In February, I shared a Sunday Chuckle about being told I looked like Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker).
I’m very very proud of this.
We recently had breakfast with friends Peter and Joanne. Joanne follows me on Twitter on thought the picture of me with a towel on my head (pretending to be my Jedi robes) was hilarious.
So for Joanne, here are two outtakes from the photo session that brought you Mike the Jedi. Please enjoy!
THE KING OF KONG – A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS (2008 New Line)
Directed by Seth Gordon
This documentary is a story about a clash of the titans. A clash of a different variety: Donkey Kong! Newcomer Steve Wiebe vs. veteran champion Billy Mitchell. Choose your side and watch the battle begin.
If you grew up in the 1980s, then it’s very possible that you spent a good deal of your summer holidays popping quarters into arcade machines. Whether you were a Pac-Man freak, into Centipede, or the ultimate challenge of Donkey Kong (Mario’s first game, don’t forget), then you will love the memories associated with this film. Billy Mitchell was thought to be the greatest classic gamer of all time. He held all the big records, until 2018 when it turned out that Billy was a cheatie-cheaterton! Many of his records, we now know, were performed on emulators, not original arcade machine. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fella. In The King of Kong, he doesn’t come across as a pleasant guy, and not at all humble. He was, however, respected in the classic game community. So what happens when a newcomer named Steve Wiebe shows up, who claims to have smashed Mitchell’s longstanding Donkey Kong record?
Wiebe is a tragic figure, a loving husband and father who always excelled at sports and music, but was never “the best” at anything. He obsessed over Donkey Kong, drawing patterns on screens for months until finally beating the record, on an arcade machine, on film. However it’s not that simple. Many were sceptical of his claims, especially since he came out of seemingly nowhere with a Donkey Kong board given to him by Billy Mitchell’s arch-foe, Roy Shildt. To prove himself, Wiebe travelled to The Funspot in New Hampshire to beat the record in person, on one of the most notoriously difficult Donkey Kong consoles known to mankind.
Partly a history of the golden age of video games, partly a David and Goliath story, and partly just a tale about a guy who wants to be the best at something, The King of Kong is a heartwarming documentary. It will have you cheering along, and remembering the good ol’ days. Surprisingly tense at times, but always interesting, The King of Kong is very re-watchable.
The most common critique of this film is that there is some dispute over its accuracy. It seems that some game records were ignored in favour of dramatic effect. However, it’s still a great film.
The DVD is loaded with special features including two commentary tracks, and check out the cool reversible cover art. Take your pick — Steve Wiebe on the cover, or a cool painting of a loaded video arcade. You choose!
5/5 stars. For geeks worldwide.
GETTING MORE TALE #681: Bad Lessons
Parents of the 80s were always concerned about the impressions that their kids were getting from music videos. Objectifying women? Drug and alcohol use? Absolutely a concern. But what about other misleading lessons from the music video age?
Bad Lesson #1: You can play guitar with gloves on!
You’re guilty, Blackie Lawless from W.A.S.P.! You too, Jeff Pilson of Dokken! You both played your instruments in music videos while wearing full leather gloves. As children, we simply assumed if it got cold outside, you could continue to play your guitar with gloves on. I’m not talking fingerless gloves, but full coverage.
It doesn’t really look cold in that Dokken video for “Burning Like a Flame”. Why the gloves, Jeff? George Lynch isn’t even wearing a shirt.
Bad Lesson #2: Great hair just happens.
How many music videos of the 80s showed the band members doing up their hair? None! Probably due to the “hairspray” stigma of the 80s. Some videos showed the band members literally getting out of bed, with hair intact. I assumed that once you grew your hair long enough and had it cut by a professional, it would just automatically look cool every morning. Naturally, I had bad hair for years. Thanks, rock stars. Don’t be embarrassed by your hair care products!
Bad Lesson #3: Guitars are eeeeasy to play!
Since we didn’t fully comprehend that music videos were mimed, and not an actual performance, we assumed guitars were easy to play! After all, they made it look so easy! C.C. DeVille could jump around and swing his guitar everywhere without missing a note. Others would just…hit their guitars…and the song played on! Paul Stanley seemed to play his without even touching it. You can imagine how we felt when we actually bought our first guitars ourselves. Hitting it didn’t play a song, it just made a hitting sound. We were lied to!
Players like DeVille and Jeff Labar of Cinderella also made it look far too easy to swing your guitars over your shoulders. We damaged some necks and some ceilings trying to imitate these guys. We learned you had to buy strap locks or watch your guitar get launched skyward.
Bad Lesson #4: Adulthood involves walking the streets at night with your boyz.
As young impressionable kids, we didn’t know what adulthood was really about. We saw our dads go to work every day. Mom worked hard too. But what about before they met and got married and settled down to have kids? What was life like at that stage? Judging by Dokken, Journey or Motley Crue videos, adulthood meant walking around town a lot with your buds. Some bands even cruised in cars! Is this what growing up looked like?
“Don’t Go Away Mad” (by the most Mötleyest of Crües) is guilty on two counts: plenty of downtown walkin’, and Vince waking up with hair perfectly coiffed.
Bad Lesson #5: Getting arrested is no big deal!
David Lee Roth was led away in handcuffs in the “Panama” music video. Bobby Dall of Poison got arrested in one of their clips, too. Let’s not forget Sammy Hagar getting busted for speeding in “I Can’t Drive 55”. But it’s all good – the guys were all there at the end of the songs. No big deal!
It was never the alcohol, or devil worship, or women that made rock videos dangerous. Turns out it was the mundane stuff. Who knew long hair was so hard to upkeep? They never told us that. How naive we were!
It was the year 2000. Not just the dawn of a new century, but a new store. Even though I was a store manager myself, I only found out about the expansion through the grapevine.
We were at a party when Tom said to me, “You’re going to be so relieved when the new store opens.”
What?…what new store??
“They didn’t tell you? I can’t believe they didn’t tell you. Yeah, they’re opening up a new store and moving head office with it. The head office people are finally going to be out of your hair when they move it.”
“Head office” was a little room in the back of my store.
Nope, nobody told me! In fact, nobody ever told me in any official capacity. Even when they had started building the place and deciding who would staff it, nobody ever officially told me. Even as they chose staff members from my own crew to run it, they didn’t tell me. Communication at the Record Store was dysfunctional. I heard again in passing from one of my employees that was being sent there, as if I already knew. This pissed me off, but Tom was right. I was hugely relieved to have the head office people moving out. Good riddance; now they could go and micromanage somebody else!
Life was peachy for a couple years. I had them out of my hair, and I took over the back office when I began running the store website.
All things end, and in 2003, they moved me to the new store as well. Sales were down at my old store, and I had some problematic staff members. So they shuffled around managers and I took over the other store. I hated working there. It may have been new, but it never felt like “home” like my old store did. They told me that being comfortable wasn’t a good thing.
I didn’t enjoy managing the second store like I did the first, and I hated the location. It was smaller. There was no room behind the counter and I was always bashing into things. It had fewer listening stations. I missed my old regular customers, and being micromanaged again sucked!
I finally left in 2006 and the store soldiered on with a new manager. But again, nothing lasts forever. In the Brave New World that is music retail, a lot of record stores bit the dust. Now it’s 2018, and an era is coming to an end. The store that I uncomfortably managed is closing this year. Even though working there was not fun, it’s still a sad day for me. It might never have felt like home, but it kind of was for three years. Huge chunks of my CD collection came from that store. My mint Black Sabbath Black Box, my Queen 3″ singles, and a Japanese import Deep Purple box set* all came from that location. So did dozens of Record Store Tales.
As the sun sets on my old store, it’s bittersweet. Not a lot of great memories there, but sadness just the same. Any time a record store closes, it’s a loss for music fans. The inventory will be consolidated with another store that is moving to a bigger location, but it’s hard not to see it as another one biting the dust.
* Review forthcoming.
RITCHIE BLACKMORE’S RAINBOW – Memories In Rock II (2018 Minstrel Hall Music Japanese edition)
Blackmore’s new Rainbow lineup has already released three live albums! So which one should you buy? The one with the new song, of course. And if you prefer the whole enchilada, then the only option is to score the Japanese version of 2018’s Memories In Rock II, which has not only that new song, but two other new recordings that were only available on iTunes. Any serious Rainbow fan should consider buying the album from Japan in order to score these tunes, on CD for the first time ever. It’s only money!
This album is a sequel to 2016’s Memories In Rock. Blackmore and Company listened to the fans, who complained that they were playing too many Deep Purple hits, and so the setlist was revamped. “Highway Star” was dropped and “Spotlight Kid” was moved to the opening slot. “Sixteenth Century Greensleeves” was worked in. The tweaks are minor, but Memories In Rock II is fresher for it.
Singer Ronnie Romero is fabulous, juggling the songs of multiple lead singers himself. Whether he’s singing Gillan, Coverdale, Dio, Bonnet or Turner, Ronnie sounds comfortable. The truth is that Ritchie Blackmore struck gold when he found this guy. As for the man in black himself, age may have mellowed him a little bit. The riffs don’t bite as hard, and sometimes the solos are thriftier than they used to be. Sometimes Ritchie’s noodling around rather than riffing. That’s fine because Rainbow is his band and he should play exactly how he wants to play.
There are a couple treats dropped into the set. First is “I Surrender”, which Ronnie Romero re-recorded for the iTunes single. It and “Since You’ve Been Gone” are the most pop of set, offering short but necessary reprieves from the more advanced jamming tunes. The other surprise is “Carry On Jon” from the 2013 Blackmore’s Night album Dancer and the Moon. Of course it’s a tribute to Jon Lord, Ritchie’s old Deep Purple bandmate who died in 2012. It’s a lovely tune and the crowd settles right down to listen.
Another fine Rainbow double live album. The cover is a redux of Rainbow Rising and that’s a little confusing, but the performance is more important. This is a dandy of a show for the current version of the band.
The lucky Japanese fans got a triple CD, with a bonus disc featuring three studio songs. “Waiting for a Sign” is brand new. Richie wrote it with Candice Night, his wife and singer in Blackmore’s Night. It sounds a bit like Bad Company, being a laid back bluesy rock tune. They can still come up with the goods. “Waiting for a Sign” is the kind of song that would have fit on any Rainbow album fronted by Joe Lynn Turner. This track can be found on all versions of Memories in Rock II.
In 2017 Blackmore said, “Rather than make an album, we may release singles.” And so that year they put out “Land of Hope and Glory” (an instrumental) backed by “I Surrender”. Some in a certain age bracket might know “Land of Hope and Glory” as the theme song for late wrestler “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Rainbow’s version features a lead violin and acoustic guitars. The other track was “I Surrender”, a re-recording of the old Rainbow pop classic. It was Ronnie Romero’s first studio recording with Rainbow, and a good one it is. No question: he is the right guy for Blackmore. Together, these two songs frustrated fans who really would have liked to get something original from Rainbow, but they got their wish now with “Waiting for a Sign”.
Don’t miss this one. It’s OK if you skipped the previous two live Rainbow albums, but Memories In Rock II is the one to get, particularly the Japanese import.
4/5 stars
The good news is that Jen’s recovery has been amazing. She virtually back to full strength and still getting stronger.
Thank God for this, because I don’t think we could handle any more bad news on top of what we already have.
Our other loved one who has cancer is…not doing well. Surgery was successful but more spread has been found. This news is fresh and we do not know the path forward.
The future is unknown. There are new experimental treatments that might be effective.
We are trying to continue our lives as normally as possible. Sausagefest is less than two months away. Cottage season has begun. We don’t want to live our lives in a cocoon and our loved one doesn’t want us to either. But we are in a state of shell-shock and knowing how to feel or what to think is just not happening right now.
Guest directed by: Kathryn Ladano
Just something cute for this week. If you’re a fan of Jeopardy, perhaps you remember this one from the April 30 episode. I was so excited I had to take a picture of the screen.
Regular readers at mikeladano.com know the question. What is American Dad?
In Getting More Tale #606, we discussed five reasons why Roger the Alien is the greatest character on television today. “Roger the Alien is responsible for many historical events that you didn’t know about,” I wrote. “He helped the US hockey team win the gold in the 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’. He did this on steroids as his hockey player persona, Chex LeMeneux.”
Great to see good ol’ Chex as a question on Jeopardy!
I will be LIVE at 12:30 AM (ET) Saturday morning with Robert Daniels on VISIONS IN SOUND. Tune in on your dial to 98.5 or internet to CKWR! You folks in the UK can tune in as you enjoy some morning java! Join Us THIS Saturday 12:30-2:30am (ET).
This Week On Visions In Sound – The 20th Anniversary Of The Big Lebowski – Drop in to see what condition your condition is in this week as this week we celebrate the 20th of the Coen Brothers cult classic The Big Lebowski. We will also be live on Facebook!
I’m a bit of a fan of both the movie and its excellent soundtrack. My movie review can be found here. Check out my cool Lebowski ID and swag!
We’ve already reviewed the movie ad-nauseum, so here is something fresh: a review of the Blu-ray bonus features by guest writer Kovaflyer!
STAR WARS: The Last Jedi (2018 Lucasfilm blu-ray)
Directed by Rian Johnson
If you enjoyed The Last Jedi or if you have mixed feelings about the newest instalment of Star Wars and are trying to make sense of the film, the bonus features are a great in-depth look at where Rian Johnson took the galaxy that is so very far far away.
The Director and the Jedi – Full length documentary feature
The Director and the Jedi is your first behind the scenes look at The Last Jedi and the hard work that went into making this Star Wars movie. This part of the bonus features takes you behind the scenes of the building of up to 120 different sets, the creation of all the creatures that we have come to know and love, the eye-pleasing costumes, as well as the amount of detail involved in the makeup artistry; like the work done to create Kylo Ren’s scar.
The Director and the Jedi also features discussions with Mark Hamill about Luke Skywalker and the direction that Rian took with Luke in the film. Mark tells us that he was going to play the Skywalker that Rian envisioned regardless of how he felt about his own image of Luke. Early footage of Mark and Daisy going over lines and choreographing the Luke vs. Rey scene was fantastic.
The interviews and interactions with Carrie Fisher are both heart warming and fun and showcase Carrie at her best; the only way that Carrie knew how to be. Carrie was excited about the direction of Leia’s character in the movie, calling her strong and in charge.
Balance of The Force
Rian Johnson really wanted to hit the re-set button on “the Force” and what it means. He wanted to show new Star Wars fans that the Force is not a super power, but a balance between all things, the light and dark, in all living things. It is a gift, and not all about moving rock or things across a room.
When he started writing The Last Jedi he had a look back at Star Wars and the main characters in the story and what challenges they would eventually come up against.
Rey is looking to find herself and where she comes from; who her mom and dad are and where they have been, and what her new powers mean and how to use them. With Rey there are no easy answers and if she wants them she is going to have to find them herself.
Finn has just woken up on a ship after being injured in a fight on Starkiller Base while trying to save Rey and the Resistance. He wakes up with the ship under attack and Rey missing, and therefore he has to think fast and take action to save Rey, himself and the ship.
Leia, facing more and more loss is taking charge and leading the Resistance in the biggest fight yet.
Luke is fighting his own internal battle that the Jedi must end. In his view, the Jedi have done nothing but added to the problems of the galaxy, and if he were to bring back the Jedi, the Sith would rise again. Luke believes if the Jedi die, that a new light could rise and win. Therefore, Luke Skywalker has exiled himself; he is being selfless. Rian knew that there was a reason why Luke went into hiding, that it was a selfless act and that he was not just cowering away.
Yoda, yes that Yoda (the puppet version brought to life by Frank Oz), comes to Luke when he needs him the most. Yoda reminds Luke of the same lessons he once taught him, to stop with all the big plans and to focus on the here and now, to be the Luke Skywalker that everyone needs; to be the myth, to be the legend of Luke Skywalker and to not let the light burn out. So, Luke must train Rey and keep her in the light. The most important message Yoda had for Luke, was that failure is the greatest teacher of all. Johnson insisted to have the original puppet version of Yoda and his puppeteer Frank Oz for the film. He wanted Mark Hamill to interact with Oz and not a CGI version of Yoda, and even procured the original Yoda puppet mold in order to fashion the latest version of the Jedi master.
Scene Breakdowns
The bonus features also offer the following scene breakdowns.
Lighting the Spark: Space battles are massive undertakings. You get the big explosions, the visual and auditory effects. However, Johnson explains that he felt that in this space battle, he wanted to show the humans behind the spaceships; to make you feel connected to what is happening based on the relevance of the battle to the characters. It is interesting and fun to learn where some of the sound effects that were used in the battle came from (e.g. a roll of duct tape), how some of the spacecrafts and battle sequences were modelled after WWII aircraft and aerial footage (e.g. a B-52 bomber), and how Kylo Ren’s spaceship was of course modelled after Vader’s own tie fighter. In this battle, that saw so many Resistance fighters lost, Johnson chose to highlight Leia’s struggle with loss and grief and her deep love for her people.
Snoke and Mirrors: Rian explains that in bringing Snoke to life, he wanted to ground him in reality; make him have a physical presence. He was worried, however, about the complexity of creating a believable character completely out of CGI technology. In utilizing a complete motion capture suit for Snoke’s character, however, they were able to use every nuance that Andy Serkis brought to the character’s physical being; every facial expression, every twitch, etc.
Showdown on Crait: Johnson explains that the scene of the showdown on Crait was one of the first visions he had when he started working on the movie. To create the visual effects for the shots fired on the salt planet, the film crew went to the salt plains of Bolivia and filmed shooting sequences. It is amazing to hear just how many different options they went through when creating the red under the salt (e.g. shredded dyed red paper), how they reinvented the Walker from Empire into the Gorilla Walker using various sounds bytes to create its own unique ‘voice’, or how they used sounds from old beaten down cars in order to obtain the sounds for the Resistance fighter ships.
Andy Serkis Live! (One Night Only)
This part of the bonus features offers a look at the first meeting between Rey and Snoke with Andy Serkis in the full motion capture suit. It is amazing to see Andy’s performance in the raw without the CGI effects. To say that Andy’s performance was intense is a serious understatement!
Deleted Scenes
The bonus features also provide a look at some of the scenes that did not make the final cut for the movie; fun to watch but one can understand why they were left out for the most part.
In closing
In closing friends, I give this bonus footage 4/5 stars and highly recommend that you pick up the Blu-ray edition of The Last Jedi as you will enjoy some fabulous bonus features that will enhance your enjoyment of this Star Wars film.
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