First up, BLACK PANTHER writer -- and BET Prez -- Reginald Huldin:
* These days, I’ve been playing a lot of David Bowie… "Right”, from the YOUNG AMERICANS album, “Fantastic Voyage,” “Under Pressure”…all great records.
* Also been listening to a lot of Jill Scott, mixing all three of her albums: Tracks like “Be Ready”, “A Long Walk”, “Watching Me”.
* That new Beyonce song “Déjà Vu” is so hot, it’s like an outtake from OFF THE WALL-era Quincy Jones.
* Digging in the crates a little bit, been playing “Misdemeanor” by Foster Sylvers. One of the all time great bubble gum records of all time. Foster was supposed to be the next Michael Jackson, and everything about this records tells you why. Brilliant singing, songwriting and arrangements.
* In the new OutKast movie, there’s a couple of my favorite songs from the last album “Bowtie,” “Church” and “She’s Always In My Lap”….damn they are so damn funky.
Next up, WOLVERINE and BLADE writer Marc Guggenheim.
How about my five most-recently purchased?
1) “Not Ready To Make Nice” (Dixie Chicks) -- The first Dixie Chicks song I've ever bought. I'm not into country, but the tune is catchy and I really like the lyrics in light of the raw deal this group got from people who are so "patriotic" that they were troubled by anyone exercising their 1st Amendment right in a way that offended them.
2) “The Bridge” (Elton John) -- The guy's got a new single out. Who knew? Wanted to check it out...
3) “She's Always a Woman” (Shelly Berg Trio) -- I'm a big Billy Joel fan and downloaded this thinking it was a cover. It's not. It's all instrumental. Not bad, though.
4) “Everybody Knows” (Rufus Wainwright) -- A pretty cool cover of a very cool Leonard Cohen song. For some reason, Cohen's songs always sound better when someone else is singing them.
5) “Further On Up the Road” (Johnny Cash) -- Not a Johnny Cash fan, but I was really curious to hear his cover of one of my favorite Springsteen songs. I still like Bruce's version much better, but this one's growing on me.
If you've read Ghost Rider #2 yet, you know that the good Doctor is showing up in GR #3 and judging from this image, he and GR won't be talking over a cup of tea and some lemon cookies.
What's going on? Why are they fighting? And most important, who will win?
With the debut of PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #1 selling out in days and the debut of IRON FIST today, Matt Fraction’s been a busy boy. We asked him to take a few moments to tell us what’s on his iPod these days.
Says Matt: I'm hitting shuffle, and writing about the first song that plays. Then, when I'm done, I'll write about whatever else is playing. Five random songs. Let's see what iPod says:
1.”Hallujah," Leonard Cohen - The Best of Leonard Cohen.
I think I kind of hate Leonard Cohen. I mean, look at him. He's one of those guys that was born fifty. He looks like a guy in Tom Jones' entourage that hangs around to hook up with the skanks too skanky for Tom, doesn't he? What's rock and roll about a turtleneck sweater/blazer combo? There's no way that guy's mic doesn't sound like bourbon. Now let's talk about the "music." It's like there's a short bus of session musicians and they go back and forth from the Laughing Academy to Leonard Cohen's recording studio. It's like the last thing Leonard Cohen wants you thinking about as you listen to his music is the music. Because, you know, it just gets in the way of his "singing." And that's all that's left. That VOICE. It's how I always imagined Owen Meany to sound like, in spite of what John Irving says. What does John Irving know? That voice, that crazy, screwy voice. Leonard Cohen is a singer that makes Lou Reed sound like a trilling Castrato, a guy that Dylan listens to when even Dylan wants to shave his head and dig ditches for a living. Leonard Cohen sings like a plane crashing. And then, you listen to "Hallelujah" and hear a lyric like "It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth/the minor fall, the major lift, the baffled king composing Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah." I love Leonard Cohen.
2. “Raw Power," Iggy Pop & The Stooges - Metallic KO
This and, what, maybe Prince's BLACK ALBUM are the most infamous bootlegs of all time? It's October 1973. You're at some dump dive in Detroit and Iggy Pop is physical-izing a nervous breakdown on stage. So you whip a beer bottle at his head, or maybe some jelly beans. I don't know why people were whipping jelly beans at Iggy Pop, I don't know why people thought jelly beans were appropriate rock show food, but every accounting of this album's recording I've read said it was happening, so it was happening. So: 10/73. That means, on the radio, is, what, "China Grove" and "Your Momma Don't Dance" and, ho ho, "Midnight Train to Georgia." I'd want to throw bottles and jelly beans at somebody too. I've never really been a fan of live bootlegs-- I love the stage banter-- one of my favorite records last year was a bootleg compilation someone made of nothing but KISS stage banter from the seventies-- but really feel like you might as well be listening to the audio of somebody having sex for as much fun as you'll be having. But I keep this on the iPod in case there's some kind of Hipster Lockdown and I'm forced to prove my Hipster Cred at Checkpoint Charlie. Although Iggy's "YEAH! YEAH! Yeah! Yeah. Yeah... ....yeah." there at the end always kills me.
3. "I'm Set Free," The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground
Is it me, or that weird little lilting guitar solo at the end the exact same guitar solo The Pixies used in "Havelina'? There's a little outro bit at the end of an Urge Overkill song, thirty seconds of them clearly horsing around in the studio but, the thing is, the same sounds and chord progressions pop up on an Eliot Smith song from like eight years later. Anyway. Velvet Underground. I love the Velvet Underground. The first real band I was in, me and the guitar player were the ones that were into, you know, learning and stuff, and trying to write new stuff (those covers of RAPE ME and CREEP only get you so far). We'd found Queen via Nine Inch Nails (Halo 4, anybody with me? Anyone?) and Bowie via Queen and then the Velvets via Bowie. And, man. MAN! Unreal. The lesson? Always carry all of the Velvet Underground with you at all times. Here's why: one day you'll fall in love to them playing in the background, and the relationship will be crap but the memory of The Girl as "I'm Set Free" or "Venus in Furs" loops in your brain will be one of your favorites.
4. "King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1," Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
This record. My god, this record. This record is... it's like a singularity in space-time. Light bends around its edges. Essential in the wooing of my wife, before she was my wife. I sang this song into her answering machine one night because when you're in love you do doofy s--- like that. Anyway, woman wooed, and song hereby immortalized in our legend. At our wedding we made CDs for the guests, and this was the lead track. Well, after the answering machine message from THE ROCKFORD FILES. Can you imagine what it felt like to have made this album? I wanted to write a story about this guy, Jeff Mangum. And how he must've realized when they were done with this that that was it for him-- he's said what he had to say, and he'd never say it any better, and rather than diminish what he had accomplished he'd just sit down and stay quiet. Can you imagine? You're, what, 26 years old and you've made one of the most important and meaningful records of your era. Where do you find the strength of character to not keep going? How do you walk away from that? It staggers me. Both his decision and his work. I've listened to this album ten million times and I get goose-bumps every single time.
5. "Excellent, Mr. Renfield", Philip Glass - Dracula
Universal commissioned Philip Glass to create a whole new score for DRACULA for the anniversary a few years back. They re-released it into theaters, and then, on DVD, you could play the original score or the Glass score and watch Bela Lagosi creep his way into immortality and drink the blood of pretty girls. The only thing that scared me about this movie, the first time I saw it, was the guy that played Renfield hiding in the hull of the ship, aHEE-HEE-HEE-HEEing his way into the light. Then Tom Waits played him in Coppola's film. Those creepy things on his fingers, like steam punk mittens. I remember thinking that the movie wasn't very good, but for "not very good" I sure remember an awful lot of imagery from it. Anyway. Philip Glass. When robots go to the symphony, this is what they hear.
First up, BLACK PANTHER writer -- and BET Prez -- Reginald Huldin:
* These days, I’ve been playing a lot of David Bowie…”Right”, from the YOUNG AMERICANS album, “Fantastic Voyage,” “Under Pressure”…all great records.
* Also been listening to a lot of Jill Scott, mixing all three of her albums: Tracks like “Be Ready”, “A Long Walk”, “Watching Me”.
* That new Beyonce song “Déjà vu” is so hot, it’s like an outtake from OFF THE WALL-era Quincy Jones.
* Digging in the crates a little bit, been playing “Misdemeanor” by Foster Sylvers. One of the all time great bubble gum records of all time. Foster was supposed to be the next Michael Jackson, and everything about this records tells you why. Brilliant singing, songwriting and arrangements.
* In the new OutKast movie, there’s a couple of my favorite songs from the last album “Bowtie,” “Church” and “She’s Always In My Lap”….damn they are so damn funky.
About this blog: Inside looks and sneak peeks of books coming out of the Alonso office at Marvel Comics: SQUADRON SUPREME, PUNISHER, WOLVERINE, GHOST RIDER, DAREDEVIL, BLACK PANTHER, WOLVERINE: ORIGINS, MOON KNIGHT. If it's got a hard edge, you'll most likely find it here.
About the author: Axel Alonso and Daniel Ketchum like their comic books to have some bite.
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