I couldn’t go back to my old Altec Lansing 221 speakers either – they worked alright – but treble and resolution were completely missing and after a few months of using the Swans, it was unbearable. So I ended up buying another pair of speakers, this time I opted for M-Audio’s AV40.

Right out of the box, I found the speakers’ bass overwhelming even without using the bass boost feature. I put this down to speaker placement as the AV40s have a bass port at the back of the speaker and my limited desktop space means the speakers sit close to the wall. I used some foam to stuff up the port and that really helped.

So how do they compare to the Swans? I would say that I still prefer the Swans which sound slightly better (from recollection) and are less fussy with placement (because it has no ports). The AV40s also look and feel more tacky because of the use of plastic despite costing nearly twice as much. BUT, what’s the use of preferring the Swans if they are so unreliable? On the plus side for the M-Audio is the speaker wires are just normal speaker wires, so they are replaceable and upgradable.

Don’t get me wrong, the M-Audio AV40s are nice and are definitely an upgrade on run-of-the-mill PC speakers which really aren’t cheap these days. And they are keeping me happy too.

Listening to the new CDs I bought (I think it is the Legacy Edition, with 2 CDs and 1 DVD), I could immediately hear the difference and it is one of the most night and day experiences I’ve heard from different masters of CDs. I’m hearing a lot more percussions now and it really changed my impression of the album.

Highly recommended!

And now I finally have a reason to re-rip my CD collection to FLAC.

Of the albums above, I was particularly impressed by Devon Allman’s second album. Devon Allman is the son of Greg Allman (of the Allman Brothers Band) and his band Honeytribe plays a contemporary brew of blues rock that is not un-similar to Govt Mule. Devon Allman and his band have been playing music for a while, but since he isn’t on a major label, the CDs are relatively hard to find and he doesn’t get too write-ups in the press. I came across Space Age Blues online and found the songs on the album very listenable and the quality of the musicianship high. Huey Lewis also plays some guest harp on the album.

The other major find was Karen Elson, a fashion model turned musician. Her debut album The Ghost Who Walks was produced by her husband, Jack White of the White Stripes. This is not a vanity project, however. The music on The Ghost Who Walks is atmospheric and original, and in my opinion, superior to a lot of new acts.

Of those 10 songs, I only know The White Stripes’s Seven Nation Army and Velvet Revolver’s Slither. To my classic rock tuned ears, Seven Nation Army at least has a muscular and memorable riff; can’t say the same for Slither. And I haven’t really listened to any of the songs or albums from the rest of the bands on the top 10 riff list.

1. Plug in Baby – Muse
2. Slither – Velvet Revolver
3. Afterlife – Avenged Sevenfold
4. The Dark Eternal Night – Dream Theater
5. Knights of Cydonia – Muse
6. No One Knows – Queens of the Stone Age
7. Seven Nation Army – The White Stripes
8. Halo – Machine Head
9. Mr Brightside – The Killers
10. Beast And The Harlot – Avenged Sevenfold

Oh dear. I think I’ve become an old fart …

Related Articles

Muse have ‘greatest riff of century’ (telegraph.co.uk)
Muse song named greatest riff of the 21st century (independent.co.uk)

While the most famous version of the song is undoubtedly Donna Summer’s version, I knew MacArthur Park was written by someone else and the disco queen is merely performing an inspired cover. What came as a shocker to me was that the first known release of the song on an album was by Richard Harris, aka The Man Called Horse. I know Harris mainly as an actor and never knew he was also a singer. I did a quick search on YouTube and found the song. Surprisingly, Harris does a nice version of the song, one that I see myself going back to enjoy.

And here is Donna Summer’s disco classic for comparison.

Orchestra Baobab, according to Wikipedia, is a Senegalese band. They were basically the house band at the Baobab Club, one of Dakar’s fanciest nightspots.  The band was formed in 1970, and fused Afro-Cuban rhythm and Portuguese Creole melody with Congolese rumba, high life and a whole gamut of local styles.

Their most famous album is Pirate’s Choice, originally recorded in 1982, but only released in Europe in 1989. It was massively popular in France. The album was re-released again in 2001 as a double CD with extra tracks. With renewed interest, Orchestra Baobab recorded an album of new material – the result was Specialist In All Styles. Their performance I saw on David Letterman was a song of that album called Bul Ma Miin, and it totally convinced me to go out and get their albums.

Orchestra Baobab’s music has a very relaxed feel; the slyly intoxicating Cuban beats are embellished with extraordinary guitar work and tasteful saxophones. It is hard to describe the music, but I hear blues, jazz as well as reggae influences. Here is a clip of the band performing one of their signature tracks Utrus Horas :

Link to biography section of Orchestra Baobab’s official website.

Let’s reunite Ekin Cheng 鄭伊健 and Jordan Chan 陳小春 from the Young And Dangerous series in a satire of the Hong Kong triad movie. This time, instead of plots to become the head of the gang, our heroes don’t want to become the new Godfather as it means police harassment and eventual jail time. We can sell this as Old And Not So Dangerous.

The film started its run today in Hong Kong. And I did have a good time – it was mostly funny. Most of the comedy points at the fact that most gangsters simply want to make more money which translates to more power and influence. The outdated model of gang elders electing a new leader is presented as both silly and not very democratic; like Johnny To’s 杜琪峰 Election movies, Once A Gangster also pokes fun at Hong Kong’s electoral system but in a more light-hearted fashion. Other running gags include a bumbling undercover cop named Yan (satirizing Tony Leung Chiu Wai’s character in Infernal Affairs, which was co-directed by Alan Mak 麥兆輝, the producer of this film) and Swallow’s (Ekin Cheng character) desire to study Economics at the University of Hong Kong instead of becoming gang head.

Like most comedies I see, the makers of the film fail to make the premise and gags in Once A Gangster work over a feature-length film. There are moments in the middle part of the film where Once A Gangster is pretty much a straight forward gangster movie and not much of a satire. And Candice Yu’s 余安安 grating performance as Swallow’s mother annoyed the hell out of me – and let me say this, I was a great fan of Candice Yu when she was young (i.e. back in her television days with RTV). She looked real cute back then.

As a matter of interest to film buffs, Once A Gangster was co-scripted by Chapman To 杜文澤.

In concluding, I would recommend Once A Gangster, but would hesitate calling it a great movie.

Last week, I finally got to see the movie as it has been wide released in Hong Kong. Classified as a Category III film in the territory, the producers have marketed Dream Home 維多利亞壹號 primarily as a cult gore film much more than as a social commentary. Josie Ho stars as a common telemarketer struggling to make ends meet; apart from her day job, she works a couple of part-time jobs at night as well. Her ultimate goal and obsession is to buy her dream home, not just any apartment, but one that oversees Victoria Harbor. When she finally has the cash to pay the deposit for her dream flat, however, the sellers decide to withdraw the flat from the market. Shocked and outraged, she decides to go all out in order to secure the apartment.

So what does this “all-out” entail? Well, Josie Ho’s character basically kills and maims the tenants living adjacent to the apartment she wants to buy. She succeeds and the massacre means that the flat is now no longer “desirable”. I don’t know how people in other countries view this, but with Chinese, the re-sell value of property would be significantly lower if anything nasty has happened in or near an apartment.

The film jumps back and forth in time: it starts with Josie on a rampage, and jumps back to show us her miserable life living in a cramped and old home with her parents. I suspect this narrative device helps spread out the murders, making it more palatable than having it all in one go in the final 30 minutes; it also means gore fans won’t have to wait an hour for anything gruesome to take place.

Much has also been said of the social commentary aspects of the film. Yes, they are there: property developers using under-handed tactics to force poor families from their homes for re-development and the impossibility of a white collar worker to even save enough for down payment for any home. It’s all there, and it works as the force that pushes Josie Ho’s character over the edge.

Anyway, what’s going to secure cult status for this film isn’t insight into social issues like ever-escalating-never-affordable property prices but how much gore there is. Let’s see, we have death by suffocation via plastic bag and vacuum cleaner, skulls bashed in by golf clubs, disembowelment, planks shoved down the mouth, screwdrivers through the back of the head, eyeballs squashed on the floor … I can’t remember all the ways people die. There is some sex and a guy does have his penis cut off. Pang employs a comic touch to all these proceedings so it doesn’t come off as overly revolting – some scenes actually solicited a few laughs.

As a final note, production quality is but no means low. I mention this because for many, if you say cult Hong Kong film, they think Riki-Oh. That’s one super low-budget film. No, Dream Home is a superior product: handsomely shot, well-written dialogue, and decent special effects.

Recommended viewing and arguably the best cult film to come out of Hong Kong in quite a while.

Dio was a much-loved metal singer, diminutive in size but expansive in vocal range. From Elf, to Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and fronting his own band, Dio never buckled to passing trends and made pretty much the same type of fantasy based metal that hit its prime in the late 1970s and 1980s. Although his type of metal was eclipsed by grunge music in the 1990s, Dio nevertheless continued to produce the same sort of mystical metal till his death.

Ronnie James Dio came to prominence with Rainbow. While Rainbow’s nominal frontman was Richie Blackmore, Dio’s distinctive vocals immediately become a huge selling point; Rainbow’s first 2 albums are rightly considered masterpieces in the classic rock / hard rock genre. When Ozzy Osbourne quit Black Sabbath, Dio became his replacement. While Dio was never going to be able to replace Ozzy as the iconic Sabbath vocalist, he did manage several solid albums with a deteriorating Sabbath. A few years ago, a nice compilation of Dio’s Sabbath years was released.

In 1983, Dio formed his own band and released the classic 1980s metal album Holy Diver. Holy Diver is one of the best metal albums from the 1980s and features an extremely solid band with lead guitarist Vivian Campbell (previously Thin Lizzy, would then join Whitesnake and eventually Def Leppard) at the pinnacle of his guitar shredding days.

Here is a clip of the band performing their hit Rainbow In The Dark off their debut album Holy Diver. The performance was recorded off a late night television show shortly after the release of the album, and features Ronnie James Dio at the peak of his career. More clips of Dio.

Last year, Dio reunited with his Black Sabbath band mates. Heaven and Hell was essentially Black Sabbath Mk II and their 2009 album The Devil You Know was a welcome return to form.

New York Times ArtsBeat article

Ronnie James Dio Wikipedia entry

I bought my first Hawkwind CD over a decade ago – this was the compilation called Anthology 1967-1982 and while the music was patchy, the sound quality dubious on many tracks, I did fell in love with their music. Once I started to explore the band’s discography, many problems arose: their key studio albums aren’t easy to find (at least over here they aren’t) and Hawkwind have a very messy list of sub-standard compilations across a large number of record labels. Having said that, even on some of the cheap compilations discs, I normally do manage to find a few solid tracks to like.

Of the Hawkwind albums that are readily available, I would recommend Space Ritual – re-issued a couple of years ago in a double CD Collector’s Edition – as the must-own album. Space Ritual is a live album recorded in 1972 and it captures the band in all its glory. According to the Wikipedia entry, the Q & Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came #8 in its list of “40 Cosmic Rock Albums”. Back when it was released, the music was advertised as “88 minutes of brain damage” – these days we are accustomed to some very loud music, so I would hardly call it brain damaging, although the music does retain a large amount of its aggression. The defining mark of Space Ritual are the extended tracks Lord of Light, Space is Deep, Orgone Accumulator Brainstorm, Sonic Attack and a truly excellent Master of the Universe. The riffs are uniformly excellent, punctuated by energetic busts of sax – this jam based music sounds very loose and free-form compared to contemporary music. I always get a kick listening to these tracks! The Collector’s Edition includes 11 bonus cuts, DVD concert footage, and three music videos – all of them worthwhile in my opinion. Space Ritual features Lemmy on bass and vocals. [review of Space Ritual @ All Music Guide]

A few months ago, I found an excellent BBC4 documentary on Hawkwind on YouTube. It is exceptionally informative, detailing the rivalry between the band members and contains excellent archival and live footage of the band.  I learned from this documentary that Stacia, a 6 ft 2 inches tall with a 52 inch bust according to Lemmy, used to be featured as an exotic dancer during Hawkwind’s live shows! She is the naked chick in the image at the top of this post.

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Pre-release reviews by the mainstream press were pretty negative, but that obviously didn’t really affect my desire to see the film (nor, I suspect, will they stop many others). At over 2 hours in length, Iron Man 2 does provide enough adrenaline pumping action to satisfy most viewers. While there is little character development, which was one of the strengths of the original Iron Man movie, and the plot goes all over the place, I suspect most viewers who simply want a good time will find this sequel more than satisfying.

As far as the story goes, the film begins with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) facing two problems: deteriorating health and the government’s desire to force him to hand over his battle suits. Soon a third problem arises in the form of Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who wants revenge on Stark of what Stark senior did to Vanko senior. Soon, Stark’s pal Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) flies away with one Iron Man Suit that gets fitted with multiple rocket launchers and Gatling guns and Vanko unleashes an army of battle droids on Stark. All hell breaks loose.

I am sure fanboys will be delighted with Scarlett Johansson’s role as the Natasha Romanoff aka the Black Widow. Johansson’s role was obviously an attempt to add some sex appeal to the franchise – while her role seems tacked on rather lazily, guys probably won’t mind some eye candy.

Iron Man 2 represents the return of Mickey Rourke to the blockbuster movie and this is the first post The Wrestler role I’ve seen him in. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really have much to do apart from looking mean. I’ve always like Rourke as an actor and find him excellent in Sin City. But I’m afraid The Expendables (coming later this summer) and Rambo V might sink his career again. As a side note, I’m not sure what villain he is playing in Iron Man 2; he looks like Whiplash to me, but the Hollywood Reporter lists him as Crimson Dynamo! I suppose he is a composite of the two.

Other fan moments : Samuel L. Jackson appears as Nick Fury, lends Tony Stark a hand in creating an updated power source and invites him to become a member of a special ops team. After the roller credits, a scene also hints at things to come, namely, Thor’s mystic hammer Mjöllnir is found in Mexico.

Overall, not as great as the first Iron Man film but still a great popcorn movie. Recommended.

Negative review @ Hollywood Reporter

Positive review @ Marsh Attacks

Ip Man 2 葉問 2 is probably one of the most talked about Hong Kong films of the year and rightly so as the first film was indeed quite a thrill to watch. Donnie Yen 甄子丹 reprises his role as the calm Wing Chun 詠春 master and reluctant hero; like the previous film, he is forced into action against the oppressive “rulers”, now corrupt British colonial officers instead of the invading Japanese military. But plot is really beside the point here – we are already way used to the clichéd formula whereby the protagonist first fights with the local lads / masters and then challenges the evil foreigner and teaches him a thing or two about humility. This was basically the plot in Fearless 霍元甲 (Jet Li’s 李連杰 Huo Yuanjia vs the Japanese), True Legend 蘇乞兒 (Vincent Zhao’s 趙文卓 Beggar So vs the Russians), and countless classics including Bruce Lee’s epic Fist of Fury (Lee’s Chen Zhen 陳真 vs the Japanese). This cliché has plague the kung fu movie (particularly those set in the late Qing and 20th century) and is probably offensive to non-Chinese viewers and stale even for Chinese viewers. Ip Man 2 doesn’t really bother to deviate from this.

But then most viewers of the film are probably just looking for awesome fights, which this film does deliver. Key to the films best fight is Sammo Hung 洪金寶 as Hung Jan Nam, master of Hung Kuen 洪拳. There are 3 extended and 2 short action set pieces.

The 3 extended scenes include:

1. Ip Man vs Hung’s protégés at the fish market. This is a classic one vs many fight and Ip Man even uses his fish market choppers as well.
2. Ip Man vs several kung fu masters including – the highlight of the film for me was the fight here against Sammo Hung’s character although Ip Man does trade with 2 others including one played by Shaw veteran Lo Meng 羅莽. All these fights take place on top of a table thus emphasizing balance, style as well as power. Hung is very impressive and the two exchange some very fast punches. Excellent scene!
3. Ip Man vs The Twister, a western boxer. The fight is decent but can’t compete with early fights. Initially Ip Man finds it hard to parry the Twister’s hard punches but eventually prevails of course.

The 2 shorter scenes are:

1. Leung (played by rising mainland Chinese star Huang Xiaoming 黃曉明) vs Hung’s protégés. Short scene that shows the Leung character perform some Wing Chun.
2. Hung vs The Twister. Hung challenges the Twister and gets his ass kicked as he runs out of gas.

Most of the other actors apart from Yen and Hung really have minor roles and little to no character development. The film takes place in 1950s Hong Kong and while I have no issue with the production quality of the sets and art design, I can’t say it works for me either. The overall look seems to be just another generic Chinese mid-20th century set; take out the Englishmen and it could be early 20th century Canton for all I care.

Overall, I did find Ip Man 2 more entertaining than True Legend while not quite measuring up to the original Ip Man from 2008. I still prefer Donnie Yen’s contemporary actioners Kill Zone and Flash Point as I feel they represent progression in terms of action choreography. Still, Ip Man 2 earns a recommended viewing!

Ip Man 2 review @ Twitch

Official Ip Man 2 website

I found the Korean White Night very entertaining and apparently it is the director Park Shin-woo’s debut feature film. I went in with no preconceived ideas or expectations since I hadn’t read the book. Seen as a thriller / blockbuster, White Night succeeds in providing viewers with an engrossing whodunit plot. The suspects in these murders include a gigolo and a beautiful woman who is on the verge of marrying a business tycoon and launching her own fashion line. The film starts with a series of murders and gradually unfolds by jumping back and forth between the present and the past to unravel the mystery. Production values are solid, the plot is fast paced and while I don’t know too many of the actors in the film (I’m not that knowledgeable in South Korean stars), they did seem believable in their respective roles. Son Ye-jin stars in the leading role, and although she is an award-winning actress in South Korea, I have never seen any of her movies. The only star I recognized was Han Seok-kyu, whom I remembered from the blockbuster Shiri. Labeled a Category III film in Hong Kong, White Nights has a few sex scenes but I didn’t find them excessively explicit and didn’t really notice any frontal nudity; I suspect the classification has more to do with one of the character’s pedophilic tendencies.

Overall, I had a good time and rate this as one of the better thrillers I’ve seen so far this year.

Postscript : I enjoyed the movie so much I ended up reading the novel afterwards. The film basically only borrows the the opening and closing chapters from the novel, a good decision as the books are quite expansive. The novel uses a linear narrative that covers the characters’ progression from primary school children to scheming adults. The movie simply focuses on the final part of the novel with the characters on the verge of fulfilling their dreams when every thing comes crashing down; flashbacks are used to explain their motives and elaborate ploys. Judged on its own, I still think White Night the film is a success.

Review @ HanCinema : Love lurks in the shadows in White Night.

For some time, I have saved these music clips within YouTube but the way they organize saved favorites makes it difficult and time-consuming to find stuff. So I decided to embed them in a blog (easy enough with the share to blogger function) and have them tagged properly.

These music clips range from live performances to music videos and pure audio tracks (ripped from CDs) with images as visual. I will still post music clips here if I want to elaborate on the songs, but for simple music only entries, the new blog is much easier to navigate.

Enjoy!

Filed under: Music, Video ]]> http://ummagumma.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/music-clips-at-new-blog/feed/ 2 Jubei-Music-Clip-28-Apr-202 Jubei