VOTD 4/22/2024

 John Carpenter: The Fog OST (Waxworks)

Purchased used at The Attic

I have to admire John Carpenter. Consider The Fog: he directed, so-wrote, and created the soundtrack music. I see under imdb.com that he also appears as an uncredited extra. (Of course he does.) There are few others who can probably boast all of those roles in a single film, and who at Carpenter's level of fame?

Carpenter has scored many of his films, in that generally keyboard-driven creepy minimalist style for which he's known. Most famous would doubtlessly be his theme for the original Halloween. It's closer in spirit to the use of an excerpt from Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells as the theme for The Exorcist than, say, Goblin's prog rock of Deep Red  and Suspiria, or even Fabio Frizzi's music for City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. I read somewhere recently that Mike Oldfield has been told countless times how creepy his music is for the opening of the that film; he said in so many words he just wanted to create pretty music. 

I find it interesting that when Carpenter solicited Ennio Morricone to compose the music for The Thing, the score turned out to sound like a very good Carpenter score. What discussion there might have been between the two men, I don't know. Morricone was shown to sometimes be prickly when directors made too many demands on him for the style of music they wanted.

So here's The Fog. Not Carpenter's best film, but far from his worst. (Whatever that might be.) Great cast: Ha Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, Tom Atkins (Pittsburgh's own!). The first thing you hear on the LP is John Houseman delivering a brief monologue. Who doesn't want to hear that? 

The music is fine if also not Carpenter's best. I'm sure some would find his pieces a little boring, but I'm okay with a bit of musical creeping dread. The problem I find, which I surely have expressed in previous blog posts, is one of editing. It's pretty rare to listen to a soundtrack album start to finish, and have every minute of it be engaging. Inside the film it may all be perfectly fine, but as a separate listening experience, it's more than is needed. 

Nonetheless, I'll again express my admiration for Carpenter's gemsamkunstwerk. As the director, he'd already have his hands someone in all of the production, from casting, staging, camerawork, costuming, and other visual elements. Add to that the writing and the music composition, it's definitely his vision, like it or not.

I like these boutique-level soundtrack labels, specifically Waxworks and Mondo/Death Waltz. But that's an expensive habit, they don't come cheap. I mean, individually they're not so bad, but if the average for a single LP is maybe $30? That adds up. And there are reasons these LPs are so expensive: new, original artwork, often gatefold covers, and often multicolored vinyl variants. This one's pressed in a foggy white-on-teal. 

This turned up used, and I did't have any Carpenter on hand, so what the heck. 

"It's not the fog, but what the fog brings."

VOTD 4/20/2024

The Residents: Leftovers Again?! AGAIN?! (Cherry Red)

Purchased at The Attic for Record Store Day (fished in!)

This is hardly my first blog post about The Residents, and who knows, probably not my last. I have a Duck Stab! tshirt, which elicited curiosity from a younger friend and colleague. He just thought Duck Stab! was great but knew nothing about the source. I linked him to a Youtube posting of the album. In general, my friends under the age of 40, or jazz colleagues, know nothing about The Residents.

The Residents is in part the sound of my youth. I discovered them around 11th-12th grade in high school. I became fanatical about their music at the time, at a time I was off to become a music performance major. I'm sure I talked them up to the point of annoyance of friends, but that's the passion of young adulthood I guess. 

As the 1980s progressed, I found them decreasingly interesting. I think it's both a shift in their recorded output and the ongoing development of my own taste and interests. I continue to enjoy their music from their early days, particularly up to Commercial Album. That leaves several decades of their music I've only casually followed. Many people laud their God in Three Persons concept album/rock opera; I found it to be a bore. (Nonetheless, I wish I had retained the vinyl copy I sold off in a record purge I did years ago.) 

And why do I have to enjoy their more recent music? Aren't those early records enough? The fact remains, if I had an easy way to see one of their current performances, I'd still go. 

I have been dismayed by The Residents' recent cash grabs. There have been multiple repressings of their early albums, including three particularly fancy and expensive issues of their first three LPs. Even the pREServed CD reissue series, while welcome, has (to me) proven to be rather disappointing when it comes to the previously unreleased recordings. A few gems, but little essential.

If anyone reserves to earn off The Residents' legacy, it's the members of the band. That said, there's really only one of them left from the original group. The question of exactly what makes "A Resident" has been a matter of debate. 

Despite all of this, here I am again, picking up yet another album of unissued takes from the band's golden period of 1977-1985. The back cover reads in part: "As exhumed from a newly rediscovered MOP tape." I suppose. (By the way, MOP = what?) As a fan of this period and music in general, I'd warn that it's for fans only. That said, it does offer some insights as to the group's process, indirectly. "Better Off Dead" in part wound up as the instrumental track for Duck Stab!'s 'Semolina." "Hello Dolly (Etcetera)" is the basis of "Hello Skinny." "Flying (Parts 1, 2 ,and 3)"  demonstrate some of the components that went the final version of their version of The Beatles' "Flying."

Two disappointments: first, the pressing is not especially good. Too many pops and clicks. Secondly, the cover art is an AI generated image based on the previous cover. I just like the look of them.

CDOTD 4/19/2024

 Louis Andriessen: Writing to Vermeer (Nonesuch)

Purchased at the Jerry's Records dollar sale today

Okay. So much for self reflection and/or existential angst and/or self pitying. I posted a link to my previous blog entry to my Facebook page, and I think for a change too many people connected to it. So enough of that, and no porn movie soundtracks this time to be embarrassed about. 

I have probably written this, but I'm not much of an opera guy. I've been challenged on this before: "Have you ever actually gone to see an opera?" I was asked, by Erin Snyder. I guess I have, not a big production, and nothing like standard rep such as La Boheme. Hell, I was in a modern chamber opera once, playing soprano saxophone and interacting with the singers and dancers.

Part of my personal negative bias has to do with my previously-stated disinterest in vocal music in general. I mean, that's very broad to say, because I don't hate singers and I've worked with quite a few. I've always felt more attraction to the instruments and largely find them more interesting. The singer in rock bands is often the "front man" but also frequently the least interesting musician. 

Another element is that the period of grand opera, reaching its heights at the end of the 19th century. Meh. Again, it's too broad to say I don't care for 19th century European music in general, but it's also largely true. 

And 20th century opera, that presents other issues. I absolutely do not enjoy that really wide vibrato, operatic style. I don't think it lends itself well to modern works, particularly atonal works. As for 20th century operas themselves, there's that tendency the music to kind of go and go and go, shifting, but rarely settling. I understand the need to leave the aria and recitative form in the past, but maybe I'd like to hear a more defined song now and then. But again, it depends on the work. 

Louis Andriessen's a composer I know little about. When Philip Glass came to speak to the CMU music department, he was asked how he felt about being grouped with, and compared to, a particular set of composers over and over. He said, what he found interesting is how dissimilar his music was compared to Fred Rzewski, John Adams, Terry Riley, Louis Andriessen. (If you noticed he didn't mention Steve Reich's name, so did I immediately.)

I guess Andriessen's music sometimes touches on so-called minimalism. This opera wouldn't be one of those pieces. I guess if I must find a comparison, it would be more Neoclassical Stravinsky, but even that is strained. It doesn't sound like Stravinsky (at least much of the time), but you're kind of in the same neoghborhood.

I never said this blog was high end academic analysis. 

I notice his orchestrations, which sound good. Crisp. Nice bass clarinet part, something he may have in common with Stravinsky. 

Perhaps the Neoclassical side is appropriate for a work dedicated to and inspired by Vermeer. He certainly doesn't make the music sound in any way 17th century, but the classicism might be appropriate to Vermeer's highly ordered, classically arranged paintings. Despite my general preference for modern art, I always make my way through the maze of galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to find the room with the Vermeer paintings, when I visit. They are stunning, moving, in ways I can't describe. They're so quietly perfect. It's difficult to believe anything can be that perfect. I find myself actually holding back tears when I view them. The nearby Rembrandts are great too.

Is it shallow to write that I basically like the music? But when would I ever have the opportunity to see this work performed? Composers continue to write operas. It's a big enough deal for current composers to have their works staged. What of this piece? Or Andriessen's two other operas? (Or more, this one of three in collaboration with filmmaker Peter Greenaway.)

Eh. time to get back to some work myself.

Self inquiry

 I turn 61 this weekend. That's not significant in and of itself, other than just surviving to this time.

I have been contemplating several issues in my life, as a musician and teacher.

Given: my work takes in a wide variety of areas. There are my various "jazz" groups, such as Thoth Trio, OPEK, Book Exchange, Flexure. 

More improvisational groups over the years, such as Morphic Resonance, Dust and Feathers, Throckmorton Plot, Sound/Unsound.

Groups that interface with tradition: Coal Train, Bombici, again OPEK. And Thoth. And others. 

This is to say nothing of my solo performances, or the Pittsburgh Composers' Quartet, or a variety of other groups I've done over the years. 

Then there are noisier collaborations, such as with Microwaves, Brown Angel, Spotlights. Mark Michelli, pianist for the Pittsburgh Composers' Quartet, asked me how I felt and enjoyed working with these groups. I love it, for one thing it's such a break from what I do otherwise.

My self-inquiry is, what do I do well? Am I offering something to all of these groups, or am I fooling myself?

I'm not passive-aggressively asking for validation through this blog. I'd say it's more self-therapy, though I'm wary of self-absorption.

I have been teaching at Carnegie Mellon University for some 18 or so years now. It's no less than twice as long as any job I've held. Some people (mostly men) hold on to a job for 35 years! Thing is,  I have little enjoyment in the position now. Sometimes it's great, and I get to interact with smart and wonderful people. (My 8am education credit today.) Sometimes I question why I need to be there. (My 9 and 10am classes today, the latter of which fewer than half the students showed up). 

Are they just as well off with an AI chatbot?

I know myself well enough to know that I could never sit in one place musically, my own interests are too broad. 

I can think of two models: Miles Davis and Sun Ra. Miles: he was constantly shifting, constantly moving. If you know his work, you can probably hear a recording of his and place it within a few years. 

Sun Ra is more elusive. His early work can definitely be placed in a particular time frame. When he reaches the early 70s, he draws on everything to that point in his performances. Could be 50s, 60s, 70s, or none of those. 

I'd say I'm more sympathetic to the latter, but I appreciate Miles' determination to keep moving.

I'll add to this, why does anyone need to be one thing? If nothing else, I refuse that. Nonetheless:

What do I do well? And let's assume I can figure that out after all these years. What if that is something that almost nobody wants to listen to?

What am I doing? Why am I here? And am I partially excited that I can't answer those questions? 

I have some serious issues to contemplate this summer. 

VOTD 1 & 2 3/29/2024

Forbidden Overture: Turned On! OST (Dark Entries)

Alden Shuman: The Devil in Miss Jones OST  (Janus)

The former was purchased at The Government Center new; the latter, I don't remember exactly. Possibly a Jerry's Records auction.

I hope I don't regret writing this blog post. 

I've written about the soundtrack albums to Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox. I wrote something about soundtracks to disreputable films. Well dear reader, I'm going all in. What's a more disreputable film category than hardcore pornography?

Well, maybe Cannibal Ferox comes close, or exceeds. 

The industry of hardcore adult films is far more interesting to me than the actual product. After the breakthrough of Deep Throat, it grew into its own alternative cinema lane. So much so, that there's a book by Legs McNeil, The Other Hollywood. The adult industry had its own directors, stars, theaters. In the 70s and 80s, some now mainstream producers and directors cut their teeth in the porn world. Wes Craven was known to be one. Abel Ferrera, director of Bad Lieutenant, Ms. 45, and The Addiction, began as a filmmaker by creating the hardcore 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy(cat).* 

I find this all interesting, and as I said, more than the films themselves.

Most so-called adult films relied on library music. Music you could pay a fee to use, without the hassle of dealing with sessions and musicians and composers and rights etc. If the era is the 70s into the 80s, it makes sense that the sound was wah-wah chunka chunka guitar that everyone associates with sex films. 

Far more interesting to me is when the filmmakers decided they need an original soundtrack. It's a night out at the movies, right honey? Somewhere in my looking into these things, I read (or heard, a podcast?) that Gerard Damiano, the director of Deep Throat, thought that the thing that would put the movie over the edge was an original musical score. 

Really?

I can tell you honestly, dear reader, I've never seen Deep Throat. It's not an excuse. I have watched the documentary about the film. I also have a CD copy of the soundtrack to Deep Throat I & II. It's not good. "Deep throat/deeper than deep, your throat" sings someone earnestly. It's a bit...ick. 

So, where does interesting soundtrack music and the adult film world intersect?

I found this vinyl copy of Turned On! at The Government Center under soundtracks. A sticker on the wrapping reads "The complete original from the 1982 gay porn classic...". Well, always on the hunt for vinyl oddities, I couldn't help be curious. 

No, not that way. What was going on with this album?

What I hear when I listen to this with current ears, is the pre-MIDI sequencing going on. Whoever Forbidden Overture is (I think it's one guy), he was definitely listening to Kraftwerk. The mechanized rhythms and lines, the minimalism. There are no vocals anywhere, which might have been distracting to the....activities...of the film. There's an electric piano sound on side one that steps away from the Kraftwerk sound palette. Not out of place, just not part of the syntho-sound world that "Those funky German white boys" (Afrika Bambaata's term for Kraftwerk) used. There's some feeling of Krautrock throughout. 

Contrast that with the second LP of the night, the original pressing (no bragging) of The Devil in Miss Jones soundtrack from 1973. This is dark. Turned On! is upbeat, chugs along consistently in its sequenced manner, underscoring whatever male action was going on in the movie. (Which again, I've never seen it. Really. I swear.) 

The TDIMJ soundtrack has such a 70s vibe to it. If the credited Linda November hadn't sung the main title theme, Joan Baez wouldn't have been too out of place.

I have exactly one LP with Joan Baez, and it's a Morricone score to Sacco & Vanzetti. And even then, I bought it because there was an electronic instrument credited on the cover, the Synket.

The very fact of this LP makes it interesting to me. It's not the only porn soundtrack released in that era, but there aren't many. Bernard Purdie's Lialeh is a much sought-after record (reissued on CD in 2003). I have an LP for Happy Days, not the TV show (though obviously playing off of it) but an adult film from 1974 with Georgina Spelvin, the star of TDIMJ. It was its own industry, after all. 

What makes up this album? Piano (or organ) is front and center, with a string quartet and percussion; at times guitar, bass, French horn, oboe, flute other reeds. It's all very well arranged. Somebody cared about what went into this.

I'm certain this was arranged and recorded quickly, but it's interesting to me how much care went into this soundtrack. It's well recorded too, suggesting a good studio for production.

It's a bit on the "easy listening" side, but you know...what did this undercore?

Look into it yourself, dear reader. 

* During the pandemic lockdown, my wife and I went to see movies a couple of times at the Lindsey Theater in Sewickley. Something happened that I knew would happen, twice: we were the only two people in the theater. The first of those two times was seeing Abel Ferrera's documentary The Projectionist, about a guy who just loved movies and loved showing them. Including porn theaters. Look it up. 

VOTD 3/28/2024

 Cecil Taylor: Unit Structures (Blue Note/UMe)

Purchased used at The Attic

You know how you see those Joy Division Unknown Pleasures t-shirts everywhere? I had a potential student from high school show up in my class at the university one day wearing that shirt. African American. I asked him if he'd actually listened to that album. His response was, "Oh, um, I've um...been meaning to." Right.

Last year some time, I saw a movie at The Manor in Squirrel Hill, and a young man in front of me was wearing a Cecil Taylor Unit Structures t-shirt. I asked him if he actually knew that album, and his response was, "Yes, of course."

Was he more/less/as honest as the high schooler I had in my class with the Joy Division t-shirt? I'll never know. 

My band Water Shed 5tet opened for Cecil Taylor at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in 1997. We had no interaction with him, though I would later sit in with his rhythm section of Dominic Duvall and...Jay Rosen? I guess. Details are fuzzy after so long. 

Cecil Taylor. Someone I admire more than I enjoy, if I'm perfectly honest. I never had a particular taste for Cecil's music, but I acknowledge his significance. A connective tissue between Coltrane and the next generation of free players, for one thing.

What's going on here? It's difficult to tell sometimes, whether the events are improvised, composed, or some combination or degree in between. That blurring of roles and events can be exciting to me. "Unit Structures/As Of a Now/Section" has the most clearly composed sections, cells of ideas tossed around the players. The seven piece back whips up a fury at times: trumpet, alto saxophone, alto/oboe/bass clarinet, piano, two basses, drums. 

Cecil does demonstrate some frightening virtuosity at times; not just masses of notes, but very cleanly delivered (albeit unusual) lines. There's a post-Cecil aesthetic of improvising I don't particularly like, though. This attitude that everyone jumps in and plays plays plays plays plays, with little listening or crossplay happening. I don't mean to say that it's especially true here, but it seems like a real New York attitude. I once saw the David S. Ware Quartet (David having a brief association with Cecil) with Matthew Shipp, William Parker, and Susie Ibarra. Most pieces went like this: David would play solo for a time. He'd give a big downbeat, and the band would start playing. It was a dense wall of sound, everybody just playing without really acknowledging anyone else. eventually it thinned out, but it seemed as though nobody was concerned with what anyone else was doing. 

To be clear, that has nothing to do with this album. Released in 1966 and presumably recorded around that time, it is Cecil still in an early period. There's notes on the back in a tiny font by Cecil himself, and I don't at the moment have the patience to plow through them. No doubt I'll be returning to this album, maybe then. 

VOTD 3/25/2024

 Goblin: Buio Omega (The Complete Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (AMS)

Purchased used at The Attic

Another day, another Italian horror movie soundtrack. 

I've seen Goblin play three times, or at least Claudio Simonetti's Goblin. Once playing live to the film Deep Red, once to Suspiria, and a third time a general program of their works. Just who and what constitutes the band Goblin depends on the time and place I suppose. The fracturing of this band would almost rival Yes at times, and I think there might have been more than one version of the band active once. The band names include those mentioned above, New Goblin, Goblin Rebirth, Back to the Goblin (yuck), Goblin Keys, and Daemonia. One can only imagine the legal meetings. 

The band I've seen puts Claudio front and center, with three other players who probably hadn't been born before the release of Suspiria. In their multimedia show, there's no mention of who is responsible for composing the works. I always assumed he was the primary composer, especially considering he created more soundtracks under his own name after leaving the original Goblin. But now I'm not so certain, but I'm not going to take the time to exhaustively look for composing credits on Goblin albums (if they even are listed). In part because, well, it just doesn't matter that much.

Something that interests me in these soundtracks is how they stand up to listening independent of the cinematic experience. (I'm sure I've written that on this blog before. With as many posts as I've made, I'm forgetting what I wrote each time.) Suspiria and Goblin's original music to Dawn of the Dead  both work outside the movie in addition to intensifying the experience of watching the film. If anything, seeing the current Goblin play live to Suspiria, I had the feeling it was the first time the music was loud enough. 

Buio Omega is another Italian horror film I haven't seen. Goblin's name alone was enough for me to buy the LP. Notably, this was created after Sinonetti's departure from the band. Other titles, depending on release and country, include Beyond the Darkness, Demencia, Blue Holocaust, Buried Alive, In Quella Casa, and probably a few others. Unsurprisingly, the titles suggest or even match other horror and exploitation titles. 

There's a few nice and interesting cues on this soundtrack, but by itself it's a little on the bland side. It's definitely lacking the in-your-face quality of Suspiria and Deep Red. A few selections start to sound like Bruford-style jazz fusion, but lacking the extreme chops of that band. Another cue, "Bikini Island", takes on a disco flavor. Well, it was 1979, though disco proper had already crested about a year before. This is after all a film soundtrack, so maybe they didn't anticipate someone sitting and listening to this as I am now. 

It's all not-bad, fills in another gap in my knowledge about such works, but not terribly memorable.