http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:12:14 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/14/231214.php Mark HastyMost car magazines are written by and for people who move their lips when they read. This is a little disconcerting for the thinking gearhead. Honest, intelligent opinions about cars and the auto industry can be hard to come by. But without Car & Driver magazine, finding such opinions might well be impossible.The magazine celebrated its 50th year of publication during 2005 with a year-long flood of special content, peaking with a special 50th anniversary issue this July, along with a weekend-long party at (where else?) the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But one part of that celebration is just now trickling out to customers: a high-quality coffee-table book published by Hachette Filipacchi, the magazine's current owners.Written by former C/D staffer Martin Padgett, the book covers the magazine's history, from its roots as a regional racing-enthusiast publication, through its difficult first few years as a pro-import voice amid the golden age of big Detroit iron, lingering extensively during the muscle-car era of the late 1960s, then sort of rushing the reader through the magazine's most recent quarter-century. A number of the magazine's greatest articles and editorials are reproduced in whole or part, including the infamous "GTO vs. GTO" article of 1964, which established C/D's tone as an irreverent, iconoclastic voice for the thinking car geek. You can also read Brock Yates' account of the real "Cannonball Run," an actual coast-to-coast road race held on multiple occasions in the years prior to the Burt Reynolds/Dom DeLuise farce. An infamous multi-car comparison held in Baja California is also reprinted, along with lurid accounts of dead cows, morditas, and flooded Nissans. Long-time C/D staffer Patrick Bedard was the first automotive journalist to qualify for the Indy 500; his account of a horrific crash in the 1984 race is compelling reading for anybody who's ever dreamed of racing at Indy, and fortunately, it's in this book. Padgett even includes his own very funny account of a one-night stint in the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show as a "human battering ram."What has always made C/D unique among car magazines has been its continual editorial policy of finding good writers and letting them write. The personalities of C/D's staffers always come through in their writing. This has had the effect of making C/D one of the better-written magazines on any subject, let alone cars. Padgett allows the reader to peek behind the curtain a bit at some of the larger-than-life personalities who have shaped the magazine, editors like David E. Davis Jr. (who would go on to found Automobile magazine), Brock Yates, Patrick Bedard, Don Sherman, and many others. For long-time fans of the magazine like myself, this is a real treat and I found myself greedily wanting more of it. But I suppose Padgett had an obligation not to drag down the book with too much "inside baseball" talk.The book looks fantastic. The quality of photography and typography is simply stunning. Magazines aren't printed in such a way as to last forever; this book allows longtime C/D readers to really see some of the magazine's stunning photographs for the first time.One quibble I have is that much--make that much--of the book's content is lifted more or less verbatim from the 50th anniversary issue of the magazine. Virtually all of Patrick Bedard's comments come from the several pieces he wrote for that issue, for example. There's really nothing wrong with using the magazine's own version of its history as a source, but for most C/D fans it represents a redundancy. And if this $50 (suggested list) book isn't for C/D fans, who is it for?Nevertheless, radical C/D completists such as myself (I have every issue since December 1969) know they have to have this book. It probably isn't as good as it could have been. But it's still very, very good. Just like the magazine. Books39553@blogcritics.org Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:12:14 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/03/23/120239.php Mark HastySlowly, surely--and I peg it to the rise of Whitney Houston in the '80s, with her superb voice but distracting, ostentatious leaps of register, drawn-out syllables, and excruciated facial expressions intended to signal how hard she was working to achieve her effects--we ended up with hideous stars like Christina Aguilera, all squinched eyes, fluttery hands, and taffy-pulled syllabics. Recognizing that America was now a safe haven for florid hacks, producer Simon Fuller brought the Idol franchise to the network owned by the schlockiest mogul, Rupert Murdoch, and Fox premiered American Idol in June 2002.I quote that paragraph, from page 92 of Ken Tucker's Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy: 100 Thing to Love and Hate about TV, for two reasons. Firstly, Tucker has managed to sum up exactly what's wrong with both TV and pop music circa 2005 in just two sentences. Secondly, this is one of the few coherent paragraphs in the entire book, so long as you're willing to look past words like "excruciated" and "squinched."Tucker's idea of writing a book-length version of a VH1 'Top 100' marathon is impeccably timed. It seems we just can't get enough predigested opinions broken down into manageable chunks, and Tucker's experience as TV critic for the nonmagazine Entertainment Weekly certainly qualifies him to provide us with such. Tucker performs a variety of public services in this book, like pointing out that the "Seinfeld" theme is awful, and both "The Brady Bunch" and A Charlie Brown Christmas fall well short of the exalted places they occupy in our psyches. He also throws out a huge valentine to Aaron Sorkin's "SportsNight," which is always a shortcut to my good side. With a nice mix of goring sacred cows and praising pap unironically, Tucker takes the reader on a tour through TV-land's good and bad neighborhoods.But you won't enjoy the ride.I won't mince words: this is one of the worst-written, most atrociously edited books I've ever had the misfortune of spending money for. In fact, if I'd merely checked this book out of the library, I'd still feel ripped off. Some of Tucker's run-on sentences are spliced together more than a past-due film school project, which explains why there are multiple sentences in this book without either a subject or a predicate. If the author can't keep track of what a sentence is supposed to be about, how is the reader supposed to? This book's copy-editing sins go far beyond tortured grammar, however. Who signed off on a chapter heading like "Schlock Forgotton: Silk Stalkings"? The factual errors in this book range from mild (referring to the detectives on "Miami Vice" as "Crockett and Stubbs") to preposterous (referring to one of John Larroquette's "Night Court" co-stars, who is still very much alive, as "the late Richard Moll"). Crikey, Mr. Tucker, IMDB is free. It would have confirmed Richard Moll's continued existence. It would have confirmed the correct names of the characters on "Miami Vice." It would've even confirmed that Michael McKean had not "been a Spinal Tapper" at the start of "Laverne & Shirley" as you claim, since This Is Spinal Tap was released a year after L&S went off the air. The fault doesn't entirely lie with Ken Tucker, however. Authors make mistakes all the time; book editors are supposed to catch them. That's what they get paid for. But the sheer volume of errors in Kissing O'Reilly makes me wonder if anybody at St. Martin's Press even bothered to read Tucker's manuscript before publication. I'm guessing not, so I can't help but marvel at their temerity in charging such a ridiculous price for this unreadable book. I want my $22.95 back, and I'd recommend you not give yours to them in the first place. Books27157@blogcritics.org Wed, 23 Mar 2005 12:02:39 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/28/213206.php Mark HastyYou may not know the Norwegian indie-pop duo the Kings of Convenience, but you've probably heard their song "Toxic Girl"--it was used in a TMobile commercial about a year ago. "She'll talk to you with no one else around/But only if you're able to entertain her . . ."If you heard that song, you pretty much heard their last album, Quiet Is the New Loud. It was a pretty album, but after a while it got hard to tell one track from the other. Not that I minded, particularly; their gently flowing acoustic pop suited my ears just fine. The Kings of Convenience resemble nothing quite so much as a cross between early Simon and Garfunkel and Sudan Village-era Seals and Crofts.But the 2001 remix album Versus was a revelation, if only because adding even the slightest bit of frosting to Erik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye's songs made them feel more complete. The Kings have learned from the experience, so Riot On An Empty Street has instruments other than acoustic guitars and Casiotone drums.That's not to say that they've moved away from their warm coffeehouse pop. Stylistically, Riot picks up where Quiet left off, sounding like Sam's Club was having a clearance sale on major-7th chords and old Left Banke albums. However, the songs vary tempo and meter a lot more than previously. Heck, "I'd Rather Dance With You" even comes dangerously close to rocking out.Still, the tracks on Riot are largely quiet, introspective, brainy, angsty pop songs. And the Kings' trademark perfectionism is on full display; it sounds like they spent hours considering the necessity and impact of every note on the album. So what works on this album really works. "Sorry or Please" is a great song about relationship ambiguity; "Cayman Islands" is a lush masterwork; "Homesick" is a great ode to lousy minimum-wage jobs. The Jobim-esque samba of "Live Long" is another highlight.For me, though, the album's masterwork is the closing track "The Build Up," a loping shuffle co-written with guest vocalist Leslie Feist of Broken Social Scene. Feist's vocals recall Astrud Gilberto at her most soulful and provide this album with its most musically interesting moments.And that just brought out the ultimate flaw in what really is a very nice album--while Bøe and Øye are good harmonists and songwriters, they can sound awfully stiff at times. You don't really notice it until Feist takes a lead, but then it's pretty evident. The Kings did well by closing with "The Build Up"; had it appeared earlier on the album, the rest of the songs would've sounded flat by comparison. Indeed, after hearing Feist purr her way through "The Build Up" it dawned on me that there wasn't a spontaneous-sounding moment on the album up to that point. Like I said, you can tell the care and thought that went into making this album; however, the swing was the first casualty. Even Bøe's little vocal slides on "Surprise Ice" sound forced.It's fair to say that, while this album is significantly better than the last, the Kings would do well to quit worrying so much about the notes and pay a little more attention to the music. Riot On An Empty Street is not a bad listen, but it's frustrating to hear songs with so much potential being let down by timid, conservative performances. Music17990@blogcritics.org Wed, 28 Jul 2004 21:32:06 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/27/175811.php Mark Hasty"Now, Cos, he likes the JAZZZZZ, y'see? When the drummer goes 'rip bop slabbada doongk paah shank-a klook-a-mop,' and the BASS . . . is goin' 'buh-doom bup doom bop-a doong bop diddly-doom' and the TRUMP'T . . is like 'wuuAAAAAAHH' . . . So, he took these ol' tapes, y'see? And he gave them to a bunch a the young . . . PEOPLE . . . you know, with the pants down to here, and the hats on backwards, and the shoes on sideways, and he told them, 'MAKE . . . a new RECORD . . . outta these SONGS!' So they went into their studios, and the started framzin' with the knobs and frippin' with the slider things and they took this part of that song and that part of this song, y'see, and then they took the drummer goin' 'doon doon PANG chuck-a-log-a GUGGA-doon' and the keyboards goin' 'deet-deet-DEE-d'deet-d'deet' and pretty soon even ol' Cos couldn't recognize his songs anymore . . . but it was cool."And hey, it is cool. Concord Records recently released two albums' worth of ultra-rare music recorded for Bill Cosby's 1969-1971 NBC variety show. Sort of. I mean, they've definitely released the two albums. It's just that one of them is full of jam sessions that grew out of the music for Cos' show, and the other is an ambitious remix/remake album featuring some of the underground's better-regarded musical soda jerks.First, the old stuff: The Original Jam Sessions 1969 features 11 recordings of 8 Bill Cosby/Quincy Jones originals, plus the Edwin Hawkins classic "Oh Happy Day." All this music was recorded for the aforementioned variety show, but most of it has been sitting around unheard since about 1971 or so. The musicians are mostly LA-studio first-call types (with Milt Jackson's always-tasty vibes playing thrown in for good measure), and the sound is everything you'd expect from late-60s soul-jazz: Fender Rhodes, wocka-wocka guitar, pingy-sounding drums, and the absolute groove of death. Even if nobody on the entire album goes too far out with a solo, the overall vibe is just so cool, it'll have you writing movie screenplays just so you can find a use for the music. I'm not sure I really needed three versions of "Hikky-Burr" (the theme song for the show), but that's a small quibble.A larger one is that some of this music sounds an awful lot like production music. You either love the stuff or you don't (I love it), but it's perhaps not as "jammy" as the title might have you believe. Still, it's nearly an hour of killer jazz-funk, and it's a good bet you've never heard most of it before.Now, we all know that some of the great music of the 60s and 70s has become source material for all sorts of creative souls who spin the most wonderful remixes, and Concord let a diverse crew have at this Cosby/Jones material to see what they could do with it. That's what The New Mixes is all about.This isn't really your standard remix album--most of those involved just borrowed bits and pieces from the jam sessions and built entirely new songs out of them. While the album suffers from a little bit too much sound-alikeism, there are some sparkling tracks here. Los Amigos Invisibles' contribution "Pelando" is the only track here which truly swings--drummer Juan Manuel Roura and bassist José Rafael Torres are the most locked-together rhythm section this side of Billy Martin and Chris Wood. Herbert creates the most freaked-out track here, the totally recombinant "(Matthew Herbert's) Technically Amateur Mix", which sounds like Bill Cosby's infamous "trifocals" routine set to music. Cornershop tries to go Air/Dmitri From Paris on "Valeurs Personelles" with reasonable results. Bedrock soaks up plenty of Bags on their track "Glimmer." Most of the rest of the tracks are good, if a bit anonymous. This was an interesting, creative project.But in the long run, I think I like the original jam sessions better. Nothing against today's CRTL-x/CRTL-v artists, but nothing will ever substitute for the interactions of live musicians. The Jam Sessions could certainly swing harder and sound better (some of the mixes are a bit odd), but still, it's JAZZZZZZZ, y'see . . . Music17933@blogcritics.org Tue, 27 Jul 2004 17:58:11 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/24/104000.php Mark HastyFrom the Minneapolis Star Tribune comes word that director Robert Altman is about to begin work on a film loosely based on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion radio show:Keillor said Altman is thinking of the story "as a fictional documentary, but I think it's just a big joke -- with Miss Streep and Lily Tomlin as a fading sister duet act, and Tom Waits and Lyle Lovett as Dusty and Lefty, the singing cowboys."Judge said "Prairie Home Companion" is likely to be the film's title: "We certainly want to take advantage of the audience who knows and listens to the program."I would go see this movie, and I don't even listen to APHC. But I do have wonderful memories of Keillor's book WLT: A Radio Romance, one of the finest light novels (in my opinion) of the 90s.The article notes that financing for this movie is still pending, but I can't imagine it being too tricky to arrange with such known and beloved quantities involved.(First posted at THE BEMUSEMENT PARK.) Video17787@blogcritics.org Sat, 24 Jul 2004 10:40:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/18/185928.php Mark HastyFull disclosure: I think everybody who dares to write critically about music should be devoted to at least one terminally unhip band, and mine is Chicago. Not "Chicago the Dopey Mid-80s Ballad Machine," but the fierce, inventive group that put out about six or seven great albums in the early 70s before descending into a middle-of-the-road morass which they barely survived.One reason for the band's artistic decline was that they quit recording songs by the person who wrote and sang most of their earliest hits: Robert Lamm, the band's keyboardist. (No, really--Chicago wasn't always Peter Cetera's backup band.) Lamm is the glassy baritone heard on "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?", "Saturday In The Park," and "Beginnings." For some reason (*cough*PETER CETERA), Lamm faded into the background of the group around '75, and still hasn't exactly re-emerged.You could sense Lamm's frustration on his two solo albums previous to Subtlety and Passion, 1995's Life Is Good In My Neighborhood and 1999's In My Head. Both albums had their share of blatantly non-Chicago moments, with Lamm even assaying a turn at hip-hop(!) on In My Head. It was a clear cry for help from a guy who'd spent too long as a prisoner in an adult-contemporary nostalgia factory. Now, though, with Chicago essentially without a record deal but still an active touring band, Lamm has abandoned any delusions of contemporaneity and come out with what amounts to a brand-new old Chicago album: Subtlety and Passion.Heck, he's even dug up an old Terry Kath guitar solo and written new music to fit around it (the lite-funk of "Intensity"). Every track on Subtlety and Passion has the feel of a long-forgotten Chicago album track. The sound is lush, warm, and organic; there's a distinct Brazilian vibe to many of the songs, as there was on Chicago tracks like "Call On Me," "Another Rainy Day in New York City," "No Tell Lover," and the sublime "Beginnings."Lamm is still willing to explore social commentary in his music as well, skewering the silliness of made-for-TV awards shows on "Gimme Gimme" and looking at post-9/11 personal realities in the stark, electronic "It's Always Something." "You Never Know The Story" is a touching tribute to Terry Kath and Miles Davis. There's another reason why this has the feel of a classic Chicago album, and that's because the entire band as it is currently constituted appears on it. Not every member appears on every song, but the whole band is here, and the horns are given a prominence they haven't really had since the late 70s. It's a kick to hear the Chicago horns at high dudgeon, and properly recorded for a change. Lamm himself is in good form as well. He throws some cool Fender Rhodes work into almost every song, and his voice hasn't lost much over time.Now, even though I've spent a few paragraphs telling you that this album instantly recalls Chicago's heyday, don't go thinking that this album is a time-warp back to 1975. The songs fit Chicago's old style quite well, but they do represent a gradual musical evolution. And, amazingly, while Chicago was always about as pop as a band gets, after a couple listens to Subtlety and Passion, I keep having the same thought: There's not a track here that wouldn't sound out of place on the local "smooth-jazz" station. (Well, except for the fact that it's just a little too interesting to be thrown up against the likes of Messrs. Koz and G; it would only discourage them, and then what would we listen to in the dentist's office? Savage Garden?)All in all, I like this album, but a lot of that is because I like Chicago. Small matter; the people this album is for, it's really for. And I'm happy to be one of those people. Music17573@blogcritics.org Sun, 18 Jul 2004 18:59:28 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/14/144029.php Mark HastySo the other day I pulled out an album I hadn't listened to in a couple years: Interiors, the 1997 album by Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard's side project, Brad. And I let the first five songs play, and I said to myself, "My gosh, this album is just about perfect."And it is, really. The album opens with the shoulda-been-a-Pearl-Jam-song, but-it's-too-poppy "Secret Girl," then shifts abruptly into the swinging coffeehouse soul of "The Day Brings," some epic meter-shifting album rock ("Lift"), folk-funk ("I Don't Know"), and then something that sounds sort of like what Nick Drake would have sounded like if he'd lived long enough to become a Goth ("Upon My Shoulders"). That's as good a run of five songs as any other band has ever put on record.And the rest of the album is just thiiiiiiis close to being completely unlistenable, a bunch of arty post-punk garbage.Why couldn't they have stopped at five songs, called it an EP, and left it at that? Why ruin the potential of five great songs by not bothering to write the rest of the album? It's still a mystery to me. Sure, Brad had about as much potential as Tin Machine or the Dukes of Stratosphear, but still . . .Other "quit while you're ahead" albums I've enjoyed half of include Wilco's A.M. (starts with a Murderer's Row of five genre-defining songs, then dissolves into nothingness), the Style Council's Confessions of a Pop Group (leave out "The Gardener of Eden," and it's no worse than any other Style Council album), and Aztec Camera's High Land, Hard Rain (I always stop listening after "Lost Outside The Tunnel"). Originally posted at The Bemusement Park. Music17445@blogcritics.org Wed, 14 Jul 2004 14:40:29 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/13/180215.php Mark HastyHere's the news we were all waiting for: actress Lindsay Lohan, famous mostly for being eighteen years old and female, has signed a long-term recording contract with Tommy Mottola's Casablanca Records. (There's a Mariah Carey joke in here somewhere, but I'm too depressed to make it right now.)What to expect from Ms. Lohan's music? Well, it's too early to speculate, especially in light of this:No other details were released, but if her singing voice -- heard on the "Freaky Friday" and "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" soundtracks -- is an indication, Lohan's tunes will probably be pure pop.Great! I was wondering when there was finally going to be some more frothy teen pop coming out! I'm getting so sick of all these talented vocalists singing songs that are actually about something. You go, girl! Music17409@blogcritics.org Tue, 13 Jul 2004 18:02:15 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/12/194412.php Mark HastyJust a note: Allmusic.com has greatly revamped its site, improving the look and navigation--but best of all, adding the possibility to listen to short audio clips from just about every artist in their database. (In a brief press release, productivity announced its formal surrender.) Sci/Tech17362@blogcritics.org Mon, 12 Jul 2004 19:44:12 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/07/12/193404.php Mark HastyIt's hard to remember a time when "teen pop" wasn't brain-dead. The genre has always been filled with ham-fisted emotional statements and triple-sanded pop hooks. And even though these are especially dire times for teen-oriented music, it's not like the Bay City Rollers or Frankie Avalon ever succeeded in making big statements to their generation--or even anything worth humming many years hence.But what about the other kind of "teen pop"--the kind that's made by teenagers instead of for them? Buddy Holly was only nineteen when he began his recording career; Tommy Bolin had made two albums with Zephyr by the time he turned 20. And certainly, in every town in America, there was at least one band of high-school kids writing original songs and daring to dream big. Most of them were as bad as Johnny Bravo, though, and they're best left in the past.Then again, San Francisco in the mid-60s was a different place, maybe the only place in America with a fully cross-pollinated music scene. Wendy and Bonnie Flower (their real names, believe it or not) were fortunate enough to grow up there at that time, and to have connections to Cal Tjader, the foremost non-Latino in the Latin jazz movement. Tjader helped the sisters land a record contract; in 1968, they dove into the studio with some of LA's top session musicians and recorded their Genesis album.The album went nowhere upon its 1969 release; their record label tanked, their producer died, and Wendy and Bonnie might have vanished into history with all the other garage bands. But a few copies of Genesis fell into the right hands, giving the album a lasting underground buzz. For most of the 80s and 90s, it was an album more often talked about than heard, acquiring a near-legendary status among fans of 60s psychedelic pop.Finally, in 2001, the Sundazed label acquired the rights to Genesis and released an expanded version on CD. Listening to Genesis is a walk backwards to the late 60s. Sonically, the album is sort of a folk/lounge/Debussy mashup whose most distinguishing characteristic is the powerful blend of Wendy and Bonnie's voices. The session players (aces like Jim Keltner, Larry Carlton, and Michael Melvoin) try their best to keep the sound out of the coffeehouse, but Wendy's songs simply reek of caffeine and study hall. There's a melodic and harmonic sophistication that one might not expect from a teenage songwriter, but it's clear that Wendy's stylistic horizons were somewhat limited. (Although the sisters' penchant for suddenly breaking into madrigal-type singing in the middle of folk-pop songs is certainly intriguing.)And the lyrics, my gosh, the lyrics . . . I can guess what "The Paisley Window Pane" is supposed to be about, and a bitter love song like "You Keep Hanging Up On My Mind" could only have been written back when people actually talked about minds. (Or had them, I suppose.) The lyrics today seem almost painfully optimistic, though that probably says more about our times than it does the late 60s. Because you just know a lot of Boomers had words like Wendy and Bonnie's in their journals: "If I could ride the wind/High above the things which trouble me/Far above the human race/Forgetting what's really happening."The lyrics are shot through with hippy-dippy sentiment, but the music more than compensates. The sisters' harmonies are simply gorgeous. So much so, in fact, that it's difficult to listen to Genesis all the way through--after about seven or eight tracks, it gets a little overwhelming, like trying to eat a giant wedge of blue cheese. It's better appreciated in small doses--in fact, this album would make killer chill-out mix-tape source material.Oh, and there's one other thing you'll notice upon listening to Genesis: you'll frequently hear a little musical moment or two that will make you think of the Bangles. They were such Wendy and Bonnie fans, they asked Bonnie to join the group. She declined. Music17361@blogcritics.org Mon, 12 Jul 2004 19:34:04 EDT