How difficult is it for the Hollywood studios to come up with an original screenplay, script or clever idea?  Or is it far easier to steal a film that's been done before (and so much better!) and do it again?

This remake crap just has to stop!  There ought to be a law against it.  Take, for example, "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3."  It was a pretty good crime drama released in the late seventies.  So why bother updating the story of a crew of gents who decide to hijack a New York subway train full of folks for ransom?  Maybe the meeting went like this:  "Okay, we replace the train detective" (originally played by Walter Matthau) "because who wants to see a frumpy actor like that today.  Instead, let's put in someone like Denzel Washington--he's box-office gold!  And, instead of an understated actor like Robert Shaw (sure, he was good in "Jaws," but we're talking about a subway train, not a blood-thirsty shark!), let's have John Travolta play the leader of the gang taking the train.  The guy ain't Vinnie Barbarino anymore!  No, he's proven he can play a greasy hit man with Tarentino in "Pulp Fiction."  And maybe we can get him to do a little dance to make the ladies hot?!  Yeah, we'll see some big numbers on this movie!"

But, here's the thing:  Having a great, unattractive character actor like Matthau as the dude who saves the day was a prime move on the casting director's part because Walter is a whole lot more believable in the role than a toned-up, brown-eyed, handsome man's man like Denzel.  That's why the seventies were an incredible time for movies. You could never make a film like "The Deer Hunter" today because the average movie-goer (or Netflixer) will not sit through a three-hour-plus drama. But, oh, sure, they will suck down their large sodas and chomp on that fake butter-flavored popcorn with the whole family watching some slick car-commercial chock full o' CGI disguised as a sci-fi action film called "Transformers" 'cause Things Get Blowed Up Real Good!

I could've never imagined in a zillion years that the classic Hitchcock horror film "Psycho" would be remade, but longtime indie-film director Gus Van Sant took the plunge.  Gus, baby--what the f' were you thinking?!  Nobody (are you listening, Brian DePalma?) can be the genius that Alfred Hitchcock was.  And placing comedic wise-ass Vince Vaughn in the brilliant killer role that Anthony Perkins so sublimely made iconic couldn't possibly work.  The fact that the original was done in black & white was perfectly chilling, but Van Sant decided to remake it in color.

Rocker Rob Zombie loves old horror flicks and figures that some of them, such as "House of 1000 Corpses" and "Halloween" could be done with even more background story plus gore, so he's making his own versions.  The multi-pierced, tattooed youthsters have gone simply psycho over Rob's "Devil's Rejects" remake and even dress up like the nasty characters at screenings a la "Rocky Horror Picture Show."  No matter how much the critics tear his films apart, Rob's reworks have their cult following.

Even Hollywood directors have done their remake-nasty all over popular French movies such as "La Femme Nikita."  They thought:  If we can dumb it up for an American audience with big U.S. stars, then it will be cha-ching! at the box office.  They called the American version "Point of No Return."  The original is a stylishly uber-violent film about a female criminal trained to be an assassin for the government, and it's got a smokin' hot babe named Anne Parillaud in the title role.  The remake?  It put Bridget Fonda in Anne's stiletto heels and Harvey Keitel as "the cleaner" killer.  Harvey was passable, but he was definitely no Jean Reno!  And, please, Bridget Fonda?  No way, baby.  But the joke is on the Hollywood assclowns because "Point of ..." bombed at the box office, while "Nikita" soared.  And the French original had a limited release in art theatres, to boot.

Here is a list of movies that never needed to get the do-over treatment but did anyway:  "Lolita," "The Manchurian Candidate," "Wings of Desire," "Cheaper by the Dozen," "The Out of Towners," "The Getaway," "The Haunting," "War of the Worlds," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "The Day of the Jackal," and "Bad News Bears."  If all this isn't enough to make you want to burn, Hollywood, burn, how about this:  I heard that L. Ron Hubbard-following, couch-jumping, acting fool Tom Cruise bought the rights to "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and wants to play Robert Redford's part as "Sundance."  Hopefully, the (L. Ron) Hubbardship beams his ass up before the whole fiasco goes into production.     

Even Donald Passman agrees, "the common denominator to all successful people is a blend of talent and drive, with (frankly) drive having the edge." Translation: just like any entrepreneur, you've got to drive the ship. You've got to lead the way.

The question then is... how? That's what everyone wants to know. For sure, owning a compelling product is only the beginning. What you do with it is then the challenge, creating a sense of more-than-music for your fans, leading them to/through it.

So, how do you attach meaning to your music? How do you assign value to it, above and beyond the music itself?

The easiest answer: exploit like-tribes. Your first instinct here might be other artists (co-bill, both sets of fans get introduced to your respective bands, etc.). Fine. That works [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Vivian Weathers' Bad Weather

By Carl Hanni

Here's a question for academics and true-blood music lovers alike: how important  is biography and contextulization to fully appreciate an artist's work? Or can the work simply do all the speaking for itself?

Consider Vivian Weathers. His recorded output appears to be limited to a single solo album, Bad Weather, a couple of singles, a track on a dub compilation and playing bass and some guitar on dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson's epochal first three records. This little burst of activity all took place between 1978 and 1980; he seems to have evaporated since then. Biographical information? I heard he was a school-mate of LKJ; other than that, good luck.

But Weathers' one album is so solid and in the pocket that that's all he needs to have left a foot print on lover's-rock reggae. Released on Virgin's Front Line imprint in 1978, Bad Weather proffers a British Jamaican take on roots reggae steeped in American soul and blues. It takes about 20 seconds into the first track, "Going To The Blues," to realize that here is, quite literally, a unique voice. Against a slippery groove Weather's sweet falsetto slides in like a whisper in the ear. Weathers can express pleasure and pain simultaneously; his voice mirrors two sides of the human equation, sweet and sultry while also melancholy and blue. This duality plays itself out over all ten tracks of Bad Weather. "Hip Hug" is as as sexy a slow jam anything cut in a British or Jamaican studio, but again with the push and pull; Weathers sounds both ecstatic and tortured. Same with the sizzling, slow burning "The Way You Walk;" you almost fear for Weathers, he seems so vulnerable and wrapped up in a tenuous lovers embrace. He broadens the palate to include social (in)justice on and racial identity on  "Street Talk" and "Star of Sufferation" with no loss of intensity.

Weathers band, including several of LKJ's key players, lays down a tight, smoking groove. Guitarist John Varnom is the ringer, and his slinky, almost verbal leads wrap each song in an outrageously sexy soul-blues embrace. Vivian Weathers struck gold in 1978, and anyone lucky enough to locate a copy of Bad Weather can share the wealth.

***

You can leave comments below or e-mail them to me directly at modmedia@theriver.com .

Carl Hanni is a music writer, music publicist, disc jockey and vinyl archivist living in Tucson, AZ. He  hosts the vinyl-only Scratchy Record Show every Tuesday night at the Red Room in downtown Tucson, and spins records wherever and whenever he can. He believes that in a better (all analog) world all records would be released on vinyl, but takes good music from wherever he finds it--even on CD. His feature piece on legendary bass player/record producer Harvey Brooks was recently published in Goldmine.

Out ‘n’ about in the City of Angels with Blurt’s roving shutterbug (10-20 – 11-2)

By Scott Dudelson

(above) Monsters of Folk (full band) - Live @ Greek Theatre (www.greektheatrela.com) - 10/20

 Monsters of Folk (Jim James) - Live @ Greek Theatre (www.greektheatrela.com) - 10/20

Monsters of Folk (Conor Oberst) - Live @ Greek Theatre (www.greektheatrela.com) - 10/20

Marc Broussard - Live @ The Mint (www.themintla.com) - 10/26

Pete Wentz (of Fall Out Boy) & Gabe Saporta (of Cobra Starship)- Doing something fittingly phallic @ Club Nokia (www.clubnokia.com) - 10/27

Ace Frehley - Live @ Nokia Theatre (www.nokiatheatrelalive.com) - 10/28

Alice Cooper - Live @ Nokia Theatre (www.nokiatheatrelalive.com) - 10/28

Alice Cooper Setlist @ Nokia Theatre (www.nokiatheatrelalive.com) - 10/28

Trey Anastasio & Mike Gordon of Phish @ Phish Festival 8 - 10/30

Mike Gordon of Phish - Live @ Phish Festival 8 - 10/31

Phish - Live @ Phish Festival 8 - 10/31

Phish Fest 8 Best Halloween Costumes - 10/31

***

Scott Dudelson is a music journalist and concert photographer based in Los Angeles.  Scott is also the Chief Operating Officer of Prodege, LLC, the company behind www.swagbucks.com.

My fellow Americans,

I bring you great tidings of tremendous jubilation! Fear no longer, for everything they have written is true, and I have found salvation!

Yes, my friends, I am becoming a responsible citizen.

How you may ask? Well, these things go in stages.
First things first, I AM GETTING MARRIED.

Let the angels rejoice! The Devil has been tamed! Hallelujah, hallelujah!

Now, before we say amen, and break off into the who-what-when part of this, let me clarify a few things.

Most of you are aware of my sublime, decadent Libertine indulgences that have made me somewhat of an outlaw in the Los Angeles social scene. I've never denied it.

Monogamy was for suckers. I was living the lawless life of an ambitious bohemian, always on the hunt for something fresh, something exciting, that "New Car Smell".

I thought of myself as a noble savage.

I wasn't committing moral turpitude nor had I pledged myself to some vast Lesbian Jihad (as some have charged) - I was simply obeying my fundamental instincts, "When you are hungry, you eat".

But not everyone can handle the weight of this kind of freedom, so it was understandable when folks like George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Jared Leto, Chris Brown, and Mel Gibson all engraved my name in their Enemies List for the repeated (and salacious) incidents where upon their girlfriends found their way to my den of sin and were left comatose in the twisted sheets of my dark-wood, crimson draped, Hindu bridal bed.

Of course, it wasn't always actors and singers that I inadvertently touched; indeed, I am the scourge of the corporately powered publicity agent charged with keeping America's cinematic sweethearts squeaky clean.

Many have cursed my name with pox and plague after discovering that their clients were photographed shoving their slippery tongues down my throat.

But why should I say no when an A-list actress decides she wants to walk on the dyke-side and engage in the dark Sapphic arts? Why should I care if she was dating someone, or how this might affect her career?

Well, I didn't then, and I don't now.

Kissing a girl is a career killer? For who?  It worked out all right for Katy Perry. Ah, good point, she didn't really kiss a girl - she just used the imagery to give chubs to all her pre-teen emo-hipster fans in their tight white jeans and fluorescent multi-belts so she could sell a bajillion records.

Remember, this is America (goddamn it!) and our hypocrisies are rich, bold, and full-bodied!

We encourage our women to be hetero-flexible as long as they are college-age-unknowns and appear on tacky, tug-job DVD's you can buy at 3AM for $9.99 while watching ADULT SWIM on Sunday nights.

Or so I'm told.

Well, that life is over and I am done with that savagery. Be brave O'Hollywood! Your women are safe! The menace is no more!

I am madly in love and there is no going back.

Indeed, a couple of weeks ago I decided to make it official. I proposed on the lawn of the ritzy beach house I rented just as the sun was setting over the mighty Pacific Ocean.

Her hands trembled, tears burst from her eyes, and she blubbered a messy, "YES!" We kissed and spent the night coiled like serpents, making love, and imagining all the silly details of spending our old age together.

The next morning she called her mother to share the good news.

The shit-storm was immediate and devastating.

I could hear her mother screaming from the phone, "Your father didn't fight on the beaches of Panama so you could marry a lesbian! Besides, your eternal soul is at stake, and what would all of our friends say? No. This is madness! I forbid it!"

To her, this was a slap to the face of the baby Jesus and a full frontal assault on the very foundation of American moral fiber.

For the next 20 minutes she blathered on and on about how it's illegal for "queers" to marry in California, and how she wasn't homophobic because the whole family votes Democrat, and blah, blah, blah.

Her mother hung up and that was that.
All seemed lost.

Now, remember folks, this is the love of my life, THE ONE, I would die for her.  If her mother, the laws and Gods of this nation, will not recognize our love as we are, then something will have to change.

Drastic times call for drastic measures.

I am an American. I love this country. And I realize this decision might cost me my career, the respect of my peers, the love of my own family - but I see no other way.

In order to legally (and morally) marry the woman I love - I have no other choice but to ...become A MAN.

Yes, sexual-reassignment surgery.
No, I am not kidding.
I am buying a penis. A real one.

Oh, how I will miss my magnificent breasts and elegant vagina!

But say good-bye, I must. The doctor assures me that my metamorphosis will be a masterpiece that will shame Michelangelo! I will be fitted with two perfectly plump and proportioned testicles and (as the centerpiece) a beautiful, robust and veiny, 8-inch peen.

As an added incentive, they are going to install a free iSex Kit^TM (with optional interchanging LED lights) that uses sensors implanted in the shaft to transmit data to my iPod during coitus so that the speed and rhythm of the music will match the speed and rhythm of the fornication.

As convincing as my surgeon might be, I remain disturbed and concerned. But, ah L'amour, my heart screams that all this is worth it!

My transformation will authenticate my citizenship as a REAL, honest-to-goodness American!

No one - not the church - not the government - NO ONE - can deny me the right to marry as long as I have a peen in my panties.  

Does it matter that my "Patriotic Penis" was made in a sweatshop by slave labor? Not in the slightest.

The only thing that matters is symbolism.

No dick? Get a dick. Bingo. You are on the B-squad. Your woman may hate it, she may hate YOU, but what matters most is, America will LOVE it.  

The majority has voted to destroy the lives of our fellow citizens based on what they believe is a choice. (Just like religion) And though there is no prerequisite in the Declaration of Independence that requires Americans to be heterosexual, wealthy, white, Christian, or male, the vote to deny Gay Rights is the asterisked footnote our forefathers meant to add but obviously forgot.

Besides, if the MAJORITY can vote to take away the rights of other tax paying citizens - what is to stop them with the Gays? What's next? Atheists? The Disabled? The Obese? The Different? YOU?

Depends ... Are you one of Them?
No? Then who are you?

Well, I don't want to find out. I'm tired of fighting the soggy masses and I'm ready to jump on the winning side.

The procedure is scheduled. The Amex has been charged. Tiny Indonesian hands are already hard at work on my squeaky new silicone-slick testes and powerful prosthetic prick.

I have consulted with my lawyers (and their rabbis) - it is official.

With a little money (and a lot of medicine) a Gay woman can surgically become a Man and LEGALLY marry her Lesbian fiancé.

Ah. That New Cock Smell.
Unmistakably American.

Not so much a letter this go-round but... a guest appearance via e-mail interview this week from acclaimed author and entertainment attorney Donald Passman (REM, Janet Jackson, Tina Turner, etc.). Holy beans, even we can still hardly believe it.

Don's latest version of All You Need to Know About the Music Business: Seventh Edition includes all kinds of Music 2.0 updates and is MANDATORY.

Take it away Don....

OUTLANDOS MUSIC: Radiohead, Trent Reznor, Jill Sobule... with historically built-in fan bases, these artists make giving music away for free, DIY fundraising packages and social media marketing look easy. But what if you're a complete unknown? Where do you start?

DONALD PASSMAN: MANY ARTISTS ARE NOW STARTING WITH A VERY GRASS ROOTS LEVEL. THEY BUILD A FANBASE BY GIVING AWAY THINGS (PINS, STICKERS, ETC.) AT THEIR SHOWS IN EXCHANGE FOR AN EMAIL ADDRESS, THEN THEY STAY IN TOUCH WITH THEIR FANS ON A REGULAR BASIS, BUILDING A FOLLOWING UNTIL IT REACHES CRITICAL MASS.

OM: Because so many artists have been quick to attempt the above model, “free” may, in fact, be dead. Now that we expect it; where’s the value in that? Which then begs the question [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

I have a pretty firm band reunion policy. In a nutshell: "Leave the lengend alone." Yes, the fanboy in me would give a non-essential organ to see The Smiths or The Replacements go at it one more time, but my kneejerk reaction to bands reforming after long (and sometimes nasty) breakups is: No, thanks. While I've been tempted to see many of the high-profile reunions of the last 20 years, I've passed on most. Sex Pistols? I'd rather not watch a bloated Johnny Lydon pretend to care (or not care). The Pixies? Eh. More on them later. Guns N' Roses? Oh, please.

There have only been a few exceptions to my rule (Naked Raygun's recent reunion the latest example): I remember seeing the Buzzcocks on their first U.S. tour in the late '80s and leaving completely sated and sweaty. My girlfriend at the time opined, "They looked like a bunch of pasty old men up there." Them were fighting words at the time--and we broke up the next day.... I'm still kicking myself for not seeing My Bloody Valentine on their All Tomorrow's Party-inspired batch of shows.... And I almost went to see the Avengers a couple of years back but just couldn't do it: Penelope Houston was my first punk rock crush, and I wanted to keep it that way.

So you can imagine that I was torn when I heard the news of Pavement's decision to tour again. Like so many other artists, they've put aside whatever personal or creative differences they may have had in the past to recapture those indie rock bygone days. Twenty years ago, economics—and not necessarily creative urges--played a part in the Buzzcocks' decision to get back together, but there weren't the kinds of opportunities that exist today.

Pavement will surely make the rounds on the festival circuit and get handsomely rewarded for it (as they should). But it will be interesting to see if, like fellow college rock pioneers Dinosaur Jr., they'll play with renewed vigor, or, like the Pixies (another of their luminaries), you'll swear you can see the dollar signs in their pupils. I make the distinction because the latter toured relentlessly (for sizable guarantees) and released NO NEW MUSIC. Dinosaur Jr., meanwhile, apparently worked through the very public baggage that existed among them and re-emerged with all new material that rivals the best in their already memorable canon.

Will I go see Pavement on this tour? Most likely. And will they be writing new material? With a back catalog as strong as there's, it's hard to fathom that they wouldn't someday record another album. I'll even bet my autographed copy of Another Music in a Different Kitchen on it.

One of the best punk labels around  has been resurrected. Sailor's Grave Records - the sister label to hardcore label Thorp - has been hibernating for the last year or so, coming to life only once or twice to put out Mark Lind's (Ducky Boys) latest or give an update on Roger Miret.

Over the past month though, label founder Andy King has announced four new records SGR is putting out:  STITCH HOPELESS AND THE SEA LEGS, BURNING STREETS, MOUTHGUARD and BEANTOWN BOOZEHOUNDS - all great street punk bands, not too far from the sound of bands that have also called Sailor's Grave home at one time or another (The Welch Boys, Mad Sin and Born to Lose, among others).  Even better is news that the label will be putting out a new album from Boston horn-heavy, punk/R&B band THE KINGS OF NUTHIN.  Almost makes up for year or two of silence from the label.

Another creepy bloggy story... remove all pets from the room before reading... and happy Halloween, from the Ettes!

By Coco Hames

I'm raising my kids on a farm.  My kids will be John the Savage.  I'm going to make them chop wood.  If I am unable to completely block the crazy world from impacting my smart, sensitive kids know this: I am a big proponent for after school activities, if I ever have kids, I'm going to make them do something.  Sports, piano, woodworking, whatever.  Something mentally and physically involved from about 3pm to 6pm.  Then you come home and eat dinner with the family and go do your homework.  You can go out Friday or Saturday night, not both.  Until you are 17.  Your curfew increases in increments of 30 minutes every year.  When you are a freshman it's 10:30, sophomore 11, junior 11:30 and senior midnight.  Nothing good happens after midnight, not for you, future imaginary teenager of mine.  I know you're an angsty, self-absorbed teenager and you think I don't know anything, but you need these restrictions, trust me, because for the brief couple of weeks my freshman year of high  school I got up to SO much no good.  Breaking into construction sites, smokin' cigarettes, stealing road signs, tying boys' bikes up into trees, taking out all of your parents ski clothes and putting them out on the lawn, dyeing cats...

One boring afternoon my friend Jennifer and I decided it would be a good idea to dye her black cat blonde.  We walked up to the drugstore, purchased some blonde hair dye, and just to be safe, called the helpline on the back of the box, since there weren't any instructions for coloring cat hair, and we sagely figured there were probably some differences worth considering.

"L'Oreal helpline, this is Debbie, how may I help you?"

"Oh hi Debbie, I just have some questions about the Excellence Creme hair color."

"Okay, go ahead."

"Well, it doesn't say anything on here about cat hair, and I'm wondering if it's safe or not safe, or if it's going to have the same effect, you know, as what's on the box, 'cause it's different hair?"

Once she understood what I was planning to do, she's all "Oh no no, I do not advise using this product on a cat, no no, that's not what this is for..."  But she was boring me and we did it anyway and that cat was very unhappy, probably because the color came out WAY brassy.

Shhh, I don't ADVISE this, I'm just saying it happened and the cat was FINE, he just looked a bit strange for a while... Well anyway.

Then we found a baby squirrel, named him Kirby (like the video game) and trained him up, carried him around in our shirts.  Then I was forced to join a sports, so I did.

Idle hands are the devil's workshop y'alll.

PS - Officially: no one pays me for my creepy bloggy stories.

***

Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes - Hames on guitar, Jem Cohen on bass and Poni Silver on drums - whose album Look At Life Again Soon and EP, Danger Is, were released by Take Root. Their new Greg Cartwright-produced album Do You Want Power arrived in stores Sept. 29, and you bet we've got a big feature on the band in our new print issue. Check out the band's MySpace page for music and tour dates.

First things first, exclusive Donald Passman interview posted here next week! Sweet.

Meanwhile... you know the drill but as a reminder, In Short is our "tribal" feature here at Outlandos HQ. Meaning that, chances are if we share the same taste in music, we share the same taste in other random stuff --- lifestyle stuff. And by lifestyle, we mean drinking, bouncing or jumping up and down on the stairs for the fun of it. All in a day's work, so to speak.

1. Boxed Wine
Recently dabbling in it. After all, 4 to 6 bottles of wine for the price of one. Wine not? Apparently, boxed wine sales across the board increase 30% this year thanks to ye old recession. Our new fave is Black Box. Our least:



2. It's a Bird. It's a Plane. It's a Dude on a Rubber Ball.
Whoa. You might miss it the first time, keep your eyes near the upper right

[...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.