Billy Goldenberg's music for The Grasshopper is our 683rd
Soundtrack of the Week!
While Goldenberg coposed and conducted the score, there's at least one
song by somebody else, "As Far As I'm Concerned", written and sung by
Bobby Russell. It's the first track on the album and musically it falls
somewhere in between "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Theme from A Summer
Place" The lyrics make it a road song or at least a journey song:
"There are places you will travel / Folks are gonan look at you in doubt /
Just remember it's not where you are / But who you are inside that's gonna count". Goldenberg's first track is "Traveling with a Star", an airy
and pleasant piece that's actually an arrangement of the Bobby Russell
song we just heard. Things then get pretty much awesome with "Christine in Las Vegas", a blast
of 1970s thudding electric bass guitar, wah-wah guitars, blaring horns,
even sitar and tabla out of nowhere for some reason. Nobody writes music
like this anymore.
Then there's a shift to waltz time for the first half of "Bonanza Paree/Return to Vegas",
which could fit nicely into a Flint movie soundtrack and
has some impressive saxophone soloing. The second half is more orchestral
and flowing and back to 4/4 time. "Sunset with Christine" starts off with acoustic guitar and trumpet
and has a valedictory "good night" feel. Then the sitar comes back
and we get a much more mellow theme for the end of the cue. The tune "Soft Music for Rosie" is what you'd probably expect
from the title, gentle, swaying, lounge sounds that build on what
Henry Mancini has done so brilliantly. The A side ends with the song "Used To Be" sung by Vicki Lawrence.
It's a sweetly plaintive song with some nice use of minor chords
and a pretty melody. "We were young but we knew love / Love was all we thought of." Side B starts with "Christine (Theme from The Grasshopper)", which has sitar joining
wind instruments and strings for the melody. Then there's a vocal number, "La De Da", performed by Shawn and David.
The vocals sound like children and the song itself is like a psychedlically-tinged
variant of "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?" from John Barry's
On Her Majesty's Secret Service score. "Tommy Doesn't Like Rosie At All" is traditional dramatic underscore
with strings creating tension and some ominous low tones from the winds. Strange sounds, probably from some kind of electronic instrument or electronically
processed instrument, starts off "Tommy's Gone" but soon things settle
into a breezy and swaying cue that suggests the main theme for a while before
stating it explicitly. This is followed by "classical" music, the "Sonata for Eleanor". Presumably this
is a Goldenberg composition that successfully recreates that "concert music" experience. There's another song up next, "Look Again" performed by The Brooklyn Bridge. It's
one of those uplifting '60s about looking around, seeing rainbows, etc.
It's a good song and apparently not written by Goldenberg. It has a nice shift
in the second half with some overdriven guitar and a different rhythmic feel. And then we close with Sousa's "Washington Post March", perhaps because some
kind of minimum eclecticism quotient had to be reached. It's done straight.
2021 July 16 • Friday
Blink and you'll miss it but BILL AIDS OWNER ON FORECLOSURE in I Walk
Alone (1947).
2021 July 12 • Monday
Jazz guitarist Mundell Lowe has done some soundtrack work, including some
cool records of television and movie themes. But I didn't realize that he was also
responsible for the 682nd Soundtrack of the Week:
Billy Jack.
While Lowe contributed score, there are songs by others. And so the record
begins with Dennis Lambert's and Brian Potter's "One Tin Soldier", performed
by Coven. Apparently Coven was one of the first occult rock bands and singer
Jinx Dawson a self described "Left Hand Path High Priestess and Ceremonial
Mage". The song itself is more or less an anti-war protest song with some
martial elements to the arrangement, snare drum prominent, for example. Next is Lowe's very short "Hello Billy Jack", an atmospheric
45 seconds or so of some percussion and wind moods.
Then there's one minute of "The Old and the New" which starts
out with what sounds like Native American tribal music and, after
ten or fifteen seconds, has some psychedlic rock faded into it so
we hear both at the same time, the old and the new indeed. Two songs written and sung by Teresa Kelly come next. "Johnnie" is another anti-war protest song ("Why is there
war? / Why is there killing?" etc.). It's a cool tune with
acoustic guitar and wooden flutes as the platform for the singing. "Look, Look to the Mountain" is a sunnier and sprightlier number
with drums and a backing chorus, as well as cheerful lyrics about
how the natural world is our treasure and such. "When Will Billy Love Me" is a love song, as you might guess,
written and sung by Lynn Baker. There are some nice touches in
the arrangement, treatment of the flute which makes it
sound almost electronic, as well as some subtle use of
an instrument that might be some kind of keyboard or
percussion instrument, I'm not sure. There's a daydreamy
feel to this song and it's very nice. Gwen Smith is up next, singing her song "Freedom Over Me",
basically a gospel number. You only hear it for about half a minute
and then it's onto Mundell Lowe's "All Forked Tongue Talk Alike",
an unexpected jazz guitar feature with organ, bass and drums
as well as a horn section. Presumably this is Lowe himself
and it has that late '60s/early '70s jazz rock whatever thing going on. Another Lowe piece, "The Challenge", follows and at first it sounds
like standard dramatic underscore but eventually kicks into a sort of Vegas-y
horn band number, as if Billy Jack's doing his stage show. Side A ends with another gospel-like song, Lynn Baker's "A Rainbow Made of
Children". It's like a much more energetic "Will the Circle Be Unbroken". The B side is all Mundell Lowe cues, with the exception
of a reprise of "One Tin Soldier" to conclude the record and
"The Ring Song" written and performed by Katy Moffat. First up is a half-minute Lowe composition called "A Most
Beautiful Day", kind of a classic short soundtrack cue of the period
that could be easily dropped into an episode of Columbo or
Banacek or something like that. The next piece is also by Lowe and the title, "An Indian Dance", sums
up what you hear. Hand percussion, wooden flute, jingle bells and
some vocalizing. It's followed by Lowe's "The Ceremonial Dance" which
is surprisingly not more of the same but actually quintessential
tv action/suspense music. Then there's more lounge act jazz shuffling for "A Flick of the Wrist",
which you could imagine hearing on The Love Boat. "It's All She Left Me" is a slow version of the what sounds like the
same melody from "A Flick of the Wrist" but with sinuous horns, acoustic
guitar and flute as the main voice. This mellow and somewhat pastoral feel is carried over into
"You Shouldn't Do That" but the cue quickly becomes about action music.
Having established that, however, Lowe takes the ensemble through various
different zones of mood and texture, one minute just a solo bass clarinet,
the next some percussion ostinato or staccato piano. Up next is the previously mentioned "The Ring Song", which has kind of
a Bobbie Lee Gentry crossed with Joan Baez quality. It's a brisk and
engaging number with great guitar playing as well as energetic piano
and rhythm section. Lowe's "Thy Loving Hand" is next, basically a laidback gospel waltz. After that comes "Say Goodbye, Cause You're Leavin'", a country rock
tune with some great lap steel guitar playing. And then there's just one more piece, Mundell Lowe's "I Think You
Always Knew (The Theme from Billy Jack)", which starts out with some
delicately beautiful nylon-string solo guitar playing that's a hybrid
of classical and pop conventions. Then various wind instruments come in,
flute and clarinet and such, eventually to be joined by electric guitar
that also plays gently and precisely.
2021 July 09 • Friday
Here's another book that I found hard to put down: Lawrence Block's autobiographical account
of the first steps in his professional writing journey, A Writer Prepares.
One of the strange things about this book is that it's only the
second Lawrence Block book I've ever read. The first one was Hit Man,
which I loved at the time. But even though that was great and Block is a great writer and when I
read Hit Man I was working at The Mysterious Bookshop, owned by Block's
friend Otto Penzler, and surrounded by Lawrence Block books, I
never read anything else by Block until now. (I did meet Lawrence Block at the bookshop. I didn't know who he was
and I accused him of shoplifting. He was innocent of the charge, it turned out.
He didn't seem much bothered by the incident.) A Writer Prepares is mostly one big flow of memory that came
out onto the page for Block in 1994 while spending time at an art colony.
Those pages could have gone somewhere but ended up not doing so, until
Block decided to pick up the thread in 2020 and finish the job. He's very up front about the process and the tone is conversational
and candid throughout. This is not just Block the writer or Block
the memoirist but Block the engaging companion with a hundred interesting
stories to tell that he can tell well. He goes as far back to his early writing efforts while still in school,
to submitting poems to magazines about farming, to working on a college
newspaper, and of course finding his way to New York City where he finds
employment at a dubious sort of literary agency, where he would eventually
meet future famous writer and dear friend Donald Westlake. The nuts and bolts of the actual writing are fascinating reading. Pseudonymous
sex novels that can go only so far and no farther, how to inflate page counts,
the trap of guilt-free procrastination, writing as a ghost and hiring ghosts,
covering the walls first with rejection slips and then with the covers
of published books… There are several remarkable characters in here and also some real-life crime
as well. Not to mention some of the straight-world jobs Block also held,
such as working for a journal about coin collecting or the Erie County
Comptroller's Office. In general it's a fascinating document of a long-gone time and place.
In addition to giving us glimpses of authors like Hal Ellson, Block
can also tell us a bit about the 1950s folk music scene, of which
he was enough of a part to contribtue some songs! And the writing on pseudonyms alone should be of interest to Block
and Westlake fans. You might know that Westlake was often Alan Marshall—
and the story of how "Marshall" was contracted to write a biography
of Elizabeth Taylor is quite amusing—and that Block was often
Sheldon Lord—now that's a pen name!—but there turns out to be quite
a bit more to the story than that, such as at least one book that
they wrote together, alternating chapters, and hiring other writers
to turn out Marshall and Lord books, instructing them how to add
those little touches that would identify them as Marshall and/or Lord
novels, thus wrongfooting future bibliographers who believe they can
prove that some book or another is a genuine Block or Westlake when,
in fact, it simply isnt'. The more recently written parts of the book touch on thoughts about
mortality, as Block notes the passing of many friends and considers his
own place nearer the finish line than the starting post. Perhaps this
is part of the impetus to finish this project, a natural tendency
to look back and consider and also for there to be a record. I wish there were more books like this and I wish Lawrence Block
would write a follow-up to this one. The first line is "Hello there".
2021 July 07 • Wednesday
Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series might be better known today if
the movie versions had taken a more serious approach, instead of
being goofy spy comedies starring Dean Martin. (Moddesty Blaise
had the same problem but without Dean Martin.)
It's a shame because the first book in the series,
Death of a Citizen, is really quite remarkable,
though I don't think it would make a great movie, as written.
The citizen of the title is actually Helm himself, who leads a
happy and placid domestic life, married with children, a
professional writer, mostly of westerns. Being a professional writer of westerns is one of many
details that locate the story quite firmly in the mid-century
United States and there are numerous others. One of the interesting things about the book is how Hamilton
distilled of elements of men's adventure magazines
and Mickey Spillane's I, The Jury and put
them into what seems to be the classic
power fantasy, that a character seemingly ordinary, everyday,
banal, not particularly exceptional, just like pretty much
all of us, in other words, is secretly, underneath, a dynamo
of power, skill, knowledge, competence, etc. It's similar to The Bourne Identity, but without amnesia. Matt Helm belonged to a secret US organization in World War II.
The organization had to be secret because its purpose was
to help win the war and to hell with Geneva Conventions or
anything like that. Their jobs were straight-up terrorism,
torture, murder and so on. In addition to learning all sorts ways to do these things, Helm
also learned ruthlessness. You didn't become too friendly with
your comrades because if one of them, say, got injured and couldn't
execute the escape plan with you, you're not going to change the
plan or leave them behind. The only practical option is to kill them
before they inconvenience you any further, and Helm did this. The hook of the story is that while at a totally normal suburban
cocktail party, one of the most mid-century American events
possible, fifteen years after the war has ended and Helm
started living as a regular citizen, Helm is startled to
see one of his former comrades walk in the door. He's so startled that he momentarily forgets to pretend that
he's never seen her before but she quickly and unmistakably
signals him to remember his training, they've never met, she's
working and so, now, is he. From there the book is off and running and it's a real page-turner. Hamilton handles everything very well, including an understated
but very effective approach to violence. The tone is also quite witty,
without undermining the tension of the plot or brutality of the actions. Once Helm is reactivated he views the world of the "citizen" with
a sardonic gaze, and is critically mocking of himself as well. Too much wit would overwhelm the book and it would also be
a distasteful affair without any. Hamilton has the perfect balance
and also, by taking mainstream what's usually called something like
men's adventure magazine fiction, happened upon a very
successful formula. I'm really looking forward to reading the next one.
2021 July 05 • Monday
For our 681st Soundtrack of the Week it's Riz Ortolani's avant funk
psychedelic rock masterpiece, the score for
L'invasione.
It starts especially strong, with "Main Titles" that begin
with what sounds like free improv before kicking into
an intense breakbeat prog acid rock freak out with organ, a sick
electric guitar line and occasional screaming. You get a bit of a break after that with "Love Theme #1 (Beat)",
a loungey number with a lot more electric guitar than these
pieces usually have, and a slightly overdriven one at that.
It's reprised four times but without the guitar, using violin,
harpsichord, string section etc instead.
"Urban Violence Mood" reprises the main title theme, arguably even
more effectively by just diving right into it. The second half
is really a feature for just the bass and drums as the other instruments
drop out for the most part. (There are some organ touches here and there.) This is followed by another devastating groove, the Morricone-esque "Dark
Shake #1", just for bass and drums. "Dark Shake #2" is much the same
except for a percussive coda. At first "Psychedelic Shake" doesn't seem that psychedelic. It's
more like a sunshine pop number, maybe something Bobbie Lee Gentry
could have done something with. But then it takes a sharp turn into
strange territory, sounding like something possibly freely improvised,
before concluding where it began. Things get really weird and strange-sounding with "Drugs", which combines
human wailing with various perussion instruments (including the thunder effect)
and splashes of organ, bass and guitar. An organ-dominated and gloomier version of the main title theme comes
next, as "City Shadows". Then there's some straight-up church music for "Religious Moment",
cathedral organ, chanting etc. You'll want to hear a kicking beat after that and it comes with "Discoteque
Shake", which starts out with another powerful bass and drums track before
shifting gears to a slow jazz blues version of the main title. "Hippies Revolution" is the organ freak-out version of the main title
and it's fantastic. Another unexpected turn comes with "Whisky in the Night", a raunchy, swinging
New Orleans-ish cue that sounds like it might be for a strip club scene. Then it's back to the main title again, but this time with harpsichord and
saxophone, for "Pursued". You might be thinking that it's time for something weird again and you'd be
right. The first half of "Fear" is some very strange sonic territory,
hard to describe, before it runs through the main title theme again. It's a good thing the main title is so incredibly good because you hear it a lot.
The last two tracks on the CD are "Sensual Mood", which is the main title
done slow and slinky, and then a straight reprise for the "End Titles". There are a lot of great Italian soundtracks from the 1960s and 1970s but this
is one of the all-time best.
2021 July 02 • Friday
Alison Bechdel's new book, The Secret to Superhuman Strength, perhaps completes
a trilogy.
Fun Home focused on her father, Are You My Mother? was
about, believe it or not, her mother and now, with The Secret to Superhuman
Strength, she has presented us with a story about herself. Of course all three books are also about her and about her mother and
about her father and about other people in her life. The distinction is one of, I don't know, perspective or approach or
centering or something like that. Fun Home had a narrative arc and some big events that presumably
helped audiences to get swept away by it. Indeed, it became a successful
Broadway musical, which is an extraordinary event for an autobiographical
comic. Are You My Mother? was a deeply psychological and psychoanalytic
work, successfully presenting intensely interior mental and emotional
events through Bechdel's virtuosic talent and skill. While I remember
finding the story to be not everything I had hoped it would be,
I thought the book was a powerful example of the potential of the medium
and Bechdel's use of the medium to be genius. With The Secret to Superhuman Strength, Bechdel is straightforward
about her purpose, which is definitely a challenging one.
Who knew that fitness had been a constant in her life? And that
she would follow this thread through a labyrinth of personal relationships,
physical ordeals
and study of figures as diverse as Jack Kerouac, Margaret Fuller and
Samuel Coleridge, among others (such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, or "Waldo" as
she usually calls him). There's also Buddhism, meditation, martial arts, therapy, booze and pills. The book is divided into decades, both hers (every ten years of her life)
and ours (the 1970s, the 1980s, etc.) There's often a television or newspaper or magazine cover in the background
as a kind of signpost for where we are in the world of current events,
and it's frequently helpful and often significant, such as when she sees
how negative projection can go viral, so to speak, as it so lamentably
has done recently. And it's not just about her life but about the lives of others
who came before and some who were there with her. It is, once again,
an example of brilliance in the medium itself, though a sparer,
quieter work. Like all of her books, it is absolutely excellent reading
for anyone struggling with themselves. Isn't that everyone?
