Some of you probably still remember the group, “Two Minds Crack”… the band that performed the New Wave hit song, “Upside Down”, back in the early 80s.

Well, a few months back I posted a remake of their hit single, performed by “Candles”… a band I used to co-manage till they disbanded (creative differences).  This particular remake was included in the group’s debut album which came out during the last quarter of 2006 under Viva Records.  Long before 6CycleMind’s version was ever released.

When I first featured the song here on my blog months back, I got a surprise visit by Two Minds Crack band member, Kevin Jones!  He actually left a short comment below my post commending the band on how well he thought the remake was done.  His message was as follows:

“Hi, I was the lead singer/guitarist in Two Minds Crack and I wrote Upside Down – I really enjoyed the Candles version – keep up the good work!!”

Earlier today, I got another message on the same post… but this time it came from Two Minds Crack co-member, Pete Martin!  His message:

“Greetings Candles…loved the version of Upside Down.Don’t listen to Kevin Jones…. I wrote upside down…. I was guitarist and keyboard player in Two Minds Crack… that Jones fella gets everywhere!Joking aside, we wrote that and first recorded it back in 1983 ish, the finished version being released on The Victory Parade album in 1986. We didn’t find out until the 90’s that it was a big hit over there which was a shame cos to be sure we would have come out and played some gigs. It’s a big thrill to hear someone cover one of your tracks believe me. Keep rocking in the free world son…..and at least you got Kev’s words correct !!! Pete.”

Hahaha… I was particularly amused by his last words (“and at least you got Kev’s words correct!!!”) coz I also found out that Pete is aware of 6CycleMind’s version.  And listening closely to their own rendition of the 80s New Wave classic, you’ll notice that there is quite a number of wrong lyrics in it.

Well, it’s a shame Candles disbanded so early in their careers… but things like these do happen.  Oh well… I guess that’s that.

I suppose it’s only appropriate that I feature Candles’ version of “Upside Down” for everyone to enjoy.  So… without further ado…

UPSIDE DOWN by Candles

I recently guested on QTV’s, “The Sweet Life” which is hosted by Lucy Torres-Gomez.  And if you were paying attention to my blog a few weeks back, you’d know that this is already my second appearance on that particular show.  The first one was when I came out with my little daughter and, frankly, she had most of the exposure then.  Haha!

This time around, I was invited to be part of German “Kuya Germs” Moreno’s surprise birthday celebration.  Kuya Germs’ 75th birthday is still on October, but the program was doing a series of advanced tapings and the “tribute” was one of them.

I was asked to bring a card for Kuya Germs, but I thought a birthday card too simple… too… ummm… common.  So, I decided to give him a personalized CD of all my recent compositions with a birthday message written on the side of the disc.  Why a disc filled with compositions, you ask?  Well, mainly because I never really would’ve realized my interest in music long ago had it not been for his show that I was a regular of:  “That’s Entertainment”.

That was where I actually honed my talent as a musician… I even, for a time, became a musical arranger for his weekly Sunday television program, “GMA Supershow”.

Anyways, I was called in on stage to surprise him and to share with televiewers some good memories I’ve had of Kuya Germs.

So, I went in… exchanged pleasantries and went on to present my “token”.  Before I handed the gift, I explained on-air why I opted to bring that particular present.  Then I continued to read the small message out loud in front of him (the text was small and considering his age, I was afraid to strain his eyes…)

The message read:

Kuya Germs, maraming salamat sa lahat ng tulong at aral na ibinahagi ninyo sa akin.  Kung ano ako ngayon… kung ano ang aking naabot… at kung ano pa ang aking mararating… malaking bahagi nito ay dahil sa inyo.

Mahal ko po kayo.

Maligayang Kaarawan po.

- Chuckie Dreyfus

And as I looked up at him to hand it over, he took it and wanted to speak to the mic… but he couldn’t.  His eyes were welling up.  He tried to speak but got choked up… he stopped and looked down… sobbing… silent.  I thought we were gonna cut.  But we continued to roll… silence all around… only his sniffing could be heard.

Then, short of breath… he spoke.  He told everyone how much he was proud of me… he gripped my hand so tight and still continued to choke up in tears.  I didn’t actually think I’d make that kind of an impact on him during that taping.  I had never made him cry like “that”… I mean, by myself… yet I did.

I cannot fully put into words how I truly felt during those minutes… But as much as I knew that the show’s episode was done for him… to pay tribute to his accomplishments in the industry… a celebration of his life… and in recognition of his importance in showbusiness… during that particular moment, it was I who felt important… and that everything I have achieved was all that mattered to him.

Happy birthday, Kuya Germs.

Thank you for everything… God bless you always…

Sorry… just had to.  I’m a sucker for 80s stuff and the OBB of this show just threw me instantaneously back to 1983!  I heard Touchstone and Disney are already in the process of making a remake of “The Greatest American Hero” for the big screen.  No details yet as to whom the lead roles shall be given to.

Take a trip back to the 80s with me…

A high school math teacher is given a special suit by mysterious aliens that will allow him to perform amazing feats (flying, super-strength, X-ray vision, shrinking, invisibility, just about every super power). The problem is that he quickly loses the instruction book, so he has to learn how to use the suit, which, quite frankly, he’s not very good at… He’s soon joined by an FBI agent, who teams up with the “super hero”, basically using him to fight crime, etc.

Old school fans will love this! Looks like the 80s are making a strong comeback, what with the success of Transformers, etc. Check out the teaser poster below and behold!

I recently discovered this teaser poster for an upcoming “Knight Rider” movie for 2008. Kitt looks awesome… back in its heyday, a talking car, car chases, etc (turbo boost and all that) seemed pretty breathtaking and futuristic. I wonder how they will manage to pull this off for the younger generation as well as old school fans of the hit series.

Guys, here are more Transformers posters that have been recently released. I was supposed to post them much earlier but I kinda got sick of these posters cropping up one after the other so I waited till I got somewhat in the mood!

Personally, I think they’re putting out a whole bunch of ‘em than I’d really like to see…! It’s as if their creative department couldn’t decide which of the whole lot is going to be the final layout so they just presented all the studies to the public.

Oh, and check out what they claim to be the FINAL International Poster (last image)… It’s as if they mashed everything together and… TADA! Eck!!!

Whatever… just as long as the movie doesn’t end up being SUCKY!

Folks… New images of the Autobot and Decepticon characters appearing on the upcoming Transformers live-action flick directed by Michael Bay.

Enjoy!

Optimus Prime

Bumblebee and Ironhide

Jazz

Megatron

Starscream and Blackout

Frenzy

Freezedriedmovies.com is reporting that a reliable source has confirmed that the villains in the next Spidey flick will be the long-rumored Lizard and the murderous symbiote Carnage.

This is the same source who confirmed Sandman and Venom for the third part, and well, he was right.

Dylan Baker has appeared briefly in all three films as Dr. Curt Connors and as comic book fans know, he eventually transforms into Lizard. Baker has gone on record as stating he’d be up for playing the part.

As for Carnage, he is initially serial killer Cletus Kasady, who after becoming possessed by the same symbiote which transforms Eddie Brock into Venom in the current SPIDERMAN, becomes the vicious incarnate Carnage.

If Carnage does indeed make it into the fourth film, it will have to be considerably darker than its predecessor, which trust me, would be a very good thing.

News Flash! New “IRON MAN” images and a video clip has just surfaced which show Iron Man in action during the filming of the movie. IESB.net has recently released them and I am posting them below for everyone to enjoy!

IESB reports:

Remember how we were told that the final battle was going to be totally CGI? Not true, I did a lot of sneaking around the set last night and was able to capture Iron Man on video.

I have to tell you, the security was super tight, way more than the other night. I was surprised we didn’t get caught just walking around the area. First of all the production is huge. It seems to grow each day. We were able to get pretty close to the set this time, at one point we were only about 20 feet away from the action and were able to see some really great stuff.

The scene we saw was of Iron Man on his back in the actual f*cking suit! Obviously, we had to be careful since I had a video camera on me. We saw them rehearse over and over again. I shot as much as I could but we had to keep hiding from the people on set. I am assuming this scene is right after the one we saw the first time, after Iron Man and Iron Monger get blown through the wall on the side of the freeway.

I can only piece together what we saw but here’s what I assume happens, I can’t be sure but there were some huge holes blown in the side of a semi-truck. So I think they blow through the wall, through the semi truck and out the other side. Iron Man lands on the freeway. I got some shots of the semi-truck with the huge hole in it. It looks like he gets hit by something on the freeway, (a passing car?) and is on the ground. He sits up and shakes his head, like to shake it off. He turns to get on all fours then slowly tries to get up.

There were guys around him tuning up the suit often, like they had to oil him up or something, reminded me of having to oil up the tin man except, this suit probably cost half a million dollars! No tin foil here. I was surprised at how agile the Mark 3 suit was. At one point I swear the guy was tap dancing on set. We couldn’t shoot that though it would have blown our cover. The chest plate was lit up and so were the eyes. At one point it looked like he was staring right at us! I think it was a stunt guy and not Downey but we couldn’t bet our lives on it.

I caught some of this on the video, but like I said I had to keep hiding, I swear the one guy saw me, you can see it at the end of the video.

Now here comes the coolest part, but we didn’t get it on tape. Only saw this as we walked through the area but we couldn’t pull out a camera else we would have been caught right then and there. Ready? We saw Iron Monger!!!! Well, at least I assume it’s Iron Monger. But it wasn’t an actual suit, there was a guy wearing huge boots and holding what looked like a huge cut-out that must be for CGI reference. The stand in was holding this tall wooden stick with a large cut out of something on top of it. I didn’t put it together until later on, but this was the stand in for the other iron suit, which I assume to be Iron Monger, that Iron Man is fighting. The cutout was unmistakably the top of another Iron Suit. Since the stand in was only wearing large robotic looking boots, I would assume Monger will have to be purely CGI generated.

I didn’t get any shots of the Iron Monger stand in/cut out next to Iron Man, but if the Iron Man suit is say 6 feet tall, then Iron Monger is at least 8 feet tall!

Without further ado…

And the video below…

Michael Bay’s “Transformers” has recently released two new shots from the film. The production outfit also states that the studio is already developing a sequel script.

Meanwhile, the final poster for the film has also surfaced online.

Click on the image to enlarge. Enjoy!

Iron Man director, Jon Favreau, promised that the new Iron Man film will feature 2 armors… the Grayish “Mark I” version and the Red and Gold “Mark III” suit.

We’ve all seen the “Mark I” image already which was revealed last week. Now, Entertainment Weekly, unveils the second armor, designed by Oscar-winning F/X guru Stan Winston, which will be seen in the upcoming live-action movie.

Behold!