I don't
think that's the best title, but I was not sure what to call this.
One thing
with yesterday's reviews is that they both have associated music. Orchid has
two songs you can get, but it is also possible to do a regular review of Tom
Morello: the Nightwatchman, and that will happen tomorrow.
Emily
and the Strangers
has one song and video, which would not be a lot to review, but it got me
thinking.
The first
thing that I remembered is that the Luann comic strip had put out some
songs. It is not uncommon for characters in comic strips and comic books to be
musicians. Sometimes it is just teen characters practicing in a garage, like
Jeremy's friends in Zits or Chip's friends in Hi and Lois.
Sometimes there are storylines revolving around the band, as in Safe Havens.
Luann actually putting out songs seemed
new, so I tried hunting them down and found a few:
I didn't
love them. It's probably appropriate, because the idea behind them is that a
high school girl is using poems that she wrote growing up for lyrics, and they
are being accompanied on the keyboard by another high school age student. Given
that, they are probably pretty realistic, but I don't want to keep going back
to them.
One thing
to consider is that the skills used for drawing a comic strip are different
than those used in making songs and videos, but there is more correlation if
you are making a show. Because of that, it is not unreasonable that a cartoon
band might have more resources to produce some better songs. So, the Archies
had a radio hit, and maybe "Jem" or "Josie and the
Pussycats" had some memorable songs, but really, I'm thinking of
"Daria".
Actually,
it would not have been too realistic for Mystic Spiral to be that great a band
either, but I still always enjoyed their appearances. In my mind I remembered
"Freaking Friends" as being livelier, but they had a lot of songs. I
think "Betrayal" had a lot of potential.
Some of
those cartoons had their origins in comic books, which brings us back to Emily
and the Strangers, and their song "Calling All Guitars".
I love it.
In addition to sounding as if it's something that the band as depicted really
would play, it's also good listening.
The video
really captures the feeling of the book. I do feel a little bad that they seem
to leave Willow and Winston out of the roll call. There is some reuse of
footage, which I suspect is a budgetary thing, but even with that they did a
great job. The plan is to eventually produce a full album, and I can get behind
that.
There was
one point in the video, where the cat flying through the air unzips to Emily,
that reminded me of something else I had seen recently:
I have been
thinking a lot about how rock and comic books can go together, but there may
also be some room in the realm of Saturday Morning cartoon shows. Though, if we
are marketing to children, there could be some lyric issues. Those are things
that can be worked out.
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