#10 A bit of inspiration Part II
Magic - Mick Smiley - Ghostbusters (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Follow Me - Muse - The 2nd Law
Duchess - Genesis - Duke
Blame it On Bad Luck - Bayside - Bayside
Jaws Theme Swimming - Brand New - Deja Entendu
Lava Reef Zone Act 2 - Masayuki Nagao - Sonic & Knuckles
Touch - Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Do Me a Favor (1988 version) - Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore - Carrie
So Real - Jeff Buckley - Grace
Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns - Mother Love Bone - Shine EP
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Part 2 of my blog on some inspiration. A nice reminder that Vincent is having a concert at 54 Below on August 9th at 9:30pm. Tickets available here! So ok…the six to ten…
Lava Reef Zone Act 2 - Masayuki Nagao - Sonic & Knuckles
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
My musical education as a youngin’ consisted really of 4 things. My father playing Billy Joel and musical theater in the car (a bootleg cassette of the Hair soundtrack, the West Side Story soundtrack and Barbara Streisand’s Back to Broadway), my mom playing Bruce Springsteen & Billy Joel in the car, my aunt playing The Beatles and Billy Joel in the car…forgive us we’re from Long Island. And finally…the video game soundtracks i’d hear when I’d sneak time playing my brother’s NES & SNES. Mega Man, Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda…the list goes on. The first game system that was actually mine was a Sega Genesis. (I realized this literally as I’m typing…odd.) I owned only 4 games on it. Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic & Knuckles, and Clue. I was odd child. But Sonic’s score…man. It was littered with new jack swing. These funky basslines…GREAT melodies. Sonic 1 and 2 the scores were written by Masato Nakamura of the J-pop band, Dreams Come True. I always wondered if this was literally the first time a pop artist was hired to write the score for a video game. The music quite literally sounds like their music…just with the synths available on the Genesis sound chip. As for Sonic 3…if you subscribe to the long rumored belief that Michael Jackson worked on the music of Sonic 3…it all makes sense. (I definitely do…there’s enough evidence.). It stays in that funk/new jack swing vibe but now how as a touch of American pop. Something that is an absolute fact is that Ice Cap Zone is a reworked version of an unreleased song by the band Jet called Hard Times. All this to say…the music of Sonic is incredibly melodic. Each level on these Sonic games are broken into 2 “acts.” Generally the second act of a level would take the melodic composition of act one and remix it into something new but familiar. Lava Reef Zone features an ostinato with a super syncopated baseline. It’s cool. The mix of the bass and kick gives it an inconsistent pulse…while the ostinato gives a constant flow. Kinda like flowing lava. (ayyy look at that) When we hit Act 2. We start in this 6/8 explosion that outlines the Westminster Quarters…and then we settled on the same ostinato. But this time…the bass is less prevalent, settling on a calm octave jumping pattern. The drums are EXTREMELY sparse…there’s almost no pattern…occasionally for maybe 3/4 of a bar you get a beat. It’s…like lava cooled down. The two pieces paint such an incredible picture. I’m quite obsessed with this use of rhythm to capture an image.
Touch - Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
Dance and electronic music was really not my thing when I was younger. This was the album that crossed me over. The creation of this album is incredibly maticulous. The idea of sampling human beings is just…wild. Daft Punk took their heroes from the 70s and made an album from them creating new material which was then sampled. One of the most infamous examples being a meme of “My name is Giovanni Giorgio but everybody calls me Giorgio” followed by that arppegiated synth. Usually in videos like this. “Get Lucky” is also on this album. It’s not my favorite from the album. Not because it’s popular…let’s be real it’s super catchy. I’m not gonna be one of those “mehhh I don’t like popular things.” I just think some of the album cuts are better. So…Touch. Written with Paul Williams. Ya know…who wrote for The Carpenters, Three Dog Night, Phantom of the Paradise, and…most importantly The Muppets. He is the man that wrote Rainbow Connection. So…Daft Punk had him work with them and Chris Caswell to make a new song. Mark Richardson described it better than I will ever be able to: “Cluster-fied spacey intro, some showtune balladry, a 4/4 disco section complete with swing music trills, and a sky-scraping choir, all in service of a basic lyrical idea: love is the answer and you've got to hold on." My biggest obsession, is the 3 bar phrase. The beginning of the phrase is the end of the phrase. So it repeats, “home…hold on, if love is the answer you’re home…hold on, if love is the answer you’re home…” And so on. I’m quite obsessed with this ouroboros of melody and lyric.
Do Me a Favor (1988 version) - Dean Pitchford & Michael Gore - Carrie The Musical
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
So yes…the ORIGINAL version of this song. Or at least…the broadway version. The orchestration kept changing from the original RSC production on. This show is one of my favorite things to ever happen. I’m a huge Stephen King fan to begin with, and this adaption is fascinating. It started as an idea to make basically Grease with a dramatic story of mother vs daughter and a touch of horror. The director they hired when he heard “Grease”…heard “Greece.” So the first production at the RSC was costumed in white toga like costumes. It’s…hilariously bad. He also took scissors to the script and cut it all so badly that the star, Barbara Cook, gifted him an axe on opening night for “how much he hacked the script apart.” When the show opened on broadway, things started shifting towards the better…but it was still inundated with overly busy choreography, terrible costuming and poor directorial choices. The show infamously closed within a few days and became broadway history. In 2012, a revised version of the show played off broadway with new songs, a new script, new concept. Closer to the writers original vision with touches of Spring Awakening and a purposefully lower budget. It was a huge hit and an even bigger hit among amateur theater groups. So…going back to this version. Do Me a Favor exists in both versions. The version in the 2012 revival is, to me, an unquestioningly better song. It’s almost the same but features a spoken background voice countdown the line that sets the inevitable ending in motion. The orchestration, however, is nothing compared to the 1988 version. The opening features this odd syncopated blues movement that has this…what I like to call…shotgun guitar delay. The guitar hits a very accented short chord with a delay effect. It feels like a gunshot. I love the idea of a musical instrument being used almost less as an instrument and more like foley. It’s honestly hard to explain, but it’s been an obsession since I first heard the bootleg. The link above is actually from the 2nd preview…this particular recording, there was some additional transitional music that was eventually cut before the song started. The song proper at 0:30. This particular recording you can hear the audience reaction and it fills me with such anxiety. I can’t imagine being a writer and hearing people laugh at all these moments which were absolutely not written for laughs. It’s gotta hurt on a level I can’t imagine. Especially with a project like this that takes years to come to fruition.
So Real - Jeff Buckley - Grace
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
Oh Jeff. I can’t imagine where I’d be without discovering Jeff Buckley. My first guitar was a knock off Fender Telecaster that I put a mirror pickguard on. Then when I was older I replaced the pickups with the same ones Jeff had on his infamous tele. I played his version of Hallelujah at a small concert at my school. I listened to his Live at Sin-é album non stop and would often play drums along to it. Honestly any song of his could be on this list, because they all run through my blood. I picked So Real because of the non traditional melody. The tonal center of the song is debatable. Similar to Sweet Home Alabama. (Is it in D or G?). Is So Real in Emin or is it D? The progression moves though diminished chords, and sevenths that bring us to the chorus. The chorus has this melancholic beauty. Then all of a sudden there’s this instrumental bridge with a dentist drill like guitar solo. After it climaxes…Jeff just quietly speaks and says “I love you.” It feels like a violent love affair. It’s uncomfortable. It’s almost unlistenable during the guitar solo. Jeff was never afraid to go ugly places. This song reminds me to never be afraid to go to an ugly place.
Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns - Mother Love Bone - Shine EP
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
Andy Wood. The missing link between hair metal and grunge. After Andy died, Mother Love Bone would slowly turn into Pearl Jam. I think about this song all the time. When people think of grunge, they think of loud guitars, they think of Nirvana and that dirty fuzz sound from a Big Muff pedal. But the ones that really like grunge know it’s so much more than that. The first part of this song, Chloe Dancer, is a piano piece that is absolutely gorgeous. The lyrics describe some kind of relationship. It’s vague. However if you know enough real life context, you know it’s about a woman who’s an exotic dancer. Then we hit Crown of Thorns and we delve into Wood’s heroine addiction and it’s affect on their relationship. It’s honestly a cruel premonition. “he who rides the pony must someday fall.” As a listener, the hardest thing is imagining all the music that could’ve been. The lyrics of this song remain some of my favorites ever. It’s about something so specific, but it’s never spelled out for the listener. It’s spoken like the broken thoughts of someone who’s just undergone trauma. The realistic thoughts of someone monologuing to themselves. Theater VERY seldom uses this technique. Theater feels the need to be more expositional in its music. In fact, when showing a seasoned theater writer some of my work, one of the first things they said was to NOT do this. Not because it doesn’t work. Which he admitted it does. But to not do it because it’s just not how theater is done. …so i’ll be doing it a lot.
Up next…the last five…`