Wednesday, March 5, 2014

CASSETTE REVIEW: rabbitsquirrel “Moths ate the ballast while the captain slept”


                In another life I am either a movie maker or film critic because movies are more than just a hobby to me.   I enjoy movies from Roger Corman to people you have probably never heard of before but make similar styles only with less of a budget.    This is probably why I find myself relating music to movies (and their soundtracks) so much, but I don’t really ever see that as a bad thing.

                Among the noises of deep laughing, which reminds me of some horror movie, there are Transformers (particularly what I like to think of as being Megatron) and then this whole first side sort of takes a turn towards Jaws before ending with synth drone ala “Tom Sawyer” (the Rush song) and beeping loops.

                The second side picks up, with some chanting of sorts followed by almost siren-like whirrs.   This reminds me of Elvis for some reason, and not as a musician but rather as an actor.

                When you go to Graceland and stay at the Heartbreak Hotel, they have a channel that shows exclusively Elvis movies.

                The sirens reminded me of “Jailhouse Rock”, obviously, but as I went back and thought about what I heard on the previous side it began to make sense.   Granted, Elvis never battled giant robots that change into things in any of his movies, but the sounds I heard of Jaws could very easily be placed to any of Elvis’ beach blanket party movies.  (Clambake, for example)

                If you wanted to really get right down to it, the beeping loops could even be done as an homage to the classic Elvis movie “Speedway”, which was about racecars. 

                So I see this as a play in two acts, yes, but I see the play as being a tribute to the film career of Elvis Presley, sort of in the way that “Bye, Bye Birdy” is about Elvis going into the army.  Except, you know, this is lo-fi and ambient instead of pop.    As a stage play though, with the visuals of Elvis, this is something that I would definitely go see performed live, yet makes for an impressive tape nonetheless.







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