Music Babble

The key to understanding the movie of The Exorcist is reading up on William Friedkin's life and watching his other films. William Peter Blatty was the Catholic, not Friedkin--Friedkin was raised agnostic in an ethnically Jewish household and was quite far from being any sort of Christian in his personal life (pettiness, abortions IIRC, being a basterd to work with.) He was interested in this material because of the bleak picture of the early 1970s world it represents, and that's my main interest in watching the film now. It's not that the "horror" doesn't work--having a 12 year old girl rip her #$@#(*& open with a crucifix while yelling "LET JESUS F*** YOU" will never not be pretty sick-minded, regardless of the era--but it's not what I find interesting about the film anymore. Since it's Friedkin interpreting Blatty, the film's message ends up a weird mixture of "what's the world coming to"--Friedkin depicting it as a trash-hole where people die horribly and unjustly and life is dirty and bleak, left over from The French Connection (and continued in his other later stuff) and Blatty's own "we'd all be better off if we were Catholic" stuff--as a kid, I never would have understood the significance of Regan being raised by just her mother, or the stuff with the British film-director jerk calling that Swiss guy a Nazi, or why the mother is filming a Vietnam campus-protest movie, or all those people living in that house together, or how that ties into the obscenities. Hell even the "liberal" priest guy is significant. But call me when Friedkin, who turns 88 years old this year, converts to Catholicism. I'm not holding my breath.

XTC - I like all versions of "All Along The Watchtower"--I had this long dark road I used to walk along while listening to the XTC version. And I like pretty much all of White Music too--great new-wave fun and quickie songwriting. The bonus tracks are just more of the same but I like 'em. On my CD they're at the end, not the middle.

Go 2 - I only remember "Battery Brides" and "Beatown," the album was listenable but that's just because it's More White Music. I probably won't bother with a relisten to it.

Drums & Wires - I need to do a relisten to this soon and I will, but I always thought it was held as being one of the better XTC albums, I didn't know anyone hated it besides George who probably got a bit too angry at "Complicated Game," a sample of which turns up hilariously in Neil Cicierega's "Avril." "Making Plans For Nigel," "Life Begins At The Hop" and "Helicopter" are the ones I remember liking best.