CMW 2012

     I usually go to more CMW shows but there was only one that interested me this year. On Friday night I attended The Great Hall for Saul Williams, Spoek Mathambo, Cadence Weapon and The Battle Of Santiago. I actually only purchased the tickets because I'm a fan of Edmonton/Montreal rapper Cadence Weapon but there were also some pleasant surprises from the other artists.

     I arrived around 9:30 to catch the last couple of songs from The Battle Of Santiago. The band had at least 6 members on stage and the sound mixing in the venue was not the greatest. They played some kind of improvisational latin-post-afro-cuban-rock mix which could be cool, however, since I only saw about a song and a half and the mix was shitty I can't really place a fair rating on the performance. Rating: NA

     Cadence Weapon took to the stage around 10. It was just him and his DJ in front of the half empty venue. Rollie performed all new songs from his upcoming album (Hope In Dirt City coming out May 29th) with the exception of the song Sharks from the album Breaking Kayfabe. The new songs were good and the performance was high energy. I also have to say that the DJ was amazing (sorry I don't know his name. :-( ). Most DJs over the past couple of years seem to be playing pre-recorded tracks off their macbooks and occasionally playing with their mixing consoles. There was no laptop to be seen during this performance and his hands were flying! Because the set was a little short and I was hoping to hear a few more older songs I give Cadence Weapon a rating of: 7.5/10

I didn't bring my camera with me this year so this is Cadence Weapon from CMW 2010

     At 11:00 Spoek Mathambo came out to a full hall. Before the show I had only seen one or two of his videos on Youtube so I was largely unfamiliar with his music. Hailing all the way from Johannesburg South Africa the band had the entire place partying in no time. Spoek's music is a blend of African, electro, and rap. On stage the band looks like they are having a great time and that feeling translates through to the crowd. They played for over an hour until they were kicked off the stage by the sound guy, however, they managed to sneak back on for an encore. For being awesome I rate Spoek Mathambo: 8.5/10

     The headliner of the night was Saul Williams. Once again I wasn't too familiar with Saul's music. The set started with the backing 'DJ' cutting together seemingly random 30 second clips of music. After about 20 minutes of noise the crowd was becoming aggravated by the choppy set. Saul Williams came out with the rest of his band and proceeded to play several rhythmic/electronic songs with the occasional spoken word interlude. Williams seemed to command the audience's attention but it was late and I wasn't particularly impressed by the music so I left the show early. I know he has many fans but I guess I'm not one of them. I give Saul Williams: 4/10

The Raid: Redemption

     This Indonesian action movie is sick (in a good way). I have never before seen a movie with such a huge number of exceptional fight scenes. The film starts with about 5 minutes of non-action but don't worry because the following hour and a half is a non-stop orgy of fists, feet, guns, knives and anything else the cast can get their hands on (watch for the fluorescent lightbulb). The story features a SWAT team that becomes trapped in a 15 story apartment building that is run by a mobster and his army of thugs, murderers, drug dealers and gangs. You don't really need to know any more than that as there isn't much more than that to be had. The fight scenes are all stylishly choreographed and gloriously brutal. One scene has the protagonist fighting his way through a gang in a tight hallway armed only with a night stick and a knife. The movie premiered during TIFF''s Midnight Madness program in 2011 and became an instant fan favorite. The success of the festival showing allowed director Gareth Evans to secure a distribution deal for the film, a future American remake, and a future Indonesian sequel. The movie is currently only playing in one theater in Toronto (not sure about in other cities). See it while you can in a big theater because I don't think there will be anything this cool on the big screen for a while.

Here's the trailer...Go see the movie!

 

Making Noise And Drinking Beer

     For anybody who may be interested in where I got the name from this blog I totally suggest checking out the Toronto Heavy Metal band Cauldron (the name comes from their cover of a Tyrant song from 1984). I have included the two versions of the song. I'm sure I'll post more about Cauldron whenever they play a Toronto show again. If anybody likes Metal I'd suggest going to see Skull Fist. They will be playing at the Hard Luck Cafe sometime towards the end of March.

     As an funny connection to my first ever post on this blog, the name of the Tyrant album "Mean Machine" is also a villain from the world of Judge Dredd!

Original Tyrant version

Newer Cauldron version

Easy Pineapple Cake

     I got this recipe from my Oma. I love it because you throw everything into one big bowl, mix it up, pour it into a pan, bake it and you're done. Easy as pie... er... I mean cake!

Ingredients:
- 20oz can of crushed pineapple in juice
- 2 cups flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup walnuts
- 2 eggs
- 2tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp vanilla

    Mix all ingredients together and pour into a greased 9x13 baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Ice immediately!

Icing:
Ingredients:
- 1 8oz package cream cheese
- 1 stick butter
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla

     Mix it up! I don't use the stick of butter... instead I prefer to use the juice of a couple of limes and it still makes a great icing.

The Walking Dead

     The season finale of The Walking Dead aired on AMC last night and I am happy to say that the show is finally getting on track! This will probably contain some spoilers so don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the show yet. I have been following the Image comic books for a couple of years now (issue #95 should be coming out sometime next week) and when they announced The Walking Dead as a TV show for October 2010 I had some really high expectations. Until the last three episodes of season 2 my expectations were not met. The show has been slow, light on the zombies and some of the characters have been getting on my nerves (Shane, Andrea, Carol and Dale). In episode 11, “Judge, jury, Executioner”, I was happy to see Dale get torn apart in a field. In episode 12, “Better Angels”, Shane is finally killed by Rick (although I would have preferred if it went down like in the comics where Carl is the one to kill Shane).

     Last night’s finale was full of zombies and action, low on the preaching, some people were lost and the best part is they introduced two of my favourite things from the comic series. Michone is shown briefly after saving Andrea in the woods and in the last shot of the show the camera pulls back to reveal a prison complex in the distance. The introduction of both Michone and the prison seem to indicate that the show is going to more closely follow the comics in the coming seasons. If this is true I hope to see The Governor possibly making an appearance next season to cause some real hell.  I’m glad the season ended with a bang and it sucks that the show won’t be back till the fall.

Judge Dredd!

     I recently finished reading Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Volumes 1-17 which covered 16 years worth of Judge Dredd/2000 AD comics and over 8000 pages!

     For those unfamiliar with the character, the stories take place about 100 years in the future. Around the year 2070 a psychotic president of the United States starts World War III. The resulting Atomic War devastates the globe and only the Mega Cities with their laser defences were able to survive. The rest of the world has become a radioactive desert called the Cursed Earth which is populated by mutants and gangs. Up till this point the Judges were simply a powerful police force but the public demanded that the Judges take over the government. As a result, the Judges became the ruling dictators of the surviving Mega Cities. They are the police, judges, jury and sometimes executioners of the population they protect. Judges are trained from the age of 5 till the age of 20 in the hardest school on earth before they can become a full Judge.  

     Judge Joe Dredd is the toughest of the Judges (think RoboCop meets Dirty Harry meets John McClane) and is a direct clone of the original Chief Judge Fargo. Armed with a gun that fires selectable regular, incendiary, heat seeking, armour piercing and ricochet bullets called the Lawgiver and a motorcycle equipped with cannons and artificial intelligence called the Lawmaster, Dredd travels around Mega-City One sending perps to the Iso-Cube or to Resyk (body recycling plant where all the dead are sent). He never takes off his helmet, smiles or cracks a joke and he arrests and sentences people like it’s going out of style. A case of jaywalking can get you 12 months in the Iso-Cube!

     Over the sixteen years worth of stories that I just completed the future looks like hell. There is a <10% employment rate and because of the lack of direction people feel, crime runs rampant. Disasters also seem to run rampant: Mega-City One suffers a robot rebellion, a crazy Chief Judge who sentences the entire population to death (alphabetically), an all out war between the various Mega-City blocks, The Apocalypse War between Mega-City One and East-Meg One (Russia) which killed off half of the city’s 800 million person population, Dark Judges from another dimension where life is a crime take over the city’s Judges and sentence the entire population to death, and Judgement Day where a necromancer revives all of the earth’s dead as a zombie army and billions of people are killed. Each time Dredd comes to the rescue.

      I’d recommend this series to anybody. The longer stories are epic in scale and the single issue stories can be silly, sad, satirical, badass and everything in between. The different artists and writers who have worked on the books are also exceptional. Among my favourite artists were Brian Bolland, Simon Bisley, and Glenn Fabry who all brought a different flavour to the character.

      On a related note, the small comic publisher IDW (who currently publishes the amazing Locke & Key series and the ongoing TMNT) has just announced that it will be releasing a monthly Judge Dredd book sometime in the future. Also, this September a new Dredd movie is going to be released. The film stars Karl Urban (Bones from the Star-Trek re-boot) and is written by Alex Garland who also wrote 28 Days Later. From what I have read the movie is supposed to be quite violent (exploding heads and people chopped in half) and I can only hope it will make people forget about the crappy Stallone version from 1995. There is a screenplay floating around but I don’t want to read it before the movie comes out. Many people are saying the story is like Die Hard in the future which is fine with me because I love Die Hard.