The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

I went to see the new film adaptation of The Running Man the other day.  I'd been looking forward to it since I first saw the trailer a few months ago.  What sold me on the film was the simple fact that Edgar Wright co-wrote and directed it.  Most people get excited about movies because certain actors are in them.  And I'm certainly one of them.  And as much as I liked the actors in the cast, the premise of the movie didn't look like it would be something I would like.  However, when I found out Wright was behind it, that no longer mattered.  I knew that I would be treated to two hours of properly mixed action and humour backed by a killer soundtrack.  I was not wrong.

Wright first made a name for himself (at least in this country) with 2004's Shaun of the Dead, the first film in what unofficially became known as "The Cornetto Trilogy."  I didn't see it until many years after its initial release, but I was convinced to see it because I had enjoyed some of his later films.  And as much as I'm not a fan of zombie films, I have to say I really enjoyed Shaun.  Looking back on that now, I have a sneaking suspicion that if almost anyone else had directed some of his other movies (specifically The Running Man and 2021's Last Night in Soho), I probably wouldn't have gone to see them for the simple reason that, based on the trailers (which are basically ads trying to convince me to go see movies), they would not have appealed to me.  However, if a director is someone whose work I admire, I'll likely open my mind enough to give it a shot.

I feel that Wright is often an underappreciated director.  I think part of that is because most of his films can be aptly described as action/comedies--two genres that don't get a lot of love from the Academy come awards season.  I thought 2017's Baby Driver was one of the best-directed films I'd seen in some time--and that was just the car chases!  And while the film was nominated for three Oscars, they were all in sound and film editing categories.  Films like that don't typically get nominated for the big categories like Best Picture or Director.  (To be fair, Kevin Spacey is in the movie as a malicious crime boss, for lack of a better term, and the film came out around the time of his fall from grace, which probably didn't help it.  Still--excellent heist film.  Amazing soundtrack.)

In spite of all the amazing movies he's made in the last 20+ years, this week's film was the first of his that I saw and it's still my favourite.  When the film came out, I didn't know who Wright was.  My cousin Aaron, who saw the film with me, told me about Shaun of the Dead and that it was directed by the same guy.  But, based on the trailer, it looked like something I would like given the fact that I'm a fan of cop films from the 1970s and 1980s like Dirty Harry, Die Hard, and Lethal Weapon.  It was everything I hoped it would be and I still enjoy it all these years later.  It was action-packed, incredibly funny, and a wonderful homage to the genre.  Even the film's casting showed that Wright was a bigger film geek than I am.  There are subtle little references to past action thrillers throughout the movie--the geekier you are, the more you'll appreciate it.

This film is the second of "The Cornetto Trilogy" and, like both its predecessor (Shaun of the Dead) and successor (2013's The World's End), Wright co-wrote it with his mate Simon Pegg who also co-stars with their other mate, Nick Frost.  The film also features a number of actors such as Paddy Considine, Rafe Spall, Martin Freeman, and Bill Nighy who worked with Wright in the past and/or would work with him in the future.  Also starring Jim Broadbent, Olivia Coleman, Billie Whitelaw, Edward Woodward, Stuart Wilson, Paul Freeman, Bill Bailey, and Timothy Dalton (with some unrecognizable cameos by Cate Blanchett and Peter Jackson), from 2007, please enjoy Hot Fuzz.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

As I write this, I'm watching the snow accumulate outside my office window.  I'm dreading tomorrow when I'll have to shovel my sidewalk with my bum hip that needs to be replaced.  I may wait until Monday--after all, it's supposed to snow tomorrow as well, so what would be the point?

I miss my youth when I could look at snow falling and not think, "Man, I have to drive to work in this shit."  Many years ago, I was at work watching it come down and dreading the commute home when I suddenly remembered being younger.  There's an inherent beauty to snow that kids (and I define "kids" as anyone under the age of 25) seem to understand more than adults, whether they realize it or not.  It is nothing if not photogenic.  After all, freshly fallen snow has been the subject of many paintings and song lyrics over the centuries--I even have a painting of it hanging in my home.  Kids get that--they look forward to snow days and building snowpeople and sledding and making snow angels.  Adults dread cleaning it up and trying to get through it.

When I was in college, I used to go out in the snow and dance to what I considered "romantic" music.  I even used to ask every pretty young woman I saw if she wanted to join me.  Only one ever took me up on it.  I remember slow dancing with her in the snow outside Schmidt and Wilson Halls on the campus of Ball State to the music of Jimmy Durante which we could barely hear through my headphones.  It's one of my more indelible college memories and always makes me smile when I think about it.  It was such a sweet moment in hindsight--the one woman brave enough to dance with the crazy goofball in the snow in the middle of a Muncie winter.  I just feel awful that I don't remember her name.

Anyway... where was I?  Oh, yes, I was at work some winters back, watching snow accumulate, and not wanting to drive home in that shit.  Suddenly all those memories of days home from school and Jimmy Durante music came back to me.  I wanted nothing more than to go home, have a cup of tea, and watch it fall.  And when my shift ended, I did just that.  I made a cup of tea and sat outside listening to Florence + The Machine's MTV Unplugged album.  That live performance of "Dog Days Are Over" combined with the snow falling literally had tears streaming down my face.  I've described the moment as a religious experience.  I sometimes worry that someone slipped something in my tea other than the lemon and honey that I normally put in it.  (And I know I've written this all before, so I apologize to those who have read it and/or heard me tell it many times in the past.)

After I had the (adult) presence of mind to come back inside, I did what I think I do best.  I made a playlist of songs to listen to while watching it snow.  I still play it when the weather's right.  If I'm pressed for time, I might just play the first four songs.  If you're so inclined, and want music by which to watch it snow where you are, I did put it on Spotify.  Weirdly, I didn't think to put any Jimmy Durante on it.

"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do.  It takes ages longer than it might seem.  You gotta kick it off with a killer--to grab attention.  Then you gotta take it up a notch!  But you don't wanna blow your wad.  So then you gotta cool it off a notch.  There are a lot of rules."

--John Cusack as Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, 2000

Against my initial instincts, I decided not to open the mix with "Dog Days Are Over."  Somehow, in the back of my mind, I felt that that was the song that would "take it up a notch."  So the trick was finding that "killer" opening number.  And I found it in the title track to this week's album.

While writing this and watching a movie, I perused the rest of the album while looking out my window (I hadn't listened to it in a long time).  I realized that the other songs were also quite excellent for watching snow fall.  So, in fond memory of What's Her Name, this week, please enjoy Elvis Costello & The Attractions with their last album together, 1996's All This Useless Beauty.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

I've written in the past about how sometimes a film will hit me in such a way that I'll watch it over and over again as if I'm somehow addicted to it.  Most of the time, I have no idea why.  I can explain why I like the movie, but the reason for my desire to re-watch it many times over never ceases to elude me.  Perhaps the fact that I can't explain why is what fascinates me.  I like the mystery of it.

I first became aware of this phenomenon in 2000 when I couldn't seem to stop watching the movie Grosse Pointe Blank that I had recently purchased.  But if I'm honest with myself (and you, the reader), I went through the same thing in 1996 with Blazing Saddles.  When I think about it, I think I first experienced it in 1990 with this week's film.

It was one of Dad's favourites.  I remember him renting it a year or two earlier.  I watched it with him and while I enjoyed it, I wasn't as enamoured with it as I would later become.  But that summer, I saved up my money to buy a VHS tape of The Blues Brothers to give to him for Father's Day.  We watched it again that afternoon and something clicked for me.

While I could tell he was excited to now own it, I think my sister Heather and I watched it more than he did.  We would literally come home from school in the afternoon and pop it in the VCR.  We memorized the dialogue and would recite it while watching the film (as long as she got to be the character of Jake).  I still remember most of it.  I'll be she does too.  But it has, over the course of my life, played a prominent part in it, popping up here and there, whether I need it to or not.

In the eleventh grade, my English teacher assigned the class to give a report on the last movie we'd watched.  It shouldn't be any surprise that, for me, it was The Blues Brothers.  Given the fact that my English teacher always gave me the impression that she felt she was actually teaching Sunday School rather than English, I made up a lot of B.S. about the religious symbolism I picked up in the film.  I think I referred to it as "deeply spiritual."  35 years later, I've actually reached a point where I believe my own line of B.S.  I do find the film spiritual in a weird way.  It could be the strange alchemy of music and comedy, both of which I find healing to the soul.  While I doubt either Dan Aykroyd or John Landis had that in mind when they wrote the script, I do consider it one of the most spiritual movies I've ever seen.  What really makes me laugh is that in 2010, the Catholic Church actually endorsed the movie as being a "Catholic classic" and deemed it appropriate for all Catholics, in spite of its R rating (for language, which I have issues with, but that's another story).  According to Reuters, the film joins a list of other Church-approved cinema classics such as Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, and Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  I figure when the Catholic Church essentially agrees with something that I had been saying for twenty years at that point, something is seriously amiss somewhere.

During my junior year of college, the residence hall in which I lived and worked as an R.A. was putting on a lip sync contest.  During our Hall Council meeting the night before, my friend Anthony--possibly an even bigger Blues Brothers fan than I am--looked over at me and said, "Do you want to do 'Rawhide' and 'Stand By Your Man'?"  I said, "Sure."  We had less than 24 hours to prepare the routine.  "Stand By Your Man" was not on the film's soundtrack.  Somebody had to dub it from video tape to audio tape for us with Cab Calloway's introduction from later in the movie tacked on at the beginning (this is how we had to do it in the '90s, folks!).  Somebody else even managed to procure a whip for me to crack (I refused to ask any questions on that one).  I had to basically wear two stage costumes as I was also doing a solo number and had that costume on underneath my suit and tie.  Our individual daily schedules didn't even give us a chance to rehearse.  But both Anthony and I knew the film so well, we didn't need to.  After our--if I may humbly say--rather rousing performance, Anthony paraphrased another classic film and said to me, "Rehearsals?  We don't need no stinking rehearsals!"  We placed second in the group category.

The film was released in theaters to commemorate its 35th anniversary in 2015.  I was so pleased that I got to finally see it on a big screen.  I was even more pleased that I got to see it with Dad who introduced me to what, to this day, is still one of my favourite movies.  The following year, he was in home hospice.  Mom, Heather, and I squeezed into the bedroom with him and we all watched it together.  It was the last film the four of us watched together as a family.

(I was kind of hoping that they would release it again this year for its 45th anniversary, this time as part of a Carrie Fisher double feature, alongside The Empire Strikes Back which was released the same year.)

So this week, I submit my very first film addiction.  The first movie based on a "Saturday Night Live" routine, it was directed by John Landis and starred John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Carrie Fisher, John Candy, Kathleen Freeman, Steven Williams, Armand Cerami, Charles Napier, Frank Oz, Steve Lawrence, and Henry Gibson, with performances (both acting and musical) by Cab Calloway, James Brown with James Cleveland's Southern California Community Choir and Chaka Khan, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, and the Blues Brothers Band--Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Tom "Bones" Malone, Willie "Too Big" Hall, Murphy Dunne, Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, and "Blue" Lou Marini.  Featuring not one, but TWO of the greatest car chases ever filmed (making it, at the time, the most expensive comedy ever made), originally released in 1980, please enjoy The Blues Brothers.  I recommend making it a Thanksgiving tradition.  Wish I could still dance like that.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember, people, that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive, and survive, there are still some things that make us all the same--you... me... them... everybody!  Everybody!

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

Some years back in one of these weekly ramblings, I talked about getting my driver's license and driving on my own for the first time.  I had discovered on my car radio a station out of Bloomington, Indiana (WTTS, 92.3 FM), that played a wide range of music that seemed to appeal to me--both classic and contemporary rock, as well as blues, including deep album cuts that most stations don't play.  As I believe I pointed out then, it was the only time in my life I heard Billy Joel's "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" on the radio.

One summer during my college years, the station played a song by an up-and-coming artist--one of those that's hard to categorize by genre.  Pop, rock, "alt" country (whatever the hell that is), folk, blues--he kind of blended it all.  I identified with the lyrics to the song, so much so that it became sort of an unofficial anthem of my college years--I don't know why exactly.  I've never been arrested, I didn't drink at all at that point in my life, I've never smoked anything stronger than a Cuban cigar, to this day I've never looked at Madonna's book (let alone read it), and my old man never referred to me as a "no good punk."  I think I just liked the everyman feel of it.  30 years later, I still do.

The song was called "Alright Guy" and it was performed by Todd Snider.  As much as I loved hearing it on the radio in my early 20s, weirdly, I kind of forgot about it after I left home and moved to--of all places--Bloomington.  Some years ago, likely while drinking on a Saturday night and posting to Facebook, I found myself thinking about songs I heard on WTTS repeatedly during my college years.  I recalled the song and was delighted to find a video on YouTube, which I promptly posted on my page.  Unusually for me, I never felt inspired to explore more of Snider's music.  This was the only song of his I ever knew and it's slipped in and out of my musical consciousness periodically over the last 30 years.

I read this week that Todd Snider died last week at the age of 59.  When I first saw the article, I have to confess that I couldn't quite place the name.  It sounded familiar to me, but I thought I might be thinking of Todd Rundgren.  As I read the article and stumbled upon the song title "Alright Guy" (what turned out to be his biggest song), it all came flooding back to me.  I felt compelled to check out more of his music, especially after I read that he was friends with and influenced by the likes John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Jimmy Buffett.  In fact, Buffett actually signed him to his record label, Margaritaville Records, a subsidiary of MCA.  I discovered that that "everyman" feel that I initially identified with in "Alright Guy" came across in his other works--even in cover versions of other artists' songs.  His most recent album, High, Lonesome and Then Some., was just released in October.  I'm quite taken with his music and look forward to exploring more.  I only wish I'd done so while he was still alive.  Well... better late than never, I guess.

So in honour of Snider and collegiate nostalgia, I submit this week's album.  Released in 1994 on Margaritaville Records it was produced by Tony Brown and Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer bandmate Mike Utley, who also played keyboards.  The album was comprised of songs that Snider had been performing at the Nashville nightclub The Daily Planet.  Featuring "Alright Guy" as well as the hidden track which also became a minor hit, "Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues," please enjoy the late, great Todd Snider with Songs For The Daily Planet.

(Sadly, the video to "Alright Guy" that's included in the YouTube playlist is in its edited MTV form.  I also included a link to the uncensored version of the song because I find most censors to be dopes and dicks--although I'm sure some are alright guys.)

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents a Bonus Album of the Week! (One From the Vault!)

I originally wrote and posted what follows on Facebook on 20 August, 2022.  A lot of it was plagiarized verbatim (from me, by me) from a "Song of the Week" (the "Album of the Week" predecessor) that I emailed to friends and family sometime in 2009.  About a month ago, the album was re-issued in a special 50th anniversary, yellow vinyl edition.  I just finished listening to it a few minutes ago.  I didn't listen to it for a month because it's one of those records that needs to be appreciated under particular circumstances, which finally popped up earlier this evening.  Thought I'd re-share it here...

 

Do yourself a favour right now. Look out your window. Is it dark outside? If not, it may be better if you wait until it is to read this. If you're reading this in a room with no windows, it probably doesn't matter all that much, I suppose. But this week's album and accompanying "sermon" need to be appreciated in a certain ambiance. Or at least that's what this humbly pretentious wannabe writer is hoping for.

 

I used to take late night walks all the time before I had problems with my hips. I still like to do it occasionally, but I don't do it as often as I used to/should. There is a spot on the campus of Indiana University that I loved to go to when I lived in Bloomington, particularly at night, particularly in the fall.   I liked to go there just to ring in the new day. It's the one place I never have to worry about being disturbed for any reason. In fact only two other people would ever think to look for me there and, well, frankly, they're not likely to be interested in doing so.

 

There is something mystical and magical about the night. Is it just me or does the night--specifically that extraordinarily fine line between today and tomorrow--seem more alive than any other time of the day?

 

Whether we realize it or not, I think we've always had a strange fascination with the night. Nocturnal activities are what many of us live for. That's when most of the things that end up meaning the most to us occur. If you look back at your lives, I'm willing to bet that more than half of your fondest memories occurred after dark. It could be just staying up drinking and talking with old friends, it could be a hot date that turns into something hotter later, it could be a formal occasion such as your senior prom, it could be a five hour phone conversation, it could be a night out with family, it could just be a night out. Whatever the circumstances and no matter how meaningful they are, they probably wouldn't have been as exciting if they had occurred during the day.

 

The night sometimes makes us do things we might not normally do. I swear to you, one night at the stroke of midnight, I actually walked outside stark naked and howled at the moon. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why I did it. Maybe I just wanted to be able to say many years later that I'd done something that crazy. Come to think about it, I'm not even sure the moon was out that night.

 

It's an exciting and almost dangerous time. This is the time when it's safe for our deepest, darkest secrets to come out of hiding. We can tell the night all those things we can't tell the day because if the sunlight is allowed to strike those deep, dark secrets, then the rest of the world can see what we work so hard to keep from it. But at night, we can truly be ourselves.

 

I'm also a fan of restaurants and diners that stay open twenty-four hours a day. In my younger days, I would occasionally hop on over to the nearest Steak and Shake for some late night Berry Berry Cobbler a la mode. Unfortunately, Steak and Shake (at least back then) didn't serve French toast. So I would occasionally have to drive way out of my way to the Waffle House which did. Even though it's my favourite breakfast food, I still think French toast tastes best after midnight.  Which brings us to this week's album...

 

No singer inhabits the night quite as naturally or as organically as Tom Waits. His music has provided us over the years with many late night glimpses into the late night--songs full of bars and strip clubs and all night diners and cheap booze and enough cigarette smoke that you could get lung cancer just from listening. With a soul filled with jazz and beat poetry, a language filled with adjectives and a voice of whisky-soaked gravel, it is virtually impossible to listen to Tom Waits's music while the sun is shining. Even his album covers, especially the ones from the 1970s, look like they would turn to dust in broad daylight.

 

This week's particular nocturnal submission is his third album (and the rare live performance). Please enjoy 1975's "Nighthawks At the Diner," which seems to focus precisely on that. I've always been particularly curious about the song "Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)." I'm still trying to figure out if "In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson" is a secondary title or if he actually did eat eggs and sausage in a Cadillac with Susan Michelson. These are the kinds of thoughts that go through my head late at night...

 

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

 

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

"The future ain't what it used to be."

--Yogi Berra (1925-2015), baseball legend and philosopher

This past Wednesday, I had the pleasure of seeing Back to the Future in a theater to celebrate its 40th anniversary.  Putting aside the fact that the film is that old, it was an oddly moving experience.  Obviously, I've seen the movie many times over the years, but I hadn't seen it in a theater since its original release.  Before going, I noted the date (5 November) and realized that I would be seeing the movie on the 70th anniversary of the day that Doc Brown slipped and hit his head and came up with the idea for the flux capacitor.  I still marvel at what one can achieve with a head injury.

I've often written in these weekly "sermons" about the "transportative" quality of music (my word, copyright pending)--that strange ability to transport you to another time and place, even if it's just in your own mind.  I don't think I ever realized it before, but films can be as transportative as music.  Watching it on that big screen, I felt like I was eleven years old again and completely entranced with the magic of movies.  I couldn't wait to start sixth grade to tell my friends about this really cool movie I saw--twice!--over the summer starring the guy from "Family Ties."

Seeing it again, I noticed things that I wouldn't have noticed when I was a kid and probably couldn't have noticed watching it on a television screen over the years.  For example, when Marty McFly first walks into the diner and encounters his father, he reaches into his pocket and puts some change on the counter.  If you look among the coins, you'll see a guitar pick.  (I've also frequently wondered how many of those coins were minted after 1955.)

I've always appreciated the filmmakers' attention to detail with regards to the whole idea of the "space-time continuum"--how actions taken by characters in the film can change certain things between the beginning and the end of the movie--like the name of the mall, or the portion of the ledge on the clock tower that broke under Doc's weight.  I don't know why it never occurred to me that Doc hanging off of the clock face was an homage to the 1923 Harold Lloyd film Safety Last!--especially given the fact that Doc had a clock that depicted it in his collection that could be seen at the very beginning of the film.

The whole experience made me nostalgic for my childhood and the 1980s in general.  Watching those parts of the movie set in what was then the present, I found myself wondering if you can still find Kal-Kan dog food or Pepsi Free--not that I would go out and buy either of those things.  I don't have a dog and the only thing more disgusting than Pepsi Free was Diet Pepsi Free, which can also be seen in the film.  It was interesting for me to see how much things changed between 1955 and 1985, but it was almost surreal to see how things have changed between 1985 and 2025.

The one thing I've always credited the film for was my love for the music of Huey Lewis & The News who wrote not one but two songs for the film's soundtrack, receiving an Academy Award nomination for "The Power of Love."  In fact, Lewis also had one of cinema's greatest cameo appearances, telling Marty's band through a bullhorn that they're "just too darn loud."

Nominated for three other Oscars--winning for Best Sound Effects Editing--the film was directed by Robert Zemeckis, who also co-wrote it with Bob Gale, and stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas F. Wilson in what could arguably be described as "career-defining performances."  This week, I can't help recommend one of the biggest movies of my youth, Back to the Future.

As I said in my album rant, I'll be taking next week off from these for personal reasons but will return in two weeks.  Until then, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

Tonight, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is holding its annual induction ceremony.  Every year when the inductees are announced, more than one journalist has to comment about how old they feel because it doesn't feel like it's been long enough for certain artists to be inducted.  Which I totally get.  I sometimes feel old myself when I see artists getting in who were popular when I was in college--or even later, as is the case with this week's album selection.  I have to remind myself that I'm not as young as I used to be--some may argue that I never was.  When some of my favourite artists like The Beatles, The Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Joel were inducted they were younger than I am now.  But the only criterion that I'm aware of for induction is that at least 25 years has to have passed since the artist released their first commercial recording.

Every year, each class of new inductees brings a surprise.  From the country, rap, and even jazz artists that we don't necessarily think of as rock musicians, to the artists that we can't believe were not inducted years ago (I mean, seriously?  What was the holdup with Joe Cocker and Cyndi Lauper?), the list always sparks some kind of discussion--like how is Warren Zevon still not in?

I was taken aback by the induction of the artists behind this week's album.  I didn't realize they had been around long enough to be inducted.  I seem to recall being introduced to them by my cousin Aaron when we lived together many years ago.  Although I've never been as obsessed by them as I have been with some other artists, I've always liked their music.  I've always felt it was just... solid.  They were clearly influenced by blues and "classic" rock, which is what I've always been primarily drawn to.  They had a hard-driving feel to their music that I've only really heard in a few other artists.  Frankly, I dug it.

Formed in the late 1990s in Detroit, the group consisted of only two members--Jack White who sang and played guitar, piano, and keyboards, and then-wife Meg White who also sang and played drums and percussion.  The couple divorced in 2000, but continued to work together until 2009, releasing their last album in 2007.  Since their breakup, Jack has gone on to quite a solo career.  I've always admired him for everything he's done to further the public's appreciation of music, primarily through his label, Third Man Records.  Meg largely withdrew from public life, but I think it's safe to say that she's still considered one of the best and most influential drummers of this century.

This week's album is their third.  Released originally in 2001 and again the following year on a new label, it was their first mainstream success.  I always liked it because it features two songs--"Fell in Love With a Girl" and "We're Going To Be Friends"--that I first heard in movies.  (I've always found this is another great way to expose myself to new music.)  Please enjoy 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees The White Stripes with their album White Blood Cells.

I will be taking next week off from writing these for personal reasons, but I'll be back in two weeks.  Until then, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and, as always, please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you!

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill