The Lost Soundtrack

John Carpenter – Lost Themes

John Carpenter is old. My estimates put the filmmaker at somewhere between 80 and 80,000 years of age. Wikipedia says “67” but Wikipedia is written by liars. (I’d know, I read that on Wikipedia.) Of course you and I know John Carpenter as the director behind such classic films as the 2001 sci-fi flick Ghosts of Mars and for his 1979 made-for-TV movie about Elvis. Clearly, the man has accomplished a lot, so why record an album? Because with age comes wisdom and with wisdom comes the ability to use computers and with the ability to use computers comes the ability to program and play synths and beats, it’s the natural progression.

The album begins just as you’d expect any Carpenter movie to begin; a wandering melody from a machine that most likely doubles as a Colecovision, a haunted piano, and a simple, hypnotic rhythm. Though it only takes 45 seconds to remind you that John Carpenter is old. To clarify, I’m talking about the fact that Carpenter, who now looks like the ghost of Albert Einstein, doesn’t always make the most “hip” selections when it comes to choosing his synth voices. 45 seconds into track 1, “Vortex”, there’s a synth that distinctly sounds like something from a Sega X-Men video game. There’s a charm there for sure, but it also sounds incredibly cheesy. Almost as cheesy as if Wolverine fought a helicopter… But that will never happen, right?

Many other tracks on “Lost Themes” (not a soundtrack to the TV show by the way), make similar mistakes. Far too often are awesome melodies executed with not so awesome instruments. Though when this does work, holy shit, it works. “Fallen” sounds like something straight from that iconic Kurt Russell/John Carpenter film. No, not the 1979 made-for-TV film Elvis, that one with the eye patch. The album’s closing track, “Night”, is another standout. I find Carpenter is at his best when he keeps things simple. The less weird shit he tacks on the better the track.

I hear Carpenter collaborated with his son to do Lost Themes, which makes sense, the old timer probably needed someone to teach him how to use modern technology, like the internet. Carpenter’s music sensibilities may be dated, but that’s part of the fun of Lost Themes. Listening to these droning melodies and beats is like listening to the soundtrack to the long lost Carpenter movie. Let’s all hope it has Kurt Russell too.

Favorite Tracks: “Fallen,” “Night,” “Obsidian”

Pitching Tents 10: Young Adult Fiction (Featuring Kollin Holtz!)

It’s the future. The bad future. The one where it’s been more than two months since the last Pitching Tents. Now our only hope is a young woman with a lot of determination but very little ability to actually drive the plot. It’s up to her to be bossed around by all the men in her life! Only she can not decide between which of the two guys who have a crush on her gets to live to the end of the story and get with her! Only though thinly veiled social commentary can we succeed!

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A Job for a Woman

Agent Carter Season 1

Here’s a post for International Women’s Day! We are living in the dawn of the age of the action heroine and I’m all about it. There was Emily Blunt in that movie the Edge of Tomorrow, Cassandra from the video game Dragon Age: Inquisition, great and new interpretations of the She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel comics, pretty much the whole cast of Legend of Korra was kick ass women… Those are a lot of my favorite things last year. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe has lagged behind in the diversity department, as the new poster for Age of Ultron might remind you, everything so far has been headlined by white dudes. That changes with the recently concluded miniseries Agent Carter.

Set in 1946 New York following the conclusion of the MCU’s version of World War II, Agent Carter is the story about the early days of the SSR, the organization that would eventually become SHIELD, and one of its most important members: Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell, reprising her role from the Captain America movies). Peggy is an outsider; largely because she’s the only woman working in an openly sexist office but also because she still can’t get over losing Steve Rogers. The name Captain America hangs heavy over this show, and I am really interested in this idea of a world that had super heroes and villains but doesn’t anymore. Hopefully that’s something the show could delve into if there ever is a second season.

But the focus this season is on a plot by a secret organization to steal secret Stark tech for nefarious purposes. The SSR immediately decides that they have to hunt to Howard Stark, but Peggy, who worked closely with Stark during the war, insists he’s innocent. When everyone ignores her and leaves her to do paperwork, Peggy decides to conduct her own investigation. So the game is afoot: Peggy has to clear Stark’s name and stop the real bad guys while simultaneously hiding everything she’s doing from her coworkers and the USA’s top spy agency. It’s campy fun that allows for us to watch Peggy kick a whole lot of ass pretty much on her own.

Peggy’s outcast status means that the show lives and dies based on Atwell’s performance, so we’re lucky she’s so great. We get a little of Dominic Cooper’s Howard Stark, which is fun, but it’s actually his assistant Jarvis (James D’Arcy) that is closest to a co-lead in this show. Jarvis is the only other person working to clear Stark’s name, and he helps Peggy on her covert missions. There’s enough chemistry between Atwell and D’Arcy to make the somewhat tired tough girl/squeamish guy dynamic work. The rest of the cast is rounded out by Peggy’s fellow agents played by Chad Michael Murray, Enver Gjokaj, and that guy from some HBO shows, Shea Whigham. All of them good playing otherwise heroic dudes who are bogged down by sexist ignorance.

And that’s the thing about this show I think people will remember, that it’s agenda wasn’t really to expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe but rather to drive home how much ass a woman can kick and how stupid everyone is for ignoring that. Sort of like those early seasons of Mad Men, when the show was as much about showing how bad things were back then as it was telling the story of those specific characters. And just like that show, I hope we get a chance to see more about where these people go and what they become.

Mountain Of Molehills

Screaming Females – Rose Mountain

What exactly is the clearest career trajectory for a punk band? It’s kind of a ridiculous question, and I would be a ridiculous person to try and answer it. But it seems like the easy answer is there isn’t one, other than maybe an early death via heroin overdose or possibly flipping your once trusty touring van. However, there is a certain subset of bands that have gone the DIY route and managed to carve out a respectable career by just putting their nose down and rocking with purpose, while also just touring as much as humanly possible. Screaming Females seem to have stuck pretty close to this template with a surprisingly long stretch of productivity and doing it without ever seeming to give a fuck if the rest of the world catches on to their hard rocking sound.

But I guess that doesn’t get at the real question behind the band’s seventh album, and that’s what the sonic trajectory of a long-standing punk band should be, even if Screaming Females still feel pretty young and fresh to me, possibly because I didn’t get into them until their 2012 sludgefeast, Ugly. But judging from their latest Rose Mountain, the answer is to progress their sound a little bit, but not a ton. Lead single “Wishing Well” seemed to point at a more subdued side of the band that still had the ability to launch into guitar-chugging anthems at the drop of the hat. This was also the side I’d kind of been hoping for, since their last album was certainly a loud motherfucker, but I loved every time it dared to match its abrasiveness with the occasional hook or two.

Rose Mountain does this on occasion with the loopiness of Marissa Paternaster’s guitar-lines on “Triumph”, or with the surprisingly ballad-y “Hopeless”. But some of the louder, more straight-forward rocking numbers tend to feel a little safe, even for someone like myself who hasn’t done a ton of exploring of the Screaming Females back catalogue. Or maybe I can’t help but feel only mildly satisfied by Rose Mountain because it comes on the heels of the triumphant new album from Sleater-Kinney, a band whose footsteps Screaming Females clearly followed in during S-K’s hiatus. But regardless of the fact that Rose Mountain never hits quite as hard as No Cities To Love (not that that should matter, but whatever), I still take comfort in Screaming Females ability to keep getting in the van while still fighting the almighty punk fight.

Favorite Tracks: “Empty Head”, “Wishing Well”, “Triumph”