Griesgraber offers further insight into *Unnamed Lands* at http://www.sandiegoreader.com/bands/tom-griesgrab… - "We wrote most of the material together over a period of about four years. Bert would fly out and stay here for a week or so at a time. Most of the pieces started with improvisations in the studio. We would just set up all the gear, hit record and see what happened. Eventually, we would listen back to the improvs and find our favorite moments. Using these as rough ideas, we then started trying to combine and elaborate on them and slowly turned them into pieces that could be played live."
"We took these out on tours around the US, further refining them each night. Along the way, we wound up with about 30 hours of material recorded. Eventually, we realized there was a core group of fourteen tracks that seemed to really work together as an album." — December 11, 2013 6:08 p.m.
How the Breaking Bad finale lied to you (and why you were so easily fooled)
I rewatched the finale for the first time since the original showdate during this week's marathon, and noticed several more things that seem to back up my theory. Most notable was his final goodbye to his wife where, in finally admitting "I did it for ME," I totally missed his telling followup muse: "I was ALIVE." I also noticed that, when Walt calls the DEA from the frozen bar and leaves the phone off the hook, it's still daylight when five cops arrive with guns drawn. However, by the time we see him in the snowed-under car, it's nighttime. It grows especially dark in the moment where he seems surrounded by police lights, which turn into a kind of pulsing strobe in his vision, and the sound blanks for a moment (IMO, the moment he slips into his dying dream), and then things start up again as he magically finds the keys and begins his magical mystery tour of his own twisted brain. That seems important since it indicates some time has passed since the DEA was notified and five cops were already on the scene. AND cops were already all around the frozen car. This makes me doubt all the more that he could possibly drive back to the cabin and load all his money into the car (in his poor health, especially having walked the frozen path TO the bar), and NOT be spotted by all the cops (and DEA, FBI, State Troopers, etc) surely packing digital printouts of his face while scouring the area for their most-wanted fugitive. The bit with Jesse's flashback to building the perfect wood box does remain out of place in Walt's head, but I maintain that was a legitimate flashback of Jesse's, plopped in the middle of the finale. That stuff really WAS happening to Jesse, he was locked up, forced to cook, and daydreaming about his box. Walt didn't have to imagine it - it was really happening. Probably right about at the exact moment Walt was drawing his last cold(hearted) breath 2,700 miles away. Walt's "revenge" was just too perfect and flawless to accept. I even finally figured out how he (in his imagination) slipped the poison to Lydia: he began a wrenching cough fit that caused both Todd and Lydia to look away for just a few seconds, in embarrassment and disgust, and that's when he slipped the spiked sweetener pack into the dispenser. Remember she had apparently used the last pack and was asking for more but, after Walt left, she seemed to find one more packet in the tray. Thanks a lot, Walt! So that's my final take, at least for now. I'm telling all you doubters, Walter White died a lonely, frozen death in a strange place, sad about his son, seething over his former coworkers, and accompanied only by a useless bundle of cash -- I bet Robert Forester wished he'd just killed Walt and taken the money on that last visit to the cabin, since the discovery of Walt's corpse surely kept him from ever recovering the rest of Walt's cash.— January 1, 2014 10:05 a.m.
None
Really digging Scott Ellis' take on this new column! The full-service layout is great too, with pics and links to event pages and venue pages, along with all the info from pricing to start-times right here in the main mix. Been hitting this column first when each new issue comes out!— December 31, 2013 1:55 p.m.
Kick out the jams
Outtakes: MAC OR PC? “Never owned a Mac, though I don’t have strong opinions about things like computer operating systems.” WHAT REMAINS ON YOUR BUCKET LIST? “I don’t have a bucket list. I live in the present, and take things and opportunities as they come.”— December 31, 2013 1:20 p.m.
Is Downtown eating its own?
When it comes to downtown, owning a building is little or no guarantee of maintaining your business there. A lot of people know our city's "Redevelopment Agency" pulled "eminent domain" tricks allowing them to literally steal the buildings where around 30 adult-oriented business operated. What most people DON'T know is that the city didn't stop there. It also named around 75 non-adult businesses and individuals in an eminent domain lawsuit filed December 31, 1979. The hit list included the Commodore Hotel, as well as the Buccaneer Lounge, the Equitable Trust Company, Fourth Street Arcade, the Horton Hotel Grand, Joe's Barber Shop, the Right Spot bar, Security First National Bank, Terminal Auto Parks, and the Western Union Telegraph Company. The city's eminent domain grab even included San Diego's Department of Internal Revenue building! If the city can rob THOSE guys of their downtown property, do you really think anyone is safe??— December 28, 2013 4:12 p.m.
America’s Finest Christmas songs
There were at least three dozen other San Diego-centric holdiay albums and songs we could've mentioned, but you really don't want to be bummed out with the reminder that Scott Weiland recorded a hideous Christmas album last year, do you???— December 24, 2013 3:46 p.m.
Heffern’s redemption
Heffern just sent multiple bombshells about his upcoming January 26 Casbah anniversary show, for which he's flying in from Finland for what he says will probably be his final San Diego performances. “It's Black Tango's first show in 27 years,” Heffern tells the *Reader.* “Also, I will be backed by Bart Mendoza and Kevin [Donaker-Ring] from Manual Scan, and David Doyle from the Unknowns, and Alan Brown. But the biggest story here is the first showing of Eric Rife's *Garageland* [documentary]...we made sure that it would all happen on a Sunday afternoon where there would be no football.” Rife has been working on and promising to complete *Garageland*, a local music documentary, for so many years now that it has achieved almost mythical status akin to GN'R's decades-in-the-making *Chinese Democracy.* "I am really trying to give people who have been doing things for many years a kick in the ass to finish their works. and just do it," says Heffern.— December 22, 2013 6:15 a.m.
AMSDconcerts
Good news today from AMSD honcho Carey Driscoll: "As many of you know, we've lost the use of -- ability to rent -- the venue in which we've done 500+ shows over the last 10+ years...I've continued to try to find another venue so that this wouldn't be the end (and the lack of success has just added to the upset and frustration. But as of right now -- and while not actually superstitious, I also don't want to take a chance of cursing it -- things look far more promising than they have in at least two months. I hope to have a firm resolution within a few days -- one that will enable us to continue on, and do so at a beautiful venue not far from the old location -- and as soon as I do, I'll announce the details...and finally be able to resume booking concerts!"— December 17, 2013 10:20 p.m.
Grindhouse Movie Reviews/Seen on DVD: The Billy Jack Collection
RIP Tom Laughlin, best known from the *Billy Jack* films. I didn’t actually see any of those until just last year, not even the original biker flick *Born Losers* – I picked up a box set with all four movies, watched ‘em, listened to the commentaries, and wrote this lengthy *Reader* feature that also touches on the infamous *Star Trek* episode “Miri” (“Bonk Bonk on the head!”), *Lost in Space*’s go-go dancing delinquents, and even the crazy 70s comic book series *Prez*, about a teenage U.S. President --— December 16, 2013 11:30 a.m.
San Diego supergroups invade the Local Music Database
If you were to click every band page link in this article, you'd be accessing over 800 pages of Local Music content, including articles and interviews with band members, discographies with track lists and album art, related "upcoming concert" event pages, links to all the other Reader band pages connected with each individual musician, plus several dozen playable MP3s and embedded videos -— December 14, 2013 3:10 p.m.
Prog-rock on the prairie
Griesgraber offers further insight into *Unnamed Lands* at http://www.sandiegoreader.com/bands/tom-griesgrab… - "We wrote most of the material together over a period of about four years. Bert would fly out and stay here for a week or so at a time. Most of the pieces started with improvisations in the studio. We would just set up all the gear, hit record and see what happened. Eventually, we would listen back to the improvs and find our favorite moments. Using these as rough ideas, we then started trying to combine and elaborate on them and slowly turned them into pieces that could be played live." "We took these out on tours around the US, further refining them each night. Along the way, we wound up with about 30 hours of material recorded. Eventually, we realized there was a core group of fourteen tracks that seemed to really work together as an album."— December 11, 2013 6:08 p.m.