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Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.

Friday, March 03, 2006

On an entirely different note: Music I Like

I think more people should listen to Michael Penn. If you've never heard of him, he had exactly one hit, in the 1990s called "No Myth." Great frigging song. Has five albums: March, Free-For-All, Resigned, MP4(Days Since a Lost Time Accident), and Mr. Hollywood Jr. 1947.

He also did the music for two movies by Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight and Boogie Nights).

Have iTunes? Buy "Look What the Cat Dragged in (Long Way Down)" or "Walter Reed" or "No Myth" or "Bucket Brigade." It's catchy, Beatles-esque but also adult pop: literate, complex rhymes, hooks that you actually want to sing to yourself as you're walking down the street.

How could this guy be so looked over? Maybe because his brother is Sean Penn and wife is Aimee Mann? Yeah, that could do it.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

He's also IN boogie nights, plays the music producer when Marky is laying down the transformer soundtrack.

I've always liked his stuff - I heard he and his wife do a duet show that rocks pretty good.

Anonymous said...

Wow, crazy. He was my guitar hero when I was in highschool. No kidding. No Van Halen for me. I saw him at Town Hall with Aimee Mann a few years ago and he messed up the words to "Brave New World". I always wondered how a human person could perform that song live. I guess no one can.

MattJ said...

interesting that he did the two older PTA movies and Aimee Mann wrote and performed all the music in Magnolia...

Anonymous said...

"No Myth" was my go-to song for the first side of a mix tape. You know... when you would make a mix tape for someone. On analog tape. Slightly after we would just chisel stone tablets for each other.

DL said...

His music is Aimee Mann is great.
And Aimee Mann is way overlooked too. She is awesome.

DL said...

Damn typos. That should have said "his music *with* Amy Mann" not "is" Aimee Mann.

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