Happy 70th Birthday Superman

Man of Steel Memories Part 1

The first issue of Action Comics, where Superman made his faster than a speeding bullet debut, was published 70 years ago this month. Any old-timer (or their lucky grandchild) in possession of a 'near mint' copy can expect to sell it for half a million dollars according to Wikipedia.

I've been obsessed with the Man of Steel for as long as I can remember. His adventures almost certainly triggered my fascination with the United States and I'm embarrassed to admit that my reluctance to wear contact lenses might have something to with Superman's speccy alter-ego. So, to mark the Last Son of Krypton's eighth decade, I thought I'd share five of my Superman-related memories over the next week or so.

First up, my first ever trip to the cinema, aged four, on Saturday 9 May 1981 to see Superman II.

I know the date because I'm told it was the same day as the 100th FA Cup Final (Man City v Spurs - a draw), but Dad and our next door neighbour Eddie took me to the cinema in Bournemouth nonetheless. I've seen the film so many times since that I'm not sure what I recall watching it for the first time, but I think I became 'emotional' when our hero loses his powers.

I suppose my earliest encounters with Superman were via the comics but the films left the biggest impression on me. It was all well and good marvelling at drawings of a flying man but seeing it 'for real' was mind-blowing (I was only four remember). It wasn't just Superman's powers that struck me though. At primary school I remember replying to the "What would you like to do when you grow up?" question with "journalist", not because I liked writing but that the Daily Planet looked like a cool place to work.

That trip not only cemented my ongoing geeky relationship with Superman but also to cinema. Remarkably I can even remember what trailer preceded the film. It was Clash of the Titans and I was incredibly impressed by Pegasus the flying horse. Quite often when I'm in the cinema and the lights go down and the curtain pulls back I feel a pang of nostalgia for that first visit to the pictures.

Next time: How pretending to be Superman upset my grandad.

Shakespeare Was A Big George Jones Fan

Cult Film Corner #2: Cowboy Jack Clement's Home Movies

I bought this hugely enjoyable DVD, appropriately enough, in Nashville. Jack Clement is a Music City legend. Not only has he worked with the likes of Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis but his Nashville home is essentially a club house for country music outsiders. Townes Van Zandt, John Prine and Del McCoury have all recorded there. He is also obsessed with filmmaking. His only venture into feature films was a dodgy looking 1975 exploitation flick called Dear Dead Delila but he’s also recorded thousands of hours of home movie footage.

The brilliant and inventive Shakespeare Was A Big George Jones mixes excerpts from Clement’s home-made archive with off-beat interviews (including Jack chatting with an animated Bard). Hilarious Super 8 highlights include a stoned Johnny Cash (see video above) and Bono’s first ever welcome appearance in a documentary – drunk and doing an amusing Don Corleone impression.

Obviously the film will appeal most to those not averse to the sound of a steel guitar but it’s also a brilliant portrait of an American original. What comes across most though is what a generous soul Jack Clement is. Everybody loves this man. Watching this film makes it easy to know why.

Buy at Amazon

Shakespeare Was A Big George Fan DVD

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Stalking Tom Waits

A fan confesses, but it's not just me...

A few days ago vigilant Waits Watcher The Eyeball Kid wrote about a new book by a "Scottish musician and Tom Waits devotee" about his experiences following the Real Gone tour around Europe in 2004. The fan, a fella calling himself 'Raymy', was selling his opus, Stalking Tom Waits, via eBay for £3.50. Predictably, I put in my order and today a 36-page A5 photocopied 'book' arrived in the post.

It's an enjoyable, if slightly self-regarding volume (in the foreword Raymy dismisses the need of someone else having editorial control of his work; to be honest a friendly editor would've been handy). Nevertheless, it's a great yarn and one I could relate to to some extent. I'm like Raymy in thinking that Waits is the only musician I'd cross international borders to watch. I first saw Tom perform in Paris in 2000, flew to Berlin for one of the shows described in this book and have my Eurostar reservation for an encore Waits performance in Paris next month. Unlike Raymy I was lucky enough to buy my tickets to those three gigs at face-value from official outlets. The hook on which Raymy pegs his tale is that he had no tickets to any of the eight European concerts Tom played in 2004 but packed his bags and his guitar in search of entry to all of them.

What struck me about seeing Waits in Paris and Berlin was how many other people had travelled thousands of miles to see their hero. The bar next to the Grand Rex in Paris was like a United Nations of Waits fans after the gig and there were at least six others on the bus I was on from London going to France for the same reason as me. Raymy meets fellow Scots, folks from France, Norway and Spain on his travels. An Englishman gives Raymy his spare ticket for one of the Amsterdam shows for free after seeing him play a busker's set of Waits covers outside the theatre.

I can't think of anyone else who draws such mad devotion and I'm still not sure why it is. Obviously, the fact that Waits performs so rarely makes having the chance to see him play more alluring but ultimately I think it's probably the often oddball nature of Waits' songs that leads sane people to go to equally oddball lengths to glimpse him. Two examples. 1) My best friend James pretended to be a cripple to bag one of the few remaining tickets to see Waits in Los Angeles in 1999. 2) When the two of us saw him in Paris the following year we paid £8 each to stay in an absolute dive next to the concert venue, shared a room with PJ Harvey's roadie, and chalked up the shittiest hotel I've ever stayed at as an appropriately 'Waitsian' experience.

In his book Raymy finds himself sat next to Tom's tour manager, Stuart Ross, on the flight from Berlin to Amsterdam. Ross promises that Raymy might be able to meet his hero if he comes to the stage door after the Dutch concert. The meet'n'greet never happens. Raymy's lucky day finally arrives at Schipol airport when he does talk to Waits at the check-in gate. They have an amiable chat and Raymy suggests that should Tom return to Europe then a Scottish date would save him an awful lot of time and money. He writes, "Waits laughed, but didn't reply". I can only imagine what Raymy thought when he found out that the only UK date on Tom Waits' current tour is in Edinburgh.

Related Links

Stalking Tom Waits - buy Raymy's book on eBay

The Eyeball Kid - essential blog for Waits fans

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True Believer

Cult Film Corner #1: James Woods Fights the Power

Last month, my good friend Jeff Yungman (the only person I know to have been given the key to a city) passed the bar exam. Marking the occasion on his blog, our pal John Barner recalled that back when the two of them worked together valiantly trying to get inmates’ death sentences commuted they often imagined themselves as the stars of this legal thriller.

Until I’d read John’s post I’d never come across True Believer (1989) but the thought of John as Robert Downey Jr and Jeff as James Woods, coupled with the DVD’s very competitive price, meant it went straight into my Amazon basket.

Woods plays a washed-up 60s civil-rights activist reduced to defending drug dealers in New York. Downey Jr is the idealistic young apprentice who persuades him to take up the lost cause of a wrongly imprisoned Korean-American. I know why it appealed to Jeff and John.

I love a good crime thriller but knew I’d be in for a treat as soon as I glimpsed Luis Gusman in the opening scenes. That man is a mark of quality. True Believer looks great, has plenty of good twists and is blessed with the sort of synthesiser score that is sadly absent from modern cop movies.

There are also the incidental pleasures of James Wood’s ridiculous pony tail and the irony of watching a young Downey Jr moan about defending people caught in possession of drugs.

The Wire Prequels

More dedicated Wire viewers may have already seen these three short films. Being a slave to DVD box sets (this Onion story sums me up accurately) I still haven't seen the final series and am not sure when HBO produced these great little videos. If you're a fan of The Wire you are guaranteed to enjoy watching Bunk meet McNulty, and a young Omar and Proposition Joe.

When Bunk Met McNulty (2000)

Young Prop Joe (1962)

Young Omar (1985)

Related links

Stuff White People Like: #85 The Wire - funny, spot-on

Kinky Friedman

Jazz Cafe, Camden Town, Tuesday 3 June 2008

I’ve been aware of Kinky Friedman for years. Once you’ve heard his name, it’s not one you’re likely to forget. I’ve read a few of his humorous detective novels, knew of his involvement in Bob Dylan’s mid-70s Rolling Thunder Review tour and enjoyed following his optimistic bid for the Texas Governor’s mansion in 2006. I remember a tutor at Goldsmiths telling me that interviewing the Kinkster for the Jewish Chronicle was a professional high-point. Yet, considering he made his name as a country singer, until last night, I’d barely heard a song he’d written (despite them having such great titles as They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore).

Kinky took to the Jazz Café stage with his long-time guitarist Washington Ratso and gurning keyboard player Little Jewford (“he’s Jewish and he drives a Ford”). Their website accurately promised that “this is no ordinary musical tour; it's over-the-top entertainment!”. At one point Jewford, dressed in a jacket Kinky described as looking like “Liberace’s shower curtain”, did a Bill Bailey style turn, interpreting When the Saints Go Marching In, in Eastern European, classical, country and jazz styles, before finishing by playing it with his hands behind his back. We were also treated to Kinky’s recollections and policy ideas from the campaign trail and a reading from his latest book.

Many of his songs were funny (Asshole From El Paso), politically incorrect (Get Your Biscuits In The Oven and Your Buns in The Bed) and in poor, er, taste (Waitret, Please Waitret) but there was plenty in the set list that ‘serious’ singer-songwriters would be proud of. Sold American is a brilliant portrait of a fading country star and a fading nation and despite its tongue-in-cheek title, Ride ‘Em Jewboy is actually a reflection on the Holocaust. The set ended with two classics, Woody Guthrie’s Pretty Boy Floyd and Peter La Farge’s tribute to Kinky’s “favourite American hero” The Ballad of Ira Hayes.

Still, most memorable were Kinky’s numerous witticisms and one-liners – and the cigar-chomper’s defiance of the smoking ban.

A Musical Conversion

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Boss

Tomorrow night I’ll be standing on the pitch at the Emirates Stadium watching Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. It will be the seventh time I’ve seen him perform. Ten years ago I’d never have predicted I’d ever write those last two sentences. But that was before my conversion to The Boss.

With hindsight I’m surprised it took me so long to come round to Bruce. I think the main reason is that I couldn’t shake the image of a denim-clad rocker plucking girls from the crowd to sing Dancing in the Dark. How ridiculous could you get?

Unlike many Springsteen detractors I knew Born in the USA wasn’t the tub-thumping anthem Team Reagan wished it to be. After No Depression listed Nebraska as one of its hundred essential albums I bought (but rarely listened to) Springsteen’s bleak, stripped-down 1982 LP. Still, even hearing him pay tribute to Woody Guthrie, cover Tom Waits or write songs inspired by one of my favourite books wasn’t enough to convert me. The scales only came off my eyes after witnessing the full-on live power of Bruce Springsteen and the “house rockin', pants droppin', earth shockin', hard rockin', booty shakin', love makin', heart breakin', soul cryin', death defyin' legendary E Street Band”.

In 2003 my friend Dave Mynard, a man for whom a Springsteen gig is a generation-spanning family outing, suggested that I join him, his sisters and his mum and dad to see the Boss on the May bank holiday weekend. The Rising world tour was coming to the distinctly unglamorous destination of Crystal Palace athletics stadium. Tickets weren’t cheap, but Springsteen’s new album had good reviews, Dave is an incredibly enthusiastic individual and curiosity must have got the better of me.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. It was if Bob Dylan had been crossed with both the 1950s hip-shaking Elvis and the crowd-pleasing, over-the-top incarnation of his Vegas heyday. There was absolutely no sense of irony as Bruce slid across stage on his knees, sparred with bandana loving guitarist Steve Van Zandt or gestured wildly at the crowd. All that concerned him and the band was entertaining thousands with the best rock ‘n’ roll show in the world. In the Guardian’s review of the show Alex Petridis wrote that “the on-stage antics at a Springsteen concert, should be painfully embarrassing. However, the singer exudes an appealing earnestness that lets him get away with hokum”. That perfectly summed up my feelings. I was captivated.

I recall reading that after Springsteen and the E Street Band’s first ever London show at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1975 John Peel sniffily dismissed them as little more than jumped-up Yankee throwbacks. I think that's unfair. At Crystal Palace Sprinsgteen channelled all of his classic American musical influences – soul, rock’n’roll, folk, girl groups, country – into something that sounded fresh rather than horribly nostalgic. He and the band combined this with such energetic showmanship and sheer love of performing that it felt like they were playing to 50 in a small club rather than thousands in a clapped-out arena. After a more than two-and-a-half hour show I was a Bruce Springsteen fan.

A few months later I started going out with Joanne, who, like Dave comes from a family of Springsteen fans (it turns out my new in-laws were at Crystal Palace en masse the day after me). Not only was the entire Bruce back catalogue at my disposal, I was with someone who would never want to miss an opportunity to see her musical hero. Since then we’ve seen Springsteen transfix the Albert Hall with just a guitar and piano, bring his old timey band to the tiny LSO St Luke’s for a barnstorming session of American folk songs and rock out the cavernous O2 Arena for the best ever pre-Christmas party. I have little doubt that everyone who sees The Boss in North London this weekend, despite him playing a 60,000 capacity football stadium, will find it a peculiarly intimate gig. There aren’t many performers who can pull that off.