Crushed Velvet

My new favorite movie of all time is called Velvet Goldmine. Directed by Todd Haynes, Velvet Goldmine delivers a visually lavish and sensually rich take on the rock-star-as-Messiah megalomania of Ken Russell's Tommy blended with the sexual debauchery and orgiastic visual style of A Clockwork Orange. On the most basic level, the film portrays the rise and fall of a glam rock star whose life and career peak and shift on an intense love story. On a more esoteric strata, Velvet Goldmine provides an emotionally intimate Valentine to a woefully brief musical movement that quite literally defined the fantasy aspect of rock culture. Velvet Goldmine is a rock and roll fable in which passion triumphs over context.

Set in 1984 and told through flashbacks spanning ten years, the story begins in New York City. British ex-pat reporter, Arthur (Christian Bale), is assigned to uncover the "What ever happened to" story of Brian Slade, an androgynous and enigmatic rock star whose career soared and then quickly deteriorated in the aftermath of a publicity stunt involving his faked, on stage assassination. Up and coming heart-throb, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, possessed of a charismatic screen presence and ridiculously pretty face, is perfectly cast as Slade. One can speculate that his role in Velvet Goldmine will serve to propel his acting career into the stratosphere.

As Arthur seeks clues to the current whereabouts of Slade, his main sources of information are American garage rocker, Curt Wild, played by Ewan McGregor, and Slade's affected, social climbing ex-wife, Mandy, convincingly brought to life by Toni Collette. As the investigation unfolds, Arthur's personal recollections of his own involvement in England's glam scene reveal his past is perhaps more closely intertwined with that of both Slade and Wild than he lets on.

Dictated by the nature of his glam rock persona, Brian Slade wraps his identity in a fabricated musical alter-ego known as Maxwell Demon. The Slade/Demon character is quite obviously meant to examine David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust (the film, in fact, takes its title from a sexually explicit tune recorded during the Ziggy Stardust sessions). Subtle Bowie-isms include a visual homage to the cover photo of The Man Who Sold the World, depicting Slade's performance at an outdoor festival, dressed in an elaborate long frock, his hair cascading across his face and shoulders. At this same rock festival, Slade gets his first exposure to the outrageous and free-spirited antics of Curt Wild; again, a thinly-veiled representation of Bowie-contemporary, Iggy Pop. As Slade (with the help of his manager, played by British drag comedian, Eddie Izzard) endeavors to resurrect Wild's rocky career, a sexual spark ignites and a deep connection forms between the two stars.

The burgeoning love affair of Wild and Slade establishes the hub around which the lives of the main characters twist and, eventually, spiral downward. Perhaps meant as an in-your-face depiction of the essentially gay essence of glam, the love story is nevertheless completely engrossing. I was rooting for these two to get it on in every sense of the word. When Wild and Slade cruise in a convertible through a surrealistic dreamscape, while lip-synching to Lou Reed's sexually ambiguous "Satellite of Love," it's one of the most erotic love scenes ever captured on celluloid - and it contains no nudity or actual sex! It's interesting to note that the chemistry between Rhys-Meyers and McGregor is far more intense and believable than that between Rhys-Meyers and Collette. I understand both actors are sexually straight. Now that's acting!

The music of Velvet Goldmine has been meticulously crafted as a means of full- sensory transportation to the past. In addition to a precise and spot on perfect choice of classics by the likes of Gary Glitter, Brian Eno, Roxy Music and T-Rex, the film also required original music designed to sound like Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie and Stooges-era Iggy Pop. Thus two separate faux-bands were assembled from members of many other existing bands. Brian Slade's band, The Venus in Furs, features guitarist Bernard Butler, Paul Kimble and Radiohead's Thom Yorke. Curt Wild's band, The Wylde Rattz, is an amalgam of Mudhoney's Mark Arm, Mike Watt, Thurston Moore and Ron Asheton, an original member of the Stooges. Grant Lee Buffalo and indie-soundtrack fixtures, Shudder to Think, were recruited to write and perform additional original material. On occasion, McGregor and Rhys-Meyers handle their own vocals, as each actor completely embraces and transforms into his character.

In every musical moment, song selections emphasize a dramatic point and advance the narrative in a manner dialogue alone could not. Meeting for the first time in a London discotheque, Brian and Mandy clear the dance floor by the force of eye contact alone, as the two are drawn together beneath a spinning mirror ball for a slow dance set to Brian Ferry's "Ladytron." Stand out moments of powerful on-screen rock include Placebo's appearance as a bar band, covering T-Rex's "20th Century Boy," and Slade's ultimate emotional devastation and career downfall foreshadowed by Thom Yorke's vulnerable vocalization of Roxy Music's "Bitter-Sweet." Brian Eno's timeless anthem, "Needle in the Camel's Eye," (a song dearly owed a second life) soundtracks an Austin Powers-esque montage of glam psychedelia that accompanies the film's opening credits sequence. The music of Velvet Goldmine establishes a new paradigm by which all future pop-culture-based film soundtracks should be composed, compiled and executed. High fives all around on this one.

Velvet Goldmine will be released to theaters in November. I advise you to don your platform boots and satin trousers as you rush to be one of the first to witness a film destined for legendary status. The must-own soundtrack is available on London records.

Boy Trapped In Refrigerator Eats Own Foot

Reader's of last month's column may recall the severe word beating bestowed by me upon Seattle's newly reformed Sunny Day Real Estate. In case you were out of town and missed that column, let me recap it for you: basically, in reviewing SDRE's Intel Music Festival showcase, I went out of my way to emphasize the stupefying boredom induced by this league of shoe-gazing zombies. I couldn't figure out the appeal of this band beyond sales of their video-taped live shows to insomnia sufferers. I should have known better than to make a statement like that. A week after the column saw print, I was shopping in Other Music on West 4th Street with my pal David and found myself strangely attracted to the low-key, ambient dream pop on the store's sound system. Upon asking a salesperson what record was playing, I was presented with - ta da! - the new Sunny Day Real Estate release. The next day, I had to call their publicist and request a reviewer's copy of the CD. Fortunately, she hadn't read my vitriolic spewing.

How It Feels to be Something On (Sub Pop), an acid ramble of a title if I ever heard one, features hypnotic, circular guitar riffs, spectacularly understated drum fills and vocals that waver between lovely and somewhat annoying. When singer/guitarist Jeremy Enigk (great name!) gets real excited, he sounds like Perry Farrell imitating a drunken Irish Pirate. On songs where he manages to remain relatively calm, his voice is emotive yet soothing. At their best ("Pillars," "Two Promises," "Days Were Golden"), I'd compare them to Three-Days-quality Jane's Addiction. If you smoke a big joint or drink a few beers while you're listening to this record, it probably sounds even better than Third Eye Blind. At any rate How It Feels to be Something On continues to grow on me. I'm giving this new Sunny Day Real Estate CD two tiny Gail-sized thumbs up. I still recommend you skip their live show however, as I'm sure they haven't progressed beyond the in-concert equivalent of peeling an apple and watching it turn brown.

JFK Jr Gets Jiggy

Last night I went to Madison Square Garden with Linda to see The Artist (I just call him Prince) and boy was it fun! Chaka Khan opened the show and she was pretty bodacious. Then Prince came on and did this Las Vegas style review of his hits, which was amazing. He's so teeny tiny and cute. And guess who was sitting not just in the same section or row as me, but the very seat in closest proximity to my body? None other than JFK Jr. - JFK Jr. sitting right next - as in the seat right next to me! Have I made myself clear on that? Sure, he was in disguise, but I recognized him even before he took off his yellow-tinted glass and beanie. When Prince extolled the audience to "push it up, push it up," well John-John had his hands in the air with the rest of us. It was pretty surreal. Once, his sweatered arm brushed against my bare arm as we flailed about. I was secretly hoping he would flail out of control and crash into me so I'd have a reason to speak to him. Alas, this did not occur.

Coming Mid-Month - Special Halloween Worley Gig featuring my adventures in San Francisco and Seattle, and the return of Bauhaus.

*****

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