Music: Ziggy Marley - Family Time

This August, I will be making my second trip to Lollapalooza. I went in 2008, mainly, to see Rage Against the Machine. They were incredible. I also got to see other artists I enjoyed; such as Louis XIV, Butch Walker, and The Black Keys. I was even turned on to some new artists: Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s, Gogol Bordello, and the Ting-Tings… Yes, the Ting-Tings. And it even made me LESS of a fan of some bands. (Radiohead and Brand New). That weekend made a huge impression on a lot of my current listening habits. Regrettably, I missed out on Lollapalooza the past two years. However, I will fix that, this year. I will attend Lollapalooza 2011.

As luck would have it, local radio station Radio 92.3 FM has agreed to let me submit reviews of the3-day festival to their website. Hopefully, they will like my reviews and analysis of Lollapalooza, and post it up on their website. I am very excited for this opportunity.

Obviously, there are tons of bands that I am not familiar with. So, I am taking it upon myself to get a few new CDs by some of these artists to familiarize myself, get to know them a little better, so I can make a fair judgment of their performances. I already have OK Go, deadmau5, Fitz and the Tantrums, Cage the Elephant and more, but I’m still looking for a few specific artists I plan to see. So, I went to the used CD store (The Exchange) to look for the latest Flogging Molly and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley.

While looking in the reggae section, which at first glance seems to be made up entirely of various Marley family members, my eyes skim over Ziggy Marley. Instantly, I’m reminded of a CD I heard was released a few years ago by Ziggy. It was a children’s CD. I now have a child. I gave a quick look, and found it. It’s titled Family Time. I decided that my daughter will love this CD. Sorry Damian, you’re going to have to wait, listening to music with my 3-month-old daughter comes before Lollapalooza preparations.

The reason for the title is painted clearly in the lyrics of the title track and all over the insert book. Ziggy sings, “Now the world gets busy, but it’s not hard to see, Family means the most to me.” I can’t help but agree with you Ziggy. Now that I have a family, I can’t think of anything that could ever be more important Family Time is delivering its clear, focused point at every turn, and that is that family is important. Despite being a children’s CD, this is no mere collection of silly songs. They have meaning. Nearly every song here delivers the same message on family, but in different ways. 

My favorite, on this album, is Cry, Cry, Cry, which seems more geared towards parents with its lyrics. Jack Johnson assists on this track, in which the lyrics say,

“Mommy loves to work and daddy loves to play,

Sometimes daddy got to go far away,

 I’m too young to go quiet in the night,

Try to put me to sleep I’m gonna give it a fight.

 I’m gonna cry, cry, cry…”

and

“Wake you up at 5 am,

Before the sunrise I’ll be your friend,

And you know I don’t like for you to take too long,

Just come running when you hear this song.

I’m gonna cry, cry, cry…”

Obviously, I’ve always known babies wake up in the middle of the night. But now having a baby of my own, and hearing Ziggy sing these words from the point of view of my 3-month-old daughter makes me laugh. Occasionally the lyrics seem a little too deep and insightful. From the aforementioned Cry, Cry, Cry, we hear,

“Practice makes perfect and that I agree,

So don’t be surprised that I want to be free,

I know what I know and that’s all that I know,

 But I been told you reap what you sow.”

What is a child supposed to get out of lyrics like that? Don’t worry. Lines like that are few and far between. In Ziggy Says we get back to easily hummable repetitive verses where every line opens with “Ziggy says…”, like,

 “Ziggy says sing like a bird,

Ziggy says hiss like a snake,

Ziggy says roar like a lion,

Ziggy says talk like an ape.”

As I listen to this album, I’m realizing this isn’t just a children’s CD, but it is a whole family CD. Even in ABC, where Ziggy goes through the whole alphabet, “A is for Africa. B is for Brother…” And so on. “J is for the Jammin’” makes me smile every time. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Ziggy sings of the importance and value of family. So why would he make a CD to purely entertain a child? I really enjoy this CD. Now, most likely I will not put this on when I am by myself. But when it comes to music to listen to on road trips with screaming children in the back seat, this will easily be my first pick. I just hope my daughter grows to enjoy this CD, so she will be just as excited to listen to it with me, as I am I to listen with her.

Comics: Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths #1

So, I’m a week late with this review. Not because I needed that much time to carefully choose my words. Nor is it because I was lazy and waited a week before sitting down to write it. It’s late because I work night shift, have a 3-month-old daughter, and currently have to share a vehicle with my wife. So, between sleeping during the day, taking care of a baby, and being without a car at random times, I just now found time to get to the comic shop. Not excuses. Facts. Now, on with the review.

First off, I hope you enjoy Godzilla as much as I do. I will most likely review every Godzilla title that is released from now until the end of time. I currently love the Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters series, but due to the time I am starting this review blog, I will wait until the first arc comes to a close, review it as a whole, then pick up reviewing issue-by-issue. But this isn’t about Kingdom of Monsters, this is about Gangsters & Goliaths.

Reading through this first issue feels just like watching a 1970s era Godzilla movie. Using a Monster Island setting much like the one we see in 1968’s Destroy All Monsters only cements this nostalgia. Godzilla has a very large cult following in the U.S. He may not appeal to the mainstream audience, but there is no denying that those who follow him are true diehards. (see G-Fest) When dealing with an icon of this magnitude, there are two routes you could take.

1.       Reimagine and reintroduce the character in an effort to draw in new fans. (see the American 1998 release Godzilla, and ask TriStar how that worked out for them.)

2.       Play in to the stereotypes and clichés that helped set the initial groundwork for the character in the first place.

Clearly, this book goes with the second option, taking the stance:  “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” Here, we see writer John Layman able to recreate a classic Godzilla feeling, with a very simple plot. We are given our clear-cut good guy, and bad guys. We see a brief encounter between Godzilla himself, and long-time foe Mothra. In the final pages we are introduced to a pair of characters that fans of the franchise will easily recognize. Aside from all of the fan service, we are given a well written story. The characters seem generic for the most part, but you would be kidding yourself if you picked this book up for thrilling character development. You bought this book because of a giant, radioactive, fire-breathing, mutated dinosaur as well as his colorful cast of friends and enemies. I do not want to spoil this first issue for anyone who has yet read it, but I will say this: A very clear and purposeful point of this book is to show us monsters. Both the creatures living on Monster Island, as well as some of the men we see, and the choices they make.

As I said, this first issue feels just like watching the first 30 min of a classic Godzilla movie. I would not be surprised to see aliens show up before this series ends. But only if the aliens look like regular people wearing sunglasses. All in all, this book was a fun read as has me eagerly awaiting #2. My only concern is that I hope they can continue this genuinely retro, nostalgic feeling, while continuing to tell a truly entertaining story.

Comics: Articles I Wrote For www.PopMatters.com

After fooling around with blogspot for a while now, I've decided there is no easy way for me to organize my writing. So, I will just have to categorize my titles for quick reference. Notice the "Comics:" in the title... take a guess what that means. This post is all about... Comics! Here are the links:

Here is the link for my page, containing all my articles. But just in case that is a little overwhelming, (and just because I want to go a little more in depth) i will give you a link-by-link, walk through of my favorites.

Maximum Carnage: A Look Back was my first piece published on PopMatters. It was a feature that was on the web site's front page for a few days, and remained on the Comics page for close to a month before getting archived. One of the pieces I am most proud of. Non-comic people can easily understand this.

Slingers is one of my favorite comic book series of all time. Might not be as easily-accessible as the first article, but this one is shorter.

This Was Then: Godzilla - Age of Monsters was such a fun graphic novel to read. Godzilla will always hold a very special place in my heart, and this review does him justice.

This Was Then: Prodigal was another series I read for my blog while writing for PopMatters. I think this is my best review. If you only read one of these, please... this is the one to judge my writing by.

-Note- I mentioned my displeasure with the PopMatters editorial staff before. They butchered these articles grammatically. There are SO many times they make me sound repetitive. Like they wanted to restructure a sentence, but didn't delete the first part of it after they made their revision. So don't hold grammatical errors in these articles against me.

-Randy
Currently: At work, listening to Ludo

Why?

Why am I writing a blog?

Well, I like to write. I feel like I have good ideas and would love to be a writer some day. For a short time I had the privledge of writing comic book reviews for a website, PopMatters.com. I wrote for them for about six months. Between working 3rd shift (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.) and getting really irritated at the communication skills of my editor, I decided to stop writing. Looking back, I never should have stopped... I contacted the website to see if I could continue my blog I had. (titled "This Was Then". It was a look back to the 90s and the comic books of the time as they impacted the comic industry, and how they impacted me.) They said "no", without much of a reason. I then submitted a piece for their music section, which desperately needed submissions. That got shot down as well. At first I was frustrated. I don't handle rejection well. Rejection motivates some people, but not me. I need encouragement to keep going. Luckily, I have an encouraging wife. I told her that one of the things that upset me the most about getting rejected was that I was so excited to write the article I submitted for the music section. She told me start writing a blog and post it anyways. So I will. And I will post other comic book reviews. And concert reviews. And my thoughts on the local sports scene. So, that is why I am writing this blog. Because of my passion  for telling the world my thoughts and ideas. And also because my wife motivates me and encourages me to keep following my dreams. I want to be a writer. I think this is the next step.

-Randy
Currently: At work, listening to Broken Radio by Pistol Grip