2022 has been an unprecedented year of eclectic live events of all sorts for Rewind It Magazine, thanks largely in part to the various concerts held at Epcot in Orlando, FL, the most recent of them being Ray Parker Jr. at the park’s latest Eat to the Beat concert series on Friday, October 21.
Although forever known for being the composer and performer of the hit 1984 single “Ghostbusters” (which served as the theme to the film of the same name), Parker has been churning out hits since the ’70s as founding member of funk/R&B outfit Raydio, as well as his collaborations with numerous artists like Stevie Wonder and Barry White.
Parker’s set that night appropriately featured hits throughout his career, opening with two tracks from his Raydio days, “Jack and Jill,” “You Can’t Change That,” and “A Woman Needs Love (Just Like you Do),” three tracks that I had previously forgotten even existed (the middle number being what I actually refer to as a ‘Walgreens’ song, which is what I called songs that used to play while I worked there years ago).
Ray Parker, Jr. lights up the stage in Orlando, FL on 10/21/22.
Parker than followed this up with his 1982 hit “The Other Woman” from the album of the same name before indulging in a brief guitar solo. After that, he went into “that song,” and fans in attendance clutching their Ghostbusters records were finally able to fully rejoice.
The song is truly timeless, stretching across multiple generations and living on nearly four decades after its original release. Hooky no doubt but still fun nonetheless, especially in a live setting, and I’m sure everyone who was there to hear it in person last weekend would surely agree.
Unlike the majority of fans, my introduction to the Halloween franchise actually came long before I even knew the first thing about Michael Myers. I was rounding near ten years old, and my family had just finally upgraded to cable television for the first time ever when I was searching through the channels late one October evening to discover Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
It was probably playing on USA Network or one of those other channels like it at the time, and it was well into three quarters of the movie already. My very first impression of a Halloween movie actually had nothing to do with Michael Myers, but was of Tom Atkins stalking around a dark, desolate town, with a creepy synth-driven score from John Carpenter and Alan Howarth accentuating the overall eerie scene. I was hooked, and having no prior frame of reference, it did not matter to me who was or was not in the film, or the previous entries that came before it.
When Halloween III: Season of the Witch, directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, first dropped in theaters on October 22, 1982, it was meant to be the first of numerous anthology films centered around Halloween itself, rather than just a monster with a knife. But audiences were not quite prepared for such a drastic change at the time, despite the endless possibilities this concept could have brought (the film was a modest box office success, earning just over $14 million on a $2.5 million budget).
Atkins stars as Dr. Dan Challis, a middle -aged, divorced, drunken physician who gets drawn into a web of evil and destruction after a man dies on his watch at the hospital, clutching a mysterious Halloween mask manufactured by a company called Silver Shamrock. When the deceased man’s sexy young daughter (Stacey Nelkin) starts looking for answers, Challis is more than willing to assist her with the task (and then some).
A display of the fictional town portrayed in the film, Santa Mira, from Fantasm Orlando on 10/3/21 (photo by Brooke Striewski).
The two soon uncover that Silver Shamrock is the work of Conal Cochran (Daniel O’Herlihy), a Pagan warlock hell-bent on unleashing unspeakable evil across the world via the masks on Halloween night. It quickly becomes a race against time to prevent the madman from seeing his destructive plot through and causing harm to an untold number of innocent lives.
While it’s taken some time, Halloween III: Season of the Witch has finally reached a level of cult status it rightfully deserved. Last year at the Fantasm horror convention Orlando, FL, there was not only countless amounts of merchandise from the film for the eye to see, but I was lucky enough to meet Atkins himself (see photo below).
When asked why he thought the film has seen such a resurgence in popularity in recent times, Atkins simply said; “I don’t know why people love it so much, but it just seems to be becoming more popular every year!” His reply might have been modest, but I can easily point to the number of reasons why it’s not only my favorite Halloween film, but also one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Not only does it hold a special place for me for being my introduction to the series, it beautifully emobodied everything about the creepiest day of the year on a level that very few films in the genre have managed to capture before or since.
Actor Tom Atkins with (from left to right) Rewind It’s Jacob, Jesse, and Brooke Striewski at Fantasm Orlando on 10/3/21.
So, Halloween finally ends, huh? For me, it was over twenty years ago when Michael Myers offed Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in 2002’s Resurrection, but that’s just me. Last year’s atrocious Halloween Kills had to be my least favorite of all the films in the franchise (next to only the Rob Zombie entries), but what can really be said about this latest installment that hasn’t already been said, and without giving away too much?
On the surface, it could just be considered an experiment gone terribly, terribly wrong. But there’s much to unpack here. And in the five days since its release, audiences have almost universally panned the film for the direction it takes. It starts out a basic origin story, highlighting the torment and eventual descent into madness of the bullied Corey Cunnigham (Rohan Campbell). The problem that exists – other than the fact that this takes away from the Michael vs. Laurie showdown that everyone was hoping for – is who is this character, and why in the hell should we even care about him?
The ensuing love story aspect between Cunnigham and Laurie’s adorable granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) actually works in its own weird way, but feels better suited for another film entirely. But that aside, the rest of what is left is a heaping pile of metaphorical mess, clumped together by Director David Gordon Green’s would-be unique vision. Even the “kills” feel forced and largely unnecessary, if one can actually believe that.
Speaking of unnecessary, this entire newer trilogy that began in 2018 could have honestly just never happened and the world would not have missed a single beat. In fact, the best thing to even comes out of these films in my opinion has simply been the well-crafted John and Cody Carpenter (and Daniel Davies) composed music score, which was indeed the highlight of Ends (throwing in the Dead Kennedys’ “Halloween” during a party scene was a nice touch as well).
But you know where the music and storylines were even better? The original films. I’d much rather go back and re-watch Halloween III: Season of the Witch (my personal favorite, and yes that’s right, the one without Michael Myers) any day of the week. With that being said, keep an eye out for an upcoming 40th anniversary piece on the latter, dropping at the end of the week on Rewind It Magazine!
It’s ironic how the same “fans” that continue to kick and scream for Skid Row to reunite with former frontman Sebastian Bach are also the same folks who can’t name a song of theirs past the three “hits” that still receive considerable mainstream radio airplay.
Sure, Bach’s era with the band was no doubt their peak, but they’ve long since moved on without him, going through a host of different singers in the meantime and avoiding opening up the door to that former toxic relationship again (regardless of which party was in the “wrong” is really besides the point; I know I’m personally not about to go back to one of my crazy ex’s if something were to ever happen to my wife and I). Besides, plenty of other band’s have had successful careers without the face originally at the forefront…Iron Maiden comes to mind.
But I digress; newcomer Erik Gronwall’s more than an admirable fit for the band on his debut album with them, The Gang’s All Here (their first release since both 2014’s United WorldRebellion: Chapter Two EP, and the passing of former singer Johnny Solinger). The second “Hell Or High Water” hits the needle, I knew this was on a much different level from any of the work they’ve put out in more recent years with Solinger.
Ironically, the album’s first two singles, “Time Bomb” and “Tear it Down,” were my least favorite of the bunch. Numbers like “Resurrected,” “When the Lights Go Down,” and the epic seven minute power ballad “October’s Sky,” were reminiscent of 1991’s classic Slave to the Grind album, and far more interesting.
I’m actually surprised by how much I truly liked The Gang’s All Here; if the guys keep this up, they might be able to continue putting out more solid releases like this with Gronwall at the helm, despite what the critics may say or want.
On the surface, Spirit Halloween: The Movie appears to be not much more than one long promo ad for the annual store in which it takes its name from. But despite its obvious flaws and cheesy-ness, it actually works as family entertainment in the same vein as the Goosebumps films, with a nostalgic touch similar to Stranger Things thrown in for good measure as well.
The plot is far from groundbreaking; a trio of adolescent friends (played by newcommers Donavan Colan, Jaiden J. Smith, and Dylan Frankel) faced with the pressures of growing up and the societal norms that come along with it, decide to spend Halloween night in said novelty store. But of course the ghost of a crabby old landlord (Christopher Lloyd) cursed by a witch before his demise in the 1940’s, is haunting the joint and looking for a permanent new body to possess before it’s too late.
Former ’90s babe Rachel Leigh Cook co-stars as the mother of one of the young boys, and Marla Gibbs (best known from such ’70s and ’80s staples as The Jeffersons and 227) plays the strange but wise old grandmother of one of the other children, each bringing just a tad more talent to the mostly unknown cast.
Spirit Halloween (the store) has become a pop culture staple, and an annual tradition as common as the haunted house for many. All in all, the film is harmless (perhaps even a bit shameless, depending on your viewpoint) fun, and perfect fodder for the spooky season.
Decades after originally fronting notorious underground south Florida punk outfit Dead Serios, lead vocalist DL Serios (a.k.a. band mastermind and artist extraordinaire Christopher Long) has emerged with his first solo record, Pecker. But was it worth the wait?
Based off its cover alone, Pecker is everything one might expect it to be; juvenile and ambitious, yet not to be taken too seriously. Lead off single/party anthem “Feeling Freakie” kicks things off on a high note, and features the adorable Katty Pleasant on co-vocals with a fun music video to go along with it. Other fast-paced Ramones-inspired numbers like “Piss Test” and my personal favorite, “Smile Sara, Smile,” are harmless little ditties worth cranking any time of the day.
But tracks like “Me-Me, No-No” and “Boom Chick a-Pop” are a bit too on the silly side to take all that serious. All in all, Pecker is eight straight-forward tracks that don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are, but it may just be a tad too far on the niche side to appeal to a much broader audience than it already has.
If any band deserves an in-depth, career-spanning documentary, it’s everyone’s favorite shock rockers/Scumdogs of the Universe, GWAR, and I was a bit surprised by just how invested in This is GWAR I found myself becoming while watching it.
Beginning with the band’s early roots as a collective art outfit founded by Hunter Jackson and the late Dave Brockie in the mid-80s, the film goes through the band’s evolution and entire history in great detail (the way a proper documentary should). Along the way there’s copious amounts of interesting tid bits and fascinating footage that should delight even the most casual fan.
The only real downside is the rapid pace that sometimes speeds through certain eras of the band faster than desired. Personally, I would’ve liked a tad more emphasis on the making of lesser-received albums such as Ragnarok or We Kill Everything. Still, aside from including interviews from several past and present members of the band, there’s a number of celebrities that lend their thoughts and help the story along as well, including Alex Winter, Thomas Lennon, and even “Weird Al” Yankovic himself.
It’s safe to say that my interest in GWAR was put firmly back in place since viewing the film, and I’ve found myself falling down a rabbit hole of sorts and revisiting a lot of the band’s music again; hopefully it will have the same effect on you as well.
It’s honestly taken me a minute to fully appreciate Amon Amarth since initially I just thought the whole “viking metal” thing was a bit too on the “gimmicky” side. But I’ve found myself coming around to them more and more with each new album of theirs for the past two or three releases.
I don’t typically find myself going out of the way for metal with guttural vocals like theirs these days either, but I find frontman Johan Hegg’s style far more tolerable than say, Randy Blythe of Lamb of God. But the sick guitar riffs and heavy blast beats are a welcomed assault on the senses on The Great HeathenArmy.
The band introduced the world to the album with “Get in the Ring,” a hard-hitter with an equally heavy video featuring pro wrestlers like Erick Redbeard. Other songs like “Heidrun,” “Find a Way or Make One,” and “Dawn of Noresman” are all equally worth a listen. But the track that definitely caused me to sit up and listen the most was “Saxons and Vikings,” appropriately featuring guest vocals from legendary Saxon frontman Biff Byford; I knew then I was becoming a fan.
Bands like Amon Amarth aren’t for everyone’s tastes, certainly not your average mainstream rock music fan. But if you’re rock palate goes beyond the likes of Korn, you’ll probably find something to appreciate here (I for one am personally looking forward to hopefully catching the band live on their current tour now, too).
In 2017, I was able to photograph the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Amway Center in Orlando for another magazine I was writing for at the time. It was a flawless experience, and I walked away with some of my personal favorite concert shots I have ever captured. Knowing that former guitarist John Frusciante – who was absent from the lineup at said show five years ago – was back in the fold, had me even more excited to see the band again.
But a series of unfortunate personal events overshadowed the band’s recent Orlando show at Camping World Stadium this past Thursday, September 15. Beginning with…the photo pass. While I thought I had firmly secured one to shoot the band at least a good month before the show, I came to find out shortly prior that my request was never actually submitted. Strike one.
Then, the actual day of the show, while en route to it (in the pouring rain nonetheless) with the family, our vehicle decided to start overheating and eventually stall out on us completely. That was strike number two.
And lastly, even after having a friend of the family give us a ride and arranging towing all the same, we still had to wait nearly two hours in the car after arriving to the stadium thanks to the thunderstorms that continued to rage and delay the outdoor show from starting on time. That was absolutely strike number three of the night, and might have been enough to turn some people around.
Once we finally arrived and got to our seats (soaked mind you), everything we had endured up to that point slowly became worth it. Opening the stage was bass master Stephen “Thundercat” Brunner, who simply goes by the moniker Thundercat these days. I was lucky enough to not only see him perform on stage with Suicidal Tendencies in 2010 and even meet him afterwards (see attached photo below). Gracing the stage with a huge cat head on the stage behind him, Brunner went through his best licks possible with a quickness, playing a handful of songs and solos before exiting.
A much younger Jesse Striewski (left) with then-Suicidal Tendencies bassist Stephen “Thundercat” Brunner at the former Club Firestone in Orlando, FL on 11/10/10 (Photo by Pamela Bendezu).
Early 2000’s brooding rockers The Strokes followed, and were another act on the bill I was looking forward to seeing (in this case for the first time). But their sped-up, six song set didn’t leave a lot to the imagination, and it just felt as though the band was being rushed off stage as they went through tracks like “The Modern Age,” “Bad Decisions,” “Under Control,” “Juicebox,” “The Adults Are Talking,” and of course their most popular hit to date, “Last Nite.”
And finally, the Chili Peppers took stage well after the ten o’clock hour, and played what felt like an exhausting-ly long set that lasted well over an hour and a half, starting with an onstage jam that just included Frusciante, bassist Flea, and drummer Chad Smith, before frontman Anthony Kiedis joined the rest of the guys for a hyped up rendition of “Around the World.”
The group wasted no time giving the audience what they came for, playing an onslaught of hits both new and old from then on out in the form of “Dani California,” “Scar Tissue,” “Aquatic Mouth Dance,” “Snow ((Hey Oh))” and “These Are the Ways.”
One of my personal favorite moments came when they slowed things down and the rest of the guys stepped aside to allow Frusciante a moment to perform “I Remember You” by the Ramones with nothing more than his voice and guitar. It was a touching moment and fitting tribute to the band’s late guitarist Johnny Ramone, who had passed away exactly eighteen years prior on September 15, 2004.
While this seemed to confuse a good portion of the crowd, I enjoyed it much more than the following forgettable new track from the band, “Wet Sand.” But the guys quickly got back on track, playing a couple of numbers absent from their set the last time I saw them; “Soul to Squeeze” from 1993’s Coneheads film and soundtrack, and “Me and My Friends” going all the way back to 1987’s The Uplift Mofo Party Plan album (as far as they reached in their early repertoire).
By the time the band reached tracks like “Throw Away Your Television,” “Tell Me Baby,” “The Heavy Wing,” “Black Summer,” “Californication,” and “Give it Away,” (with another solo from Flea thrown in there for good measure) I had heard more than enough Chili Peppers music live to honestly last a lifetime. But we stuck with it until the band reappeared for an encore of “By the Way,” a decent enough track, but not really what comes to mind when I think of a “closer.”
Despite all of the setbacks and issues we encountered on the way, I’d say the fact we were able to still even make it was a success, and I know my teenaged son was thrilled to not only see them for the first time, but also get his first official tour shirt that night. And special thanks to local photographer Bailey Guinigundo, whose live shots made this article so much more special than it possibly could have been without them. And to our friend Kurt for coming to the rescue with a ride (without that none of it could have been possible). Thanks again guys!
When The Goldbergs first premiered on TV in 2013, it was a quaint throwback that perfectly captured the essence of when the ’80s sitcom reigned supreme, and was still an event for the whole family. That initial magic has since dissipated somewhat, yet the show keeps trudging along regardless.
The show started its decline in quality by season six or seven, and season nine (which originally aired in September of 2021) asked us to accept a lot to say the least. The first noticeable change came with the unfortunate loss of “Pops,” played by the late George Segal, who passed away in March of 2021. His death was addressed in the first episode, then mentioned a few more times throughout the season.
Then of course there was the sudden controversy that supposedly came along with actor Jeff Garlin, who has played the father Murrary on the show since day one. Some vague behind the scenes “misconduct” allegations caused the producers to replace Garlin midway through the season, deciding to use a stand-in and weird CGI to replace him instead. It was about this time that I realized the show had hit a new low.
Aside from all these issues, the plots were really nothing all that spectacular, either, many just revolving around Adam (Sean Giambrone) navigating his future with both college and his girlfriend Brea (Sadie Stanely) and Erica (Hayley Orrantia) and Geoff’s (Sam Lerner) eventual wedding. And of course there’s the usual meddling from Bev (Wendi McLendon-Covey) throughout all of these situations.
Only a couple of episodes from this season really standout; the Halloween episode that sees Adam finding solace in still celebrating the holiday via his “other” grandfather (Judd Hirsch) despite the loss of Pops. The episode also sticks out for featuring the Mistress of the Dark herself, Elvira.
And then of course there’s that wedding episode. We not only get an appearance from yet another ’80s pop star (Richard Marx), but one of the most awkward moments in the show’s tenure featuring the “stand-in” Murrary that the flimmakers actually tried to pull off as authentic. The result is one of the most cringe-worthy scenes ever to be displayed in small screen history.
The final episode (which aired in May of this year) Adam not only graduates, but we also find out that Erica is pregnant, leaving us with a somewhat predictable cliffhanger to end the season on. With season ten about to drop this evening, there’s no telling what to expect from this once-great, dwindling show. The only thing we know for sure is they’ve obviously learned from their mistakes by keeping the Murrary character going in the fashion they had, and finally decided to kill him off all together; perhaps at this point it’d be best to just put the show down as well before it gets any worse than this.
