Book by its Cover: The Insperado of Sam Jackson

ed. note: This is the second in a series of reviews where the musical content of recently released or rereleased albums are critiqued by authors who have never listened to them. Musical content, therefore, will be judged completely on the album art and whatever biographical information the author deems relevant.

Let's face it, Samuel L. Jackson plays the line between icon and iconic caricature pretty damn close. But for many of us who straddle the end of Gen X and the beginning of Gen Y, Jackson will always be Jules, who broke through, literally, with biblical fire and brimstone and a tirade of bad mother fuckers in Pulp Fiction. Between Jackson and Tarantino, not to mention Dirk Diggler, and The Beastie Boys -- nostalgia got a kick in the pants not seen since the Brits found the blues. They showed us you could show props to the past without being sappy or even particularly faithful to the details -- and for that we should be eternally grateful.

This week, there are two CDs being released inspired by the booming bad mofo himself.

The RZA Presents -- Afro Samurai

I must admit, though I'm a big fan of films that RZA has scored in the past, Ghost Dog and both Kill Bills, I've never even heard of Afro Samurai.

Beyond that, I'm not exactly what you'd call a Wu Tang Clan expert -- I do understand, however that they are nothing to fuck with.

So in closing and in conclusion we got a black samurai (a la Ghost Dog), voiced by Sam Jackson who slices and dices to beats by one of the greatest visionaries in hip hop. I must not know about this for a reason.

Rating: 2/5



Various Artists -- Black Snake Moan

Named for a Blind Lemon Jefferson song (not the Bee Girl guys), Black Snake Moan brings together Sam Jackson and Christina Ricci together with the director of Hustle and Flow for a film that appears to be about a crazy old black dude trying to de-slut-i-fy a WT chick through involuntary imprisonment (incidentally, that was the original concept for When Harry Met Sally.)

The soundtrack features old, old blues by Son House, new, old blues from R.L. Burnsides, new, new blues from The Black Keys, something presumably blue from Detroit's own Outrageous Cherry, and what I imagine must be the real attraction of the album, the blues interpreted by none other than Samuel L. Jackson himself. I was thinking, this can't be good, except that Ricci's looking pretty good on the pulp-eque cover... so that's worth like...

Rating: 4/5

- Gorilla

Book by its Cover: Remastered Works of Steve Hillage

ed. note: This is the first in a series of reviews where the musical content of recently released or rereleased albums are critiqued by authors who have never listened to them. Musical content, therefore, will be judged completely on the album art and whatever biographical information the author deems relevant.

Steve Hillage is one unusual dude. As is abundantly clear from these album covers, Steve-o was a British prog rock guitarist. Later, like so many tech-friendly musicians he moved into producing, working on albums for Simple Minds, Robyn Hitchcock and later the Charlatans UK.

Then in the early '90's he heard Alex Paterson of the Orb playing one of his songs at a club -- they became friends and collaborators. Hillage ended up working with The Orb, founding electronic dance collective System 7 and working with a who's who of electronica, including Paul Oakenfold and Detroit techno faves, Carl Craig and Derrick May.

I have never, ever listened to the following albums -- remastered and rereleased this week by EMI and available in the US as imports.

L

Check that out, he's rocking that guitar so effing hard it's emitting it's own radiant light energy!

Or perhaps he's playing in front of an oncoming train. In either case, rating 4/5.

Motivation Radio

We can use this radio telescope to broadcast our prog to aliens in deep space. Then we can use the same radio telescope to pick up their interstellar rock. In theory, it sounds good, but we all saw Close Encounters and the alien songs were lamer than the demos on a Casio.
Rating 2/5

Fish Rising

This cover manages to out psychedelic fish Phish AND use the Enter the Dragon Chinese menu font. On paper that sounds good, but like Chinese food, ambient proto-electronica, prog guitar always leaves me hungry for something more substantial right after I consume it.
Rating 3/5

-Gorilla