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 underscore?

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.