Reasons To Be Cheerful, Pt. 3

Besides the cheerful fact that we'll be electing a new president in November, there's a lot of great pop culture in the air -- and that's making me extremely cheerful.

I've already told you about the new Elvis Costello album, The Delivery Man. If you haven't guessed by now, I'm a wee bit obsessed with the man. But, hey, name one other musician, other than Dylan, who has consistently made original and often quite good music for more than 2 decades (and Elvis will reach the 3 decade mark in a couple of years). C'mon, name one.

And I've also mentioned Brian Wilson's Smile , an album that was originally scheduled to be released 37 years ago. Was it worth the wait? I'm still on the fence about this one. I would have preferred the original Beach Boys recordings to be augmented rather than having Brian and The Wondermints recreate everything (The Wondermints can truly sing and Brian sounds better than he has in years...but he and the Boys sounded a lot better back in '67). At the very least, thanks to this new version, true obsessives can now probably piece together their bootleg snippets of Smile and come up with a close approximation of how the album would have been if it had been released back in the day.

Here's what else will be making me happy soon:

Movies:

(Oct. 1)
Trailer
(Coming Soon)
Trailer
(even if these 2 films suck, we'll always have these wondeful trailers)

TV:

Tanner on Tanner(Tuesdays in October, Sundance Channel) Loved the original series; don't see why this one won't be just as brilliant.
The Office Christmas Party(Oct.21, BBCAmerica, but I'm not sure if it's new or just a "special")

Lost (Wednesdays @ 8, ABC) Actually, I haven't seen this yet but thanks to TIVO I hope to soon. Hear it's more than decent.

Music:

Tom Waits: Real Gone (Oct. 5th)

Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus DVD (Oct. 12)

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds: Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus (Double Disc out Oct. 26)

Marianne Faithfull: Before the Poison (collaboration with PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and others; import currently available)
Lucinda Williams (2 Disc Live set; no release date -- she's still tinkering, as usual)
Stealers Wheel: Ferguslie Park (reissue of neglected follow-up to the eponymous debut which brought us "Stuck in the Middle with You"; import only)
The Kinks: Are The Village Green Preservation Society (reissue of their masterpiece on 3 discs; import only) Finally, the great, lost "Misty Water" is available on CD. Now if only "When I Turn Out The Living Room Light" could see the light of day...

Finally, I was going to include the 25th Anniversary edition of The Clash's London Calling, but I honestly cannot recommended it unless you have a lot of extra cash to burn (or if you never "upgraded" your original vinyl pressing). The 2nd CD, the legendary "Vanilla Tapes", is just that: Vanilla. I was expecting alternative versions (much like the excellent 2nd CD of Elvis Costello's recently re-reissued "Get Happy", but these are just pretty much bad rehearsals (with a couple of exceptions). The extra DVD documentary almost makes this reissue worth it (especially the footage of insane producer Guy Stevens), but it's ultimately a lot less essential than the previously released "Westway to the World" doc by Don Letts. But then again, if you're an obsessive completist...