In Memoriam: David Lynch The Iconic Film-Maker Dies At 78

David Lynch, the film-maker who specialised in surreal, noir style mysteries who made a string of influential, critically acclaimed works such as Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Wild At Heart and the iconic TV series Twin Peaks has died aged 78. 

 

David Lynch, was the living proof that the bizarre, the radical and the experimental, can be succesful too. His family announce the passing of the maestro with the following statement in Facebook: “It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch,”. “We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.” It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”

Last August, Lynch said he had been diagnosed with emphysema and in November, spoke further about his breathing difficulties. "I can hardly walk across a room," he said. "It’s like you're walking around with a plastic bag around your head." Deadline reported that sources had said Lynch's health took a turn for the worse after he had to evacuate from his home due to the Los Angeles wildfires.

From his beginnings as an art student making experimental short films, to the cult success of his surreal first feature Eraserhead, and on to a string of award-winning films including Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Mulholland Drive, as well as the landmark TV show Twin Peaks. He received three best director Oscar nominations (for Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man and Mulholland Drive), and was given an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2019; he won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival for Wild at Heart in 1990. Lynch also avidly practiced transcendental meditation, setting up the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace in 2005; he also produced paintings, released albums (including collaborations with Julee Cruise, Lykke Li and Karen O), created a long-running YouTube weather report and opened a nightclub in Paris in 2011. In 2018 he explained his reclusive lifestyle to the Guardian: "I like to make movies. I like to work. I don’t really like to go out." In 2024 he revealed his lifetime cigarette habit had resulted in debilitating emphysema

Born in Missoula, Montana in 1946, Lynch went to art college in the 1960s and made his first experimental short, Six Men Getting Sick, while a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Lynch moved to Los Angeles in 1971 and studied film-making at the AFI Conservatory, where he began filming his first feature Eraserhead. Finally finishing it in 1976, the surreal black-and-white fable was received largely with bafflement, and rejected from most film festivals, but in the late 70s became something of a success on the late-night "midnight movie" circuit.

The film impact led to an offer from Mel Brooks' production company to direct The Elephant Man; starring John Hurt in a biopic of Joseph Merrick, the film about the disfigured 19th-century man was nominated for eight Oscars and secured Lynch's Hollywood status. After turning down an offer to direct Return of the Jedi, Lynch agreed to make an adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic sci-fi novel Dune, but the film was substantially recut in postproduction and proved a commercial and critical disaster. Instead of a planned Dune sequel, Lynch decided to make a more personal film: his dark noir thriller Blue Velvet was a cult hit and a hugely influential critical success on its release in 1986, and it resulted in Lynch's second best director Oscar nomination.

 

Lynch then embarked on another noirish project, the iconic, opaque and surreal murder-mystery Twin Peaks that – unusually for notable film directors of the period – was envisioned as a TV series; Lynch developed it with former Hill Street Blues writer Mark Frost. A mix of small town comedy, police procedural and surreal dreamworld, and described as "the most hauntingly original work ever done for American TV". 

 

Twin Peaks defied early predictions of failure on its broadcast in 1990; as a pioneer of high end TV,  it is arguably Lynch’s most influential work. A second series was broadcast later in 1990, a feature film prequel Fire Walk With Me was released in 1992, and just like it was told on the final episode of the second season, the third season arrived more tan a quarter of a century, in 2017, being more intense and surrealistic than the first two seasons.

 

As Twin Peaks went into production, Lynch began working on a feature film adaptation of Barry Gifford’s novel Wild at Heart, and cast Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern in the lead roles in a violent, haunting road movie with echoes of The Wizard of Oz. Wild at Heart premiered at Cannes in 1990 and won the Palme d’Or. In 1997 Lynch began to edge back to his avant garde roots with Lost Highway, a surreal thriller starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette, which flopped at the box office. In complete contrast Lynch released The Straight Story in 1999, a bluntly straightforward story about an elderly man (played by Richard Farnsworth) who drives 240 miles across the country on a motorised lawnmower.

Lynch then embarked on another highly successful project: Mulholland Drive. Initially it appeared to go disastrously wrong, as Lynch had pitched it as a Twin Peaks-style TV series. A pilot was shot and then cancelled by TV network ABC. But the material was picked up by French company StudioCanal, who gave him the money to refashion it as a feature film. A noir-style mystery drama, it was another big critical success, secured Lynch a third best director Oscar nomination and in 2016 was voted the best film of the 21st century. Lynch followed it in 2006 with the three-hour surreal thriller Inland Empire, shot on video and starring Dern as an American movie star who appears to mysteriously transport into the Polish original of a film she is working on.

Thereafter Lynch appeared to step back from feature films, with only the third series of Twin Peaks in 2017 representing a big film-making project, although reports suggest he had been working on a series for Netflix. Lynch took acting roles in other people's work, the most notably as Gus the Bartender in Seth MacFarlane's The Cleveland Show, and as legendary director John Ford in Steven Spielberg's loosely autobiographical 2022 movie The Fabelmans.

Lynch was married four times and had a long-term relationship with his Blue Velvet star Isabella Rossellini. Rest In Peace/In Power Maestro.

New Music: 8th Deadly Sin

          

Miki Berenyi Trio shares "8th. Deadly Sin" taken from their forthcoming album "Tripla" out this 4th., April, now this is a fantastic dreamy guitar track with certain reminiscence of bands such as Ladytron, the single is accompanied by strange video directed by Sébastien Faits-Divers.

New Music: Time Waited

          

My Morning Jacket shares their new single "Time Waited" taken from their forthcoming new album "Hear: Time Waited" a 10-track album the band worked with Brendan O'Brien marking the first time the frontman Jim James hasn't produced the album, the single is nice a little bit nostalgic and enjoyable to listen.

New Music: Orlando In Love

           

Japanese Breakfast shared her latest sinlg "Orlando In Love" taken from ther latest album "Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) out next 21 March, the video gets a baroque visual under Michelle Zauner aka Japanese Breakfast direction in which she palys Orlando and her friend Jungle plays Venus.

New Music: People Ruin Paintings

          

Taken from the band's forthcoming album "Critical Thinking", the third single "People Ruin Paiting" is an amazing song, tremendous lyricis exlporing the destruction of truth, also nostalgic, melodic, melancholy but hopeful at the same time.

New Music: Don't Go Dark

           

Night Traveler are sharing this new single "Don't Go Dark" their latest cut from their new album "Hotspot" evoking different emotions combined with a variety of rhythms and melodies, accompanied by a nice video directed and edite by Ryan Sheperd. 

New Music: Hopper's On Top

           

The Waterboys released their first track of their forthcoming concept album "Life, Death And Dennis Hopper" to be released on 4th., April and it's about the life of actor Dennnis Hooper, the track title "Hopper's On Top" is the first single which captures the film icon at a pivotal moment of his career, for the video Mike Scott and his band take a walk on the streets of Nashville in a similar manner as Peter Fonda and the other guys did in the classic film "Easy Rider",

Rocktrospectiva: The Brilliant "Contra" Turns 15

 

Released on January 11, 2010. "Contra" was the second studio album by the American rock band Vampire Weekend, produced by band member Rostam Batmanglij. The album was preceded by the 2009 singles "Horchata" and "Cousins" and then "Giving Up The Gun", "Holiday", ""White Sky", & "Run". The album helped to ciment the popularity of the band, also is considered one of the best albums of the 2010s so far. 

 

For this record, the band combined their usual blend of African music with indie rock and includes other genres such as ska, dancehall and dance music, with slices of electro pop, although the album has been characterized as pop, eclectic, intellectual indie rock,". The band made an effort to make their second album a natural expansion on the universe created in their debut album; as a result, Contra covers a far greater gamut of musical influences than their debut album, drawing inspiration from genres such as ska on "Holiday", synth-pop on "Giving Up the Gun", speed rap on "California English" and even rave music on "Run". Under the production of Rostam Batmanglij, was also different from their former work in that it did not use chamber echo and natural reverb but instead used digital effects to give the album an eighties aesthetic. Other distinguishing features of Contra are the use of backing vocals as textural elements, the debut of Batmanglij as a lead guitarist and more layered drumwork in which fundamental Latin beats are blended with drum machines to create a busier rhythm section.

 

The album title refers basically to the 1987 video game "Contra" not the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries as other thinks. Ezra Koenig has stated in multiple interviews that the album contains lyrical themes of opposition consistent with its title, and feels it is important to understand that the word "Contra" is a fundamental concept of conflict, without any implication that one side is right or wrong. The lyrics of Contra are also meant to express a desire to be compassionate even towards people and things one disagrees with. He also states the lyrics of Contra deal with reconciling feeling of privilege and guilt, for which he uses the term "first-world guilt". Contra is considered by critics to be instrumental in cementing the cultural significance of Vampire Weekend first formed with their debut record, as Contra deepens and commits to a general attitude of rejecting traditional notions that rock musicians are poor, underprivileged rebels. Whereas their first album brought to light the prejudices against affluence and wealth in rock music, Contra, even in its title, openly argues this stigma. 

 

The album was also famous because of hte cover of Contra features a candid Polaroid of a woman from 1983. The photo was found by Batmanglij while searching "New York City 1983" on Flickr. Lead singer Koenig states that when he first saw the image, he felt he read "some sort of hesitation" in her face, and that the band discussed at length what her possible age or emotional state could be in the photograph, without ever becoming certain of either. Koenig believed that "wrapped up in her expression is this question: 'How is she feeling?'" and that "maybe she wasn't even really sure at the time." In an interview, Koenig revealed that the woman pictured on the front cover is "now living in Malibu". Koenig also referred to the woman as "Kirsten" in a post on Twitter. 

 

But things went crazy when on July 15, 2010, Vampire Weekend, along with XL Recordings and Brody, were sued by Ann Kirsten Kennis, the woman who identified herself as the woman on the cover, for $2 million for using the photo without her permission. Kennis has said that the photo was taken while she was "a high-fashion model under contract with prestigious agencies in New York City." In addition, Kennis said that the release forms for the photo that were allegedly signed by Kennis herself, were forged. Then on August 15, 2011, it was announced that Kennis had dropped her lawsuit against XL Recordings and Vampire Weekend after they paid Kennis an undisclosed sum. However, the separate lawsuits against Brody from Kennis and Vampire Weekend were not dropped.

 

The album received acclaim from music critics considering the record as the perfect balance of classical, rock, and world instrumentation, cagey rhythms, and stunning prettiness isn't just architecturally resplendent, it's reassuringly sweet and strangely moving, the most interesting banc in world music blended their Talking Heads sound-a-like with a good dose of the Smiths pop, this propelled the album to No. 1 on Billboard 200, their very first one and the 12th., indie distributed album to reach that spot on Billboard history since 1991. 

 

Contra Track List:

1. Horchata

2. White Sky

3. Holiday

4. California English

5. Taxi Cab

6. Run

7. Cousins

8. Giving Up The Gun

9. Diplomat's Son

10. I Think Ur A Contra

Rocktrospectiva: The Pretenders Eponymous Album Turns 45

Originally released on December 27, 1979 although many sources cite January 11, 1980 as the original released. The Pretenders debut studio album was a combination of rock and roll, punk and new wave music, literally was the album that made the band famous due their singles "Stop Your Sobbing", "Kid", "Brass In Pocket" and "Precious". 

The band was formed in 1978 by Chrissie Hynde, who had spent the previous few years bouncing around with different bands, including early incarnations of The Clash and The Damned. Determined to form her own band, Hynde recorded some tracks for a demo using a variety of musicians including drummer Phil Taylor, whom she originally wanted in her band, but couldn't bring herself to try and steal from her friend Lemmy's band Motorhead. So then Hynde brought Pete Farndon (bass) into the fold, and he convinced her to tryout his friend from Hereford, James Honeyman-Scott (lead guitar, backing vocals, keyboards). 

Ironically, Nick Lowe produced their first single "Stop Your Sobbing", but decided not to work with them again as he thought the band was "not going anywhere". So Chris Thomas took over on the subsequent recording sessions. That recording was enough to convince Honeyman-Scott to join the band and soon after, Martin Chambers (drums) came on board. So the original lineup was set by the summer of 1978, Thomas produced "Kid" and "Brass in Pocket." So this empowered the band to released three singles in 1979, which led to released their anticipated debut album in the last week of that 1979. 

The album started with "Precious" a frenetic, high-speed car chase of a song highlighted by Hynde's vocal, which I can best describe as controlled, sexual ferocity, this is an ode to her native Cleveland, then comes a pack of three tracks "The Phone Call", "Up The Neck", and "Tattoeed Love Boys", a sort of intense tracks but pleasant at the same time and introducing the listener for what is about to hear, next is the first single "Stop Your Sobbing," which closes out side one, has a different energy than the other songs on the album. Despite it fits in nicely with the other tracks, it certainly reflects a different Hynde than the one on the previous six songs, this was the last track on Side one.

The side two opens with the second single "Kid," it expresses a tenderness and vulnerability that was not present on side one, but ultimately surfaced quite often throughout Hynde's ensuing career. "Private Life" is another highlight in the album a slow ballad about someone that Hynde thinks has no use for you and you must be happy you're not that person, but the real deal for me is definitely "Brass In Pocket" an enduring single that 45 years later still sounds fresh and catchy, co-written by Hynde and Honeyman-Scott, was the band's first big hit and a song she would have preferred to have never seen the light of day. She hated the song and in 2004, she told the Observer, "When we recorded the song I wasn't very happy with it and told my producer that he could release it over my dead body, but they eventually persuaded me. So I remember feeling a bit sheepish when it went to #1. The album closes with "Lovers Of Today" and "Mistery Achievement" and there you go, one of the most brilliant debut albums ever released.

What a pity the original lineup wouldn't make it for three or more albums, they released "Pretenders II" a year later, but unfortunately within a two-year span, Honeyman-Scott and Farndon were dead as a result of drug use and with them the brilliant and underrated playing of Honeyman-Scott, the solid rhythm section of Farndon and Chambers and a once-in-a-generation lead singer in Hynde vanished forever, even thought Hynde keeps with the band, it wouldn't be the same again, and for this reason, this album is not only a great debut album but an all-time classic rock album whose influence and charm has not vanished away.

Despite the critics were mixed back then, some called the record as the first important album of the 1980s, considered it irresistible, others called the album as a just a reminiscent of the 60's pop band dismissing Hynde talent for play and create music, things got change in the years to come, considered as a classic album and one of the most astonishing debut albums ever released, not only in the 1980s but in the history of rock and roll. 

Pretenders Track List:

 

1. Precious

2. The Phone Call

3. Up The Neck

4. Tattoeed Love Boys

5. Space Invader

6. The Wait

7. Stop Your Sobbing

8. Kid

9. Private Life

10. Brass In Pocket

11. Lovers Of Today

12. Mystery Achievement

New Music: Look Up

           

Released today, "Look Up" is the new country sound album by Ringo Starr which was produced and co-written by T Bone Burnett. It is Starr’s first country album in more than 50 years and his first full-length album since 2019, and now this is the first single "Look Up" featuring Molly Tuttle and looking like a Cowboy although the sound of this track has a some kind of pop rock sound that reminds me a little The Traveling Wildburys, now it's hard to believe that Ringo has 84 years old and still rocking.