TREVOR HALE - ARTIST

Remember when I wrote that I always wanted to be an animator but didn't have any artistic ability whatsoever (this post here)?

Well, here's some proof. Probably all the proof you'll ever need.

And this is the result of probably one of the most fun nights I've had in a long time and it's a hell of a story. I'll make sure I share it with you soon.

RARE EXPORTS

I just saw this. I honestly still don't know how I feel about it. It might be because I'm not entirely sure what I watched.

...AND WE'RE BACK

So, remember about a year ago (anyone been paying attention to this blog for that long?) when I said I had a small—very small, actually—record label that I wouldn't be doing anything with anymore?

Well, that's still mostly the case.

BUT I did set up a Big Cartel store that has all the releases on it, so if you were ever so inclined, you'll be able to find them all there.

I'm still learning the ropes of an online store, so there might be a rough patch right at the beginning but it'll all work out eventually things will be great. So go ahead and check it out. If anything piques your curiosity, feel free to shoot any questions my way. Or better yet, take a chance and buy one. You probably won't be disappointed.

http://oldnewsrecords.bigcartel.com/

TOP 5 ANYTHINGS

I did this little video series at the end of last year and actually really liked how it turned out. It all kind of started at the spur of the moment, but got more planned out as the days wore on.

In fact, looking back at them now, I kind of want to do one for this year. Any takers?

*UPDATE - I just re-watched my list (about three minutes into the last video) and my #1 is 'Shaving My Beard' which is slightly ironic, since I haven't shaved for almost two months.

LESSONS LEARNED

Working with publication word restraints is hard to do so I wasn't able to fit everything I wanted to say in this article. But I also like it because it forces me to find concise ways to say what I want without it feeling bloated and going off on endless side notes—like I do here sometimes.

City Weekly -- Another year gone and another box full of comics packed away. Before we move to 2011, there are a few things I noticed, something I want to admit and one thing I feel I need to gloat about.

I was wrong: The first comic book I ever reviewed was Robert Kirkman’s apocalyptic zombie story The Walking Dead, back when it first debuted in 2004. I gave the first six issues an honest chance, but it just didn’t click. Kirkman’s writing felt stilted, none of the characters resonated and it just felt too soap-opera-y. As this fall’s AMC TV adaptation came closer, I decided to give it another chance. About four issues after I’d given up originally, Kirkman went nuts and managed to produce one of the best books of the past decade. I tore through the first 50 issues in three days and haven’t been able to get enough since. It takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong—and this time I clearly was.

I told you so: I’ve been saying Jonathan Hickman has big things ahead of him since The Nightly News popped up in 2007, and everyone else has taken notice now, too. He’s been working his way up the ladder at Marvel with a mini-series here and there and a solid ongoing project with Secret Warriors, but he surprised mainstream readers this year taking over Marvel’s first family, the Fantastic Four. And with S.H.I.E.L.D.—his take on the secret history of the Marvel Universe pitting Leonardo da Vinci against Isaac Newton—Hickman got a chance to flex some of the unique storytelling muscles and wild ideas he showed off to such praise on his indie books.

Best job of driving me away: Usually you can count on Mark Millar. The Authority, Superman: Red Son and Old Man Logan are all examples of top-notch storytelling. But lately, everything he does has some sort of gimmick, and he’s unable to simply let the story speak for itself. Instead of a simple title and byline, it’s become Mark Millar Presents the Greatest Comic Ever Written! I still enjoy his work-for-hire stuff at Marvel, but all of his creator-owned titles this year have left me cold and longing for the days when he was still trying to prove his worth instead of proclaiming he’s the second coming of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko combined.

Best job of pulling me back in: There was a two-year period where I didn’t read a single DC Universe book. Nothing made sense, the books were always switching artists mid-story and they were trotting out characters who hadn’t been used in 40 years and pretending it was a huge comeback. But with Grant Morrison in charge of the Batman universe (and Geoff Johns on Green Lantern and The Flash), I’ve been slowly pulled back in. All the little things he said would eventually be tied together have been taking shape, and his stories still feel fresh and exciting. There are still numerous DC characters I couldn’t care less about—and I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before Morrison finds a way to get me with those, too.

Best comeback: As someone who’s seen his fair share of disappointing reunion shows over the past few years, I know for a fact that getting the band back together doesn’t always work. That’s why I was so nervous when Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan announced they were revisiting their phenomenal 2003 series, Demo. Those 12 issues stand as one of my favorite comic runs of all time, and for my own selfish reasons, I didn’t want to see that memory tainted. I should have known better than to doubt because Demo picked right back up without skipping a beat. The new characters felt a little more mature, and Wood and Cloonan—so much more comfortable in their professional relationship now—produced six of the best single issues of the year.

WEDNESDAY COMICS - 12/22/10

This is the only Ultimate title that I still read regularly and the one that I haven't missed a single issue of since #7 came out.

Not quite as good as it once was, but Bendis still has a firm grasp on these characters (as he rightfully should, since he created the Ultimate version of all of them) and clearly has more stories to tell.

This is one monthly book I couldn't imagine dropping while he's still on it. And with Bagley coming back next year, I'm hoping it gets even better.

Grant Morrison writing Batman is just one of those things where everyone wins. He gets to do crazy things and the rest of us just get to be along for the ride. What he did with the first 15 issues of Batman and Robin got me reading DC Universe books again, and I was happy to do so. Not entirely sold on this new series of Bruce Wayne 's globetrotting adventures recruiting new Batmen for his new corporation, even if this issue had Catwoman fighting a giant octopus in the middle of a Japanese apartment building.

Probably give it another few issues, but right now I miss Morrison writing Damien and Dick Grayson.

Matt Fraction has been killing on Invincible Iron Man since his run started about three years ago, but I was a little bit let down by this arc. It was a 9-part epic that felt stretched a bit, like he milked a few issues.

Still, I'm interested in seeing what he's got in store for Pepper Potts (who I never thought I'd care about at all) and how he dovetails this book in with Thor and his big Fear Itself event next year.

Bendis has been slowly building another epic Ultimate story and this is the beginning of the final act of his trilogy. I'm still buying it because I want to see where it goes, but I don't find myself caring all that much about the outcome.

It's become one of those things I buy because I feel bad when I go to the comic shop and don't spend at least twenty bucks.

That's Mark Millar's Nemesis Issue 4. I couldn't find a proper cover and didn't want to scan it in.

All I can say about this is that I'm glad it's over. Millar's creator owned stuff has fooled me for the last time. I know they're all just glorified movie pitches (and kudos to him because it seems like it's working quite well), but they all keep leading into sequels that I just don't want to buy.

So yeah. If you want to read a book because you know there's going to be something so shocking (i.e. ridiculous) you won't quite believe it, this is probably the one you want to get.

NEAL PAGE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

It was a close one, but Steve Martin pulled out ahead at the last minute.

Neal Page - Planes, Trains and Automobiles - 5 (55%)

Clark W. Griswald - Christmas Vacation - 4 (44%)

SANTA ROLLINS

Did he visit your house last night, too? 

Sometimes this page comes dangerously close to a Henry Rollins fan page. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

The DVD player is warmed up and Christmas has officially begun.

HOLIDAY SPIRIT

Probably the best holiday song ever.

BLACK SWAN

I saw this last Sunday night and haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. Unless TRUE GRIT completely floors me, this is the best movie I saw all year.

Quick side note - You're probably going to think I'm crazy when you see my Top 5 and I have BLACK SWAN and TOY STORY 3 as numbers 1 and 2, because they couldn't be more different. But that's just how I roll.

Back to it. I've been trying to formulate in my head what to say about this movie, but I feel that words don't quite do it justice. It's just an all around great film and if Natalie Portman doesn't win Best Actress at the Oscars in a few months, then everyone that votes shouldn't be allowed to anymore. Portman gives a pitch-perfect portrayal of a woman obsessed with perfection but slowly spiraling into madness. It's an anxiety laden trip that, at times, was hard to watch yet I was unable to look away.

Some people are no doubt going to find it silly and too overtly sexual for their tastes (at some points during the screening I was in there was audible uncomfortable laughter from the audience), but I'm not one of those people. Not only was BLACK SWAN an amazing piece of drama, it was probably one of the best horror films I've seen in a long, long time. It wasn't the knock you out of your seat scary, but there are moments when you're just overcome with an intense feeling of dread. You have no idea what will happen next or where it's going to go from there. Every moving part of making a film—music, lighting, camera work, acting, directing—was put together brilliantly here by Darren Aronofsky. He never lets you get comfortable and the movie keeps you on your toes the entire, never letting up for a second before something else grabs you.

BLACK SWAN and THE WRESTLER were originally conceived as one film, juxtaposing the high art of the ballet world and the lowest perceived form of entertainment that is professional wrestling. I'm glad Aronofsky decided to break them up because they're both top notch films on their own and I think they both would have lost something had they been presented as one.

As I said before, I haven't been able to stop thinking about this movie since I first saw it and I'm not sure how many other movies I've been able to say that about—ever, let alone this year.

If you haven't yet, go see it. You may not agree with me and if you don't, I'd really love to hear your reasons as to why.

And one more thing is for sure—Aronofsky's next movie is the X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE sequel, simply called THE WOLVERINE. And after seeing BLACK SWAN, I can safely say I've never been more excited to see a Wolverine, an X-Men, hell, any comic book movie for that matter, than I am to see that one. I have absolutely no idea what it's going to be like (and if you think you do, you're full of shit), but judging from his track record, Aronofsky has amazing things in store.

RED STATE

The most un-Kevin Smith Kevin Smith movie to date. I hope it's good.

RETRIBUTION

I had totally forgotten about this video until earlier tonight, because I think I only saw it once. I have a DVD copy and all the raw footage, but never actually sat down and watched what Martin and his co-producers put together.

Let me tell you a little bit about it.

I was in a band called Cherem for about seven years, from late 2000 until I quit in the fall of 2007. We made two albums a couple compilations and toured a fair amount. It was a lot of fun but a lot of work. Martin used to live in Salt Lake City and moved to LA to go to film school. He heard we were coming through town on tour and told us he wanted to make a music video as a project for one of his classes. He told us that it wouldn't cost us anything and that all we had to do was show up. We gave ourselves a day off in the middle of a quick week-long tour through California and met up with him after we played at Chain Reaction in Anaheim.

On a side note, I have an entire separate blog dedicated to Cherem/band tour stories that I've updated exactly once this year. The problem is that I'm trying to go in chronological order, but haven't had time to fill in the blank spots. I have a word document with about 45,000 words in it and a lot of it is the later shows that I wrote about while gone instead of retroactively. My New Year's Resolution (I just decided this, and it may have been my resolution for 2010 also, but that's in the past) is to get a good chunk of that updated and finished. I don't think anyone else really cares, but it'll be fun for me to look back over years down the road.

Now, back on track, here's a few things I remember about the day we shot this video.

- I remember saying that I didn't want this to look like every other hardcore video, but understood that wasn't entirely possible given their budget (which was $0 aside from the equipment rental). Unfortunately, we ended up with a pretty basic music video and the exact kind I didn't want. Can't complain too much though. It was fun to do and I'm stoked they did it for us.

- For a music video to work, the track needs to be played loud enough for everyone to mimic what was going on while still playing their hardest. This didn't quite work because they had forgotten to bring something to play the song through. One of the guys had to drive his car on to the soundstage and play his stereo at full volume, which still didn't work because Clint's drums were so loud.

- Everything looks stiff in a video, you have to over exaggerate every little thing as much as possible before it even looks remotely real. And that's hard to do when you're trying to play along to a track that you can't really hear. Also, we're all terrible actors.

- The soundstage was in a parking garage off either Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard and since we had to start at 8am, it was still a little cold. I have poor circulation anyway, so I kept my hoodie on while we played the song probably 10 times for them to film it from different angles and get close ups of each of us. At about 10:30, it started getting really hot, but we'd already filmed about three runs through the song, so I was fucked. If I took the hoodie off, the whole thing would just look strange, because the takes wouldn't match up. By the time we broke for lunch I was dying.

- We didn't really have a bass player at that time. We'd had a fill-in for the two shows, but he was from Redlands and went home after we played the Anaheim show. Luckily, our friend DP was in town staying with his girlfriend. We made him come with us and stand in as our bass player. Also luckily, they didn't use much of the live footage from the show in Salt Lake because we had someone else playing at that point and that didn't line up either.

All in all, it was a fun thing to do and another experience I can break out at boring family dinner parties where I inevitably end up telling stories to entertain people. Which happens quite often.

CINEMA 2010

If you haven't figured it out yet, I really like these.

MINOR THREAT - 30 YEARS LATER

Alternative Press has become pretty much a joke of a magazine, and I think it's the only magazine I'm more disappointed in some of the cover stories than Rolling Stone, but occasionally they do awesome things. Some of their "An Oral History Of.." series (in which they recount the history of a great band or album by interviewing the people that were actually there) are really great but for the most part the entire magazine has become, in my opinion, filler. Rarely do they ever have anything on any band I care about so it usually takes me all of three minutes to skim all the way through it.

But yesterday, they had a great article on the impact of Minor Threat's first show thirty years later. Minor Threat has always been one of my favorite bands and while they may not have had the biggest influence on me, they still had an enormous effect on my life.

The article is pretty good too—especially this paragraph: “The problem began when a police officer tried to come in, but the person at the door told him he had to have $3 or a warrant,” says MacKaye. “So he went away and came back with more cops. “[They] apparently had a new riot squat they were eager to demonstrate.” But by then, Minor Threat had already started blowing listeners away. “I think the arrival of an entire riot squad barely registered for half the people there compared to what was happening on the stage,” says Alec MacKaye.

I would love for someone to try that line on cops at a show these days. I don't think anyone would have the balls to do that now. I know I wouldn't.

Anyway, check out the rest of the article over on AltPress.com. Hopefully this pushes them in the direction to do more articles like this.