‘It Might Get Loud’: The Redemption of Jimmy Page

What happens to an artist whose creative peak has long past? That is the question which looms like a sustained E chord over the new documentary It Might Get Loud, a strange and wonderful cinematic ode to the electric guitar by director Davis Guggenheim. whose previous credits include An Inconvenient Truth (don’t hold that against him).

It Might Get Loud’s central conceit is simple and elegant in principle, but surprisingly messy and complex on screen: Take three eminent guitarists of differing styles and generations, interview them individually, get them to open up about their relationship with their instrument and then, for the film’s climax, throw them together on a sound-stage surrounded by guitars and see what happens.

Guggenheim’s choice of guitarists is a surprising one that somehow makes sense; Jack White of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs (in his 30’s), The Edge of U2 (in his 40’s), and Jimmy Page of The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin (in his 60’s). (more…)

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Tags: Alison Krauss, An Inconvenient Truth, David Coverdale, Davis Guggenheim, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
Posted Oct 26th 2009 at 6:55 am in Music, Reviews | 250126110 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mpatterson/2009/10/26/the-redemption-of-jimmy-page/%27It+Might+Get+Loud%27%3A+The+Redemption+of+Jimmy+Page2009-10-26+13%3A55%3A55Matt+Patterson

Review: U2 360° — Great Music, Bi-Partisan Politics

OK, first things first: U2 put on a great show in FedEx Field in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, September 29, 2009.

This was a relief, because the previous Saturday they had turned in a dismal, oddly disjointed performance on “Saturday Night Live.” But three days later the boys were back in fighting shape; it was, in fact, one of the hardest rocking shows I’ve ever seen them give — and I have seen my share of U2 shows (my lifetime total is now somewhere in the double digits).

The show opened with several numbers from the woefully under-appreciated new album No Line On The Horizon; the thrilling and unique “Breathe,” segued into “Magnificent,” a tune which doesn’t quite soar as as high as it wants to, but comes closer live than on record. The lackluster “Get On Your Boots” was followed by Zoo-era favorite “Mysterious Ways,” bringing the stadium down and prompting Bono to remark, “Well, it’s a warm night after all!” He then gave a preview of the rest of the set: “We have old songs; we have new songs; we have songs we can barely play!” (more…)

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Tags: Bono, FedEx Field, Larry Mullen Jr., The Edge, U2
Posted Oct 16th 2009 at 4:37 pm in Entertainment, Music, Reviews | 24403841 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mpatterson/2009/10/16/review-u2-360-great-music-bi-partisan-politics/Review%3A+U2+360%C2%B0+--+Great+Music%2C+Bi-Partisan+Politics2009-10-16+23%3A37%3A14Matt+Patterson

U2: An Exquisite Team

This past Saturday, my wife Karen, and I had the opportunity to once again take in a U2 show.  This one was at Soldier Field in Chicago and kicked off the U.S. leg of the 360 Tour.  The tour gets its name from the round stage — which allowed for more seating.  We had been to several U2 shows in the past, but never a stadium concert.  Every one of those extra seats was filled and the energy was tremendous.

What I am struck by is the amazing solidarity U2 has had over the years.  Make no mistake, they are an exquisite team.  Many people know of my relationship with Bono.  He is a man of faith who has used his celebrity to save countless lives in Africa.  He’s the front man with haunting vocals.  The Edge has that unique sound which keeps the band moving forward.  Larry Mullen’s drums keeps them in the now.  Finally, Adam Clayton’s bass allows the band to maintain that seemingly raw quality.  It’s no wonder they have been one of the world’s greatest rock bands all these years. (more…)

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Tags: Africa, Edge, John Kasich, Rwanda, Soldier Field
Posted Sep 16th 2009 at 1:34 pm in Culture, Featured Story, Music | 22577075 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jkasich/2009/09/16/u2-an-exquisite-team/U2%3A+An+Exquisite+Team2009-09-16+20%3A34%3A33John+R.+Kasich

Popular Music Abandons Everyone Over Forty

Those damn kids today and their strange and frightening music raise an important question for me:  When did I become my dad?

Back in the eighties – when popular music reached its pinnacle of achievement - I would be home from college, in my room, cranking cool tunes and my father would get home from work, peer in, scrunch up his face and ask how I could listen to that infernal racket.  The answer, of course, was that I had (and still have, dammit) really awesome taste in music.

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I actually pitied my Dad for being unable to appreciate the Midwestern-inflected post-punk glory of The Replacements, or the sonic frenzy of their Minneapolis brothers-in-noise Husker Du, or the soaring, roaring guitar heroics of The Clash.  I don’t know what music he actually liked.  There were some LPs lying around the house – kids, you can ask your parents what those are – but they were things like the Kingston Trio and the Sound of Music soundtrack.  This last one was a particular sore point for me since my mom got the idea to name me Kurt, which is the German equivalent of Melvin, from the little Von Trapp twerp who sang “Fa.” (more…)

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Tags: 50 cent, Black-Eyes Peas, fergie, Flo Rida, Husker Du
Posted Jul 31st 2009 at 5:03 am in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Music | 193510252 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/07/31/popular-music-abandons-everyone-over-40/Popular+Music+Abandons+Everyone+Over+Forty2009-07-31+12%3A03%3A46Kurt+Schlichter

Bono’s Classless Act – Endorsed by ‘The Won’

I’ll admit up front: I’ve never been a U2 fan. I never really understood the appeal of their self-righteous brand of music, and frontman Bono, with his made-up solo moniker (real name Paul David Hewson) and ever-present see-through wraparound sunglasses, simply irritates me.

Yet I was willing to give him some credit for working with former President Bush on a cause they both believed in – AIDS and poverty in Africa – even though he disagreed with Bush’s stance on Iraq. I honestly don’t think throwing all the money in the world at Africa will change anything there unless the tin pot dictators on that continent are all tossed out on their hineys – and I believe fellow rock star philanthropist Bob Geldof said something similar - but that’s beside the point. I might think even more of Bono if he were to give all of his own massive fortune to the needy in Africa before he lectures the rest of us about our “responsibility,” but I doubt even his philanthropic tendencies go that far. If he did, how could he afford to do things that only rich folks can do, like have his favorite hat flown from the UK to Italy because he forgot it? 

But cool rock stars have their limits. Apparently the B Man reached his when Bush tried to give him a hug at a prayer breakfast a couple of years ago. Adroitly dodging the president by scooting behind the podium, he shook his hand instead. Apparently Bush was good for soaking for taxpayer money for Bono’s cause, but that didn’t merit a hug.

Surprisingly, the media failed to pick up on that little maneuver until this week, when Bono admitted to the dodge in a BBC interview. Why mention it now? Apparently he felt bad about it, but since no one noticed it, why point it out publicly and humiliate someone who is no longer in the public eye? He could have just written Bush a private note saying “sorry, dude.” But I’m a little more cynical – I’m thinking he knew about the buzz of publicity that would accompany his little admission. See, with Bush out of office and criticizing Obama being verboten in the media, even new evidence of old Bush-bashing would immediately be picked up on and go viral. When a world tour is looming, any publicity will work in a pinch. (more…)

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Tags: Africa, AIDS, Barack Obama, BBC, Bono
Posted Jul 22nd 2009 at 1:51 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, Politics | 189518180 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pmeister/2009/07/22/bonos-classless-act-endorsed-by-the-won/Bono%27s+Classless+Act+-+Endorsed+by+%27The+Won%272009-07-22+20%3A51%3A31Pam+Meister

Is Copyright Law Stifling Creativity?

Last week, a federal judge in New York issued an injunction precluding the publication of a novel based on J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.”  The new novel, by Swedish author Fredrik Colting, describes the adventures of the elderly “Mr. C,” a not-so-veiled pseudonym for Salinger’s famous “Holden Caulfield.”  The federal court enjoined publication of the book in the United States after finding that it is a likely copyright infringement.  The Salinger lawsuit illuminates a weakness in copyright law that threatens to undermine copyright’s central purpose-promoting creativity.  

J.D. Salinger

American law differs from law in Europe (and elsewhere) by not granting-except in limited cases-any “moral rights” to the creator of an artistic work.  Moral rights are designed to protect the integrity of a work; for example, moral rights could stop a television station from editing a movie in ways the director believes undermine his artistic vision.  Copyright law, however, has no such interest.  The Copyright Act rests on Congress’ authority under the United States Constitution “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”  Thus, the purpose of copyright law is to encourage creativity by giving artists, authors, and others the exclusive right to benefit from their creative efforts for a limited period of time.  (more…)

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Tags: Copyright law, Fredrik Colting, Holden Caulfield, J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Posted Jul 6th 2009 at 2:35 pm in Entertainment, Law | 17630283 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/carledge/2009/07/06/is-copyright-law-stifling-creativity/Is+Copyright+Law+Stifling+Creativity%3F2009-07-06+21%3A35%3A33Chris+Arledge

Bono Discovers Sustainable Development Isn’t Sustainable

THE BIG problem with renewable energy is that it just doesn’t renew itself. The sun does not shine enough and the wind doesn’t blow enough to power the towns, cities, factories, hospitals and schools that make our lives so livable.

No environmentalist would ever allow their child to be treated in a hospital fully powered by “renewables”. They would not take the risk that the wind might stop whilst their baby was on the operating table. They would insist that the hospital and the life support systems had a fossil fuel powered back-up.

And so it is with “sustainable development”. It just isn’t sustainable. At least it does not sustain a lifestyle that those who promote it would consider acceptable for themselves. But of course that is the key. Renewable energy and sustainable development are for “other people”.

Even though environmentalists come from societies and very often families that became rich because of their use of non-renewable energy and unsustainable development they will not allow these opportunities to be extended to the poor in the developing world. (more…)

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Tags: Bono, capitalism, clooney, Edun, fashion
Posted May 20th 2009 at 5:03 am in Celebrity News, Politics | 1379429 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/amcelhinney/2009/05/20/bono-discovers-sustainable-development-isnt-sustainable/Bono+Discovers+Sustainable+Development+Isn%27t+Sustainable2009-05-20+12%3A03%3A19Phelim+McAleer+%26%2338%3B+Ann+McElhinney%E2%80%8F

Digital Killed the Radio Star

Never before has music been so easy to create, distribute, and obtain. And never before has it been less inspired and inspiring; never before has it been so inconsequential to human affairs. The villain behind this terrible irony? Ones and zeros.

The digitization of music, while in some ways advantageous (and in any case inevitable), has nonetheless resulted in profoundly deleterious effects from which all of the music industry’s current woes emanate. Let us count the ways.

Digitization has democratized the processes of musical composition and recording, beckoning the masses to participate in once rarefied and expensive art forms.

To be an artist was once to be elite by definition. Artistic mastery which the public revered (and, if you were lucky, payed for), was obtainable only through years of sacrifice, study, and struggle. This arduous and uncertain life had the glorious effect of weeding out all but the most dedicated and talented from the artistic professions. (more…)

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Tags: democratization of music business, digital music, downloadable music, file sharing, Led Zeppelin
Posted Apr 7th 2009 at 4:13 am in Entertainment, Featured Story, News | 9840649 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mpatterson/2009/04/07/the-dying-muse/Digital+Killed+the+Radio+Star2009-04-07+11%3A13%3A48Matt+Patterson

U2 & Me

I anticipated the new U2 album, “No Line on the Horizon,” with something approaching dread – the kind of dread only a longtime fan can muster.  

I stuck with U2 virtually my whole life – from their sophomore album October (the first record I ever bought with my own money), through the ambient experiments of “The Unforgettable Fire,” to their earthy and earnest “Joshua Tree” phase, all the way through the avant-garde “Zooropa” wackiness.  God help me, I even loved “Pop.”

Through it all, it had been easy for me to tune out the political pontificating for which the band was known, drowned out as at was by so much wonderful music.  But by the time of 2004’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” that ratio had begun to shift.  The band’s musical output declined in both quantity and consistency, while at the same time Bono’s political activism went into overdrive.   (more…)

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Tags: "Can Bono Save The World", Bono, No Line on The Horizon, Time magazine, U2
Posted Mar 18th 2009 at 3:47 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, Political Humor, Reviews | 8133463 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mpatterson/2009/03/18/u2-and-me-matt-patterson/U2+%26amp%3B+Me+2009-03-18+22%3A47%3A14Matt+Patterson

Politics Plays Hell With Your Poetry

“This class struggle plays hell with your poetry,” John Reed, celebrated in Warren Beatty’s Reds, confessed to friends after jumping from the lighthearted literary Left of Greenwich Village into the world of hardcore Communists. Bono may be thinking the same thing about saving the world. U2’s much-hyped No Line on the Horizon, the band’s first album in nearly five years, might be interpreted by celebrities as a cautionary tale against mixing activism with their art. As I write in my American Spectator review of No Line on the Horizon, the album represents the transformation of U2 from relevant it band to greatest hits act. It is uninspired, leaving diehard fans to wonder if meetings with popes, presidents, and queens, fundraising for debt relief, human rights activists, and AIDS, and writing columns for The New York Times makes U2 an afterthought for Bono.

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Tags: AIDS, American Spectator, Bono, Communists, Greenwich Village
Posted Mar 4th 2009 at 1:03 pm in Celebrity News, Entertainment, Reviews | 7239033 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dflynn/2009/03/04/politics-plays-hell-with-your-poetry/Politics+Plays+Hell+With+Your+Poetry2009-03-04+21%3A03%3A56Daniel+J.+Flynn

‘Spreading the Good Vibe’: New Orleans’ Finest ‘Cowboy Mouth’ to Play for U.S. Troops in Iraq, Kuwait

Memo to all active duty servicemen and women stationed in Kuwait and Iraq: An amazing musical group and an almost surreal positive live musical experience is coming to a theater near you.

According to the Times-Picayune, New Orleans-based Cowboy Mouth will be coming to Iraq and Kuwait for two and a half weeks in the beginning of March. This is not PR puffery. This is a direct order: See Cowboy Mouth when they come to your base. There are no excuses. And send your photos — I will post them at Big Hollywood.

Back in my college days in New Orleans (’87-’91) I took advantage of the city’s historic music venues (Tipitina’s, Storyville, etc.), the cheap drinks and cover prices, not to mention the great bands born from that vibrant, otherworldly and unpredictable culture. In 1990 my friend Chris Huston was working for the local music magazine, Wavelength, and informed me that the locally famous former drummer of Dash Rip Rock (still a Southern-fried country-punk bar band without peer) was starting a new band and would be playing at the now defunct Jimmy’s on Willow Street. (more…)

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Tags: "China", Chris Huston, Cowboy Mouth, Dash Rip Rock, Fred LeBlanc
Posted Feb 18th 2009 at 6:13 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, Video | 5447855 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2009/02/18/spreading-the-good-vibe-new-orleans-finest-cowboy-mouth-to-play-for-us-troops-in-iraq-kuwait/%27Spreading+the+Good+Vibe%27%3A+New+Orleans%27+Finest+%27Cowboy+Mouth%27+to+Play+for+U.S.+Troops+in+Iraq%2C+Kuwait2009-02-19+02%3A13%3A59Andrew+Breitbart