Category Archives: Music

Trailer Thursday: Cats

I have a secret I must share.

I liked Cats. I had soundtracks (on cassette) of the original London and New York productions and went to see the original Toronto run. Someone bought me a Cats t-shirt and I wore it, unironically. I know, right? The Ramones, The Beatles, Mozart, and… Andrew Lloyd Webber. Even if it’s the Baron scoring T.S. Eliot’s whimsical book for the godchildren– a book referenced, mind you, in Logan’s Run— it remains a tad embarrassing.

So now there’s a movie, due out next Christmas. Leading actors, singers, and dancers have been CGI’d into Furry feline aliens.

And I’m not certain what to make of it:

Some viewers may think this is the cat’s meow. Others may find this quest into the Uncanny Valley haunts their memory for a long, long time.

Continue reading →

Review: Secret Path

Tragically Hip frontman Gordon Downie and Canuck comix auteur Jeff Lemire joined forces to create this graphic / musical collaboration, based on the story of Chanie Wenjack, who died just before Halloween, 1966 trying to escape a Residential School for Native children.

Profits from this 2015 work go to the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba.

The project has been performed as a live concert, and also exists as an animated film:

Continue reading →

Newspace

This week’s Newspace is nostalgic music oriented. We open with a heavy metal version of My Little Pony, discovered via the Facebook page of Bureau 42 reader hussein: here. We follow that with a video that almost makes Alvin and the Chipmunks worth listening to: here. Finally, we wrap up with a geeky new Thanksgiving song by Paul and Storm.

DVD Review – Hawkwind: Chronicles of the Black Sword

This week, instead of “Manga Monday”, I’m doing something a little different with “Music Monday”, where I review a concert DVD, album, or even Opera that is in some way Genre related. It could be an opera with sci-fi or fantasy subject matter (such as the Ring Cycle), or it could be a concept album and/or a concert DVD supporting a concept album with similar subject matter, like Rush’s 2112 or today’s review – Hawkwind’s Chronicles of the Black Sword. Continue reading →

DoubleFine Counter-Sues Activision Over Brutal Legend

We previously covered (and commented on) Activision’s lawsuit against DoubleFine Productions and EA to block the release of their game Brutal Legend, which Activision dropped when they bought out Vivendi. Well, Gamasutra is reporting that DoubleFine is striking back with a counter-suit, saying that Activision is (among other things) trying to kill the project to protect the Guitar Hero franchise (an argument that bears some merit – EA is the publisher of Rock Band – and Brutal Legend has the likenesses of Ozzy Osborne & Lemmy Kilmeister, who also appear in Guitar Hero: World Tour & Guitar Hero: Metallica, respectively.) So, the mess surrounding Brutal Legend is far from over, but will hopefully get resolved sooner rather than later. *Knocks on wood.*

OC Remix puts out Final Fantasy IV Remixed Sountrack.

I like video games. I like the Final Fantasy series. And I also usually grab any soundtrack album that comes out of OC Remix (as well as most tracks to come out of OC Remix. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see a message in my inbox hyping that OC Remix had put out their latest album, featuring re-mixes, re-envisionings, and re-workings of the music from Final Fantasy IV, titled Final Fantasy IV: Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption. This is their fourteenth album, after their soundtrack for Tales of Symphonia & Phantasia, and the soundtrack Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. The album is available through bittorrent on their tracker or download off their site. Bittorrent would probably be easier.