Love IS Hell

I'm leaving shortly to go to the studio to work with B and our special guest Leo V23, who is in town for a spell and has been roped into to add even more to this album (hopefully in the form of some sharp backing vocals). I'm psyched to have Leo on our turf for a change and I expect a productive day (once we stop talking about the genius of Cerati). Stay tuned.

In the meantime, last night, Irene and I checked out RUNNING ON KARMA starring my man Andy Lau and the beautiful Cecilla Cheung, at the 2004 New York Asian Film Festival. I might have discussed this film when I saw it some months ago (I'm a big fan), so the chance to see it on 35mm in a screening room was a must do for me. Irene had heard about it and had wanted to see it as well, so that got us to the theatre on time. Seeing a HK film on a movie screen in a movie theatre brought me back to my youth when I would sneak down to the Bowery (aged 10) to see whatever new movies were coming out of HK. Sadly there are no more Chinatown movie houses, so one must recapture their youth at these new kind of events. But the feeling was great. Go to the festival before this week is out. Some awesome movies are playing (like HERO and INFERNAL AFFAIRS). You can learn about at the Festival at http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/nyaff04home.htm

Meanwhile, and I'm not sure why she bought this, while we were wandering about the upper west side the other night (don't tell anyone we were up there), Irene picked up the Ryan Adams CD LOVE IS HELL. Now, honestly, the guy seems to be a douche. When I first saw him, he was a douche singing in front of the Twin Towers and happened to grab some press because he filmed it before the Tradge (as it's called here). He's always in NME being, well a douche and because he lives nearby here, until recently I would see him quite a bit, quite often at the Gramercy, looking like, well, a douche, and usually with extremely funny but insane movie star girlfriend (who I hope is not a douche). He was recently photographed at my least favourite bar ever Black and White, which confirmed his huge douchedom. Also the cover of this album has two photos of himself, which makes it twice the necessary daily dose of doucheness.

I'm under the impression Irene bought this for Adams' cover of Mr. Gallagher's WONDERWALL, which is quite legendary if you read NME enough like I do. I'm told this CD is two EP's combined into one CD because his label, obviously douches, felt the material was "too dark" to release as a full length. Well thats kinda wack because this CD is REALLY awesome. And the Oasis cover does live up to the NME hype. Yes it's dark, but his lyrics are solid and his melodies are sweet and I keep going back to the CD, no matter how many times I have the urge to listen to Ministry ;-)

Well, thumbs up for that douche at the Gramercy. The fucker can write some tunes. Lesson learned: look beyond on the douche and listen to the tunes. You'll be shocked what you hear.

Do that with Ass Cobra as well.

F