NEW DVD HABITS DIE HARD 8/9/05

Face it, true DVD believer, The PP Guru is not going to be hard up for new DVDs anytime soon- so it doesn't really matter how prestigiously tall the piles get, there's always going to be a avalanche of products that the PP Guru must feel is detrimental to his collection.

First off-





Finally. After almost a year of being listed on Amazon.com, the Yes concert shot last year on their 35th anniversary tour has now been stocked on the store shelf.




Songs from Tsongas has had 4 or 5 separate release dates since being announced last fall. And if you really want to know why- it wasn't the technical glitches at all- they just wanted it released as close as possible to the same release date as the live CD box set: Yes- The Word is LIVE coming out on August 23rd (the PP Guru has his fingers crossed that the studio store has this on order for him). The DVD has been available for purchase for quite some time overseas.

The concert was filmed in 2004 at various locations throughout the tour which heralded the long awaited return of "Dick", aka Rick Wakeman on the keyboards (that's bass player, Chris Squire's pet name for him- the PP Guru does not endorse name calling of his favorite musicians on his blog). The PP Guru originally missed out on this tour because they had to take it down to buttfuck Anaheim, which is not Los Angeles by any stretch of the imagination, although the owners of the Angels MLB team may digress- so the PP Guru only managed to get the leftovers on the return trip to Universal City when the Yes Lads were paired up with Dream Theater- with only half the set to spare. However, the PP Guru did get to see the beautiful Roger Dean floats.

In addition to a full set that includes such classic Yes tunes as "Going for the One," "Turn of the Century,"Owner of a Lonely Heart," and many more, not to mention the first ever performance of the last epic song Wakeman recorded with the band in 1996 called "Mind Drive" (originally based on a riff that Chris Squire and Alan White wrote for Jimmy Page and Robert Plant when rumors were going around that they were going to form a band called XYZ ), viewers will feel the full impact of the classic live performance set against the backdrop of a new stage design by none other than Roger Dean himself. A interview with the world reknown conceptual album painter is included as a bonus feature.

The PP Guru went to Fry's on his lunch hour to find out that the only copy that store ordered in which he was trying to obtain was scoffed up just an hour before he arrived.

Which just goes to show - that someone was waiting for it longer than the PP Guru was.

But the trip wasn't a total waste:



This certainly snuck under the PP Guru's radar. The PP Guru had known it was available on the Marillion website, but he had no idea that they had it NTSE converted and distributed in American by an intermediary company. Which should serve the PP Guru well as a souvenir to the fantastic come back tour by one of his all time favorite bands that he was fortunate enough to catch last fall at the House of Blues. Three fifths of the band will be returning to the LA area after Labor Day to perform an acoustic show at the Key Club on September 7th under the billing, Los Trios Marillos. It seems the only best friend the PP Guru has these days is his friendly neighborhood ticker scalper. The PP Guru will be attending in his El Kabong long black cape and hat along with his mandolin strapped to his back. It's been a long time-harried tradition.





The PP Guru has been searching high and low for the special DVD-A audio edition of Porcupine Tree's Deadwing and he finally got his grubby hands on it last weekend. A DVD-A is a enhanced version of the album that is only playable on DVD players, but you get to see trippy visuals while playing the album - the crazy interludes between track to track play like some kind of sublimal messages that could be misconstrued by some ghost that's trapped inside your player, or better yet, like outtakes from both the Ring movies. The special edition also boasts of three bonus tracks, Revanent and Mother and Child Divided. The third and final track, Half -Light is already in the PP Guru's established CD repertoire as a promo disc that was handed to him when he had purchased the original CD (which also includes another off album track, So Called Friend). Truly a haunting experience, since the concept of the album is based on a ghost story that Steven Wilson is writing a screenplay for.

The PP Guru practically climaxed in his spandex booties once he heard that PT is going back on the road again, having booked the LA House of Blues as their showcase venue next October.... and at long last, a full length concert DVD is slated to appear in 2006.

Damn, where's that box of aloe enhanced Kleenex when you really need it?

On the visual side of the horror anthology spectrum, the PP Guru has been enjoying the hell of his Tales From the Crypt Season one DVD. Quite arguably, as far as perfect comic book adaptations go, this old HBO series had gotten everything right as far as the PP Guru is concerned (which perplexes the PP Guru even further, why isn't HBO adapting more comic book themed shows to their network (since HBO and Vertigo do belong to Time Warner)? They could negotiate much better terms to stencil in a series based on Y: The Last Man on Earth, 100 Bullets, Fables, or if a need arose for a another anthology series, shit, the Dreaming would make fabulous material). The PP Guru caught an episode called Dig that Cat- He's Really Gone starring Joe(y) 'Pants" Pantoliano and Robert Wuhl that was first broadcast in 1989 before both their careers began to blossom on other HBO shows such as the Sopranos and Arliss. This particular episode directed by Richard Donner was adapted from a story in "Haunt of Fear" that dealt with a man's ability to take on the "nine" lives of a cat and joins a carnival show after some whack job scientist injects him with a gland taken from the cat, so that each time Joey Pants got killed by an arrow to his heart, strapped to a electric chair, or drowns in a tankful of water, he has the will power to resurrect himself in order to collect the cash that the people throw at him. Robert Wahl plays the carnival barker who arranges all these fatal coup d'e tats to occur as if he were booking major rock acts. Other stories also feature Larry Drake as a psycho Santa Claus in "All Through the House" and M. Emmet Walsh (The Flash's dad on the tv series) in 'Collection Completed'. Each episode is like a uninterrupted short film, although the only place you will find the open tour of the Cryptkeeper's estate that once served as the opening title sequence of the series is only located on the opening menu (you can press the menu button to 'kill the intro', so to speak).

The first season only had six episodes, so most likely the price on this set will probably run anyone, who is a non-civilain of the studio as a special introductory price of twenty-five bucks or so (it was 13 and change for the PP Guru). It is a two disc set and the second disc has a an hour and half documentary on the making of the show, interviews with its' directors and producers such as Robert Zemekis, Richard Donnor, Walter Hill, and Joel Silver; plus an overview of the controversial 1950's comic books that inspired it. The first disc, in addition to the episodes, also has a great hidden easter egg on it.

Best of all, the PP Guru thinks it's a great chaser after a 1980's Twilight Zone episode, on another box set he's trying to work his through this whole summer.

Next week: some thoughts on the new Doctor Who series that the PP Guru recently acquired on his last trip to San Diego...

Stuck in the murky depths of a sinking couch and sent via morse code to:

~

Coat