Certain albums remind me of specific years in my life. When I think of a year there seems to be one album that stands out. Not necessarily the hit album of the year but the record that speaks to where I was at that time.  Here are the 70’s.

1972: “Aqualung”, Jethro Tull– This is the year I started really listening to music. When I was ready to buy my first album I asked my sister for a recommendation. This was her somewhat eclectic choice but what a cool album.  I didn’t know what it was about until much later. If you own a Jethro Tull album it’s this one.

1973:  “John Barleycorn Must Die”, Traffic– I swiped this one from my sister. This is one of those desert island records for me. I became a lifelong Steve Winwood fan on the spot. It’s hard to think of another record that starts with an instrumental (“Glad”).  Parts jazz, rock, English folk and prog-rock this album has it all.

1974: “On The Beach”, Neil Young– I bought this record that summer.  It captures the mid-seventies, Watergate, Patty Hearst malaise perfectly. “Revolution Blues” is one scary song.  And side two is a three-song masterpiece.

1975: “Late For The Sky”, Jackson Browne– Thanks to my friend Joe who forced me to buy this album in the summer of 1975. It changed by life. I played this album twice a day for the next six months. Also one of the best album covers ever.

1976: “Black Rose”, J.D. Souther– This was a close one because at the end of the year the Eagles released “Hotel California” that took up all your musical mind space for the next year[1]. This one is a sentimental favorite. I bought it having never heard the man’s voice. There are some great songs here (e.g., “Faithless Love”, “Silver Blue” and “Doors Swing Open”).[2]

1977: “Warren Zevon”, Warren Zevon– Another “never heard before buying” purchase.[3] I just wrote about this album in my last post so I won’t put you through it again. The reason I bought it was because Jackson Browne produced it. This was quite a year with Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” in the spring and Browne’s “Running On Empty” in the fall.

1978: “Waiting For Columbus”, Little Feat– I was late to the party discovering this band and its leader Lowell George(who died in June 1979). This music just soars from the opening “Fat Man In The Bathtub” across both sides of this live album. This band should have been huge. Close second: “Darkness on the Edge of Town”from Bruce Springsteen that came out during the summer that year.

1979: “Damn The Torpedoes”, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers– This was a game changer of an album for me. It was the kind of rock and roll I wanted to play. Not a bad cut on the album. And who looked cooler than Tom on the cover with that Rickenbacker?

ARTS ROUNDUP

Listening– “Burnout”, Ox– I stumbled onto this band on Spotify. The lead singer sounds like Ryan Adams (I thought maybe an anonymous side project?). At first it was hard to find anything about the band. Turns out they’re from Canada and have been around since 2003. This album was released in 2009. Worth a listen.

Reading– “Some Die Nameless”, Wallace Stroby. I was reading an article on the writer George Peleconosand this was the next book he was going to read. Ray Devlin is a retired mercenary living a quiet life in Florida when an old colleague finds him and tries to kill him. Devlin sets off to find out why he and his old comrades are being targeted. When two are killed in Philadelphia a local reporter, Tracy Quinn, joins the hunt. There’s a lot of shooting going on here and the bodies pile up as Ray and Tracy get closer the truth.

Watching– “Ordeal by Innocence” (Amazon). Three-part mini series based on an Agatha Christie story. It stars Bill Nighy as the patriarch Leo Argyll whose tyrannical wife has been murdered the previous year. Their son Jack, also killed while awaiting trial, was believed to be her killer. Then just as Leo is to be remarried a stranger shows up with an alibi for Jack. Everyone, his other four children, the maid, et al, are now in play for the murder.  It’s fun trying to figure it out.

[1]A long-time collaborator with the Eagles, Souther co-wrote “New Kid In Town” and “Victim of Love” on  “Hotel California”.

[2]Many of them covered by Linda Ronstadt.

[3]This type of purchasing didn’t always work out. Now we have Spotify for trying out new artists.

Well it’s almost football season again so I put together a list of my favorite films with the gridiron as the setting. In no particular order:

“Against All Odds” – Football is more the backdrop for this romantic thriller starring Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward (What ever happened to her?). Bridges plays a wide receiver that gets released because of a bad shoulder. He takes an assignment looking for the runaway girlfriend of a local bookie played by James Woods. Bridges finds her and they wind up getting involved. Then things get complicated. My favorite line is when Woods’ character, explaining his betting empire, says to Bridges “People love sports Terry.” Ex-Detroit Lion Alex Karis also co-stars.

“North Dallas Forty “– The film is based on the book by Peter Gent and loosely based on the Dallas Cowboys of the 1970’s. It features Mac Davis as the star quarterback and Nick Nolte as the disillusioned wide receiver. Think “Ball Four” for football. A little dated now but still worth a view if you catch it on cable. Ahead of its time in depicting the tenuous nature of a career in professional sports

“The Longest Yard” – Story of a penitentiary where the warden gets the prisoners to agree to form a team to play a guards’ semi-pro team in a football game.  Catch the original with Burt Reynolds as the former pro quarterback and leader of the inmates’ team.

“The Blindside” – Based on the book by Michael Lewis, the movie is really two stories (told in alternating chapters in the book). The primary one is about Michael Oher, a young, essentially homeless, young black man who is taken in by a well to do white family who guide him toward an education and a career in football. The parallel story is about the evolution in pro football of the importance, and value, of the left offensive tackle protecting the quarterback’s left or blindside.

“Brian’s Song” – An early seventies TV movie and true story about the friendship between Chicago Bear teammates Brian Piccolo and hall of fame running back Gayle Sayers. They were the first interracial roommates in professional football. Piccolo develops a terminal disease, which cuts his career, and life, short. James Caan plays Piccolo and Billy Dee Williams plays Sayers.

“Rudy” – The sentimental favorite on the list. Even people who aren’t football fans love this movie about a Notre Dame practice squad player who dreams of getting into an actual game. Also a cautionary tale of how ruthless, win-focused and unsentimental are college football coaches.

“Remember The Titans” – Another film based on a true story, starring Denzel Washington as the new coach hired to integrate a Virginia high school in the early seventies.  The new coach, who has replaced the former white coach, struggles to overcome the racial tensions between his players.  Will Patton is excellent as the former coach who stays on as the defensive coordinator and Denzel is great in anything.

“Any Given Sunday” – This one is worth watching if only for Al Pacino’s “game of inches” pre-game speech, which ranks with the best of all film speeches. Directed by Oliver Stone.

ARTS ROUNDUP

Watching – “Three Billboards outside Ebbing Mississippi”. It took me a while to get to this one but this is one powerful movie. The performances of Frances McDormand, Woodie Harrelson and Sam Rockwell are exceptional and quite moving. The movie is a complex and layered tale of a woman embittered by the murder of her daughter. If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it. One of the best of last year’s Oscar films.

Reading – “The Outsider”, Stephen King. I haven’t read one of his books in a long time. Not sure why because he is such a great storyteller. This one starts out as a pretty straightforward murder mystery in an Oklahoma town and then morphs into something else altogether as only Stephen King can do.

Listening – America. Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and the late Dan Peek founded the band in 1971. There was an article about this band in the Wall Street Journal recently in one of their ongoing “Making of a Song” series. This one focused on their first hit 1972 “Horse With No Name”(which sounded very much like Neil Young who also had a hit on the charts at the time with “Heart of Gold”). The band had a string of strong albums and hits up through the mid-seventies (e.g., “Sister Golden Hair”). They even got the legendary George Martin to produce a few of their albums. My favorites songs are on the earlier albums like “Ventura Highway” and “I Need You” and also the deep cuts like “Sandman” and “Another Try”.

There’s a new Star Wars movie out this weekend. The following are my favorite movies about space (pardon my omission of the ten thousand movies in the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises). In no particular order:

2001: A Space Odyssey – This is not really a favorite of mine but it deserves mention. I took my future wife to this movie as one of our first dates. Quite the first date movie. I think I have seen this film at least five times and I couldn’t begin to tell you what is about. Lost me after the ape scene. It’s a classic. Just don’t ask me to watch it again.

Apollo 13 – The classic tale of the aborted mission to the moon and how NASA scrambles to find a way to save the crew and get them back to Earth. Tom Hanks plays astronaut and crew chief Jim Lovell (the movie is based on his memoir “Lost Moon”). The superb supporting cast includes Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise. My favorite line: “This is like trying to fly a toaster through a car wash”.

The Right Stuff – The movie is based on the Tom Wolfe novel about the first American astronauts. I just watched it again recently. My favorite parts are the scenes with Sam Shepard (playing the test pilot Chuck Yeager). Yeager doesn’t become an astronaut but remains in the Mojave Desert as a test pilot. Levon Helm (drummer from The Band) plays his buddy. Barbara Hershey plays his wife and her scenes with Shepard, particularly the one near the end of the movie, are classic.

The Martian – Not quite as good as the book but close. Matt Damon plays the wise cracking scientist/spaceman Mark Watney who gets left behind on Mars when his crew, thinking he has been killed in a severe dust storm, aborts the mission and heads back to earth. Then a mission control analyst monitoring the planet starts picking up evidence that Watney may still be alive and the race is on to retrieve him from the red planet. The film, and more so the book, is narrated mostly by Watney who provides a running stream of one liners as he ingeniously figures out how to survive until his rescuers can arrive. The strong cast includes Jessica Chastain and Jeff Daniels. Start with the book.

Alien – The starship freighter Nostromo is on its way back to earth when the crew is awakened from their “travel sleep” with a distress signal from a nearby planet. One of the pods they encounter latches itself onto the helmet of one the crew. They bring him back onto the ship to tend to him and then it’s off to the races as the “alien” gets loose (in a particularly gruesome dinner scene). The cast includes Tom Skerrit, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton and Sigourney Weaver (in her first starring role). There have been numerous sequels but this is the one for me.

ARTS ROUNDUP

Listening – Neil Young Archives. The second and future releases of the NYA series are now on the web only. Young has backfilled “Archives I” onto the site. Every one of his albums is available and there are placeholders for unreleased albums (presumably to be populated with official archive releases). There are two audio settings for playback: master level and a lower level with MP3/Spotify quality audio (Neil has become quite the audiophile). There are a couple of ways to browse the music. For me it’s interesting to see when the songs were recorded and who played on the sessions. Very cool stuff for the hardcore fan.

Watching – “The Defiant Ones” is an HBO documentary that starts out with producers Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre selling their Beats headphones to Apple for $3 billion. Then the four-part series rolls back to the seventies and traces the careers of Iovine and Dre all the way to their eventual intersection at Interscope Records, which Iovine founds in the late eighties. It is fascinating to watch how the lives of these two men, one from the world of east coast rock, the other a rap performer and producer from the streets of South Central L.A., come together in a transforming musical partnership.

Reading – Andy Weir is back with “Artemis” his follow up to “The Martian”. The story takes place in the future on our colonized Moon. The lead character is Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara a young, smart and vagabond Saudi woman who is eking out a living making deliveries and smuggling contraband onto the Moon. Seeing a chance to break out of her life of near poverty she gets embroiled in a scheme with a wealthy businessman to take over an aluminum mining company. When it all goes wrong Jazz is on the run trying to save her own life while figuring out what’s really going on.

I recently read a profile and interview of Robert Redford in Esquire magazine. It covered a lot of ground: childhood, and early career, his 70’s superstardom, the creation of the Sundance film festival and his lifelong friendship with Paul Newman. I have always been a big fan of Redford’s films. Here’s my top five:

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid – Paul Newman and Redford play the bank-robbing characters in the title of this film. It is probably my favorite movie of all time (along with Almost Famous for a totally different reason). I would estimate I have seen this movie about fifty times (six times in the theatre). Redford was a relative unknown at the time and Newman pushed to get him the role of The Sundance Kid. And the rest is history. The chemistry and repartee of Newman and Redford is so perfect and seamless. Their exchange upon their arrival in Bolivia is one for the ages. Katherine Ross plays the maiden school marm who loves them both.

All The President’s Men – Some of Redford’s best films are when he is paired with another major actor. This time it’s Dustin Hoffman in the movie version of the book about how the Washington Post broke the Watergate story. Redford and Hoffman play the reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. By now Redford is a huge star. The supporting cast is also killer: Jason Robards (Ben Bradlee), Jack Warden (Harry Rosenfeld), Martin Balsom (Howard Simons) and Hal Holbrook (Deep Throat).[1] It’s one of the great movies about life inside a news operation. I watch it about once a year.

Three Days of the Condor – I first saw this movie in high school. We got there really late and wound up sitting in the first row staring up at the screen. It’s a cerebral thriller about a CIA group in Washington whose job is to read books looking for coded messages. Redford’s character, code named Condor, goes out to get lunch one day and comes back to find his co-workers have all been gunned down. From there he’s on the run. He then breaks into a home, kidnaps the owner (Faye Dunaway[2]) and holes up there while he starts sorting out what is going on. Very seventies, cold war paranoia vibe.

The Candidate – A satirical take on a campaign for the US Senate for California. Redford plays Bill McKay a street lawyer who is convinced by the democratic machine to run against an entrenched incumbent. Peter Boyle plays his campaign manager. It is interesting to watch McKay’s transformation as his run proceeds. Late in the movie Redford while riding in the back of a car, the grind of the campaign starting to wear, says to himself “Vote once, vote twice for Bill McKay.”

The Sting – Redford and Newman are back in this tale of con men going for the big score. I don’t watch this one that much but I enjoy it when I do. Great line: Upon first meeting Newman’s character who is sleeping off a bender Redford’s character says, “They told me I could learn something from you. I already know how to drink.”

Bonus Pick: The Electric Horseman – This is my sleeper. This late seventies movie pairs Redford with Jane Fonda. He is a washed up rodeo rider who is now hired out to ride horses at rodeos wearing a suit with lights all over it. He reaches his breaking point while doing his act in Vegas on a champion horse. He steals the horse and rides out into the desert with the goal of setting the horse free. Fonda plays the reporter on his trail to get the story.

Honorable Mention: The Great Gatsby (with a great performance by a very young Sam Waterston as Nick) and The Way We Were (A major league tear jerker co-starring Barbra Streisand ).

ARTS ROUNDUP

Watching – Major League Baseball Playoffs. Well mostly the first half of the games. Lord these games do go on forever. The Yankees couldn’t figure out how to score in Houston. The Dodgers seemed to have cracked the code but they’re still down three games to two going into tonight.

Reading – I just finished “First Degree” the second Andy Carpenter mystery by David Rosenfelt. These breezy capers center on the lawyer Andy Carpenter. He has two loves in his life, his dog Tara and his girlfriend Laurie. The latter has been charged with the killing of a corrupt cop. A set up for sure that Andy must figure out to save Laurie. Twisty and satisfying with an entertaining group of characters in the supporting cast. The locale is northern New Jersey which is also fun for those of us who know the area.

Listening – Pink Floyd, “Animals”. We went with friends recently to see a Pink Floyd tribute band. They played the song “Dogs” from this album. My PF focus has always been mostly “Dark Side of the Moon” and “Wish You Were Here”. I got the album off Spotify and I really like it. The album is a bridge between the melancholy of Wish and full out nihilism of “The Wall”. The album also showcases Roger Waters’ increasing control over the band.

[1] They also get some of the best lines: Hal Holbrook’s character upon finding out that the reporters have overstepped on the story, says about the H.R. Haldeman (Nixon’s Machiavellian chief of staff), “You even having people feeling sorry for him. I didn’t think that was possible.”.

[2] I could write another post about how big a star Faye Dunaway was in the late sixties and seventies. The list of her films is impressive: Bonnie and Clyde, Three Days of the Condor, China Town, Network and The Thomas Crown Affair.

Here’s the best of what I’ve read, watched and listened to in 2016.

Books

1. “Razor Girl”, Carl Hiaasen – OMG, laugh out loud funny as Hiaasen chronicles the latest band of Florida crazies and their schemes.
2. “Before the Fall”, Noah Hawley– This is the best book I read this year. Crazy mystery about a private plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard. Read this book.
3. “The Travelers”, Chris Pavone – Somewhat a return to form for the author of the breakout hit “Expats”. Pavone returns with a tale about a travel writer who gets caught up in international intrigue where all is not (as you would expect with Pavone’s thrillers) what is seems.
4. “City on Fire”, Garth Risk Hallberg – Big, complex, multiple character book with intertwined stories set in NYC from late 1976 to summer of 1977.
5. “Home”, Harlan Coben – One of my favorites series with two of the great main characters in Myron Bolitor and his sidekick Win. If you haven’t read this series it is worth going back to the start with 1995’s “Deal Breaker”.

Movies/TV – I am way behind on new television and movies… but of what I did get to these were my favorites:

1. The Crown (Netflix) – I wrote about this one recently. Clare Foy plays the young Queen Elizabeth in this four season Netflix series. A bit of methadone for those dealing with Downton Abby withdrawal.
2. Soundbreaking: Stories From The Cutting Edge of Recorded Music (PBS) – All you music lovers out there find the reruns of this eight-part PBS special on the recording of popular music over the past 50 years.
3. Madame Secretary (CBS) – Losing a little steam in its third season but still very watchable and Tea Leoni holds it all together.
4. Arrival – The one movie on this list (as I said I am way behind). Amy Adams stars as a linguist dealing with one of the alien ships that have “arrived” in various parts of the world. It’s a story about communication and the concept of time. I didn’t really completely understand what was going on but I enjoyed it all the same.
5. Good Behavior (TNT) – Michelle Dockery goes 180 degrees from Lady Mary on Downton Abbey to play an ex-con, meth addict who becomes partners, not willingly, with a professional assassin.
6. The Americans (FX)– I just finished the third season and this is one of the best shows of the modern television era. Makes you think about your neighbors.

Music

Albums – I listen to a fair amount of new music but to be honest not much sticks in terms of wanting to hear the whole album again. Here’s the few that made the grade in 2016:

1. Kasami Washington, “The Epic” – Is it ever. Sax player Washington emerges fully formed with this three-record jazz/funk extravaganza. I picked up the vinyl at Spinster Records in Dallas earlier this year.
2. Lydia Loveless, “Real” – Third full length LP from Loveless. At first I thought she had filed off her rough edges a bit too much and was veering off into Taylor Swift land. But not to worry, upon further listens, and a recent show in NYC, she’s as scrappy and rocking as ever.
3. Car Seat Headrest, “Teens In Denial” – These guys are on all of the best of lists so I thought I give them a try. The lead singer sounds a lot like Ray Davies of The Kinks (at least to me). Good solid record. They have a lot of this album on YouTube if you want to check them out.
4. Dinosaur Jr., “A Glimpse of What You’re Not” – J Mascis at his guitar shredding best, 20 years on with the original lineup.

Songs – I also keep a list of memorable songs from artists I’ve tried in the last year:

1. Kings of Leon, “Waste A Moment” – Classic late-period KOL arena-style tune.
2. John Fullbright, “When You’re Here” – A sappy love song but a good one.
3. Datura4 , “Out With The Tide” – This Australian band is a crazy mix of styles from this one that opens the record to others that sound like ZZ Top, Aerosmith and on it goes. This song has a bit of a T. Rex vibe.
4. The Record Company , “Off The Ground” – This is a band to watch. This swampy, tune with its slithering slide guitar sounds more like a seasoned roadhouse blues band than a first album from a bunch of young guys from LA.

Happy New Year!

For those of you who are not familiar with the title reference, the actor John Cusack starred in the movie High Fidelity as record storeowner Rob Gordon who was fond of top five lists. A must-see movie if you haven’t had the pleasure.

Our subject today is my pick of the top five movies starring Clint Eastwood. It was very tough to pick just five. You could also make a similar list of movies that Eastwood directed. The only ground rules for my list were no movies with animals, Clint singing or Sondra Locke (though you will see I made an exception for the last one). Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen these films as I am writing as if you have. Here we go…

THE TOP FIVE

Dirty Harry (1971) – Eastwood plays the 44 magnum toting San Francisco detective Harry Callahan. Harry is on the trail of a serial killer sniper named Scorpio who has promised to kill one innocent person each day until the city meets his demand for $100,000. One of the cool things about this series are the unrelated vignettes that are interspersed with the main story that have a subtle bit of humor mixed in. The debut’s vignette comes in the opening scene with Harry breaking up a bank robbery that interrupts his lunch at a diner. Next thing you know he’s walking down the street shooting up everything in sight while still chewing his hot dog. The scene ends with Harry confronting one of the wounded bank robbers who is reaching for his shotgun. Harry says, “I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But seeing that this is a 44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off you have to ask yourself a question. Do I feel lucky? Well do you… punk?” Pauline Kael the renowned film reviewer from the New Yorker shredded Dirty Harry calling it “fascist” and ‘immoral” in its depiction of violence.

Magnum Force (1973) –“A man’s got to know his limitations”. This is the recurring quote from Harry in this sequel to Dirty Harry (that is almost as good as the debut) that finds him trying to solve the mystery of who is killing the city’s most notorious criminals. When it appears to be a rogue cop things get interesting and complex for Harry. Hal Holbrook plays the irascible chief of police. The movie also stars in supporting roles some actors who will go on to have notable careers themselves. Among them are David Soul (“Starsky and Hutch”), Tim Matheson (various films and television shows) and Robert Urick (“Vegas” and “Spenser for Hire”). One of the film’s unrelated vignettes (the other being a supermarket stakeout) involves Harry foiling an airplane hijacking by impersonating a pilot. In the cockpit of the plane and in the presence of one of the hijackers, the co-pilot asks Harry, “Excuse me captain I know this may sound silly but can you fly?” Harry answers, “Nope, never had a lesson.” Mayhem ensues.

The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976) – Pale Rider, Unforgiven and even High Plains Drifter may make other lists but for movies with Clint on a horse with a gun for me nothing compares to Josie Wales. After his family is murdered by a union army raid Josie joins up with the rebel forces that are holding out from surrendering. Josie won’t surrender and heads west as a fugitive. During the course of Josie’s continued flight from the union and freelance bounty hunters he winds up accumulating a cast of characters along the way that become his new family. The scene at the end of the movie where Josie negotiates with the Comanche chief Ten Bears is a classic and shows the thematic depth of this “western”. Sondra Locke shows up late in a minor role but even she can’t ruin this great movie.

Escape From Alcatraz (1979) – “When you misbehave in society they send you to prison. When you misbehave in prison they send you to Alcatraz”. So begins the true story of Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, the only inmates to escape from Alcatraz and not be found. It’s more psychological thriller than action movie as we watch Morris and the brothers carefully plan and execute their escape. Patrick McGoohan stars in a supporting role as the sociopathic warden of “the rock”.

Gran Torino (2008) – Clint plays Walt a retired autoworker, widower and a bit of a bigot who sits on his porch most days with his dog drinking beer from a cooler. He eventually befriends his Asian next-door neighbors (actually they force themselves on Walt). When the kids get caught up in the grip of the local gang Walt gets involved. The title refers to Walt’s prized car. Great late period Clint.

HONORABLE MENTION

In The Line of Fire (1993) – If there were six spots this one would be on the list. Clint stars as Frank Horrigan an aging Secret Service agent who is haunted by his failure on the Kennedy detail in Dallas in1963. Teamed with fellow agent Lillie Raines (Renee Russo) they are chasing ex-CIA assassin Mitch Leary (the masterfully psychotic John Malkovich) who is planning to shoot the president. Great quote by Malkovich’s character near the end of the film: “A bullet-proof vest? Not very sporting Frank.”

High Plains Drifter (1973) – Like the plots of many great Eastwood movies things are not what they seem at first. Clint plays an unknown gunslinger that mysteriously arrives one day in the small prairie town of Lago. He’s eventually enlisted to help the townspeople defend themselves from a group of marauders. It’s a complex tale of violence and revenge.

Million Dollar Baby (2004) – I really liked this one until Hillary Swank got hurt. It was a left turn I did not see coming and it spoiled it for me.

What are the best movies about rock and roll? I would include documentaries as well as movies about or with a rock and roll theme. Here’s my list:

Hard Day’s Night/Help – The Beatles started it all with these two films. Part of the phenomena of this group is how camera-ready these guys were. Though “Help” hints at the darker years to come, both these movies perfectly capture Beatle-mania and the charm of the Fab Four.

Don’t Look Back – I was never really a fan of this film but it does accurately represent the weirdness of being Bob Dylan in 1965. It is a cautionary glimpse of the paparazzi culture to come years later. No wonder the guy dropped out for eight years.

Woodstock – If you couldn’t be there this was the next best thing. The film introduced split screen technology so we could see interviews, bathing shots and bands on stage all at the same time. Performance highlights include the breakout performances by Santana and Ten Years After, The Who, Rich Havens opening set and of course, Jimi’s take on the “Star Spangled Banner” during his breakfast set on Sunday morning.

Gimme Shelter – It’s hard to believe this was only four months after Woodstock. Altamont became everything Woodstock was not. Peace and love replaced with violence and menace and the Rolling Stones as the sixties stumbled to a close.

Almost Famous – This feels like a movie about my high school years (I was 15 in 1973, the same age as the main character who becomes a reporter for Rolling Stone). The meaning of the film is summed up for me in a line from late in the movie: “…they don’t even know what it means to be a fan,  to truly love some silly little piece of music or some band so much that is hurts.” I can, and do, watch it again and again.

The Last Waltz – The Band’s grand farewell at Winterland on Thanksgiving 1976 included an all-star guest list (Neil Young, Clapton, Van Morrison et al) and an A-List director (Martin Scorcese). Even though it was heavily edited, as was the music, it still shows The Band at the height of their powers, closing things out in style. The interspersing of the very entertaining interview segments fills in the group’s back story and what led them to this final show (e.g., Ronnie Hawkins telling The Band, then known as the Hawks, that he can’t pay much but they’ll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra.).

High Fidelity – The other non-documentary on this list, captures the spirit of rock and roll that lives in a record shop. John Cusack’s character owns the record store and provides us with the theory of the perfect mix tape. Meanwhile Jack Black has a hilarious breakout role as one of Cusack’s non-paid store clerks.

Sound City – Dave Grohl’s love letter to this magical studio in Van Nuys, California where bands from Fleetwood Mac and Nirvana recorded their classic albums on the “Neve” console. It has a very similar vibe to the “Muscle Shoals” documentary. Both are important contributions in documenting rock and roll history.

Afterwords: Following up on my post “I Want My iTV!”, I think the new Verizon FIOS offering of a $55 mini-bundle is on the right track based on the fact that ESPN and other content providers are squealing like stuck pigs. ESPN filed suit today but Verizon is standing its ground. Watch this space.