King Arthur & Camelot (x3)

Recently I acquired “Camelot” on Blu-Ray, the musical about King Arthur.   With no less than three major films on the subject, my blog topic has arrived.

No knows if King Arthur really existed, and if so, when.  We’re just sure it was England and some time in the Middle Ages, probably in that vague time before the definite lineage was conclusively established, after the Roman Empire collapsed and when the Vikings were raiding from Minnesota, minus the horned helmets we know they never wore.  Our best guess is the fifth and sixth centuries. 

The idea is that Arthur somehow united the knights of England into a Roundtable Coalition of chivalry and honor, as opposed to “might makes right”.  The wizard Merlin served as his advisor and supported him with magic. His Queen was Guenevere.  Unfortunately, Arthur’s top knight, a Frenchman named Lancelot du Lac, fell in love with the Queen and this romance doomed the Coalition to collapse from hypocrisy.  Arthur had a half-sister, Morgan La Fey, who seduced him and gave him a suitably arrogant and cynical bastard child Mordred, consistently a villain in the story.  Fairly early in the story Arthur acquired the sword Excalibur, which gave him “supreme executive power” over England without a “mandate from the masses”.  He either pulled the sword from a stone or was distributed by the aquatic tart, the Lady of the Lake – or possibly both.   

Camelot (1967).   Richard Harris, lately Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” films, and father of Jared Harris, the stuffy Brit on “Mad Men”, plays King Arthur.   Vanessa Redgrave is Guenevere, the Queen, and Franco Nero (aka Django!) is Lancelot du Lac.   Lots of song and dance here, very dramatic and fun…until Lance and Jenny fall in love, which screws everything up.

            I thought I recognized Lionel Jeffries, i.e. King Pellinore, was also Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke’s) father, in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”.  He was only 40 something at the time and was playing characters much older than himself.  He was younger than Dick Van Dyke.

            Like “Excalibur”, the film bogs down in its second half.  The Roundtable Coalition breaks down and knights are exiled because they tell Arthur about Lance & Jenny.  After telling Jenny he’d never leave her no matter what season it was, Lancelot leaves anyway. Then Arthur is manipulated by Mordred (David Hemmings) into trying and condemning Guenevere.  Of course Lancelot comes to the rescue!  [Someone should do a mash-up which splices in Lancelot from “Holy Grail” slicing through the bridal party to rescue Terry-Jones-as-Prince.]

            My parents loved this film and we had it on VHS.  Even as non-music-lovers they still had the soundtrack tape.   Again, reviewing the movie with the benefit of 2014 knowledge… I see:

            A)         Richard Harris’ resemblance, not merely by face but also voice, to Jared Harris.  No way I had seen “Mad Men” back in Paris in the early 80s.

            B)         Guenevere is kind of slutty!  “Lusty days of May?”  Manipulating three knights to take on Lancelot?   The palace whore indeed.  If her promiscuity was common knowledge, why burn her at the stake for romping around with Lancelot?  “Now you’ve gone too far.”

            C)         Mordred.  I never noticed him at all before.  Funny, I had seen “Blow Up” and several other movies Hemmings was in.  However, I had noticed Merlyn, who called him “Wart”, and this business of pretending to be animals.  “What do you see?”  That stuff.

            D)         Did Arthur really NOT know?  I believe he did, but decided the shame of being the cuckold was the price he had to pay to avoid fighting Lancelot and burning Guenevere.  He was even willing to effectively disband the coalition and exile all those knights whose sole crime was telling him what he didn’t want to hear but already knew anyway.  Mordred simply forced his hand. 

Monty Python & the Holy Grail (1975).  The English comedy troupe put its own spin on the story, focusing on the quest for the Holy Grail and completing omitting Guenevere, Mordred, and even Merlin.  The French role here is not Sir Lancelot (John Cleese) but a French castle somehow in England, full of nasty rogues who taunt them from above.   Cast: Arthur (Graham Chapman), Sir Galahad (Michael Palin), "brave" Sir Robin (Eric Idle), Sir Bedevere (Terry Jones in perpetual falsetto) and the aforesaid Lancelot.  Add in also a bit of animation from Terry Gilliam, who also stars as a squire.  Amazingly funny!  Really, this should be mandatory King Arthur viewing.  Hits include “Just a Flesh Wound”, “the Grail Shaped Beacon”, “Huge….Tracts of Land”, “Answer these Questions Three”, “Some Call Me…Tim”, “The Vorpal Bunny”, “The Knights who Say Ni”, “Anarcho-Syndicalist Peasant” (my favorite) and many, many more.  And how can we forget that meaningful ending which resolved all the issues and closed the story so conclusively?  Not likely. 

Excalibur (1981).   “Camelot” was a musical, “Holy Grail” was a comedy, now we had “Excalibur”, which was serious, bloody, cynical, confusing, plus some naughtiness thrown in for the ladies – you know, the crowd who hates “Lord of the Rings” but loves “Game of Thrones”. 

            Arthur (Nigel Terry) pulls the sword from the stone.  Arthur consults Merlin (Nicol Williamson).  Lancelot (Nicholas Clay) joins the gang.  Morgana (Helen Mirren) seduces Arthur and pops out Mordred.  Lancelot falls in love with Guenevere (Cheri Lunghi), much to their shame, so he runs away.  Arthur and his knights go off in a vague and confusing quest for the Grail.  Mordred returns and fights Arthur.  Lancelot returns.  Everyone dies.  Sorry.  Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne, and Liam Neeson all have minor roles as they started out their careers.

           

Which is best?  Well of course you should watch all three, and they tend to complement each other.  As you can tell, “Excalibur” was bloody and naughty, but those otherwise redeeming elements are compromised by a story which drags on interminably and disappears into a vague and confusing plot fog.  “Holy Grail” has little pretense of giving us a real story as opposed to a linear progression of highly funny scenes bordering on super ludicrous.  “Camelot”, as cheesy and musical as it may have been, actually tells the story in the most direct and simple manner.  So that one might be the best to cap off the trio.  Enjoy.

Nirvana

I’m posting this on Thursday because I’ll be out of town this weekend.  Moreover, my lazy writer’s block has me retrieving an issue which I meant to address earlier but never got around to until now:  one of the top Four Grunge bands, Nirvana.  Actually, I did discuss this band earlier, but that was before I got all three of their albums. 

As I mentioned earlier, my favorites of the grunge genre are Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, both of which I saw back in the early 90’s, the former on the Superunknown tour, the latter on the Facelift tour with Layne Staley, opening for the Clash of the Titans (Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth) and Van Halen.   Those two bands have a strong Black Sabbath influence which I liked. 

I heard so much Nirvana on the radio – particularly, of course, “Smells Like the Teen Spirit” – and music videos that I was never inclined to actually purchase any of their music.  None of it impressed me.  Kurt Cobain did not impress me.  Nor, for that matter, did Pearl Jam or Eddie Vedder, and while I have Ten and a few others by PJ, I’ve never bothered to see them in concert either.  Of the four bands, Nirvana seem to have a PUNK influence and less Iommi there.  Again, not impressed.

Bleach (1989).  This is their first album, and has Chas Channing on drums instead of Dave Grohl.  Krist Novoselic is the bassist, and of course the guitarist/vocalist/songwriter is Kurt Cobain.  I got the deluxe version with all the extra tracks and live stuff, basically to binge on everything.   It’s more raw and punk-oriented than Nevermind but OK to listen to.

Nevermind (1991).  This is clearly the album that blew them open big time.  “Smells Like The Teen Spirit”?  Yes, it’s on here.  The only songs I like are “In Bloom”, and the extra track (of course I got the two disc “deluxe edition”) “Curmudgeon”, which is Hawkwind-esque.  Whoever decided which songs should be the singles was 100% correct, as the other songs aren’t as good, though not as shitty as to qualify as filler. 

In Utero (1993).   As to say “f**K you” to the record company and all the lesser bandwagon fans who bought Nevermind at Sam Goody or FYE for $16.99, Kurt and the boys got as radio-unfriendly as they could on this album, even to the point of having an obnoxious song called “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”.   

Kurt Cobain kills himself.  In April 1994 Kurt Cobain shot himself.  Game over.  His body was found after several days. 

            Apparently he was unhappy.  Duff McKagan, the GNR bassist, says shortly before that he was on the plane with Kurt going to Seattle, and Kurt was remarkably upbeat, out of character for him.  Duff said, “ok, that told me that something was very wrong with him.”  He had stomach problems and was also addicted to heroin.

            Among the Gen X crowd I was hanging out with at the time, at Montclair State University in New Jersey, who worshipped Kurt as a modern-day rock god, the suicide really bummed them out.  I was neither happy nor sad, and since Kurt had tried to kill himself before, not surprised either. 

Dave Grohl.  After Nirvana, drummer Dave Grohl formed a band, just for the hell of it, the Foo Fighters.  Like Tool, this band just to screw around ended up being more successful than many bands who actually try to be successful.  Grohl has also played in Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures, a supergroup with QOTSA guitarist/vocalist John Homme and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones.  I find Grohl much more likeable and normal than Kurt Cobain, though I’m not a big fan of the Foo Fighters and have never seen them in concert.  

The Good Soldier Schweik

Veteran’s Day came by with the Concert For Valor.  I watched it on HBO instead of fighting the crowds.  I’m not a big Springsteen fan, nor a big fan of Dave Grohl (though I think he’s pretty cool) or the Zac Brown band.  And I’m definitely not a fan of Rihanna or Eminem.  What I liked was John Oliver’s humorous account of inter-service trash talk – why does the Air Force have nicer things?  Because they’re smarter – and Jack Black’s reference to Donington 1985: I was there!  As it is, my own special tribute to the holiday will come from left field, and here it is!

Based on the 1923 book by Jaroslav Hasek, this pair of movies came out in the late 1950s, in color.  They feature the Beetle Bailey type misadventures of a simple-minded, good-natured common soldier, Joseph Szwejk, of the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War I.  

Joseph Schweik is a Czech living in Prague in 1914.  WWI breaks out and he volunteers for the Austro-Hungarian army despite being previously discharged in 1910 as “feeble-minded” and having a bad knee – the crowd rolls his wheelchair to the recruiting office while chanting “on to Belgrade!”.  He’s extremely good-natured and honest, so much so that officers tend to write him off as stupid, though he clearly isn’t.  In fact, those who encounter him for any appreciable length of time begin to wonder if he’s just sandbagging - feigning idiocy - to evade the greater responsibility or expectations which might be foisted upon him should he show any discernable competence or intelligence. 

           

            By the end of the first movie, he’s been a “batman” (valet/personal assistant) first to a drunken, corrupt chaplain (Army priest), and then to an officer who is somewhat of an easy-living ladies’ man, Lt. Lukas.  Too bad for both of them, Lukas pissed off his superior officer and the two will soon be seeing action against Ivan.     

           Part II picks up with Schweik stranded in some town in Bohemia, it seems, en route to the front.  A prank with a train worker gets him thrown off the train with his papers still on the train with Lt. Lukas.  He drinks his train ticket money in beer – bonding with language difficulties with a Hungarian soldier who doesn’t speak Czech, and he doesn’t speak Hungarian - so he has to walk (!) to the front.  Along the way he meets sympathetic Czech civilians who attempt to assist him in deserting, AND buffoonish local police looking for Russian spies who speak fluent Czech, so naturally he becomes a suspect.  Although he does meet up with Lt. Lukas and reaches the front, there is no combat.  For some reason he puts on the uniform of a Russian soldier who took a bath in the lake, is taken prisoner by his own side, and is only saved from summary execution by finally being identified as belonging to his unit, the 91^st Infantry Regiment (Hasek’s unit). 

            While it’s not particularly exciting or thrilling, the main attraction – to me at least – is coverage of the Austrian Army in WWI (which no one seems to care about) especially from the point of view of a Czech.  Austrians come off as arrogant assholes, Hungarians as neutrals, and Czechs as unwilling subjects in an empire they have no interest in supporting.  One character mentions an entire division – apparently of Czechs – which deserted en masse to the Russians, from the lowliest private to the commanding officer; thus the Czech Legion gets an oblique reference.   Schweik’s own personality becomes a clever microcosm of the army he serves in.  

Funny Music

Nuclear war is a heavy topic, so to lighten things up this week, I thought I’d focus on novelty songs.   By this I don’t mean comedians such as Steve Martin, Adam Sandler, or Jimmy Fallon who love to show up with a banjo or guitar and show off how multitalented they are.  I mean actual musicians who either focus on parodies (Weird Al Yankovic), parody an entire genre with original music (Spinal Tap & Steel Panther) or simply inject a certain heavy threshold of humor into their music (Frank Zappa).   Because life is too short to be serious 24/7, and we all know too many musicians take themselves way too seriously – even Zappa himself.

Dr. Demento (Barry Hansen).  This man is still active!  His radio show persisted, in some form or other, from 1970 to 2010, specializing in humorous, offbeat, novelty and comedy songs.  We had a compilation tape of the songs he played on his show, heavily dosed with “Weird Al” Yankovic, of course, but also lots of others.   Hansen is definitely a connoisseur of novelty songs. 

Frank Zappa.   Zappa was never a novelty song guy by design, but humor and sarcasm were so prevalent in his music, that he became one by default.  It’s reached the point that only actual Frank Zappa fans seem to understand that he’s a musician, while the general public – or less informed music fans – consider him just a novelty artist.  His own son, Dweezil, is a very talented guitarist in his own right, though his music career was never able to emerge from under the shadow of his father.  Resigned to this, it seems, now he plays his  father’s material – faithfully and well – as Zappa Plays Zappa, and emphatically focuses on the MUSIC and pushes the humor off to the side. 

“Weird Al” Yankovic.  Arguably the reigning king of novelty songs and/or parody, WAY has been active since the late 1970s and continues today – finally getting a #1 album, Mandatory Fun.  He started off doing parodies of popular songs – which remain his bread & butter – but eventually started writing original – though humorous – songs and also does a few songs which parody a band’s style though no song in particular.  This final category shows him at his most creative.  Excellent examples: “Genius In France” (Zappa), “Dare to Be Stupid” (Devo), “I’ll Sue Ya” (Rage Against the Machine), “Bob” (Bob Dylan – a song consisting solely of palindromes sang nasally) and my favorite, “Pancreas”, which parodies the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and later material brilliantly.  It was “Eat It” (Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”) which really primed him.  The attention to detail on the video parody was fantastic.

            Although the courts have ruled that a parody of a song constitutes fair use and does not require the original artist’s permission, WAY as a super nice guy adopted a policy of asking for permission anyway, although he will play the unauthorized versions live in concert.   Prince, Jimmy Page, and Paul McCartney have all refused permission to parody their bands’ songs. 

            If I have one big problem with WAY, it’s that he focuses on Top 40 material, with almost no classic rock songs thrown in, even material we’ve known for ages.   On the other hand, he’s a big Star Wars fan – he’s clearly a self-professed geek – and I prefer “Yoda” to the original by the Kinks, “Lola”.

            Finally, Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) on “How I Met Your Mother”, claims that WAY is his favorite band.

Spinal Tap.   Before there was Steel Panther, there was Spinal Tap:  David St. Hubbins (rhythm guitar & vocals) (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (lead guitar) (Christopher Guest), and Derek Smalls (bass) (Harry Shearer).   Like the Grateful Dead & their keyboardists, the running joke is that Spinal Tap’s drummers invariably suffer freak fatalities.   The band spoofs 70s hard rock acts, and appears in the mock-documentary “This is Spinal Tap” (1982).   The “original” material includes such gems as “Big Bottoms”, “Sex Farm”, and “Christmas With The Devil”.  The movie is very funny – and many of the rock musicians who recognize themselves or their misadventures as loosely depicted in the movie give it major kudos – as do I.   The “band” has several albums of material, This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Break Like the Wind (1992), and Back From The Dead (2009).

Steel Panther.  Starting out as Metal Skool, a glam band cover band, this L.A. band decided to take its tentative steps at full-out parody to the next level and became Steel Panther.   Michael Starr (Ralph Saenz) (vocals), Satchel (Russ Parrish) (guitar), Lexxi Foxx (Travis Haley) (bass) and Stix Zadinia (Darren Leader) (drums).   Albums: Hole Patrol, Feel The Steel, Balls Out, and All You Can Eat.  They parody Motley Crue, Poison, Warrant, etc. all the most egregious hair metal bands of the 80s, though with original material.  The lyrics are deliberately as obnoxious, sexist and over the top as possible, again the point being humor rather than being taken seriously.  Like WAY, it’s not material you can endure nonstop or even on a regular basis, but it is funny, particularly if you’re familiar with the hair metal bands they’re making fun of.  Follow up “Rock of Ages” with one of their albums.