The Daily Procrastinator

Recently, I had the good fortune to discover a talented new musician I’d never even heard of before. I attended an Old Crow Medicine Show concert, and the opening act was a performer named Justin Townes Earle. I dig OCMS, particularly their song Wagon Wheel, and I knew that I was going to love their performance. Discovering Justin Townes Earle, though, was the extremely pleasant surprise of the evening.

Just picture him with a thin, barely discernible mustache.

When Earle first took the stage, I was a little skeptical. He was dressed like a 1950s used car salesman. He wore a high-waisted, pencil-thin fitting suit with zip-up boots. His hair was slicked back like George Clooney’s in O Brother, Where Art Thou, and his mustache was barely a line above his lip. With his guitar slung so high that his belt buckle was visible beneath it, Earle approached the microphone with a nervous, twitchy demeanor that didn’t exactly raise my expectations.

Then he began to play.

Accompanied by only one other musician, who alternated between mandolin, banjo, and harmonica, Earle proceeded to put on a truly impressive display of playing, singing, and songwriting. His sound reminded me of Hank Williams, Sr. and Woody Guthrie with a modern edge. If those two geniuses were still writing songs today, they’d sound like Justin Townes Earle. The lack of percussion lends Earle’s sound an “old-timey” feel that makes me want to stomp my feet and shout “Go, man, go!” while he plays.

Before the show, I had never heard of Justin Townes Earle, so each song was totally unfamiliar to me. I got the feeling that 90% of the people in the crowd were in the same situation. Despite the unfamiliarity, the entire crowd had a blast. We danced, sang along to the choruses, and raised hell between songs.

After the show, I had to find out more about this guy. Upon doing a little reading, I discovered that Justin is the son of Grammy Award winner Steve Earle. I’m impressed that the promotions for the concert didn’t publicize Earle’s connection to his father. He never mentioned it on stage, either. Justin Townes Earle wants to make it on his own, it seems. That’s not to say that he doesn’t give credit where credit is due. In several interviews which I looked up online (here and here), Earle states that his family’s musical history has made him into the performer he is today. He also reveals some interesting details about a rather colorful past.

Further online investigation revealed that Justin Townes Earle has released two full-length alums, The Good Life in 2008, and Midnight At The Movies in 2009. I picked up the two albums as quickly as I could, and I’ve been playing them nonstop in my truck ever since. I started my listening with the more recent album, and so far, my favorite songs are They Killed John Henry (edit from BRP: DAMN, I love this song!), Poor Fool, and Midnight At The Movies. Earle sticks to an old-time feel in his songs, including the old AM radio standard of about three minutes per song, so the albums seem to fly by in a montage of images and sounds. Thus, even though it contains 12 songs, Midnight At The Movies is only about 35 minutes long. Luckily, I don’t mind if it plays again and again.

For those seeking something interesting and original in a sea of cookie-cutter pop music crap, I recommend Justin Townes Earle. The CDs are a refreshing change, and his live show is a boot-stompin’ good time.

On May 1, The Dave Matthews Band played before a packed Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Woodlands, TX. Among the concert-goers were Pre, who you may remember from St. Patrick’s Day, Mrs. Pre, NewGuy, NewGirl, Eggroll, and yours truly, BigRedPoet. I’m not a big DMB fan. In fact, I don’t own a single one of their albums. I am, however, an avid fan of well-played live music. Everyone I know who has seen DMB in concert has always told me that they put on an exciting, tight, improvisational, and musically outstanding performance. With that in mind, when Pre asked me if I wanted to go to the show, I didn’t hesitate.

This is not my photo, but it's pretty much exactly the stage setup the band used in The Woodlands.

After venturing to The Woodlands in a mini-van, we arrived early and met some of Pre’s friends, who had been saving us a great spot in the lawn seats. We were located at the corner where the sidewalk down out of the lawn meets the fence that divides the lawn from the walkway below. In other words, we had front-row seats in the grass. Almost immediately upon getting settled in our spot, I noticed two things…

First, the opening act, The Avett Brothers, was fantastic! Although I didn’t know a single song, they performed with a laid-back, bluegrass-influenced sound and interestingly constructed vocal arrangements that I truly enjoyed.

Second, beer prices ranged from $8 to $9.25, depending upon the brand of beer. $8.00! $9.25! I’m not above spending money on beer, but the roving vendors accepted only cash, which I wasn’t carrying. The concession stands, located at the edges of the amphitheater, accepted credit cards, but I wasn’t about to give up any part of my listening experience to spend 30 minutes walking over there, waiting in line, and walking back. The end result of all this is simple: I saw DMB stone-cold sober.

Once Dave Matthews Band took the stage, they stayed there for close to two and a half hours. Although I know exactly one of the following songs, I’m told it’s an outstanding setlist.

• Don’t Drink The Water
• Stay Or Leave
• Funny The Way It Is
• Spaceman
• Cornbread
• Raven
• Why I Am
• Jimi Thing
• Beach Ball
• Where Are You Going
• Two Step
• Rye Whiskey (Tex Ritter cover)
• Pig
• #41
• Anyone Seen The Bridge
• Too Much <tease>
• Grey Street

Encores:

• Everyday
• Pantala Naga Pampa
• Rapunzel

I didn’t get to sing along much, except when I could pick up the words to a chorus, but I still had a fantastic time. Every musician on the stage played outstandingly. I vividly recall fantastic performances on drums, saxophone (including one guy playing two saxophones at once!), trumpet, guitar, bass, and electric violin. The high point of the show was a song called “Space Man,” which is apparently brand new and will be released on the band’s upcoming album. I predict that the line “Doesn’t everybody deserve to have the good life?” will be all over the radio in the near future.

This is Carter Beauford. He is a beast. He can drum faster than you can drive.

As you may or may not know, The Dave Matthews Band is taper-friendly. Basically, they allow fans to record their concerts, as long as they don’t sell the recordings afterward. Those of you who have been reading The Daily Procrastinator since the beginning will recall that I own an Edirol R-09HR recorder, which is useful for just such an application. Coupled with a directional shotgun microphone, which I borrowed from WrongFoot, I was able to make a pretty good audience recording of the show. This was my first chance to tape a “big” show, and I’m quite pleased with the results!

It pains me that I can’t give a more detailed review of the show, but without a more thorough knowledge of DMB, I’m afraid it’s difficult to speak in specifics. Simply put, this band is good. Really good. Take it from a guy who doesn’t really know their music but still had a blast at the show: DMB is well worth checking out in concert.

Greetings, procrastinators. Today, April 27, 2009, marks the fortieth anniversary of one of the most legendary performances in rock and roll history. Forty years ago tonight, a young Led Zeppelin played the final show of a four-night stand in San Francisco.

The arrival of the mighty Zeppelin was foretold by humble print ads in local newspapers and music magazines.

Led Zeppelin rose from the ashes of The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page’s previous band, and they began playing together in September of 1968. The band’s amazing performances in San Francisco in 1969 are all the more impressive when the listener considers that they’d played together for just a few short months before invading America’s west coast.

You may ask, “How can you be so sure that this one particular show was great, BRP?” The explanation is simple: The April 27, 1969 show was recorded by two different fans. One recorded from the audience, and the other was able to attach his recorder to the soundboard. Both of these recordings circulate in the Led Zeppelin collecting community, separately and spliced together to recreate the complete show. I have listened to the audience tape, the soundboard tape, and the “collage” tape, and I feel confident proclaiming this show one of the greatest in rock and roll history.

A young, bluesy, grungy Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on stage in 1969

Check out the setlist for the early show:

• Train Kept A’Rollin’
• I Can’t Quit You Baby
• As Long As I Have You (medley includes Fresh Garbage, Shake, Cat’s Squirrel, No Money Down, and I’m A Man)
• You Shook Me
• How Many More Times
• Communication Breakdown

As if that wasn’t enough to blow the audience away, here’s the late set:

• Killing Floor
• Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You
• White Summer/Black Mountainside
• Sitting And Thinking
• Pat’s Delight
• Dazed And Confused

The first set is a blistering, energetic salvo. Every member of the band is in overdrive: John Bonham’s drums are thunderous, John Paul Jones’ bass lines are punchy and complex, Jimmy Page’s guitar sounds like an entire string section, and Robert Plant’s wailing voice reaches seemingly impossible notes. The “As Long As I Have You” medley showcases a young band just having some fun playing the radio songs that were popular in their native England at the time.

The second set is slower and more blues-based, but that doesn’t make it any less astounding. This is the only recorded performance of Otis Rush’s “Sitting and Thinking.” Page’s solo guitar work in “White Summer/Black Mountainside” is a fine complement to Bonham’s drum solo in “Pat’s Delight,” the song which would eventually become “Moby Dick.” The evening ends with an especially dark and moody “Dazed And Confused.” By this time, the listener is completely wrung out. Live recordings of Led Zeppelin demand engagement from the listener, not just passive hearing. The band leads the audience on a 130-minute musical journey, and that journey is exhausting.

Live recordings of Led Zeppelin can be a little difficult to find, but they’re out there. If you’re a fan, do yourself a favor and hunt down the April 27, 1969 show. I’ve listened to hundreds of shows, and this is my single favorite. If you don’t look for the show, at least put some Zep on your CD player tonight and hoist a drink to the greatest rock band in history.

On Saturday night at midnight, my pre-ordered copy of Guitar Hero: Metallica became available at my local video game dealer. They opened the door at midnight especially for those of us who just couldn’t wait until Sunday morning. Of course, I was involved in a heated bout of darts and tap beers, so I ended up waiting until Sunday after all.

On Sunday, though, the glory of this latest installment in the Guitar Hero family of games shone down upon me. I spent hours playing the game, first tinkering with some of the quickplay options, later completing 48% of the story mode. I rate this game a rock-solid 9/10.

Like Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band, this game allows four-player gameplay including guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.

For starters, the game is amazing to look at. Every menu has been customized to reflect Metallica’s logos, old t-shirt designs, and other metalhead content. While actually playing the game, the animated James, Lars, Kirk, and Rob are more lifelike than any Guitar Hero characters ever. Having seen Metallica in concert many times, I can attest that the animated characters don’t just look like the real thing; they behave like the real thing, too. Trujillo stalks and storms, Hetfield gestures to the crowd, Lars stands up at the drum set, and Kirk wanders around like some confused, Satanic waif. It’s pretty much perfect.

Is it real or is it Guitar Hero?

The song selection available in Guitar Hero: Metallica is impressive. The vast majority of the tracks are drawn from Metallica’s career, with a smaller selection of songs chosen by the band from artists who influenced them. My only complaint about the game–the reason I rate it 9 instead of 10–involves the song selection. In the repertoire of Metallica songs, I just don’t understand the selection of “Frantic.” I hate this song. It feels like the game creators were cruising along and selecting great old Metallica songs…and suddenly thought, “Oh, crap. We should include something from St. Anger.” No. No, you shouldn’t. That album is trash. I’m also not crazy about “All Nightmare Long,” but I’ll get over it. In the non-Metallica track list, I can do without Corrosion of Conformiy’s “Albatross.” This song is repetitive and uninspired. It does not ROCK. Conversely, Mastodon’s “Blood and Thunder” does, indeed, rock…but the vocals are of the Cookie-Monster variety. That’s just not fun to try to sing. Even considering these weak points, the song selection is, as I mentioned earlier, impressive. Metallica songs from their best albums (Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and …And Justice For All) abound.

Guitar Hero: Metallica also raises the bar of difficulty in the world of “rock star” type games. There’s a new Expert Plus mode for drums that includes double kick pedals for the bass drum. Also, the complex guitar solos make many of the songs difficult to play on guitar, even on the Medium difficulty setting. I can see that I’ll be spending many, many hours trying to work my way up to Hard or Expert.

On the whole, the game creators responsible for Guitar Hero: Metallica have programmed a masterpiece. As soon as I can speak again (my vocal cords are shot from fronting my band), I’m going to tell everyone I know to go out and buy it.

On Thursday, March 19, I crossed two more names off my “Musicians To See Before I Die” list. Elton John and Billy Joel performed together at the Toyota Center in Houston as part of their Face To Face Tour. My ol’ buddy FlashCap accompanied me on this excursion into musical awesomeness.

When we arrived at Toyota Center and found our way to our seats, we realized that these seats were GREAT! We were seated at floor level, no more than fifty or sixty yards from the stage. We could see the performers clearly, and we also had a front-and-center view of the huge display screens over the stage. These screens were of a sort I’d never seen before. They were made up of hundreds of strings of vertical lights suspended from the ceiling, and the lights changed colors and configurations to display images from the stage. It was pretty impressive.

Behold the amazing light/screen thing! Aren't cellphone pictures great?

As soon as the lights went down, both Elton John and Billy Joel took the stage, and they played four songs as duets, alternating between each artist’s hits. Interestingly, they also alternated singing verses within each song and sometimes harmonized during the choruses. After the initial series of duets, Elton John played a solo set of over an hour. Thereafter, Billy Joel played a set of similar length. To wrap it all up, they returned to duet mode and performed several of their most legendary songs to end the evening. As a highlight to the fantastic piano playing and singing of the two stars, I must say that the rest of the band was fantastic. I was particularly impressed by the percussionist and trumpeter during Billy Joel’s set and the bassist during Elton John’s. Check out the setlist:

Duets
Your Song
Just The Way You Are
Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me
My Life
Elton
Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting
Burn Down The Mission
Madman Across The Water
Tiny Dancer
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Daniel
Rocket Man
Levon
Still Standing
Crocodile Rock
Billy
Angry Young Man
Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)
Allentown
Zanzibar
Don’t Ask Me Why
Always A Woman
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
River Of Dreams/Deep In The Heart Of Texas
We Didn’t Start The Fire
It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me
Only The Good Die Young
More Duets
I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues
Uptown Girl
The Bitch Is Back
You May Be Right
Benny And The Jets
You Say It’s Your Birthday
Back in the USSR
Candle In The Wind
Piano Man

Honestly, I’m more of an Elton fan than a Billy fan, but FlashCap favors Billy. We had all the bases covered. At least one of us sang along to nearly every song, with the exceptions of the relatively obscure “Burn Down the Mission” and “Zanzibar.” At many points during the show, tens of thousands of voices were all singing in unison. I love those kinds of moments. I’ve experienced this “mass singing” at concerts ranging from Jimmy Page & Robert Plant to Black Sabbath and from Lamb of God to Paula Cole. More than any other event in my life, singing along to the same song as a stadium full of people reveals to me the Brotherhood of Man. When the entire crowd inside Toyota Center–black, white, hispanic, asian, straight, gay, male, female, conservative, liberal, wealthy, poor–ALL belt out “Sing us a song, You’re the piano man,” all is right in my world.

The first time Elton John and Billy Joel toured together, I skipped the show because I thought the tickets were too expensive. If they ever tour together again, I am going to attend a show. You should, too. We can harmonize.

There’s little in this paparazzi-driven world that can bring an issue to the forefront of public consciousness quite like celebrity involvement.  The recent news about Rihanna and Chris Brown is no exception.

At first, I really didn’t pay much attention to the story.  The extent of my knowledge of either of them was largely limited to the gym: her music playing during sculpting workouts, or their faces on the pages of the Entertainment Weekly found in the magazine rack.  It seemed like an unfortunate story that happened to faraway people in Celebrityville.

But as more time passed, I heard things that were increasingly disturbing.  They weren’t details about the attack.  They were the responses to it.  MTV.com ran an article with a headline that caught my eye, entitled “Why are people blaming Rihanna for alleged altercation with Chris Brown?” In it, they note that:

“Based on comments MTV News has received on the incident, a surprising number of people — some of whom are apparently female, although screen names often aren’t gender-specific — are blaming Rihanna for the alleged incident.”

The Guardian in the UK posted the following:

“Major media outlets spent days trying to ponder what possibly could have ’caused’ Brown to allegedly attack Rihanna. After all, he had such a ‘clean cut’, ‘squeaky clean’ image. The most egregious media platforms crossed the line from victim blaming right into victim defaming.”

A good point from the Guardian, but clearly the rest of the world can’t really think like this. These “what caused it?” stories are just a case of the media being full of people looking for both sides of a story to exploit.  That’s not what it’s like in the real world, right?

Oh, how I wish I was wrong.  While hanging out at my local coffee shop recently — a coffee shop which is frequented by an unusually significant number of Bible study groups and other people speaking openly about their Christian faith — I was seated next to a pair of girls who looked to be about the same 20-ish age of Brown and Rihanna themselves.  As they sat there, with their Bibles on the table, I overheard this conversation:

“You know, it’s, like, totally ridiculous.  I mean, he should know that he can’t rough up his girlfriend.  The Bible says you can’t do that until you’re, like, married.”

It took everything in my power not to beat this girl with her King James edition.  Maybe I’m showing my age here, but since when did it become okay to condone violence against women, and even worse, to teach that God thinks it’s okay?  I left the coffee shop in a caffeine-fueled frenzy, angry to think that in 2009, we still haven’t taught kids that this sort of behavior is not acceptable.  Period.

I was delighted to hear that Brown was charged with two felony counts, including felony assault and making criminal threats.  Hopefully that news alone will be enough to make guys think twice before hitting their girlfriends or wives.

Teaching women right from wrong may be another story entirely.  If the rumors are true, and Rihanna has, in fact, taken him back (or married him), then I’m not sure that these coffee shop girls will ever learn their lesson.  Will it take her being beaten to death before they stop and take notice?

LAMB OF GOD - WRATH

I am a huge fan of thrash metal.  There is just something about it that grabs you by the throat and won’t let you go.  The best metal of this sort has a “groove”:  riffs to kill for keeping time with hellaciously fast blastbeats, riding cymbals, and a pounding bass.   Back in the mid- to late 80s, there existed a sort of glory days of thrash.  This was exemplified by the four pillars of the genre (Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth, and old Metallica) coupled with the “newcomers” Pantera.  Go ahead and throw in Prong (particularly Beg to Differ) and Testament as a couple of other favorites.

Lamb of God is today’s undisputed leader of the genre and is leading a renaissance of thrash.  Sure, Slayer and Metallica get the Grammys, but that is just a case of  name recognition on the part of the voters.  I was first turned on to LoG after hearing “Laid to Rest” from their album Ashes of the Wake, which was the first album I’d bought in a long time that simply ripped my face off.   And while I was never a huge fan of the “cookie monster”-style of vocal stylings, LoG just made it work for me.   Their follow-up, Sacrament, became a drop-date purchase for me, and it continued to impress.

But both albums have been eclipsed by the triumph that is Wrath.

Where do these guys get all of these wonderful riffs?  Seriously, if you don’t find yourself involuntarily headbanging during the bridge of “Dead Seeds,” you have no metal in your soul.   High points (as if there were low points) include “Set to Fail”, “Contractor” and “Choke Sermon”.    But my personal favorite is the closer, “Reclamation”:  the blues-based lick that provides the structure and, simply put, drive of this song is perfectly pieced together.  It is the juggernaut of the album.

Wrath is now the front-runner for album of the year.  It will be interesting to see what other bands are willing to put out this year in the face of this onslaught.

On Febraury 25, President Obama honored musical legend Stevie Wonder with the Gershwin Prize for Lifetime Achievement, America’s highest award for pop music. Wonder is just the second performer to receive this distinction; in 2007, Paul McCartney was the first.

Stevie Wonder: Gershwin Award Winner and Raging Musical Genius

This is just the latest chapter in a career which has been literally full of distinctions. Other highlights of Stevie Wonder’s career include:

• Signed to MoTown Records at the age of 11
• Released 26 studio albums and numerous Greatest Hits, to date
• Won 25 Grammy awards
• Recorded 34 Billboard Top 10 singles
• Inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989
• Received Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996
• Received Kennedy Center Honors in in 1999

Stevie Wonder’s career has blended jazz, soul, blues, rock, funk, and pop music into songs that literally everyone knows. Songs like “My Cherie Amour,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” “You Are The Sunshine of My Life,” “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” and my personal favorite, “Superstition,” have truly become a part of the American consciousness of popular music (you forgot “Isn’t She Lovely” and “A Place in the Sun” — ed.).

Dig out your Stevie Wonder CDs today, or cassette tapes, or vinyl if you’re lucky, and revisit the work of one of our finest musicians and songwriters.

I’m married to a woman who 1) enjoys musicals and 2) has a thing for Pierce Brosnan.  So when I saw the ads for Mamma Mia my immediate thought was, “Damn you, Hollywood!  Damn you straight to hell!”  Somehow I avoided having to see this in the theater, but then the DVD came out around Christmas and, long story short, I’ve now sat through the musical comedy featuring the music of ABBA.  As a sort of  (what I hope is) therapeutic cleansing, I’m offering up this review, of sorts, which perhaps will give me back the hour and 40 minutes spent listening to bubblegum pop sung and danced to by James Bond and the White Witch from Chronicles of Narnia [ed.: that wasn't Meryl Streep].  OK, then Cruella De Vil [ed.: that was Glenn Close]. Really? [ed.: yep].

01:13 The singing begins. Sophie’s (Amanda Seyfried) cute, at least.  Letters are sent off to three possible dads as she wants to know who her father is, and there are three suspects.  What,  is her mom some sort of cat?

02:32: All three men (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgard) are apparently incredibly wealthy.  How convenient.

4:12: Sophie spills the beans to her friends about her mom’s diary (kept while pregnant with Sophie).  Mom’s…how to put this?…a slut.  Hey, if this movie were centered around a guy who slept with three women during a summer, I’d make the same comment.  Only I’d use the words “lucky bastard.”

5:01:  The first actual song, “Honey Honey” is sung by Seyfried and her friends.   They’re much too excited about the fact that they’re singing about Sophie’s mom’s sexual exploits.

6:50: Meryl Streep shows up, looking like that actress from Bridges of Madison County [ed.: that WAS her, idiot].

7:50: The dilemma is posed: who’s Sophie’s dad?  The invites are part of  a grand plan of Sophie’s to, apparently, get a look at the men and pick Pierce Brosnan for her dad (yeah, like Skarsgard stands a chance).

9:25:  Meryl Streep’s best friends show up for the wedding:

Looks like a good time to go get some snacks. I thought Walter’s character was Streep’s mom, but I was wrong.

10:25: The fiance (Dominic Cooper) shows up.  No singing as he’s about to get married.

12:13: Apparently, it’s a rule that girlfriends who have not seen each other in a while must scream excitedly in octaves normally reserved for dog whistles.  And, yes, Streep and her friends were apparently in a 70s singing group.  Oh, joy.

14:30: Back to the suspected dads – they discuss how they know Donna (Streep), but the fact that each biblically knew her isn’t raised.

16:45: A legend about a fountain beneath the hotel/spa that Streep’s character (Donna) owns  is mentioned (Aphrodite’s fountain).  I bet that’s important.

17:30: “Money, Money” – Meryl Streep’s first song. First bathroom break.

20:46: Sex talk from Streep, Walters, and Baranski, God help me. Meanwhile, Sophie takes the dads to a room and tells them their presence is a surprise for her mom, and to keep it  a secret.  This secret lasts, oh, about 1 minute.

26:21:  Streep sees her three former beaus and the title song is sung.  She’s apparently still carrying a torch, but for which one?  The suspense is killing me.  Oh, wait, that’s not suspense, that’s ABBA.

31:00: The virile young black bartender has the hots for Baranski’s character.  Sure he does. Give that man an Oscar!

32:30: Third song. Streep, Baranski and Walters.  Shortly thereafter, Streep admits she’s a slut, and that she’s going to hell for it.  Okay, maybe not that last part.

36:52:  In an attempt to wrest control of the song from cross-dressing contests, “Dancing Queen” is interpreted here as a celebration of womanhood.  I don’t know, I think it works better as an ode to drag. And, hell, they even trotted out Milton Berle as a back-up singer!  Waitaminute, oops, no, that’s Julie Walters.

41:10:  In what could have been a pretty creepy scene, Sophie hangs out with her three dads on Skarsgard’s boat as they sing about banging her mom (the song’s “Our Last Summer” for those of you keeping score).  Skarsgard’s singing is about like you’d expect.

45:00: Sophie’s fiance sees her dive from the boat and confronts her about spending time with three strange men (one who looks like James Bond) for the past two hours, culminating in his calling off the wedding.  At least that’s what should have happened.

45:38: Ah, I thought the cigar Sky (yep, that’s the fiance’s name) was holding was a phallic symbol, but instead it’s just there to make the song’s lyrics make sense (“Lay All Your Love on Me”).

47:18: In a twist worthy of Top Gun, dancing men in speedos come out of the water and “rescue” Sky from his woman.

48:10: Streep and her friends relive their glory years singing for her daughter’s bachelorette party (“Super Trouper” – no, it has nothing to do with stoned highway patrolmen).

50:00: If I read the back of the DVD right, I’ve got another hour to go.  Time for a beer.

50: 50:  The dads arrive at the bachelorette party.

51: 40: “Give me a Man After Midnight” starts up – hey, this scene has possibilities.  The somewhat scantily-clad girls take Firth and Skarsgard and start dancing with them, pulling at their clothes.

51:55: Nevermind, cut to Streep and her friends ranting. Brosnan shows up.

54:15: Colin Firth, for some reason, wants to escape being pawed at by the young women.  Skarsgard is living it up, though.

55:20: Skarsgard manages to figure the secret out first.  He runs like hell.

56:00: Sophie catches him and coerces him to walk her down the aisle.

Those past two comments might not be entirely accurate.

56:50:  Sky and his band of gay friends have apparently left their party and come to crash the girls’ party.  Dancing ensues (“Voulez Vous”).

58:18: Brosnan tells Sophie he’s her dad and tells her he’ll give her away.

58:50: Now Firth believes he’s her dad, too, and wants to give her away.  There hasn’t been so many men trying to give away something that doesn’t quite belong to them since 1947.

1:02:29: In a questionable career move, Skarsgard shows his bare ass.

1:06:12: Brosnan confronts Streep about their past and what they lost.  For some reason, Brosnan is trying to sing with an Italian accent  (“S.O.S”).

1:08:50: Young black bartender continues to chase Baranski, and she mocks him in song (“Does Your Mother”). The “mistake last night” referred to was apparently the singing and dancing number at the bachelorette party.

1:15:30: “Slipping Through My Fingers” could actually be a bit of a tear-jerker if you have a daughter.  If you don’t, then fuck you, it’s just allergies.

1:21:25:  Meryl Streep singing yet another song about how she and Brosnan can’t get the time back…maybe. I’m not quite sure how “Winner Takes it All” fits in, but it seems like the big emotionally climactic moment.  I know this because waves are crashing and Streep’s running around waving her arms dramatically.

1:25: 43: The wedding is finally here.  End in sight.

1:29:20: The wedding is interrupted as everyone tries to figure out who Sophie’s dad is; Colin Firth attempts to take himself out of the running by announcing he is gay.  Firth, you’re one brilliant bastard.

1:29:58:  Because Mamma Mia‘s a comedy, they can’t end with a young couple marrying.  So Brosnan takes one for the team and proposes to Streep (“I Do, I Do, I Do”).

1:32:05:  In a shameless plug for Viagra, Brosnan sings a song exclaiming that he and Streep are not too old for sex (“When All is Said and Done”).

1:34:45: Skarsgard is serenaded by Walters (“Take a Chance on Me”) because otherwise both have been forgotten by this point. Firth, desperate not to have to pay for Sophie’s wedding, keeps up the gay act.

1:37:08:  The fountain of Aphrodite erupts, showering all the wedding guests – a sexual metaphor if I ever saw one (and I knew that early, seemingly pointless reference had some significance); dancing ensues.

The credits roll as the cast dress up in funky outfits and sing “Dancing Queen”, seemingly recognizing the futility in not associating that song with drag.  And as the movie’s over, this review is done, and I believe I have successfully exorcised my ABBA-induced demons.

Now if I could only take back seeing Stellan Skarsgard’s ass.

So how YOU doin', red?

I have a confession: I have a girl crush on Felicia Day.

I revealed this crush to the guys of this very blog, thinking that this would be some sort of startling revelation. Instead, my confession was met with shrugs. “Who doesn’t have a crush on her?” one asked.

So it appears that if you don’t have a crush on her, too, the only conceivable answer is that you must not know who she is. I’m sure that you would recognize her, even if you don’t know her by name. Please refer to this or this. No, really. It’s ok. I can wait.

I’m not sure when the crushing started. Maybe it was when I realized how much my heart broke for Penny at the end of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (many thanks to Joss Whedon for reducing me to tears yet again), or maybe it was when I realized that I had a ridiculous level of interest in The Guild in spite of the fact that I know nothing of the world of gamers. Or maybe it even goes back to the Buffy days. I can’t pinpoint it, but it’s there.

There’s just something about her that’s funny and quirky and sweet and easy to like. Since her Twitter posts seem to be a reflection of her on-screen persona, I have to assume that it’s the real person that I like, and not just some well-written characters.

Short hair works, too.

So I just wanted to take a moment to suggest that perhaps there should be more Felicia Day in the world. There should also be more Nathan Fillion (Joss, are you listening?), but that’s another story for another post.

Anyone else feel the same way?