When Breaking Glass was playing cinemas in late 1980, I'd already seen Stardust, also a drama warning us of the machinations of the music industry, but set in the world of rock bands. Recently, I caught up with Slade in Flame which also preceded it. But I found this far more engaging, the main difference being the punk attitude and birth of several music genres. Back in 1980 though, this music could be heard all over the radio and even on Top of the Pops and the movie Quadrophenia (1979) had already captured the attitude effectively.
So instead, that month, I opted to go see the very different musical movies Can't Stop The Music and Fame, ahem. With the gift of retrospection I should've seen Breaking Glass.
I remember songs from the soundtrack being in the charts and hadn't realised that singer/star Hazel O'Connor has been recruited for the film, which launched her as a pop act in parallel with the plot! The songs 'Eighth Day' and 'Will You' were the strongest, but it's fair to say her career as a singer and actor floundered soon afterwards.
Film Review, August 1980
The story is a small idealistic band being gently bludgeoned into shape as a pop product by a record company (an insight I'd like to see dramatised again in the present music industry). As in Stardust and Flame the various players all look deadly accurate, no doubt modelled on key characters of the time. What sets this apart is the year, 1980, a transitional time when British bands were finding their feet post-punk. New wave and new romantics were getting started and cheap electronic keyboards added a new important new sound to garage acts.
Janine Duvitski and Hazel O'Connor
Amazingly, this emerging minority music scene is reflected in a slickly-produced amply-budgeted movie. Smooth crane shots at odds with the grotty, non-spectacle of North London locations. We see the Camden Town that Withnail & I have only just vacated. There's added grottiness from the dustmen strikes and power cuts from the end of the 1970s which, synched with the nihilism of punk, suggested that society was breaking down.
Full page ad from Film Review, October 1980
The end of the 1970s also marked the rise of Oi! bands, music for skinheads, some of whom supported racist extreme-right organisations. The punk fashion use of swastikas had blurred their politics in the eyes of the media. So, in the movie, fictional post-punk band Breaking Glass take a visible and vocal anti-fascist stance, reflecting the time when young anti-Nazi groups emerged to face off against the rise in organised racist rallies around Britain.
While the story has few surprises and the dialogue more than a few unintentional laughs, the rare representation of the political, musical and fashion scenes are a valuable snapshot of what was going on at the pivotal dawn of the '80s.
Hazel O'Connor's many images includes one that predates the scary Pris (Daryl Hannah) of Blade Runner and a glowing circuitry suit and helmet before Tron had been made.
Phil Daniels plays the band's manager, linking this movie to Scum and Quadrophenia, making a violent and cynical trilogy of young people finding out about the system in place. Inexplicably, this was his last great role.
Jonathan Pryce (just before Something Wicked This Way Comes, Terry Gilliam's Brazil) has a good, but largely mute, supporting role as a deaf saxophonist. The enigmatic Jon Finch (The Final Programme, Frenzy, The Vampire Lovers) struggling to avoid TV roles. Jim Broadbent and Richard Griffiths have pre-fame cameos, as well as future feature director Jonathan Lynn. There's also the original Zaphod Beeblebrox (of radio and TV), Mark Wing-Davey, and Gary Tibbs just before he joined Adam and the Ants.
All this and a beginner's guide to rigging the pop charts...
Breaking Glass has recently been restored for DVD and blu-ray in the US, with a longer 'uncut' edition released on DVD in the UK. Unusually for downbeat British cinema, it was shot 2.35 widescreen.
Live in London, living in London! On December 18th at the Camden Roundhouse, part of the HyperJapan festival, this concert was a superb return to the London stage (after twenty years) for Japanese rock star Hotei Tomoyasu, one of the greatest living guitarists!
For two hours, I could have been listening to a non-stop 1970s electric guitar solo. Tomoyasu played his recent hits ('Bambina') and many tributes to '50s rock 'n' roll, '70s rock heroes (Steppenwolf's 'Born To Be Wild') and his favourite avant-garde British idols like Roxy Music, T Rex and David Bowie (notably 'Starman').
I was delighted to hear his barnstorming opening 'Battles Without Honour or Humanity', which I'm sure many other bands, celebrities and, ah, wrestlers have used as playback intro music. But Tomoyasu plays it live, made world famous by its inclusion in the Kill Bill Vol 1 soundtrack. He followed this up with a blinding arrangement of the Mission Impossible theme.
I'd seen some of his pop promos and two of his film appearances (Samurai Fiction, and Red Shadow), but wasn't expecting his English to be so good. He told the audience (of mostly Japanese Londoners) that he'd now moved from Berlin to live in London. I thought he was just visiting for this gig! So look out for him playing more dates in the UK.
The entire gig was also filmed with five HD cameras, so keep your eyes peeled for something better than iPhone footage in the near future.
A 90-minute documentary feature attempting to cover the whole of World War II, all set to songs of The Beatles.
Not a completely crazy idea after the acclaimed documentary Buddy Can You Spare A Dime? (1975) had taken a similar approach to America's Great Depression. But closer comparison could be the That's Entertainment compilations that made use of studio archives to create new movies - the cinematic equivalent of a TV 'clip show'.
In the UK in 1977, I only knew the movie because of the vinyl double-album cluttering up the soundtrack section of the record shops. Being at school, I wasn't about to be tempted into the cinema for a history lesson, not that I ever noticed it playing anywhere locally. Ironically, this was around the same year that I'd stop studying history. At my school, the only way to learn about 20th century history was to take the 'A' level, which I didn't. Decades later, I decided to fill in some of the vast gaps in my education, particularly the World Wars, by watching two extensive documentary series (The World At War and The Great War).
Despite a generous budget, All This and World War II wasn't at all popular, with no known home video release and only a few TV showings. Luckily a truncated version recently appeared on YouTube, otherwise I'd never have seen it. For this to get a DVD release would require a huge outlay for music rights from a wide range of record companies, not to mention clearance of the movie clips.
I was mainly curious about the music, all Beatles songs, but cover versions from a wide range of rockers. The results are far more successful than the hideous treatments trotted out in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (which I narrowly avoided in 1978 and, again, only caught recently). So many good tunes murdered... it was a musical massacre.
Again, The Bee Gees are in there, but there are also great covers by Elton John (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds), Helen Reddy (The Fool on the Hill), Bryan Ferry (She's Leaving Home), Jeff Lynne (of ELO), Tina Turner, Frankie Valli and many more! The soundtrack album made more money than the movie...
With a backdrop of Beatles' songs, the entire film is made up of newsreel and movie clips, at a time when music video had hardly started as a form. Synching footage to existing music was still a novelty or an interlude. The cover versions are given a cinematic boost by being backed by the London Symphony Orchestra.
The opening reel worked best for me, with the grim descent into war portrayed without commentary as Nazi Germany sweeps across Europe invading country after country, poignantly set to 'The Long And Winding road'. The editing complements both the music and lyrics, the choice of newsreel footage pertinent and often fascinating.
But after a great start, there's more and more use of spoken word, with Presidential speeches, lightweight interviews and movie stars enlisting. What I wasn't expecting was the extensive use of clips from wartime movies, blurring the difference between real and recreation. The cutting speed also slows down and the flow of music is interrupted. worse still by funny clips and an over-reliance on excitement from epic movies like Tora Tora Tora and The Longest Day. Hollywood spectacle and propaganda at odds with the reality of the war. I'm also very confused by the use of 'I Am The Walrus' over the attack on Pearl Harbor...
The lyrical juxtaposition could have been weightier. Simply portraying Hitler as a 'Fool on the Hill' is consistent with him being a figure of fun at the time, with most TV comedians. For the dictator to be used for comedy nowadays is seen as risk-taking and edgey, as in South Park. I prefer it when filmmakers attack Hitler with more enthusiasm, like Quentin Tarantino did in Inglourious Basterds.
But I guess this was a family-friendly lesson in who-invaded-who. Despite The Beatles involvement and playing out with 'Give Peace a Chance', this is less anti-war than most dramas of the time. Peace also wasn't an option with the Axis forces set on world domination. In the end the most stirring passages are the propaganda and heroism from the movie clips, especially Dana Andrew's terrific climactic speech from The Purple Heart. I don't even think you can spot any dead bodies. Some war.
In contrast, TV documentary The World At War (1973) had already shown dead bodies, horrific piles of them, many of the diverse horrors of war from the testaments of eyewitnesses. The difference in approach is obviously stark. Showing soldiers marching to war, but not what can happen to them? Hearing about the war from a Prime-Minister rather than a footsoldier.
Still, the film might have held a few surprises for mid-seventies audiences, like the vintage colour footage. Had I gone to see it, I'd have also been unaware about the female workforce called into munitions factories and heavy manufacturing. There's footage of squads of all-African-American troops that counters most war movies' all-white casts. And I'd not seen any newsreel of the Japanese-American citizens being moved to internment camps, before even now.
The version I saw on YouTube is ten minutes short of the (default) 90 minutes running time mentioned on IMDB, and I'm curious if there's any mention of the concentration camps in the original. Another huge difference from the portrayal of the war nowadays. The bombing of Hiroshima is also reduced to one distant shot. Instead, you learn more about which movie stars went to war...
So... All This and World War II works as a quick overview of what happened, for the impatient, and many of the songs interplay well with the images - the allies landing at Normandy against 'Life In A Day' is tremendous. This also teases up some of the great war movies, and the cover versions hold a great many surprises for fans of 70s rock and pop.
But 'I Am The Walrus'. Really? Ask if they'll play that at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial and see what happens to you...
The Drive soundtrack is "80s-inspired", but which bands exactly? From the opening track, Drive (2011) took me back to the synthesizer soundtracks of the early 1980s. Throughout the film, most of the music has an electronic element, using old synthesizer voices and early, simple rhythm machines. I couldn't wait to hear it again. I've always been strongly drawn to electronic music. Electro-pop, rock, soundtracks - anything with synthesizers in - and especially the bands that went the whole way, using keyboards instead of guitars, drum machines instead of drums. Having collected this music since the 70s, with much of it from the 80s, I thought that identifying the possible influences on the Drive soundtrack might be easy... Drive, the movie, is hugely impressive. The crystal-clear cinematography of nighttime L.A., the dark surprises, the precise characters, the extreme violence, all made it unforgettable. I'd deliberately delayed listening to the soundtrack until after I watched the movie, which certainly increased its impact.
But listening to the album, it was initially hard to pinpoint any precise musical references. So I began rifling through my playlists of 80s electro pop, Eurodisco, post-punk, and movie soundtracks for anything that sounded similar. At the very least, you'll have some suggestions for further listening. Googling interviews and reviews only yielded the phrase "80s-influenced" and the only trustworthy interview I've seen was director Nicolas Winding Refn's amusing lengthy chat on the UK Blu-ray. He vaguely mentions 80s Eurodisco as a musical influence, which wasn't quite what I was expecting and proved to be completely unhelpful (though I feel easier about suggesting the song by Berlin).
The album starts with several existing songs by various bands. Then, bridged by an instrumental from The Chromatics, settles into Cliff Martinez's original background score. A couple of sound-alike songs I picked out could possibly be described as "eurodisco", but they're bleaker, slower, downbeat. Far more like early 80s post-punk, where the bands rejected drumkits and guitars for a totally electronic sound apart from voices. Interestingly, none of the guest tracks were written specifically for the film. The songs are all very recent tracks, with the exception of 'Oh My Love'. Luckily for Refn, there's been a resurgence in early-80s electro completely suited to his needs. I've attempted to match the pace, synth sounds, or aural atmosphere of each track, or even just sections of them. Numbers in brackets (1'12) refer to moments that are minutes and seconds into a track. To illustrate, I've embedded YouTube clips purely for their musical content (please try and ignore the visuals). I avoided film clips or pop videos because we're only talking music here. In the interest of simplicity, I've not included any YouTube clips from Drive, because you already have the soundtrack, don't you?
'Nightcall' by Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx (2010)
This opening number hit me with a huge 80s stick, a decaying twangy synth sound, plodding drumbeat, a scarily processed male vocal with a downbeat counter-vocal, and a sweet female chorus. But this was the hardest track to match with an 80s counterpart.
Berlin's 'Take My Breath Away' (1986) has similar drums, electro sounds and sad female vocals, but I could not find an example of that main keyboard sound. Kavinsky's scary vocals sound like a Vocoder, an electronic effect orignally used for novelty 'sweetening', for example Herbie Hancock's 'Tell Everybody' and 'You Bet Your Love' (both 1978) and of course the Electric Light Orchestra's 'Mr Blue Sky' (at 2'21) from 1977. But closer to Drive, I remembered the especially scary Vocoder voice (at 4'45 below) in Godley & Creme's 'Wind' off their 'Consequences' album, also from 1977. This track was used in a famously expensive Benson and Hedges advert, where a mysterious helicopter glides over the desert to drop it's cargo into a swimming pool.
'Under Your Spell' by Desire (2009)
Synth drum beats, electro rhythms and keyboards with a downbeat female vocal, further distinguished by looped echoing guitars.
Yes, this all sounds very 80s, but more specifically the first few years of the decade when post-punk and gothic bands were trying out newly-affordable synthesizers and similar gadgets. The first Cocteau Twins album 'Garlands' (1982) used drum-machines and guitar loops to similar effect as this Drive track, with Elizabeth Frazer's vocals soaring sadly over it all. I picked 'Shallow Then Halo' from the album 'Garlands' for the similar tempo and structure.
'A Real Hero' by College featuring Electric Youth (2009)
A sweet and impassioned voice floating over a stomping bassy synth. But dare I say the lyrics are too obvious at underlining the action.
The intro with the lone keyboard is a closely matched by 'Summer Spies' (1985), a single by Fatal Charm, which also has a heart-rending female vocal. Incidentally, they were the first band I ever saw live, as a support act for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.
'Oh My Love' by Riz Ortolani and Katyna Ranieri (1971)
This is the Joan Baez song in the pack (I'm thinking of the end of Silent Running) with simplistic lyrics about the beauty of nature. The track also jars against the rest of the album by being devoid of synths. But the lush orchestration is growing on me, providing a similarly beautiful everything-stands-still moment as 'Llorando', sung by Rebekah Del Rio in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. If only 'Oh My Love' had been sung in Spanish, the lyrics wouldn't have been so distracting...
The album goes completely instrumental at this point, but before Cliff Martinez' original score takes over, there's this great mechanical track from The Chromatics. It sounds like a very early rhythm machine with a sparse drum machine pared down to a light metal chink.
If the track had been built up into a song, it might have sounded like John Foxx's 'Burning Car' (1980). Foxx was the original lead singer for Ultravox before Midge Ure took over. He had several hits at this time when his synth sound was ahead of the game.
Also from the early 80s is this more laidback track from Pink Industry - suitably sparse, but with a female vocal befitting the Drive vibe. The emphasis is again on a simple drum machine. 'Pain of Pride' is listed as hitting vinyl in 1985, but had been recorded years earlier in BBC sessions for John Peel's radio shows, maybe as early as 1982.
The core of Cliff Martinez's score, which makes up the rest of the album, is actually very modern. Roughly half of it is ambient - daunting atmospheric sound that refuses to betray what instrumentation is being used, often devoid of drumbeats.Some tracks are like single notes stretched and held until they transform into the next, reminiscent of the ethereal music made by rubbing wineglass rims.The overall vibe is similar to the albums of Jon Hopkins, who provided a gorgeous, melancholy soundtrack to Monsters (2010).
Several tracks give way midway to synthesizers that recall the sound of specific 80s soundtracks.Drive's thematic parallels with Michael Mann's Thief (UK title Violent Streets, 1981) leads us logically to the work of Tangerine Dream, among others from the early to mid 80s.
'Rubber Head' (all the remaining tracks are by Cliff Martinez, 2011)
This begins with ambience and then, after a minute, brings in a rolling electronic rhythm. 'Love On A Real Train' by Tangerine Dream from the Risky Business (1983) soundtrack roughly matches the rhythm, but 'No Future' from the same album would be more apt for the dark tone of Drive. If memory serves, this is playing over the scene where Tom Cruise, um, pleasures himself...
'I Drive', 'He Had A Good Time', 'Wrong Floor'
Completely ambient tracks with mournful chords that occasionally offer hope, and a subtly celestial backing. I'd offer 'Olancha Farewell' from Harold Budd's album 'Lovely Thunder' (1986) in comparison. Harold Budd was a collaborator with the Cocteau Twins and continued to work with Robin Guthrie from the band, most notably on the beautiful soundtrack to Greg Araki's Mysterious Skin (2005).
'They Broke His Pelvis'
Similar to 'Rubber Head', but with a slightly lighter mood. 'Love On A Real Train' by Tangerine Dream, also from Risky Business (1983), has a similar rhythm. But Klaus Schulze's 'Lecter's Cell' from Michael Mann's Manhunter (1986) is similar in tone.
'Kick Your Teeth'
Again the ambience gives way to a strong driving rhythm (at 0'44) and then a gently rolling guitar (1'45), reminiscent of U2's 'Where the Streets Have No Name' (1987).
'Where's the Deluxe Version?'
Starts with ambience but builds into the defining 'driving' music of Drive, with the bubbling rhythm that kicks in (at 2'30) and what sounds like passing trains. The rolling synth seems to echo the guitar from 'Where the Streets Have No Name'. But the kings of dark 'driving in L.A.' music are again Tangerine Dream. Try 'Diamond Diary' from their soundtrack to Thief (especially at 2'15).
'See You in Four'
Ambient, but incredibly dark. An echoing murk with (at 1'04, 1'24, 2'08) the sound of a scary clanging feedback. This drifts from note to note like this track 'Spores' from Jon Hopkins' score for Monsters (2010).
'After the Chase'
An electro foghorn opening and then spooky jangling keys. At (3'08) a rolling synth in a dark mood, a little like Tangerine Dream's 'Betrayal' from their soundtrack to William Friedkin's Sorcerer (UK title Wages of Fear, 1977).
'Hammer'
This ramps up with a gentle snare drum at (1'21) and then a wonderful bubbling rhythm at (1'39). There's a scary blasting (at 2'24) which again sounds like the punctuations in Tangerine Dream's 'Diamond Diary', from Thief (1981) at (2'50). 'Diamond Diary' is already embedded further up the page.
'Skull Crushing'
A murky, industrial sound, with bassy bursts at (1'12, 1'44) reminiscent of the skull-crushing scene in Blade Runner...
'My Name on a Car', 'On the Beach'
Ethereal, cold downbeat tones and an echoing rushing sound. 'On the Beach' has an unnerving metallic tone that gives way to a very downbeat murk, eventually relieved by more hopeful chords at (5'03). Here I'll offer another track off the 1986 'Lovely Thunder' album, Harold Budd's 'Ice Floes In Eden'.
'Bride of Deluxe'
The last track on the album starts off like 'Wrong Floor', with those 'wine glasses' vibes, then (at 0'47) guitars come in and build until (at 1'30) the electro rhythm kicks in brilliantly. A close electro-match would be the intro to Freddie Mercury's 'Love Kills', which he recorded with Giorgio Moroder for the soundtrack to Metropolis (1984), an early restoration of Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi epic.
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Before I started listening to the Drive soundtrack more intently, this 1985 instrumental track from the Cocteau Twins was an early contender. It has always suggested to me moving through a darkened L.A. sometime in the near future. It might work with the cityscapes of Blade Runner, but it could easily complement the nighttime scenes in Drive. So finally, why don't you also try 'Ribbed and Veined'...
Ken Russell passed away on November 28th last year. His death was unexpected, catching me out just as I was preparing this review of Tommy. How dare he. Hopefully he'll still haunt a few projection booths where they show silent movies and play old classical records. Maybe scare some BBC executives into letting some young auteurs have free range of their facilities...
I won't attempt a full tribute, there are already several books on the subject, some of them by Russell himself. But it's my pleasure to continuing to highlight his films on these pages. You can always look at the many obituaries and tributes signposted on his Facebook page. But it was sad to have to say farewell to the film-maker who helped visualise and influence my own small teenage rebellion far more than punk rock did. Besides feeding my brain at a tumultuous time in my formative years, he was belting out movies that annoyed my least favourite people.
Tommy makes the front page for the UK release
It helped that many 'messages' in his films weren't hidden under layers of cryptic metaphor or obscure satire. If he wanted to say something, it was shouted from a mountaintop by a female stormtrooper in leather fetish gear, or screamed by a dozen naked nuns, or projectile-vomited from a television set. It wasn't subtle, but it was very accessible. Much more than most other 70s arthouse. It was symbolism that anyone could understand. That is, I understand what's being said in individual scenes - TV advertising is hard sell, don't buy crack off Tina Turner, Marilyn Monroe was bigger than Jesus... But with Tommy, I still don't quite understand the main thrust.
Tommy is a child of World War 2, but just as he's born, his air force father is shot out of the sky. His mum (Ann Margret) brings him up alone until she meets a cheeky wide boy (Oliver Reed) at a holiday camp. But after a childhood trauma renders him deaf, dumb and blind, his mum and new dad give up on him as a hopeless case. While they enjoy themselves, they leave Tommy in the care of various unsavoury friends and untrustworthy relatives (Paul Nicholas, Keith Moon, Tina Turner...).
But when Tommy discovers an astonishing mastery of pinball machines, his parents are delighted that his miraculous popularity could be hugely rewarding to them all...
Tommy isn't Russell's best film (I honestly think it's The Devils), but it was his most financially successful. For me it's a musical equivalent of Zardoz. Mad, mystifying fun that I enjoy without fully understanding. I thought it was my young years to blame for being confused by this at a midnight cinema showing. But years of TV and video revisits have left me none the wiser.
I'd suggest Tommy as a parallel with Pink Floyd The Wall (1982) which I also don't fully 'get'. I know they're both concept albums angry at something, or a lot of things, both topped with a pop star with too much power. The central characters both have problems relating to the world, one is cut off from his senses, one cuts himself off from the world.
The difference is that The Wall is full of anger, hate, and so much negativity that some critics confused its Nazi-imagery with, well, Nazism. I can understand Pink's anger at his mother, teacher, judge, the war, but not Pink's transformation into a drugged-up hate-monger. The film and the music are memorable, but not enlightening. A dark vision of a young musician descending into a complete mental breakdown, in an England that could easily be nudged into fascism. Like Tommy, I understand which institutions he's angry about, and the subject of each chapter of the story, but not where it's all going.
Tommy offers a few similar observations on the power of pop idols, but as a much lighter morality play re-written by the Carry On team. Oliver Reed provides seaside humour, and the nightmarish interludes are played for cruel laughs. I'd rather watch Cousin Kevin torturing Tommy and Uncle Ernie fiddling about as visualised by Ken Russell, rather than Alan Parker. It's still startling enough without shocking us into stark depression.
Russell has the hefty task of visualising every song before the vocabulary of the pop video had even begun. The crash zooms, lightning edits, costumes, sets and production design can still sufficiently blow your mind, with a fair few unintentional laughs (do gangs of bikers really find hang-gliders awe-inspiring?).
I really have no clear idea what Tommy is ultimately getting at, but at least Russell remains faithful to the text - the lyrics of The Who's original album - rather than trying to impose his own storyline. But this seems to be a story without a clear target. Organised religion? But is Tommy so oblivious that he's being organised? He seems really happy about it all.
A large part of the pleasure is the cast of familiar faces doing extremely unfamiliar things. There's Roger Daltrey acting and running around half-naked. His acting debut is earnest but not very special, but his tanned muscular physique is quite astonishing.
Meanwhile, Hollywood sex kitten Ann Margret is sensational - she can sing up a storm, dance like a wild thing, and can rock a huge chocolaty phallic symbol like no other. She gets full marks for apparently doing whatever the director suggested, in whatever clothes were provided. Her various transformations throughout the story demonstrate an impressive range of many talents.
Russell-regular Oliver Reed can't sing or dance to save his life, but he can act his way through it all. Elton John can't act, but famously sings a great rendition of 'Pinball Wizard'. Incidentally, The Who's original album doesn't sound nearly as special without all these guest vocalists, like Tina Turner (as the freaky, frightening Acid Queen).
Jack Nicholson surprises simply by appearing in this at all, but also by giving an understated performance, in a Ken Russell film of all things. And he sings. In a convincing English accent. And he's just so damned handsome. And he knows it.
Like the other unrestrained 1970s Russell films, like the less-successful Lisztomania (also starring Daltrey), Mahler, The Devils... it helps if you lean back, enjoy the ride and let the madness just play out, as if your screen has just vomited baked beans all over you, but it's alright because you really like baked beans.
1969 album review of The Who's original album in The Observer
Bizarrely, the day after watching Tommy again, my Dad gave me an old newspaper cutting on the back of which was this album review.
Tommy - the soundtrack album, with much less Who
Vinyl double-album interior photo-montage
I watched this remastered region 2 UK DVD (above) which looks and sounds fantastic but is very short of extras compared to the earlier 2-disc release, which includes a documentary I'd like to see. It does still however have Ken Russell's commentary track. Pretty hateful cover art though...
For those who want the best sound and vision quality, there's also a Blu-ray release in the USA (which I've yet to see). Again apparently short of extra materials.
Intrada are about to release a special edition of the late John Barry's soundtrack to the outer space adventure The Black Hole (1979). Remastered from the original master tapes, this also promises to be the entire score, adding an extra twenty minutes of unreleased music. This is also the score's official debut on CD, see Soundtrack Collector for details.
I only wrote about John Barry's music for outer space a few weeks ago, a recurring and favourite theme of mine in all his work. The score for The Black Hole is some of John Barry's best work, regardless of what you think of the movie. Personally, the music has helped transport me into the dark, futuristic adventure. It's fun to see Disney taking some risks, killing off characters (that aren't parents) and even getting metaphysical...
Monday evening, I was shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Chris Sievey, a man whose face I'd never seen.
To the world he was mainly known as an alter-ego, his true identity as successfully shielded as Batman, for many years. Frank Sidebottom was his comedy creation, first on radio, then stage then TV. The characters he created for Manchester's Piccadilly Radio were as inventive and funny as those Kenny Everett created for London's Capital Radio. But Frank was even more anarchic, never pretending that his sidekick, the demented Little Frank, was anything more than a puppet made of cardboard.
Their adventures in space, football, pop music (Little Frank released records as well) and Sherwood Forest were little more than sound effects and library music, with Chris and a few friends ("Lard!") doing the voices, but they were as evocative as any radio play, and side-splittingly funny.
Having fronted bands before, notably The Freshies ('I Can't Get Bouncing Babies by The Teardrop Explodes'), it was easy for Chris to take Frank on stage to sing his songs, play his banjo or cheap synthesizer, and argue with Little Frank. The best joke was that Sidebottom's skills at ventriloquism were completely hidden by his mask. The huge proportion of Frank's head was due to the character originally being a schoolboy, broadcasting Timperley Radio from his mum's garden shed.
Frank's crap puppetry was all part of the fun. But if he invented a new character, the audience expected to see them up on stage too. Even Breville Toaster Puppet could make a grand entrance, riding in an Action Man jeep.
Frank's escalating popularity seemed to peak when he hit National Children's TV, like as a regular part of Saturday Morning's TX, presented by Tony Slattery. I thought this was the start of the big time for Frank, but no.
He continued touring, (supporting John Cooper Clarke earlier this year) but his music is only represented as a couple of belated compilation CDs, of his best songs and unforgettable medleys (A Tribute to Queen). Apparently, he had fans in the US and I'm pleased to hear his appeal travelled so far. Now that he's gone, I expect to fill in the gaps of just what he got upto through the years.
My fondest memory isn't of seeing Frank in concert, but when he recreating the madness of his radio sketches in one of his Christmas Pantomimes at a packed Timperley Labour Club. Effortlessly funny, he could create a whole evening's entertainment out of cardboard. If anything went wrong, he could improvise his way out, or simply blame Little Frank.
I was hoping one day to see an interview with the man behind the mask, and see Chris actually doing 'that voice', finally linking up the man to the character. But perhaps it's better this way.
One of my favourite records was this medley of Frank's favourite sci-fi shows, bashed together into a medley.
There's still plenty of Frank Sidebottom on YouTube - clips of his TV shows, pop videos, live performances and even an animated visualisation of Frank's world, entirely made of cardboard.
Anyone who's seen Dario Argento's horror films Suspiria, Tenebrae or Deep Red have heard the music of Italian prog-rockers Goblin. The band also composed and played most of the music for Zombies: Dawn of the Dead (1978). The soundtrack for Suspiria is a prolonged and uniquely scary experience. Wide stereo sighs and whispers surround the unusual strings and pounding percussion.
I've not stopped listening to the Suspiria and Zombies albums for thirty years now. So I'd have kicked myself, viciously and mercilessly, if I'd missed this concert (thanks for the last minute tip, Tony). Goblin played their first ever London gig on July 27th in The Scala, near King's Cross. It's been twenty years since they last played in the UK. Back then, The Scala was my favourite cinema. one that played cheap double bills of 'alternative' movies and lotsa horror films. The programming choices were superb. Where else in London could you see Batman - The Movie (1966) with Barbarella (1968) on a big screen, Frank Henenlotter double-bills, and even John Waters triples, if you were brave enough. You could drink beer in the cinema and put your feet up on the seats. I loved the place.
Seeing it transformed into a concert venue for the first time was weird. The layout inside the main auditorium has changed a lot, but is still recognisable. The stage is roughly where the old screen used to be. While I watched the support band, I realised that it was at The Scala that I'd seen many of Dario Argento's films for the first time. As Goblin played two tracks each from Zombies: Dawn of the Dead, Suspiria, Tenebrae and Deep Red, I was flashing back to seeing the films in the same cavernous room.
I didn't take many photos. If I concentrate on the camera, I'd miss the concert. I also don't use flash, it wipes out the atmosphere, so these photos are the best of the lot.
To say it was a memorable concert is an understatement. They played most of their new album, Back to the Goblin, but the audience whooped when they started with the old favourites. Re-edited clips from the films were projected behind the band. The same images that played on a much larger screen. A few feet further forward, two decades back.
I think I have a pretty good taste in music (doesn't everybody?). But I also really enjoy really bad music. Enjoyably bad, that is. So, at the risk of worsening diplomatic relations between the UK and South Korea, here's a pop video that has tickled me since first seeing it around 1985...
Kimera calls her music popera, a musical style combining her astounding operatic voice, a full symphony orchestra and disco... (note that Malcolm McClaren had chart success around the same time, when he artfully combined opera and pop music on the album Fans, mostly a reworking of the main themes from Puccini's Madame Butterfly. I'd also recommend this album, but for very different reasons).
The rage for disco medleys was a brief and painful fad lead by dutch group Stars on 45 in 1981. Sidestepping copyright problems, they recreated many classic pop songs and segued them together to a plodding disco beat. Both catchy and annoying, it's difficult to tell their clips from the original recordings. This tiny musical genre is haunting me at the moment and I can find very little Stars on 45 anywhere to reassess it. For some reason, the London Philharmonic Orchestra also jumped on the bandwagon with Hooked on Classics, mashing classical hits together, to a disco backbeat. The last straw was the music of The Portsmouth Sinfonia, who played similar medleys of classical music but very, very badly.
In 1984, Kimera belatedly used this Stars on 45 approach for a medley of opera hits. Kimera and her Operaiders released her first album, single and this colourful pop promo (in 1985) that seemed to land from outer space. I didn't know what planet it was from but I liked it, for the wrong reasons. Not a fan of opera, I enjoyed the eardrum-piercing genre getting a disco assassination. The music was authentically sung, the music catchy, but all entirely undermined by a drum machine and crass editing which reduced the history of opera to one pop song. The promo video looked expensive but deliriously OTT. Made in France, I think.
On YouTube, the music doesn't stay entirely in synch with the video (why is that?), but you'll get the idea...
For the climax of The Lost Opera promo, Kimera appears in darkness but is made up with luminous paint. A startling effect, undermined by the rest of the video, a car crash of live editing, colour effects, a blue-screen trip around the world, and an oriental garden set, with small birds being thrown past the camera. A stuffed tiger floats past close to the camera, as if being moved on a large turntable. It seems to be smiling. Why is it there? I'd like to know. She seems to be enjoying herself though.
So now I eventually learn that Kimera is the stage name for HongHee Kim, a South Korean who discovered her voice could range over four octaves. She moved to Europe, and recorded her first album with the esteemed London Symphony Orchestra. The same London-based orchestra that John Williams conducted for the Star Wars soundtracks. Serious money, but for pop. While Kimera may not have had a hit in the UK, she's successful somewhere, having cut 12 albums.
At the time, I could only find this album on cassette (pictured at top). Now, in a spate of updating my music to digital, I've found MP3 downloads of six of her albums from CD Baby, including The Lost Opera. It's also available on CD from France, like at Amazon.fr. Ah, internet shopping. All those years browsing through record shops, wasted.
