There’s no such Thing as too much 4th Street Traffic

Back in February, I was in Cardiff, my very first trip to Wales ever. I was there to see Mike Peters of The Alarm, who -nice guy that he is- put on an acoustic birthday concert for himself and let about 200 fans attend, as well. The place was Clwb Ifor Bach, a happening place in an alley right across from the castle, easy to find and as divy as one would expect from a happening club anywhere. Opening for Mike was a Welsh band named 4th Street Traffic, billed as “and friends” on the announcement (as in, “Mike Peters and friends”). Four kids were not what I had expected, but I was up for anything, even though they had an oddly dressed, short, skinny guy for a lead singer. The band started to play. The short skinny guy opened his mouth. And I was blown away. I had not expected a big voice like that! They played for about an hour, and they were great! Unfortunately, there was no CD to be had, and even online, they didn’t really have much of a presence besides their MySpace site.

Fast forward to Saturday. I’m at the town festival in Ludwigsburg. Apparently, there are also a bunch of visitors from its various partner cities around the world. One turns out to be Caerphilly in Southern Wales. And on the program for the evening, who should I spy but four kids from Caerphilly called 4th Street Traffic?! What can I say, the audience was treated to a good hour and a half of solid rock, and this time, they were nice enough to bring copies of their brandnew CD, Kick the Habit.

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So, if you get a chance, listen in. And if you should be lucky enough to catch them live, jump in and enjoy.

Kinotag: Terminator Salvation

Sam Worthington is a Leo, Australian, and he cooks. That alone is enough to catch my interest. He also plays the sexiest killing machine since Robert Patrick took over as the Terminator in 1991’s T2: Judgement Day. So, really, in a nutshell, there’s everything I love about a good action flick: a hot baddie and scary robots.

In 2003, Marcus Wright is put to death in prison. Fifteen years later, the war is on between SkyNet and the human race, and poor Marcus is jolted back to life, with one thing on his mind: WTF?! Along he goes, trying to figure out what happened to him and the world he supposedly left for good. Soon, he hooks up with Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), future daddy to war hero John Connor (Christian Bale), who -at the same time- as his adult self, is attempting to foil a plot by SkyNet to kill off Reese, thereby preventing John’s existence. Confused yet? While in Star Trek, old Spock has good reason to avoid young Spock, Kyle Reese and his current and future offspring manage not only to coexist nicely in Terminator Salvation, but John gets to actually hand out a reward to his teenage papa before nearly dying. Send in the Terminator: while Marcus gets badly beaten by a much bigger, badder version of the early Arnie robot, John strikes a fatal blow to SkyNet headquarters, thereby deciding one more battle in favor of humans. In the scuffle, he is mortally wounded, and it is now that Marcus finally finds redemption for his previously unspecified misdeeds. I won’t tell you how, just go see the daggone movie already!

I actually enjoyed the action, the acting, and the little nods to the previous films, especially the fabulous first two. No, the gubernator himself did not participate in the making of this movie, as he was busy gubernating the hell out of the great state of California, but the digital cameo is nice and fitting. The only thing that does not return is the liquid metal man. I’m not sure if SkyNet simply hadn’t invented him yet, or if the technology had not performed up to expectations. We are most definitely left with a setup for more skull-crunching by metal maniacs, as not only John Connor gets to live, but his wife (Bryce Dallas Howard) is already carrying the seed of future additions to the franchise.