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HEAVY HITTER
EYES SET TO KILL/Reach: Whew, Arizona punks that write songs likening divorce to vampire attacks told from the perspective of the kid. Just because you grew up around cactus doesn’t mean you don’t have a heartland sensibility. Melodic metal led by a pair of sisters who’d rather come out at night, this is a bunch of young people that must have grown up quick to give coming of age/teen angst such a different spin. Either that or they did nuclear testing closer to Tempe than we thought and the water has something in it still. Ear opening stuff that reaches out to flyover isolation everywhere and uses the internet to generate true underground energy. Wild stuff that will make The Man wonder where it came from and how he missed it.
1 (Break Silence)
PS CLASSICS
XANADU/original Broadway cast: After a near 40 year dominance, old age and a collective “enough” have made Andy Webber’s overwrought entertainments give way to what comes next. Who’d have thought Broadway fans would take recycled failed 70’s roller disco movies to it’s heart? While even elements of the soundtrack are free associated (uh, Jeff Lynne wrote this other song we like better so let’s use it anyway), this Olivia Newton John career killer gets turned on it’s head and the masses love it. The cleffer is bright and bouncy, well performed and probably just the proper diversion we need from the current world as we know it. If you’re west of the Hudson, suspend your rigid disbelief and let the good times roll. It’s far from a train wreck so you don’t have to feel bad about not looking away.
858
TAKE FLIGHT/original London cast: In which we find Broadway vets David Shire and Richard Maltby teaming up for a show paying tribute to Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, once again leaving the uninitiated to say “huh”? Well, these pros know how to make it work. Almost like a History Channel show coming to stage for people brought up on “Sesame Street”, this first class recording is certain to sweep you off your feet. Sweet in that the writers didn’t candy coat this and make it like something you would get in dinner theatre, show music fans are in for a very pleasant surprise.
859
DVD SUPPLEMENT
PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
GUNSMOKE Second Season Part One: It’s amazing how a show that’s been off the air for almost 40 years can light up the blogosphere so passionately. Nearly unanimous, the passions are twofold, a love for the show and a hatred for Paramount for splitting the season into two volumes that need to be purchased separately. Seeing as how the epis in this volume ran over 50 years ago, it’s pretty hard to think these irate netizens are pissed off 70 and 80 year olds soap boxing their opinion ala Abe Simpson in a rant. These are younger folks with a love for the goings on in Dodge City with it’s resident whores, bad guys, gimps, and colorful characters passing through trying to rise hell in a prairie town. Admittedly, “Gunsmoke” is the standard western bearer, golden age of TV or not, it’s wild to see generations take this show so mightily to heart. These epis have been edited from the original network run, but how can you a/b them against the local high band uhf station that’s been running them with commercials and other truncation? Even in this ‘edited’ state, this is the way to watch this standard bearer; no commercials, remastered and as pristine as 2008 techniques will allow. Now either reach for the sky or this volume with 20 epis of the oater when it was in it’s prime and getting primer.
85234
ODD COUPLE season three: Uberfans single out season three as the show’s high water mark and they did use the platform to push the envelop. This was the season the a Penny Marshall first started honking her way into the public eye, Oscar wound up on a computer date with Felix’s wife, Spot Moscowitz entered the picture and more. A total laugh riot, these epis were almost the “Seinfeld” of their time in that they are timeless, endlessly watchable and hard not to watch all at once. Throughout the show’s entire run, the network treated it like an unwanted step child but rabid fans can have many last laughs here.
Volume 31/Number 67
January 6, 2008
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
©2008 Midwest Record
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