Kids are now busy dancing their nimble fingers across their mock guitars as "I Am the Walrus" plays on their new Beatles Rock Band video game. Boomer parents, meanwhile, have their own excuse to get Beatlemania all over again: The entire Beatles catalog -- all 14 albums, in the British versions -- has been remastered and is in stores now.
If you can't spring for a complete box set (available in stereo or mono), then conventional wisdom says your first purchase has to be the perennially acclaimed Greatest Album Since King Tut Walked the Earth, aka "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band."
Smart money says to turn off your mind, relax and float downstream with "Revolver," whose myriad sounds -- sitars, electronic noise, string quartet, French horn, John Lennon's submarine commands and more -- will be a perfect test of the remastering process.
LISTEN
Singer traps 'Lion' in Ghana
Singer-guitarist Shola Akinshemoyin Vaughn lives in Los Angeles. She's a Harvard grad. She likes Radiohead. She journeyed to West Africa to reconcile with her father, who lives in Ghana.
So, when she hooked up with drummer Albert Sadia to create the duo Divisible, her African adventure became gist for their debut full-length album, "Less Than Lion." Along with a cover of Radiohead's "Exit Music (For a Film)," "Lion" fuses Shola's Edge-y guitars (as in U2), her hummingbird-sweet vocals and clattery tribal drumming on the song "Everybody."
Check out the video for "Love Is the Cost," replete with footage of African ritual dancing, on YouTube.
WATCH
Put in time at "The Office"
If every office at every business in the country had a boss like Michael Scott, then the good ol' U.S. of A. would be .¤.¤. facing an economic crisis 100 times worse than today's headlines.
Fortunately, Scott's bungling and incompetence, as portrayed by Steve Carell in the hit NBC TV series "The Office," is helping our nation's comedy productivity stay at a peak.
In season five of "The Office," out this week on DVD, Scott is replaced as the head of the Scranton office of paper supply company Dunder Mifflin. In steps Charles Miner (played by Idris Elba of "The Wire" fame). Meet the new boss -- not the same as the old boss.
What was life like for baby boomers after the Summer of Love, after Woodstock, after they had to grow up and deal with becoming Willy Lomans and changing their kids' diapers?
One answer came with the television series "thirtysome- thing," which debuted in 1987 (and may have introduced the irksome trend of not capitalizing the titles of stuff).
After all these years and countless Claude Van Damme films under the bridge, "Plan 9 From Outer Space," the 1959 sci-fi/horror opus directed by Ed Wood Jr., still holds the title of Worst Movie Ever Made. Trust us. Ever.
But that's a good thing. And now you can see it on in all its black and white, big screen glory as the stars of the TV show "Mystery Science Theater 3000" riff on it live Thursday from Nashville, Tenn., with the performance beamed to 430 theaters across the country, including one in Altamonte Springs.
Mike Nelson and the actors who played his robot helpers, Tom Servo (Kevin Murphy) and Crow T. Robot (Bill Corbett), will unleash their comedic, sarcastic fury on the film that earned Wood a posthumous Golden Turkey Award as the worst director ever, and stars such "luminaries" as Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson, a strung-out and washed-up Bela Lugosi, impossibly thin-waisted horror movie hostess Vampira and someone going by the name of Dudley Manlove as Eros. Remember: Worst movie ever made.
Laugh along with the gang beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday at the Altamonte Mall 18, 433 E. Altamonte Dr., Altamonte Springs.
ATTEND
Dog days of summer won't stop sci-fi con
It's convention time again, and we ... wait, what? Since when do we have big science fiction/comic cons in this area in the summer?
Since this weekend when the annual MegaCon convention kicks off their new Mini-MegaCon Saturday and Sunday at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.
Guests include "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" stars Charisma Carpenter, Emma Caufield, Amber Benson and Adam Busch, along with Dorian Gregory ("Charmed"), Sylvester McCoy (the seventh "Doctor Who"), Lisa Loring and Felix Silva (Wednesday and Cousin Itt from "The Addams Family"), Arne Starr ("Star Trek," "Mad Men"), Vic Mignogna ("Full Metal Alchemist"), Tarah Paige ("Bring It On 3"), and wrestling stars Jackie Haas, "Ariel," Terri Runnels, SoCal Val and Sean Waltman.
Mini-MegaCon will be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Orange County Convention Center, 9899 International Drive, Orlando. Tickets will be $22 for Saturday, $19 for Sunday, or $36 for all weekend, available at the door or at any Coliseum of Comics location. Head to megaconvention.com for more details and a list of the activities. WATCH
It's lethal injection time for 'Reno 911'
With the sad news this week that Comedy Central's "Reno 911!" has been canceled, it's as good a time as any to catch up with the audience-starved yet critically-acclaimed series.
The mockumentary-style cop show takes place in Nevada and over the course of five seasons and one feature film, developed a cult-like following that will now only exist on DVD. Mostly improvised, episodes featured these "cops" fending off civilians from a mixed up bunch of weirdos, survivalists and hookers.
"Reno 911!" is available through Amazon.com for purchase and through iTunes for download.
Combine a hot yet suave, jazzy Cuban band and some rock stars who want to save the planet, and what do you get?
The new album "Classics" by the Cuban group Rhythms Del Mundo, who enlist such guest stars as the Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse, the Killers and Fall Out Boy as they cover such rock classics as "Hotel California," "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Beat It," "Imagine" and "Purple Haze."
Latin, salsa and Afro-Cuban vibes abound, of course. Who knew that a Spanish-language version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," replete with horns and Latin percussion, could sound more tragically grandiose than Freddie Mercury's original?
The highlight is a majestic Latin guitar version of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" featuring RDM with Rodrigo y Gabriela.
The album, due out Aug. 11 on Decca Records, benefits Artists Project Earth, a British organization that works to fight climate change.
Southern rock die-hards are holding their rebel yells until Lynyrd Skynyrd releases "God & Guns" on Sept. 29. But the cow punks and alt-country types lurking below the Mason-Dixon Line are rejoicing over this news: The Drive-By Truckers will release "The Fine Print," a collection of previously unreleased oddities and rarities from 2003-2008, on Sept. 1.
For a sneak preview, check out "George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues" at drivebytruckers.com. With grungy guitars, peppy pedal steel and twang-soaked vocals that make the Dukes of Hazard sound like New Yorkers, the song is a love letter to ol' George, pleading with the country music legend to be careful. If George doesn't get his, er, stuff together, the Truckers sing, he'll be "singing duets with Tammy again."
Along with name-checking Jones' late ex-wife, the Truckers' also warn George not to repeat that riding lawnmower incident.
Teenaged Coraline gets all angsty and bored when she moves with her writer parents to a home out in the sticks. But then Coraline discovers a secret door that leads to a bizarro parallel world where all her dreams come true, and even her "Other Mother" and "Other Father" are like genies who cater to her every whim.
That's the premise of "Coraline," a fantasy flick filmed using stop-motion animation.
Of course, that talking cat and the creepy doll with the button eyes, which happens to look like Coraline, are clues that all is not as it appears in Coraline's newfound dream world.
Based on a book by Neil Gaiman and directed by Henry Selick (of "Nightmare Before Christmas" fame), "Coraline" isn't fluffy kid stuff. It's out now on DVD.
Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs could very well be the America's Sweehearts of bright, jangly guitar-driven pop. In 2006, the '90s solo star and Bangles' cover girl joined forces for "Under the Covers, Vol. 1," a collection of familiar and obscure pop and folk covers from the 1960s, including Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing" and the Beach Boys "Warmth of the Sun."
On Tuesday, the duo returns with -- you guessed it -- "Under the Covers, Vol 2," this time mining gold from the AM airwaves of the super '70s. On this go-round, the covers are a little more mainstream, including their interpretations of the Raspberries' "Go All the Way," Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" and Rod Stewart's "Maggie May." Gorgeous harmonies abound, and it's clearly evident that Sweet and Hoffs respect and love the material.
So drop the top, cruise the coast and dig these songs from the past with a newly added sheen courtesy of Sweet and Hoffs. Now, if they only released an 8-track version ....
OK, so you're an ex-hippie and you blew it: You had a chance to trek to Yasgur's farm in upstate New York in the summer of '69 -- to some sort of Woodstock peace and music thing. But you said, "Pass."
Now, however, it's easier than ever to bluff friends and strangers with tales of your exploits at Woodstock among Jimi, Janis, The Who, the mud and naked guys and chicks. Just pick up "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director's Cut -- 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition" (with an Amazon exclusive bonus disc).
While filmmaker Michael Wadleigh released his director's cut more than a decade ago, this four-disc box set includes over three hours of new bonus content, including "newly discovered," entire performances by Santana, The Who, The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.
As noted, Amazon.com says they are offering an exclusive disc. As of press time, the box is available at Amazon for $44.99.
Back in 1983, when Spring Break was still welcomed in Daytona Beach, we remember heading out to the Bandshell to see a couple of bands do their thing. The headliner was Big Country, who had a fairly large hit with "In A Big Country," but we really didn't care and they quickly disappeared off our radar.
No, gentle readers, we were there to see the opening act, this scrappy little band that was about to release its influential second album, "Reckoning." That group, R.E.M., would go on to be the quintessential indie band, still making music today and doing things their way.
Fans of this simpler time can now rejoice. "Reckoning (Deluxe Edition)" has been rereleased and not only contains the original material ("So. Central Rain," "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville") but a 1984 concert from the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. Both the studio material and the live stuff highlight R.E.M.'s early, ragged, scruffy, joyful glory, something that's sorely missing from today's music scene.
You're enjoying a film when disaster strikes: You need to go to the bathroom. What do you do?
Fret no more. Thanks to the good folks over at runpee.com, the problem is solved.
Simply head to the site, click the film you're planning to watch and you'll find out when to go, how long you have and what you'll miss -- all at the click of a button.
And it's not just for new movies, either. Your classic favorites from "The Thing" to "Jurassic Park" are also included.
You can also add your own times for films not listed, e-mail listings to friends and find out when times are added to your favorite films.
