The Factual Opinion

Civil War # 5

Written by Mark Millar
Art by Steve McNiven
Published by Marvel

Any conversations about Civil War with non-Civil War readers requires some form of introduction--and the introduction usually leaves non-readers cold.  After the introduction, non-readers than have to be convinced that what's going on in Civil War actually has some emotional content, and then (if there still is a then, because by now who would continue listening?) one can get into the meat of this storyline, now only two issues away from climax.  In essence, Civil War can never really be a "great comic."  It's appeal stems primarily from it's willingness to shatter the tropes of the Marvel comic line, and it's the sort of thing that is nearly unreadable to a cursory comic fan.  It's not that they wouldn't understand it; Mark Millar's writing is some of the least convoluted in this business, it's that much of what makes it so entertaining and unsettling is completely beyond anyone without some relationship with the characters.  Someone could pick it up off the shelf and read about Spiderman revealing his secret identity, or the complete and total collapse of Iron Man's friendship with Captain America, and that someone might enjoy it, but without having read about all that Spidey has done (and why) to keep his identity secret in the last forty years of his existence, it's not going to seem as revelatory as it does to those who've devoted a massive amount of time and income to Peter Parker. 

While the obsessive comics reader may argue that they're undeservedly bashed (when they're acknowledged at all) by outsiders, the simple numbers are against them.  Superhero comics sell better than anything else in this country, the companies that produce them engage in whatever unsavory tactics they can come up with to keep independent comics out of their stores, and the stores that sell this stuff are fiscally incapable of experimenting with alternative sales practice.  The low quality of most superhero books, the lack of technical or artistic difference between them, is a reflection of the consumer's lack of willingness to stop buying them.  As much as comics fans love to complain about the latest issue of Ghost Rider or X-Men, their refusal to speak with their wallet ensures that everything they dislike will continue and spread.

All of this is why Civil War has been so surprising--it's a comic that seems to be singly designed to infuriate anyone with a love for the status quo.  When a new issue shows up (the delay has been horrific between chapters,) message boards and comics shops are explosively filled with complaints, whether because these 40 year old characters are behaving so incredibly different than how people want them too, or maybe because no fan is sure anymore how the twists and turns can be ignored.  The Factual itself has been curious--after all, as Civil War progresses, how is it possible to be an Iron Man fan anymore, and what does one call the Fantastic Four now that two of them have quit?  There's a considerable amount of change that Civil War brings about--unless the comics themselves set off a big reset button (which has been done, more than once) than Marvel fans will be looking back on 2006 as the year that things became completely different.

Whether Civil War ends up mattering or not, none of this should deter one from how good Civil War # 5 actually is: the wait, as they say, was worth it.  Although Steve McNiven will clearly never be an artist anyone can rely on to turn out books in a timely fashion, his art is so ridiculously good that it really doesn't matter.  The return of anti-comics favorite asshole, the Punisher, is surprisingly well handled, as is the closing pages total rebuff of Iron Man, courtesy of a Bible-quoting Daredevil.  Like all the other issues of Civil War, every characters face and eyes are laden with fear and hate, and every page reads like a movie.  This is heavy, dark stuff, and it's unlikely to be fully embraced by anyone, but in a market saturated with total safety, Civil War is the most controversial thing the underwear crew has released in twenty years and if Marvel has any courage at all, it may also become one of the most integral pieces of reading for any comics fans still alive in 2026.

-Tucker Stone, 2006

Casino Royale

By Ian Fleming
1953
181 pgs.
Published by Penguin

The first of Fleming's original James Bond novels comes right at your throat and proceeds to strangle you underneath a baccarat table on the ground floor of the swankiest casino you can imagine.  For those unversed in the print version of Mr. 007, Fleming's novels are incredibly surprising when you first pick them up: there's no winking here.  In Fleming's mind, Bond is an preternaturally cool individual, yes, but he's also a ferociously cold man.  His sexual exploits, while still in the same numbers seen in the series of films, is gone about with a far darker hand in the books: make no mistake, Bond hates women.  There's no argument to be made there, he himself says it, in those terms.  He enjoys possessing them, even going so far at one point to describe the "sweet tang of rape," but as far as 007 is concerned, women are either a means to an end or a simple test of his own talents.  Beyond that, he finds them totally useless.

It makes for odd reading, especially when a quote from Raymond Chandler on the back tells us that "Bond is what every man would like to be and what every woman would like to have between her sheets."  Really? 

The entire Bond/Misogyny thing doesn't, obviously, fill up 181 pages.  If it did, we wouldn't be entering our fifth decade of Bond films.  The plot for the book, one might imagine, would be the prototypical standard Bond plot regarding a nefarious criminal organization and a dastardly madman.  Surprisingly, that isn't the case (which may also be why Casino is only now becoming a film.)  No, Casino is about a young secret agent given twenty five million francs and being sent into France to humiliate (and thereby bring about the end of) a Russian spy.  The book isn't about gadgets, women or cars, and there's no big laser: Bond is just supposed to play cards and make a commie look bad.  Excepting an incredibly brutal torture sequence (involving 007's "secret weapon") and one of the most unsurprising twist endings of all time, that's the entire story.  It's refreshingly vulgar, fast paced, and, in all honesty, quite entertaining; it also takes about the equivalent amount of time to read as it would to watch a Bond movie--which means that if you are having trouble getting your TBS signal, then you now have an official alternative.

-Tucker Stone, 2006

Gaping Maw - Two Improvisations

2006
Archive Records

While released in 2006, this recording is comprised of two Chicago performances from 2001 and 2002, respectively. At only two tracks, one a half hour in length and the other just over ten minutes, it's somewhat surprising that it's received actual CD release: usually, something that dates back four years and wasn't an exactly revelatory performance is the sort of thing content to see a CD-R or mp3 only release. For those unversed in the current combination of noise-rock and improvisation though, these two tracks could form an excellent introduction to this sort of sound: it's a heavy piece of music that nearly overwhelms the listener. Hearing this live must have made for a difficult experience.

The musicians of Gaping Maw are Tatsuya Nakatani on drums, Kyle Bruckmann on mini-moog and Kurt Johnson on bass, under the supervision of Myles Boison. All three men play around with various other instruments, which lends the album an sense of unbelievability--"three people can make that sound? LIVE?" For those of us, and the Factual is included in this group, who have little experience outside of jazz with improvisation, Gaping Maw makes for a ridiculously well-contained education. While Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey and Wolf Eyes make for better listening at times, improvisation can, without being ushered into the live recording, make for a difficult experience. Regardless of what it's biggest proponents may argue, it's hard to buy that anyone experiences this sort of stuff with the same sort of enjoyment they'd find in more harmony/melody/song-based music: noise-improv is heavy, heavy stuff, and without a musical background, it's well-nigh impossible to discern specific instrumentation AND listen at the same time. Enjoyment, of course, comes much later: and therein lies the rub. After all, to get to the level of actual pleasure, one has to put in some work, serious work--and with so much great music that is, arguably, far more easily accessible, it can be an intensely egotistical experiment. Which leads one to the more common complaint lodged against noise music: if one attempts to share this music with others (as most social beings would like to) enjoyment again takes the backseat to defense. With 2004's widespread acknowledgment of a band like Wolf Eyes (who were quite obviously following in the footsteps of thousands of other musicians) it became apparent in every single article that the first paragraph or sentence when talking about them would be some form of explanation why the writer had come to the decision that this frightening, irritating business was not only a form of music, but that it was both good and worthwhile as well.

No other artist in the field has to suffer this kind of attack (although it would be deliriously entertaining if everytime Madonna put out another variation on her whore/goddess shtick she was requisitely forced to explain the philosophy behind it as well.) Gaping Maw, if it were to receive wide-spread acclaim or even wide-spread existence, would be placed in the same category: why is this music, why should i have any respect for it, and why is this better than i might make if i had the opportunity. It's the same argument so often lodged against art: i could do this myself, if i'd thought of it, therefore, it's no good whatsoever. That's part of what makes Gaping Maw's release so interesting and, yes, good: most people, even those as talented as these musicians, couldn't pull off improvising for thirty minutes and construct something as relentlessly compelling as the first track on this release, and even less could pull off an even better version in ten.

Yes, this disc requires work to listen to and enjoy, and yes, it's not the easiest thing to track down. But if one wants to expand one's comfort zone and experience a form of music that they probably haven't before, then one should expect to put in some time.

-Tucker Stone, 2006

Japanther - Yer Living Grave

2005
Menlo Park

It came out last year.  It's a Brooklyn noise-rock band made up of two guys.  It's 15 minutes long, consisting of 8 songs and was recorded in an Arizona basement.  It samples the Mountain Goats "Best Heavy Metal Band Out of Denton."  The last song sounds like a mix of the Knight Rider theme song and lyrics sung into a tin can connected to a recording device by newspaper twine.

It's, simply put, the best possible version of all of these things: and if you aren't excited by it, than one wonders how or why you found this website in the first place--we're not going to be reviewing Cabbage Patch Kids anytime soon, although one of our writers did audition for their television special.

At this point in human history, nothing will cleanse an American palette soaked in overly serious music, overly idiotic news and overly hilarious politicians than a quick 15 minute vacation into the land of Japanther, a place where you will be reminded of all the things that really matter: life moves pretty fast sometimes.  If you don't look around once in awhile, you just might miss it.  And you should rawk out as soon as you do.

-Tucker Stone, 2006

Stormwatch: PHD # 1

Written by Christos Gage
Art by Doug Mahnke
Published by Wildstorm/DC Comics

In a week where Morrison wraps up loose ends a little too quickly, Y: The Last Man decides that jumping the shark should involve the entire cast of Happy Days instead of just Fonzie and DMZ reminds us all that five part story arcs aren't allowed to be very fascinating when they begin; well, those are the weeks that a mildly interesting comic with brilliant artwork can still shine through.

Wildstorm has begun on one of the uglier aspects of comics: a relaunch, where a bunch of comics that no one really missed, about characters that most of us don't remember, get started over again.  The theory, one must assume, is that as long as you slap a number one on the cover and hire a bunch of the most talented (and popular) creators in the business, no one will complain too much about the fact that it's the same old stuff, notwithstanding the glossiness.  So far, it's been an exercise in just that: WildC.A.T.S. (the C.A.T.S. stands for "Covert Action Team Squadron" or something) The Authority, Gen-13 and Wetworks have all been about as dull and repetitive as anyone remembers them being when they first showed up--except for Authority, now on it's second relaunch, which used to actually be really good.  Wildcats (one can only type that acronym once) was actually really good on it's second and third relaunch, so far, the fourth seems exactly like the first.  (Our goal is to get you as confused as possible.)  Gen-13 will probably be as popular as it used to be--they've still got all the hard body women in tight shirts.  Wetworks will probably last about as long as it did last time: no one really wants to read about transsexual cyborgs fighting werewolves on any sort of monthly basis.

Stormwatch P.H.D. didn't have to do much to stand out from this group when it came out yesterday, but it's still surprising that it did: it doesn't have much of a pedigree.  It's most popular characters were pulled onto the Authority book, leaving a cool black guy with a shaved head--and there's more cool black guys with shaved heads in comics right now than in the NBA.  The issue is pretty standard fare as well: cool black guy wanders around and asks people to join his new team, everyone displays which archetype they'll be filling in for, and agrees (couldn't somebody write a team book where no one agrees?  That would be unexpected.) and the book ends with a press conference; including a cutaway to the trite villain who is watching and hatching plots.

Still, team books are old dogs, and sometimes an old dog will work out fine.  While this comic doesn't stand a chance (and neither do any of the new Wildstorm books, with the vague possibility of Deathblow, which is nice and gross) it'll be nice to have a regular fix of Doug Mahnke's art: his work on Batman was the most distinctive and interesting in a long time, and it's been consistently disappointing in how little his work appears.  At some point, comic companies may learn to stop recycling the same old stories with the same old underwear crew: it just doesn't look like that year is going to be 2006, and that the company is going to be Wildstorm.

-Tucker Stone, 2006

The Best of 1992: #1

Pavement
Slanted and Enchanted

When you're talking about music that inspired entire generations, that either created or became the voice of a entire subset of Americans, the list isn't extraordinarily long: The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Nirvana, Jay-Z, and The Beach Boys are a few that, arguably, might be up there.  Everyone has their personal band they claim sits on top, and that's if you exclude all the people who talk about Elvis. (And all those people who talk about Robert Johnson, too.) 

We don't live in that world anymore--the musical landscape found in popular culture (i.e. music that sells, bands that most people know) is one that is more tied up in money and celebrity culture than it ever has been before, and it shows no signs of stopping.  It's been commonplace for years for hip-hop to fully embrace the commercial aspects of their field, shouting out how many gold records they have, and it's nearly impossible to peruse anybodies CD collection and not come upon an album whose artist is somehow associated with a reality show program.  The argument for commercial art, done primarily for profit, versus art done primarily for...well, whatever reason art is done for isn't anything new--and as time moves forward, it becomes clearer that it's one that, for now at least, has been decided.  Discerning palettes aside, most people aren't bothered if their albums are associated with celebrities hawking wares in the Amazon street market, and most people will continue to pick up recycled genre pieces done by bands with as much creativity as they have desire to improve their sound: not very much. 

None of this was very much different in 1992--MTV was still a force to be reckoned with, as were the large corporate music empires.  1992 was also a big year for the studio owned groups: REM blew up even bigger than the surprising success of their previous "Losing My Religion" video had indicated, Tori Amos basically recreated the entire subculture of white songstress albums that wasn't felled until the last few years of Alicia Keys and her ilk, and all of this was still ocurring in the final years of the grunge era.  (One of the biggest successes of the year was the Singles soundtrack, full of 90's heroes like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and the Smashing Pumpkins.)  Most of all though, all the big sellers of the year where albums that, regardless of their long hair, were relentlessly produced "clean" albums.  As raw as they might have played at, grunge, REM and Tori made albums that sounded like they were made by people who knew what they were doing, and had some ambition to be doing it.

Meanwhile, in California, a group of thrift store looking dorks (and there's no better term) threw away a stupid band name, put instruments they had no business playing into their hands and recorded an album on their own.  Without any major label or the support that entails, the album, Slanted and Enchanted ended up to be a critical success, and due to it's incredibly cheap cost, a financial one as well.  Even today the album remains one of the most beloved of the 90's, and the entire indie-rock world can be said to have grown out of the all-too-brief seven years that they were around.  They weren't anywhere near the first to release a lo-fi independent album (the 80's are rife with those stories), but Pavement was the first to fully embrace the style of recording in the songs themselves: they don't seem to sound like they know what they're doing, or like they care to learn in the first place, but this doesn't sound like a joke band either.

The Best of 1992: #2

Aphex Twin
Selected Ambient Works 85-92

There was another popular electronic album that came out in 1992-Future Sound of London's Accelerator.  In 1992, both sounded different, futuristic, and dare i say the Factual's favorite buzzword?  Innovative.  Of course, now that we have broken electronic down into somewhere around three thousand different subsets, 14 year old albums wouldn't have that same level of impact when listened to today.  After all, laptops, Pro Tools and the Apple recording studio subset have all advanced so far beyond '92 that the range of music are equal to the difference between a one string bass and a six string guitar, right?  In the case of Accelerator, that couldn't be more true:  while Future Sound still deserve a tip of the hat for basically existing, there's no reason beyond nostalgia to listen to their albums anymore.

But you can't say the same for Richard James and his Selected works--you'd be a fool to even imply it.  14 years later, Selected Ambient Works still sounds like something beyond the reach of human beings, it still sounds like music that operates on your ears--this isn't music that you throw on to relax to, or stay out late dancing too.  Not to imply that you couldn't do those things, but the first time "Xtal" comes rushing through a pair of headphones (waves of gray sound, delayed than throbbing bass and finally, goofy overdubbed vocalizing) is also the last time that you'll attempt to turn this album into party music.  Unlike every other piece of electronica at the time, and still head and shoulders above since, the Selected Works doesn't limit itself to the sound of the rave, the tracks for the club: it's an incredibly personal relationship it striving for.  When you start recycling "We Are The Music Makers," you've reached the point it existed for: this is Richard James (under the Twin nom-de-plure) pulling off what he was shooting for when he made this stuff, music as language, language as challenge--getting distributed straight from his mind to yours.  In some ways Selected Works has also become the album used as evidence for James' genius when he chooses to act the fool and release weird, unambitious albums of burps and whistles.  Either way, this is one of the greatest pieces of music created in the last twenty years, and it stands head and shoulders above the rest of it's closest relatives.

-Tucker Stone, 2006

The Best of 1992: #3

Unrest
Imperial f.f.r.r.

If ever there was a prototypical album for what is currently referred to as "indie-rock," it's this.  Unrest started out as undistinguished hardcore band from Washington DC--so undistinguished that they didn't even have a Dischord record contract.  After some line-up changes, they started experimenting with a minimalist sound, shaving off vocals and exploring what else they could do.  As it turned out, Imperial is the only full-length album from that time that they released (although the bookend ep's to Imperial are excellent as well) from this period.  It wasn't until the late 90's and the most recent decade especially that this sort of music became to get wider acclaim: ponderous, soft-loud instrumental songs, artistic explorations of the power of improvisation in straight ahead pop terms--come on, you're getting there.  It's what we now are forced to call "post rock."  Unrest, in a lot of ways, got there first.  It wouldn't be quite correct to treat the album as if it "set the stage," or "inspired" any of what Constellation puts out, or Arts & Crafts; but Unrest shouldn't be looked at as some kind of obscure one-off either, especially now that it's been remastered and re-released.   So what is it?  The easiest thing to call songs like "Suki" is pop, and we'd do it no better to stick to that term: but Unrest seems to demand more.  I say "seems" because at no point does this album "demand" anything--it's so laid back that it's more comparable to bands like Low than Broken Social Scene--but Imperial remains an elusive and unique piece of beauty all these years later.

-Tucker Stone, 2006

The eleven songs on Unrest’s Imperial f.f.r.r. average 144.4 beats per minute. “Sugarshack” clocks in at a mighty 256 bpm. I don’t know what this means, except that the band has gone out of its way to quantify the speed of each song, as well as each song’s length, down to the millisecond. The “f.f.r.r.” in the album title stands for “full frequency range recording.” The album begins with a volume reference tone, so that you may determine exactly how loud you listen before the music even begins. Unrest is obviously in love with technical precision. In an era filled with rock bands supposedly heralding punk rock ideals—willfully not learning or unlearning their instruments; using lo-fi recording techniques; singing without regard to tonality—Unrest got everything precisely right.   

But Unrest is not a band about precision, and Imperial f.f.r.r. is not an album about technique. Unrest use their studio know-how in order to take care of their audience. They make listening to the album a shared experience. You become involved in your own listening. At first this occurs simply because they recruit you as a technician—that volume reference tone forces you to make a choice about how you want to listen. Next, Unrest break out their sizable musicianship, but not overtly. Rather, they create a simple, solid foundation of streamlined grooves. These rhythms offer little variation, and therefore become hypnotizing. This is an argument for the simplicity of punk rock over the blind adherence to punk rock ethics—why you should learn how to play. Music, Unrest says, doesn’t have to do a whole lot to be transformative. Finally, the real coup happens when singers Bridget Cross and Mark Robinson sing. Cross is the American embodiment of a Japanese songbird. Robinson is like an obtuse Gordon Gano, forever seeing the world through adolescent eyes, and embracing the teenage confusion that secretly remains with us our entire lives. He wrings stunning melodies out of the simplest parts of “Suki” and “Isabel,” but his voice never stabilizes, instead cracking and faltering. Essentially, Unrest have spent so much time and effort on the foundation so that Robinson and Cross can climb to the top and collapse without fear. This is vulnerability growing out of strength, and it makes for the most haunting album of 1992.

-Marty Brown, 2006