Country music

I'm in a state of damp anticipation over Walk the Line (November 18th, baby, November 18th) which isn't just due to an ingrained genetic need to see Joaquin Phoenix existing. I haven't seen a Joaquin Phoenix film since Gladiator, and I'm not %100 sure I've ever seen another. Was he in Clay Pigeons? Or was that some other slightly doughy but not-to-be-denied piece of fine Americana? Too lazy to Google. As J*Fish and I concurred last night, the internet makes life and knowing stuff absurdly, obscenely easy, but my laziness will prevail. I shall overcome . . .

So, state of damp anticipation over Walk the Line. Johnny Cash is some kind of wonderful. Live at San Quentin is the only live album I'll sit down with and listen the crap out of. I realized when one of my stellar brothers played it for me, at 18 or something, that country music is not irredeemable shit. In fact, Live at San Quentin might have been the album that convinced my stunted little-girl-brain of the basic but oft-ignored fact that any good music is good music.

In that spirit I went to see Colonel Tom's Swinging Door, an incarnation of the Backstabbers, last night at the Cameron House - sweet. Bob Hannen's vocals were especially nice, and the bass player was hot. Hot! What is it with bass players? Bass players and drummers? Bass players, drummers, and guitarists? And pianists? And baritones? And counter-tenors? And painters, photographers, and dancers? Oh artists. But I digress. It was good. Bluegrassy. Bob Hannen's vocals were tenor-y, if country types talk about things like that - harmonies were good. Being born after 1970, a good fifth of my listening brain was confused by the lack of drum. Man, thank FUCK for Motown; it gave us the right to expect a good throbbing line anytime we want it. But it was good. I reckon 'I Still Miss Someone' was what really did it for me, Bob Hannen taking the lead so sweetly I didn't wonder why his kind lilt wasn't a Cash-y growl.

Anyways. This is leading up to the release of Walk the Line, which I'm anticipating. The only thing that worries me is that it will be crappily cobbled together in a rush to dash down the trail Ray blazed for biopics about troubled, inspirational musical geniuses. Incidentally, did you know Ray Charles did an album of country music standards in 1962? And that it's good?

J*Fish thinks the mad-dash thing isn't the case; he thinks that a biopic about Johnny Cash has been in the works for years because of the man's crazy life, getting busted smuggling drugs across Mexican border and whatnot. I'm not sure. Paul McCartney got busted in Japan for smuggling reefer, an intoxicant I've got a more loving relationship with than all those weird-ass pills American musicians poured down thier gullets through the 60s and 70s. And much as I love reefer, and as much as I've been divinely basculated by some of the music Paul McCartney has produced, I doubt I'd want see a biopic about him.

Unless it starred Joaquin Phoenix.

Ah, it's all a complex tapestry.



Speaking of which, the adorability of today's MSN gossip sheet is making me wonder if, in fact, it could be love:

Talk of trouble began at the film's L.A. premiere Thursday night, when Phoenix felt something funny hoppin' on his noggin during an interview with the Associated Press.

"Do I have a large frog in my hair?" he asked the reporter, who assured him his coif was amphibian-free. "Something's crawling out of my scalp," the star explained.

Despite the journalist's assertion that he "looked great," Joaquin wasn't convinced: "No, but I feel it. I'm not worried about the looks. I'm worried about the sensation of my brain being eaten ... What did you ask me?"