The Saturday Morning Car-Tune News Report 08.08.09: Say A Word For Johnny Hughes

Posted by Lucas Wesley on 08.08.2009

A tribute to the music featured in the films of John Hughes, Raekwon and Jay-Z have album covers, Jarvis Cocker is working with Russell Brand, Bob Dylan's early Christmas, new music from Willie Nelson and Garfunkel and Oates and more!

Hello all, and Welcome to Week 7 of the Saturday Morning Car-Tune News! I didn't make any irrelevant, iconoclastic off hand remarks last week meaning there was nothing new in terms of reader response, so let's just get on with it!



- Starting off with a nice little Hi, How Are You: according to his MySpace, Daniel Johnston is touring a little around the US, Canada and Europe, alongside the release of a new album. To quote the message exactly, "Daniel is also working with Jason Faulkner on a new album "Is And Always Was" to be released October 2009." I am and always was excited at the prospect of new Daniel. After some searching, I can tell you Falkner is spelled without the U, and has worked with artists such as Beck* and Jellyfish in addition to a critically successful solo career. Johnston's last complete solo album was 2006's Lost and Found, allegedly mostly comprised of outtakes from Rejected Unknown and his last album with his band, The Nightmares, was 2007's The Death of Satan. Enough on the old, though, I'm just excited for the new.

- *yes, this constitutes this week's Beck news. I'll also say that "There She Goes Again" is up on the site, and it's just about as bad as "Heroin." It has a bit of a Jad Fair vibe, but not necessarily in a good way. It doesn't surprise me that after a few songs, the whole "no rehearsal" thing leads to you running out of ideas, but it's kind of unfortunate either way.

- Kirkwood Dellinger, a hip young band featuring the son of Meat Puppet Curt Kirkwood that I've been rocking on MySpace since they added me, has an interview up with Punk Globe. Elmo Kirkwood, co-leader of the band (and aforementioned the son of Curt) claims a new album is in the mix, which may or may not be an official debut. I think it would.



- Two bits of album art news: Raekwon and Jay-Z have unveiled the covers of Only Built For Cuban Linx II and The Blueprint 3 respectively. They are above in the respective order. One is pretty sweet and the other is simply inexplicable. Again, descriptions in the respective order.

- Presumably in preparation for his new album, American Classic, Willie Nelson has created a video for the song "Shoeshine Man." I say presumably, as the song isn't on the album. I have nothing but respect and love for Willie, but the video looks like it was made by a kid who just discovered PhotoBooth. Which I guess is kind of the point, but I don't know. Not like it's getting MTV play anyway, I suppose. The song features some pretty sweet harmonica, though.



- Garfunkel and Oates, band of the world's cutest ukulele player (mentioned last week), Kate Micucci, has released a new song. The song is excellently titled "This Party Took A Turn For The Douche." It's a rap song, marking what I believe is Micucci's second venture in the genre (previously she rapped about Little Red Riding Hood), which is disappointing in the ukulele sense, but it's still funny and cute and has a fun chorus. It also contains one of the best lines ever in rap, "I'm fly like Jeff Goldblum." I very much love these girls.

- Russell Brand is talking music news, and I don't mean the VMA awards. Apparently, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp has started writing some songs for Brand. Well, kind of. He wrote them for Brand's character Aldous Snow to sing in the upcoming Forgetting Sarah Marshall spin off, Get Him To The Greek. Still, Cocker has shown formidable skill in writing for actors (check Charlotte Gainsbourg's 5:55 for evidence), so he's as fit a man for the job as anyone. I hope the songs are funny, though, since Brand was the best part of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I have high hopes for this spin-off.

- Aubrey O'Day, some girl I've never heard of, covered the greatest song of all time, Eddie Murphy's "Party All The Time." I don't have a terrible amount to say about this, only that a) if Eddie Murphy recorded it today, it would sound roughly the same as this song, which is to say they at least updated the clichés and b) I like it roughly as much as I hate it.

- Radiohead have released a new song for download. Unlike the last download only Radiohead release, you have to pay for this one, but it's only one pound, or about a buck seventy. The song is a tribute to Harry Patch, recently deceased World War I veteran, who just so happened to be the last surviving English veteran of the Great War. Appropriately, the song is called "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)," and the songs lyrics comprise solely of Patch quotes. For those against the whole "spend a dollar" thing, hey, I understand. Youtube it. In a word, it sounds...Disney.



- Beastie Boy MCA has had surgery and is recovering nicely. He still has to go through radiation treatment, which he calls "a torture," but things are looking good for now. Fans should do something to show their support. No sleep 'till he's completely healthy, I say. Or maybe something more practical. You decide. He's already thanked everyone for their support, though, claiming it a big help, so maybe what we're doing is good enough already. I already said get well soon, so...get weller sooner, MCA!

- Bob Dylan is releasing a Christmas album. I'm not going to pretend this is terribly shocking to me, because Dylan is known for left turns, covering Tin Pan Alley songs, and questionable religious moments. All the same, I don't know if I'm excited, since I've only heard two good Christmas albums in my life, never by legends like Dylan. Well, Phil Spector's a legend, but it was the Christmas album that helped create that legend. We'll see come December.

Star Power

I struggled with a topic this week. I couldn't think of anything terribly interesting. Then at the eleventh hour (or maybe more like 9:30 hour or something) I learned that Bob Dylan was allegedly planning a Christmas album as reported above. Then I started thinking about John Hughes death, may he rest in peace, and for some reason I started thinking about the ending of Caddyshack, where the gopher dances to "I'm All Right." This is especially odd since John Hughes had absolutely nothing at all to do with Caddyshack aside from the fact both existed popularly in the 1980s. I thought about this connection for a while, and I decided the only reason I could possibly have gone from A to B like that is the fact that the scene is a classic musical movie moment, and John Hughes perfected classic movie moments. That I didn't think of one of his films is interesting, but irrelevant to the point of today's Star Power. For today I'm going to talk about some of my favorite musical movie scenes, in tribute to John Hughes. This will be a bit shorter than your average Star Power, and as I stated is it a bit different from what the original idea was, but I've basically been doing whatever I want here as long as I think it's interesting, so hopefully this continues that trend.

Since Star Power started out as a history lesson (though it's strayed a bit, I'm aware), I will start with a brief song about movie music history. It started, obviously, with musicals. The first major musical was of course 1927's The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson's famous prophetic line, "you ain't heard nothin' yet." Many classic musicals followed. However, I'm not hugely in to musicals. Here at 411, the staff recently did our Top 5 Musicals. You'll note my list was a little bit modern, without much thought for the real classics. For that I apologize, but I never loved the majority of the major musicals I've seen. Nothing against them, but I can honestly say that until I finally saw Dancer In The Dark, no musical truly affected me as a moviegoer. Of course, I acknowledge their influence, but it was later on when people started using popular songs and incorporating them into their films that I started to really enjoy movie music. So let's just jump ahead to that then, shall we?



We'll start with a look at my favorite Hughes music scenes. Really, there's just two, but they're unmitigated classics. I don't know about most people, but my first John Hughes movie was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It remains perhaps my favorite of his films (that is, when I'm not making jokes about how, despite my masculinity, Pretty In Pink is the greatest film of all time). Bueller contains many, many classic moments, and it's impossible not to laugh at things like Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago. However, the one scene that made me love the movie, even as a child who knew nothing of the Beatles, was Ferris' famous Von Steuben Day Parade performance of "Twist and Shout." When I first saw the movie I was probably around 13 and knew nothing about music or what truly made the 80s cool (aside from the fact that all the girls in my school were wrong about Flashdance). That didn't matter. I knew this scene was cool and I realized Ferris was cool because he was lip-syncing the songs he chose.

The other great musical moment credited to John Hughes comes from Pretty In Pink. There are several moments I could choose here, but the one I'm celebrating is Duckie's famous dance to "Try a Little Tenderness." Not only does it prove that Duckie is the gayest straight film character of all time, it shows how fun he is and in a weird way, how he'll do the most ridiculous things to try and get Andie to like him. I can't really explain why I like this one so much, and I'm sure most people would go with "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want," "Love" or "If You Leave," but those are all such downers. Movie music moments to me are best when they're happy or fun, and that's why this wins out here.

Of course, I'm fickle about this, which leads me to the one thing I'm going to mention as a cheat. It's a cheat because it's actually a television music moment, but it counts to me anyway. The show probably owes a bit to John Hughes, considering it shares his honest and accurate if a little bit melodramatic look at teenage and high school life, taking place a little bit before Hughes time, but still with several popular crossover artists. The show is of course Freaks and Geeks, the program that started today's Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen craze without even knowing it.



The show had eighteen episodes, and every episode had a good four or five musical moments I could easily call the greatest. From Sam walking down the hallway in a jumpsuit to "Look Sharp," Bill eating grilled cheese and watching Gary Shandling to "I Am One," the famous "Lady L," XTC explaining what it's like to be picked last in baseball with "No Language in Our Lungs"...the list goes on. However, the musical moment features the brilliant Martin Starr (Bill) and Biff Tannen from Back to the Future as a child and the man he hates because he's dating his mom. And is also his mean jock gym teacher. The scene is almost mocking powerful moments, but also manages to be a rather powerful moment in itself. The act is rather simple: the evil gym teacher drinks from Bill's favorite mug ("Bill #1). Bill gets incredibly upset and storms off. Important as is, but throw The Who's "Love Reign O'er Me" on top of it, and it couldn't get any better.

Speaking of moments that couldn't get any better due to a song, I'm moving on to Fight Club. The scene comes near the start of the film, right after the club is formed and Tyler and the Narrator are searching for new recruits. They enter a bar, the camera shoots around, and a guitar riff kicks in...followed by what I can only explain as a musical explosion and Tom Waits screaming like only he can. Waits once said "If I was trying for a certain drum sound, my engineer would say: 'Oh, for Christ's sake, why are we wasting our time? Let's just hit this little cup with a stick here, sample something and make it bigger in the mix, don't worry about it.' I'd say, 'No, I would rather go in the bathroom and hit the door with a piece of two-by-four very hard." The song sounds like Waits is hitting hundreds of doors with hundreds of two-by-fours, with the intensity of, well, Fight Club. The song is "Goin' Out West," one of the most badass songs of all time, and nothing could possibly fit better. "I got hair on my chest...I look goooood without a shirt!" The song completely sets the tone for the film to come, and offers masculinity and power like no one else could.

Another tone setting song comes in the Coen Brothers classic, The Big Lebowski. All you need to do is say "music" and "The Big Lebowski" and everyone knows what scene you're talking about: "The Dude and Maude Lebowski in Gutterballs." It can't be anything else. Kenny Rogers and the New Edition score The Dude's acid trip with "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)." There's hundreds of acid rock and psychedelic rock songs from the era that could have fit in one way or another, but none give the feel of this song. They couldn't have found a better song to make Jeff Bridges smile while he dances with Julianne Moore.

One last example of a song perfectly setting the tone for a film: Office Space, The Geto Boys, Damn it Feels Good To Be A Gangsta. For semi-obvious reasons, most people wouldn't assume a film about white-collar office drone white dudes would be perfectly explained by a gangsta rap group, but it totally is. The laid back, but still powerful song plays softly while Peter Gibbons reclines and smiles, looking out of his window after he's destroyed his cubicle. There is no gangsta greater than the average person who decides to fight back from the drudgery of normal life, and Geto Boys know that just as well as the film.



Lastly I'm going to mention my favorite movie about music. This isn't necessarily my favorite soundtrack. We covered that in a previous top 5, and I mentioned a great love for Purple Rain and The Harder They Come, which I maintain. However, those are great soundtracks, perhaps pseudo-musicals. However, they are not movies about music. High Fidelity is a movie about music. It's about people who listen to music all the time, who talk almost exclusively about music, and who know they like better music than you do. Kind of a fringe group, but since I belong to it, I love this movie.

I've been told by some detractors that it's a movie for people who have never been in a record store who pretend that's what it's like. I've been in many a record store, I know that's not what it's like. It's just what I'd like it to be like, which is what movies create for you. Record stores are much better described in Almost Famous, another great movie about music, when Penny Lane says "If you ever get lonely, just go to the record store and visit your friends." They're quiet places where people stare at records because at times, records are all they have. Pretty In Pink might have even gotten it right: they're places where the cashier talks to their friends about everything but music, while you wander around their store trying to ignore them.

But High Fidelity presents musical geekdom as a more universal thing. Yes, there are many people that enjoy them and we do talk occasionally, but it isn't a guaranteed discussion every time you hit up Amoeba (I've actually never been to Amoeba, but that's the one record store everyone recognizes by name, so don't blog about how wrong I am). When watching High Fidelity, this is forgotten, and we all live together, loving and laughing about music. Every scene plays a great song, and the song always makes the scene work a lot better. That's a great movie about music. Is it influenced by John Hughes? I have no idea, but I'm sure the characters in the film have all seen Pretty In Pink and at least Rob probably sang along when Duckie sang "Love."

That's it for this week's Star Power. It was a little disjointed and kind of all over the place for what was originally kind of a John Hughes tribute, but somehow it all connected in my mind. In the very least I thank Mr. Hughes for leading my mind down this path. May he rest in peace. I apologize for not mentioning Disney, but we here at 411 covered that, too. I'm sure by next week I'll remember another transcendent moment (I mean, I only covered about five here, what's wrong with me?) but for now I've said all I have to say.

Farewell Song

It's getting hard to come up with cliché things to say about various years at the beginning of these. Just wait, in three weeks I'll open with "The Summer Of Love!" and quietly hate myself. For now, we're on 1964, a year when The Beach Boys, The Beatles and Bob Dylan all released two albums. Actually, including live and holiday albums, The Beach Boys released four. Of course, other bands and artists were active as well, and some of the all time most important singles came about in this time period (You Really Got Me, Walk On By, You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', Dancing in the Street, Leader of the Pack, etc), but these are the artists I'm focusing on for now. None of the Beach Boys albums were out and out classics, but one did contain what I consider perhaps Brian Wilson's magnum opus. A simple, beautiful message, in a song about cars that's actually not about cars at all, and most people wouldn't realize it's about drag racing unless they were told. Of course, I speak of "Don't Worry Baby," the greatest song of 1964.

The greatest album of the year is also by one of those fine artists, and perhaps it's one of the less likely choices. Bob Dylan released two albums that year, one being the disappointing The Times They Are A-Changin'. The other was one of his many absolute classics, Another Side of Bob Dylan, and that gets the nod for album of the year.

That's it for this week folks, I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you do so again next week for the Saturday Morning Car-Tune News!