30 Day Song Challenge – Day Eighteen: Best Song to Put on When You Have to Smoke a Cigarette and Think About a Dame:Bluette by Dave Brubeck (1961)
30 Day Song Challenge – Day Thirteen: Best Song to Get Creepy With for Friday the 13th:I’m Hurt Bad by Angelo Badalamenti (1990)
PS – Twin Peaks, possibly best TV show ever now streaming on Netflix Instant!
by Santo and JohnnySlide guitar reminds me of two things: Hawaii – to which I’ve never been and High School Proms – well, OK, not MY prom where I had just broken up with my date and Toad the Wet Sprocket still ruled, but you know, the fluffy dress, Enchantment Under the Seas kind of prom.
No one was as prolific on the instrument as the Brooklyn born duo Santo and Johnny, whose collection Sleepwalk, Vol 1 has been brightening my days lately.
They lend their musical styling to a variety of songs, so that in the end, you’ll be taken on a slide guitar journey that goes beyond Hawaii and Proms while still making a stop at each with Sweet Lelani and the excellent title song respectively.
You’ll hear hints of the Old West in one of my favorites, The Wandering Sea, and be able in envision a David Lynchian scene with another favorite, You Belong To Me.
You’ll be whisked away to a groovy party via Watermelon Man, think you’ve just turned on a 1970’s variety show with the musak-y glitz of Volare and even say hello to a sunshiny Christmas with Twistin’ Bells (Van’s current favorite – the boy loves Christmas music).
This just seems like the perfect music to be listening now during the fresh air days of May.
30 Day Song Challenge – Day Nine: Best Use of Baby Babble:Countdown at 6 by Perrey and Kingsley
by Bill Doggett (1956)Honky Tonk is an early classic of instrumental rock and roll. The kind of tune that makes you want to sway by the jukebox with your bobby sox, cute straight cut bangs with a beer in your hand and a bad boy in your sights.
I am not surprised to find that Bill Doggett, who made the song a hit before the Beach Boys adopted it later, was the pianist and arranger from one of my favorite 1940’s bands, The Ink Spots.
by Apparat Organ Quartet (2010)If you took the biggest movies of the 80’s (specifically Conan the Barbarian and Beverly Hills Cop to name a couple) and set them in the future (I can tell you already like where this is going) then asked a talented avant garde orchestra with rock and roll leanings to write a score, then let video game musicians play it – you’d end up with something like Polyfonia, a bold, instrumental album from the Icelandic band Apparat Organ Quartet.
According to founder Johann Johannson, a think tank leader (of a group called Kitchen Motors) in his country, the band’s latest release is “more suited to the musical tastes of the masses” so even us common folk will find it enjoyable.
Before you think their band name was just chosen by the latest facebook game, they are in fact a quartet of organ players (plus one drummer) who use old, cast away keyboards, synthesizers, and other machinery. Fellow young and talented Icelander, Siggi Eggertsson is the artist behind the sweet cover.
Thanks to Shaun for introducing me to this unique album.
by Riz Ortolani (1980)I’ve yet to see the movie Cannibal Holocaust (I know, I know, it’s a exploitation classic) but even without firsthand knowledge, this is certainly not the soundtrack I expected from it. Featuring amazing song titles like Adultresses’ Punishment – which sounds like Hammer style dread in outer space, Cameraman’s Recreation – a groovy porny song that leads into a childlike romp, the video game sounding Massacre of the Troupe, and the surprisingly melodic and catchy theme, it’s more than a mere novelty but something quite listenable, unique and enjoyable.
True, at times it treads close to calls to mind muzak from the seventies (see Drinking Coco) – which in turn calls to mind the kind of wall paper that use to have bits of mirrored gold in it – something from my childhood perhaps – I think ice cream was involved… but I digress.
Overall though, this album is so much more interesting and nice to listen to than it needed to be. I mean, it’s a soundtrack for a film that caused outrage over its killing of actual animals on screen which was banned in many countries for indecency and extreme gore. And yet, I have been playing the soundtrack for my baby for days.
All the praise for the music goes to Riz Ortolani, a composer of mostly b-movies and genres flicks who obviously put his heart into even the most unusual of jobs. I have friend and weird movie connoisseur Matthew to thank for this soundtrack making the rounds in my iphone. Several others have been released and I am sure I’ve be writing about them soon enough.
by Yvette HornerThe haunting En Glissant by Yvette Horner came to my attention via family on facebook and is one of the songs shot for the Scopitone, which friend Marcus explained to us over on RC a ways back. Horner, virtually unknown in America was a French accordion star.
by Clutchy Hopkins (2006)The neighborhood corner Aussie gem, Five Leaves has much to recommend it (a brilliant chicken sandwich, pavlova, muesli, gravlax, and excellent coffee to name a few) but aside from the food and an affable staff, there’s always good tunes playing. I am usually familiar with what their spinning, and sometimes pleasantly surprised (True Stories by Talking Heads is woefully forgotten and underplayed). This morning though, a music I was thoroughly enjoying was unknown to me. It ended up being a one Clutchy Hopkins, a man whose very identity in in question and the stuff of mystery and legend.
Considered a dj, his music is an amalgamation of styles and sounds and as far from the monotonous stuff that inspires squatting, hoola hooping in McCarren Park (anyone else privy to that display Saturday?) that I usually associate with the term “dj”.
The album is self produced and likely to become the soundtrack to the rest of my summer. Very lovely stuff.
by Nino Rota (1960)Nino Rota made beautiful music for films, and never more beautiful and fanciful than when working on a film by Federico Fellini, and never more whimsical and wonderful than his theme to the classic La Dolce Vita.
It’s a piece of music that can whisk you away to glamorous and magical worlds.
Fellini said of Rota, “He was someone who had a rare quality belonging to the world of intuition. Just like children, simple men, sensitive people, innocent people, he would suddenly say dazzling things. As soon as he arrived, stress disappeared, everything turned into a festive atmosphere; the movie entered a joyful, serene, fantastic period, a new life.”
Click here for the rest of La Dolce Vita Theme