I recently saw two music-centred movies, "8 Mile" and "24 Hour Party People". In both cases, I got a lot of the film that I expected to get from the other movie. First off, I thought "8 Mile" would centre on working class people whose lives revolved around the music. And it does, but there's another primary character whose role I hadn't expected would be so prominent. Detroit. More than anything else, this movie is about scenery. It's the disgusting slums of Detroit, with the crumbling houses, disintegrating trailer parks, and the streets choked with graffiti that drive the characters to do what they do -- find a way out. The film graphically demonstrates that the battles may be about rapping, but they're no game. Succeeding in battles is an act of desperation. It's either win, or be resigned to walking down those ugly streets for the rest of your life. Win, and maybe get the hell out of your crappy life, or live in Detroit forever.

"24 Hour Party People" seems to employ a cast of thousands. For two hours, musicians, producers, and various Mancunians punters swirl in and out of the film, which is certain to confuse any viewer who isn't familiar with any of the history or the music. With only one lead character -- Steve Coogan's awesome portrayal of impresario Tony Wilson right down to the intonations in his voice -- I figured the cohesive force would be Manchester itself. The on-site filming, the factories (no pun intended), a painstakingly recreated set of the legendary Hacienda, these would be present in lieu of prominent supporting characters. But again I was wrong. This is first and foremost a film about music (Coogan bluntly says so in the film) and about the people who made it. There are clips, flashbacks, snippets of important happenings from Manchester past, and very little focus on the city itself other than being repeatedly told how important their music scene was. And if Coogan hadn't said so, or if you weren't into the scene back in the day and could therefore vouch for the accuracy of these boasts, you would never believe it to be true, since how could such incredible music history have come together when everyone streaks around completely wasted most of the time acting like assholes? Well, that's exactly what DID happen, despite the lack of any and all good business sense. That is the whole point, after all.

On a completely different note, I want to comment on the historical accuracy of the film. As for the timeline, I was completely lost for most of the movie. They'd play a song, I'd ground myself by recalling what year we must be in based on the song, but invariably the next scene would be something that I could swear had happened a year earlier or later, the next scene would jump another few months one way or another ... none of this bothered me too much, since it just adds to the overall chaotic tone of the film. Then there's the scores of little things they nailed down. Joy Division were playing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" onstage at one point, and the recreation was unreal. Far beyond dressing up "Barney" in his white shirt and skinny dark tie that he wore onstage throughout that time period, "Ian"'s guitar looked PRECISELY like the one the real Ian played in the video, and it was even HELD the same way that Ian held it (another side comment: "Ian" did well to clone Ian's dancing mannerisms, but some of the intensity I felt was misplaced. "His" gripping the mic with veins bulging was a shade too much Henry Rollins for me). But the version of the song that was being played was the remixed single version (the one on "Substance"), which was put out after Ian died and was never played live! That happened a fair number of times -- they'd get a whole load of little details exactly right but miss out on one or two other little things.

All the nitpicking is admittedly a bit of overkill. This film is fun fun FUN and the incredible character and setting recreations are plenty enough to almost make you feel as if you were there ... a wonderful fantasy for those of us born on the wrong side of the pond.

This past Monday, I finished listening to my latest California CD haul. I got through all 29 in just 17 days, compared to a month for 37 CD's last time around. So I'm improving. Progress IS attainable, kids, and you've gotta start somewhere. Some hard-to-find nuggets and highlights:

First, I have to confess, that I actually came back with 30 CD's, #30 is a CD I already own, but it's the glow-in-the-dark limited edition of Spiritualized's "Pure Phase". I could have had a great deal on it in Feb 1995, when the owner of the now-defunct CD Bar on Yonge made me a great offer. I ended up buying the regular CD on import, but the day-glo one would have cost me a measly five bucks more and I passed on it. I figured I'd been spending enough money as of late and needed to cut down a bit. I never, ever forgave myself for that decision, and since then I've gone out of my way to lean on the side of "buy" every time I'm confronted with similarly structured decisions involving hard-to-find music.

Hey, do you miss the days when Stereolab weren't trying to write futuristic pop, the days when all their songs contained only two chords? I do too. Flowchart's "Multi-Personality Tabletop Vacation" misses those days as well. Although, when the album was released in 1995 those days weren't such distant memories. But today, it's a rollicking trip down memory lane with a fat colourful photo album. This album sounds more like Stereolab than any album has ever sounded like any band, ever. The resemblance is so strong, it's scary, and it's also lovely. They could re-release it as a synthetic music product called "I Can't Believe It's Not Stereolab!".

One of my goals was to buy some experimental music (i.e. noise, minimalism, etc.). For whatever reason, the inventory and prices on the West Coast are unbelievable for this music. I returned with stuff by Kevin Drumm, Pure (from the Mego label), and Brighter Death Now, to name a few. I also scored Tony Conrad's "Early Minimalism Volume One" box set, which is totally THE psychedelic shizznit. Just listen to those drones for half an hour and try to deny that it's one fine drug, I dare you. This made me clamour for my early Spacemen 3 CD's. A thoroughly cleansing, inspirational, three and a half hour experience. I was droning away on my sampler in a matter of minutes, just by sampling as I cooed into a microphone.

Acid Mothers Temple released 5973 records last year, and I've begun the catch-up process with their take on Terry Riley's "In C". The melodies are carried almost entirely by the keyboard, and fifteen minutes in, with the robo-chug overwhelming the track, I completely forgot what I was supposed to listening to. That's a compliment. The other two tracks, In E and In D, are amphetamine fueled noise-rock and blissed-out shimmering drones. I find that it's impossible to get bored of this kind of stuff.

I caught the new Zwan video this morning. The title couldn't have summed up my reaction any better. "Honestly", Billy, who do you think you're fooling? A female bassist, singing backup vocals no less, a guitarist with straight shoulder length hair framing his pouting face, Jimmy Chamberlain on drums ... three guesses which defunct band this reminded me of. No, Billy's goatee does not count as a novel artistic development. Respect for the three guitars, but he's transparently dumped the old band for a new band of people that must hate him less and picked up where his old band left off.

The Grammy nominees were announced. Yippie. Nothing like the granddaddy of useless awards shows to make for some quality ranting.

Grammy can talk all it wants about how there's not one artist that ran away with the nominations, or how this years' field is more wide open than ever. Screw that. Does anyone doubt for one second that Bruce Springsteen will win all the important awards? It's the "Steely Dan" factor from a couple of years back. Grammy NEVER goes out on a limb -- hell, they won't even climb the damned tree -- unless there's a complete dearth of decent nominees (call that the "Alanis" factor). Alan Jackson and the Boss will clean up, because it's ALWAYS the Alan Jacksons and Bosses that clean up at the Grammys. Rather than pick the best music, you can just eliminate all the stuff that you know won't have a chance, and pick the winners that way. Let's play the process of elimination game right now.

Record of the Year. This can actually be difficult to predict, mostly because nobody even knows what the record of the year even means in an age of mainly singer-songwriters. I'll say the blandest record will get it, so that leaves Vanessa Carleton and Norah Jones. I mean bland as opposed to edgy -- "Don't Know Why" is a wonderful song, but it's really easy on the ears which will please all the voters whose tastes haven't progressed beyond Natalie Cole in the last decade. But Norah Jones will probably win Best Newcomer, so her votes will be split across the other categories, so I'll pick Vanessa Carlton here.

Album + Song of the Year. Just engrave Bruce's name on the trophy right now. Alan Jackson is the sleeper pick for Song. Grammy is always 18 months behind the times due to their asinine eligibility period, so they haven't had the opportunity to memorialize 9/11 yet, so they'll do it here.

Rock Album. Bruce again, but many voters will still have a soft spot for Sheryl Crow. Although I don't believe Robert Plant has ever won a Grammy, if so, they may pull out a corollary of the Steely Dan factor and give it to him even though roughly 0.0001 % of American human beings are even aware that he put a record out.

Rap Album. This could be interesting, since there aren't any Fresh Prince - style embarrassments for Grammy to cheese out with. I've never heard of Petey Pablo, so I think I'll pick him. But this could also be the year they pick Eminem, since he's a movie star now and everything, so some of the voters might assume this means he's safe for children.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't blast Grammy for citing the soft and safe "Dilemma" featuring grizzled rapper plus cute female armpiece, instead of the REAL Record of the Year, "Hot in Herre". Grammy absolutely loves duets, and this lets them say they've given appropriate recognition to R&B artists. Besides the infinitely higher sweatyumphbumpandgrindfactor, I'd be willing to bet that way more kids downloaded "Hot In Herre" than "Dilemma", and we CERTAINLY don't want to be promoting file sharing or anything.