Music & More

Seduced by the idea of catching the first showing of a new Stephen King movie in King's home town of Bangor, Maine, combined with an interesting article about the movie in last Sunday's NY Times , and the happenstance of actually being in Maine this week, led to attendance of today's 1:20pm showing at the Bangor Mall Cinema. No special festivities to denote the event, just the debut showing of a first rate horror film, the likes of which I haven't seen since overdosing on over-the-top monster/gore pictures in the 80's. Aliens (1986) topped the original Alien (1979) in that department as well as John Carpenter's remake of The Thing (1982) after which I decided I had seen quite enough. In The Mist , a small town in Maine (the perfect setting for such shenanigans) is enveloped by a strange mist that follows a severe thunderstorm, trapping assorted townsfolk both locals and those from away, together in a supermarket as it is quickly determined that malevolent cre...

Julia Fordham's long awaited jazz album, China Blue (her tenth), is finished with release imminent on a new download site called Novatunes and is also slated for sale at iTunes and CD Baby among other online retailers. The album was produced by Grant Mitchell; the title track is a new version of a tune that was originally on the U.K. version of her classic Porcelain album (1989). "For You Only For You" is also a re-do of another great track from Porcelain. Rather than be the 999th artist to do an album of jazz standards, Julia elected to go with originals, including only one cover, "I Keep Forgettin'", the Michael McDonald song. When McDonald heard this version, he liked it so much that he volunteered his own distinctive voice on background vocals. Here's the tracklist: China Blue The World Keeps Spinning I Want To Stay Home With You Funny Guy Holiday My Only Valentine I Will Bring You Love Almost Happy For You Only For You I Keep Forgettin' ...

As the third major artist this year to embrace Starbucks' Hear Music Label, James Taylor represents both one more reason for traditional record labels to pull out what's left of their hair and one more reason to give Starbucks a few more bucks to sit back and enjoy the soothing sound of James Taylor in a mostly acoustic concert. While the new material on Paul McCartney's and Joni Mitchell's recent releases on Hear Music didn't engage me as much as I'd hoped, this JT show satisfies like a hot cup of steamin' java (Starbucks, Wawa, or otherwise). As one of our most durable singer-songwriters, hell he helped invent the genre, over the years his messing with his songs, changing melody, meter, etc., in concert has often seemed disconcerting, but he doesn't do that here; mostly he plays it straight, and with a large video screen on stage and a few other surprises, he turns in a totally entertaining two hour show. Accompanied only by Larry Goldings on piano an...