Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Soundtrack

So, before we got sidetracked–

Don’t say “we” like the nice people are complicit in your nonsense. They didn’t make you eat, like, a pound of xanthic gum and curds. And then they most certainly did not make you broadcast the state of your digestive system to folks who were already having–and you’ll pardon the pun–a shitty day. On this day of all fucking days, either endeavor to inject a little light and kindness and silliness into this world or shut the fuck up.

Then I shouldn’t describe the look on the face of the lady at Target who rang up my rye bread, grape jelly, and 55-gallon econo-drum of laxative?

I would imagine there would be a range of emotions on her face.

So many.

You were saying?

Spencer from the Comment Section, who is always nice enough to listen to my movie recommendations despite them all being pretty much the same movie, asked for a good show to go along with One-Armed Boxer, which is in the same series as Master of the Flying Guillotine, and stars all the same people and I think reuses a couple sets and costumes.

Shaw Brothers weren’t made out of money.

Here’s the best part: if you’re not a college football fan and you can’t bear the news, then you can multi-task with Boxer and a Dead show. First off, it is subtitled instead of cheesily dubbed; second, like most Kung-fu movies, it is not overburdened with plot; what is there is easy to discern from who is kicking whom in the face. Also: the good guys are attractive and Chinese and the bad guys are ugly and foreign.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g4Su0sY5nw

Match it up with 3/24/88 from the Omni in Atlanta, site of so many triumphant Dead performances. The second set is one seamless piece of music, winding and wending from Mississippi Half-Step to Lovelight with a massive ’78-style Garcia Shred Space and what might be the BEST EVAR Miracle.

A STRONG CAVEAT!

Do not mute the movie and begin your Omni show until after the opening credits. I mentioned that the score to Master of the Flying Guillotine was from a Krautrock band (named NEU!) and it works perfectly: weird and clattering drums and fuzz guitars that couldn’t be further from Confucianism than any other sound. Now, did NEU! even know they had scored a Kung fu film? There it gets tricky.

The Chinese have always had the same relationship with Western copyright laws as British tourists do with tipping: they’re fully aware of it, but pretend not to be for financial reasons. Plus, this was 1971 and the world was a lot bigger: foreign cultures were a lot more foreign and I’ll bet the guy in charge of finding music for One-Armed Boxer was as clueless about America as the guy picking out the rock songs for Easy Rider was about China.

All this is to say that the score to One-Armed Boxer is the score to Shaft. Not a rip-off or something reminiscent of Shaft. They just stole it and put it on their movie and it is fucking HILARIOUS.

11 Comments

  1. Jon

    Saw many wonderful GD shows at the Omni. Pours a little out…

  2. spencer

    http://www.jposter.net/images/products/b5-shaft.jpg

  3. chadB

    Being from Birmingham, that was my first show .

  4. Boogaloo

    Trying to find the Best Evar Miracle is like trying to figure out the best ever Hot Pocket.

    • thoughtsonthedead

      Pepperoni. BOOM.

    • DC Reade

      I doubt that Jerry Garcia would have turned down a Hot Pocket.

      12-28-1988 is a customized Hot Pocket stuffed with grilled minced quail (vegan quail, okay? yeesh), thawed by carefully applied steam heat and then pan sauted, and served on a bed of Rice-a-Roni.

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