Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Brought to you by Bill Murray

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:52:47 -0700

I hate to base two posts in a row on TV watching, but tonight's family entertainment was rife with great music that I want to blog about. We introduced the kids to Bill Murray's best movie, the criminally neglected The Man Who Knew Too Little. Murray plays an American schmo in London who thinks he is taking part in the experimental "Theatre of Life," but instead ends up as the key player in the middle of super-secret spy stuff--comedic spy stuff, that is. (Evil lady torturer? Check. Ticking time bomb? Check. Austin Mini car chase? Check.) The film is replete with quotable lines, sight gags, comic coincidences and misunderstandings, all to the accompaniment of vintage and original spy music. Prominent in the mix is the Three Suns' version of "Fever," one of the most-anthologized songs of the 90s lounge/exotica revival:

That whole lounge thing was fun while it lasted: all the reissues of Esquivel, the Three Suns, Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, comebacks by Yma Sumac and Korla Pandit, and revivalist bands like Combustible Edison, Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited, and the like, not to mention the cornucopia of compilation discs put out by just about every label. And a lot of it was delectable, glorious spy music. Nancy Sinatra enjoyed a bit of a renaissance, too, and The Man Who Knew Too Little closes with "The Last of the Secret Agents"--

03. The Last of the Secret Agents

Nancy Sinatra

What a perfect ending to a perfect movie! (My daughter even said, "This is the best spy movie ever," and she's seen all the Austin Powers flicks. I don't think she's ever seen a serious spy movie, so she really means spoof spy movie, but that's how good it is.)

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Parker and Hawkshaw in charge

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:15:30 -0700

As promised yesterday, here are a couple tracks showing what 70s-era guitarist Alan Parker and keyboardist Alan Hawkshaw got up to in their sound library careers, not playing second banana in an also-ran wizard-prog band. I put the de Wolfe library's best-of collection, Bite Hard, on the mp3 player today, and I felt like a total badass walking home with Alan Parker and William Parrish's "The Hawk" as my personal soundtrack:

02 The Hawk - Alan Parker

Alan Parker

Not on the mp3 player but just as badass (well, maybe not quite) is Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett's "Auto-Pilot" from their Themes International Music library album Synthesizer and Percussion:

06 Auto-Pilot

Alan Hawkshaw & Brian Bennett

I've put the "car chase music" tag on that one; it's a bit low-key for that but still serviceable.

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Shawn Lee and soundtrack music

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Wed, 21 May 2008 20:23:33 -0700

Shawn Lee has just put out yet another new Ping Pong Orchestra album! It's called Miles of Styles and, as the title suggests, it's got the most varied genres of any record in the series (and it's also double the length). The tunes are mostly instrumental, and Lee uses the song titles to telegraph their content: "Punjabi Lullaby," "Brazilian Bubble," "Lagos Calling," "Heist in Helsinki," etc. Here is "Italy 73"--

09 Italy 73

Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestr

Is that an homage to 1970s Italian thriller soundtrack masters Goblin? I think it's a safe bet; here's some Goblin:

15-La_via_della_droga_-_31

Goblin

So far we've had two of the four kinds of soundtrack music:

Fake library music. Real library music is marketed to film producers to use in film soundtracks. Usually the records or discs are several times more expensive than "consumer" recordings, because the price includes royalties for unlimited use in films. This is where most of the music in instructional, promotional, and documentary films comes from. Feature films with too small a budget for original music also rely on library music. Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra albums are consumer products; anyone wishing to use the music as a soundtrack must negotiate licensing fees. Thus, "fake" library music.
Real soundtrack music. Commissioned for a specific, actual film, as Goblin's track was.

The third category is real library music, such as Eddie Warner's Cops, Crooks and Spies album for library label l'Illustration Musicale, with tracks like "Detective Theme," "Prohibited Sector," "Manipulated Code," and the Goblinesque "Infernal Crime"--

A6 Infernal Crime

Eddie Warner

Finally, there is fake soundtrack music, or music composed as the soundtrack to an imaginary film. J.G. "Foetus" Thirlwell has put out three such albums under the moniker Steroid Maximus. Thirlwell's psychotic rantings can become tiring to listen to, but his Foetus backing tracks were always interesting. It turns out he really is a gifted composer and arranger, and the mostly vocal-less Steroid Maximus albums showcase that facet of his talents. I haven't put up any car chase music for quite a while, so here is Thirlwell's excellent "Chaiste" (get it? chased?) from the 2002 album Ectopia--

11 Chaiste

Steroid Maximus

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Lost 80s: The Truth

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:24:28 -0700

I watched the classic 1987 sci-fi thriller The Hidden with the kids yesterday. Kyle MacLachlan stars as an FBI agent who enlists ace cop Michael Nouri's help in tracking down a sluglike alien who takes over human bodies and makes them steal fast cars and listen to loud music. There's a lot of not-quite-mainstream new wave rock on the soundtrack that manages to capture some of the musical excitement of that era. The song playing during a scene in a record store , "Weapons of Love," sounded so familiar, but I couldn't quite place it; the closest I could guess was INXS, but the voice is wrong. It is actually by a different Australian band, The Truth, from their 1986 album of the same name:

The Truth - Weapons of Love

The Truth

I've called this a "Lost 80s" track, but it's not so lost that it didn't appear on a Lost Hits of the 80's CD from EMI Special Products. It's also a guilty pleasure for me: I know it's vapid and formulaic (and cribs some lyrics from "Gimme Shelter"), but they sure do nail the formula! And I still think it sounds like an INXS outtake, or even a... what's the opposite of outtake? Intake? Input? Final inclusion?

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