True Blood: A Couple Of Things We Missed by Jefwithonef from Houston Press

Listen, Gothtopia makes mistakes... mostly mistakes named Amy, but sometimes we make other, non-werewolf-obsessed sex-partner mistakes too. For instance, there were two musical stories involved in this season of True Blood that the high journalism standards we try so very hard to pretend to have demanded we cover, but we just plain missed. Usually, we would have waited until the show had a lull while showing repeats to address these lapses, but this is the first season where there was literally no break in the action.

Now that it's over, we'd like to address those musicians we offended by omitting them, and the first is from right here in Houston. Chris Knudson, better known as Kanude, is a singer now based in Austin laying down a combination of rock and Americana he calls Americronica. He's wandered all over the country plying his trade, and even as far as Berlin, and earns our respect for having worked with Robert Rodriguez on the score for El Mariachi.

​Kanude's tune "Wheels" made its appearance back in the second episode, "You Smell Like Dinner." Rocks Off too busy throwing up in our mouths whenever we typed Jinx Titanic and Super 8 Cum Shot, which was the band we chose to focus on since the episode was named after their awesome single.

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True Blood: In Death There Is A Heavy Peace by Jefwithonef Houston Press

Maybe it's the fact that Gothtopia grew up with no religion, or maybe it's that fact that Gothtopia has spent too many nights with Paul Fredric of Asmodeus X in a weird competition to see who can out-nihilist the other one. Either way, death has never really had any fear for us.
Oh sure, dying sounds like it sucks the calcium deposits right off the Grim Reaper's pelvis. Cancer, car wreck, rhinoceros encounter, they all sound like way too much freakin' ouchie. Death itself, though? No, we're not really scared.

Gary Calamar, who is in charge of True Blood's music and thus also the paycheck we draw from talking about it (Hi, Gary!), knew he needed just the right vibe for the Season 4 finale of True Blood, and he knew that "And When I Die" was the song that he wanted to use.
But which version worked the best? The Laura Nyro version? After all, she wrote it. Peter, Paul & Mary, or perhaps the more famous cover by Blood, Sweat & Tears?

No, in the end Calamar got in touch with The Heavy to record a brand new version that would fully embody the half-trailer park, half Dark Shadows vibe that makes up True Blood.

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True Blood: Best. Episode. Ever. Song Ain't Bad, Either. by Jefwithonef from Houston Press

For some reason, Gothtopia has spent the last decade completely convinced that Dinosaur Jr. was from Texas. We have argued rather vehemently with many prominent local music personalities about this subject, and of course we've never bothered to look up the information like a good American. No, Dinosaur Jr. is from Amherst, Mass., and we apparently owe many, many people an apology.
Why do we bring this up? Well, J. Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. started a band called Witch in 2005, and it's a song from their 2006 self-titled album that gave this week's episode of True Blood its name. That song is "Soul of Fire."
Now, we had a mixed reaction when we found out that the song was a Witch song. On the awesome side of the scale, Danzig has a song called "Soul of Fire," which would have stomped the colons of the three parishes. On the other side of the scale, HIM has a song called "Soul of Fire," and if had turned out to be that song we would have quit this column and gone to the beach.

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True Blood: Pumping Up The Violence, Burning Down A Song by Jefwithonef

This is great from Jef and I agreed last night on the show and played the Talking Heads version - take that Gary Calamar and Alan Ball - jef should have entitled this column " armed to the fangs !! " ahhahahha

The song itself is fine. "Burning Down the House" may not be the best Talking Heads song ever. Here's the test: Is the song in question on Little Creatures? No? It's not the best Talking Heads song ever.
Still, it's a pretty damn good pop track that has stood the test of time. However, Alan Ball did not choose to use the original, and instead chose to end this week's episode of the same name as the song with a rendition by The Used.

The Used is a band whose Wikipedia entry Rocks Off literally can't read through without rolling our eyes to the point of dizziness. We're long since past the point where the fact that a band spent some time broke or homeless impresses us. Scott Stapp and Rob Thomas lived out of their cars too for a while too, which doesn't improve the taste of their vintage, although Thomas ain't bad for a $3 merlot.

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True Blood: We TOLD You Taylor Swift Was A Goth Icon

I hope you heard the great discussion Jef and I had last night about this episode - if not listen to podcast!

We told you that Taylor Swift was going to become a goth icon, but did you listen? Did you? No. No you said we were "crazy." That our logic was "sketchy." That we should take the "medication" that nice "doctor" prescribed us after we "went apeshit" over the Dungeons & Dragons movie.

Well, we were right and you were wrong because here comes Ms. Swift in all her gothy glory right on True Blood.

Truth be told, we love Taylor Swift. Our love is guileless and unashamed. When we were reluctantly flipping through Houston's sad FM dial searching for any melody to take the pain of traffic away, and Swift's "Mine" came on, we knew that we were just going to have to live with the fact that the little minx is completely pop-awesome. She is, and we will fight any one of you tooth and freakin' nail over the fact.

Admittedly, when we claimed that Swift would rise to become a spooky starlet, we were just having some fun with our editor at a young star's expense. However, since then we've watched her carefully, and every now and then she really does pull some awesomely dark and wonderful stuff.

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True Blood: A Taste Of Houston in Bon Temps by jefwithonef Houston Press

Johnny Bush, ladies and gentlemen. Even your resident goth music expert has heard of the man. Johnny Bush has been a staunch supporter of the Houston hardcore country sound, imparting his style and wisdom to people still on a regular tour schedule and with new albums. He's played with Ray Price and was the drummer for Willie Nelson. Nelson's financial backing helped him record The Sound of a Heartache in 1967, and he would go on to release a string of hit country records.

Bush's career stalled and took a turn for the worse. Much like another Texas resident, Meat Loaf, he suddenly developed severe vocal problems that robbed him of much of his range. RCA released him from his recording contract in 1974, and the honky-tonk heavyweight turned to drugs.

In 1978 he was finally diagnosed with the real problem, a rare neurological disorder called spasmodic dysphonia that causes sudden, involuntary movements in the vocal cords. By 1985 he regained much of his range, and launched a comeback the next year that has kept him working to this day.

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Music True Blood: Neko Case and Southern Gothic by Jefwithonef from Houston Press

It seems so rare that in the world of True Blood we get to feel what the series so often teases that it will give us, namely love. Now, we know as sure as God made trees tall and Yetis reek that everything everyone in the show loves will be taken away, raped, beaten, and murdered simply because that's how modern TV works. There's no happy ending on the horizon for the people of Bon Temps.

Still... for this one brief episode it was possible to believe in the awesome power of love, mercy, and forgiveness. Sure, we saw two different people get possessed by powerful spirits who are surely going to wreak all kinds of havoc between now and the finale, and the last we see of Tara and her ambiguously Asian girlfriend is a rotting Pam rushing at them with a whole lot of murder on her mind. However, these are the sideshows.

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Gothtopia True Blood: Selling Your Soul in a Buyer's Market by Jefwithonef Houston Press

What is a soul and, more importantly in this rough economic time, what exactly is it worth?

There's plenty going on in True Blood right now. Jason has to deal with the fact that he's been raped, and who does that make him now? Tara has been living life as a lesbian cage fighter from Atlanta; now that her New Orleans girlfriend has found out, she must choose which reality she will inhabit. Most importantly, Eric, who in his amnesia has been stripped of everything, is forced to hear repeated testimony of acts that to a stranger, as he is to himself, sound monstrous and unholy.

Only the affection and faith of Sookie, who herself is torn between her feelings for the vulnerable vampire and her remembrance of pain suffered either at his hands or because of his actions, keeps him moving forward. He spends most of the episode exploring his emptiness.

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True Blood: Drunken Vampires & Danko Jones by Jefwithonef Houston Press

Make sure you listen to Talk Blood Radio podcast from last night Jef was great!

Gothtopia first read Dracula at age 8, and Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire not long after that. Suffice to say that over the last 20 years or so, we've seen a few vampires. Aside from one time in the Preacher comics, we've never seen a vampire drunk before. That was also the first time we'd seen a vampire moon anyone.
Well, now we can add True Blood to the short list of drunken buffoonery perpetrated by the undead. When we signed off last week, the faerie Claudine was being drained to the point of going poof by an amnesiac Eric. Last season established that faerie blood allowed vampires to briefly walk in the sunlight . Well, apparently, if you completely drain a full-blooded faerie, it's like taking a whole bunch of tequila shots.

Watching Eric using super-speed to repeatedly pinch Sookie's butt before running off into the woods to taunt alligators in the water is one of the funniest things we have ever seen, as was when the blood started to wear off and the sun began baking tall, pale, and stupid.

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True Blood: Boxing Gandhis & Other Likely Possibilities by Jefwithonef Houston Press

Jef will be joining me Sunday night on Talk Blood- please tune in and listen!


Each season of True Blood is based on a corresponding novel by Charlaine Harris. The first season was based on the first book, the second on the second, etc. The fourth book in the series is our favorite, so it would stand to reason that the fourth season would be or favorite.
Despite a rocky start, this would seem to be the case. We are now well into the circumstances that made that book stand out. The cocky, manipulative Eric Northman has been replaced with a sad amnesiac struggling to find his way in a world of which he, in many ways, was formerly the master. He's basically the protagonist of Coldplay's "Viva la Vida," except without the desire on our part to invent to ways to injure the human body with a weed whacker after listening to it.

However, there are indicators, at least to your humble narrator, that series creator and executive producer Alan Ball is not planning on doing this gig much longer.

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I loved this song soooo much

True Blood: Nick Cave & Neko Case Ditch Faeries For Zombies - Jef from Houston Press

We are soooo pleased to be getting the band back together and I will be talking to Jef Sunday night on Talk Blood.

Alan Ball was known for his masterful use of music in Six Feet Under. He's lost none of his touch when it comes to his current HBO series, True Blood - which happens to be set in the Louisiana swamps, not terribly far from Houston.
​Expectation. That's the word of the day, gentle readers, of our not-so-gentle take on HBO's True Blood. Welcome to the fourth season of the last great vampire television show. They keep the emo to a minimum here. Our expectations were mixed coming into this season. On one hand, the fourth Sookie Stackhouse book is one of the best in the series, a truly new look at many of your favorite characters as well another great revelation in regards to the fae inhabiting the world along with humans, vampires, weres, shifters, and even the occasional demigod.

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Get Ready: True Blood Report Returns Monday

We are so happy that Jef will be returning as co- host of Talk Blood Radio which will return on July 3rd 9:30 pm following True Blood !

​Rocks Off is super-excited that we'll once again be bringing you coverage of the music featured in Season 4 of Alan Ball's HBO adaptation of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels. The fourth book is our favorite in the series, and as each season sequentially corresponds with the books (roughly), it's to be hoped that this batch of episodes will live up to their literary inspiration.
We already know we're going to get witches and an amnesiac Eric Northman, so there's some reassurance right there. On the other hand, we had some rather severe problems with the Ren-Faire fairy crap that ended Season 3 on a very "meh" note. Boobs and blood abound as much as ever, so no complaints from our nether regions, but what can we expect from the music?

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True Blood: Joan Jett Heralds The Season Of The Witch from Jef with one F

Alan Ball was known for his masterful use of music in Six Feet Under. He's lost none of his touch when it comes to his current HBO series, True Blood - which happens to be set in the Louisiana swamps, not terribly far from Houston.
​No one was surprised when True Blood was renewed for a fourth season on HBO. The premiere of Season 3 brought in approximately 7 billion viewers (citation needed), and contained some of the series' best and bloodiest moments thus far.
After all, once you turn someone's head around 180 degrees during grudge sex so that missionary position becomes some kind of dead-on-the-highway doggy-style, you just can't call a spanking kinky anymore.
To be fair, there were some lacking moments too. The whole fairy storyline had way too many Renaissance Fair moments, and we can't believe that anyone would knowingly leave an extremely pissed-off and powerful vampire king buried alive in concrete and not expect that to come back and haunt them later.
To be fair, we've established that most of the series' protagonists a) aren't terribly bright; and b) have the survival instinct of a lemming on meth listening to This Mortal Coil's It'll End in Tears.
Still, as always we're looking forward to the new season in June, and HBO has finally released a trailer containing the first of the music we'll be covering in this column.
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True Blood: A Sam Merlotte Sad Bastard Mixtape from JefwithoneF Houston Press

HBO likes to give us a little break the week before the final episode in order for you DVR people to catch up on what you missed. (Looking at you, Captain Mongo Nelson!) Gothtopia would like to take this week's column as an opportunity to talk about a plot line we've neglected over the course of the season, namely the evermore sinful tale of Sam Merlotte.

In the books, Sam's a pretty awesome kind, just a little hang-uppy on relationships. But increasingly in the TV universe, Sam's past has revealed abandonment, murder, robbery and just an all-around tale of woe. The thing about it is... it's really interesting, but the shape shifter's family history has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. It's just a diversion for those of us who think that the "Sookie is a fairy" storyline is a wee bit too RenFest.

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True Blood: "Flesh Blood," Eels And Hostages- Houston Press

The great Jefwithonef member of Team Talk Blood!

Season 3, Episode 11: "Flesh Blood"
"We can start again."
So sayeth Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) to Sookie (Anna Paquin) moments before Season 3's Big Bad crashes their ugly yellow car and takes them hostage in order to find out if fairy blood acts as the ultimate sunscreen, allowing the vamps to go to early matinee movies and other daytime activities.
The answer then is, no. No, we cannot start again, but that's no excuse not to try.
Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E of The Eels, has certainly tried a time or three to restart his life. Even a brief biography of his reads like the most tragic moments of the Sookie-verse. Substitute cancer and suicide for vampires and were-whatevers and, frankly, the story is startlingly similar. E's never given up though, and just released the third part of his trilogy exploring desire, loss, and redemption. The trilogy began with Hombre Loco last year, and its lead single "Fresh Blood."

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True Blood: Patty Griffin, Bon Temps Crew Smell A Rat Houston Press Jefwithonef

Team Talk Blood member Jef shares this weeks column -you can listen to us discussing it last night on Talk Blood Radio

"Who can you trust," sang Jack Nicholson as the Joker, and then he gassed to death all the people he had just handed out free money to. Like Pilate, but with inflatables. This episode of True Blood made it very clear that pretty much every character in the show cannot be completely trusted. Bill lies to Sookie, Eric chains her up, Sam shot some people, Jason shot some people, the lovable new nurse boyfriend of Lafayette's is descended from wild-eyed Mexican black magicians, Arlene's gone cuckoo for Jesus-puffs, and the vampire terrorist Russell Edington is hiring hookers only to cry like a little bitch with a skinned knee until he re-enacts his husband's death with a sharp piece of wood on the dull piece of meat.

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True Blood: Everything Is Broken, Even The Vamps

Team Talk Blood member Jef from the Houston Press wows us with this week's column.

Great line They fall in love with us, and they hunger for the culture we produce. It's a sad, sad sack of an unlife and every one of them can bite our crank.

Before it all went poopy, there was that magical first season of Heroes where we all watched enthralled as the fate of the world was decided by a handful of superhumans against one monstrously powerful threat. And we do so now on True Blood.
Vampire politics and Eric's (Alexander Skarsgaard) quest for vengeance against the three-millennium-old king of Mississippi and now Louisiana, Russell Edgington (Denis O'Hare) has resulted in an all-out war on the movement for vampires to be accepted as full citizens of the United States. Believing that the American Vampire League sponsored Eric's murder of Edgington's lover of seven hundred years, Edgington storms a newscast and murders an anchorman live on the air in order to derail the mainstream movement and begin his ultimate quest for subjugation of humanity.
Gothtopia has two points to make.
One, that Alan Ball has made it clear in this season that a lot of vampires are at least bisexual. A lot. Especially the old and powerful ones.

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Season 3, Episode 8: "Night on the Sun" Houston Press

Talk Blood team member Jef weighs in on Ep 3.08 you can listen to us talk about it Sunday night  on Talk Blood by clicking on blue Blogtalk button right.


Ingest enough arsenic, and if it doesn't kill you it might leave you a raving madman with leukemia. There's isn't a cure for everything; sometimes we are forever damaged by what we consume.
Take Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer). The number of times both have almost ended up dead through just a short relationship is in the double digits. They are as often the cause as the savior in each other's predicaments.
And even though this week's episode pretty much opened with the two admitting that their being together was ultimately poisoned, by the end of the episode they are back making love in a mess of blood and spent shotgun shells.

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True Blood: "Hitting The Ground" With Gordon Gano & PJ Harvey

Thanks to Team Talk Blood member, Jefwithonef for giving us his review from last night eppy
 

When things have already gone too far, the only choice is to go much, much further.

Through the course of this episode, Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Tara (Rutina Wesley) escape from vampires and werewolves by brutally murdering their captors, rescue Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) and drive off triumphantly into the sunrise to a brave and happy new world where there is no language but love and no farts, only daffodils.

Or maybe everyone is beaten and covered in blood, thoroughly traumatized by the associated rapes, tortures and betrayal they've gone through in the last 24 hours. Maybe the tearful reunion between Bill and Sookie turns into a feeding frenzy when he awakens with her locked in the back of a moving truck and his more monstrous instincts take over in an attempt to heal the injuries he has sustained.

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True Blood: Even Junkies Got A Right To Sing The Blues

Jef has his column up - don't forget to listen to us talk about this episode last night on Talk Blood on Blogtalk Radio, the podcast available now link on right !

We're halfway to the end of the third season of True Blood, and the question that is starting to rise is, "Can other people be an addiction?"

We have all, in the throes of love said that we can't live without someone. That without them we are just a shell empty of all life and meaning. But what happens when that is actually true? Could you imagine heroin with sentience or cocaine with the ability to hate and manipulate?
Addiction already brings low the most powerful of wills, and the drugs that are its source are as mindless as viruses. When another person serves the same function as smack to a junkie, then you may have to compete against a drug that is actively working against you.
Everyone's a damn junkie this week. It's like Near Dark meets Trainspotting.
Insane vampire Franklin Mott (James Frain) is freebasing Sookie's best friend Tara (Rutina Wesley), and plans to make her his vamp wife. Gothtopia had just taken his young daughter out of the room when he heard the sound of Tara chewing a hole in Franklin, drinking his blood for the superpowers it bestows, and then beating his head into a vaguely cat-turdlike shape with a mace.
Meanwhile, Sookie (Anna Paquin) finds her lover Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) being killed Audtion-style by his sire and former girlfriend Lorena (Mariana Klaveno) on the orders of the vampire king of Mississippi. It takes forever because Bill is, by her own admission, her drug of choice. She is thoroughly addicted to him, and has been for a century. No junkie torches their stash on purpose, and we get to watch her cry blood tears over the thought of no more fix forever

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