"You can wait your whole life
Not knowing what you're waiting for"
My favorite time of year has come around again. Cooler mornings, changing leaves, and that wonderful spookiness creeping through the air.
I had the pleasure of catching Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals last weekend here in Richmond, VA. His Live From Mars album was in heavy rotation on my 5 disc cd changer back in 2001. It was a challenging season for me so Ben was a faithful companion during that journey. (Specifically disc two, which was just Ben and his acoustic guitar)
The whole band sounded amazing, but I was excited to witness a few solo Ben tracks live (to the left is a pic I shot with Ben and his lap steel guitar.) It was great hearing some of the throw back tunes, but as usual a new (to me) song grabbed me immediately. It helped that the guy in front of us was losing his mind once they went into the track.
Since we're in the Halloween season I suppose we'll keep the theme of fright and fear songs. This tune addresses anxiety, depression, identity crisis, addiction, and questioning one's purpose in life. Those things are more terrifying to me than Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees! For this weeks post I'd like to feature two tunes from Mr. Harper. The first track from 2012 referenced above is someone trying to figure things out. Jump forward to Ben's 2023 release, and he's been able to spin his brain around and instead of landing on bankrupt, he's won a trip to Aruba! I love the way he can look at the same obstacles but put a more positive spin on defeating them. Something we can all strive for! Enjoy the tunes, and I hope to back on this site a few more times during the month as October always gets the creative juices flowing.
Oh, so let's stick with the October horror movie suggestions. Todays pick is from 2009. Let's revisit Ti West's, House of the Devil. This is one of Ti's earlier films and he's of course gone on to direct bigger budget flicks like X and Pearl. This film also features a small part by today's "it" director, Greta Gerwig.
This movie brought me back to being a horror fan. Growing up in the 80's I have a special place in my heart for the Slashers, but I also loved the 70's big budget/big star horror films and of course the OG Universal Monster Movies. The 90's hit and things got a little stale for me. Movies were too slick, featured someone from Dawson's Creek (no hate, I do love me some Dawson) and they all kind of seemed like Scream ripoffs. After that we had the whole torture porn genre (although I just watched Saw X and enjoyed it) and then Japanese movies remade in America. Not my favs. This film goes back to the basic campfire cautionary tale. Story of a woman taking a babysitting job at a spooky house, not sure what's behind that bedroom door and what's the deal with the people who hired her? The atmosphere and the tension of this move is just fun. If you dig this one, I'd check out his follow up film , The Innkeepers. Alright that's all I got. Thanks for reading.
