VOTD 1/2/24

 Herbie Hancock, The Yardbirds: Blow Up OST (MGM)

purchased used at Eide's

A new year, and back to the blog. To and from a New Year's Eve party at Ben Hartlage's, I was listening to a Gilbert Gottfried rerun podcast on the ridiculous topic of real bands appearing on old TV programs. The Standells turn up quite a few times.

I thought of this soundtrack, even though it's not exactly on the same topic. I don't think I ever got around to listening to it completely, nor have I seen the film I'm sorry to say. Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen any Antonioni film to completion. I remember sitting through one and being bored and frustrated. Call me immature. 

The Yardbirds' appearance is only a single song. My copy (a 1977 reissue I've come to figure out) has a message on the front of in a large yellow circle: Featuring "The Yardbirds" Singing "Stroll On". I guess even in 1977 The Yardbirds still sold more records than the artist on the rest of the album, Herbie Hancock.

Another reason this soundtrack came up in conversation recently was the bassline for the piece "Bring Down the Birds" was the basis of (sampled for?) Dee-Lite's "Groove Is In the Heart". Paul Thompson mentioned this, who has become a noted authority on sampled lines and bassline analysis. https://www.youtube.com/@pdbass

Herbie does his job as a film soundtrack composer here. When the pieces are interesting, I wanted to hear more of them. I'd have to strike that up in general to the limitations of the LP format; I don't know how long the recordings went in session. Some of it is straightforward jazz and blues playing, some more like his Blue Note albums, and there's even some down the line 60s groove organ instrumentals.

As for The Yardbirds, well....if you know Aerosmith's "Train Kept A-Rollin", that's the song with different lyrics, more or less. I don't remember who Aerosmith credited the song to; I recall Shockabilly credited it to "traditional". The Yardbirds sound grungy, with a helping of feedback, that works to their advantage. 

I'll be seeing Herbie Hancock play in March. I figured I would regret it if I didn't. I don't want to mention how expensive the tickets were though. Ugh. With all of his other accomplishments, it's easy to forget that he composed a number of film soundtracks, including Death Wish, Colors, and the non-standards music in "Round Midnight. I've mentioned the subject on this blog previously about wanting to do an all film music performance with OPEK, and there's material here that I could have definitely mined. 

By they way, I played with the aforementioned Ben Hartlage in the band Coal Train back more than twenty years ago. (Ugh again.) I brought my clarinet to the party (which I haven't played in months) and we a stumbled through few songs from that long ago. It was fun. There were a couple of people going crazy and even hanging on me in ways that I never enjoy, but I resisted the urge to be an old crank about it.