Niki N. Phaser » anniversary

The Cure Celebrate Disintegration’s 21st Birthday

Niki N. Phaser — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:38:10 +0000

The Cure are known for doing things a bit differently than everyone else and this time they are breaking the -0/-5 anniversary cliché. They are choosing to celebrate the 21st birthday of their 1989 tour de force, Disintegration, by releasing a remastered anniversary edition. It will hit stores in the spring of 2010.

Of course, the new edition will come with additional gifts, meaning the new Deluxe Disintegration will be a 3 cd affair, even though, truth be told, the bonus material is really just for avid collectors. It includes a cd of rarities from the 88-89 period (intrumental demos, home demos, rough mixes, etc.) and a second cd of a remixed live performance at the Wembley Arena from 1989. Also, 2010 promises more remastered goodies from The Cure, including a Mixed Up 2 album. There is also a hint of a DVD with their In Orange gig, which was released as a VHS by PolyGram in 1988 and begins with a dramatic unveiling of Robert Smith’s trimmed haircut at the time. Classic.

Say Anything turns 20

Niki N. Phaser — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:26:19 +0000

Cameron Crowe’s teen classic, Say Anything… is turning 20 this year (to continue our string of anniversaries). To mark the occasion, the film is being (re)released on Blu-Ray and DVD, of course and we all know that it’s not Cameron’s style to offer us something without any bonuses. This new edition will come with all the extra material you would want and some of it, available for the first time. For those of you who are not familiar with the movie (do you still exist?) it will be a good chance to get acquainted with the quintessential teen romantic comedy of the 80′s. For those of us who are already hooked on lines like “Bitches, man!” or “I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen”, this will be an opportunity to go even deeper in the genesis of this feel-good classic, that even inspired the name of the band Say Anything, as well as creating some of the most circulated clichés in the world of romantic comedy — the boombox pose is a pop icon, no doubt about it. But, then again, Cameron Crowe’s movies were always sources of pop culture iconography, whether is visual or just verbal. And to paraphrase (again) the film’s tagline, “To know Cameron Crowe is to love Cameron Crowe’s movies”.

Say Anything… TRAILER

Happy Birthday, Fight Club !

Niki N. Phaser — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:25:57 +0000

Well, believe it or not, it is ten years since Fight Club had its official premiere. Yes, October the 15th, 1999 A.D., the day when this odd thriller and dark “should I laugh” comedy has been unleashed upon us, naive victims. Since then, it had a good life, with no downs, just ups. It became the most likely movie to be called this/that generation’s manifesto. It also garnered an army of fans, some of them so ridiculously obsessed with this movie, that they know when it had its premiere and they write “Happy Birthday, Fight Club!” articles on their sites.

The Cure – Anniversary : You can’t go to Heaven unless you’re dead

Niki N. Phaser — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:14:36 +0000

I am sad to say and maybe some of you are sad to admit that The Cure’s previous album, The Cure (2004), should have been their last. It was one of those rare cases when a collection of new material is as good as the band’s best of. It had everything, from catchy poppy singles, like The End of the World and Taking Off to pain-filled poems like Lost and The Promise. The agent of their ever present dark side is a track called Anniversary and it could be described as One Hundred Years in slow-motion. It’s filled with the Cure-like phaser effects and delayed piano keys and echoes in some apocaliptic distance. It grows and grows and you just get tangled in all the sounds as if in a spider web (you get the reference, right?). We could almost call it music as a fit of some disease that causes amnesia. The lyrics are as ambiguous as ever when Robert Smith is in his dark moods. You never really know if the woman he’s talking to is alive or dead. The beginning of each verse with the line “A year ago today/tonight” doesn’t offer to much hope for the first option. The end, “I never let you go”, suggests a feeling of not moving on… Anyway, it’s not really about words with this one, it’s about the atmosphere. The music is uplifting, yes, but more in the “my spirit is going to Heaven because I’m dead” sense of the word.

LISTEN TO LIVE VERSION HERE