RED LIGHT BYTES: The Red Light Roundup (5-8-2024)
Classics, Deep Cuts & All-New Killers in Art & Entertainment...
Now that right there is the trouble with me: there’s always something going on.
Yes friends, I am going to do my best to run a weekly Monday-morning podcast, proper drive-time stuff in the spirit of old-school radio. I won’t be mentioning it in the Update Dossiers because they all go out bright-n-early at 6:00 AM EST so I can get to shilling after I roll out of bed. Expect an hour of asides, anecdotes, and my patented tastemaking process of trying shit out and letting you know what’s worth digging up. It’s like this newsletter, but a bit more conversational than text on a screen. Join us over at Quality Candor on YouTube where we have a small but mighty back catalogue of reviews for your delectation.
Before we dive in, a bit of housekeeping: no indie spotlight this week because I just haven’t had the time to dig into anything lately. However, I do want to give two blind shout-outs to two web-based stories, both anthro in nature, that I plan on diving into when time permits:
CHRONOS by Captyns — “An AI wakes up on a faraway space station with no memories beyond her name, shocked and confused in this corporeal form. With the help of those who brought her back, she must learn what it means to be alive again on a less than forgiving station, unaware of the price on her head.” This story showed up in April of last year (Year 2 of 365 Infantry for those keeping score) and it has always caught my eye with Piper’s wonderful art. I eagerly await the schedule’s clearing so I can dive into what looks like a fun piece of sci-fi.
Masks of Steel by Mikhail J Clive — A steampunk-fantasy epic concerning a haunted soldier turned Lieutenant-Inspector, Tyras Maloko, as he assembles a crack team to take on the wanton theft and destruction wrought by air pirates in the wake of a ruthless war. Lemme put it to you like this: there are dragon cavalries. Dragon. CAVALRIES. You bet your ass I’m reading.
If either sounds good to you, give ‘em a look. On wit da cultah!
QUICK CLASSICS: The Body Electric (1985)
Y’know what I love? Grace Under Pressure by Rush. My first album of theirs was Moving Pictures (as it was for millions), but the 80s synth gloss mixed with the dystopian futurists lyrics, not to mention the trio of Lee, Lifeson and Peart’s consummate musicianship, resulted in a hand-crafted piece of 365 Infantry inspiration that remains at the bedrock of this series to this day.
Y’know what I also love? Cult animation from the 80s. Check out my review of the 1987 once-lost Hanna Barbera pop fantasia Rock Odyssey for another recent example of this obsession (also discussed in the Quality Candor podcast).
You wanna know what happens when you slam the two together? You get the 1985 TV special The Body Electric. And what a special it is.
The Body Electric is a half-hour sci-fi short set to the music of the Canadian prog rock veterans. It spins us the story of Red Sector A, a robotic paradise lost, as we follow our two lone human survivors as they try to find a way out of the domed city as deteriorates, ending with a most peculiar twist.
It becomes clear that sprawling backstory demands more than what the budget could afford. If it had been an hour-long telefilm, we might be cooking, but the half-hour breezes by well enough. The small-time voice acting of Noel Counsil, Lorraine Ansell, and John Nolan doesn’t help matters, vacillating from perfunctory at best and painful at worst, done no favors by the simple-as-sand screenplay which has gone uncredited.
That being said, the production isn’t without its charms. The art style is generally pleasing. The backgrounds are solid and the sci-fi machinery neat, but the character designs themselves lean a bit too far into SatAM territory, no surprise seeing as Atkinson Film-Arts also worked on many classic Canadian cartoons, such as The Raccoons. The baseline dystopian concept is an intruiging one, lent some heft by the lyrics of the songs, but it truly is the whiplash-inducing twist that makes it worth sticking around for.
As for the music of Rush, the various songs are adequately blended into the world, with director David Feiss wielding them well, and ultimately making for a wonderful extension of the kind of the pop/rock animation marriage we saw consummated in the works of Ralph Bakshi and in fellow Canadian productions like Heavy Metal and Rock & Rule.
Had it been a half-hour longer, given another pass in the writing room, and afforded a marginally larger budget, we could have had a bona fide cult classic from an era that gave us quite a few classic rock-fueled animations. But as it stands...it's fine. Best left to Rush fans who want a half-hour diversion, and animation journeymen like myself who are always digging in the dumpsters for neat little oddities like this. If your curiosity’s piqued, you can find half-dozen rips of it on YouTube, but the one linked here is the best print we have for now.
Streetwise Caviar
To keep that late 20th century love-in going, we’ll turn our attention to the man who the great Stevie Wonder once described as “The Emperor of Pop,” and one who so rightly earns the title.
You wouldn’t think of Prince when you think of this series on the face of it, but the rock-n-roll edge of the Minneapolis legend, his clinically insane shredcraft when a guitar is in hand, and the leather-tight production of his early records, blending funk, soul and electrified New Wave into what would ultimately be described as “the Minneapolis sound,” Prince’s music is the kind I could hear demolishing clubs deep in the heart of Haven, provided you’ve got your wires checked so A.C.E.S. can’t crash the party.
This week’s playlist gathers ten tracks from the titanic multi-instrumentalist’s surplus of kickass tunes that best sit within the our peculiar little series. From the slamming hard rock of “Bambi” to the socially conscious funk of “Act of God” and “Partyup” to the darker asides of “Something in the Water (Does Not Compute),” here’s a playlist that brings the best of the Purple One into our electric world of 365 Infantry.
As always: stay searching, stay jamming, and always dig where no one else will. Be seeing you, soldiers!
8 STORIES, 2 HEROES, ONE THRILLING COLLECTION!
Crush Cosmic Evils & Serve Justice Throughout The Universe with JD Cowan’s STAR WANDERERS!
Published by Cirsova & Featuring The Music of Jacob Calta.
ALMOST FUNDED ON KICKSTARTER
There's more of this stuff? Wonderful!
Damn...a lost Hanna-Barbera film and Rush teaming up with the studio behind "The Racoons"! My lucky day for finding out about new vintage animation I never heard of before.