Scott D. Parker: Writer

Saturday, June 26, 2010

"Toy Story 3" and Characters

Over on today's post at Do Some Damage, I wax poetic and emotionally about "Toy Story 3" and the place characters have in storytelling. Check it out.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Am I allowed to convey how excited I am to be included in Volume 1 of the Beat to a Pulp anthology? If so, then I have to stand in awe the the company in which I find myself. Don't think this is going to be a killer collection? Just head on over to David Cranmer's The Education of a Pulp Writer and check out the table of contents.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Forgotten Music: June 2010 - The Summary

Thanks to all who wrote today. A reminder: anyone and everyone can join. Just let me know.

Patti Abbott - "Really Rosie"

Bill Crider - Instrumental Hits

Chad Eagleton - Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps

Randy Johnson - Ted Hawkins: The Next Hundred Years

George Kelley - Elvis Presley: On Stage (1970)

Todd Mason - The Dave Clark Five: Music from "Catch Us If You Can"
Scott Parker - Chicago: Chicago III

Perplexio - Level 42: World Machine

Charlie Ricci - Jimmy Dean

Doug Warren - Mr. Big: Mr. Big

See everyone on 29 July.

Forgotten Music: June 2010 - Chicago III

“Chicago III" (1971) was Chicago’s third straight double-LP in two years. Later in 1971, they would release the 4-LP Chicago at Carnegie Hall. Impressive debut, if you ask me. Ten LPs, totaling 20 sides of music from 1969-1971.

The consensus is mixed on III. Some fans love its obvious musical experimentation while others hate the mix or the overlong songs. In order to get my take on III, you have to know how I break down Chicago’s catalog. There were the Originals, that is all the music from 1967-1977, from their first LP (Chicago Transit Authority) through Chicago XI. In January 1977, original guitarist/vocalist Terry Kath (the soul of Chicago) accidentally shot himself. So, no matter how good Chicago would go on to become, there was always a tinge of loss and what-if.

Of the decade that I call the Originals, Chicago at Carnegie Hall (usually given the moniker IV) marked a natural break. After IV, Chicago released its first single LP, the phenomenal Chicago V (1972), which walked the tightrope of long pieces and radio-friendly shorter songs (“State of the Union” to “Saturday in the Park”). Chicago VI (1973) was more even more radio-friendly (“Just You n Me” and “Feelin’ Stronger Everyday”). By the time Chicago VII (1974) was released--the band’s last double-LP to date--Chicago had become a radio-friendly band. How did the seven musicians of the band know this? Lots of fans dismissed LP #1 of Chicago VII, which had long instrumental tracks with more musical experimentation. LP #2, showcasing such classics as “Call on Me,” “Searchin’ So Long,” and “Wishing You Were Here,” got much more attention from the casual listener and radio. Fans who attended the concerts grew bored with these longer passages and Chicago learned from that. You could even make the case that it hamstrung them, but that’s a discussion for another day.

All this is to allow me to put Chicago III in context. While LP#1 of Chicago VII was their attempt to *return* to their experimental time, Chicago III was made when they were in the *middle* of it. You can tell they didn’t care about song lengths because they made three suites of music (a longer piece of music broken up like traditional classical compositions). And with four sides of music, only side 1-LP 1 contained no suite. In their minds, they were creating extended musical statements, not necessarily extended solos.

Chicago III was, to my mind, the last record they made *for themselves* until 1993’s great twenty-second album, Stone of Sisyphus. But, back in 1971, the guys of Chicago did whatever they wanted. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young-type song? Check: “Flight 602.” Classically-oriented horn piece? Check: “Elegy.” Environmental song? Check: “Mother,” a fascinating horn piece where trombonist Jimmy Pankow solos alongside…Jimmy Pankow. In the live version, all three horns solo in a chaotic style meant to evoke pollution. (According to my wife, they succeed.) Latin-inspired number? Check: “Happy Cause I’m Going Home,” a wonderful, mostly instrumental piece with an extended flute solo. Social commentary? Check: Elegy, the Travel Suite, and Robert Lamm’s reading of “When All the Laughter Dies in Sorrow.” Killer guitar solo by Terry Kath? Check: "Sing a Mean Tune Kid," a nine-minute track often expanded to fifteen in the concerts of the time. A couple of radio-friendly pieces? Check with “Lowdown” and “Free,” the latter of which includes one of the best horn breaks in all of Chicago’s oeuvre.

And then there's that album cover design of the logo. It evokes life in America during the final years of Vietnam, tattered, tarnished, but still flying. The album insert had all seven band members dressed in various military uniforms posing in Arlington National Cemetery.

How do I rank III? While I have never ranked it among my Top 5 favorite records (CTA, II, Stone of Sisyphus, V, 17), it is in the top 10, usually jockeying with VII for positions number 6 or 7. In short, Chicago III has a little bit of everything. Some consider this diversity to be the album’s undoing--there are other, more streamlined and precise LPs, even in the early catalog. I agree. Chicago III is a bit untidy. To me, however, that is one of its graces.

Forgotten Music: June 2010

Welcome to the June 2010 edition of the Forgotten Music Project. Inspired by Patti Abbott's Forgotten Book Friday series, here we examine music that has fallen off the public's radar or other music that never made a blip. We're doing this on a once-a-month basis, the last Thursday of every month. Aside from my own entry, here's today's line-up:

If I have missed your name or got the wrong address, let me know and I'll fix it here and for future months. Anyone can join: just let me know here in the comments section, by e-mail, or in the comments section of my entry that you'd like to join in next month and I'll add you to the list.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Forgotten Music: June 2010 - Call for Entries

Hello all. This Thursday, 24 June, is the June 2010 edition of the Forgotten Music Project.

By now, I've collected some regulars. Here's the deal: I'll post links on Thursday to everyone who posted in May. If you have the time, great. If you can't make it, you can either let me know before Thursday (and I'll remove your name) or not not (whereby readers can jump to your blog and read your latest entry). If you want to join and you haven't posted before, just let me know and I'll get your name on the list for Thursday morning. As usual, I"ll do a summary at the end of the day.

Looking forward to everyone's entries.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Book Review Club: The Pallbearers by Stephen J. Cannell

(This is the June 2010 entry in Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. For the complete list, click the icon at the end of this review.)

Reading Stephen J. Cannell's The Pallbearers was like being introduced to an old friend for the first time. Even if you don't know Cannell's name, you know his work in television and movies. Here are just a smattering of the shows he's created: The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, The Commish. The list, over at IMDB, is long and worthy of admiration. It's even landed him in a couple of cameos in the television show, "Castle," where the main character plays poker with Cannell, James Patterson, and Michael Connelly. Throughout all these years, however, I've never read one of Cannell's novels. With the publication of his most recent book, that has changed.

In reading The Pallbearers, I broke one of my reading rules: never start a series with any book other than the first one. The Pallbearers is book nine of the Shane Scully series. I toyed with the idea of starting with The Tin Collectors (book one) but decided against it. If I enjoyed this latest book, I'd return and read the earlier books. Shane Scully is a LA homicide detective working in the elite squad, the one that handles all the high-profile cases. He's married to Alexa who just happens to be his boss down at the station. As the story opens, they are packing for a two-week trip to Hawaii when the phone rings. Walter "Pop" Dix, the director of the orphanage where Scully spent twelve years of his young life, has been found dead. Suicide. And Pop has requested Scully to be one of his pallbearers. Good-bye Hawaii.

The other five pallbearers are all former residents of Huntington House. Each owe Pop their lives but each, for their own reasons, turned their backs on Pop as they grew up and left the House. Now, each of them must come to grips with Pop's death. Knowing the only father figure as they do, they all don't think Pop would have killed themselves. Grudgingly working together, they engineer a second autopsy, looking for any shred of evidence to overturn the coroner's findings. With a ruling of suicide, Huntington House won't get the half million dollar insurance check from Pop's estate. The second autopsy finds the one thing that sets this unlikely group of six orphans on a quest to avenge Pop's murder and come to terms with their own upbringing and lives.

The crime genre is littered by a bunch of single people who find partners throughout their adventures. As such, I was pleasantly surprised at the relationship between Shane and Alexa. They are a loving couple who have each other's backs at all times. They love each other, as Shane's first person narrative constantly reminds the reader. It's refreshing.

Shane, as a main character, is your typical cop. He's brash where Alexa is a rule follower. He wants to squeeze out the other pallbearers since he's a cop and they are not. He likes to go it alone and it gets himself in trouble more often than not. Nonetheless, I found his storytelling (Cannell's really) clean and precise. Shane is just a guy--an elite detective, yes--but just a normal guy. No overuse of profanity to make him appear tougher, no keeping secrets from others (he always "fills in" the group after he learns something), and no over-the-top gunplay. For all the unrealness that a work of fiction brings to the table, I found Shane and Alexa to be real cops.

The pacing of the book is another nice break from other crime and mystery stories, both on television and in books. I'm generalizing here but basically, you've got the thriller-type stories (with lots of action and violence), traditional mysteries (where very little action happens), and the blend show. The Pallbearers was definitely a blend. It was a slow-burn story where, frankly, the mystery wasn't all that compelling, that built to a pretty cool showdown finale scene. What drove the mystery at the beginning was Shane's guilt over abandoning Pop Dix and how that guilt drove him to keep digging. There was just enough interesting questions to keep turning the pages (or listening, as I did via the file from Audible.com by the always reliable narrator Scott Brick).

I enjoyed the Pallbearers and will certainly read more Shane Scully novels, not necessarily for the stories themselves but for Shane and Alexa. I thoroughly enjoyed their relationship, their love and devotion for each other, and their "realness." As someone who enjoys reading and writing larger-than-life characters (think: Gabriel Hunt or Doc Savage), I found a certain resonance with normalcy of the Scullys. It's the same reason I enjoy Christopher Foyle, from the BBC's "Foyle's War," so much. The character isn't super. He's a normal guy just doing his job. His job just happens to be collaring criminals and turning over rocks. That Scully found happiness in his life despite his bad start is what makes him super.

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@Barrie Summy

Friday, May 28, 2010

Star Wars Week: Return of the Jedi - The Radio Drama

After the success of the first two radio dramas, you’d have thought that George Lucas would have followed up with a radio dramatization of Return of the Jedi. He did, just thirteen years after the source film opened. Why? It might have been Star Wars fatigue. I know I hit it in the mid 1980s. The comic book from Marvel was cancelled and there wasn’t anything new coming out. That is, until Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars trilogy revived interest in Star Wars in the early 1990s. One of the results of the newfound enthusiasm for Star Wars was the Return of the Jedi radio drama.

Where Star Wars was a 13-episode extravaganza and Empire was a 10-episode expansion, Jedi was a mere six episodes. Frankly it barely cleared the threshold for needing to even produce the thing. I didn’t even know it aired in 1996 and it wasn’t until this spring that I gave it a whirl.

Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams do not return. Only Anthony Daniels does. All the other regular cast returns, including the excellent Brock Peters as Darth Vader. I had to get used to the new guys and, a couple of times, I forgot who was speaking. Probably my bad, but still.

The Jedi radio drama does what neither of the other two did: incorporate Expanded Universe things into the story. The Expanded Universe is the global term used to describe any Star Wars story/character/ship/whatever that is not in the films. Thus, in Radio Jedi, we get the scene in which Luke goes to Tatooine, lives in Obi-Wan Kenobi’s house, and constructs his new, green lightsaber. This sequence originally was featured at the end of Shadow of the Empire. Plus, Coruscant is mentioned by name. It’s a nice thing to include, these extras, as it gives a broader scope to the entire story.

Whereas Star Wars and Empire’s radio presentations were chock full of fun, new scenes, there isn’t a lot with Jedi. Among the more interesting ones are these:

a scene in Jabba’s palace where Boba Fett taunts the recently-thawed Han Solo and Chewbacca. I always had the impression that Fett was just a good bounty hunter with little hatred for Solo. Not so anymore.
the scene when Leia, disguised as the bounty hunter, Boushh, defrosts Han, Bib Fortuna is with her. It’s almost as if Fortuna is helping Boushh. Irritatingly, this thread is dropped.
Lando and Leia talking after she’s been captured by Jabba.
Lando and Han talking before they all escape. We learn that Chewie filled Han in on Lando’s good deeds.
the scene where the heroes escape Tatooine but also have to evade the Imperials who have set up a sort of blockade knowing that they’d try to rescue Han.

As you can tell, all the good, new scenes are at the beginning. Nothing much extra happens for the rest of the movie. However, there is one meta-detail thrown in. From 1983 until 1996 when this drama aired, all the ire at Jedi had formed. One huge problem many fans had was how the heck did a bunch of Ewoks defeat an elite squadron of stormtroopers. During that battle sequence, Leia (I think) voiced that question. Han answered it with something along the lines of “It’s their turf so they have the upper hand.” Yeah, I didn’t buy it either.

Make it a point to listen to the first two radio dramas. You won’t be disappointed. As far as the Jedi radio drama, listen to it once, just to say you did.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Forgotten Music: May 2010 - The Summary

Thanks to all who wrote today. A reminder: anyone and everyone can join. Just let me know.

Paul D. Brazill - Judy Nylon, Snatch

Sean Coleman - Dio's Last with Rainbow

David Cranmer - Distant Drumsby Jim Reeves

Bill Crider - Eddie Fisher

Chad Eagleton - Johnny Burnette's Rock N Roll Trio

Martin Edwards - "Waiting for Charlie to Come Home"
Randy Johnson - Move It On Over
Chris Jones - Miles David - Amandla
George Kelley - The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

Evan Lewis - The Vocal Stylings of Nick "The Rebel" Adams
Todd Mason - Miriam Makeba

Scott Parker - The Empire Strikes Back (soundtrack)

Perplexio - Roger Hodgson - In the Eye of the Storm
James Reasoner - That Thing You Do(soundtrack)

Charlie Ricci - Ben Vaughn - Rambler

See everyone on 24 June.

Forgotten Music: May 2010 - The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack

An interesting exercise is to examine your musical tastes and, for every style of music, try to determine the first song/album that started you liking that style. For example, for me, all rock and roll started with KISS. It doesn’t matter that I’ve grown to love many more acts better than KISS, KISS opened the door to rock. Graceland opened the world music door. The Garden State soundtrack opened the indie door. Roger Miller opened the country door. And, for all instrumental music--classical as well as jazz, John Williams’ soundtrack to Star Wars was the key. From 1977 to 1980, I wore out one copy of the album and had to buy another. I had that soundtrack memorized cold. It was part of the stuff I used to recreate my own Star Wars stories as well as “see” the film in my head as I listened to the music.

When The Empire Strikes Back premiered, I was just as jazzed to hear John Williams’ new score. I can’t remember when, in relation to the day I saw the movie, I bought the soundtrack, but I can remember, distinctly, when I bought it. My mom had to run a few errands and the record store was one of them. We got the double album and I convinced my mom to let me stay in the car for all her other errands. I was too engrossed in the cover. The front had the image of Darth Vader peering out from the stars. The back cover had the original, gorgeous movie poster artwork by Roger Kastel (also on the novelization cover). Inside was a little booklet, pasted to the gatefold, with twelve pages of photos. The last two pages had a short interview with Williams, the names of all the members of the London Symphony Orchestra, and liner notes of every track by Alan Arnold*. If push came to shove, I could make a good case that my love and appreciation of album liner notes and “extras” started here. You might be marveling about my excellent memory. Don’t. I still have the gatefold album sleeve, even though the LPs themselves are long gone.

If Empire the Movie was a lesson in storytelling and taking familiar characters and putting them in new settings, Empire the Soundtrack was a master class (at least for a ten-year-old) in how familiar music and themes could be toyed with, manipulated with new pieces, to create something altogether original.

The sequencing was odd and I can remember thinking that back in 1980. Unlike the complete, two-CD set that came out in 1997 that had all the music in chronological order, the original 1980 soundtrack didn’t. It did, however, begin with the fanfare. My first lesson in Star Wars Musicology was how the main theme linked up with the new music (basically after the scroll). This was the score that accompanied the probe droids being launched from the Star Destroyer.

Three major themes debuted on this soundtrack, none more iconic than “The Imperial March.” In the film, it’s first played when the fleet of Star Destroyers, overshadowed by Vader’s Super Star Destroyer, assemble. The theme is as iconic as is Vader. There hasn’t been a year since 1980 in which I haven’t played this track and it never gets old. My favorite part is the last refrain, where the French horns and baritones take the theme up an octave. Even just now, listening to it again for the second time today, it still gets me jazzed.

Less well known (outside Star Wars music geekdom) are Yoda’s theme and the love theme of Han and Leia. As befitting the small yet powerful Jedi Master, Yoda’s theme is string-based, opening with a slow, magisterial cadence that breaks into a playful mini-theme with the flutes. What I find fascinating is a subtle aching quality to the piece. It’s almost as if Williams was channeling the true history of Yoda that we learned with the three prequels. The love theme opens with Leia’s theme from the first soundtrack, again with flute. Soon, however, the oboes take over. The cue is for Han and Leia’s first kiss on the Falcon when they’re making repairs in the slug so the actual theme is quite short but memorable. The theme repeats throughout the entire soundtrack, in little bits and pieces, most notably during the scene where Han is frozen in carbonite, although the music isn’t as happy in that instance.

There are, of course, tracks that allow you to see the movie in your head while you’re listening to them. Two of these tracks stand head and shoulders with The Imperial March as favorites from the soundtrack. “The Battle in the Snow” accompanies the Imperial invasion of the Rebel base on Hoth. Using a piano in the low register, Williams musically symbolized the Imperial AT-ATs as the lumber toward the entrenched Rebels. Xylophones punctuate the entire piece, almost as if standing in for all the bone-crushing power of the Empire. Many of the individual sections have dissonant chords, adding a sense of dread to the piece. Incredible piece of music. “The Duel” corresponds to the middle section of the lightsaber battle on Cloud City. This would be the part where Vader starts throwing all the hunks of metal at Luke. That isn’t the best part. The music cuts to the escape of Luke’s friends through Cloud City. It’s a typical action piece of music, with lots of fast strings. What makes this particular piece special is the simple part, complete with cymbals, where Artoo Detoo finally manages to open the blast door so that everyone can flee to the Millennium Falcon. It’s a direct sibling to the piece from the first film where Luke and Leia swing across the chasm.

I could go on and on describing this soundtrack, I love it that much. It’s my favorite Star Wars soundtrack and pretty much always has been. Of all of the movie soundtracks I have, mostly by Williams, Empire pretty much beats all comers, with Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade coming close. As I mentioned earlier, the two-disc soundtrack from 1997 has all the music. It’s the version to get.

*The opening quote of the liner notes. For those who know, you’ll see why I’m quoting it. “In the wake of the success of Star Wars, George Lucas’ desire to create a nine-part saga set in that distant galaxy far, far away became viable and The Empire Strikes Back is a manifestation of that dream.”

Forgotten Music: May 2010

Welcome to the May 2010 edition of the Forgotten Music Project. Inspired by Patti Abbott's Forgotten Book Friday series, here we examine music that has fallen off the public's radar or other music that never made a blip. We're doing this on a once-a-month basis, the last Thursday of every month. Aside from my own entry, here's today's line-up: