he dropped us off.  Delivered some cigars from him to Jeff in his patrol car outside the front gate of the fest right before going in.  Saw the Foo Fighters' whole 2-hour set, which started off great, then sucked for a while, then ruled at the end with "Best Of You" & "Everlong."  Moshing like crazy to the latter in the mud at End Fest '97 was one of the top highlights of my concertgoing life, so this time couldn't really hold a candle to that, but it was still good.  I spent about an hour staring at this girl in the crowd who looked exactly like this sex blogger named Pocket, trying to determine if it was her.  Speaking of candles, the Foos presented their guitarist with a birthday cake near the end, which marks the second time I've seen that happen in the last two weeks.  Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings then stole the show in the Blues Tent.  Also saw a bit of Maze, the Preservation Hall 50th anniv. celebration (with vox on a song called "Freight Train" by Ani Difranco), and the Neville Brothers (with a guest appearance by Trombone Shorty).

Went to the Mushroom that night on a hunch that Sam might be there, and she was.  I had only seen her once in the prev. 6 months, and was worried that she no longer worked there.  I brought some satsumas that I swiped from my parents' kitchen.  She immediately strode up grilled me on why I was not at the free Roky Erickson / Thurston Moore show the previous night at One Eyed Jacks, and excitedly told me all about it.  She got one of Thurston's lyrics sheets from the stage.  I saw The Orb's first album (the abridged 1-CD version, unfortunately) in the used CD racks and recommended it, so she put it on, and all of its weird samples sounded amazing on their incredible surround-sound stereo system, with speakers in all the various nooks and crannies of the store.  Got Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade (double LP), a stunning Joy Division poster, and Pet Shop Boys' "It's A Sin" (7").  I rec'd Drive Like Jehu's Yank Crime to her, so hopefully she dug it.  I think she and I must've been brother and sister in a past life.

They also had an amazing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" poster, which I was going to buy until I found the "Atmosphere' one.

Yesterday, May 8: My neighbor helped me take out this ugly 8x10 foot concrete slab in the backyard with just a 10-lb. sledgehammer, with a trick he taught me a trick in which you slightly raise part of the slab with a pry bar and then jam a rock under the slab.  This forms an air layer underneath the slab, so it makes spiderweb cracks very readily when struck.  So in a few minutes I singlehandedly turned that bitch into rubble with a few dozen hits, after procrastinating over it for a multitude of years.  Sure wish I had video of that.  A few hours prior to that yesterday, I took this snapshot in my car door's window before heading to a dollar store:

Today: He, my neighbor, gave(!) me a ~300-400 gallon pond liner that he had laying around.  He had been using it as a satellite pond next to one of his other ones for about a year before removing it for some reason.  I think May 2012 has probably been the best month of my life so far in terms of people doing considerate things for me and having illuminating conversations with me.  I should mention this neighbor is often referred to as "the bird man" due to his extensive collection of birds in aviaries in his backyard.  He's as big of a plant nut as I am, if not bigger, so we always talk about plants and landscaping philosophies, e.g. tree trimming, shade creation, propagation.  Some of his big Live Oaks, which he planted 30 years ago, can be seen in the pic above.  I'm not sure if I could ever move back to New Orleans after being spoiled by living out in the country since Katrina.  But if I did, I would need a big fucking yard.  The ones out here are about 5-20 times bigger than ones of houses of equivalent value in NOLA, which can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on one's enthusiasm for yard work and tree upkeep.

Jermaine Paul just won season 2 of a show called The Voice, which I don't watch.  I had seen him singing backup vocals (& occasional lead vox during the numerous time when she was offstage changing outfits) at an Alicia Keys concert on St. Patrick's Day '04.  You could practically hear the panties dropping around the New Orleans Arena every time the dude took the mic.  (The crowd was probably 80%+ female.) My only qualm is that I'm not sure why a seasoned pro was allowed to be on an amateur singing competition.  Check him out stealing the show in AK's song "Diary".

Millions Against Monsanto: The food fight of our lives - "Finally, public opinion around the biotech industry's contamination of our food supply and destruction of our environment has reached the tipping point. We're fighting back."

Love him or hate him, Bryce is here - "And let’s face it, his name is Bryce. BRYCE. That could only be more irritating if his parents had gone with EdHardyNickelbackCrocs." ... "Harper is self-aware enough to know he’s antagonizing you. He’s baseball’s version of the guy who sits at a stoplight blasting 'Sexy & I Know It' at unholy decibel levels, staring directly at you through the window of your involuntarily rattling Subaru."

Meet the former right-wing blogger who realized conservatives are crazy

Related:

Planets with similar climates: A.R. Kane - "The Madonna Is With Child" (1988), The Comsat Angels - "Restless" (1981), Mazzy Star - "Mary Of Silence" (1993), Low - "Shame" (1995), Slowdive - "Albatross" (1991), Sonic Youth - "Satan Is Boring" (~1984), Plexi - "Ordinary Things" (1996), Insides - "Yes" (1993), Chairlift - "Cool As A Fire" (2011), Bark Psychosis - "All Different Things" (1989).

Biosphere >> The things I tell you will not be wrong

Biosphere - "The Things I Tell You"

(Origo Sound [Norway]; All Saints Records [U.K.]; Thirsty Ear Records [U.S.], 1997 / Touch [U.K.], 2001)

Biosphere is a guy named Geir Jenssen from Tromsø, Norway.  This song has several different parts, kind of like a condensed, intergalactic, ambient-ified version of Tortoise's "Djed."  This song, as well as "Hyperborea," has cryptic vocal samples from the TV series Twin Peaks.  Well, on this song the sample is supposedly from there, but on "Hyperborea" it definitely is.  (Thanks mom for giving me the full DVD set of Twin Peaks for Xmas.)  I don't know the context of the sample used in this track, but it makes me think of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey or GERTY in the brilliant recent flick Moon.  The name Biosphere, the album name, and many of the song titles show that Jenssen has a keen interest in science.

I'm not sure if this album could've been made in a warm, humid climate, since the feeling of vast coldness and ice permeates almost every fiber of its being.  In fact, one track is named after a species of Arctic grass called Poa alpina.  A related grass called Poa annua is an annoying weed throughout America, and I actually pulled a bunch of it today.  I actually wrestled for a long time over whether to post that one or this one.  It was like wrestling with a bear; to be specific, a large bear, about 6-8 feet in torso length, that has platinum claws and lots of stamina when it comes to wrestling; but I think we all know I emerged victorious.

I usually try to provide only non-remastered songs, but in this case, I'm giving the 2001 remastered version on Touch.  (They prefer to be called just Touch, rather than Touch Records.)  It's not like remastering has that big of an impact on ambient music, after all; I do have the original '97 mp3s as well, but on a different computer.  The 2001 version was subtly retitled Substrata², and comes with a bonus CD as well as totally different cover art.  I bought it used at the wonderful, kitchen-sized Skully'z Recordz in the Quarter, and according to my RYM account I bought it on June 3, 2009.  I downloaded the original version some years prior.  I just found out that the album was reissued yet again just last year, on LP only, with an entirely new (third) cover and a long bonus track named "Laika," on Jenssen's own label Biophon Records.  So in the world of ambient music, this could safely be called an acknowledged classic.  It was even bootlegged in Russia!  Talk about a... COLD WAR.  To inspect and peruse all the various versions, go here.

Back cover of Norwegian CD

Clear CD tray of the 2001 remaster with icy photo underlay

The site Tiny Mix Tapes is like a more irreverent, non-corporatized, generally non-horrible version of Pitchfork.  Their news articles are usually pretty funny, but I think the title of this one is the funniest I've ever seen: Mount Carmel release Real Women on Siltbreeze; this is an album release story, not a headline about a hostage scenario

Also, you may remember the amazing song "Willing To Follow You Down" by Lowercase which I posted during California Month last year.  TMT did an interesting article about another brilliant song from that album, "Floodlit," and its similarity to a recent song by Cloud Nothings.  (And correctly traces both songs back to their Slint-y primordial ooze.)

As for Pitchfork, I've never really talked about them on here, though I think I've given them a lot of swipes here and there, such as in the Twin Sister post in January.  I've gone to their site literally every weekday for over a decade, though I still refuse to ever add pitchformedia.com to my bookmarks list on any of the three computers I've had in that span.  Every morning I type in "pi" in my browser window, then let it autofill the evil URL.  I visit the site, check out the news section while trying to mentally filter out all the expected stories about Radiohead / White Stripes / Kanye / Neutral Milk Hotel / Arcade Fire / etc., see if any overhyped disc has been awarded the "Best New Music" tag (Pitchfork even has an adjective form of this tag that they like to throw around to such albums: "BNM'd"), then, most importantly, check the tourdates section.  So there you have it.  Those of you who remember the site from its early days will recount tons of witheringly funny headlines, but those went by the wayside in the early '00s once it became a money-making juggernaut that can't afford to step on anyone's toes.  The main source of humor for me on the site for the last several years has been to see how many releases have been given a grade in the mid-7's.  I swear to g-d, almost everything on there gets a wishy-washy 7.3 to 7.7 grade.  It would take a long time to explain why this is so hilarious to me, but it goes back to the "can't afford to step on anyone's toes" thing.  This is the same site that infamously gave the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka a 0.0 and then began vigorously sucking on the Lips' teat (meaning: reporting breathlessly and enthusiastically on every tiny detail of that band's career) ever since.  This is the same site that does 5 reviews per weekday, 25 a week, about 100 a month, about 1200 a year, but has rarely even reviewed any of my favorite albums of the last 10-15 years.  So I would have to dispute the claim that it's a site that is supposedly really tuned in to the underground.

Check out this fascinating page of Natural Born Killers trivia on IMDB

Awkward: Coolio and son locked up in same prison
I actually used to respect Coolio despite his lame music, since he was a firefighter, and I had read that he was a Desert Storm soldier, though the latter is apparently not true.  In any case, I just gleaned this horrifying factoid on Wikipedia: "While touring with hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse, Coolio received a tattoo as a [sic] homage to the group's fanbase, reading 'Jugalo Cool'. He stated that the misspelling was intentional. Coolio has performed at the Gathering of the Juggalos, and identifies as a Juggalo."  You are dead in my eyes, Coolio.

Planets with similar climates: Rapoon - "A Softer Light" (1997), Seefeel - "Signals" & "Silent Pool" (1993), Scanner - "Underwater" (1995).

Oval >> Meddling machine muzak

Oval - "Shop In Store"

(Thrill Jockey Records, ~1994-96)

I saw, and hated, Oval opening for Tortoise in May of '98.  Since the other dude from the "band" had recently absconded, it was now just a solo project of Markus Popp.  He stood there on the stage while staring dispassionately, and pretty much unblinkingly, at a Mac laptop computer, occasionally clicking it to adjust some algorithm or trigger a sample or what have you.  I exited the Howlin' Wolf shaking my head in disbelief after 4 or 5 songs, then returned about half an hour later to catch Tortoise's triumphant set.

"Shop In Store" is one of two bonus tracks added to the U.S. issue of Oval's influential third album 94Diskont.  For some unknown reason, despite hating Oval live, I bought it on LP in summer '98 from Thrill Jockey mailorder.  This U.S. LP comes with a bonus 12" of remixes by very hip dudes: Jim O'Rourke, Mouse On Mars, Scanner and Christian Vogel.  (To summarize, the German CD came out in 1995 on Mille Plateaux Records, and only has 5 tracks; the U.S. LP+12" came out in 1996 on Thrill Jockey, with a a whopping 11 tracks.)  Few of the tracks on the album have as much vigor as "Shop In Store," with most of them taking on a more aquatic, ambient feel, so you may be disappointed if you go buy the whole album after enjoying "SIS."

This album and Oval's previous one, Systemisch, pretty much invented the whole glitch genre, and "Shop In Store" introduced an undulating rhythmic quality to the genre.  It's a pretty revolutionary track no matter how you slice it.  Read some interesting info on 94Diskont here.  If you hadn't guessed from the music and the name of the genre, Oval made its music by literally flipping over CDs, scratching them up with metal implements, and then playing them and isolating little segments to create longer loops, etc.  At least that's how I've always understood it, though I'm sure I'm omitting some steps.  In any case, this kind of music could be described as both the literal and figurative destruction of music as most people know it.  And I remember reading somewhere back in the day that he actually used mainstream pop n' rock CDs, which makes the end result even cooler.  Alvin Lucier pioneered the concept of making music out of non-music with his piece "I Am Sitting In A Room" decades ago, and others have pushed the envelope further.  Christian Marclay intentionally scratched up vinyl records in the '80s and recorded / looped the skipping and crackling sounds they made upon playback.  Oval found a little niche and exploited it well for a while, but it cannot be denied that they were doing exactly what Marclay did in the '80s, albeit with CDs instead of vinyl.  (One kind of plastic instead of another.)  I think Oval is still around, but I stopped following them a decade-ish ago after buying the album Dok and realizing there wasn't much room for their sound to evolve within its self-imposed straitjacket.  Any chimpanzee or lemur could theoretically scratch up CDs or LPs and play them back and call it music, and I'm sure someday a record label will put out just such an album, garnering an insightful 7.4 review from a greenhorn Pitchfork scribe hopped up on a tall espresso.

The full album version of "Do While" is 24 minutes long; a music video was made for a drastically shortened version of it named "Do While ⌘X":

In 1995, Popp joined with Jan St. Werner of Mouse On Mars to form the very Oval-esque duo Microstoria.  I believe I got their remix CD Reprovisers in that same Thrill Jockey order in summer '98.  TJ also included a cool promo poster combining album covers by Microstoria (the Init Ding and _Snd album covers), Oval (94Diskont), and I think Mouse On Mars.  I'll have to dig it up and photograph it sometime.

An episode of the show How The States Got Their Shapes ran a fascinating bit last week about a proposed 51st state called Jefferson, which is apparently gaining a lot of momentum.

In addition to a card with an audio clip of the first 15 secs. of this Phil Dunphy quote from the pilot episode of Modern Family, my sister gave me the new issue of GQ for my birthday:

In the article, she mentions that her dad gave her Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground for her 12th birthday.  She then became legally emancipated form her parents at age 15.  Coincidence?  I tried reading that book a decade or so ago but found it too miserable for me to get very far.

On Saturday & Sunday I started putting in an herb garden in my mom's friend's yard.  On Sunday at Lowe's I got a sweet cactus which I believe is a Mammillaria celsiana or M. muehlenpfordtii, but I can't tell yet.  I also finished up a painting, my first one done on the new easel, during the Super Bowl.  The commercials were incredibly bad.  The Saints (boasting arguably the best offense in NFL history) would've throttled the Patriots (with arguably the worst defense in NFL history), let's not kid ourselves.  Pats diehard Maria Menounos lost a Super Bowl bet and had to wear a Giants bikini in Times Square, so thank you, Mario Manningham.

Planets with similar climates: Nobukazu Takemura - "Icefall" (1999), Replikants - "Agent Oranges (Fancy Mix)" (1994), O.S.T. - "Fe" (2001), Kreidler - "Cube" (1998).

Margot Mifflin >> Do you feel yourself to be capable of being manipulated?

Margot Mifflin - "Backlash"

(Arrest Records, 1992; reissued by MuWorks Records, 1993, & Atavistic Records, 1996)

This is on the tremendous and varied compilation State Of The Union.  It originally came out as an LP on Zoar Records in 1982, obviously without this song.  I have the 1992 CD version on Arrest Records and the dramatically expanded double-CD 1996 version on Atavistic Records, both of which do feature this song.  (I ripped this mp3 from the 1996 edition.)  The gimmick is that every song on all versions of SOTU is about 1 minute long, making each artist really strive to get to the point quickly, often with fascinating results.  See the full tracklisting of each edition by clicking the links under the "Notes" section here.  Some of the more well-known contributors: John Lurie (of the Lounge Lizards and an ill-advised acting career), Arto Lindsay (DNA, etc.), the late actor Spalding Gray, turntable virtuoso Chrtistian Marclay, Adele Bertei, Tuli Kupferberg (of The Fugs), noise rock producer Martin Bisi, Fred Frith, Borbetomagus w/ Voice Crack, drummer Ikue Mori (DNA, Death Ambient, etc.), God Is My Co-Pilot, Marc Ribot, John Zorn w/ Yamatsuka Eye, Nicholas Collins, Syd Straw, Mofungo, Henry Kaiser, John Duncan, Ui, PainKiller, Penny Arcade, Chris Haskett (Rollins Band guitarist), Maggie "Hey Baby" Estep, Allen Ginsberg, Lenny Kaye, DJ Spooky, Andrea Parkins, Sim Cain (Rollins Band drummer), Zeena Parkins, Lukas Ligeti (son of György), Kurt Ralske (a.k.a. Ultra Vivid Scene), M. Doughty (of Soul Coughing), and a Mars Williams / Ken Vandermark sax duo.  However, most of the artists are complete unknowns, with baffling and/or awesome names like Krackhouse, Grafted Media Devil, A Thousand Tiny Fingers, Circuit Redux, Pharmacy Lounge, Sonorexia, Babytooth, Jody Dunaway (she plays balloons... really), and Dim Sum Clip Job.  That was honestly not an attempt at keyword spamming.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, this song doesn't feature Mifflin herself on vocals, but maybe the intro yodel is her, or maybe the closing voice?  The song has an abstract feminist undertone that can be ascertained by the line of condescending questions asked by the sampled male voices; the female voice at the end ties it all together.  It's amazing that this was done 20 years ago, considering how many bands would be considered edgy and fresh if they were to put it out in 2012.  The layered mechanical drumbeat is almost industrial in some parts.

The bio on Mifflin's website says: "Margot Mifflin is an author, journalist, and professor who writes about women, art, and contemporary culture. The author of Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo, she has written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Believer, ARTnews, and Salon.com. Her book The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman was published in April, 2009. An associate professor in the English Department of Lehman College of the City University of New York (CUNY), Mifflin also directs the Arts and Culture program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, where she teaches arts journalism. Mifflin has appeared as a lecturer and keynote speaker at dozens of colleges, universities and museums, including Barnard College, Parsons School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design and Los Angeles MOCA. She appeared in MSNBC’s documentary “Women and Tattoo” (2001) and CNN’s “Women of the Ink” (1998). She was raised in a Quaker family in Swarthmore, Pa. and now lives with her family in Nyack, New York."

Here is a film piece called Atlante by Grazia Toderi that was being shown at the CAC (Contemporary Arts Center) as part of Prospect.2.  I think this is the entire thing, and I've read that it was shot in Portugal.  It was projected simultaneously onto two screens on walls that were slightly angled in towards each other:

On Saturday I stopped by at the monthly (last Saturday of each month) Arts Market on S. Carrolton for the first time.  Most of the art was pretty tourist-y.  Some freak wind gusts came through and blew some vendors' shit over, which actually amused me.  Then I went to National Art & Hobby to get an easel my parents had gotten me for my birthday.  (I've never owned one.)  I picked up a free flipbook-sized publication there, by some publisher called America Sutra.  It's simply titled Love Song on the cover, with no author name or publishing credits, and is full of intentional typos.  The back cover just says americasutra.com, and going to that site told me that their books are apparently by someone named Amit Desai.  I think this must be some sort of teaser for their upcoming book series.  Or maybe it's some elaborate hoax?  Very cryptic.  You know I love palm trees, hence you know I had to post this sample:

That line reminds me of House Of Sand And Fog, in which the main guy cuts down all the trees on his new property that block his view of the ocean.  After leaving the art store, I drove down Magazine St. a mile or so and then pulled over to check out a garage sale.  After picking out three CDs sans cases (Sade - Love Deluxe, Chet Baker - Let's Get Lost - The Best Of Chet Baker Sings, and Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly), I found a dollar bill on the ground, and then went to pay for the goods.  "Just give me a dollar," she (I overheard that she's a photographer named Alex Bono) said.  Yeah, I felt a little guilty.  But factoring in the hundreds of CDs, tapes, records, books, etc. that I've given away to thrift stores over the years, I don't mind getting my karma returned once every so often.  The Sade CD was quite a coup, since I'd been wanting it for a long time.  Fun Fact: I could've also bought Public Enemy's Apocalypse '91 CD there, but just looking at the names of the terrible songs printed on the CD elicited a flood of memories and emotions, bringing me back to the day I bought it (namely, the week it came out in October '91).  I had to put it down and walk away.  Let some other shmuck waste 33⅓ cents on it.  Then I went to a Goodwill on the way home and came across what I always think of as a "suicide donation" or "death donation."  By that I mean lots of obscure albums by someone who must've been savvy enough to know he/she could get some good money for them at any used CD store.  Hence the presence of them in a thrift store means the person probably died, and his/her parents or spouse just gave the music away.  I got CDs by Christian Marclay, Black Box Recorder, Lync, Themselves, Furry Things, Morcheeba, Slowride (a pre-True Widow band), Lamb, Blackalicious, M83, Myshkin, and Breaks Co-Op.  There was even one by annoying drone merchants Pelt which I passed on.  I also passed on a recent one by Trail Of Dead, whom I used to worship back when they didn't suck.  Anyway, R.I.P. dude or dudette, and R.I.P. Don Cornelius.

Planets with similar climates: Negativland - "Methods Of Torture" (1987), Emily XYZ - "Put A Little Distance" (2000), The Art Of Noise - "Beat Box" (1983), Was (Not Was) - "Dad, I'm In Jail" (~1987), Kallabris - "Untitled (#2)" (1987), Public Enemy - "War At 33⅓" (1990).

Steve Roach >> Building something out of nothing

I can't believe it's still California Month, tremor #49:

Steve Roach - "Structures From Silence"

(Fortuna Records, 1984 / Projekt Records, 2001)

I will probably replace this with a shorter edited version in the future, or make it just streaming, but for now, here's the entire 28-minute monster.  (Note: This mp3 is from the original 1984 Fortuna CD, not the remastered 2001 Projekt CD.  The latter has a terrible alternate cover.)  Most ambient composers try to get the warmest, most liquid-y, analog sound possible; this track stands out because you can hear its unpolished digital veneer, giving it that intangible retro-futuristic feel that so many bands of today spend all day using ProTools striving for.

I got this CD a mere two years ago at a thrift store; coincidentally, the one to which I gave that cherry laurel tree a few days ago.  The first two pieces on it are decent, but this track blew me away right from the opening seconds, and always will.  You can download a free sampler medley of all three tracks here.  In October 2002, some magazine called New Age Voice named Structures From Silence the #4 most influential ambient album ever, with Roach's own Dreamtime Return occupying the #2 slot.  Brian Eno's Ambient #1: Music For Airports was a no-brainer pick at #1.  In December 2000, Yoga Journal voted it one of the top 10 albums to blast while doing... that.  AllMusic Guide gives it 5 stars.  You get the picture.

In '84, Roach said "For several months before actually committing the title track 'Structures From Silence' to tape, I would live with the music throughout my daily activities. Often I would sleep and wake with the music playing. (Since it is stored in the computer memory, it can play indefinitely.) This gave me the opportunity to fine tune the piece to a very sublime level. At the time I did not listen to any other music. I also spent much time in silence, a beautiful place. Feeling the music move through that space was vital in its development... For me the essence of this music is what is felt when it ends, a returning to the silence."
In late '94 & early '95, I sold all my CDs and tapes (I didn't buy my first vinyl, Soundgarden's Screaming Life 12" and Nirvana's Sliver 7", until the end of '95) and made myself drive around without listening to the car radio.  It seemed like this helped to get my sense of hearing reattuned and made me more in touch with some timeless force.  So I kind of know what Steve-o is talking about.  I was only 18 at the time, but I felt like I had to press the Reset button in my head.

"Structures From Silence" was used to score Roach's 1987 VHS tape of the same name, which I am dying to see:

In 1989, Roach put out another home video (on VHS & Laserdisc), called Earth Dreaming.  I have it on Laserdisc, but have no LD player, so I've watched the whole thing on YouTube.  It's SR's music combined with imagery by someone named Georgianne Cowan.  Wondrous desert scenes are the main focus, but GC interspersed female forms into it in several places.  The first third of it doesn't have much in terms of ladies, so check out the second part:

Now that's art in its purest form.  Kinda makes your little Strokes and Wu-Tang albums seem puny by comparison, no?

I've been thinking for a few years about joining Yelp, but have recently learned that's pretty much a scam which extorts $ from businesses in exchange for suppressing / deleting negative reviews.  An informative article can be read here.  I mainly wanted to join it to rate plant nurseries, record stores, small music venues, and other such things, not fancy restaurants or hotels.  And you can even apparently rate defunct businesses, so it'd be fun to rate the Mermaid Lounge, McLendon's Nursery, Metropolis Records, Sharkey's Reef, Racketeer's, etc., so we'll see.

I photographed this cool painting during Prospect.1 at one of the venues on St. Claude Ave.:

Francesca "Frahn" Koerner - Into The Vortex (2008, 62 x 46")

It was selling for $8,000, which I thought was odd for one of the art meccas of town that's more DIY / "punk" than the establishment Julia Street galleries in the CBD, but I guess $8,000 is pretty cheap for a big painting by someone who could be famous someday...

I watched the 2007 pilot episode of The Big Bang Theory today and I think I'm gonna be hooked on it.

Planets with similar climates: Seefeel - "Signals" (1993), Windy & Carl - "Antarctica" (1996), Aphex Twin - "#19" (1994).

Michael Andrews w/ Miranda July >> It's life and it's happening

California Month continued, tremor #31:

Michael Andrews w/ Miranda July - "When I Call A Name"

(Everloving Records, 2005)

This is from the soundtrack to the movie Me And You And Everyone We Know, which Miranda July wrote, directed, and co-starred in.  The movie and its soundtrack have both already become cult classics, and Roger Ebert cited the film as the 5th best of the decade, and there's even a band named after it.  Michael Andrews is apparently from San Diego and is now in L.A., so this song made the cut for California Month, even though Miranda, a Portlander, steals the show in the song's first half.

I started hearing about Miranda in the indie music mags in '97-98, when she put out two baffling, Laurie Anderson-esque solo albums on Kill Rock Stars.  She did the voices of all the characters in her strange song pastiches.  So I was not surprised to hear her doing both the female and the male voice in "When I Call A Name," but it still cracks me up.  I also have her book of peculiarly observant short stories called No One Belongs Here More Than You.  (Yes, she likes wordy, sarcastically-motivational titles.)  Basically, she's the shit.  I know hardly anything about Michael Andrews, other than he was in a band called The Origin and now makes these lite synth-porno soundtracks.

Miranda July performing her one-person play The Swan Tool in 2001; photo by Harrell Fletcher.

I went to the Fall Garden Show at City Park yesterday and got a dwarf blueberry bush (Vaccinium darrowii), another New Zealand Tea Tree (Leptospermum scoparium), and three little cacti.  One plant that I almost got had probably the coolest name ever: Rattlesnake Master.  Then I went and shot some hoops at SUNO on the newly-redone courts.  Then I went over to McKeown's Books And Difficult Music for a very weird duo concert by an Austrian guy named Simon Berz (of the band ige*timer) and local drummer Simon Lott.  They were joined by a sound manipulator guy from Holland named Toktek in the last piece.   I brought over some beers to donate to the ice chest, since I had guzzled some free ones at previous shows here.  I also picked up a few books, of course.  Afterwards, a guy came up to me and asked if he could take a picture of my t-shirt.  "You've heard of Poem Rocket?," I asked him.  "Yeah, my old band's first-ever show was opening for them in Ohio."  I was amazed.  He took the pic and said the show was during a blizzard and not a single person came, but they played anyway.  His name is Steve, but I forgot his band's name.  Found a cool little coin medallion on the ground with a ship design on one side, while walking back to my car; may wear it as a necklace.  Saw a weird argument happening outside of Tipitina's which included a guy hurling a motorcycle helmet diagonally across the intersection while yelling at a woman in one of two cars that had apparently had a fender bender.  Just another Saturday night in New Orleans...

This was uploaded by a member of Das Racist, believe it or not:

Planets with similar climates: Laurie Anderson w/ Peter Gabriel - "Excellent Birds" (1984), Xiu Xiu - "Clowne Towne" (2003).

To Rococo Rot >> Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?

To Rococo Rot - "Prado"

(Mute Records / City Slang Records, 1999)

The palindromically-named To Rococo Rot shared bassist Stefan Schneider with the band from the previous post, Kreidler.  In addition to being based in a differrent German city, Berlin (through which my sister may be wandering at this very moment), TRR were much more electronic, and rarely funky or rock-ish like Kreidler, instead mining a more clinical, laboratory-friendly vein.

This track, from their album The Amateur View, transports me away to some sort of beautiful, near-empty house or art gallery, or any kind of empty, sanitary building with white walls and lots of glass, located in a cold place.  The album cover might have something to do with that, as might the fact that the track is literally named after a famous art museum.

Cassette version, released only in Poland

If you listen closely, it sounds like there's some harp buried low in the mix, or maybe just a simulation of a harp on a synth.  For such a minimalistic song, there's really a lot going on in it, and it rewards repeated close listenings.  The real bass guitar lends a smoky jazz café feel, and some of the drumming sounds real too, though the backing track is clearly digital drums.  Check out these photos of the band (+ guest I-Sound, a.k.a. Craig Willingham, who played on "A Little Asphalt Here And There") from the CD booklet:

Yep, lots of white space... so very Euro.  Even the bars are all called "Bar" over there.

I got into this album in '99, around the time I got into Kreidler, simply because I liked Kreidler and hence had to check out their sister band.  This album is definitely not as great overall as Kreidler's The Amateur View, but has some nice little gems on it, such as "I Am In The World With You" and "This Sandy Piece."  The album is apparently considered a classic amongst those who are experts in the genre, so go figure.  The single "Telema" starts off pretty weak, but becomes decent:

(Warning: Cute cats at the 2-minute mark.)

On Monday, I dropped off some pups from my amazing agave which I've had for about 5 years.  Pups are the little baby plants that some plants, and most desert plants, put off at their bases, as a way of asexual reproduction; they can be removed and stuck into their own pot, and presto, you have a new free plant.  I gave one to Hebert's Nursery in Thibodaux and another to Starke's in Houma.  I also brought the mama plant, as I always do when giving pups from this particular plant, which I believe is either an Agave parryi or an Agave potatorum, or a subspecies of either of those, or a hybrid between the two.  I took a photo of the parent plant that morning:

This plant is really solidly built, even for an agave.  It practically feels like it's made out of concrete, especially the center spear/rosette.  You can see the outlines of the teeth on adjacent leaves, from when they were pressed firmly together for months before opening.  As with all agaves, it will die after flowering, but that should be more than a decade away.  This thing is my baby, so I can't even bear to think about that.  Here are two articles about agaves by an expert in the subject:
Introduction to agaves
Selected large agave species

After visiting the nurseries, I got this 7 oz. little thing of booze called Alcatraz Sour Apple (by some company called Johnny Bootlegger) at a Shell station.  Then I got two little cacti at Lowe's.  They had this nice portable walk-in 8'x6' greenhouse set up, for $200, and I decided to get one in the fall for my exponentially-expanding collection of desert plants, rather than lugging them all inside or into the carport.  Then I haggled down the price on a big Serenoa repens (Saw Palmetto) at the Home Depot across the street (yes, Houma is growing rapidly) which I plan on returning to buy next week, then found a basketball court in Gray that was too covered in rain puddles to play on.  But I was psyched to find it, and will be playing there a lot.  Then I drove back up to Thibodaux and played some hoops on a very puddly court.  This guy ran up to me and asked if I wanted to play him, so I said yeah and he squeezed my hand so hard during the handshake that I thought he might've broken it.  He said he hadn't played basketball in a few years, but had boundless confidence.  We played 21, and I beat him 21-0, then he thanked me and went back to sit with his two female companions under a gazebo, so I shot around some more, then he comes running back and I thought he was going to stab me or something, but he told me that I had to let him redeem himself, so we played again and I won 21-4.  Then I shot around some more and went home, stopping along the way at Chackbay Nursery to right this big juniper that always tips over in the wind.  This nursery has been pretty much abandoned for a year or two, but they left a lot of big trees & plants there.  This being the "country," there's no front gate or anything, yet no one ever steals anything from the place.  Can you imagine any store doing that in New Orleans?  I made a note to bring some bricks down next time to put in the juniper's pot to prevent tippage.  On this trip I listened to The Cure's Wish twice, specifically to a spare copy of it that I got at the Record Raid on Saturday for 50 cents.  I heard a few people talking about Amy Winehouse's bucket-kickage the previous night, but no one exactly seemed surprised.  Some other good or potentially good stuff I got:
Christian Scott - Rewind That CD ($3)
Chet Baker - Career 1952-1988 2xCD compilation in a mini box ($3)
Pharoah Sanders - Love Will Find A Way LP ($4)
Sade - "Never As Good As The First Time" 7" (free)
Psychedelic Furs - All Of This And Nothing compilation CD ($1) (already had it on CD & cassette)
Mats Gustafsson & David Stackenäs - Blues CD ($0.50)
Dayna Kurtz - The Beautiful Yesterday Sessions EP CD ($0.50)
U2 - 18 Singles compilation CD ($3)
Terence Trent D'Arby - Symphony Or Damn CD ($1)
Crowded House - Crowded House CD ($1)
Lous Armstrong - Louis' Love Songs CD ($0.50)
M83 - Before The Dawn Heals Us CD ($3)

I passed on a copy of Faith No More's first album on vinyl for $15, and I kind of regret it.  I was vaguely planing on going to see Jolie Holland at Tipitina's that night (Saturday), but I decided her voice still annoys me like it did the last time I skipped her, ca. 2007, so I passed and drove back home, stopping first to buy a baby Dracaena draco at a Home Depot, even though I swore I would never get one.  Then I stopped at the WalMart in Boutte, which was the first time I'd gone to a WM since deciding to boycott them in '05.  The reason is that I wanted a new pair of the black Brahma boots I'd gotten there, and apparently no other store carries Brahmas.  The desire for a specific product can sometimes win out over idealism.  I was impressed by their gardening section.  I listened to the Christian Scott CD twice in my car that night; look for its first track to be posted on here sometime soon.

Planets with similar climates: Not sure yet; maybe some Autechre, Bark Psychosis or Seefeel

Kreidler >> That's okay, I keep the pictures

Kreidler - "She Woke Up And The World Had Changed"

(Mute Records / Kiff SM Records, 1998)

Kreidler (pronounced "CRIED-lur," not "CREED-lur") was a post-rock group based in Düsseldorf, Germany, which seamlessly combined "real" instruments with electronics to create retro-futuristic music that can appeal to both club kids and serious avant-garde music geeks.  For some unknown reason, the album is called Appearance And The Park.  The strange, glitchy beat/riff of this track always amazes me, with its sort of tropical feel, maybe because it reminds me of steel drumming.  Seriously, why are cutting-edge rappers not sampling beats like this?  Every song on the album is instrumental, except for two versions of "Coldness," which was apparently their jokey attempt at writing a pop hit:

I first heard Kreidler while we were drawing in an art class at Loyola called Foundations 2, in March '99.  (I was a biology major and art minor.)  That probably sounds really pretentious or made-up -- American art student hears obscure German electronic band on college radio while in class -- but it's true.  (The class consisted of me, a gay dude, and 13 females.  The gay dude literally overdosed on GHB that semester during class one day, and had to be taken to the hospital, but that's another story.)  That was the month that this album came out in the U.S., after having been released the previous year in Germany.  We were allowed to play the radio sometimes, and I usually made sure it was tuned to WTUL, the station of the college right next door, Tulane.  The song was the rubbery and strange "Au Pair," whose video I discovered about a decade later:

Kreidler's drummer, Thomas Klein, is one of the best to ever pick up a pair of sticks, period, and is obviously massively influenced by his fellow countryman Jaki Liebezeit of CAN.

It's always hard to come up with a title when I post an instrumental song.  This one comes from the strange bit of writing on the back cover:

Uh, okay.  Richard Brautigan would be proud...  I think the coffee & tea bit might be a reference to CAN's "Bring Me Coffee Or Tea" on their seminal LP Tago Mago.

Yesterday, during some rain I finally joined the local library, which is only a few blocks from me, but not exactly a bastion of modern literature, this being a town of 6,000 people.  It's one of those little country libraries whose parking lot is usually empty except on days when there are a few school buses due to a school scheduling a field trip to it, which always gave me the impression that it was some sort of children's library.
"Hi, I'd like to join."
The chubby, flaxen-haired, somewhat cute, twentysomething girl at the front counter under the fluorescent lights looks at me with a blank, bored expression.  I remember that she was sitting in that very spot the only other time I had come here, 3 or 4 years earlier.
"You mean get a library card?"
"Yeah. [Pause] ...What else would I mean?"
I felt kind of bad about that last part, but I mean, come on.  Do I want to join your swinger's club, or your African safari group, or your fondue workshop?  No, probably not, I mainly just want a library card.

I picked out three books, then drove down 20 miles to Thibodaux, got a little white-spined Mammillaria cactus and some dwarf cattail bulbs at Lowe's, and then shot hoops after the rain had ended there, which had brought the temperature down from about 95 degrees to about 80.  This gangly blond kid of about 13 rode his bike up and started shooting on another goal.  I never watch other people play while I'm playing, because I like to be the center of attention when it comes to basketball, my all-consuming passion; but I couldn't help noticing that he shot the way that most people do before developing enough arm strength to shoot the right way, meaning above one's head rather than off of the shoulder.  So when one of his bricks careened over to my court I said "Can I give you a suggestion?  You should start shooting the ball over your head, because when you shoot it from your shoulder, the ball blocks your vision as it passes in front of your eyes."  He didn't say anything, and went back and kept shooting the same way as before, and bricking as much as before.  I was like: "The fuck?"  So I just went back to draining three after three, hoping that my actions would speak more clearly than my words.  I understand the whole "Don't talk to strangers" thing, and I didn't talk to strangers when I was a kid, but this kind of annoyed me, thought he fact that I was shirtless probably played into his lack of desire to talk to me.  I then went to O'Reilly's auto parts and got some wiper blades, and then went to the Rouses grocery store, and weirdly enough, while I was walking in, he was walking out with his parents.  Probably thought I was stalking him or something...  I wanted to ask his parents, "Didn't you see Scott Loeffelholz play?"  See, the thing is, I used to shoot from the shoulder.  In 8th grade, I practiced with the high school team every day (after my middle school team's practice got out), and started on the JV team.  So on game days, I played the 8th grade game and then the JV game.  After one 8th grade or JV game that season, in which I went 14 of 15 from the line in an overtime win, my best game of that season, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  Joel Loeffelholz, father of the high school team's star player, Scott Loeffelholz (one of my idols), pulled me aside and... you guessed it... solemnly told me that I should start shooting from over my head.  He told me the same damn thing I told this kid 20 years later, the only difference being that I actually realized the importance of his suggestion and actually started shooting from over my head, which changed my life.  Joel was/is a lawyer, and helped get me out of a minor traffic ticket a few years later, so I owe him doubly.  His son Michael, one of my classmates (we moshed together at the aforementioned Tool / Flaming Lips / Failure concert in '94), now apparently works for Atlantic Records.  The weird thing is that Scott is 6'5" and Michael is like 5'7", supposedly due to his bad asthma.  I think he's the one who got me into Quicksand in spring of '93, but that might've been Ryan Massey or Blake Massey.  I know Michael first told us to check out the band Morphine, in early '93.

Sent to me by my sister the other day:

Remember Razr phones?  The rest of it reads "Raveonettes, Church, and...Kele haha)"

Weird novel I checked out from the library

Well, I'm off to the Record Raid at Siberia & the Hi-Ho Lounge now.

Update, 8/14/11: Printed at the bottom of my library receipt:
What did the sheet of paper say to the pencil ?
You've got a good point !

Planets with similar climates: Euphone - "Newscast" (2000), Trans Am - "American Kooter" (1996), Kraftwerk - "Nummern" ("Numbers") (1981), Oval - "Shop In Store" (1994), Stu Phillips - "Knight Rider Theme" (1982), Schema - "We Think We're Sane" (2000), Harald Grosskopf - "So Weit, So Gut" (1980), FCS North - "Things Will Change" (2003).

Telefon Tel Aviv >> Sometimes things just have a way of making themselves clear

Note: I originally posted this on May 10th, but it somehow got wiped out during the sitewide collapse that Blogspot had last night.  So here it is again, though I had to rewrite lots of it based on an earlier draft.

•••• Telefon Tel Aviv - "My Week Beats Your Year" ø ø ø ø

•••• (Hefty Records, 2004) ø ø ø ø

This song is really def in many ways, to say nothing of the fact that the beat is so bangin' that it literally should be used to test out the stereo systems of new cars.  First, the title, which sounds like it might be a taunt lifted from a bumper sticker, a Muhammad Ali press conference, or a tween t-shirt design.  Well, it's actually the last line of Lou Reed's liner notes to his infamous ambient noize room-clearer Metal Machine Music!  Definitely one of the coolest phrases ever, period.  I've used it as an AOL away message for many years.  For an example of the cool little sonic details that TTA employed, check out the "helicopter chopping" effect on the drums at the 2:38 mark.

I saw Telefon Tel Aviv at the highly anticipated CD-release show for this album, Map Of What Is Effortless, in March '04 at the State Palace Theater (R.I.P.) in New Orleans.  I guess TTA had already relocated from New Orleans to Chicago (much like a lot of NOLA's jazz superstars did decades earlier), but I could be mistaken.  I don't know if they played this song, which really annoys me, because one of my deals with going to concerts is to make myself vividly remember a band's performance of its best song.  Local newsweekly Gambit or Lagniappe did a long article on how TTA had been practicing really hard to perfect their new, "full band" sound, replete with female backup singers, and (I think) a live drummer; I have the article somewhere.  One of the opening acts at this show was a completely unknown local electronic drone duo called Belong, doing one of their first shows ever, or maybe even their first.  They shot to baffling internet hipster fame a few years later when their mediocre debut album came out.  For some reason they have refused to play here ever since this show, if I'm not mistaken.  Weird.  Another opener was excellently-named local dude The Madd Wikkid.  (I also saw Josh Eustis of TTA do an Aphex Twin-ish solo set under the name Benelli the previous month, opening for Texas dub/post-rockers Echo Base Soundsystem.  He used only an Apple laptop for this performance, and I recall that he literally never said anything or even looked up at the crowd.)

It is likely that my week, this particular week in March 2004, actually did beat your year, at least based on all the concerts I saw and the cool critters I added to the 90-gallon reef tank I just gotten.  Anyway, the vocals on this song are done by Lindsay Anderson of TTA's Hefty labelmates L'Altra.  I had been wondering this for 7 years, actually, and, in a way, I kind of preferred not knowing.  I liked thinking it was some random stoned teenager they recorded rambling after an all-night rave or something.  This song was released on 12" single and on promo CD-R, both of which featured the album version and an extended remix, plus the beautiful b-side "I Lied."  If anyone can send me the extended version, I would really love to post it on here.

Planets with similar climates: Dirty Vegas - "Days Go By" (2001), Fluke - "Atom Bomb" (1996), School Of Seven Bells - "Dust Devil" (2010), Moloko - "Day For Night" (1995), Pet Shop Boys - "Two Divided By Zero" (1985), Suzanne Vega & DNA - "Tom's Diner" (1987/90), Suzanne Vega - "Blood Makes Noise" (1992), Scala - "Naked" (1995), Lamb - "Cotton Wool" (1996), Monie Love - "Monie In The Middle" (1990).

Observe Fluke's incredible "Atom Bomb" video, which was made 15 years

ago but has better visual effects than most of today's Hollywood movies.