LATE NIGHT ROYAL RUMBLE

Everyone else on the Internet is talking about this, and since I'm on the Internet, I feel like adding my two cents.

Conan is getting screwed with The Tonight Show on NBC and everyone knows it. His numbers may be bad, but it's because Leno's horrible 9 pm show is killing any potential lead in he would have had. (*In Salt Lake, Leno is at 9, local news at 10 and Conan/Tonight Show at 10:35. Letterman is on at 10:35, too.*) If they'd put Law & Order reruns on five nights a week before the news, it would have done better.

The sad thing is, that NBC is basically going to force Conan to either dumb his show down so that the majority of old people that liked Jay Leno's kiss-ass attitude and easy jokes will stay tuned in after his new half-hour show that they're giving him. Either that, or Conan is going to leave altogether.

And you know who's going to offer him a truckload of money to host a late-night show? Fox. And that will be awful. Fox has no idea what to do with a late-night show as evidenced by Chevy Chase, Magic Johnson and Arsenio Hall. Plus, Conan will have to go head to head with both Leno and Letterman. And he can only lose to both of those guys for so long before Fox gets pissed and gives him the boot, too.

*And as of about 10 minutes ago, while I was writing this, news broke that Conan had contacted Fox.

I really like Conan. I always have. He wrote a couple of the best Simpson's episodes ever (Marge vs. The Monorail and Homer Goes to College) and his Saturday Night Live sketches were the best at a time when SNL was having a bit of an identity crisis and nothing was really funny. I think he's been doing great work with the Tonight Show, but he was definitely far removed from what Leno's normal audience was used to.

I think Bill Simmons mentioned this earlier, and so far, it's the best bet. Conan should go to Comedy Central with an hour long show right after The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Now that's two hours of television that I'd watch night in and night out.

Here's a clip of Patton Oswalt (who I really like and admire) talking about the whole shake-up. Everyone else is doing it, right?

WORST FORTUNE EVER

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

EYE OF THE TIGER

I don't even like boxing and I'd watch this fight the whole way through.

Too bad Mayweather is scared of hurting his reputation and losing his undefeated record. And just scared of Pacquiao in general.

PHILIP K. DICK VS. GOOGLE

Continuing the "versus" theme from earlier, I took both of these from Slashfilm (one of the only movie sites I read).

P.S. If I can't get an iPhone (because I couldn't bare to go back to AT&T), this looks like the next best thing. Therefore, I want one. Also, Blade Runner is an excellent movie and some of Harrison Ford's finest work.

Slashfilm -- Google have decided to call their new cellphone the Nexus One which suggests it’s a full five… er… Nexuses not as good as those naughty Replicants that gave Rick Deckard such trouble in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, filmed as Blade Runner. This comparison has not been lost on the estate of author Philip K. Dick who have launched a law suit against the company.

There are a great many other products and companies called Nexus this and Nexus that, from a Tyne and Wear subway system to a manufacturer of “custom designed plugs, jacks and switches”. The difference here is that Google have gone for Nexus ‘Number’ and, according to The Wall Street Journal, “the association between the phone and the book are cemented by the fact that the Nexus One runs Google’s Android operating system”. Yes - Android. I think that word is in the book too. Tsk.

Okay, so Google probably are trying to foster associations to Sheep but, really, isn’t this just a vague nod, never likely to confuse consumers into assuming an official endorsement? Should they really be forced to stump up heaps of cash for it? It’s not like a clothing manufacturer hawking Substance D branded “scramble” suits.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

If someone were to say to me, "Trevor, what's one movie you are most looking forward to in 2010?" I'd probably respond with "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, I think."

Now, bear in mind that there are about 15-20 movies I'm excited for in 2010. Far more than 2009, in fact. Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3, Shutter Island, The Social Network, Kick-Ass and Inception among them. But Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World just  has the potential to be awesome.

It's based a series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Scott is a 22-year-old hipster living in Canada who falls in love with the beautiful but mysterious Ramona Flowers. Unfortunately for Scott, the only way he can be with Ramona is to defeat her 7 Evil Ex-Boyfriends.

Michael Cera plays Scott Pilgrim and the Evil Exes are played by everyone from Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) to Jason Schwartzman (a bunch of great stuff, but notably Rushmore). To top it off, it's directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz).

It's just going to be a damn fun movie. The books are great, too. There's five of them out now and I think the last one comes out just before the movie does. It's manga style, so that might turn some people off initially, but I guarantee that they are worth reading.

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life - Vol. 1
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World - Vol. 2
Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness - Vol. 3
Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together - Vol. 4
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe - Vol. 5

BACK IN THE DAY WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER...

I had an Intro to Film class when I was a junior in high school that I really liked. This was back in 1996-97 before anyone that wasn't incredibly rich knew how to use computers. We had to use a VHS to VHS editing machine and it was a tremendous pain in the ass. I found all those videos a while back and converted them to computer files so I could put them on the internet.

I'll post them here from time to time (when I'm feeling lazy and not in the mood to write anything substantial, most likely) so if you want to, give 'em a look.

BOOZE: THE SAGA CONTINUES

WHAT HAPPENED TO SPORTSMANSHIP

Does it really matter if you break the single game scoring record (which is 211 set in 1964, by the way)? It's a high school team. These kids are supposed to be learning the fundamentals, not crushing spirits and embarrassing other teams.

Chron.com -- The Yates High School boys basketball team set a state record and set itself up for controversy Tuesday night at Butler Fieldhouse.
The Lions beat Lee High School 170-35, setting the single-game state scoring record. Hardin-Jefferson had owned the record of 166 points since 1992.
But the Lions' brush with history was marred by a second-half scuffle and questions of sportsmanship.
In the third quarter, a fight erupted after an intentional foul was called on a Lee player. After breaking up the fight, the referees told both coaches they would have to play just five players the remainder of the game. The other players for both teams spent the rest of the second half sitting in the stands.
“I feel very disrespected right now,” Lee coach Jacques Armant said. “I don't understand why Yates just kept scoring and pressing when they were up so much. These are kids. It isn't good to do that to other young men.”
Yates, which led 100-12 at halftime, is 14-0 this season and has won 39 consecutive games. The 100 points in the first half is also a state record and the second-most ever in a boys high school basketball game.
It was the eighth time this season Yates scored more than 100 points and the sixth time the Lions won by more than 60 . It was the first time this season Yates' margin of victory topped 100.
While the large margins of victory are turning heads, Yates coach Greg Wise said he isn't worried about his team's reputation.
The rest.

SOMEWHERE, THERE IS A CRIME HAPPENING

And now, finally, a little bit of good news from the film world. Since Hollywood has somehow completely run out of ideas (even though there are literally thousands of people writing screenplays and coming up with brilliant ideas, *coughlikemecough*), they've resorted to remaking great older movies.

I'm sure you've seen a few of them already and they probably won't stop any time soon.

There is a little bit of good news on the horizon, though—the remake of Robocop has been officially put on hold.

A number of reasons come in to play here, most notably that parent company MGM is in deep financial trouble. They've been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy for months now and two of their biggest projects are suffering a little because of it. The next installment of the James Bond franchise is in question as is a new Hobbit movie. Earlier this week, they said that Bond 23 had been put on hold then the very next day it was announced that Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) would be directing. And The Hobbit is expected to begin a 14-month production schedule this June for a Winter 2011 release.

So, in all reality, no one that's not involved in the actual process really knows what's going on with those. If the cameras start rolling, I'll get excited. Not for The Hobbit, though. I saw all three Lord Of The Rings movies once each, so I think I'm good. I don't need another one. A Mendes Bond film, though? Sold.

But that's not what I was talking about. Back to Robocop.

Apparently Mary Parent, the Chairperson of MGM wants the new Robocop to be 3-D. The director, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with "gimmick effects."

Who is attached to direct? Darren Aronofsky. You may remember him from such films as Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain and The Wrestler. That was the only upside to a Robocop remake for me. Love those movies or hate them, an Aronofsky Robocop picture would be something to see. But if those two can't work something out, and it kills the project entirely? I'll be just fine kicking back with the original Verhoeven version.

IT MIGHT GET LOUD

I don't remember the last time I saw an actual "concert." I've seen literally hundreds of bands play in my life, but for the past 8-10 years, every band I've seen has been at a small club, the basement of a house, someone's backyard, etc. I can't really think of the last time I saw a show that was bigger than Bricks/Club Sound/In The Venue could hold.

I think it may have been Muse, a little bit after Absolution came out. That was probably 2004, or so and it was at Saltair. I've never liked Saltair because the layout is terrible, the drive to the show is terrible and the parking lot situation is even worse. And I hate the guy that owns it, so I wouldn't go there anyway. Muse was the one band I was willing to break my self-imposed boycott for because I got the impression that they put on an amazing show—and they did. That was the last time I saw a band play in a place that was larger than 1200 people (though I have been to Warped Tour once since then, but that doesn't count).

The main reason for that is I've been spoiled watching indie/punk/hardcore bands for most of the past decade. The shows where you can actually see the band sweat and work to keep people interested without the vanity of a light show, props or anything like that is just so much more satisfying. Going to a big show that 20,000 other people are at just isn't fun anymore. That and there's very few bands that I'd be willing to plunk down more than $20 to see.

Back in the early 90s, I was all about the gigantic, epic shows. I saw Blind Melon open for Guns N Roses (which may or may not have changed my life), I saw Def Leppard and Ugly Kid Joe, Rage Against the Machine opening for U2 and The Rolling Stones (Seal opened that show—remember "Kiss From A Rose?"—and while I was looking at the back-up singers through binoculars, one of them moved around a little too quickly and her boobs fell out of her shirt. The guy in the row in front of me saw it too, and as soon as she covered up, he turned around excitedly. We were the only ones that noticed and high-fived the occasion. I was 13 and it was awesome).

Now that it's 2010? There's hardly anyone that I would overpay along with tens of thousands of others to see. But there is a short list of those that I would pay just about anything to see.

1) Bruce Springsteen - I just imagine that a Springsteen show would be so energetic and so much fun that passing up an opportunity would be completely stupid. VH1 was showing "Springsteen live in Rio" a few months ago and I switched the channel to catch a couple of songs and ended up watching the whole thing. It was amazing. Being there would probably make it that much better, too.

2) Soundgarden - I talked about them a bit earlier, but they are one of my all time favorites. I never saw Nirvana and missed Alice in Chains (the real Alice in Chains with Layne Staley), but I did catch Pearl Jam. Every other Seattle grunge band, I missed too. I think Kim Thayil is one of the best guitarists around and say what you will about Chris Cornell, but that dude can sing. I'm glad he finally put that Audioslave/James Bond theme/Scream bullshit to rest, because Like I said a few posts earlier, I want to hear "Slaves & Bulldozers" and "The Day I Tried To Live" played live at a volume my ears will not be able to handle.

3) Metallica/Megadeth/Anthrax/Slayer - This was a rumored tour package from late last year and I was ready to buy tickets when news hit the Internet. I've never seen any of these bands, and on their own I would probably skip the show, but all together? There's no telling what kind of crazy, violent rioting would happen. I'd be stupid not to go.

That's about it. Those are the three shows I would risk a bro-mosh with shirtless, sweaty dudes jumping into each other for.

Springsteen skips SLC every time, the Thrash Metal Superstars of Yesteryear Tour isn't happening and Soundgarden is likely only playing festivals, so I'll probably never see any of them. But a guy can dream, right?

UNTIL MY HEART STOPS: JULY 19, 2005 - REDLANDS, CA

Once we were back on the road away from everything, the mood began to lighten. We always have fun in Redlands (as mentioned before) so we were excited to see some familiar faces and have some fun. The drive was about 4 hours long, but went fairly quickly once we were on our way. We were still pissed at Bryan (and most of Oubliette) but tempers had calmed down a little and we were confident that the rest of the shows—while they probably wouldn’t be amazing—would be better than any that we’d played on the tour so far.

As we got closer to Redlands, Brook started making phone calls looking for something to do and somewhere to eat. Sure enough Baker’s was the place to be. Baker’s is amazing to someone like me. It’s a fast food place, but it has vegan tacos and vegan burgers—not to mention French Fries, which if it were up to me would be the only thing I ate. Well, that and Lays potato chips. We made a beeline for the Baker’s, ate and made our way to Loomis’ house to crash for the night.

The next day we did what we do best on tour, and that is a whole lot of nothing. French Fry burritos from Cuca’s and fancy sodas from Gerald’s were how we spent most of the afternoon. The show was to be at Tithemi (Thom’s church) again, but we still had a few hours before the show.

Then Brook got a text from Davin.
“Oubliette broke up,” he said.
We were all surprised for a collective 5 seconds.
“That makes sense,” Clint said.
"So what happened?" I asked.

Here’s what happened. We thought tensions were high between Bryan and us, but apparently that was nothing compared to what the tension between everyone in Oubliette was. When it comes down to it, it makes perfect sense. They’d never been on tour before and they dive right in to a full U.S. trek that keeps falling apart piece by piece. That will take a toll on you for sure.

After sitting around Fresno for a while before realizing they weren’t going to play at all, they found somewhere to spend the night. The next day as they were driving through the desert just south of Fresno, the engine in their van blew up. Someone came and looked at it and determined that it was a total loss. They were towed to a wrecking yard and sold the van for parts—and made a whopping $150. They were 2,400 miles from home with no form of transportation, no band money and skyrocketing tempers. Both guitar players and the bass player loaded all their equipment onto a Grayhound bus, bought plane tickets and flew home. Davin, Ben and Bryan got a ride down to Redlands and came to the show that night.

None of us were surprised and actually kind of relieved that we weren’t going to have to deal with them anymore. And as much as Clint still wanted to punch Bryan in the face, he held off. Figured he’d been through enough for one day.

The show that night was the most fun we’d had all tour so far. Can’t really remember anything else. We still had another day in the Inland Empire before our show in Corona the next night, so there were more French Fry burritos and fancy sodas to be had. And I never have a problem with that.

The further adventures of Cherem's past, as updated every six months or so, can be found at Until My Heart Stops.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS AND OLD NEWS

And it's all the same.

Old News Records is closing up shop (that's the bad news). It was fun to do while it lasted, but no one really buys CD's anymore. It ended up being fiscally irresponsible (sounds professional, right?) for me to spend money printing CD's and trying to sell them to people that were going to go home, upload the songs to their computer and then throw rest of it away.

I realize I only put out two albums (Tamerlane and Up River) and it may seem like I didn't really try all that hard. Truth is, I didn't.

I didn't want to put forth a whole lot of effort into promoting bands that only 7 people remember and hope that more will be willing to plunk down their hard earned money to take a chance on something they may not even like.

And with the internet, all those songs were going to end up out there for everyone to hear before I could get around to doing it, anyway. Which was the whole point in the first place.

But with this minor downside, there is a massive upside (here comes the good news).

If you weren't aware, I also run a site called Grudge City Activities. It's a hardcore news blog with a heavy focus on the history of Salt Lake City hardcore. But there's a lot of other stuff, too—show videos, a podcast, photos, polls, etc. It's a cool site, and if you haven't checked it out, do that now.

One of the things we've been doing is compiling a massive archive of Salt Lake hardcore bands and Old News Records is basically being folded into this and losing the clever name. Plus, everything in the archive is 100% free. You can't pass that up. And it's far more appealing than charging you $5 for a CD you've never heard of.

I'm going to hold off on putting the Tamerlane and Up River stuff up in the archive just yet, because I still have quite a few copies. I'll still bring them around to shows that Collapse and Tamerlane play, so if you want a physical copy, come by and pick one up.

More importantly, I'll probably take a few copies of each (and a few copies of both Cherem albums and the 7") to the new Raunch Records in Sugarhouse. If you really want one, go there to get it. That guy deserves your support more than I do, so if you haven't been by yet do it today. Or tomorrow. Or every other day you have a chance to.

So thanks everyone for checking out the ONR releases, and thanks to everyone (Candace of CandaceJean for the awesome logo that I'm definitely going to keep for nostalgic purposes, especially) that helped me out in one way or another.

But head over to the GCA Music Archive to download some awesome (and free, did I mention free?) music.

2009: WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR - THE INFORMERS

I hated this movie. Every last bit of it. If I had to choose the worst movie I've ever seen, this would be right at the top. It played at Sundance last year and I saw it in the press/industry room, which was packed. There was a lot of buzz going in, so I was excited to see it. Then it started and shortly after the bad dialogue and pretentious attitudes took over (which I'm pretty sure was right after the opening credits ended), people started leaving. Then more people. Then some more. Midway through the movie a little more than half the audience was gone.

Had I written this last January when I saw the movie, I could have listed at least 25 things that made me come to the "worst movie ever" conclusion, but it's been a year and I can't remember all of them. All I remember is how much I hated every single character and the fact that half of the ones that were introduced were never even given anything that could resemble a character arc. And the "That was the whole point. It's a snapshot of what life was like in LA back then." argument doesn't work with me.

The Informers could be compared to Rules of Attraction in a lot of ways. They both feature a myriad of characters, overlapping arcs and intertwining stories. The difference is that Rules of Attraction was a great movie because it kept things interesting. While all of the characters in that movie could be classified as 'bad people' they were at least entertaining and relatable on some level. They were given actual substance to work with and every actor was given enough direction that they ended up with at least one redeeming quality and while you knew what they were doing wasn't necessarily the right thing, you understood where they were coming from and why they chose to do what they did.

With The Informers you had a bunch of spoiled, rich pricks acting like spoiled, rich pricks. Not a single person had any charisma and none of the actors were talented enough to breathe any semblance of life into any of the one dimensional characters.

All that and the constant "Hey! Check it out! This movie is set in the 80's! Remember the 80's? Yeah you do! Hipsters love the 80's!" attitude didn't help.

I could keep going, but that would require me to watch it again. And that's not going to happen.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

ONE MORE TIME AROUND

Soundgarden is on the short list of bands that I've always wanted to see but never got the chance. Maybe now is that time. They announced today that they'll be getting back together in some capacity this year, but the details remain unclear. Maybe they'll pull a Rage Against the Machine and only headline huge festivals or maybe they'll do a full-on tour. Either way, I'm excited. The new album will probably be terrible, and I have little to no expectations about it, but if they come anywhere near Salt Lake City and I get a chance to hear Slaves & Bulldozers live, I'm taking it.

Billboard.com-- Soundgarden will reunite for concerts in 2010, according to a Twitter message from frontman Chris Cornell which directs fans to a new Web site, Soundgardenworld.com. The Seattle rock quartet -- Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron -- has not played live since splitting up in the spring of 1997.


Although no details have been announced yet, sources tell Billboard the group is weighing offers from several major U.S. and international festivals. But a tour routing is still a work in progress, due to Cameron's prior commitments to play with Pearl Jam in the spring and summer of next year.


Cameron has been Pearl Jam's permanent drummer since 1998; that group recently announced its first North American date of 2010 as part of the second weekend of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (April 29-May 2), and will also play 10 European shows from June 22 in Dublin through July 10 in Oeiras, Portugal.


Also still amorphous are plans for some kind of Soundgarden best-of and/or reissues of its back catalog. In addition, Thayil and Shepherd have long discussed compiling a Soundgarden boxed set, which would include a wealth of unreleased studio material.


Read the rest.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

I always take my video camera with me when I go out of town. Or I at least try to. That doesn't mean I use the entire time I'm gone, though. I took it with me every time Cherem went on tour, but it would spend 90% of the trip in the camera bag under the second bench. I would be all about it for the first day or two, but then I'd get sick of carrying it.

Last June, we went to California to see a band called Disembodied play a reunion show (The album pictured to the left is on my Top 10 records of all time list, by the way). There were about 10 of us on one flight and nearly two dozen more that drove down separately. I tried to take as much video as I could, but didn't get much. When I got back home, I immediately transferred all the footage to my computer and forgot about it soon after. I started cleaning up my hard drive this weekend and found it, so I threw it all together and released it to the Internets.

There wasn't a whole lot to work with, but I think it turned out reasonably well. And it will be fun for me to look back at in a few years. Probably won't be as much fun for anyone that isn't in the video.

I shot the first hour or so we were there on Friday, didn't shoot anything on Saturday and I ran out of tape at Disneyland on Sunday. This is what I was able to get out of that. Enjoy!

2009: FAVORITE COMIC - TIE - SCALPED/INVINCIBLE IRON MAN

Two very different books, but both equally great. I've been a fan of INVINCIBLE IRON MAN (and Matt Fraction, the guy that writes it) for a while now and this book just gets better and better.

My other favorite is SCALPED. This was the first of Jason Aaron's work that I read, and now I'm a huge fan. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this book is just spectacular.

Read them. Both of them.