Slipping back into the water with JAWS – A new look at John Williams’ classic movie soundtrack

Today I posted an article, no, rather an essay about John Williams’ unparalleled soundtrack to the 1975 classic Jaws. I know it’s not exactly a horror film, but can anyone honestly say that it did not scare them, even a little? Anyway, I think a tribute to Williams’ work on this one is long overdue, despite his Academy Award for it, so I gave it a go. I also included excerpts of Spielberg and Williams interviews to add a bit of color to the piece, though it probably made it appear more like a book report than a retrospective review.

The more I do these articles, the more I get the weird feeling that I am among the last bastions of film score music. I can’t exactly explain it, but it seems as time goes on, less and less people care about this artform. But I’m not giving up; I need to keep these pieces of aural art in the minds of as many people who are willing to open their minds to them.

Check out the fishy fun here!

Halloween Horror Music Happenings – Soundtrack and Film Score reviews with bite!

For the month of October, I decided to start writing up extensive spotlights on a number of horror movies…well, some of them are horror, and some just have scary elements. Everybody does features pertaining to the best horror movies (or scariest, or goriest, or most shocking), but no one seems to give any attention to the music that, in many cases, is the actual backbone of the frightening atmosphere.

So, for every day this month, I am creating feature articles to give respects to some amazing soundtracks. Sure, some of the movies might not be the cream of the crop, but this is about the music, not the movies themselves. You would not believe how many bad movies are released every week that have great musical backdrops.

The factor that sets the horror genre apart is that most of the composers work either with unbelievably small budgets, or they have a very limited time frame in which to work. So it is even more incredible that they are able to produce quality product.

In addition to giving a little overview of the film and examining the soundtracks, I also have been coloring the features with excerpts from Roger Ebert’s reviews from when the films were originally released (because his work is more entertaining than it is legitimately critical), and I have also received some guest commentary from Cradle of Filth vocalist Dani Filth. I’ve also got some VERY special features to post in the coming weeks, so be forewarned!

So far, I have posted articles spotlighting Children of the Corn, Disney’s The Haunted Mansion, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Candyman, The Silence of the Lambs, The Lost Boys, Christine, and the recently released Trick ‘r Treat. You can join the fun every day here.

Enjoy!

My 'Dethly Encounter with yet another awesome musician

As you know by know, I've been using this blog to share my run-ins (mostly intentional, and unfortunately, not in-person but via phone) with some of my favorite musicians.

This time, I'd like to share with you a bit of a Cinderella story of sorts. Once upon a time there was an incredibly creative power/thrash metal band from Colorado called Jag Panzer. The band made some great albums, my favorite being the MacBeth-imbued conceptual piece, Thane to the Throne. Jag Panzer contained an amazing array of gifted musicians, and one that shined just a bit more brightly than his peers - led guitarist Chris Broderick.

The guy's work was just insane, and if you have ever gotten a chance to see the band's official DVD, The Era of Kings and Conflict, you may have seen a glimpse of Broderick' spiderlike phalanges. Fast-forward a few years, and we find CB in the court of King Mustaine and his motley band of thrashoholics. Megadeth's new album, Endgame, will be the first studio album on which Broderick's has appeared since 2004!!!

Anywho, check the link HERE for my exclusive interview with Chris.

I truly hope you all enjoy it!

No Metal for the Mouse: Disney Bans Heavy Metal Concerts!

Here's an oldie but goodie. A few years ago, Disney banned the performing of heavy metal concerts at the House Of Blues concert venues that happened to be on Downtown Disney property. It caused an uproar in the metal commmunity, and I, being a member of said community, decided to do an article about it for the Penn State Berks Collegian student newspaper. So, without further ado, please enjoy this little blast from my past.



If you are planning a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL for Spring Break and you happen to enjoy rock music of the hard persuasion, don’t book your flight just yet. Word is quickly spreading about a new Disney decree: all heavy metal music acts are banned from performing at the House of Blues nightclubs in Downtown Disney districts.

Disney officials have not openly stated why this new policy has taken immediate effect, but one can assume that it is tied to the recent muggings and vandalism at the Downtown Disney district at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL.

It is a common fact that there has been insufficient security staff during late nights in the area, as pointed out by Jeff Davis, a staffer for the popular Disney podcast, Character Breakfast. He also believes that Disney is making moves to draw in a different kind of crowd to the nightclub and that heavy metal really isn’t popular enough to keep the people coming in.

He may be right, but it is an odd rule for Disney to make after spending decades producing hundreds of films that preach ideals of tolerance and openness.

Concerts at House of Blues are always ticketed events, and most of these are ‘over-21’ shows, so people typically are not going to attend these concerts if they are offended by what they are hearing. Regardless, a press release was circulated citing “violent imagery, undesirable fans and inflammatory lyrics” as the reason behind the ban.

This type of generalization is unfortunately sad and somewhat hypocritical. As one Berks campus senior questioned the policy, “Who else are they banning? Are they allowing hardcore and gangster rap? If they are banning all acts with violent content, ok, it is a fair policy. If they are just banning heavy metal, they need to reexamine their policy because it is not fair.”

So far, no other genres of music have felt the bite of the mouse. Oddly, bands that have played the club multiple times in the pass are just as astonished to have the door now slammed in their faces.

Dani Filth, vocalist of the British shock rock act Cradle of Filth recently stated, “The cancellation of our show on grounds of inappropriate content is a joke. We’ve already played there three times in the past.”

After having two concert dates cancelled at the venue, Robb Flynn, singer of Oakland, Ca. metal band Machine Head interviewed with Worcester Telegram & Gazette and agreed with Filth’s sentiments.

“It's pretty disturbing,” Flynn began. “We are shocked that in this day and age, in 2007 America, that bands can be pressured, (and) that promoters can be pressured by a business and be removed from a venue because somebody doesn't like what your lyrics stand for or think that your fans are crazy. We've played these venues before, and there was no indication that anything was going to be different.”

While Disney remained silent on the issue, Live Nation, the company that owns House of Blues soon issued its own statement of defense.

John Vlautin, the vice president of Communications, offered the following:
“House of Blues offers a range of entertainment to match the audience at our venues. It was determined that the mix of entertainment at our two Disney locations should be different from our other venues.”

While this did not specifically address the issue of singling out heavy metal music, it seemed to appease the people. But the heavy metal music fans were still not satisfied.

A Berks senior vehemently professed, “As an avid fan of both Disney and heavy metal music, I am distraught over this predicament. While I am not going to say that there are no heavy metal bands that do reflect the [press release’s] statement, the genre is so vast that the statement can only hold water with a fraction of bands regarded as heavy metal. From my experience, hip hop, punk, and hardcore bands are more violent and unpredictable than heavy metal, yet there is no mention of cancellations for those genres.”

Another senior offered a different perspective on the situation.
“If the House of Blues is on Disney property, Disney has some input on who should and shouldn't play there.”

Filth retorts, “If Disney didn't want to see hordes of black-clad figures lurking around their jaded kingdom, then they should've thought twice about creating characters like Cruella DeVille and Maleficent in the first place.”

The irony doesn’t stop there, either. The House of Blues night club chain was formed to pay homage and honor The Blues Brothers. They were a raucous blues/rock act that became iconic on Saturday Night Live and later became the primary players in a blockbuster film. The Blues Brothers themselves most likely would not have been permitted to perform on Disney property either, due to their own lewd behavior.

While the music is banned from being performed on property, the Virgin Megastore almost across the street from House of Blues in Downtown Disney is still permitted to sell heavy metal CDs and DVDs.

And at Planet Hollywood in the Disney Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney-MGM), one could easily purchase t-shirts promoting horror films like Halloween and Evil Dead. These may not be music items, but they do possess similar “violent imagery and undesirable fans.”

While the Penn State curriculum is chock full of classes that teach and exemplify acceptance and tolerance, it seems that Disney is playing to a different tune. Students who may find themselves down at Walt Disney World this spring take note.

Interview with Horror Movie Soundtrack Composer Tyler Bates (Halloween II)

I REALLY enjoy interviewing film composers. It probably has something to do with the facts that they never really ever get a lot of press, and that I've spent the last 15 years interviewing rock/metal musicians. So it's definitely fun to crack the mold and venture where few dare to tread.

Today I interviewed Tyler Bates on the day of release of the film he just scored, HALLOWEEN II.

Here's a taste:

One of the things I really enjoy about your work is that you’re not a canned composer where all your work sounds identical. I mean, you can tell a Bates score when you hear one, but it doesn’t sound the same as another score in your filmography. And I don’t know if it is something you consciously do, but the music plays a different role in each film. In Watchmen, the music was part of the setting. In The Devil’s Rejects, it felt like another character. In 300, it took on the role of the emotions of everyone involved. With your work on Halloween II, the music seems to suck all of the oxygen out of the air and replaces the atmosphere with this really dense, palatable, metallic sensation.

(Laughs) Well each movie calls for something different. My musical tastes are very broad and are not really formed at all by film scores, although there are composers whose work I admire and get me fired up to do good work. But to be honest with you, I just look at the individual challenge. I don’t gauge a movie by something I’ve done before. Even this new Halloween movie, following the one Rob and I did couple years ago, the point really was to turn the page and approach this a little bit differently, while hopefully carrying forward some of the experience we had from doing the first one and dealing with the characters and taking John Carpenter’s pre-existing material into consideration.

On the first one, there were footprints you had to tread and, to a point, you had this built-in audience that was expecting to hear an homage to Carpenter’s work. But the new one has a very clean-slate feel to it, where it expands upon, like you said some of the character themes.

Actually, when I started the Halloween II score, I was thinking very minimalist. I wanted it to be really muddy and bassy with some gongs and random hitting of stuff that made it sound really tactile and identifiable with a room you just really didn’t want to be in as opposed to a traditional, thematic score. And it does become thematic at times, but not exactly in the traditional sense, and definitely not as much as the John Carpenter-era Halloween films. Even though that stuff can be limiting in terms of structure and that it was created for that first incarnation of Michael Myers (which is a totally different film style from what Rob is making), at the end of the day, when I’m dead, if I could have done one piece of music that is even remotely THAT identifiable, I’d be completely happy.

And like I said, this film is pretty much a clean slate in that it is not a sequel to Halloween II (1981), but it is in essence a brand new movie. So you are given a freer range of things you wanted to do and ideas you wanted to explore. That said, were there things in this Halloween II score ideas from the first film that you wanted to expand upon but couldn’t?

Yeah, I would say that it is a progression of ideas. In the first one, there was a sort of grappling with how much do we pay homage to the original Halloween and its characters and how much we employ the Carpenter themes. Really, that’s Rob’s battle. He will talk to me about what he feels is appropriate. But that said, any time I had to do a Carpenter theme, it was very difficult to drop it into the middle of what I was doing, so it pretty much negated a number of ideas I wanted to explore in the first movie.

So when Rob phoned me up and asked if I was up for it, he said, “I don’t think I want to work with the Halloween themes as integral aspects of the score. It would be kinda cool if it was somewhere in the film, but let’s do our own thing.” I thought that was an interesting opportunity or way to go back and make it our own complete destruction of a movie. (Laughs) So, yeah, sure there were different ideas and motifs that were explored, as if this were ‘Rob Zombie’s first Halloween movie'.

Read the full story here!

A video to check out! Sure it's for a shark book related contest, but it's pretty creepy!

So I've taken the plunge and entered into a little contest to attempt to get my likeness placed into the next book in Steve Alten's MEG (big badass shark novel) series. Sure, you may call it cheesy, but since Alten is one of my favorite authors, I think its pretty cool.

Here is a trailer for his latest book entry in Alten's MEG series, entitled MEG: HELL'S AQUARIUM. There's more than just crazy giant shark action. There's environmental issues, theories on previously extinct sea creatures, and, of course, flesh flinging in all directions! It's a great, suspenseful summertime read...especially if you're at the beach!

So, the more you click on THIS LINK, the better my chances of getting into the book. Also, you should check out the book, because, like I said, it's really fun, and really suspenseful!

Enjoy!

My first interview with a Soundtrack composer, or How awesome it would be to be in San Diego between July 23-25

So, as many of you know, I've been a soundtrack / film score fiend for as long as I can remember. I collect scores (on CD and vinyl), and I used to do some soundtrack copywriting for Muze, before they were bought by Macrovision. That little void was what prompted me to pitch an idea to Examiner - to allow me to share my knowledge and passion for soundtracks with the masses via their site. Soon after, in addition to being Heavy Metal Examiner, I became Soundtracks Examiner.

It's been a rough road, because soundtracks are like the red-headed stepchild of the music industry - unless it's a Broadway musical, a Disney production, or Twilight, most people don't really care about soundtracks. It's definitely been an uphill battle to share the joys that film scores bring me.

However, today is a banner-day for me, as I have posted my first interview with a composer...and not just any ol' lacky from Media Ventures / Remote Control Productions (though they do seem to nab a lot of the high-profile movies these days). I was given the opportunity to spend some time with Battlestar Galactica / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles / Eureka music-meister Bear McCreary.

Here's a taste:

On the subject of Battlestar Galactica, word is out that you’ve completed compiling the music for the Season 4 two-disc set. How did this project grow beyond the confines of one disc?

Fans have been bugging me for a two-disc album since the beginning of Season 4. I’ve honestly been fighting it. I wanted to compose a nice companion piece the ever-expanding BSG universe. I don’t like having filler on my soundtrack albums, so if a cue isn’t good enough for me to put it on CD, I don’t put it on for the sake of filling space. So I really didn’t think I could fill two CDs, but when I got to the end, I realized that the finale alone had over 60 minutes of scoring that I thought was really good. There was maybe 100 minutes of music in that episode, but there was about 65 minutes of it that was worth putting on CD. So it was then that I realized that we really did have to do a two-CD set to do the show justice. I mentioned it to La-La Land Records, and I believe their words to me were, “well, duh!”

Regarding your latest release, Caprica, it sounds to me more emotive and character-centric than the Battlestar scores, which are very atmospheric, encapsulating all the action and drama of the environment.

Well, Caprica has a much smaller cast, and that cast can essentially be divided into two families – The Adamas and the Graystones. So I wrote two themes, one for each family, and they serve as the thematic thread that ties the Caprica score together. Battlestar, as you mentioned, tends to be attached to arcs, subplots, and sometimes thematic ideas. There are also themes for every single character on the show, and there are at least 50 of those alone, not that they all get used all the time. So Caprica was a very different approach.

Check out the full monstrosity here!

Thanks!