« Maybe Nuclear War Isn't So Bad | Main | How Black is Your Heart? »

June 15, 2004

Big Sky Country

Posted by nerdling | June 15, 2004 12:08 AM

First things first. You should run, not walk, to see Bukowski: Born Into This. I saw it over the weekend and found it to be a profoundly interesting and moving film—and, ultimately, one of the best documentaries I've seen.

I, much like the rest of the purportedly neanthropic alt-country fans, love Uncle Tupelo; unlike my fellow troglodytes, however, I don't bear Jeff Tweedy ill over the increasingly meandering pop compositions from Wilco. I've generally leaned more toward Tweedy than Farrar in a post-Tupelo world, but Jay Farrar's new album could be really, really good judging from the songs available here. Steel guitar and piano! I've died and gone to heaven.

As a child I didn't spend much time watching television, but there were certain highlights: "Fraggle Rock," "Rainbow Brite," "Thundercats" and "Masters of the Universe" are early memories, followed by remnants of my sister's Nickelodeon fetish during my latter childhood. We watched a lot of "The Adventures of Pete and Pete." I'd be hard pressed to describe anything about the show except a few small details: both stars had red hair, the younger brother had a sailor's tattoo on his forearm, the dad was bald and bumbling, and the opening credits featured some weird nerd-pop band playing on a lawn.

All these many years later, I've found out that that band is Polaris and they write some damn catchy pop songs, like "Waiting for October."

"We sacrificed everything," he says. "Maybe that was dumb, but it was a great story about an important band that no one understood. The Ramones just wanted to be a band and follow their passion. And that's what we did." Though plagued by legal and financial difficulties and the untimely death of Joey Ramone, End of the Century has a tentative release date of late summer 2004.