Monthly Archives: February 2017

Gimme Danger (2016)

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It’s one of the greatest opening lines in the history of rock and roll, delivered by a frontman perpetually on the edge of destruction and a band one step away from the abyss. The Stooges were there at the burth of punk and influence no small amount in the following decades. There’s been a lot written about thems over the years (From the Velvets to the Voidoids and Please Kill Me are both amazing reads, both for fans of the band and the American punk scene), but now longtime Stooge fan Jim Jarmusch has finished the doco he’s been working on for the least 8 or so years. Does it cut the mustard? Yep, but not without a few reservations.

First off, lightning strikes on the train network meant I missed the opening 25 mins. Not happy, but what can you do? What I saw I really enjoyed, but I left wanting more – details are glossed over or sometimes frustratingly short. I get it, you only have so much time, and with Iggy Pop now one of only two surviving band members, well, you take what can get. Fortunately, there’s a good amount of footage with the Asheton brothers (Ron and Scott) and saxophonist Steve McKay, but the bulk of the film is narrated by Pop and James Williamson, who’s post band career as an exec at Sony bringing much laughter from the audience.

It’s an oddly bloodless film – for all of the stories of debauchery, chemical indulgence and general bad behaviour concerning the band there’s precious little of it in the film. Sure, I’m happy that that’s not the sole content of the film*, but it struck me as somewhat sanitised, like an episode of Behind the Music. It’s almost too much a fan of it’s subject to be objective – treating them as the single greatest thing before and since sliced bread. I mean, I adore the Stooges, but they aren’t the Ramones.** There’s no mention of Pop’s solo career and a tiny mention of the Asheton’s various post Stooges bands, until the groups ‘reunification’ (As Pop calls it) in the early 2000’s for one of Pop’s solo albums, followed by a more formal reunion, ending with the death of the Asheton brothers, Ron in 2009 and Scott in 2014. Tragedy and triumph in equal measure.

On a side note, while the Golden Age cinema is lovely (From the little time I spent there), it really didn’t feel… me. It was dark, with pretty people having conversations over expensive looking cocktails. (The place I’ve felt most uncomfortable was still the Ivy Bar in Sydney, which I spent about an hour in after a work function and immediately wanted to burn to the ground and salt the Earth so nothing would grow there again. But I digress…) There was also the audience – there was the occasional chuckle at a joke or sad noise at an annoucement of a band member’s death, but little else. I’m reminded of seeing Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey at a film festival in Sydney, with the hilarious contrast of the audience being half tweed jacket wearing David Stratton wannabes and the other half looking like… well, me.

13580523_907695662675802_8702796923274474296_oSelf portrait by the author.

What really got me was they barely seemed to move duing the film, outside of looking for the toilet. I don’t understand people who can listen to music and not be moved by it. Take the opening riff to ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ or the chaotic shrieking of ‘Funhouse’ – how are you not up and rocking out? Reminds me of seeing Metallica a few years ago where there was a guy sitting a few seats away who barely moved through the show, not even when The Four Horsemen kicked in. Not for Master of Puppets, Ride the Lightning, not even Seek and Destroy. There was a point there I wasn’t sure he was breathing… Look, I’m probably taking it too seriously, an accusation that’s been leveled at me before and to which I say guilty as charged m’lud. But this is some of the finest music comitted to tape and to sit down and not move while it’s playing is something that SHOULD NOT BE DONE.

If you’re  a Stooges fan, it’s well worth checking out. If you aren’t, buy the albums first and then check this out. Of course, you should have the albums already, but I’ve been known to judge people on how many Ramones albums they own, so I’m not exactly unbiased.

3.5 Street Walking Cheetahs out of 5.

*If I want that I’ll re-read Motley Crue’s The Dirt.
** A fact acknowledged by no less an authority on the matter than Lemmy himself.

*cue opening theme*

It is a time of hope in the galaxy. The Rebel Alliance has struck a mighty blow with the destruction of the Empires dread new weapon, the DEATH STAR, but even as the Rebels celebrate, the Empire is far from defeated. The spark of rebellion that was close to being extinguished now blazes brightly across the galaxy. In the remote Lesaan system, a brave band of Rebels seek to strike a blow to help end the Empire’s tyranny…

There was an animated discussion over how many fingers Mon Calamari have and how that impacts upon their ability to flip the bird. I should be expecting this sort of thing more from my players and yet…*

So, the game itself? Well, there’s the Mon Cal commando (Who unfortunately didn’t have time to watch the film leading up to the first session), the Jawa Force-User (Who might have read the journal that Obi-Wan left for Luke, but he made sure to put it back), and a pair of human saboteurs (Apologies for the lack of details, but they took their character sheets home with them), all hoping to blow stuff up in the name of the Rebel Alliance.

It started with them looking at an Imperial installation they’d been ordered to investigate, as Intel had word that something was being cooked up there. Blowing it up was the ifrst idea, with dropping a starship on it from orbit an early idea. (That was suggested in one of the player’s other games, though in that game the idea was to drop a capital ship on the base) This got switched to smashing a truck through the wall and hoping that blows up the fuel depot (I’m happy they chose that option, as the widespread ecological devastation that would have resulted was a little dark for the first session), a slightly more sensible plan (Especially as the Mon Cal was somewhat horrified by the idea of going in through the sewers). Team Alien went to steal a truck, while Team Human went to mug some Army Troopers for their uniforms. Both plans went relatively well (Even with the pickup line being incredibly close to “Hey, do you want to go to that alley so you can see my boobs and I can stab you?”), thankfully followed by a pair of stun bolts and a quick cut to party members changing clothes bit. The law was alerted to the theft, but I’ll admit to dropping the ball on that GM wise.

Hotwiring the truck had a bit of a delay, with the Jawa accidentally plugging his R2 unit into the wrong socket (NOTE: That was not a euphemism).  Team Alien then ran for the other side of the Imperial base while Team Human waited (With the fire extinguisher from the truck) for the explosion and planned to ingratiate themselves with the fire-fighting effort. The truck hit the fence, smashed partway through and went kaboom. Team Human raced to join the fire-fighting efforts, while Team Alien tried to sneak inside in the confusion. Some failed sneak rolls and an attempt at telekinesis later, Team Alien were busy getting shot at**. Meanwhile, Team Human had made their way inside and found themselves in R&D, which turned out to be a bio-weapons facility.

After changing into hazmat suits, they proceeded under cover of a surprise inspection, asking for a tour of the lab which the lead scientist was happy to give. He explained that they were developing a substance (Hey, I couldn’t resist trying to add a little enigma to it) that targeted non-humans,  though they hadn’t worked out all the issues yet, namely being that some humans were still affected. Team Human left, informing Team Alien of their discovery, with the party being happy they didn’t just drop a ship on it from orbit. Anyhow, they’re on route to try to bail out Team Alien and hopefully destroy the facility without releasing the substance. They might even rescue the test subjects in the lab while they’re at it! We shall see…

Things I need to do for next session:
Relearn the system, especially the different between the Persuasion and Con skills.Also, possibly fold some skills together.
Have more people shoot at the PC’s. There was an express lack of gunfire and for that I blame only myself.
Not worry so much. I don’t need as much opening flavour text, or detail, and while I thought I wouldn’t have enough plot, I’ve still got a fair bit left. It’ll need expanding for next session, but it’s good to know I’ve got a start.
Also, if I’m going to write an opening monologue (Like the intros to Clone Wars, not the text crawl from the films), then I should remember to deliver the bloody thing.

Lastly, damn it feels good to be running this game again. It’s been a long time, a long time…

*It was decided by the GM they have 5 fingers and can flip the bird.
** There was some fucking awful dice rolling that session. The surprise was it wasn’t just mine!