Day: February 13, 2013

Pick Me I'm Clean

2013-02-13, 10:11 pm
Categories: Music

Another piece of the Vancouver concert in 1980, uploaded by Steve Sparx -- as with my Jumbo Go Away/If Only She Woulda post a few weeks back.

I suppose it is a bit ironic, given my recent post of Dweezil discussing inferior music formats and flawed concert recordings, that I post so many of them here. But there is a value to them -- there will never again be a new Frank Zappa recording, and the ones that exist are precious even if they're flawed.

Though if you really want a high-quality Zappa recording, by all means buy a CD or FLAC release. (Or vinyl, if that's your thing.) His old albums are currently being reissued, and there are some rarities available at Barfko-Swill. And if you've still got a local record store, that's a great option too. (I was tempted by a copy of Thing-Fish and a ZPZ DVD at my local record store today, but money's tight and I still haven't finished listening to the last Zappa album I bought there -- maybe next time.)

Snyder's Batman

2013-02-13, 9:23 pm
Categories: Comics, Stream of Consciousness

I'm increasingly of the opinion that Scott Snyder has some great ideas about Batman but his stuff's just not for me. That one-off issue with Becky Cloonan on art was the best Batman story I've read all year, but Death of the Family was some good ideas wrapped around a needlessly violent and decompressed story. (My favorite part: you can show people dancing until their feet bleed, you can show a tapestry made of sewn-together still-living people -- but if you want to say "ass", you'd better use comic-book symbols to bleep it out.) I think both the setup and the resolution were solid. I just think there was too much dithering in-between. Even without the half-dozen tie-in books.

Gail Simone recently responded to a reader who was put off by the grimness of Death of the Family by saying, "The bat-verse in general IS in a pretty dark place right now, but I do believe some lighter stories are coming." Here's hoping. Snyder's already done some great work -- but great work where Batman smiles now and again would be more to my tastes.