Paul Slavens and Lon Chaney

I'm slowly emerging from my zombie-like haze and it feels very nice. I've been getting out and socializing more and more, like last nights trip to The Dallas museum of Art, and a couple of other spots. Mark Sharon (who happens to have been my college roommate) and I went to the DMA for a showing of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME starring Lon Chaney, but with the added bonus of having a live soundtrack performed by a group of local musicians. This film was originally silent and the new score written by the versatile Paul Slavens made the already amazing even more so. Paul played piano, and did some vocal sound-effects I believe while backed by a "super-group" of primarily Denton-related musicians that are mostly known for their work in various punk/rock/indie/experimentalish bands that I have seen many times over the years. Bands represented include Baboon, Mission Giant, Ten Hands, The Dooms U.K., March Arc, Brutal Juice, The Banes, and others I might be unaware of. The added touch of a talented female vocalist that employed the subtle use of an effects processor along with other analog keyboards, and equipment complimented the piano and rock-oriented instrumentation. I'd love to see this kind of thing catch on.

Lon Chaney has always been somewhat of a hero to me and this might be his masterpiece. I had never actually seen the film but I knew the stories of Chaney suffering the 40-pound hump strapped to his back while performing his own death-defying stunts. Sure he's an amazing stuntman, and special effects make-up artist but you don't hear much about his acting ability. He somehow managed to take what could be a very one-dimensional cartoon of a character and make him multi-faceted, and likeable despite his gruesome appearance. He actually gets you to empathise with the deformed, and surreal hunchback primarily through the use of body language and facial expression. I don't think I could ever watch this again without some type of musical accompaniment and that would still never come close to the soundtrack I heard last night.

I was coerced into going to The Tom Tom Noodle house in the West Village, which is a part of town I usually avoid like the plague for a late meal after the show. The lure was 1$ sushi and we missed the mark by a couple of hours but still managed to avoid doing the dishes in lieu of payment. Though it was chilly on the patio the warm sake and excellent food worked together to keep us happy. I had an amazing dish that is supposedly the most popular dish in Malaysia called Beef Rendang. It was basically a curried-beef dish served over a large portion of jasmine rice and garnished with bits of mango. I highly recommend it. I even managed to run by Stout on Greenville Avenue to catch a few songs by my friend Jeff Hill's band The Sutcliffe's. Jeff was rocking the key-tar(keyboard worn like a guitar), vocals, harmonica, washboard, and Fisher-Price xylophone in fine form. I slept eventually...