Artists I Love: October Project

One of the most cherished artists in my collection.

   I’m writing about them because I feel even now they’ve gone severely unnoticed in music, even though the sound, style and arrangements October Project was honing back in 1993 can be heard in a lot of current artists out now who are enjoying great respect and success today. It’s time to give October Project props for being the musical visionaries they are! ☺

October Project never got a lot of airtime on the radio or MTV / VH-1 style shows. Their live TV performances were few and far between, and there really weren’t a lot of places October Project could connect with people who might dig their style of music. In fact, if not for a chance listen to their debut CD, I might never have discovered them myself!

    Ironically enough, the first time I ever heard October Project WAS in October. I’d walked down to my local Tower Records store, and the brisk weather really had me in the Halloween mood. After perusing the singles and latest video releases, I moseyed on to the Tower Records Listening Station. This was back when there were only four or five stations unlike the scan and listen machines record stores have now. Anyway, on one of the listening stations, there was a CD with a vintage-looking Halloween cover on it. The artists proclaimed themselves “October Project”. This piqued my curiosity! What WAS this group about? Did they sing Halloween songs? So I put on the earphones and gave a listen to the first song…

The song was “Bury My Lovely”. Even today I can’t fully describe what it was like hearing them for the first time. The haunting piano opening and that mysterious operatic voice just hit me at once. Then the band kicked in with drums, keyboards and a swelling vocal chorus…! It was the most haunting, lonesome song I had ever heard! I listened to a few other songs, wondering just who these people were. I guessed they must be chamber music vocalists like CLANNAD. The back cover gave no clue as to who they were, and I surmised they were a Classical group compromised of opera singers or something!

  I went home that night but couldn’t get Bury My Lovely out of my head. The next night I went back to listen to the tracks again, and made up my mind to purchase the CD that night! Even though I believed the songs were recorded by a bunch of 60-year-old singers... I DIDN”T CARE!  I went home and I remember sitting in my room, listening to the CD, and feeling like I was in another time. I felt like I was listening to vintage fairy-tale music- (albeit vintage fairy tale music with rocking drums and guitar!) and those haunting vocals sounded both bohemian and gothic all at the same time!…OK, OK…I know all of this sound ridiculously sappy and corny and a bit Foo-Foo… but like I said, It is impossible for me to describe the effect October Project had for me. I’m trying to put feelings into words, and they’re coming out quite corny indeed!

Another thing… When I finally got the CD, the booklet inside wasn’t any help shedding light upon the mystery that was October Project. The pictures of the members were all blurry, and taken in that same vintage style. So even then I couldn’t tell what kind of people they were. Even worse, they seemed to have different credits for the performing musicians onstage and on the album! I was utterly baffled. This was before anyone heard of Google or Wikipedia - there just wasn’t any way to get info about them.

 I found out later that I wasn’t alone in this confusion. Reviewers actually say that this could be the reason October Project never made it big…they were uncategorizable: They sounded like a mix of Gothic, Chamber Music, New Age and Rock all together, and their anonymity made it even harder for fans to associate with them. Remember, even I thought I was listening to a bunch of Older People!

Anyway, so the CD got put into my collection, and every time I felt like relaxing with dreamy atmospheric music, I would put it on. And every time I would listen to the music, I would fall in love with them all over again.

 A few years later, I was now WORKING at Tower, and one night I happened to see buried in the stack of new releases a NEW October Project CD, a nicely packaged album titled “Falling Farther In”.

    I remember being quite surprised to see a new release from them because since I hadn’t heard anything about them, I had convinced myself that the first CD was a one-shot album made up of session vocalists.

 So I bought the CD and after a few listens, promptly got right back into being obsessed with October Project. What a terrific album!  Then of Coure I had to break out my first album...just great! Every time I would listen to the CDs, I would remember how much I loved them.

  One great thing about "Falling Farther In" was that they finally got around to shooting proper pictures of the band in the CD booklet… I was pleasantly surprised to find out they were ALL young, hip, and extremely cool artists! Like their music, the look of the band reflected Folk, San Francisco rock, Goth, Vocals and World music all at once! And this time, hunting on the Internet brought some success, and I was able to find a few bits of information out there about my beloved group. I was even able to read reviews of concerts and the current events surrounding the band...(Special mention to Alan, a true OP guru) I was totally hooked on them again!

   Sadly, this would be the last album that October Project released. Soon after the release of Falling Farther In, Sony/ Epic would drop the group, right in the midst of a tour!

  Mary Fahl would go on to enjoy a solo career, and the remaining members of October Project would forge ahead with groups like November Project, OP3 and the newly revamped October Project featuring Emil Adler, Marina Belica and Julie Flanders!

Enjoy the beautiful PV for "Bury My Lovely". I love this video, as it captures the spirit of October Project. All gothic, mysterious and shrouded in shadows....

 October Project

Mary Fahl: Vocals

Marina Belica: Vocals/Keyboards

Emil Adler: Vocals/Keyboards

David Sabatino: Guitar/Vocals

Urbano Sanchez: Drums/Percussion

 Julie Flanders: Lyrics

The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit

Back in 1998 when I was still working at Tower Video, there in the Movie Promo box was a video thrown in that no one seemed to want. I picked it up because it had Esai Morales in it, an actor I loved for his portrayal of Bob, Ritchie Valens’ rebellious brother in LA BAMBA.

   It was The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, a movie based on a short story written by Sci-Fi master Ray Bradbury for his collection The WONDERFUL ICE CREAM SUIT AND OTHER STORIES. This was a different kind of Bradbury story - more a story about social commentary than futuristic spaceships, though! It’s a story about the way people perceive others by their physical appearances.

The story of a Mexican man named Gomez (Joe Mantegna), who wants desperately to purchase a beautifully tailored vanilla white suit, but doesn’t have the funds to acquire it- it costs $100.00 to buy, but poor Gomez has but $20.00  to his name!

 He comes up with a brilliant brainstorm…If he can find FOUR more people with $20.00 to their names, they can pool their assets together and SHARE the suit amongst each other

 He finds ,Villanazul (Gregory Sierra) who is a speaker. Right now he is  being ignored, giving his oratory in the park, but he knows that if he had the suit to wear, people would start listening to his speeches, and he could influence people for miles around!

Dominguez(Esai Morales) is a street musician who believes if he had the suit, people would finally listen to his music, and he dreams of being able to serenade the entire block, bringing everyone out to join in his parade!

Then there’s, Martinez (Clifton Collins Jr), who would like nothing more than to be able to impress the gorgeous girl next door. But how can he impress her in his shabby clothes? Gomez convinces him the suit will help him fulfill his wishes!

He is in desperate need of a fifth and final contributor because time is of the essence…every minute they waste, someone else might buy “their” Ice Cream Suit!

Thus he breaks down and accepts the final $20 bill from Vamanos, the local street urchin (played with glee by Edward James Olmos), despite the fact that the man is covered head to toe in black sooty grime.

And so with the $100 in their possession, they march down to the Tailor and purchase the Wonderful Ice Cream suit. They make a deal that each person will get to wear the suit for ONE HOUR that first night to try it out. You get to see what each person is about as they utilize the suit to attain their dreams.

 Then, and finally, Vamanos wants his turn at wearing the suit, and I cannot stress how much fun this is! I was cracking up throughout the entire scene! He does everything he has been warned against: No Sooty Cigars, No Juicy Tacos and No Ruby with her powder and rouge! They rescue the suit but JUST in Time!

   Later, Vamanos regretfully apologizes, and this is what gives the movie its real heart. Instead of asking if he can ever wear the suit again, he sorrowfully asked, “Can I still be in the Gang?” It makes you smile when you realize he never really wanted the suit-he wanted friends! Everybody kind of steps back and realizes this, that the suit has done more than give them their dreams, it brought these five people who had nothing in common with each other together and become comrades!

A Movie that leaves you with a GREAT feeling! 

Super-Vixens: Golden Girl

Invaders #28 is one issue that I’ve always been aware of after seeing it my friends’ huge Marvel collection back in the late seventies because it featured the first appearance of Bucky’s fellow sidekick-aged counterparts in an interesting group called the KID COMMANDOS.

  That particular issue’s cover made an impression on me because of two things: One, there was a cute oriental gal in the group, and Two, there was a black kid wearing what I considered to be one of the ugliest costumes out of the Silver Age! I remember thinking, wow, that girl’s got that oriental kimono thing down good, but that dude looks like he just broke out of prison!

  Well, it wasn’t until years later that I actually got down to buying that issue of the Invaders, and reading it I was even more amazed to find that the costumes the kids wore weren’t even made for them- they were “just some old theatre costumes that had been left behind”(!) Funny how they found ones that fit their powers/codenames so nicely- then again, maybe it was just luck that Gwenny Sabuki got to choose her costume before David Mitchell, otherwise, who knows? SHE might have been stuck with that green striped shirt! AHAHAHAHAHA!

 But as we know, she got her hands on the Golden Kimono first, and thus was born the blazing GOLDEN GIRL, possessor of energy light powers and cheerful disposition!

 I was hoping to read lots more stories featuring Gwen and the rest of the commandos, but after their battle against Agent Axis (who turned out to be that tricky Namor) I was disappointed to find they were largely regaled to “supporting cast”, at least in the issues I managed to get ahold of.

 One thing that surprised me reading those issues was how YOUNG Gwen was… all those years staring at the cover of Invader #28, she always seemed to be eighteen or nineteen years old. But reading the stories as penciled by veteran artist Frank Robbins, she looked decidedly underage- more like 11 years old…(well, they WERE called the KID Commandos, after all…not the TEEN Commandos!)

I’ve always thought that Gwen’s GOLDEN GIRL character would have been a great one to revive somehow, though I wasn’t sure just how they would bring “up-to-date” a character that was a teen in World War Two… so I was very interested to find that they HAD brought her back (in a way) in the pages of THUNDERBOLTS, as part of the V-Battalion. Not that I have any inkling what that was all about, except for what Wikipedia tells me-

Gwenny Sue later helped found the post-war organization the V-Battalion. Gwenny eventually changed her superhero name to Golden Woman, before she died in 1961. Her daughter and her granddaughter became the superheroines Golden Sun and Goldfire, respectively, though Golden Sun died when her own daughter was five years old.

Not bad for a sidelined secondary support character, eh?

Gwenny Lou Sabuki

First appearance: Invaders #26

Created by: Roy Thomas and Frank Robbins

Super-Vixens: Calorie Queen

When DC rebooted the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES in the mid-nineties, it was a take-off of Frank Miller’s DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, in that it was set in the future of that character’s life. Only difference was, in Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne was now an old man, and in LEGION, the heroes, who’d been mere teenagers in their original comic, were now-gasp- responsible adults living VERY adult lives such as raising families and keeping 9 to 5 jobs!

 One of the more offbeat side stories in this controversial update was an interlude featuring one of the Legion’s more wacky members, Tenzil Kem, better known (back in the day) as “Matter-Eater Lad”. We tuned in on Tenzil as an adult and found he’d been running (very poorly) through a multitude of different jobs, including an archaeological explorer and even a space age lawyer!

  Tenzil has been called to defend Brek Bannin (Polar Boy) in court, and while I don’t have time to go into it, (Trust me, the story was wacky and funny as hell!) one of the things that I found endearing was his banter with his able assistant, a beautiful blonde named Cal. In passages, I found her name to be “Calorie Queen”, and I laughed that they had created an assistant with a name to match “Matter-Eater Lad”.

 Little Did I Know that they HADN’T just created Calorie Queen, and that she was a character created a WAYS back! Imagine my surprise when (shopping in a comic store near Pike’s Market in Seattle) I found an old back issue of Superboy (Featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes, of course) and saw that one of the girls in the menacing super-team on the cover was none other that Tenzil’s trusty assistant, Calorie Queen Herself!!!

 Getting that original issue with Calorie Queen as nature intended should have been a real eye opener into the character, for I now knew she had : 1) a costume, 2)a real name (Taryn Loy), and 3) a home planet (Bismoll, just like Tenzil!!!)…but honesty, it really didn’t do much for me. I simply liked the “later” Cal more! Smart and funny, cool and witty, she was the perfect foil for outlandish Tenzil Kem, and besides, If I have to choose between 70’s disco jumpsuit costumes or pretty dresses I always go with the latter. Because I do love a pretty girl in pretty clothes!

 Props to Jim Shooter and Mike Grell for creating Cal, and BIG KUDOS to Tom and Mary Beirbaum and Keith Giffen for the “Update”!

Taryn Loy

Calorie Queen

First Appearance: Superboy #212

By Jim Shooter and Mike Grell

Hawaii Five-O Girls: Brenda Scott

Lovely Brenda Scott appeared as a pill-popping young socialite named Donna in “Uptight”, the story that dealt with a supposed Love Guru (played by Ed Flanders in one of his bazillion appearances on Hawaii Five-O) passing out LSD to his “disciples” a la Timothy Leary.

  As you can see, Ms. Scott had a killer body to die for, and we are treated to not one but THREE separate scenes each featuring Donna in a different bikini! Hurray! Plus I just love the Betty Cooper vibe she’s throwin’ off here…

Brenda Scott is another veteran “Guest Star” actress, appearing in shows from the late sixties to the early eighties, from shows like The Mod Squad through Simon & Simon!

Brenda Scott as “Donna”

Hawaii Five-O Episode 14: “Uptight”

Hawaii Five-O Girls: Nancy Kwan

Besides its exotic locations and terrific storylines, one thing that you could always count on when watching that 70’s police drama HAWAII FIVE-O was its tantalizing selection of beautiful and sexy guest actresses each episode!

 Running from 1968 through the seventies til 1980, Hawaii Five-O was a veritable showcase of those actresses that routinely appeared on TV shows  at the time, some well known, other less so, but all of them pretty and sexy, and usually in a bikini (hey, this is Hawaii, right?), and I thought that the LEAST I could do is capture some images of these gorgeous actresses from their appearances to share with you all!

Best to start this thing off with the “Beautiful Guest Actress” who started it all!

Ms. Nancy Kwan, first fell in love with her when I caught her adorable / sexy performance of Suzie Wong in "The World Of Suzie Wong", for goodness sake!

Next time I caught her was as "townie" Chinese gal Linda Low who "Enjoys being a Girl" in "Flower Drum Song", but the best was Nancy as Rosemary Quong, a "hippie" local girl in the pilot episode of Hawaii 5-O! (Yes, it's another Hawaii 5-O alumnus!)

Nancy really had a flair for playing gorgeous local girls, as witnessed in "Robinson Crusoe U.S.N."...Sexy!

Nancy Kwan as

“Rosemary Quong”

in

Hawaii Five-O Pilot: “Cocoon”

Favorite Songs: "You Came Back" by Pete Townshend

Being a Huge fan of THE WHO lead quite naturally to a all-encompassing love of lead guitarist/ songwriter Pete Townshend’s work as well, and from albums like Who Came First down through the Lifehouse project and more, his songs have always been just as meaningful to me as his accomplishments with the band.

 In the early 80’s, Pete released an unusual collection called SCOOP…this was an album made up of unreleased songs, ideas, and precious demos that had been gathering up in Pete Townshend’s vaults. Among the many, many incredible songs, was a track called “You Came Back”, a tune that immediately got my attention with its catchy guitar riff...

Listening to the song’s lyrics for the first time, I had the distinct feeling it was another bawdy ditty of Pete’s a la Squeezebox, when I heard the line “That girl with the umbrella used to be a fella”…my first thoughts were that it was a song about a transvestite! Then the next verse sang about “remembering being dead and alive”, and trying to remember names of people’s faces…was this a “drinking til you blackout” song like Who Are You?

I didn’t know, but something about the gentle way the song was played and orchestrated made me feel like it was a particularly intimate song, really wistful and dreamy-like in feeling, despite not knowing its meaning, the melody still had that power to move me.

 I’d love to say that I figured it out all by myself, but the fact of the matter is, after puzzling about the song for weeks, I finally gave up and took a peek at the liner notes in the CD booklet, and read the explanation given by Pete himself:

You Came Back:

“This is a real favorite of mine about, you guessed it, Reincarnation.

The fact that I never got around to putting drums on it makes the exchanged guitar rhythms, played on an inexpensive CORAL guitar, more effective. Lead Guitar also missing, I’m afraid.”

OH MY GOSH! REINCARNATION? I hurriedly went back and put the CD in again and listened to the song with renewed eyes…it ALL made sense! Now all those confusing lyrics lent itself to one of the most gentle, wistful tunes ever!

Listen to Pete’s singing. This is one of the most sincere, heartfelt songs I think I’ve ever heard him sing, and when you consider the man has made a career out of wearing his heart on his sleeve, that’ s quite an accomplishment. Sometimes when I listen to it, I can’t believe it’s this unknown song tucked away on an “obscure and unreleased” CD package, but  that’s alright by me…finding songs like these are like finding hidden treasures! And Pete? Yeah, It’s a real favorite of mine, too!

An inspirational song for anyone who’s lost someone important to them. It’s hopeful to believe that our loved ones will always come back to us and are never truly gone!

Favorite Comics: Fantastic Four #236

To celebrate the Fantastic Four's 20th Anniversary, John Byrne and Company came up with this superb story that really celebrated the Fantastic Four and its origins.  A story that showed us that even with their memories and powers stripped away, the heart and courage that the Fantastic Four have always had still shone through!

Absolutely one of the very best Fantastic Four stories in the mighty FF canon!

"Terror In A Tiny Town"

The story opens with a scene Fantastic Four fans have long been familiar with: Four astronauts sneak onto the government base to pilot an unauthorized test flight to the moon. They are Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm, and they are about to make the jump into outer space that will become one of the most significant events in their lives as well as the world around them!

The secret flight has been planned in haste due to expected budget cutting, and as they hurtle upwards into outer space, they fear the shielding against the cosmic rays will not be enough to protect them. As they enter the cosmic storm, their worst fears are realized as the rays penetrate through the ship’s siding, and a bizarre transformation takes place within the four passengers aboard the ship as the rocket crashes back down to earth.

But here is where the familiar story diverges into a new and different story from the one we know…unlike the famed test flight when they crash land and are reborn as the Fantastic Four, in THIS scenario, the ship smashes down and explodes in a gulf of flame! Suddenly we see young Johnny Storm screaming up out of bed- the vision we have just seen has been no more than a bad nightmare of his!

But as Johnny crawls out of bed and gets ready for his day, we see at once that something is different- Johnny doesn’t appear to be the superhero Human Torch of the Fantastic Four, instead, he seems like a regular teenage boy living in a small town on his way to work at Sal’s Garage. He waves to the pretty girls on the street, and makes a visit to his favorite couple… Reed and Sue, who also appear to be no more than a normal married husband and wife in a quiet neighborhood!

Johnny arrives just as Reed is leaving for his teaching job at the local university. Sue remarks that Reed’s been having a hard time because his boss, a Mr. Vaughn, has been treating him like an incompetent(!) at the school.  She invites Johnny in, musing about a strange nightmare she’s had of them prepping for a space flight, which piques Johnny’s curiosity since it seems very much like his. But he brushes it off as coincidence, and makes his way to work, passing by a statue that indicates the town is Liddleville, a quiet burg that Johnny hopes to leave someday.

He drives past Ben and Alicia, another happily married couple outside their café, and we are treated to another surprise- Ben is Human, and Alicia can see! Cleary we are dealing with an alternate reality of the Fantastic Four…or are we? As Johnny drives off, we see a man across the street observing the exchange of pleasantries with obvious delight. He is Phillip Masters, the father of Alicia, and as he tells himself, “Perfect! It’s All Going Exactly as I Want It!”, we realize that whatever is transpiring here is some kind of conspiracy, and it is happening to the REAL Fantastic Four.

That night, Sue is haunted again by the mysterious dream, and this time, after a heated argument, she sees Ben turning into a monstrous thing, she sees him stretching a pliable Reed, and finally setting Johnny on Fire! It is clear the dreams are becoming worse, and when Johnny and Reed are discussing it the next day at Ben’s café, he sheepishly admits that HE’S been having the same kind of dreams, too! Reed tries to wrap his mind around the subject, but then Phillip Masters and Alicia arrive, and they turn the conversation to more pleasant things.

After a long and particularly frustrating day at the university dealing with Mr. Vaughn, Reed sits alone in the dark and ponders the coincidence of all three of them having such similar dreams. Johnny on fire. Ben as a monster. Reed as a rubber man. And the space ship. It always comes back to the ship…

Reed drifts off to a troubled sleep. He dreams… and all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place: The Space Flight. The Cosmic Rays. The Crash. The birth of the celebrated Fantastic Four, the Baxter Building, and then, something sinister…the Puppet Master hypnotizing them…and leading them down to a secret lab, with one other waiting in darkness... He almost has the complete story, but just as he reaches for the answer, Reed falls out of his chair, crashing awake!

The fall has left him clear-minded and positive of one surety: THE DREAM IS THE TRUTH. And as he knows that, he knows that whoever has imprisoned them in this fairytale town must also be a dangerous villain who must be stopped. But he must accomplish his first great task: Convince the other team-mates that their life has been a lie!

Reed arrives home at an ungodly late hour, his arm covered in matted blood. He has sliced his arm with a scalpel to prove to himself that the bodies they inhabit are not real bodies, but in fact some sort of synth-clone puppets that their minds are inhabiting. The others, of course, do no believe a word of it, and think Reed is delusional from the loss of blood. “You Don’t Believe me”. states Reed, “But you will. Our very lives may depend upon it. I WILL MAKE YOU BELIEVE ME!”

Phillip Masters is sweeping the front of his toy store when he is accosted by the angry members of the team. Reed has been successful in convincing them the truth, and their real memories have come crashing back. Seeing the ruse is over, the former Puppet Master admits that he had a hand in the deception, but only because he wanted to see his daughter Alicia happy. But Masters didn’t have the technological knowledge to implement this kind of project, and brought in someone who did. “Who?” asks Reed, and just then a voice booms from above, “SURELY, REED RICHARDS, THAT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO DEDUCE?” Their captor all along has been DOCTOR DOOM!

With the illusion lifted, Doctor Doom grandly reveals the complete picture: They are indeed trapped in synth-cloned puppets of their real selves, and have been sentenced to live out their lives in the tiny constructed town of Liddleville! Enjoying the bizarre prison he has made for them, he’d even occasionally “entered” the town by “jumping” into a robot body to harass Reed Richards…Yes, Doom was Mr. Vaughn! So now what? “What do you intend to do?” asks Reed, and Doom laughs. He doesn’t plan on doing anything to them- he has reduced them to his play-things, and will leave them there in the Liddleville prison, trapped in their puppet bodies, while he leaves to reclaim the throne of Latveria!

Reed knows there is a small spark buried within each of their little cloned bodies that is in all of them that made them become the Fantastic Four. He must find a way to get their powers back, escape this prison and stop Doctor Doom- and he remembers something that just might do it… Earlier, the University had received a special piece of machinery, a PARTICLE ACCELORATOR, a device that can recreate any type of radiation, whether it be radiation from the sun, or…cosmic rays! After examining the equipment, Reed determines that is a real, functioning device, and all that is left is for the group to make the decision to change back to the Fantastic Four.

One by one, the members each step up to the accelerator, and get dosed with the equivalent of the space flight’s cosmic rays, reverting them back to the Fantastic Four, albeit a much smaller version! Using their powers, they break free of the Liddleville town prison, and soar out into Doom’s laboratory, where they have been secured away. They get to the control console , but find Doom has removed the Power Module that will start the controls and free them.

They lure Doom back to the lab and get him to “jump start” the module with an energy blast, and railroad him into setting off the controls, which frees the group at last from the puppet bodies they’ve been imprisoned! The group leaps up and quickly prepares for a battle with Doctor Doom, but find that the energy shock has left him strangely immobile. Not quite dead, he seems to be in a type of coma…

The reason we find, is that Doom has jumped back to his little robot body, and with only a twist of a ring, is ready to jump back when the Fantastic Four are off their guard! He is about to commence departure, when the ring is smashed by a thrown rock.

  It is Phillip Masters, and he has re-programmed the entire town to his will. All he wanted was for his daughter to be happy, and Doom has ruined it for them. He orders the townspeople to destroy Doom, who flees for his life, knowing that if he should “die” in robot form , his mind will perish as well. He knows that in the robot body, he can run forever…but so can they!

A Terrific story by John Byrne, celebrating the story of the Fantastic Four and their origin!

Favorite Actresses: Greta Garbo

Back in the days before Cable or even- gulp- DIGITAL Broadcasting , back when there were but THREE major television stations, ABC, NBC and CBS, channels used to sign off at the end of the day, and for most of the night, all you saw was a test pattern.

For those insomniacs out there like me, sometimes there’d be a temporary reprieve after all regular programming was done, in the form of “Nite-Owl Theater”…. this was basically the TV station broadcasting old Black and White films in the wee hours of the morning, usually between 12:30 to 2:00 in the morning, and I just loved it!

There is something sort of magical about watching old movies late at night , wrapped up in a blanket, where you feel you’re the only person awake in the world. The movies really come to life, and you almost feel transported to that earlier time. Those days of watching those late night movies still bring back fond memories!

By chance one night I happened to catch a random movie from 1933 starring the incredible Greta Garbo called Queen Christina. Talk about beginners luck, as I was to find later that many regard Queen Christina as one of Garbo’s finest and regularly recommend it to beginning Garbo enthusiasts!

But I didn’t know anything about the movie besides the fact that the story was one of the most interesting and appealing tales I’d seen in a while- and the fact that Greta Garbo was far, far prettier than I ever could have imagined…and that VOICE!!!!

I don’t know, my general image of Greta Garbo was of your usual pin-up platinum blonde…Garbo was just about anything BUT average! Exotic and Moody, from the very first time I laid eyes on her and heard that mesmerizing, husky voice, I knew she was truly something special!

Greta plays a Queen who escapes the crushing responsibilities of royalty to hide out dressed as a boy in a small town tavern. There she meets a man on his way to meet the Queen, who hasn’t the slightest inkling that she’s right there in front of him! One thing leads to another, and they fall in love…but when she assumes her responsibilities once more, they find it is harder that they think to continue the doomed romance.

It’s hard to even pick a favorite scene in this movie, they’re all so good. Each scene with her is a joy to watch, her emotional delivery of every line is captivating, and one of my favorite touching scenes (where she says she is “memorizing the room”) is one where she doesn’t speak at all!

Well, I just flat out loved this movie, (In fact, to this day, it is still one of my very VERY favorite movies of all time!) and I needed to see more, more, more! Fortunately, there was this wonderful Video Rental store in town that specialized in the classic films, and it was through here that I saw almost all of Greta’s major movies and a few lesser ones, too! From Grand Hotel through Susan Lenox, even my very first silent movies Flesh and the Devil and The Temptress, if Garbo was in it, I rented it! In time, I even managed to special order the Laserdisc of Queen Christina, which was, for years, the only copy I had of this beloved movie.

When MGM finally released a selection of Greta’s movies in a Deluxe DVD Box Set, I was thrilled to finally get Queen Christina on DVD , as well as other favorites Ninotchka, Mata Hari and Anna Christie, none of which had ever been given a DVD treatment before!

I’m hoping that they get around to releasing a second Box Set because there are a few other favorites Still to be released on DVD-I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed for these treasures!!!

Super-Vixens: KK

A while ago, my friend Gerg mentioned to me in passing that Warren Ellis (one of his favorite comic writers, don’t you know) had started up a brand new series that he was really getting into, and this particular comic was available online, absolutely free! Then our conversation got onto the topic of The Authority, and before I knew it, we were oof onto another subject, and I forgot all about asking for the details of said Ellis Comic.

  So, recently I was online, looking for pictures of children for some project, and for some reason, my google search brought up this alluring, mysterious and striking image of a goth laden girl crouching on the ground...WOW! Who WAS this girl? What WAS “Freakangels”? This bore further investigation!

Clicking on the link, I was taken to the official FREAKANGELS site, where I found it was a weekly online comic, illustrated by Paul Duffield, and written by….yep, you guessed it…WARREN ELLIS! Why, this was the comic Gerg had told me about, all those many months ago!

  Well, my late entry into the FREAKANGLES story may have been a blessing in disguise, for I was able to enjoy almost two volumes worth of FreakAngels pages, and I made sure to slowly read them and enjoy it, and I managed to stretch my reading to three evenings, TRUST ME, that took some WLL POWER!

 I got to know all the various members of the FREAKANGELS society and all their quirks and powers, and it was here that I fell in love with that aforementioned beauty from the promotion advertisements. Known simply as “KK”, she is the FIRST character you’re introduced to in the series, and- whatta gal! Shown as a beautiful goth/rocking chick with a penchance for sleeping around with all the wrong types, how could I resist! Plus, she is shown to have an almost instinctive knowledge about the powers and engineering of steam (and in a post-apocalyptic world, that’s good as GOLD)  and that meant she had both Beauty AND brains, a knockout combination!

  Through KK, we are introduced to the other members in the city one by one, and though the story gets divided up between the various members pretty well, the story never strays too far away from her, and  I still think of her as the “Main” character of Freak Angels.

 In an interesting side-story showing the sibling-like bickering between her and another Freakangel named Kirk, we find that the name KK was christened with was the fantastically eclectic tag “Kolfinnia Kokokoho”, which supposedly is a mixture of Norse and Japanese for Winter Owl, her parents probably meant it as a beautiful artistic name, but in the hands of her (sort of) siblings, it’s a motive for swift death! Not since Jughead Jones’ name was revealed to be Forsythe has anyone hated a birth-given name so much in comics!! Ahahaha!

 Though the comic is pretty much available for anyone with even the slightest curioustiy to check out, the series IS collected and available in hardcover and trade paperbacks, and I’m happy to say that not only have I picked up Volume One, but also Volume Two which just came out a few weeks ago! Just Beautiful!

K.K.

FreakAngels

By Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield

Super-Vixens: Sirrka

And on the OTHER side of the coin, we have Sirrka,  the FREAKANGEL “Goddess Of Love”! Where K.K. is as tuff and tomboyish as all-get-out with her gothic look, leather jacket, boots, and fishnets, Sirkaa would rather be draped in sultry and silky gowns. lacy bra and panties, or even nothing at all! 

Holding court in a makeshift palace of sorts where she resides with her entourage of sycophants, all ready to do her bidding, Sirkka’s way is one of touch and sensations, a talent she’s honed to perfection! That she is first introduced to us in bed with several of her lovers is an indication of the kind of character she is!

The cool thing about Sirkka is that not only is she one of the most beautiful and sexual of all the FREAKANGELS, she’s also one of the most powerful, at least that’s how it seemed early in the game! With Mind powers strong enough to heal, cleanse and kill, this is one chick who is the “whole package”! And you ain’t seen nothin’ until you’ve seen a girl clad in only a lacy see-through brassiere handling a huge makeshift Gatling gun and taking out a troop of would-be invaders! The chick is hot!

PS: Kind of a funny thing- Though I’ve purchase all the FREAKANGEL Trade Paperbacks as soon as they’ve come out, when it comes to scanning images from them for this blog, there seems to be some kind of half-tone that makes the scans look like crap. So I’ve been forced to make these collages from the free online uploads!


Sirrka
by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield

Hat Makes The Man

While we’re on the subject of 80’s groups, there was this terrific locally-based band called Hat Makes The Man that me and my friends just loved. The band had a regular gig at Waikiki club Wave Waikiki that we checked out every weekend, but the group would pop up in other places too, and the bunch of us always made an attempt to see them wherever they happened to play. Merchant Street Block Party? Check! Mid-Pac Carnival? We’re there! Pearlridge Shopping Center Centerstage? Yep! We went to that one, too!

   But it was the Wave Waikiki gigs that we remembered the fondest- I remember, we’d sit outside before the club opened, and listen to Hat Makes The Man rehearsing inside. The great thing about that was that you’d hear the group playing songs they never did in their onstage repertoire, and I distinctively remember hearing them doing “Teenage Lobotomy” by the Ramones in their practice sessions, and wishing they’d do it in their set!

  Between the years 1984 and 1985 they managed to release two terrific albums, one their self-titled debut “Hat Makes The Man”, and a live album featuring new songs called “Searching…For The Fertile Fields”. The former was only available as a cassette at the time, although they did release “Fertile Fields” on Vinyl.

At some point, the band moved up to the “mainland” to try their luck, until, eventually, each member went onto different projects, most notably drummer Frank Quimby Orral with Poi Dog Pondering… ( a group that almost seems like a continuation of HMTM; several other Hat members have  helped on some of the early releases, and heck, the first album even featured different versions of Hat songs!)

Hat Makes The Man

Marti Nica Kerton (vocals, percussion, violin)

Byron Lai (lead guitar)

Frank Quimby Orrall (vocals, drums)

Peter Bond (vocals, rhythm guitar)

Matthew Harlan Miller (bass guitar)

The Beatles...Remastered at LAST!

While I patiently awaiting my CoCo DVD Box Set, I’m happy to announce the arrival of ANOTHER Box Set that has been a LONG LONG time coming, and that would be the glorious BEATLES REMASTERED CD COLLECTION, a beautiful box set that features all 13 albums and singles from England’s premiere band!

  I remember back when the Beatles first four albums (Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night and Beatles For Sale) were to come out on CD, the big argument was why release an album on CD if you’re gonna release it in Mono. But since that’s how the albums were originally presented, that’s how they were done on CD.

Though I understood this logic, it really bummed me out because I grew up listening to the stereo mixes of most of these songs from the Capitol records, especially the awesome SOMETHING NEW, and though I bought all the mono CDs and enjoyed them dearly, in the back of my mind I always missed the kick that the stereo version had, especially in songs like the .thundering drumroll at the end of “Tell Me Why” !

But now we’ve come full circle, and each and every album has been given the remastered treatment, and though I haven’t listened to them all yet, what I’ve been blastin’ out over my stereo speakers has just been heaven!!

I first found out about this wonderful box set through Japanese site CD JAPAN of all places, and at the time, figured it to be a japan-only release. I really wanted it, but that 300 dollar price tag gave me pause, I must say! So I breathed a sigh of relief when I found out that they’d be releasing the Box Set in the states as well, and with a decent  price of $179.00 at Amazon, IMMEDIATELY sent in my order, this time without hesistation!

Super-Vixens: Delphine Courtney

I had a friend who was in love with a certain actress, stating she had the “most perfect and prettiest face created by nature!” Then a few months later he came across a plastic surgery site that indicated his lady of worship had had quite a few procedures done, especially in the eyes and nose department!

   Looking at the “before” shots of the woman’s “enhancements”, he sighed and said, “Ahh, I should have known…Nobody THAT perfect could have been for real!”

 Although he was talking about his favorite actress, he may as well have been talking about our next Super-Vixen, the lithe and lovely Miss DELPHINE COURTNEY… This was a woman who seemed to have it all- brains, style, AND beauty…and just like my friend’s fallen angel, was a complete and utter invention… quite literally, in the case of Ms. Courtney!

 In the issues of ALPHA FLIGHT leading up to the death of Guardian (who I’ll ALWAYS think of as “Vindicator”), Delphine Courtney ws the sultry smooth talker hired by Jerome Jaxon to corral ex-members of Beta and Gamma Flight into forming a team to battle Canada’s answer to the Avengers.

 Delphine was always shown in the latest styles, sexy outfits and slinky dresses befitting her sylph-like features, and I was loving it! It was here that I guess I should have remembered the lesson of my friend’s tragic tale, but I was too busy enjoying the view!

 We thought we were in for a helluvva cat-fight when Heather Hudson (wife of Guardian) began tearing at Delphine’s face and clothes, calling her a “Harpy”- but unfortunately, under all that satin and silk (and skin!) was nothing more than cold, unfeeling metal, as Delphine is revealed to be nothing more than an android, and a darn ruthless and evil one, at that!

 That Android would escape to “live” another day, and the next time she (it) showed up was disguised as The Guardian himself! While the reappearance of the character was cool, and the story really helped put a close to the Death Of Guardian storyline,  she (it) never did put back on that Delphine disguise, and I found that I really missed that old look of hers!

 Delphine Courtney

First appearance: Alpha Flight #8

By John Byrne

Favorite Albums: 10,000 Maniacs / In My Tribe

I’ve already written about how my friend turned me onto the Maniacs with the rocking tune SCORPIO RISING and their subsequent album THE WISHING CHAIR, but it wasn’t until the band released their second album that I became a hardcore 10,000 Maniacs fan for life. I had picked up the album on cassette so I could listen to it walking to work, and from the first listen I knew it was going to be one of my very favorite albums, ever!!

What’s The Matter Here?

Words cannot aptly describe what I felt the first time I heard the opening track “ What’s The Matter Here?” This song was just incredible, from its driving  drum beat and melodic guitars showcasing Natalie singing about the helplessness of witnessing child abuse…I still think this is one of the finest tunes ever written! But it didn’t stop there…. one after another, the perfect pop tunes kept coming at me!

Hey Jack Kerouac

If I hadn’t already associated the band with the beat poet/coffee house scene, the Maniacs’ ode to the tragic Jack Kerouac certainlywould’ve done the trick! Awesome Beat and melody, this one!

Like The Weather

The very first video I ever saw of the group, on the brand new VH1 video station, of all places. At the time I remember thinking Natalie looked a LOT older than the pic on the back of The Wishing Chair! This song is probably their first biggie.

Cherry Tree

A song about the shame of illiteracy. A peppy tune about an important subject! I remember my friend Herbert thinking that the Maniacs’ style of writing was “weird”, and he cites the quirky end of Cherry Tree as an example.

Hmmm…That ending never bothered me! In fact, it was pretty upbeat!

The Painted Desert

Lots of echo effect on the guitar chords really give this song the feel of the vast, wide-open space of the desert.

Don’t Talk

A real rocking song. They performed this one on Late Night with David Letterman one night, and it just knocked me OUT! As for the topic of this song; of not wanting to argue with someone who’s drunk off his ass, haven’t we all been in this kind of situation at one time or another? Heh Heh!

Peace Train

I’ve always liked the way the Beatles followed up I WANT YOU (She’s So Heavy) on side A of Abbey Road with HERE COMES THE SUN on Side B. After a loud, powerful saturated song, side two begins with a breath of fresh air. And that’s just what the Maniacs did when they ended side One of In y Tribe with Don’t Talk, and began side Two with “Peace Train”.

  A sweet, feel-good song, I rmember being really bummed out when I heard they were removing this song off future CD releases of In My Tribe, but in recent times it seems that it has been re-instated into its proper place. And if not, you can always still get it off the terrific “Campfire Songs” collection.

  There’s a video for this song out there somewhere, but to this day I’ve only seen snippets on Youtube, scenes of Natalie and the boys floating down a river on a raft like Huckleberry Finn…

A Campfire Song

 Obligatory Michael Stipe appearance here. It was around this time that everyone was buzzing about the two of them as an item, and boy does that seem silly in this day and age. A fun song to watch Natalie sing live when she invites unwitting audience members to sing the Michael Stipe parts! AHAHAHA

Gun Shy

 Another song that  Herbert used to point out as a “weird” written song. “They have this maddening way of ending their songs with these weird clipped statements”…

ell, in any cas, it’s a nice, thoughtfully sung song, about a girl porud that her brother’s grown up, but also sad because he’s joined the army. Beware, peaceniks!

My Sister Rose

Fun song a la DAKTARI about all the extravagance of a Sister’s Wedding Day. Yet another song Herbert singled out as strange. I remember when Natalie sang the closing line, “But You’re My-SISTER-ROSE-THE-SAME!” Herb leaped up and cried, “Yaah! See? That song had that kind of ending, too!” Hahahaha Too funny!

City Of Angels

A Powerful song, another that, Like “Painted Desert”,uses echo and effeets to really create the feeling of a HUGE, VAST CITY, bulidings towering over you,looking down endless streets…The drums really pack a wallop here, too. A song about the allure of  the big city, and the dregs of failures who came to “make it” and didn’t succeed. One of my faves.

Verdi Cries

And then we have Natalie’s epic closing song, the incredible “Verdi Cries”. Melancholy and moving- with wonderful picturesque lyricsgiving you at once the feeling of yearning, lonliness and homesickness!!! When you have an album open with a song like “What’s the matter here”, and end it with a song like “Verdi Cries”, it’s no wonder this album is so highly regarded as the Maniacs’ finest, an opinion I WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT!

Shortly after falling in love with the album, 10,000 Maniacs appeared on Saturday Night Live (guest host: Judge Reinhold), and performed Like The Weather and What’s The Matter Here. Like the Weather was fun and breezy, but it was the performance of What’s The Matter Here that did it for me. THIS WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST PERFS I’D EVER SEEN! There was no going back for me, and I became a rabid Maniacs fan from then on!