Recently, I've been working my way through John Lurie's Fishing With John. The best way to describe it is that it's kind of lamely cool. You get to experience these fascinating personalities at the most real you'll get them.
Have you ever wondered if Tom Waits is a seasoned fisherman? Well, you won't after watching this.
The show's pretty good and can be found online (In fairly poor quality) on YouTube if you're interested in watching it.
I've been watching them non-consecutively. Every now and then, when I have an hour or so free and don't want to watch something too meaty, no Pasolini for me in those shallow hours.
As I've been watching it in this way I've been reflecting on the episodes and what ones I think are the best. They all have their own benefits and of course your interest in the personalities with impact your interest in an episode.
It helps if you are familiar with The Lounge Lizards, John Lurie's music group, and are interested in their eclectic style. If you are familiar with them then you will at least have Lurie to be fascinated with even if you haven't watched Easy Rider or Night on Earth.
I've decided to list the episodes in order of worst to best from my personal preference, I'd love to know your opinion and if you disagree as I know this is a cult show and cults aren't known for their apathy.
As a side note, I'm including episodes 5 & 6 as one episode as they both feature Dennis Hopper as the guest.
5. Willem Dafoe
I know. I know. This is probably sacrilege. It's a great episode and it's quirky as hell. Willem is charming and John is John. It's great. But looking back on it in reflection I can't help but feel it felt off.
I didn't particularly fall in love with the episode. I felt like the setting and scenario set themselves up wonderfully but it just fell flat. The conversations between the two were interesting but they weren't gripping for me.
This isn't because I'm apathetic towards Dafoe. I adore Dafoe, I think he's one of the best actors to emerge in the 80s and from To Live and Die In L.A. to The Lighthouse I've loved his work.
But I can't remember this episode as well as I do the others. I didn't enjoy the commentator as much and the episode just didn't work for me.
However, I have read online about people raving about this episode. Loving it. Adoring it. I wish I got it in that way. But I don't. So...
4. Matt Dillon
Apparently, this episode was meant to feature Flea from The Red Hot Chile Peppers instead, but Lurie was forced to invite the more, at the time, commercial viable Matt Dillon.
This episode also feels slightly off. You can tell Lurie and Dillon aren't as familiar with each other so the conversations aren't as casual and like two friends hanging out.
This does somewhat water down the charm of the episode but it's still a great watch and I prefer it to the Dafoe episode.
Costa Rica looks great and the ambling nature of this episode really succeeds in capturing me. A few weeks on from having watched it I couldn't for the life of me tell you what sort of fish they were hunting but I remember the feeling of satisfaction. Appeased with the episode.
Thanks, Japanese producers.
3. Jim Jarmusch
Jarmusch rocks! He's one of my favourite auteurs. His films always project the mundanity of life and yet are so gripping. I am a huge huge fan of Jarmusch and have every film of his except for The Limits of Control. Sorry, Jim.
The same feeling that I get from watching his films I get from watching him fishing. He and Lurie are clearly friends and get on well. Their conversations are reflective of ones I've had and I feel an association with them during this episode.
As per usual their fishing takes the back seat but they're also very entertaining as they disagree about fishing techniques.
It's a great episode, but I am biased towards Jarmusch. It is somewhat more boring than the other two episodes I've ranked above it. The setting is more mundane and thrilling. The scenario isn't grand, but that suits Jarmusch.
Now go watch his films if you haven't.
2. Tom Waits
Tom Waits projects the image of a world-weary hobo. His songs project this man who has seen the underbelly of the world and has tried his hand at most things.
That image will be ruined with this episode. If you watch it with a neutral eye you'll see a man who postures slowly crumble into a mumbling baby having a fit. I can understand why that'd be terrible viewing for someone.
Not me though. I adore it. Waits is an amazing character who has continued to fascinate me, how much of his persona is false and how much real, I don't know. What I do know is that this is about as real as I've seen him.
It is a fascinating watch and they are in a beautiful location, Jamaica. Waits is the centrepiece of this episode in a way that no other guest is in any of the other episodes.
He is amazingly interesting and a joy to watch. He gymnastically changes between a happy disposition and a snarling snapping toddler. It's really interesting.
Plus you get to see him push a fish down his pants. So even if you hate Waits you get that.
1. Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper's two-part episode has its critics online. I've seen people calling it the worst and maybe they have a case. It probably features the least fishing, especially when you consider it's the longest.
But it just... rocks. Dennis Hopper, renowned weirdo and individualist, and John Lurie, resident fishing expert, set out to hunt a giant squid in Thailand. I'd watch that. Just as a concept it is the best, hands down.
Thailand is gorgeous and Hopper/Lurie play the role of the fascinated westerner so well. They are depressingly similar to how I imagine I'd be there. It's just such a fascinating snapshot of life, remove their celebrity and this would be a fascinating episode, you can't say that for the other episodes.
Hopper is genuinely weird in this episode, Lurie claims that he was so high on sugar he could hardly concentrate on the fish. I believe him. He is so weird and interesting. He's controversial and amazing.
This is also the best episode for Robert Webb's weirdo commentator. It includes some of his best non-sequiturs and he adds so much more to this episode than on any of the others. He's almost the third musketeer to Hopper and Lurie.
Fishing With John
So that's my list. If you agree, good, you've got taste. If you disagree tell me why I'm wrong (I'm not.)
Gandalf is the sort of record the 60s loving hipster you know references to try to seem knowledgable about psychedelic music, it's a pretty obscure record. However since it's release in the late 1960s it has built a large cult following and the band Gandalf is now considered one of the best little known secrets of the psychedelic era. Gandalf were together for four years from 1965 until 1968 and despite their cult status not much is popularly known of the band. One person hoping to rectify that is Peter Sando, the guitarist for Gandalf. Perhaps the most overt Psychedelic album artwork in existence “ I met Bob Muller in detention hall in the 7th grade. He had a band [the Thunderbirds] and they were in the process of dumping their guitarist, Michel Nouri, later to become a successful actor. I joined the Thunderbirds, later to become the Rahgoos.” Peter Sando recalled of the band's origin. Sando's earliest musical influences are common for many his age
It's impossible to count the amount of incredible musical giants who were playing in the London R&B scene in the early 1960s. There were The Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, The Yardbirds and so many more. However history tends to forget some of the bands who participated in the scene, on such band are The Downliner Sect, who were possibly better known for their drunken antics off stage then their Blues Rock on stage. So who are The Downliners Sect? To help me I enlisted the help of their front man Don Craine. The band is probably best known for having two songs of the Nuggets II compilation; Glendora & Why Don't You Smile Now Music-Drop Magazine: Who were your earliest musical influences? Don Craine: Major influences were Lonnie Donegan, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley and Eddie Cochran. Where did you first hear the Blues? DC: My first taste of the Blues was watching a Saturday night T.V. sho
This album is the greatest album ever. First a little background on Love and why you probably haven't heard of them. They were led by the singer/songwriter Arthur Lee, who was one of the most prominent musicians in Los Angeles in the late 60s (He also played in bands with Jimi Hendrix and Billy Preston pre-fame.) Love are famous retrospectively for being one of the first major racially integrated bands, but despite this during the 1960s they were unknown outside of LA, and partially due to this their pre- Forever Changes albums Love (1966) and Da Capo (1966) both failed to sell internationally and domestically, forever condemning them to a cult band status. Lee eventually died in 2006, but by that point Love were critically acclaimed internationally, but he would never create a masterpiece that equaled Forever Changes . Forever Changes is largely seen by modern critics as the album which revealed the dark side of the summer of love and the album tha
Comments
Post a Comment