Hello, I must be going.

It is with heavy heart that I announce the closing of the doors of He's A Whore.

Due to personal circumstances that require my full attention, I regret not having the time to devote to maintaining the level of quality you have come to expect and that I demand from myself.

It has been great fun sharing some truly great music with you and I am glad that, if nothing else, the music will live on.

I will bring down this site at the stroke of midnight on July 28, EST.

Take care,
The Management :)

Tenacious D's Pick Of Destiny - Movie Review

This past Thursday, I saw an advance screening of Tenacious D's Pick Of Destiny.

As a great fan of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, having caught their acoustical jams at the intimate Largo club years before they graduated to Sony Records, like many fans of their act, I had been awaiting their big-screen debut with much anticipation. But I had also heard rumblings that the film was in trouble, originally slated for a November 2005 release. It is July 2006 and it appears they're still trying to figure out what to do with this film.

My humble suggestion would be to start over from scratch.

While I found it amusing at times, there were long periods of screen time spent wishing I was somewhere, anywhere else than this.

It wasn't because I dislike Tenacious D, but, rather, because I was watching a quite unlikeable film that unknowingly disassembles the myth of "The D".

See, what makes Tenacious D work so well is that you have two kindred spirits in Kyle and Jack. Where Loggins & Messina claimed to be brothers of different mothers, Kyle and Jack don't have to make such a claim. They are Siamese twins of different mothers. They were separated at birth, but reunited by ROCK & ROLL!!!

Rather than play up that angle, showing the two future rock gods as kids on a playground, bonding over a shared love for Dio, and uniting against the powers that strive to keep them (and their beloved ROCK & ROLL!!!) down, they depict Jack Black as a young metalhead rebelling against his father (played by Meatloaf), who ultimately leaves home to find Hollywood.

They also depict Kyle as a rock wanna-be, playing for spare change along Venice Beach. Upon meeting Kyle, a wide-eyed innocent Jack Black begs to audition for the Kyle Gass Band, but is rebuked rudely by the long-haired rock stallion. That night, Jack is attacked by a gang of thugs. Kyle, who hides while the attack takes place and then takes credit for chasing them off, takes pity upon Black and allows him to crash at his apartment.

Kyle then puts Jack through a rock & roll boot camp of sorts and the two new friends continue to bond... until the day that Jack discovers that Kyle's long flowing locks are, in fact, a wig and that the royalty check for a song called "I Love You Pumpkin" was actually money his parents had sent him to cover rent.

While some of this was funny, it was not at all inspired and that, my friend, is what makes Tenacious D so cool. Their music, their comedy, their commitment. All 110% inspired.

Instead, the film builds a backstory that completely undoes the legacy of Tenacious D. They weren't brothers of different mothers. They just ran into each other on the beach a few years ago.

After their first open mic night, they soon discover that all rock greats - Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, Angus Young - all played the same guitar pick. Convinced that this is what they need to attain greatness, they go in search of this "holy grail". Sure, there is a nice belly laugh waiting for viewers upon seeing Ben Stiller decked out as a hapless rocker working at Guitar Center, but, by going in search of this "Pick Of Destiny", the plot is lost. Tenacious D would never have gone in search of something to make them great. They've been convinced of their own greatness from Day 1.

On the journey to find the "Pick Of Destiny", they stop at a road-side diner and, while Jack is in the restroom, Kyle decides he'd rather take off with a bunch of sorority girls who believe his claims of rock stardom. So, you want us to believe that Kyle's an ass, just so he can go to the party and be revealed (again) as a fake? Okay...but why?

Do you see where I'm going with this?

I know its only a movie, but, after awhile, it becomes a travesty. Jack, wandering the woods alone, eats some mushrooms and then believes he's flying through the air on bigfoot's back, or floating down a strawberry stream, all the while wandering through the woods like a stoned teenager. As you read this, you can probably imagine this being funny. Jack dressed up as a rather compact bigfoot, much to my surprise, was not funny.

Jack and Kyle reunite in an air duct inside the Rock Hall where the Pick of Destiny is housed. They make it past the stoned security guards, but are temporarily thwarted by the high-tech laser beams that guard the pick. Without missing a beat, Jack shifts into Catherine Zeta-Jones mode and circumvents all the lasers, except for the one right in front of the "Turn Off Lasers" button. One miraculous cock push-up later, though, and the Pick of Destiny is theirs!

But wait, there's still a high-speed police chase and a showdown with the Devil before, duh, the boys realize they don't need the pick to be great.

In the end, they don't even play the open mic-night for which they went in search of said pick.

Then, um, why was so much time spent going in search of the "Pick Of Destiny"? Why is the film called "Tenacious D: Pick Of Destiny"? Why do I keep thinking of the seventh season of Dallas, where we find out it was all a dream?

Nirvana, 10-12-91, Chicago, Illinois

For those who saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, they witnessed the exact moment that history changed forever. The Beatles had no idea. They were just a band with a few UK singles under their belts.

For the thousand or so people who caught Nirvana at Chicago's Metro on the night of October 21, 1991, I doubt any of them thought that they were seeing a band that, in the span of a few months, would go from playing dives to selling millions of albums all over the world.

On this night, what we saw (yes, I was one of those in attendance) was a band that seemed to exist within their own bubble, free of pretense or posturing. Unlike rock stars of the past, who distanced themselves from their audience, Cobain connected with his audience by being no different than them. What set him apart, though, was that he wrote great, deceptively simple songs that described heartbreak and desolation, all the while feigning apathy. Truth be told, it was nothing more than a defense mechanism. After all, this was a guy who cared. Maybe too much.

Regardless of what happened in the years that followed this performance, 10/12/91 saw Nirvana at the top of their game, untainted by the fame and fortune to come.

They hadn't come to change the world, but they did.

Track Listing:

Aneurysm
Floyd The Barber
Breed
Sliver
Negative Creep

Lost Gems: 20/20 "Sex Trap" (1983)

Like an idiot, I came across this CD a few months ago at Amoeba Music in L.A. and didn't buy it. I seriously do not know why. A brain spasm, I guess. Of course, over the years, I had managed to collect mp3's of most of the songs from the album and today, just because I think 20/20 deserve some love, I am making the mp3's I have available to all. If you haven't already checked out 20/20, do me a personal favor and give them three minutes of your time. They may just surprise you.

I've also included two tracks cut in 1978.

Tracks:

Bad Night
Giving It All Away (1978 single)
Jack's Got A Problem
Haunted People Go
Howard
Kick It Up Twice
Overload
Walking Downtown
Under The Freeway (1978 single)
Out Of My Head

Career In A Nutshell: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (Part 1)

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1976)

Upon release of their debut effort, and amid a brief UK tour that saw the UK press tag them as both "punk" and "new wave", Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers made a sizeable splash on their debut effort.

Listening to this album today, though, one surely notices the band's stylistic connection to what has come to be known as "power pop" (think Dwight Twilley, 20/20 or Great Buildings). Considering he was close friends with Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour (both members of the very-much power pop Dwight Twilley Band, also signed to the same label as Petty at the time), that makes perfect sense. What ultimately set them apart from their "power pop" brethren, though, was their varied musical palette. For example, the album opens with the coffee-jitter angst of "Rockin' Around With You" and transitions perfectly into the laid back rock-blues groove of "Breakdown".

Unlike many of their peers at the time, who had maybe one or two stand-out tracks, what also set Petty & Co. apart was the fact that they wrote good songs. Consistently.


Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers/You're Gonna Get It (1978)

While most notable for the inclusion of semi-hits "I Need To Know" and "Listen to Her Heart", the band's second album is a solid effort throughout, with not a single dud among the album's ten tracks. Still, in my humble opinion, this album doesn't quite match the heights of their debut effort. In other words, while there are certainly ten cool tunes, there isn't anything of the calibre of "Breakdown" or "American Girl".

In hindsight, listening to this album today is like listening to a different band than the one that became chart-topping rockers only a few years later. The potential was there, but they were still growing into themselves.


Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers/Damn The Torpedoes (1979)

Despite having struck gold on their two prior efforts, Petty & Co. were still very much struggling to stay afloat financially thanks to a horrible deal signed with Shelter Records, which was then sold to MCA. Petty went into bankruptcy fighting to get out of the deal, but eventually settled with MCA and they, in turn, inked him to their newfound Backstreet imprint. With new producer Jimmy Iovine at the helm, all of the key elements finally fell into place. The result is a masterpiece that sounds just as fresh and noteworthy as it did almost thirty years ago. It is difficult to deny the immediacy of "Refugee" and "Don't Do Me Like That", or to marvel at the striking simplicity of the spoken-word verses that preface the home-run chorus of "Even The Losers". As an album that stands as arguably their best effort, Damn The Torpedoes is nothing if not a document of a band firing on all cylinders.


Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers/Hard Promises (1981)

Say what you will about Petty's prolific pace - having already penned enough stellar tracks for a greatest hits album - "Hard Promises" begins what I call Petty's two-and-out period. In other words, from "Hard Promises" on, each new TP album seems to have two really great songs and the remainder of tracks aren't necessarily ever bad, per se, but they're certainly a step or two down from the two songs each album seems to be built around. "The Waiting", of course, seems to be the unanimous high-point, and, for me "A Woman In Love" completes the pair. Without those cuts, you may note this album's striking resemblance to the mid-tempo vibe that populates much of "You're Gonna Get It".


Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers/Long After Dark (1982)

The winning pair on this album is easily "Change Of Heart" and "You Got Lucky", a song that ushered synthesizers (much to keyboardist Benmont Tench's chagrin) into the Heartbreakers sound. If anything, Long After Dark is a very underrated album as it doesn't come up in a lot of conversations when the subject turns to Petty's best work. That's a shame because, song-for-song, this album is the most varied effort Petty & Co. have ever put together and there isn't a single misstep to be found. Sure, "A Wasted Life" ends the album on a bit of whimper, and the cheesy hand claps on "We Stand A Chance" seem to show a band trying their best to remain relevant in the 80's (when they needn't have worried at all).


Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers/Southern Accents (1985)

The release of "Southern Accents" marked the longest gap between albums (almost three years) and, truth be told, much of "Southern Accents" sounds either half-baked or mired in a too-trendy-for-its-own good production (compliments of Eurythmics' Dave Stewart) that has not held up very well at all. If ever there was a Heartbreakers record that sounded like the result of a band with too much time and money (well-deserved, of course) on their hands, "Southern Accents" is it. Granted, it starts out promisingly enough with the rootsy rock of "Rebels" (which we all knew would sound great in concert), then nosedives into Huey Lewis territory on "It Ain't Nothin' To Me" and "Make It Better". If much of this album sounds slapped together, its probably be because it took three months alone to record "Don't Come Round Here No More". While the effort and extravagance seems to have been well worth it (the song became a Top 20 smash, after all), no living soul who was around when the song was originally released can listen to the song these days without thinking "Alice In Wonderland"...or, perhaps more accurately, "I sure could go for some cake". The title cut is a dead ringer for Bob Seger's "Against The Wind"...and "Spike" stands as one of the bigger duds to ever grace a TP record, 'nuff said.


Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers/Pack Up The Plantation (1986)

Released less than a year after "Southern Accents", this live double-album seems to exist only to prove that Petty & Co. haven't sold their souls to the 80's synth-pop Satan. While its great to hear the band get back to basics, I have never been able to get very excited about the song selection (as they rely too heavily on cover songs - "Shout!", no thanks), or the horn section! "So You Wanna Be A Rock n Roll Star" is such an obvious choice for a cover selection that it fails to provide any real surprises, as TP sticks very closely to the tried-and-true Byrds version. "Needles & Pins" works much better and, while I still favor the Ramones' version, the song is remarkable simply because it is always great to hear Petty & Stevie Nicks share vocal duties (as they also do on "Insider"). For a band with enough well-known material of their own to fill a double-album, the handful of questionable covers found herein ultimately make this a rather forgettable effort, which is a shame because it could have been a real juggernaut.


Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers/Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) (1987)

By and large, Let Me Up is a return to the band-oriented feel that had existed prior to the overly-produced Southern Accents. While I have found the production on some cuts to be a tad slick ("The Damage You've Done" for example), it is refreshing to hear the band playing as a finely-honed unit once-again. "My Life/Your World" stands as the only stodgy misstep, seemingly an outtake from the Southern Accents sessions.

Still, Let Me Up has never quite sat right with me and I am hard-pressed to explain why. All I can do is imagine how different a career Petty would have had if these songs had comprised Damn The Torpedoes. As hard as it is to admit, very few songs found on Let Me Up are on-par with the best of the Damn The Torpedoes material. "Ain't Love Strange" does harken back to that sound, but it is far from a standout track.

Thus, to this day, Let Me Up is an album that does not resonate with a majority of Petty's audience. In addition, this album also weakened his standing with his record label. Thus, when he turned in Full Moon Fever, it was rejected outright.


Tom Petty/Full Moon Fever (1989)

Believe it or not, MCA Records originally refused to release Full Moon Fever when Petty turned in the masters, saying they didn't hear a single.

It wasn't until a regime change at the label, combined with Petty's success as a Traveling Wilbury, that the label took another listen and, this time, they heard the sound of cash registers ringing.

For Full Moon Fever, Petty teamed up with ELO frontman Jeff Lynne, who was on a roll at the time (having recently produced CD's by George Harrison, Brian Wilson, and Randy Newman), and recorded an album for which he will always be remembered. Tracks like "I Won't Back Down" and "Free Fallin'" have come to be accepted as unofficial American anthems, it seems, striking a chord with fans and non-fans alike. It was an absolute stroke of brilliance for Petty to decide to team up with Lynne and, while the move ultimately alienated him from his own band, it has continued to pay dividends. (Editors note: Petty's recent commercial slump has now been met with yet another Jeff Lynne-produced album, Highway Companion, in hopes that lightning will strike twice)
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These tracks are taken from a 1993 concert - the last tour to feature the classic Heartbreakers line-up of Petty, Mike Campbell, Howie Epstein (R.I.P.), Benmont Tench, and Stan Lynch. The band was playing for a hometown audience in Gainesville, Florida, pulling out a glorious, career-spanning set list that included all the hits and fan favorites.

Personally speaking, I was floored by the 8-minute version of "Mary Jane's Last Dance", as well as versions of "Refugee", "American Girl" and "Listen To Her Heart" that outshines any officially-released live version. Of course, Dylan fans won't want to miss Petty's reading of "Rainy Day Woman No. 12 and 35".


Track listing:

Love Is A Long Road
Into The Great Wide Open
Listen To Her Heart
I Won't Back Down
Free Fallin'
Psychotic Reaction (sung by Stan Lynch)
Something In The Air
Mary Jane's Last Dance
Ballad Of Easy Rider
Southern Accents
Yer So Bad
Refugee
Runnin' Down A Dream
Learning To Fly
Rainy Day Woman No. 12 and 35
American Girl

A quickee, part 2: some more live Raconteurs for ya!

Here are some more live cuts from the Raconteurs' March 2006 Newcastle show, including the really rockin' medley of "Who Do You Love/5 on The 5", the latter tune being one that was reportedly recorded for the album, but did not make the final cut.

Broken Boy Soldiers
Hands
Together
Who Do You Love/5 on The 5
Blue Veins