This is The World According to Buchs - Keepin’ it moving since 2003!

Judy took me to see my good friend, David ("Dah-Veed") Garza on Friday night. David ("Dah-Veed") was opening up for Fiona Apple at the Riverside. We had great seats - just to the right of center stage, second row. I won't bother with a full review, but here's a few of my notes: No "Discoball World"? David ("Dah-Veed") played a solo acoustic set that ran about 30 minutes. He opened up with "Kinder" and "Float Away", then played a half-dozen songs I've never heard before. I just assumed that he would close out with "Discoball World" - instead he brought someone else onstage and did another song I have never heard before. Still a good set, though. What a crowd!, Part I As ...

Judy and I went to see "A History of Violence" this weekend as part of the ceremonial "returning of the gifts" (No, we didn't return *your* gift - we loved it. These were other people's gifts.) Anyway, the movie is about a small-town family man, Tom (Viggo Mortensen), who owns a diner. One day two very, very bad men stop in for a cup of coffee and all the money in the register. When the bad men take things a little to far, Tom springs into action and takes them out. Hard core. After the national media picks up the story, Tom is confronted by more bad men who think that Tom the hero is their old pal Joey the ...

Quick review: Whoooooohhhooo!!!!! Saw it last night with Chuck and Les. We had to really dig and nitpick to come up with anything wrong with it. The strongest part of the story is the first hour or so, going into the backstory and origin of Batman. Casting was dead-on. Bale is a great Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Michael Caine might have been even better as Alfred. The "universe" that this Batman movie is in was completely different than the previous movies - a lot of work went into making everything seem, at the least, plausible. Once you see what Wayne goes through, and what he has available to him, there's no suspension of disbelief to get to the point where he dresses ...

Judy and I caught a Saturday afternoon matinee of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith". I hear that there's a lot of hoo-hah and hub-bub about the movie that has nothing to do with the movie. I don't concern myself with hoo-hah and hub-bub, so I can't offer an opinion on that. The movie itself was a lot of fun. The basic premise is this: Brad Pitt is married to Angelina Jolie, both of whom are secretly assasins for competing agencies. On one job, they're coincidentally assigned to rub out the same person, and hilarity/mayhem ensues. The bickering between the two is fantastic, and Vince Vaughn is also very good as Pitt's "manager". There's one terrific fight scene between the two - Mrs. ...

Les, Chuck and I went to see Keane last night at The Rave. In short, wow. Great show. We talked a bit after the show, and I think each of us are drawn to the band for different reasons. Les has some sort of man-crush on the lead singer, Chuck has called them "Coldplay Lite", and I'm just amazed at the depth of sound that they're able to produce with a singer, piano player, and drums. They've also got a very weird stage presence. As Les put it, "they're a bunch of dorks" - but they make it work. Big time. If you're not familiar with their music, you can use the music player below to get acquainted. The quality isn't the best, but you'll get the picture. I highly recommend picking up their first and current CD, "Hopes and Fears".

Power Pop, with an emphasis on the Pop. I positively loved their debut album ("The Blue Album") - it's strong from top to bottom, no weak points at all. Their next, Pinkerton, wasn't that well received, but was also a great disc. Come to think of it, it was so maligned that it drove the lead singer/songwriter into depression, and the band took a several-year hiatus. They came back *strong* with "The Green Album", also a near-perfectly produced piece of power-pop. Maladroit was released a few years ago, and again wasn't very well-received (although I thought it was a great disc). So, now you're up to speed. "Make Believe" ...

Chuck, Rajan and I went to see the Pixies show at the Milwaukee Theatre last night. I think Chuck summed it up pretty well after the show: workmanlike. The Pixies came to town to kick your ass. Mission accomplished. I lost track of the song count, but they dug deeper into the catalog than I had hoped/expected. I'd guestimate that they played 2 songs from "Come On Pilgrim", 4 from "Surfer Rosa", probably another 10 from "Doolittle", and one from "Bossanova" - leaving us with nothing from "Trompe Le Monde". So, I was a little disapointed not to hear something like "Motorway to Roswell" or "Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons". They also ...

The new R.E.M. disc - Around The Sun [iTunes] - is officially available. I've had it for, uh, a little bit now, and I think I've listened to it enough to give an honest review. The first few runs through, I wasn't quite sure. But it's come to grow on me. A lot. The best track, by far, is the first single Leaving New York [iTunes]. Beyond that, "Around the Sun" and "Electron Blue" are also potential singles. I think, however, that it's one of those albums that has to be taken as a whole, not as a collection of singles. The production style is much different than their ...

I was in need of some driving music last week, so I hopped back on to iTunes and grabbed the new disc by The Twilight Singers. It's awsome. This album is pretty close to the sound of the old Whigs stuff. One of the Afghan Whigs specialties were their live cover songs - and this disc continues that trend. All the songs on this disc are covers - some I know, some I don't. They all sound very distinct, though. Even if you know the originals, you won't recognize them at first. The best ...

I made a trip to the Exclusive Company last week, looking for the new David Garza box set. They didn't have it in stock, but I did see on the Big Board that there was a new Matthew Sweet album scheduled for release this week. I was poking around on iTunes last night, and saw that it was available there. I've been a big fan of his stuff for quite some time - 100% Fun and Altered Beast are my favorites. I wasn't as impressed with In Reverse, and although I enjoyed The Thorns, it was clearly a "project". Anyways, I'm listening to Living Things right ...

Judy & I went to see "The Ladykillers"last night at the Oriental Theatre. I love the Coen Brothers' work - "Miller's Crossing"is firmly planted in my Top 25 movies of all time. I never quite got around to seeing "Intolerable Cruelty", but I've thouroughly enjoyed everything else I've seen. In fact, here's a short, ranked list of my favourite Coen Brothers' movies: "Miller's Crossing" "Fargo" "The Big Lebowski" "The Man Who Wasn't There" "Barton Fink" "Blood Simple" "Raising Arizona" "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" "The Hudsucker Proxy" Having just seen The Ladykillers, I'm not sure where it stacks up - I think I need more time to let it sink in. My gut tells me it's somewhere around the 7/8/9 mark. It was good, but it wasn't great. ...

My good friend The Chuck and I went to an afternoon screening of "Dawn Of The Dead":imdb. Wow. Who doesn't enjoy a little flesh-eating zombie action? These weren't your old-school zombies -- no lumbering, mumbling brain-eating zombies. No, no, no - these were super-fast zombies. They run. Fast. Probably the greatest advance in the zombie genre has been the introduction of the super-fast zombie. It just adds a whole new wrinkle to the "the-dead-are-walking-the-earth-and-want-to-eat-my-brains" connundrum. I'm as big a fan of the zombie genre movie as anyone. The original "Night of the Living Dead":imdb is easily in my top 25 films of all time. Maybe even the top 10. The new breed of zombie movies don't quite make the cut, but ...