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Kim Bodnia

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Posts posted by Kim Bodnia

  1. Actually, if you're being technical it's Georgios (transliteration from Greek letters to Roman) or George, which is his birth name, as he is from St. Paul, Minnesota.

     

    I didn't know he was born in that area. (That probably explains the hockey team there :)) Just joking, in response to the question, thankfully I'm not having the worst week (not the best either) but with the charges I put on the credit card I'm going to feel differently one month from now.

  2. These are the artists whose 2011 record I bought:

     

    1. R.E.M.

    2. Radiohead

    3. Decemberists,

    4. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins,

    5. Head and the Heart,

    6. Blind Pilot,

    7. Wilco

    8. Wilderness of Manitoba,

    9. Dan Mangan,

    10. Rural Alberta Advantage

    11. Low Anthem

    12. Sarabeth Tucek

     

     

    Of all these, I am satisfied with purchases #8, #9, and #10.

     

    I am moderately satisfied with purchases #3, #4, #5, #7, #11 and #12.

     

    I am Not satisfied with purchases #1, #2, #6.

     

     

     

    Of all twelve, the 2011 record that I most liked is #8, Wilderness of Manitoba.

  3. Friend, glad to speak. I offer help if you have a struggle with English of garbled style. It seem of fierce good sense to my ears. I just make struggle with the 'hodgepodge'. Is this kind of animal I am thinking?

     

    The word they're using is "batiburrillo" I am not familiar with it, nor I had heard of it before. (They use a different Spanish in the peninsula).

     

    According to the Spanish Royal Academy, a "batiburrillo" is: "a mix of unrelated things that have no relation to each other".

     

    (The French would say "un mélange").

     

    Stirrat is comparing the albums Sky Blue Sky to Wilco, saying that while the first had a clearly defined theme that ran through the album, the second (Wilco) was a "batiburrillo".

  4. I would have wanted them to tour behind Collapse into Now. They didn't want to. I'm angry because they didn't tour, they denied me the chance to see them in concert. That's what a band does, they put records out to market, they play live shows (look at Wilco touring Europe today).

     

    Of course they kept mentioning various reasons why they didn't tour but the fact remains they didn't tour. And I'm not talking of a grandiose tour, it could have been only a few dates here and there, I would have travelled just to see them.

     

    The three of them were rarely seen together during the year. They appeared in those Hansa studio sessions and in photo sessions with Anton Corbjin, but the band as a unit, I don't remember seeing the three of them together in television, like they did for Accelerate. Which makes me think that they were technically separated long before that September 21st announcement.

     

    (And I'm angry because various people linked to R.E.M., in the months previous to the disbandment, kept saying that they wouldn't split).

     

    Of course they leave behind an enormous musical legacy, no discussion there. But it's hard for me to assimilate the fact that the band doesn't exist anymore, that they won't tour ever again, that the excitement of a new upcoming album is over.

     

    Probably I am being selfish ("I couldn't see them in concert") and things didn't turn out the way I would have wanted. But I admired (admire?) them and looked up to them as examples. There are days when I say to myself: "I'm done with these guys, no more listening to their music", while there are other days when I'm still proud of them and revisit my favourite records and songs. On some other occasions I tell to myself that I shouldn't get this passionate about a band, not ever again. As with other things in life, only time will tell.

  5. (Please note that this is about "the non-English press" which is not the same as "the foreign press").

     

    Having said this, I turn my attention, once again, to Spain.

     

    Having just disembarked in the peninsula, there is no shortage of Wilco features in today's press.

     

    I chose a brief review that appeared in El Pais, the country's largest newspaper. It is titled: "Wilco: the price of perfection" and was written by journalist Diego A. Manrique.

     

    A partial and rough translation, link to article (in Spanish) below.

     

    Wilco's mighty front-end of guitars (often in number of three) also evokes California's hippie deliria of the late sixties --A brief illussion of nostalgia: as a sextet, Wilco isn't indebted to any particular Golden Age (their) songs may follow conventional patterns (a few years ago Jeff Tweedy championed them, acoustic and solo) but they are only launching pads to develop (more) intricate arrangements, 10 minute monuments where elements of pop, noise, new wave, machinery, kraut rock and psichodelia are assimilated. It requires an intellectual exercise to measure the length of this leap forward: Wilco started in alt.country with a wink to their forebears as shown by the recovery of unpublished Woody Guthrie's lyrics.

     

    http://www.elpais.co...elpepucul_7/Tes

  6. I don't know if I belive him..I think 5 yrs or so...

     

    http://www.nme.com/n...s-artists/60186

     

    I agree with your comment.

     

    When I was watching that BBC interview yesterday, and when Michael Stipe said "it's over", I was angry, angry at these people because, as you have said, who knows what they'd be saying five years from now.

     

    I was angry the day they split, they have disappointed me for the last time. And they just keep telling lies and going on with this masquerade, I used to believe they were the only authentic and honest band.

  7. The last U2 I bought was All that you can't leave behind. "Elevation" and "Beautiful day" are very uplifting songs, the earth shakes and trembles everytime U2 plays them.

     

    I haven't cared much for them after that record. However, they enjoy more media exposure than R.E.M. Bono is often in the news, whether it is something about politics, fashion, dark glasses, Africa, George Bush... Michael Stipe isn't that omnipresent. Plus, I don't even think they're comparable (they might have been comparable in the early nineties when they were running neck and neck).

     

    R.E.M. is more mystical, philosophical (in their lyrics and music) while U2 is about a global machinery that's built to dazzle, impress and project grandeur.

  8. Still finding hard to get onto other music after R.E.M.'s disappearance. There's a few good songs here and there by other bands, but nothing to make me revisit (buy) an entire discography, nor I personally identify with other musicians.

  9. Is In July a movie about Orson Welles taping that frozen peas ad?

     

    MV5BMTIwMTM0MzMzNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTczNTUyMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR5,0,214,317_.jpg

     

    It's a German movie, part travelogue, part comedy. Honestly I don't remember the plot, it's been years since I watched it, all I know and I can assure is that it's very funny. In fact, I recently bought the DVD so that I could re-watch it. I just haven't set aside time to see it, when that happens I may post here with more comments.

  10. Chris Shaw, who worked with Wilco as an audio engineer in 2004's A Ghost is Born is the producer of Nada Surf's upcoming album.

     

    "Chris Shaw (Wilco, Brendan Benson, Elvis Perkins in Dearland and Super Furry Animals) was brought in to produce and record, having worked with the band before when he mixed their hit song, "Always Love."

    From: artistdirect.com http://www.artistdir...-jan-24/9745075

     

    According to Tape Op magazine, Chris Shaw has a 20 year experience in the music business as producer, mixer and engineer. "He has worked on five of Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time."

     

    The magazine ran an interview with Mr. Shaw in its #83 edition of May / June 2011. (See: http://www.tapeop.co.../83/chris-shaw/)

  11. In the days he was doing these movies, the nineties, I tended to see him as an old man doing very boring adult comedy, that's why I didn't see any of his movies.

     

    Groundhog Day is probably the only Bill Murray movie I've seen and I like (I remember very little of Ghostbusters, I have blocked most of my teenhood memories apparently).

     

    Actors whose career I've followed are for example Moritz Bleibtreu, who is roughly my age and in the nineties did some very good comedies like Run Lola Run and In July.

     

    Right now I am catching up with Bill Murray's age (Bill Murray of the nineties) so maybe I'd see those films with a different eye if I actually saw them.

     

    I liked Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump and young as I was at the time I kind of identified with his character, I even contemplated my own coast to coast running of the US, right now I'm doing half marathons.

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