Duel – Steven Spielberg, Dennis Weaver
by Brian Troutman on Apr.01, 2005, under The Greatest
Dennis Weaver outruns a blood-thirsty Peterbilt in Duel
The greasy rig and its concealed driver represent the evil Halliburton and the corrupt Dick Cheney, respectively, and David Mann is the downtrodden proletariat…
OK, I have not actually read that in some self-important dunderhead’s analysis of Steven Spielberg’s 1971 film, but I wouldn’t be surprised if such drivel disgraced the screen of my Mac someday while I’m doing some “research” on the Internet. Duel is routinely and rightfully praised as a triumph of minimalist moviemaking, but it is also subject to endless interpretation. Every idiot seems to know the true meaning that lurks beneath the movie’s 90 minutes of Peterbilt/Plymouth rivalry. But who gives a you-know-what?
Basket Case – The Moog Cookbook
by Brian Troutman on Mar.01, 2005, under The Greatest
The Moog Cookbook
If anyone ever holds a contest for “Most Mispronounced Name,” Bob Moog would have to fight it out with Wilkes-Barre for the grand prize. Moog, whose name rhymes with rogue, invented the analog synthesizer around 1964, and his instrument brought a very new and very unique sound to the music world. While its sound was considered unearthly and futuristic at first, the Moog synthesizer matured into a regular fixture of popular music by the 1970s.
Two decades later, Roger Manning, then part of a retro rock band called Jellyfish, was not finding any market for his style of music. The early ’90s music-buying crumb crunchers were busy spending their entertainment dollars on “alternative” rock from groups like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Jellyfish folded in 1994, but Manning partnered with Brian Kehew to form a new group, the Moog Cookbook two years later.
