One of the best bands whose mission is to recapture a yesteryear sound and feeling—usually of the 1960s—while still having their own sound and identity is Scotland's The Kaisers. I picked up their Shake Me! record back in 2002 when it first came out, not realizing that it was actually from 2002 and not, say, 1962. I was kind of disappointed by this until I listened to it. It's fantastic. I liked it so much I got all the records they had made prior to that, but those didn't hit me the same way. And then what? Nothing except a CD of unreleased and alternate versions of songs from 1993–2006, Ruff'n'Rare. I haven't heard this. I just found out it existed. But the invaluable Shindig! magazine alerted me that The Kaisers put out their first new recording in twenty-two years in 2004! Twenty-two years! It's called More from The Kaisers and it's great. It's right up there with Shake Me!, same great energy, same sonic pleasure and perfection.
Apparently this is the first record they've ever made that's all original material, no covers. They write amazing songs. Their cover of "Just a Little Bit" on Shake Me! was one of my favorite tracks and led me to buy some Magic Sam records. But damn they have their act together. Every song on this record is a gold nugget. I hope I can see them live someday. Maybe you want to, you know, hear what all the fuss is about.
2025 March 26 • Wednesday
All is not lost! There are still great bands making great records! Like Larkin Poe and their new album, Bloom!
I hope you already know them. Rebecca Lovell and Megan Lovell, guitar-slinging sisters, one on slide, with beautiful vocal harmonies and glorious assurance with blues, rock, lyrics and lyricism. They've been favorites at Gutbrain Headquarters for years and their new one has already been played about half a dozen times. The first song, "Mockingbird", is probably my favorite but each track is compelling and has a different feel. Try "Bluephoria" if you need to stand up straight and get something done. "If God Is a Woman" has some words worth hearing, too: "They say I'm problematic as I turn water into wine". Whoever plays drums really keeps the energy up moving forward. And the guitar playing is awesome all the time. You should definitelyfind out for yourself!
2025 March 24 • Monday
How about some South African funk disco whatever for the 849th Soundtrack of the Week? You've got it! Here's Zane Cronje's music for the 1976 movie Snake Dancer, a.k.a. Glenda.
"The Hustler" is a great groovy instrumental with flute, horns and strings stabbing notes over a really swinging rhythm track. Strings come in with a melody and the feel smooths out before getting back to its more intense feel, this time with rhythm guitar. The next track, "Get It On With Music", is a bit reminiscent of "Play That Funky Music" but that hit single hadn't come out yet when this movie released. So that's interesting. There are passionatte vocals about realizing the title. Then it sounds like it's time for romance with "Evening Stroll", a legato and love-themey instrumental with strings and piano over a laidback rhythm part. Charles Segal and R. Clarke contribute a title song, "Glenda", very '70s gold with female vocals singing about the mystery of life. The next track is presumably source music for "Brannigan's Club", a short instrumental that's like a country-tinged blues pop soul whatever number. Percussion and vocal dominate "Uku Gida" though you can hear some other instruments in there. It's like tribal exotica disco, I guess. "Opus Africa" is mostly by Charles Segal and is an interesting mix of disco drums, wah-wah guitar and very straight up and down piano playing. It's a really cool blend. Then it's another disco classic song with Cronje's "Show Me What You Are", which is just really good. The lyrics are good, too: "Minds can change / So can you / I know we'll see it / See it through". There's one more Charles Segal tune and it's a loungey piano feature called "Brannigan's Pad/Coleen's Theme". Very nice and relaxed though the electric bass guitar sounds a little out of place here. Next is a breezy instrumental with strings and horns taking the lead. "Hillbrow by Night" sounds like a lot of '70s background music you've heard before but hey it's good. But for "The Club" we get something different. All of a sudden there's acid rock fuzz guitar and a much harder hitting rhythm with a definite edge to it. This is a nice change of pace. "Uku Puma Kwelanga" is similar to "Uku Gida" but a little brighter, a little lighter, guitar more prominenet, vocals a little more melodic. I sure wasn't expecting a nylong-string guitar to show up but here one is, with what sounds like Hammond organ as well, for the tearful-sounding "After It's Over". We end with a reprise of "The Hustler". Cool record. The movie doesn't have good reviews but I'd watch it.
2025 March 21 • Friday
Bill Frisell in the late '80s and early '90s had a very specific sonic palette that covered a lot of ground and went to unexpected places with unrepeatable events. His use of the volume pedal and long digital-delay effects, either Electro Harmonix or Digitech, basically additional instruments of their own, allowed him to create entire sound worlds that could be gently atmospheric or violently chaotic. As with a lot of music, this was best experienced in live performance. There are lots of recordings out there but one of the best for appreciating this period in Frisell's musical evolution is this record, Live Forever Vol. 3.
This is a presentation of two different live performances, the first from an Art Rock Festival—do those still exist?—in Frankfurt in 1989 and the other from the Kniting Factory, still in its original East Houston Street location in New York City, in 1990. Bill Frisell is playing duets with his longtime friend and collaborator Wayne Horvitz, who deserves a lot of credit for often being a whole band instead of just a keyboard. There are certainly some guitar/piano numbers that are pretty straightforward, such as their rendition of Henry Mancini's "The Days of Wine and Roses". But Horvitz also plays samplers, synthesizers and uses programmed drum parts so he and Frisell, but especially Frisell, can really cut loose. Listening to this made me nostalgic. I moved to NYC in 1990 and quickly became obsessed with Bill Frisell, thanks to my brother's influence. And he was soon to evolve from this particular phase of his playing. But it was such a strong artistic vision and so unique to him that the first track alone, even the first few seconds, brings me right back there. Studio records are fine but there are so many great live performances out there that were well recorded and deserve your attention. This is definitely one of them.
2025 March 19 • Wednesday
A very small label very quietly released one of the best recordings ever to feature Bill Frisell. I was going to say of this century or the last twenty years or something like that but it's actually one of the best ever. It's a unique ensemble and a live recording that contains new compositions by everyone in the trio: Bill Frisell, pipe organist Kit Downes and drummer Andrew Cyrille. The record is called Breaking the Shell and it should especially appeal to fans of Paul Motian's trio with Frisell and Joe Lovano.
Recording an electric guitar/pipe organ/drum kit trio has some logistical and acoustical challenges. It took a while for them to find a church that would work. It was in Manhattan's West Village and they recorded this in two days. It's ensemble playing at its finest, with intensity and intimacy in equal measure and perfect balance between the instruments. Every moment sounds like a single voice from three different people. The shape and sound of each piece is almost always different but always just right. After decades of listening to Bill Frisell, hundreds of live performances and probably about a hundred records, I didn't expect him to surprise me as much as he does here. And yet, of course and as always, he sounds like himself, immediately recognizable. It's a fascinating and inspiring record, one that rewards close and repeated listening. You should definitelybuy it here!
2025 March 17 • Monday
Maestro Ennio Morricone is back for the 848th Soundtrack of the Week, this most welcome release of his music for the 1965 anthology film Thrilling.
The actual movie starts with an Italian vocal version of "Downtown" that isn't on this disc, although an instrumental version, called "Ciao Ciao", is. The first track is a song with Italian vocals, though, called "La Regola Del Gioco". It has that great '60s electric guitar sound familiar from many a Morricone score, and a background chorus that chants the word "thrilling". The first story in this movie is called "Il Vittimista" and "Il Vittimista #1" is a see-sawing melody played on what sounds like cymbalom, with celeste coming in later. The other tracks from this section, excepting "Ciao Ciao", are variations of these these themes: "La Regola Del Gioco #2", "Il Vittimista #2" etc. The "Sadik Intro" starts with some sharp piano and guitar playing and a bit of saxophone. It's very short. Then there's "La Regola Del Gioco #4", another variation, followed by "Amore e Fantasia", a classical piece for violin and piano. Rumbling piano opens "Sadik—Tema", soon joined by flute and other wind instruments for an ominous-sounding cue. The "Sadik—Finale" has some nice muted guitar playing and a lot of space with different instruments coming in and out with different dynamics and textures. The third story is "L'Autostrada Del Sole" "L'Autostrada Del Sole #1" has some "Ecstasy of Gold"-ish writing for the brass while drums keep a shake beat going. "Il Mostro Dell'Autostrada #1" is another piece with lots of space and alternating instruments making unusual statements. The use of percussion is especially good. Harpsichord blends with what sounds like some kind of electronic instrument as well as guitar and piano and piccolo and a bunch of other things for the "L'Albergo" and then things slow down for the relatively straightforward "Prima Dell'Amore", a slow, bluesy piece. "L'Albergo #2", "L'Autostrada Del Sole #2" and "Il Mostro Dell'Autostrada #2" are indeed different arrangements of those themes but "Paranoia" is unique and definitely sounds stressful, with string generating tension and shadowy piano and guitar notes infiltrating the space. The final cue from this section of the movie is an anthemic sounding number called "L'Automobile" that could be chanted by people marching. Then there are three bonus tracks: bass and celeste versions of "La Regolo Del Gioco" and "Sadik—Titoli from 'I Due Evase Di Sing Sing'".
2025 March 14 • Friday
"How do you become a filmmaker?" someone asks Menahem Golan. "Don't do anything else," he replies. That was certainly his approach. And with the help of his cousin, Yoram Globus, who was from a very early age just as obsessed with the business of movies as Golan was obsessed with the movies themselves, he launched the Cannon Group. Their journey, with its perhaps inevitable rise and fall, is the subject of a documentary called The Go Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films, "Go Go Boys" being the somewhat derisive Hollywood nickname for the two Israeli independent film powerhouses.
After becoming successful in their native Israel, Golan and Globus moved to Hollywood, got a small office and started making movies. They became successful enough that the Cannes Festival was eventually referred to by some as the Cannon Festival, and they could get financing for future projects with literally nothing to show investors, not even a title.
They owned their own chain of movie theatres and at one point were generating 20% of Hollywood's box-office returns.
They told their Taiwan distributor, for example, that Death Wish 3 was only available if packaged with Love Streams, too.
They met with Godard and made a deal for a movie with him on the spot, writing and signing the contract on a napkin.
There was never any time to waste. Their breakthrough hit, Breakin', was made in three weeks and hugely successful. But Golan and Globus also didn't have time for their wives and children, a melancholy thread briefly followed in the documentary. The other sad times come with Cannon's losing its grip on the market, after sinking too much money into Over the Top, the dissolution of the cousins' partnership and financial troubles with the SEC and the Italian mafia. Pretty interesting stuff and more fun to watch than most talking head documentaries. It's helped along by clips from Cannon movies and celebrity interviews. The famous story of Jean-Claude Van Damme's first encounter with Menahem Golan is recounted by both men, with the addition of a re-telling of their first business meeting, which I hadn't heard before.
At the height of their success they make the over of Newsweek.
When they split up—"divorce", they call it—it's shocking but not exactly surprising. And the documentary ends on a sweet note as these two life-long partners sit in a cinema, eating popcorn and looking at the movies they made together.
2025 March 12 • Wednesday
A trained commando soldier is on a train with the woman he loves. Her father, a wealthy and powerful man, is also on the train and wants his daughter to marry someone else. This is the young couple's chance to tell him that they love each other and want to marry each other. It's the real thing. And then the train gets taken over by a small army of bandits who want to rob everyone on board, perhaps hold any important people for ransom. And their leader is a crazy psycho violent out of control guy. So... it's basically Die Hard on a train. But this train is going to Delhi! This is happening in India!
Kill doesn't waste much time getting started. And for a while it's non-stop action. But then things take a turn and it becomes much more intense, much more violent. It's quite gory and it's one of those movies where you don't want to get too attached to any of the characters.
Also, there are basically no guns. There are a lot of knives. It's probably the stabbiest movie I've ever seen. And of course there's a lot of punching and kicking and grave bodily harm committed with a fire extinguisher.
Some of these people, especially the main hero and villain, take a lot more damage than is realistic. But this is supposed to be a fast-paced and unusualy violent action movie, basically a very disturbing and downbeat fairy tale.
I like this idea of putting an action movie on a train for the whole time. Snowpiercer did not deliver but Kill ditches all the baggage and gets right to the mayhem. Obviously it's not going to be to everyone's taste but if you don't mind blood and gouging and slashing and all manner of such things on a train, then you should check it out.
2025 March 10 • Mondayfont>
The 847th Soundtrack of the Week is mostly by The Bee Gees and is for a movie called Melody a.k.a. S.W.A.L.K..
Most of the songs are written by various combinations of the Gibb brothers, even if they're not always performed by The Bee Gees. The first number, "In the Morning", is done by The Bee Gees and its a hippie-ish acoustic folk song with CSN&Y-type harmonies. After this comes an instrumental version of the same song, this time by the Richard Hewson Orchestra. It's okay. Then The Bee Gees are back, with "Melody Fair", a nice swaying tune with lightly syncopated vocals and typically beautiful harmonies. This also gets followed by a Richard Hewson Orchestra instrumental version which isn't as good as the song but it's fine. Next the Richard Hewson Orchestra teams up with "Children from Corona School" for Barry Gibb's composition "Spicks and Specks", a jolly, bouncy number with "La la la" lyrics. Richard Hewson wrote "Romance Theme in F" and his orchestra is well suited to this lush, midcentury love theme. I can imagine Liberace playing it. The A side ends with The Bee Gees in, of all things, a country square dance mode, with banjo and fiddle and all that, eschewing the gorgeous harmonies for plainer singing in "Give Your Best". The Bee Gees open the B side with a great '60s pop song called "To Love Somebody", which recalls the Phil Spector days. "Working on It Night and Day" is a vocal number by Richard Hewson (co-written by someone with the last name Gray) with Barry Hewson as the singer. It's a decent kind of bubblegum pop song with a baritone sax solo. The Bee Gees come back with "First of May", a solemn and dreamy slow song with soaring strings and a strong presence. And then of course there's a Richard Hewson Orchestra instrumental version right after it. It's okay. Mr. Hewson then contributes "Seaside Banjo" which is indeed a jaunty banjo feature. But the next song, another Hewson original performed by his orchestra, is really good. "Teacher's Chase" has a fantastic groove, great energy and even a lot of harpsichord playing. Parts of it are a bit Bacharach Casino Royale-ish but that's okay. The record ends with "Teach Your Children Well" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. There's nothing I can tell you about this song. I'm sure you've heard it a hundred times. And, hey, it is really good.
2025 March 07 • Friday
Besides Edward Y. Breese's first Johnny Hawk story, what else was in the November 1968 Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine? The Johnny Hawk story was the first one, followed by Bryce Walton's "The Displaced Spirit", a not especially interesting tale of elderly psychichal researchers whose glory days of possible supernatural encounters with poltergeists and the like are decades behind them.
Lacking both funds and enthusiasm, one of them accepts a grant from a local university to study not ghosts but people's reactions to ghosts. This is to be accomplished by their going around pretending to be ghosts and observing people's reactions. As soon as you read this, you can be pretty sure that the story will head in one of two directions and sure enough, that's what it does. The only mild suspense is in which of the two paths it will take. Fletcher Flora's "Something Priceless", is much more rewarding, using a standard story of blackmail, murder and revenge as the basis for a masterclass in writing suspense.
The ending is ambiguous but not in a cop-out way. The groundwork was laid right up front and I'm sure that it's not a coincidence that Flora had written about lesbian characters in earlier works, including his very first novel.
Next up is "Waiting, Waiting" by that stalwart Bill Pronzini. It begins as kind of a riffon Out of the Past, in miniature and with a significant turn of direction. This very short story builds up to a twist that isn't much of a twist. The atmosphere is good and Pronzini writes with admirable economy but there isn't much point to this story. The low word count wouldn't have even paid much to the author.
2025 March 05 • Wednesday
Quite a few books have been added to the Gutbrain library because of a positive review on the Paperback Warrior blog. (They have a podcast, too, but I find even the word "podcast" to be tedious. I did nonetheless listen to one episode, which means that in my life I have listened to two (2) podcasts.) Last year they mentioned a short story they really liked, one of thirteen, apparently, featuring a freelance man-of-action named Johnny Hawk. They read the third story and loved it, so I decided to check out the first story, which appeared in the November 1968 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
Johnny Hawk is presumably no relation to the Native American New York police detective John Hawk played by Burt Reynolds in the TV series Hawk. (I watched the first episode on YouTube. It's got Gene Hackman in it!) This first outing, "Dreamsville", takes place in drugged-out hippie-ville San Francisco, with Hawk entering this demimonde to locate a young woman whose parents want her back. Author Edward Y. Breese seems to be feeling his way somewhat gingerly with his character's premiere adventure, establishing the basics: competent, experienced, tough, good-lucking, attractive to women, equally adept at sex and violence with no hesitation for either. There's another underworld character who's also looking for the same missing woman and he knows Johnny Hawk by reputation and there's instant respect. So Hawk has got around. He lives in Florida and is all the way out here in northern California for a job, so it won't be surprising if people have heard of him wherever he goes.
The AHMM format pretty much demands that this be a very short story, so Breese gets q bunch of exposition out of the way up front, throws in some sex and violence, wraps up the expositional requirements in a second conversation and then briskly proceeds to sex and violence part two. This is 1968 so while not extremely explicit, the sex and violence elements are fairly hardboiled and what actually happens to some of the characters is horrifying. It's not a feel-good story but rather a bleak and slightly sickening one. Johnny Hawk wasn't especially impressive the first time out, but I have at least his first three stories here and am curious to see how they develop.
2025 March 03 • Monday
Happy birthday! Gil Mellé is here again with his score for Gold of the Amazon Women, the 846th Soundtrack of the Week!
This is such a cool record. Traditional orchestra with some electronic instruments dropped in, mixing up classic Hollywood underscore with "modern" classical ideas as well as various jazz idioms. The "Opening Credits" start out with some strings and a repeating 11-note figure and then about halfway through drop a slinky groove with hand percussion and an adventure-promising string melody. A short. sharp piano figure kicks off "Amazons in New York" and then strings take over, joined by flute, playing some long and legato passages. At the end the strings get choppy and fast, joined by marimba and electronic instruments. A similar string feel from the first half of "Amazons in New York" continues in the beginning of "The Poison and Chasing the Killer", which shifts to a heavier, seesawing section with lots of timpani in the second half. Piano in a gentle waltz feel opens "Heading to South America/Hotel Muzak", soon joined by electric bass guitar and the strings. It's a lovely, lyrical cue with drum set and hand percussin making it swing. The muzak part is a really nice Fender Rhodes feature also with strings and also really beautiful. There's a cool sax solo at the end. "Snake Attack and Hotel Escape" opens with an electronic sting, some kind of analog synth, and then keeps a pensive atmosphere with strings and percussion, the timpani being especially prominent. The "Hotel Muzak" cue returns slightly faster in "Journey into the Jungle and the Village" but no sax solo this time, just reiterations of the theme by strings and flute. Dramatic pounding action music announces "Village Fight: Back on the Road", which manages to blend off-kilter modern classical writing with some jazz grooves in a fragmented but coherent and exciting way. Some lower tones from the wind instruments and dissonant piano clusters convey the menace of "Helicopter Attack", which also deploys the percussion in a big way and leans toward some of John Barry's action writing for the Bond movies at the end. "Snake Bite and Noboros Death" starts out quietly, lots of space, just creating an atmosphere, and then segues into a swinging but also urgent-sounding cue before turning into more love-theme territory at the end with a flute melody. A dramatic and suspenseful string melody with timpani support is played over another slinky groove for "Captured by the Amazons" while "Fight in the Water" picks up the tempo and intensity and brings back the electronic instrument that makes sporadic appearances. It might be a blaster beam. Eerie tones mixing acoustic and electronic sources introduce "The Burning Village" before once again kicking into another multi-layered groove with lots of percussion and weird accents from the electronics. This same mixture of the modern and the groovy, the acoustic and the electric, flows into "Jungle Run", which again features the Fender Rhodes, after which the music relaxes into a more level orchestral cue, though with some warped percussion contributions, in "Chasing the Bad Guy". Electronics, strings, percussion and flute have a jagged and tense call and response session in "Blowdart Attack" after which we're rewarded with another cool groove tune, this time with overblown flute, in "Closing In". Low reed tones then take us to "The Lost City of Gold", which also features the piano before the rest of the orchestra comes in for dramatic fanfares with the brass up front. Strings fade in with subdued long tones for "The Amazons Arrive". After the piano joins them, the strings get more dissonant and percussion and electronics join the party but keep everything level and in suspense. Snare drum gets a martial but light and sprightly beat going while strings and flutes and piccolos dance above it for "March of the Amazons" after which we get the bluesy and slow "Farewells" with piano and sax as the lead voices. The "Closing Credits" bring back the spiky and uptempo action/adventure cues from previously in the film and add some lower-pitched, percussion-heavy figures in the second half. Also included in this release is a bit of Haydn's "String Quartet No. 1 in E Major" plus a few very short "Bumpers".
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