Proof of Life - 2012 non-King highlights

As last year drew to a close, plenty of people made "Best of" lists. I've done it in the past but won't this year.

When it comes to film and music, I just didn't see/listen to enough stuff to produce a meaningful list. It would just illustrate how closeted I've been and how narrow my tastes have become.
So, instead, here are a few of the things that have moved or thrilled me in 2012. Some of them may not have been released this year, but it's my list.


Skyfall
I’m not much of a Bond fan. I appreciate the kitsch of the Connery and Moore eras but I’m no die-hard. With Daniel Craig’s first two additions to the canon, I offhandedly judged it as a dying franchise that should probably be put out to pasture. Come Skyfall, I wasn’t overly excited. I ended up seeing it as there wasn’t much on at the cinema that week and I was swayed by the positive things I’d heard. Javier Bardem and Sam Mendes’ involvement gave me that final push.

As it turns out, I loved it. Absolutely loved everything about it. Well, apart from the shitty theme song.

Listener
The song Wooden Heart was the single most moving/affecting/perception-shifting piece of art I witnessed last year.

It’s not the most immediate and accessible style (I first came to an almost a cappella version of Wooden Heart that initially baffled me) but, hearing it in conjunction with the video, something clicked and it just floored me. The rest of the album, also called Wooden Heart, is just as good.




Joe Hill
Aside from the obvious motivation for recommending his works to me, my first introduction to Joe Hill was as the writer of the Locke and Key comic book series - http://www.idwpublishing.com/lockekey/

From there, I stumbled up his second novel, Horns, in my local library and now I’m programmed to devour anything he produces.

Both are fantastic. Joe is also seems a very nice guy. You can get to know him better on Twitter - @joe_hill, his website http://www.joehillfiction.com and his Tumblr – http://joehillsthrills.tumblr.com


Bob Mould on Letterman
I’ve been a fan of Bob’s since the Sugar days when, at the tender age of 14, I heard If I Can’t Change Your Mind from the album Copper Blue. This performance of The Descent from the album Silver Age on Letterman had my jaw on the floor. Describing things as ‘raw’ and ‘honest’ is unfathomably clichéd, but this is just that. The guy’s in his fifties too. I love him.
Oh, I also listened to the audiobook of him reading his autobiography -See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody - last year. I’d definitely recommend it for fans.

Gerald's Game: 29th August 2012

This is the last of the books that I've read before, so everything's new from hereon in. To me at least. I'm sure there are some who claim that from a certain point, King has just pumped out rehashed versions of his (and others') earlier works.
We'll see.
For me, this is an exciting juncture of the quest.  Gerald's Game is the last Stephen King book I read before I decided to take on this challenge of filling my boots with his works, and that was nearly twenty years ago.  I was still at school and this fucker held me close and didn't let me go the whole time I was reading it.  A little reminiscent of the plot?  So I'm looking forward to seeing if it has the same effect on me.  You'll have noticed, if you've read any of the other posts that I'm more of a Bachman/non-supernatural fan, so this should be just as affecting to me as it ever was.
After this, then, it's all new ground and a whole host of books of which I only know the titles or have seen the films.  Fuck it, it seems significant to me, despite of my absolute failure to explain why.

In the last post, I got on about things that had hindered my progress in reading Needful Things -(now would be a good time to stop reading if you couldn't give two shits about me and only come here for the King vibe).  The biggest of these was writing the lyrics to ten songs in more or less one go.  I've been away from playing in bands for a few years (heroes for sale - http://www.soundcloud.com/heroesforsale12), mainly since having kids, but this year have hit upon the idea of emerging from my indolent state to see what, at 34, I'm capable of.  One of these things has been to get in the best shape of my life (since my mid-teens, anyway) and up the level of running I've been doing in the last couple of years to having a go at a half-marathon.  I didn't enter a race or anything, just mapped it out, put together an 'encouraging' playlist and just went for it.  It was a mixture of awesome and pure agony that left me almost in tears.  Oddly, I found myself doing it again four weeks later. Score.

Anyway, back to the lyrics.  I've missed writing, playing and recording music and, although my family situation rightfully and necessarily reduces my free time, there are ways and means.  I decided to it was within my means and abilities to write and record an album.  So that's what I've been doing (with hugely appreciated help from my good friends Jon and Marcus).  We've got the music of the basic songs I wrote hammered out and ready to demo, I've just finished the lyrics and are getting ready to put it all together before, at some point, recording.  There's not much ambition outside of creating and finishing the piece, but you never know.

So, the band is called Wolves and Vultures.  My wife hates the name, so it's obviously awesome.  It's always nice to have a flawless artistic barometer in the house, even if it's always contrary.  I could be wrong, of course.  As I'm a massive prick/slave to the times, you can find out more (not much at this point) on twitter - @wolves_vultures, facebook - http://www.facebook.com/wolvesandvultures.

Anyway, less fucking about and back to the book.

As always, thank you for reading.