| Show ball B-ball Diaries Soundtrack is an I by Justin Wood Feature Editor How many of us know who Jim Carroll is Furthermore how many of us care to find out New Line Cinema is hoping its it's upcoming The Basketball Diaries will introduce us to the life of this troubled man In addition to living the life and writing the book upon which the movie is based Carroll pops up on five fi ve of 0 f the 15 1 5 songs son g son on the soundtrack album New songs by Pearl Jam The Cult and Red Hot Chili Peppers' Peppers bassist Flea promise an exciting moving fast-moving album Sadly most of the songs are weak and the result is horribly ly uneven The Jim Carroll Band kicks in what is arguably the most upbeat song on the album People Who Died is a sick and twisted but surprisingly cheerful roll call of Can oils childhood friends who met untimely deaths Star by the Cult features a driving wah-wah wah bass line Like past Cult tunes Fire Woman Love Removal Machine and Sweet Soul Sister this is another shouting ode to one of singer Ian Astbury's women Of all the songs included this would be most at home on FM radio Also among the best of the batch batchis is a Jim Pearl Carroll Jam song Stone Catholic Boy As expected Gossard and Mike McCready's guitars wind around one another Ii like ke kemating mating rattlesnakes but missing is a toothed clench-toothed Eddie Vedder growling growling growling growl growl- ing the twenty-something twenty angst that defines Pearl Jams Jam's music In his place is Carroll spouting his own slightly amusing angst about birth childhood and religion For a thematic comparison checkout Bad to the Bone by George Thorogood or Eric Clapton's recent re-make re of the blues standard Coochie Man Other selections dont don't fare so sowell sowell well veIl PJ Harveys Harvey's Down By the Water Vater starts off like a demented take on I Left My Heart in San Francisco and doesn't end up much better The Doors epic Riders on the Storm is out of place and out of date Dizzy by Green Apple Quick Step is lite grunge-lite with a chorus like a mating cross-mating of B Buddy Holly and the Vapors Vapor's Turning Japanese Blind Dog is a adark adark adark dark ponderous piece of music Danzig on a bad day and Ive Been Down proves that Flea Rea cant can't sing to save his life My advice is this If you see the commercials and like them see the movie If you see the movie and like it it buy the soundtrack If you buy the soundtrack and dont don't like it dont don't say I didn't warn you |
