Plant, Buckley, Bellamy and Yorke

I first came across Jeff Buckley in the musty AV studio in the attic above my high school library. A member of our school's meek (but oh so cool) Rock and Roll club had brought in  Grace as the album of the week. I found myself quite surprised that an album by someone whom I hadn't ever heard of had ended up being voted Australia's 2nd favourite album on the My Favourite Album special over on the ABC.

And to be honest, I didn't take to it quite yet. I'd spent the first half of my childhood listening to whatever pop invaded radio stations in the late 90s (let us never speak of N*Sync) and had only just begun getting into the good stuff.

It would take me about 3 years to come full circle, hear the album being played in a music shop and buy it on a whim. Several playthroughs and many hours of internet research later, I found myself quite profoundly depressed that he wasn't able to do more. And in defiance to those who say that his music and legacy has been hyped up as a fad, I do honestly believe he was about to give so much more to music.

It wasn't until I started to try to sing Lover You Should've Come Over that I realised how much of his vocal mannerisms matched that of another one of my heroes - Robert Plant. Listening to and playing more music, I ended up seeing how Robert Plant,  Jeff Buckley,  Matt Bellamy and Thom Yorke represent a beautiful sense of connectivity as strands of music through time were tied together into points, from which creativity could be woven into some fairly spectacular songs and albums.

Plant, Buckley, Yorke and Bellamy

Before I got into Buckley, I was (and still am) a massive Zeppelin nut. I still believe that they are the greatest rock band, ever. Once I really started obsessing over Jeff Buckley, reading that Physical Graffiti was his first ever album may have sent me into erratic fanboy convulsions.

If you dig a little deeper though, you start to see how much Led Zeppelin and their whole musical mantra pressed themselves upon Buckley's work and style. The extended release of Buckley's EP Live at the Sin-e contains a cover version of Night Flight where, as my musically superior friend so aptly put, he "out-Plants Robert Plant". The vocal acrobatics, rising flourishes and long sustains manage to take the music to an entirely new place - and yet, like going to an old friends house or hanging out in your favourite park, it still retains a smokey and distinctive blues flavour.

That flavour is a large part of what makes Led Zeppelin so mesmerising. They took music from all around them -  the Blues, Folk, Psychedelia and Rock 'n' Roll - and not only managed to pull all different genres off individually well, but also combined them and took them into an entirely new place. Zeppelin are seen as one of the main players in giving birth to Progressive Rock and with good reason - they did things with the music around them that no one had ever thought to do before. Listen to all the different recordings of Since I've Been Loving You, and you'll start to get what I mean.

It's this kind of synecdoche that exists in music that Jeff Buckley captured so well. Buckley took the Zeppelin, The Blues, Bob Dylan, Vocal Jazz and even a little Edith Piaf and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and combined them into one big melting pot of musical creative fun. When I dug deeper and found out about all these influences, it made Buckley's music much more poignant and fascinating.

When you listen and read further, you unconsciously begin to dissect where certain music comes from and start to see how the fabric of music over time converges into points, like Led Zeppelin and like Jeff Buckley.

Where do Matt Bellamy and Thom Yorke sit? They sit for Jeff Buckley where the successful and creative progressive rock bands of today sit with respect to Led Zeppelin. There's no denying that both of these quite talented singers take a lot of inspiration and cue from Jeff Buckley. Both of them have said in their interviews that Jeff Buckley fundamentally changed the way they tried to vocalise. Thom Yorke said that in an interview that he saw Buckley perform right before recording Fake Plastic Trees - a fact you can most certainly hear in the original studio recording.

Sure, both singers have evolved since the days when Jeff Buckley was large and when they both first came across him. But that's the point. From a point of musical clarity that someone like Buckley or a band like Zeppelin is able put forward, artists are able to take and put forward into their own styles and make their own good music.

Sometimes, when the night is quiet and I sit lit by the glow of my computer, I find myself quite upset that Jeff Buckley died the way he did.

To good music.

Fun Links:
Led Zeppelin's original 'Night Flight'
Since I've Been Loving You (Madison Square Garden '73)
Fake Plastic Trees (Glastonbury '03)

Why alot of superhero movies fall flat.

I read J. Michael Straczynski's Superman: Earth One with some relish. The only complaint that I had was that Shane Davis went a bit overboard with trying to make Superman look hip to the kids (he wears a hoodie (pet hate #25) and looks alarmingly like Robert Pattinson as Edward from Twilight on the front cover (pet hate #47)).

If Lois Lane ended up looking like Bella, I may have thrown my laptop (I mean, uh, legitimate paper copy of the comic book) out the window.

 Yes, Clark comes off as being a bit too much of an 'angst ridden teen' (IGN), and yes, perhaps the circumstances that lead him up to taking on the Red and Yellow 'S' insignia seem to detract from traditionally infallible portrayals of Superman. At the end of the day, though, what I took away from the book was not only how precisely human Clark Kent is portrayed, but also the manner in which Straczynski manages to pull it off. It made me realise precisely why I love the Bryan Singer movie so much and why I'm not particularly relishing in the idea of Zack Synder (of Sucker-Punch fame) directing the new Man of Steel.

Starcynski's portrayal of Clark's journey  (*retch*) is particularly effective in how understated it is. The dialogue between Clark and his mother and the flashbacks to his life and self discovery in Smallville are very effectively interwoven with his struggle to find out precisely who he is. The comic relies on Shane Davis's quite emotive artwork, portraying young Kent as someone who really is suffering for his inability to be human. Earth One doesn't labour the point and doesn't tell us what Clark is thinking. It makes us figure it out by humanising him and allowing the reader to feel his pain.

What both Starcynski and Davis manage to do together is avoid what a lot of modern superhero films (and for that matter, comic books) are doing - wowing us with big explosions, stunt sequences and fun romance. Sure - Earth One does have a fair bit of action in it, but it has a point. And as an intelligent reader you never think that the action is just there for being action, or that Superman is firing off his heat vision just for the lasers pew pew fanboys.

The main question I had in mind in writing this post is, why couldn't more Superhero movies have an emotional point? Superman Returns will remain one of my favourite Superhero movies of all time because of the fact that Singer makes a point of pulling as many filmic tricks out of the bag as possible to get us to relate and really feel Superman and the people around him. The flying scenes and the special effects are there, of course, like other films. But Singer's inclusion is so much more subtle, as if Superman does this every day. And the effects don't detract from the point of the film: that Superman is back, and is not really sure how he fits in.

Clark Kent - Awkward Central

I guess, at the end of the day, I want to relate to my superheros in a lot of the same ways that the comic book writers of old did. Superman and The X-Men and others were all written so that those who felt as if they were insignificant or misunderstood could believe that someone like them could do something magnificent and feel accepted. But in order for myself, and others, to really feel that and immerse ourselves in the story, I guess we're asking that writers, film makers and comic book artists try to maintain some finesse in worming their way into our hearts and minds.

Snyder, if you ruin Superman for me, I will do unto you what I did to the writers of Smallville...

Nothing at all to be honest.

Red Underpants...

...or why I decided to inflict the world with what probably isn't an overly unique perspective on the universe.

I decided to start this blog after reading a particularly good review of a DC Comics Animated movie adaptation of one of my favourite Superman minis: All Star Superman. Agreeing with much of what Scott Thill had to say about the movie, it struck me that I had quite a few opinions and thoughts regarding things I enjoy (a vague term, I understand, but hopefully will develop into concrete themes once the blog itself develops).

One day I will wear this symbol under all my clothing

"Polite conversation" seems to dictate that the prophetic zeal I have for Superman (among other things) is a bit awkward. Whilst a great number of my nerdy pursuits are in-vogue in the circle of people that I travel in (a circle that balanced people are perhaps better off not knowing), Superman in particular is something that I've found is something quite embarrassing, and that I can't hold as a subject of conversation without derision prompting me into an unsociable and defensive rant.


And so I've decided to try my hand at writing in a considered manner, publishing my unfettered thoughts and opinions on the internet.

Nothing can possibly go wrong.