TMNT #20 (1989, inks by Eric Talbot) & TMNT #28 (1990)
Jim Lawson has been a Mirage Studios staff artist since 1986. He’s completely unknown outside of the TMNT community but he is far and away the most prolific illustrator of TMNT comics, pencilling over 100 full-length TMNT comics plus several short stories and even a year of the TMNT newspaper comic strip. Lawson’s style has evolved a lot over the years, going from round and chunky to lean and angular. His most famous creation is probably the enigmatic Rat King. PS – He’s my favorite comic artist.
TMNT II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) & TMNT Adventures #9 (1990)
So just last week Greg asked if I had anything in the works for “Stuck on Repeat.” I confessed to him that, while I had been listening to music quite regularly due to my new job allowing for plenty of ipod time, there was nothing getting repeated play. Then this week, while listening to NPR’s “All Songs Considered” at said job, this song came up. When it was finished, as you might guess, I proceeded to listen to it several times more.
Grizzly Bear is a pretty hot-shit band right now. Many people would throw “indie” in there, but I think when you’re new album, Veckatimest, debuts at #8 on the Billboard charts, you kind of lose that adjective. Sorry dudes.
Anyway, it’s the perfect track to pull me out of this musical funk. I love that it’s such a simple song. Essentially propelled by a constant plinking of a few piano/Rhodes notes and countered by a stuttering rhythm section that has to wait until the choruses to fully join in. I’m somewhat surprised this hasn’t become a summer hit. I believe it’s light, breezy and sing-along-enough to break big. But what do I know.
Oh, and since I don’t even own this album, I can only share the video with you, which is definitely in the running for most unsettling video of the year. But who are we kidding, we all know that DM’s “Wrong” is going to win by a mile!
Long story short: Eastman and Laird created the TMNT back in 1983 and debuted them the following year with a comic book of the same name. They were heavily involved in the series from 1984 to about 1989 when they become more involved in business management than comics. Most of the Eastman and Laird issues were basically graphic novellas, consisting of 40-50 pages and usually self-contained stories. These issues introduced the main characters and mythos plus many other characters, organizations and situations that were later made famous by the toys, cartoon, and movies, including: Shredder, the Foot Clan, Baxter Stockman, the Mousers, Casey Jones, Triceratons, and Fugitoid.
TMNT Book IV First Comics Collection cover by Eastman
TMNT #11 cover by Eastman
TMNT Guide to the Universe RPG book cover by Laird
TMNT #10 cover by Eastman and Laird
Donatello: TMNT Micro-Series #1 cover by Laird
TMNT #14 cover by Eastman
TMNT #1 interior art by Eastman and Laird
Donatello: TMNT Micro-Series #1 interior art by Eastman and Laird
Cookies!!!! yeah, I’m too tired and I think my eye is dying…and there aren’t many bands playing that I want to see. So, I stayed home and made cookies.
Santigold: Easily the best performance of the day. It was the last day of her tour, and everything was polished to a tee. She had probably the best atitude/morale I’ve seen so far and seemed geniuinely excited/thankful to be playing Lolla. Annd, her vocals sounded the complete opposite of someone that is on the last day of tour. Pretty amazing, expecially considering the strange vocals she does. Santigold had two dancers with her, each one standing on either side of her on the stage. The dancers wore matching gold and black costumes and did choreographed robotic/show choir/military type moves during her set. So, dance party ensued.
Her setlist isn’t up yet, but she played all of her bigger songs from Santogold, including “I’m a Lady,” “Anne,” “Unstoppable,” “Lights Out,” and “Creator.” She also played a cover of the Cure’s “Killing an Arab.”
Animal Collective: I’m not very familiar with this indie weird-noise band, but I do enjoy the song that has the iPod-ish music video. I wasn’t incredibly impressed and we couldn’t see anything, other than the art-school looking animations they played on the jumbotron.
The video isn’t very good, but it kind of gives you idea of what it was like.
Tool: The headliner for Saturday is another band I’m not wild about, but I stayed long enough to see them play “Stinkfist” and to admire their 80-foot tall pentagram and skull. Tool is one of those bands that has really cultish fans that sing along to every song and wear Tool shirts to Tool concerts.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: They played at the same time as Tool and were the last-minute replacement for the Beastie Boys. I wandered to the other end of the park after thirty minutes of Tool (so like 2 Tool songs) to see them play. As much as I like this band, I was a little disappointed, even with the last-minuteness in mind. Karen’s outfits weren’t half as wild as I was hoping and thought she was known for. Her outfits were 1) a slightly native looking flag drapped over her shoulders 2) a boring floral dress that could have been worn by any girl there 3) her leather jacket that she seems to love. Also, she had to stop two separate songs because she “forgot the lyrics.” One of those songs was “maps.” Seriously, that’s one of her major songs with the easiest lyrics. Maybe she was nervous or drunk or who knows?
1. Runaway
2. Phenomena (Listed as “Phenom (Beastie Break)” on setlist )
3. Heads Will Roll
4. Pin
5. Dull Life
6. Gold Lion
7. Cheated Hearts
8. Skeletons
9. Hysteric
10. Soft Shock
11. Honeybear
12. Zero
13. Turn Into
14. Maps (acoustic)
15. Y Control
16. Date With the Night
Bands I wish I could have seen on Day 2, but couldn’t cause it’s a huge, hot, crowded fest: TV on the Radio, Atmosphere, Diplo. Today, my eye is bothering me and the heat is worse than yesterday. And, there aren’t really any bands I’m dying to see, so I probably won’t be there as long.
So this ‘NES Master’ thing I’ve been doing is basically just NGR so I’ll just fold it into that. Basically, I think I was getting antsy to do NES stuff so I jumped ahead and I’ll just stick with it. I’ll be reorganizing NGR by console now so must of what I’ve done so far will just go into the new arcade section of NGR.
PS – I said I was going to stop doing write-ups and that’s true for most games. However, for the more obscure games that I want people to know about, I’ll do a little info write-up. Goodbye.
I’ve heard a lot of people say things along the lines of “I would die before going to Lollapalooza.” or “The crowds and heat are atrocious!” Well, even though the latter is definitely true, I still couldn’t not buy a three-day pass. Here’s my rundown of day one:
Ben Folds: I’m not a huge fan or terribly familiar, but I do have a couple of his albums (Whatever and Ever and Amen and The Unauthorized Biorgraphy of Reinhold Messner). I didn’t recognize all the songs he played, but hearing hits, such as “Kate” and “Army” was enjoyable. Grade: B
1 Bitch Went Nutz
2 Effington
3 Landed
4 Bitches ain’t shit
5 Dr. Yang
6 Hiroshima
7 Rockin the Suburbs
8 Kate
9 Narcolepsy
10 You Don’t Know Me
11 Army
Crystal Castles:This band is some indie techno import that I was really excited to see. Maybe it was the fact that we were standing kind of far back and it was raining and cold, but I wasn’t that impressed. Overall, the performance seemed uninspired, or inspired by Karen O. Grade: C-
Thievery Corruption:Ugh, I hate most global sounding stuff that isn’t actually global, and TC was no exception. Supposedly, one of their songs was played in the movie, Garden State.
Peter, Bjorn and John: This is a band that opened for Depeche Modes and one that I’ve been meaning to check out. I didn’t get to see much, and I think I’m still going to have to listen to an album or two to understand them.
Nothing to Worry About
Living Thing
It Beats Me Every Time
??
Amsterdam
It Don’t Move Me
Lay It Down
Just the Past
Young Folks
Objects of My Affection
Up Against the Wall
Of Montreal: I’ve seen these guys before. It was enjoyable like the last time and they do wacky shit, so good show. Wacky shit examples: girl on cross-like structure; 10-foot long orange hairy arms; bunches of balloons and confetti; weird masks; etc. Grade: B+
1. Nonpareil of Favor
2. Bunny Ain’t No Kind Of Rider
3. Id Engager
4. For Our Elegant Caste
5. Moonage Daydream (David Bowie cover)
6. The Party’s Crashing Us
7. Rapture Rapes the Muses
8. A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger
9. Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games
10. Beware Our Nubile Miscreants
11. Touched Something’s Hollow
12. An Eluardian Instance
13. Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse
14. She’s A Rejecter
Depeche Mode: Ah, the main band I really wanted to see. And, it was nothing short of amazing. DM made use of the jumbotrons by incorporating some goth art (a red, blinking eyeball above a picture of a single crow) and some confusing art (a young black man’s face. then a fat person in a circle running like a hampster wheel. then an old gandolf-looking man. let me know if you get this.). They played for about an hour and forty-five mintues and played a good mix of new and old stuff. Unfortunately, they did not play my favorite DM song, But Not Tonight. Oh, well. Another note is that DM could not have played in a more appropriate atmosphere than they did last night: completely overcast sky that threatened rain against the super modern skyscrapers. Grade: A+
1. In Chains
2. Wrong
3. Hole to Feed
4. Walking In My Shoes
5. It’s No Good
6. A Question of Time
7. Precious Thing
8. Touch Me
9. Home
10. Come Back
11. Policy of Truth
12. In Your Room
13. I Feel You
14. Enjoy the Silence
15. Never Let Me Down Again
(Encore)
16. Stripped
17. Personal Jesus
I would be okay if Lollapalooza was only one day because it’s 94 degrees out today and I’m already exhausted. I’m lazy, but if you are really interested in looking at all the set-lists/photos, etc, the Lolla website is pretty handy. hope i survive the next two days.
"Being Strangled" b/w "Us Mere Mortals" (02/08/11)
"Billy and the Black Spot Under an Ugly Moon" (01/11/11)
"Radio Prohibidas" b/w "Never Know" (01/11/11)
"Merry Christmas (Don't Forget To Write)" (12/25/10)
"I'll Take The Bullet For You" b/w "Zenith/Nadir" (12/14/10)
"Warholism (Is Polaroiding)" b/w "Among The Saints" (11/09/10)
"Frantic Prayer" b/w "Kicking The Tires" (10/12/10)
"Gravitational Collapse" b/w "Carcinogenic Kiss" (9/14/10)
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