Let em riot. We're Sonic-fuckin'-Death Monkey.

[Photo Credit]

I don't know how many people out there check out The Crutch but I, for one, love how they roll. I am currently enjoying the educational experience that is The Movement That Never Was, a great little series of posts that The Crutch put up in July, but this post grabbed my attention today. First off, take a look at the fucking calendar. Neutral Milk Hotel, Whiskeytown, and Elliott Smith in the course of a month in 1997. Tight. Second, dig on those tracks...some unbelievable bands and artists, doing it live. Third, High Fidelity. One of my favorite music-themed movies, ever.

My introduction to High Fidelity came in college. I was rolling through the issue point bookstore, picking up my required English major textbooks and a class that I was not able to take (because of fucking basketball practices) had a shitload of great novels and contemporary works. The names are escaping me now, but David Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was in there, and so was Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. We weren't allowed to grab books from classes we weren't in (even though I would pay for it), but I grabbed 'em anyway. I read High Fidelity throughout that night and finished it the next day. I couldn't stop laughing. And relating. I have never read anything that captures the music-oriented male mind so effectively and accurately. Making fucking random lists ("Top Five B-Sides Ever"), contemplating songs that will play at your funeral (Ben Harper's "Pleasure and Pain" better be at mine, assholes) and feeling the need to call up ex-girlfriends and figure out what went wrong years after the fact. It is fucking brilliant.

It is always difficult to make a great movie out of a great book. I can name a few utter failures off the top of my head: Cold Mountain, The Shipping News and Snow Falling On Cedars. That said, I am deathly afraid to watch Ridley Scott's adaptation of the greatest American novel of the last half-century, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. My issues with Scott's plans aside, people always find the need to make books into movies, but it is rarely a complete success. The last time a McCarthy book was adapted (All the Pretty Horses), the powers that be insisted that the director's cut (four hours in length) be slashed almost in half prior to release. You can predict the results without even seeing the movie. The bottom line is that it is difficult to do a great book justice. Movies generally run one and a half to two hours. You can't pack every scene from a 300 page novel into a two hour movie, it simply won't work. But you can flesh out great characters, develop them, capture the important scenes, and watch it flourish under solid direction. This, is exactly what Stephen Frears was able to accomplish with High Fidelity.

Perfectly cast actors like Jack Black, John Cusack (who co-wrote the adapted screenplay), Lisa Bonet, Tim Robbins, and Todd Luiso bring a fantastic screenplay to life, transporting the novel's original location and vibe of London, England to Chicago, Illinois. I only frequent the windy city on booze-fueled trips that center around baseball, competing in wiffle ball contests in the shadows of Wrigley, and drinking Old Styles until my liver falls out. That being said, Top is the Chicago live music guru of our humble crew and he might be able to discuss whether or not High Fidelity, the film, stayed true to Chi-town with some of the Wax-Trax! record references, hanging in Wicker Park, and Rob's "taking a knee" in The Rainbo Club. Cusack is originally from Evanston, Illinois and is known for rocking The Clash t-shirts in most of his movies, so something tells me he ensured that they did it right.

The soundtrack, out on Hollywood Records, is top notch. It features the likes of Love (RIP Arthur Lee), The Kinks, Bob Dylan, Stereolab, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Stevie Wonder, and not to mention, one of my favorite Velvet Underground tracks, "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" and the best Beta Band song ever, "Dry the Rain." It is one of the few soundtracks I can push play to, sit back, and not worry about a bum track popping up and ruining the experience. And if Jack Black covering Marvin Gaye isn't worth the price of admission, I don't know what is...

MP3: Neutral Milk Hotel - "Two-Headed Boy"
A day late, a dollar short. What I wouldn't do to see some of these tracks live. I love this one in particular for the way Jeff Magnum's voice appears to be on the verge of breaking. Pitchfork is as Pitchfork does, but they are on the money when they claim IN THE AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA and OK COMPUTER are the best albums of the 90s.

MP3: Elliott Smith - "A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free"
There is nothing to say about this guy that hasn't already been said. October 21, 2003 was an incredibly sad day.

MP3: Jack Black - "Let's Get It On"
Hilarious part of the movie, and not as bad as you might think.

MP3: The Beta Band - "Dry the Rain"
It plays twice in the movie. The first time is in the record store (Championship Vinyl), when Rob Gordon (played by Cusack) declares: "I will now sell four copies of 'The Three EPs' by The Beta Band." The second time is when Rob takes a knee and proposes to Laura.

MP3: Ben Harper - "Pleasure and Pain"
I figure I have another 60, 70 years of blogging left in the tank.