Noise Junkies - Soundtracks

Film Music. Good, Bad & Ugly. Curated song scores. Electronic dirges. Bombastic symphonics. We examine it all.

JUNKIES
Father Malone: FatherMalone.com
HP: hpmusicplace.bandcamp.com
Heather Drain: https://www.mondoheather.com/

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Dark Destinations. He's maybe end Timesnight creature. Why would a few more
casually struggle me because their blood willjoin yours a radio drama anthology. You
are wrong how you figure every markon Mango's hunting You don't not you your
partner, he said, I didn'thave a ray gun polecast performances set in

(00:27):
the haunted corners of the globe.Darkness is coming for you. Ye,
that's the fear that daunts me.Dark Destinations by Father belowe at weirding Waymedia
dot com weirding Way Media. Thesoundtrack to a movie is an art form

(01:04):
unto itself. It can enhance thevisuals, serve as a commentary on the
action, and deepen the viewers connectionto the film. From the legendary compositions
of John Williams and Danielle Morriconey tothe carefully curated soundtracks of Quentin Tarantino from
James Gunn, their formats are varied, but they are all created in the
service of the story they're helping usto own. Some might even take on

(01:27):
a separate life apart from the movies. Tonight on Noise Junkies movie soundtracks Welcome,

(01:47):
everybody, Welcome to noise Junkies.I am in the captain's seat this
week. This is HP with meas always to my right, So my
main woman, the cream to ourcoffee. Noise junkie number two, this
is Heather Drain. Heather say hi, Hello, I am your noise junk
yet ladies and gentlemen. So myleft is the man I've known longer than

(02:14):
most people in my life. He'sthe green headed wonder. He is a
man of mystery. He is FatherMalone. Hello, Father Malone, a
fellow noise junkie. Is happy tobe here, happy to be anywhere.
Honestly, it's probably it's gonna behard to say whether we are music fans
first or movie fans first. Sothis is kind of the intersection of the

(02:38):
things we're most passionate about. Atleast in my case not me, it's
movies. But yeah, continue firstthing we do. We lead off every
show with a little bit of showand tell. The things that we're all
listening to this week can be analbum, that can be a particular artist
song. Heather, why don't youstart? What are you listening to this
week? Oh? My goodness.One of the most amazing musical discoveries Uh,

(03:02):
that I have made in the pastfew months, and is a band
from Italy called Devil Doll and Holyshit, like this is. It's a
band, but the main creator isUM the Mysterious Figure of Mister Doctor,
which is a tribute to Jekyl andHide. Um. They this is like

(03:25):
if I have never heard music thathas so seamlessly merged so many elements.
I mean there's parts of it thatare very Gothic classical. Um, you
have a little bit of like brectankind of spress. I think it's like
spreck singa spreck songa you know,the whole speak talk thing, very cabaret.

(03:46):
Then it's like heavy metal, littlebits of industrial and especially UM the
Mysterious Mister Doctor is also a hugefan. It's all over the various album
art of UM Classic, UM,Silence, Horror, as well as early
talkies. There's a lot of tributesto like Conrad Vates, Yeah, and
you know, Todd Browning and morenow and so this is obviously a band

(04:13):
after my own heart. I don'tknow how I have made it this far
in my life and not really bethat familiar with them until recently. And
I have a writer named Thomas Clarkto Think, who did an article on
them for a zine called Deserts ofHecks and Oh my God. They've only
released five albums but um and theyare very out of print, but you

(04:35):
can find everything on YouTube. Themusic is so powerful. Some people call
it proc metal. I just callit devil Doll. They're to me,
some of my most favorite bands areones that basically what is the genre that
band like, they defy genres andcreate their own sound that you can only
call that band that artist. SoDevil Doll is my pick of the week

(04:59):
that sounds it is it? Isit like tongue in cheek or are they
deadly serious? Like what's the Becauseyou mentioned a lot of different homages and
influences, I wouldn't call it.I would necessarily call it tongue in cheek.
I mean it's very very much likekind of in a way, sort
of like floating through a sea ofof at times, sort of like the

(05:21):
of insanity. The man behind MisterDoctor, which this was found out just
like I think a few years ago, is actually an attorney by trade and
has a degree as psychology, andso some of the inspiration behind some of
the songs were like based on actualcases he was working on and us them

(05:43):
alone. How about you, sir, what's getting you through the week?
Well, mine actually ties in withour greater theme this evening in that I've
been listening to quite a lot ofPhilip Glass, particularly the sound track to
koyaniscots Nice is a soundtrack that Itend to revisit at different portions of my

(06:10):
life, like and then listen toit a lot, and then I don't
listen to it for quite some time. I actually have a Koyanisconts story.
When I was living in Los Angeles, I was a projectionist at a movie
theater called the New Wilshire Theater inSanta Monica. And as part of my
projection as duties, it was atwin we had two screens. Part of

(06:31):
my duties was I got to programthe non sync music, the music that
played before the movie. So Iwould try to theme whatever. And you
know, I didn't have This islike ninety four ninety five. There's no
CD burners necessarily, so I can'tmake a playlist. I can just pick

(06:53):
an album and put it in.And for one movie, I put in
Kuyaniscontsey because I just wanted to listento Kaion Wisconsi as much as possible,
and particularly sitting in an empty theateron a movie theater sound screen and listening
to music. There's no better wayanyway. So I had it playing before
the movie started, and I gota phone call in the projection booth from

(07:15):
someone downstairs saying, there's a customerhere. I'd like to speak to you.
And I said okay, and theygave him the phone and he said,
could you turn off this rather aggressivemusic? And so now every time
I think of Philip Lass, Ithink of it rather aggressive music. But
you know, I don't think anythingcould be further anyway. That's what I've

(07:38):
been listening to, Like, it'samazing. Philip Glass, the minimalist.
I thought minimalism would never agree withme, but he made me. He
converted me. He did a songsuite based around David Bowie's heroes, which
I keep trying to get into.It's one of those things I try every

(07:59):
It's tough for me because I loveBowie so much. It's hard for me
to listen to something that's like atranslation of what he does. But maybe
I'll give it another tribe. You'reinspiring me or I endure that soundtrack.
I had an art teacher and eleventhgrade that made me a taped copy of
it wonderful. She was, Yeah, if you ever listen to this,
miscarraway, I love you. Thenews came out that Deaf Punk is putting

(08:24):
out a tenth anniversary edition of theRandom Access Every album, which is my
favorite DEAK album. I still thinkit's It's It kind of drives me crazy
that it's been ten years because Istill listened to it. I pop it
in every once in a while andit still sounds as fresh as it did
when I first listened to it.So that's been in my rotation this week.

(08:45):
I'm super excited for all the extramusic. I needed a sound.
I needed a click, so weput the click and that became the rhythm.
That's Georgio by Marot. The dreamwas just so big at the time.
You know, this all ties inbecause we're gonna be talking about DCT

(09:05):
Funk, We're gonna be talking aboutGeorgie Omarroder for say we are absolutely so.
So that's that's what I revisited everyonce in a while, and it's
on top of mine because I'm superexcited about the new edition coming. I
still revisit they did uh that yearthey were up for a bunch of Grammys
and they performed on the Grammys.I don't know if you guys have ever

(09:26):
seen them perform. They performed.It was with Stevie Wonder and obviously Nil
Rogers was there. It's still aclip that I revisit even to this day
because it's so full of energy.It's an amazing performance. They incorporate Stevie
Wonders song Another Star, which isit's an amazing segue, and just to
see a whole room full of likestuffy Grammy's dignitaries just get up and just

(09:52):
enjoy the hell out of the song. It's It's really something. There's not
too many performances in the Grammys thatyou can live up to that kind of
kind of power. So that's whatI'm listening to this week. And they're
robots, and they're robots, andsadly they they long since broken up,
but hey man, robots gotta godo their own thing. They can't be
tied up together. It doesn't haveto be a binary system. I can't

(10:15):
believe it's been ten years. Yeah, that's so great. I don't like
that. No, I don't either. I always wondered if they took a
lot of influence from a There wasa fan of the seventies, also from
Europe, from France called Space.Yes, I'm familiar with Space. Yeah,
they're like the big hits magic Fly. But if you look at the
look that they had and the factthat you know, I mean, they

(10:37):
were like a very cool, kindof slightly strange electronic band, interesting.
I never would have made that connection, but you're probably right, to be
honest, I don't even know whatSpace looked like. I just remember that
album. I don't know where Icame across it, but I remember that
album being like really really kind ofout of left field for me and really

(11:00):
really digging it. I'll have tocheck out what they look like. Is
it's because obviously daft punk is Frenchas well. It'd be interesting to see
if there's a connection there. Yeah, there's a really cool video, like
an official music video for magic Fly. It should still be on YouTube,
but you can get like a getget eyeful of the band. Guys are
full of great ideas. Tonight,I'm gonna have to make a note of

(11:20):
this. What makes a great filmsoundtrack. This is a broad question,
but at a thirty thousand foot ofview, I'm going to pose the question
to you, guys, what doyou think makes a great film soundtrack?
Is it? Is it just thatit has great synergy with the movie that
it's pulled from or created with.Is it just a great collection of music

(11:43):
that can work regardless of the visuals? What do you think? I'm want
to start with you follow them along. What's your opinion on that the best
kind of soundtrack is the one that'smost appropriate for telling the story in the
way the movie is attempting to It'sjust as important as the costumes and the
lighting. It should urge the viewerin the direction that the filmmaker is attempting

(12:09):
to get you too, And inmy mind that means that the best kind
of film music is the kind thatdoesn't call attention to itself like good editing.
It should propel you in one waythat you know that the filmmakers hoping
to elicit, whether that be anemotion or any kind of reaction, without

(12:33):
you noticing that you're being manipulated.Which doesn't mean that I don't like a
big, bombastic score because I lovea big, bombastic score. And I
guess what I'm saying is like,no one kind of film soundtrack is the
best. It's whatever works for thatthing. It can be you know,
mechanical noises as as a as asoundtrack, but if it works for that

(12:56):
movie, then so be it.And I don't think I don't think the
movie the song needs. The musicneeds to be able to stand on its
own either, that's not a prerequisitefor it. But it doesn't hurt you
share the same you know, basicopinions with Father Malone. Where do things
differ because I suspect you have slightlydifferent opinions and what makes a great soundtrack?

(13:16):
Yeah, I don't have a feelingnone of us are going to have
the wrong answer, but I'm verybiased. But I'm also right, so
it all works ound. But nowfor me, like a truly great soundtrack
is one And this ties to kindof what you were saying, Father Malone.
That is as intricral a part ofthe film's fabric as the editing,

(13:39):
the visuals, the you know,the emotiveness of it. Um you know,
editing all of that m a greatyou know, when a filmmaker knows
how to integrate sounds and do sounddesign, and that could be a piece
of music or m or like yousaid, you know, it could be
just like almost like natural sounds,like mechanical sounds. It could even be

(14:01):
like I remember watching Marco Ferraris mthings called The Seat of Man, where
a lot of it's just weird,like different sounds just layered upon layers.
You almost get like at times likethis white noise hum that's very like unsettling,
but they're in a very desolate likefuture situation, so it's perfect.

(14:24):
So to me, it's a greatsoundtrack does that. But also when I
think of musical soundtracks, I thinka truly great centric is one that can
also stand on its own as apiece of music, you know, one
that you could you could put onyou know, on you know, on
your computer or your Spotify, youriPod, your record player, even your
boom box, and and just revelin just the beauty of it as just

(14:50):
a piece of music, like youdon't necessarily need the film with it either.
To me, that's kind of whatseparates the boys from the men when
it comes to to soundtracks. It'sinteresting because I know, my, my,
what I thought made a good soundtrack. You know when I was younger
that that definition for me has evolved. But I think because when I'm a

(15:11):
kid, when you're a kid,you just you know, a cool soundtrack
is just something that gets you.You know, that that you can relive
the movie through, Like like theclassic example for me as a child would
be Star Wars, Like, youknow, having that that big black soundtrack
in, you know, on recordas a kid putting it on. This
was a time before we could reallylike go out and rent a movie even

(15:33):
or buy a DVD or stream amovie. So for me that was almost
like owning the movie in a sensebecause you could put that on and I
could totally envision all the action thatwas happening. You know, when you
hear you know, the Imperial March, you know exactly what's happening in that
moment, and it was it waskind of a nice way to bring you

(15:54):
back into the movie, the worldof the movie, I guess. But
ultimately, I think a really greatsoundtrack, I mean it's hard to talk
in absolutes on this, but Ithink one of the things that it should
do is really elevate what is alreadyyou know, a great piece of artwork
in other ways you have you know, if it's filmed well acted well,

(16:15):
a soundtrack has that ability to reallycreate an emotional elevation of the material.
Right. Think about a great soundtrackand how it can sometimes you know,
just kick it up, kick theknob up to eleven, right, make
a real emotional sort of connection tothe fidem More so, what about can
a soundtrack be successful even if themovie itself isn't done. We're talking a

(16:38):
lot about how a good soundtrack makesa good movie great, But what if
the reverse is true? What ifyou have kind of a so so movie?
Can you have a soundtrack that outpacesand outlives a really a dud of
a movie? Define what we're talkingabout here, HP, because are we
talking about film scores? Are wetalking about none? Are we talking about

(17:03):
diagetic music? Or we talk aboutnon diagetic music. Those are the types
of film music that are available everybody, just for your listeners out there,
if you're unaware. Diagetic music ina film is music that the characters can
hear, so that's like source musicstuff playing on the radio. Non diagetic
is music that only we hear.Is the audience which which would primarily be
a film score, but can alsobe a song score. Right, So

(17:26):
I'm going to break this out intoin different terms. Bottom alone, this
was this was a tough concept towrap our minds around. Yeah, we're
looking at you know, composed scoresall you're John Williams, Rannie Marconi's so
on and so forth, and yourcurated soundtrack collections that will be talking about

(17:47):
your pulp fictions that kind of athing. Where in the case of pulp
fiction, this is it's very muchdiagetic, right, so like the characters
are hearing it because it's playing onthe radio, but at the same time
it may also be commenting on theaction on screen, sometimes in a very
clever way. In terms of ourdiscussion tonight, I'm breaking it out into
composed scores versus curated collections. Inthose terms, let me get back to

(18:14):
the question at hand. What abouta movie that isn't so elevating on its
own it can a soundtrack have alife outside of that movie? And what
examples can you come up with sucha situation. I can give you one
off top of my head. Ithink Tron Legacy is a fantastic soundtrack.
The movie itself not so good.But if you're going to talk about tron

(18:37):
legacy, in my mind, I'mthinking about Daft Punk's score. Not to
bring it back to Daft Punk,but the score is phenomenal. The movie
is a horrible letdown in that perspectWhat other examples can you guys come up

(18:57):
with? Some some might say ZannaDo. That Elo soundtrack to Zanna Do
is really good in that movie isbad, but I think the film and
the music are pretty much on parso. Not that one, but Star
Wars episode seven, the Force Awakens. It is a great score for a

(19:18):
very mediocre movie. I know somepeople, petty people would say it's Phantom
Menace, but Phantom Menace is abetter movie than Force Awakens, and Force
Awakens has a bit of music init. Raised theme that John Williams composed
the best thing he's composed in twentyyears easily wasted on that film. Not
necessarily that character she's good. Thecharacter is good, and you know what's

(19:41):
her name is good in it.But that that, to me, is
a score that's way too good forthe movie that it is. That's that's

(20:04):
I too. Thought about Zanda Do, but that gets to be sort of
thorny because a movie can be sobad. It's like it's like bringing for
me, it's it's on a parwith Grease Too. Grease Too, objectively
is not a good movie, noris it really a good soundtrack. But
I love it. I love themboth. I love I love the movie

(20:25):
Grease Too, and I love thesoundtrack despite the fact that I can objectively
look at it and say this isnot this is not good filmmaking. Um,
Zanna Do kind of fits into thatcategory as well, which is why
I didn't really bring it up aspart of my spiel. But fit Heather,
what what about you? What doyou think? Well, before I
go into into my thoughts, Ihave to say, um, there's a

(20:45):
huge defense of Zanna Do because Igot two words for you guys. The
tubes. Because the tubes are inZanta Do, and that's an awesome sequence
or emerging forties in current day,and there's like a there's just a great
sort of decadence about the tubes andthat and uh, I mean it's you

(21:07):
know, I'm not gonna if ifyou put the tubes in anything. I'm
on a fan girl and that's justa fact. I don't know. I'm
not sequence is fantastic. I rememberas a kid watching that on cable.
There is I think decadence is thegreat. There's a darkness and kind of
you know, like a ten elevenyear old kid nine years old watching that.

(21:29):
There's a lot of weird, kindof creepy stuff happening in the background.
But it's really fantastic in the waythat then merges like the zoot suit
kind of crowd with the new wavepunk kind of crowd. It's fantastic.
So yeah, but I wanted toI have another movie where the movie is
mediocre and the soundtrack is fucking awesome. It's a score which is the movie

(21:52):
is Young Guns Too, which isa passable Western act best but Alan Sylvestri
wrote the score for it, andit is. It's very high on my
list of favorite Western scores of alltime. And the sad thing is the
whole thing got overshadowed by a coupleof songs by fucking John bon Jovi.

(22:14):
The absolute indignity. So people whenthey think of that movie, if they
think of that movie at all,they think the music might have been by
John bon Jovi, And what they'remissing out isn't one of the best Western
scores of all time. That tome is probably top of the list of
bad movie good score because it's completelywasted on the film. Listen, so

(22:48):
we're talking bad movie good score.How about good movie bad score? I'm
that You're I'm getting to that.So, so, since you've introduced a
topic, follow what's your what's yourpick? There are a couple If you've
ever seen Ryan's daughter, David Lean'sfilm, it's about sort of rural Ireland.

(23:10):
It's a period piece. Maurice Jaregave him, gave him a score
that is basically like a Carl Stallingsoundtrack for a Warner Brothers cartoon. He
was told not to do the sortof traditional Celtic Irish instrumentation. What he
gave him instead was like a lotof buying kind of stuff, really bad.

(23:40):
Not a lot of people listening tothis probably would know that one,
but they might know the movie LadyHawk. Oh yeah, I love it.
I love Lady Hawk. Do youdo you love the soundtrack to Lady
Hawk? No? I just lovehow great the soundtrack to that movie is
so off putting. It's just,you know, this isn't me railing against

(24:02):
anachronism, like I can tolerate electronicinstruments in a period setting. I think
Legend with Tangerine Dream did at thatmovie, even though they were sort of
late to the game. I thinkthat soundtrack works fucking phenomenally with image imagery
like that. But there's something aboutthe Ladyhawks soundtrack that just every time a

(24:26):
music que comes up in that movie, it reminds me, I'm watching a
movie and it's nineteen eighty five orwhatever, and it's just it's it's the
worst for me, that's the worst. That's the most egregious example. HP

(24:48):
Is there a movie that you thinkis really great but the soundtrack is a
little questionable or even bad. Asoundtrack that I despised in a movie that
I really enjoyed, which I thinkis a slightly different thing to judge it
on. I was reminded of thisbecause I did a show recently with Chris
Statue, so we covered forrestcumb thesoundtrack. It makes me angry now.

(25:10):
It's such a lazy, boring collectionof signposts songs that comment a little too
on the nose with every scene thatit appears in. Right, So you
have so Forrest Gump is running inthe Desert. Why don't we have you
know it keeps you running? Bythe Doobie Brothers, Or how about how

(25:32):
about running on empty by Jackson Brownhaving fun in Alabama? Let's play Sweet
Home Alabama. It just it's Ilove Robert Zemeckis and I love the movie.
I just think it's such a lazyway of signposting all of these different
scenes and these eras that forrestcumb livesthrough. And what really makes me mad

(25:56):
is at the time that the moviecame out, I was working. I
was selling CDs a circuit city andthat was probably people could not get enough
of the Forrest Comes soundtrack, thedouble CD soundtrack that things sold in numbers
that still astonished me to this day, which tells me that people don't really
care about the soundtrack experience. Theyjust want what they know. Here's where

(26:18):
I take umbrage with this entire evening, because when you start talking about curated
soundtracks, they actually branch off intotwo categories. Which is the one you're
talking about, which is the Americangraffiti style. We're gonna score every scene
with a song. In the caseof American graffiti, incredibly thoughtfully done,

(26:41):
where they sometimes seem to be commentingon the scene directly, but it's never
like hitting you over the head,like you know, he's choosing a suit
and there's a song about choosing asuit or something. I don't know.
That's not a real thing, butthat the other curated soundtrack, now,
this was this is the nineteen nineties, just this explosion of we're gonna put

(27:06):
twenty three current songs onto a soundtrack. We'll cram them all into the credits
of a movie, in most casesjust to sell CDs. But then starting
I think with Until the End ofthe World, the vim Venders thing where
they got a bunch of alternative artistsand said, hey, could you write

(27:26):
a song about the end of theworld and they all did. That became
that kind of a curated soundtrack.So there seemed to be a lot of
those two where like Judgment Night isanother sort of big curated soundtrack where it's
like, let's get these metal guysand these hip hop guys together and that'll
be our soundtrack. So there weresome of those, But then yes,

(27:47):
there continued to be the Forrest Gumpsof the World limping along where it's just
like let's just jam a bunch ofpop songs into a movie, willy nilly,
and shame on Robert Zemeckis for beingso goddamned obvious with every choice.
We're going to Vietnam, fortunate Soun'sgonna start playing, okay, But it's
like, to me, I thinkof that movie. It's like, you

(28:07):
know, everybody has that story wherethey've like accidentally shipped themselves in some situation,
and you know you think of thatand you're always like, oh god,
that was awful on so many levels. That's for me, that soundtrack
and that movie merged with it.I mean, I'm sorry, fucking it
lettered Skinner's Free Bird where she's perchedon a window sill like a bird.

(28:32):
You get it, you fucking getit. I hate that. It makes
me irrationally like upset. But no, it's just it's lazy. It's just
lazy, and it's it's it's anexcusable. You have all of that money
for any kind of songwrites and that'swhat you go with. It's it's just
yeah, I don't I don't likeit. What about movies that that don't

(28:55):
really have a soundtrack, that likesomething like No Country frolled then is a
good example of a movie that reallyhas no soundtrack. It's it's all just
source sound from the scenes that everythingis happening in or the other thing.
I had to look the stub network, as it turns out, has no
soundtrack either. Can you guys thinkof any other movies where a soundtrack,

(29:21):
you know, it might have beentoo distracting, like something like No Country
for Old Men. It makes perfectsense why the wouldn't want to put a
soundtrack in it, because it's it'ssuch an intense experience and the story that
they're telling is you know, theabsence of a soundtrack kind of keeps you
in the moment, I think,and that's why I think it works so
beautifully. But you guys have anyother examples or things you can think of

(29:45):
where a soundtrack is kind of unnecessaryto the movie and it's maybe a choice
that the filmmaker made not to havea soundtrack. No, I was about
to say it wasn't and please correctme wrong, because I'm a little rusty.
It's been a while since rewatched it, but I believe James Wells Frankenstein,
the original one doesn't have a soundtrack. Please please correct for me.

(30:07):
I know when I took a filmclass in the university, there was this
was a whole discussion. But againthat was a long time ago too because
I'm a Highlander. But um,sorry, but I don't know. I
mean I think I think no musicand it kind of kind of goes back
to what we were talking about earlier, like with sound design, like when

(30:30):
Father Malone was talking about like you'llhear like you know, an industrial sound
or yeah, just something that's goingon in the scene is like, that's
still you know, I think thatcan be just as impactful. I think
it's it's you know, it's likeanything. It's like, That's a beautiful
thing about about cinema is it's truly, you know, a multi layer kind
of art. It's truly like multimediain some ways because you're using multiple ways

(30:53):
of creative. You've got writing,you could have music, You've got audio
regardless, um, you have visuals, etc. U. So yeah,
I mean it could definitely be Ithink as impactful. It's just it's just
like anything else that just you know, how was it done and when is
it? I can think of afilm without a score. Actually The Birds,

(31:15):
Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds has nomusic at all. There's there's there's
a little bit of source music hereand there for like playing on a radio.
But um, there's no score atall in that film. And it's
perfect for that film. I meanthere's that, there are sounds, there's
sound design on the soundtrack, thesounds of the birds themselves, but no
music composed for the film at all. He did that a couple of times

(31:37):
too. I think he did it. He did it in Rope as well.
I don't think there's any there's anysoundtrack for that movie. Yeah,
and it makes perfect sense there,but but for something like and not I
guess like Blair Witch Project doesn't havea soundtrack because it's supposed to be found
footage, so that it would becounterproductive, that would that was obviously a
choice that he made to not havea soundtrack. What what do you think

(31:57):
is about that movie that makes itmore or less impactful with or without a
soundtrack. I think in that case, I think Hitchcock might have been embarrassed
to be doing a animals attack movie, and so in order to downplay the
fantastical element of that, you stripaway the score for the film, and

(32:21):
then it forces the audience to dealwith it a little more realistically. So
just like I, like I said, just like a score should complement a
movie, like the way the costumesdo. If not having a score works
best for the film, I thinkit does in that case, probably the
best example of no score for amovie. Although because you know, even

(32:42):
you mentioned No Country for Old Men, you're right that the running time of
that movie contains no music at all, does have a little bit of a
score, though Carter Burwell does.There is a theme from No Country for
Old Men that plays over those endcredits, so even that had a little
bit of music written for it,whereas the as I think, has none.
I just fact checked myself because Igot paranoid, and yes, the

(33:05):
original nineteen thirty two Frankenstein no soundtrackFailsafe by Sidney Lament. It makes perfect
sense why it wouldn't have a score, because again, you're you're dealing with
the intensity of this sort of nuclearshowdown that's happening in this movie. And
yeah, I guess you could havehad a melodramatic sort of like swelling strings
and stabs and things like that,but I think it works really well,

(33:29):
And what a great deliberate choice bythe filmmaker not to have music there to
it increases the sort of claustrophobia ofthe movie and of all the events that
are happening in that movie. SoI guess you know soundtracks can exist.
You know, movies can can thriveand be popular without soundtracks. It's interesting.

(33:51):
I never thought of it. Thisanother soundtrack that fulfills everything you just
said that contains no music is DarkDay Afternoon that had no music in it.
All right on one once again,if you want to throw your audience
into the headspace of your characters,strip away the Fansom store that that is
going to be leading emotion. Iguess what's really interesting about that is that

(34:15):
that is also a Sydney Lamit moviethat didn't fail safe. Both didn't have
soundtrack. Nobody throws away a scorebetter than Sydney Lamented, although twelve twelve
Angree Men didn't have a soundtrack.I wouldn't call it icnic, but a
soundtrack. Now we're going to talka little bit about what would Father Malone

(34:38):
was sort of railing against a littlewhile ago, which is composed music versus
curated collections. Now you know curatedcollections. I think we can we can
agree as something akin to dazing confusedas an example of a curated collection,
or like I said, pulp fiction, reservoir dogs, anything by Martin Score

(35:00):
says he's the He's the king ofthe collection, of the curated collection.
Like So, just for the sakeof our conversation, we're talking about curated
collections like Martin Scorsese and not theCrow soundtrack. Woo. That's a that's
a tough. That's a tough,isn't it? And this is why I

(35:21):
have been driving myself crazy for lowthese few weeks. In this wide arranging
topic you've given us, the definitionof curated can be a little flexible for
our purposes. Here here I've mademy choice. I don't know if my
choice fits in with your delineation asimportant as a distinctions it should it probably

(35:42):
is. I'm gonna say, there'sgonna be I'm going to offer a little
bit of leeway in how we definethat a curated collection is probably an unfair
choice of words. I would saya song collection as opposed to a composed
score. Is that? Is thata better way way of defining what those
means? No one of the filmmakersthat planted the seats for Scorsese's approach the

(36:05):
soundtracks is Kenneth Banger, who usedsoundtracks like curated sound you know, basically
curated songs for all of his filmsuntil well almost all, like for like
once, like Scorpio Rising. Forsure. Um I believe would you say
that curated soundtracks are your example ofthe best of that particular genre. It's

(36:29):
pretty powerful. I mean, there'sa lot of there's a lot of ones
I would say are great. Imean, I mentioned, um, I
think less to my conversion be upthere, I mean, to me,
the big daddy. But this alsoreveals my biases a little bit. Is
Returned the Living Dead, because Ithink that soundtrack is like you know it
is, and I mean, andobviously there's a score to that movie too,

(36:51):
So I don't know if that countsbecause there is like instrumental music,
but all of the music, whetherit's the curated part of it, the
score part, all of it integratesso well and really I think heightens the
feel of them movie. Which nomatter why, you know, why you
want to slice and dice, it'show you're approaching your your sounds. That's
the goal with any kind of audio, as you want it to enhance the

(37:13):
proceedings and just you know, giveit that nice, lush kind of boost.
We well, let's get let's getinto this. Then I did ask
you guys if you could come armedwith any I think examples of your favorite
film scores and soundtracks as song collections, if you will. So is this
am I to take that? Thisis this return of Living debt. Is

(37:35):
is your example of a favorite songsoundtrack? It's on there? I mean,
this is this is this is likea oh, it gets so hard
for me because there's so many onesI love, you know, like there's
so many great ones. Um.But as far as like non musical curated
songs. Um. And when Isay that, because obviously, like you
could say, well, you know, obviously like something like Tommy or a

(37:55):
fan of the Paradise Is but thoseare musicals, so it's a little different.
But um, though I will thismay be a hottake. I think
I actually even prefer Elton John's versionof him a Lizard to the Who.
I love the Who for the record, but John's commers tight. But I'm
Amy fan. I mean, Ijust can't get past like the image of

(38:19):
him in the movie with like youknow with with the big boots, you
know, the I don't know,you can't get that awesome image. What
are you talking about right now?Can't I can't do it. I can't
do it. I'm I'm much I'mmuch happier envisioning The Who killing it at
the Isle of White nineteen seventy,playing Tommy from beginning to end, just

(38:43):
nothing but the four of them.It just, you know, a force
of nature. To me, tocompare that to Elton John doing his best
Elton John impression doing Look, it'sfine. I don't think the song is
bad by any stretch, But Ito me like we're getting away from soundtracks
a little bit. But the power, now that's my fault. The power

(39:07):
of the Who doing it live,I think is still so iconic in my
mind. But before we delve furtherinto esoterica, I just want to echo
something that Heather said, because thatsoundtrack Return of the Living Dead is very
high on my list of curated soundtracks, and that, to me is a
case where I'm actually making an exceptionbecause I think somebody like Martin Scorsese,

(39:30):
while he's shooting a scene, knowsthe song that he's putting in that scene
from whatever time period it's from,whether it recontextualizes a scene or not.
And that to me is what anactual curated soundtrack is, or at least
a like a soundtrack kind of coordinatordealing with the director during the production of
the movie, giving them choices.But I know for a fact that in

(39:52):
the case of Return of the LivingDead, that Dan O'Bannon had no fucking
idea about punk music and the punkswhen he wrote that movie and then and
then made it, and so allof those songs were brought to him.
Is as it turns out, it'sa perfect fusion of sound and image.

(40:13):
Uh, like he could have hecouldn't have done better in that case.
So anyway, I just agree withyou. Either it is a fantastic curated
soundtrack for a movie. And anda lot of those songs, uh you
know, it's it's diagetic and nondiagetic. Some of those songs play in
the movie as source music, andsome of them play over scenes, and
it all works wonderfully. I gotI got a question. Here's here's a

(40:37):
whole other musical genre for soundtracks.How about the film that has a composer
and a band attached to it likethis weirdo hybrid like Highlander, which has
a score by Michael Kaman but songs, My Queen, where does this rank
in our papion? That Flash Gordonto me is a composed soundtrack. It's

(41:00):
a kindle. I'm not talking aboutFlashgarden, sir. You brought it up,
you said, hire is what Isaid, which is a It's a
hybrid of Michael Kaman's music and Kunsongs, like the soundtrack to Dune,

(41:22):
which has Toto doing the music,except Brian Eno came in and did a
separate song for it. You know. Yeah, Batman Tim Burton's Batman,
because I mean, you have DannyElfman's score, but score married with these
fucking songs. Yeah, what aboutwhere does that call? HP? This

(41:43):
is your show? The Batman thing? I think they're two totally separate soundtracks.
They may appear concurrently in the movie, but there was a Elfman soundtrack
and there was a Prince soundtrack.So that's to me that that's where that
ends. I've seen the future,HP, and it will be for the
future and it works. Yes,yea, I love well. Here I'll

(42:09):
tell you my example of one ofmy favorite film soundtracks that is a curated
collection. Just to give you someinsight into where my head was at this.
I chose the soundtrack to the movieHeavy Metal, adaptation of the seventies
metal herdun With and it has tome the soundtrack is is it sort of

(42:31):
accomplishes the brief of elevating and makingthe movie more interesting, but existing entirely
separately of the movie if you needit to be. I mean that it's
the first time I ever heard Didowith Black Sabboth doing mob Rules, which
is an absolutely incredible scene where it'sit's the attack, it's the last episode

(42:53):
in Heavy Metal. It's Tarna.It's like the you know, the attack
against the citizens of that planet orwhatever. And while it's not necessarily commenting
on the events that are happening onscreen, it absolutely conveys the vibe of
there's this battle going on, noone knows what's happening. People are getting

(43:13):
killed left and right. It's acrazy situation and it all works. I
could say the same thing about DonFelder's Heavy Metal, the song heavy Metal
as that be the Bomber coming in, where that's it's that song playing as
the bombers under attack. And ithas this real streamlined feel and feels very

(43:37):
spacey. Me. I knew youwould pick heavy metal because you're a veteran
of a thousand psychic. How doyou look inside my soul and speak my
truth? Father below? You know, I was going to bring that up,
and this is why we're praying.We had a conversation very early on
our friendship that would basically share abrain. So that's just I'm not surprised.

(44:00):
This is who we were hatched outof the same weird egg. I've
got at a collected soundtrack HP,here's one American Graffiti. It's it's effectively
a jukebox soundtrack, right, Butyou know he wrote every scene and you
can look in his script and hewrote the name of the song in the
scene, and there's there could beno better punctuation in each of the moments

(44:24):
throughout that entire movie. And itturns out it's a fucking great soundtrack of
like collection of music of the timeperiod, like all the coolest of that
cool music. Anyway, I've saidmy piece because it works as a piece
of nostalgia for that time and place, but it also, like you said,

(44:45):
it has a way of commenting onthe scenes that it's appearing in.
It's very deliberately selected and curated.I think that's probably the alpha when you
think about curated soundtracks, as AmericanGraffiti even had both Man Jack as a
character in the flick the I've spinningthose spinning those planters. Absolutely, Heather,

(45:06):
what what do you think about songcollections? What's what's what's one of
your favorites if we're talking in likethe school of something like American Graffiti.
Um, I think Paul Thomas Anderson'sscore for Boogie Knights. If an unusual
that the song Boogie Knights is noton the soundtrack to Boogie Knights, I
don't, But yet we get theamazing Dirk Diggler's rendition of You've Got the

(45:30):
Touch, which is that I believeis its Transformers. Oh sorry, sorry,
I love how I do. Goddamn remember Megatron, guys, remember

(45:52):
that scene. It's horrifying. Thisprobably wouldn't count, but I think it's
Actually it's an interesting kind of hybridbecause one one movie was an amazing soundtrack
and it's both diagetic and non diagetic, and it's all the same band.
Is um the movie that Slade didin Flame, which I don't think a
lot of Americans have saying Slade.I mean it's it's actually really depressing.

(46:17):
It's really good. It's a veryheavy, like gritty basically kind of like
docu drama of Slade's band, butalso just like how you know, just
kind of seedy the music scene.It's and we're not talking your typical like
rags riches seediness where you know it'scocaine and orgies. Now it's like you

(46:39):
know, working class bands playing pubsand dealing with the mob, and you
know, it's it's a I cannotand I think that movie has been long
out of print. It needs toget back in prints. Slaves and Flame
is excellent the soundtrack. I mean, obviously it helps if you're a Slave
fan, which I am. Um, I wish, I wish they would

(46:59):
have been a bigger band over here, because I think most Americans just known
for come on field of Noise andhonestly, most Americans probably a war Fieler
with a quiet riot cover the Slavesat this point. But um, but
I mean Slade Slade were great now, yeah, but I mean that like,

(47:21):
yeah, these kind of monkeys,you know, can't swing. Um,
because I love you. I mean, Slave is such a great band
and it Flame is a really greatuse of that of that band, of
that music, and it's very effectivetoo. It's not just like, oh,
here's a popular band, here's amusic like it's there's a point in
a purpose to it. Um.Another one that's actually kind of hitting me

(47:44):
that I think would actually be avery good double bill with that film in
a bizzarrow way would be Derek Jarman'sJubilee because there's some really great um punk
like music and that in this sortof dystopian world. I mean, you
have like early Susan in the bandChess and Adam and the Ants. You've
got Jane County, who Goddess lovesJane County, and Jane County's great everything

(48:07):
and she should that woman should beheralded from the stars. And this guy
great rock and roller. Um.So yeah, I mean that's the thing
we have. There's so many filmswe can then well, yeah, leaning
to the point that my allergies arekicking in, leaning into the punk direction.
A wonderful curated soundtrack diegetic and nonfor me is the Sit Nancy Soundtrack,

(48:30):
which features a lot of covers ofsongs like the Sex Pistols had done
but had a fucking phenomenal uh songscore and uh just score for the film
by the Pogues and Pray for Rainand Joe Strummer. It's a it's that's

(48:54):
a that's a great one as faras I'm concerned, as far as UH
cureted collections of tune like they had, you know, they had like three
different bands basically write a song sayingthe name of the song is love Kills.
Come up with something, and eachof them did and there we go.
So, oh my god. Youknow what one I can't believe we

(49:15):
haven't mentioned Father alone an HP,I'm assuming you love this movie as much
as I know we do, isget crazy good lord. Yeah, I
mean it's a curated some They wroteall those songs specifically to be performed.
It's basically like, yeah, what'sthat calls? Okay? So insane,

(49:37):
it's so wide ranging and crazy,like we're going to get too scores.
We haven't even gotten to scores yetand that it's mind bending. I'm so
mad at you. HP. Wellwe're getting there. My My honorable mention,
by the way, for song curatedsong collections is another one that I

(49:58):
know is you probably already thought ofit. One. This is a bit
of having its cake and eating ittoo. Father them alone. It's the
soundtrack to the Warriors because you haveVoon, Yes, well his because that's
his work is so I keep usingthe word, but it's so iconic in
that movie. You can't hear hissynthesized, driven, moody, funky score

(50:22):
and not think of the baseball Furiesrunning down, you know, down the
street with baseball bats and like murderin their eyes. It's fantastic. But
you also have there's some great songsin the soundtrack. You've got um Echoes
in my Mind by a band calledMandrill, which is this incredibly sort of

(50:43):
mellow, funky R song You've GotNowhere to Run. It's it's amazing.
What's his name there, mister Eagles? Oh um Joe was in the City's
great that you can't hear that songand not think of the Warriors. I
think that technically is an Eagles song, because I think I could be wrong.

(51:07):
I thought it was on an Eaglesalbum. But you can't hear that
song and not think of the Warriors. Finally making it to Coney, I
will never the Eagles. When Ihear that song ever, oh hell,
now, now anything good the Eaglesdid, just put it on. Joe
Joe Walsh is the man, wellmother talents of people on that bad too.

(51:28):
Yeah, like Felder but you knowto Felders fine actual the will Well.
When we actually end up talking aboutyat Rock, one of the things
that the yacht rock guys said,there's the best thing the Eagles ever did
was break up because them solo ontheir own is it's kind of like it's
the opposite of the you know,greater than the some of their parts.

(51:51):
Basically, the parts are greater thanthe some of the whole. I think
we can talk about the Eagles,but that's another topic. And yeah,
well well but anyway, so asFather Malone said or entreated me to get
into this, let's get into thebig one. Let's get into composed soundtracks.

(52:13):
Okay, we'll want to again.I ask you guys to come armed
with one of your favorite composed soundtracks. I'm really interested to see what you
guys come up with here, Heather, why don't we start with you?
I again, it's so hard forme to pick because I'm greedy and I
love music. Which is obviously weall do. That's why we're doing the
show. Um, but uh,can I do two runners up before?

(52:35):
Absolutely, I'm a greedy I'm agreedy girl. Um. Lolo Schiffern's score
for Dirty Harry I think is perfection. Love it, love it, love
it, give me more. Alsoon my list Lalo Schiffern in general.
So yeah, go to town.Amen, Yeah the man you could do

(53:07):
no wrong. The score and I'mgonna probably mispronounce the name, but I
believe the band was called Snoia Cavesfor Beyond the Black Rainbow, the Pana's
Cosmato's film. That's a gorgeous score. Also a Cantus score for Genre Launched

(53:35):
Ship or the Vampires Perfect the AmmonFolk Orchestra for Subspecies. I'm doing more
than two runners up. I'm sorry, I digress. My number one is

(54:05):
Mitchell firm score for Cafe Flesh becauseI obviously I'm a huge, huge Stephen
Sadian fan who directed it, andthat's why I'm working on a book about
his art. But one of themany great things about Stephen is his use
of music and working with a guylike Mitchell Froome, who on his own

(54:29):
is a very talented musician who's workedin many different capacities, and his score
for Cafe Flesh is hypnotic, attimes, downbeat and others jarringly haunting at
times, at other times also weirdlycatchy, but very mutated, which is

(54:51):
absolutely perfect. I cannot you couldnot make a Cafe Flesh without that score,
like it is such an essential part, an ingredient of a film,
but I already consider a masterpiece ofa very vital part of cinema. So
yeah, Mitchell Firm's Cafe Flash.Nice nice father Malone Ian to hear what

(55:20):
you have to say as well.I have so much to say. This
is an almost incredibly unfair topic.I think we've been saddled with because I
too, am going to go througha list because it's insanity. Not too
how about Lawrence of Arabia by MauriciaI mentioned him earlier has put it as
one of the worst scores for hisRyan's Daughter score, but that one's really

(55:52):
good. Stewart Copeland's score for TalkRadio is fucking phenomenal. Almost anything by
Carter Burwell, who did the musicalmost all of the Cohen Brothers films.

(56:15):
He is constantly into it. Imy favorite of his is Miller's Crossing.
However, the score is sort ofcomped from an original Irish traditional called the

(56:38):
Lament for Limerick. So if Ihad to pick a Carter Burwell one sort
of specifically be raising Arizona. Howabout Georgio Moroder showing us what a soundtrack

(56:59):
can also be. I mean they'rebeen electronic soundtracks before his, but he
certainly did it in a wonderful way. I'm not even thinking of the flashy
or eighties ones like Scarface, whichis a great one, but like Midnight
Express is so tense, like amazing, like that score makes that movie a

(57:19):
better, better movie. John Barry'sa really good composer, you know Goldfinger,
like that one You Only Live Twice? Pretty great. And that one
is where where the composer of thesoundtrack for the film also effectively creates the

(57:45):
song for the film, because theyturn his whatever melody he's come up with
that Bond movie becomes the song.That's kind of a feat that's pretty incredible.

(58:05):
Anything by Bernard Herman is really good. So here's where the fist fight
comes in HP because I have somebodylike John Williams in my mind, because
who could be better than John Williams. Just every single movie is stuck in

(58:30):
my head that has to be somesort of sorcery. But that doesn't make
him my favorite score. The actualfight comes down to two. Jerry Goldsmith,
who has composed some of my favoritemusic from all of my favorite movies.
The score for like Gremlin's which youdon't even realize it until like forty

(58:50):
minutes into the movie what that scoreactually is, and it's bonkers and it's
so appropriate for the movie. Anyway, I love Jerry Goldsmith and I want
to say he's my favorite composer andthat's my favorite soundtrack, but it's not.

(59:13):
My favorite actual composer is John Carpenter. Yes, oh that's crazy.
Every one of his soundtracks are scores, and every one of them sounds inevitable
when you hear it married with thepictures they're They're so good and propulsive.

(59:34):
My favorite of all time is Escapefrom New York, where it's a combination
of all of his strengths as acomposer, and he even defers he's got
some debut say that he quotes inthat soundtrack. It tells the story.
It's what you mentioned earlier at theat the beginning HB. When you got

(59:55):
that that Star Wars soundtrack home,you could relive the movie listening to that
soundtrack, and you certainly can dothat with Escape from New York. You
know what every single scene is thanksto the music used there. John Carpet

(01:00:21):
had a quote I actually have wouldlike to read if you don't mind,
which is he said, I thinkof the orchestral stuff as carpet music.
I lay a carpet under the scenes. It doesn't get in the way,
and you're watching the scene and themusic won't intrude on you. I describe
my style as anti John Williams.His style goes back to Max Steiner,
where you might emphasize every action andflourished, and I came from the minimalist

(01:00:45):
school, to which I would say, that's a great quote. But he's
just as bombastic as John Williams.Is he crazy? The Halloween theme,
Yeah, it's sort of minimally minimal, like instrumentation wise, but John fucking
grabbing the viewer by the fucking throat. Oh god, the theme for Christine

(01:01:07):
like that main piece of music.Beautiful, that's so good. That's a
that's an exquisite choice. There's Idon't know the name of the music.
But in Christine, it's the scenewhere UM is the football scene. Yes,
yes, we talked about this nottoo long ago, where there's something
like I think I played this foryou on vinyl when you were in my

(01:01:29):
home. Well, just something there'sthere's something about like the emotion of the
scene because he's basically seeing you know, Arnie kind of making time with his
girl so to speak or whatever.He's distracted by it and that's when he
breaks his leg. I don't know, there's something about the choices that he
makes in that scene John Carpenter interms of music that I just think is

(01:01:52):
amazing. I just I just loveit. Back we're talking about, by
the way, is called football RunSlash, Kill your Children. It's great.

(01:02:12):
It's because the thing of Christine isit's you know, a lot of
the showiness of that is when whenChristine's radio comes on, and it's usually
some kind of like old duop songthat is commenting on whatever Christine's going to
be doing in the moment. Buthis score is just phenomenal. Bravo.
That's a that's a great one.I didn't even think of that, Um,

(01:02:34):
but my choices I two had alot of runners up, if you
will. Among the runners up,the soundtrack to played Runner vengelis phenomenal.
I mean, it's basically it's notimpossible to separate the soundtrack from the movie.
They're just so inextricably linked in mymind, and each one makes the

(01:02:58):
other one better. As a result, expanded my mind as to what an
electronic score could be. Unrelated butsimilar. Note in my mind, the
Untouchable soundtrack by more Coney think Imean more Coney. Obviously he has this

(01:03:19):
incredibly storied career, and you wouldthink of The Untouchables as the latter day
work, but it is so good. Something about the way that soundtrack works
in the movie. There's a jauntinessbut a darkness to it as well.
The harmonica is so menacing, ohman, and the scene that the the

(01:03:52):
sort of homage to Battleship Potemkin inthe train station when all that stuff's going
on, and like the sort ofoperatic score that he has built up around
it. Yeah, the Palma usuallyused Pino Donagio for most of his movies.
And if you think in any waythat Anio Marconi lapsed into sentimentalism,
you have no idea because Pino Denagiois just like a wash in the sentimental

(01:04:18):
So thank god any Marconi got thegot the gig Fen touchables because it is
again perfect marriage of film and ofaudio and visual. It's just remarkable.
I could keep going. I mean, I would even put the original Tron
soundtrack the Wendy Carlos Tron soundtrack becauseit was so because it's so groundbreaking,

(01:04:40):
because it's easy to take for grantednow when you have a synth score matched
up against an orchestral score. Butthey didn't have that. There was no
way to sync those two pieces up. Yes, they didn't have the technology
to really you know, matten.So it was My understanding is it was
an ordeal just to sync up thosetwo halves of the score. But it

(01:05:04):
works brilliantly. I mean, WendyCarlos is is a trailblazer beyond that,
I mean just in the in theworld of electronic music, she is the
name. I mean, we wouldn'thave electronic music and it wasn't for Wendy
Carlos. And from a time whenyou had to program every one of those

(01:05:35):
notes, it's not that's the thing, not like flipping on the synth.
Now you had to not only that, you only had there are only you
know, basically three types of sound. There was sawtoothed us uh sign wave
or a square wave, and whitenoise. And the keyboards were all monophonic.

(01:05:55):
In other words, you can't youcouldn't play a card before you know,
anord. You had to play everynote one at a time, record
it, play it back, playalong with it, multi track multi It's
just that's a story for another episode. Clearly, the reason I bring it
up is to sneak back around andpraise my choice again because John Carpenter had

(01:06:19):
to do the same thing. Ican't say this is my favorite soundtrack of
all time, but this is certainlyone of my favorite soundtracks is the soundtrack
to the original movie Rocky by BillConstei. And part of the reason that
it's it's it's I recognize that it'sa much more popular choice, but it

(01:06:40):
is. It's impossible. It's oneof the most identified themes when you think
of going to fly. Now it'sit's a cliche. Now when you have
a comedy routine about somebody training fora fight or doing some sort of physical
activity, you know, there wasa time when they would que up Gonna
Fly Now because it was so thethe training montage became a thing with Rocky,

(01:07:08):
but beyond the obvious sort of likeI said, massive market appeal of
that song. The soundtrack itself,I think doesn't get a lot of credit
for what it does, which iswhat it What it does is it really
elevates the original story and it's somethingthat is both incredibly epic but also like

(01:07:29):
painstaking the human size because if youlisten, there's a lot of bombastic songs
like Gonna Fly Now, Going theDistance and all this stuff, but then
there's like softer pieces that kind ofunderscore the the the human sort of emotions
around this whole movie. It's reallya movie about you know, flawed people

(01:07:53):
kind of falling into each other's orbitand you know, making each other better
as a result. My favorite,my favorite track in that is HB What's
that Take It to the Zoo?But remember what I thought, would you
tell me that's that's a well Iit's it's so. I mean, you

(01:08:19):
know, I can't say much aboutBill Conti's work before and after. The
thing I know him most from,frankly, is the fact that he was
the bandleader for the Oscars for likefifty years or something, because they would
always go, there's the Maestro,Bill Conti whatever. And I think he
did the soundtrack for the Karate Kid. I'm sure I'm missing a lot that
he did, but oh yeah,he's very prolific. But Rocky is It's

(01:08:45):
almost it's really almost a cliche atthis point, but it is so again,
it's one of those soundtracks. Youcan put it on the record player,
as I did as a child,and you hear this music and it
takes yours. That the the fanfare, the Rocky fanfare. If you're in
the you know, it gives mechills even now to listen to it because
it is so grandiose. He liftedthe story and made it bigger and larger

(01:09:10):
than life. And I think that'spart of what carried through all of the
Rocky movies to follow it. Theybecame larger than life. Those movies have
actually lived up to that scar absolutelythat that's exactly right. It's hard to

(01:09:32):
score. It's actually not about aneveryman. It's about the greater man.
He'll be right exactly exactly, andthat's why that's you know again, it's
impossible for us to give our ourfinal definitive. This is my favorite soundtrack,
but that is one of many thatare in my orbit constantly. So

(01:09:54):
HP, yes, if you wouldallow me to hijack a segment here based
on were your choice, I'm GonnaFly now represents the rare hybrid of song
score popular music in that that track, the main title theme became a number
one hit in May of nineteen seventyseven. Right, So, here are

(01:10:19):
some other movie soundtrack scores that becamehits. Unchained the soundtrack to Unchained by
Less Baxter, Unchained Melody April ninth, nineteen fifty five, number one.
Man with the Golden Arm main soundtrackby Elmer Bernstein, number fourteen. That
was February thirteen, nineteen fifty six, the proud one soundtrack to that by

(01:10:43):
Lionel Newman of The Newman's He gotto number thirty nine. The Apartment by
Adolph Deutsch got to number ten.Exodus theme from Exodus nineteen sixty Baby Pink
Panther theme Fancini two got to onlynumber thirty one. That shocks me.

(01:11:04):
It's unbelievable that next big movie soundtrackto chart was Jaws theme from Jaws to
number thirty four, Okay, thenRocky blows It All wide and Ghost to
number one in seventy seven, Laterin seventy seven, number ten in August,

(01:11:27):
Star Wars theme by John Williams,and then the following year January twenty
first number thirteen on the charts,Close Encounters theme by John Williams, which
is the last major movie score tochart in the Billboard charts. Anyway,
that's actually pretty shocking to think.I mean, did you say nineteen seventy

(01:11:50):
seven was that when that last seventyeight no film scores? I mean a
lot of song collections have charted,but no film scores. I mean you
could say axel f. I guessthat that counts, but like I don't
want to count, like win BeneathMy Wings. You know we're talking about

(01:12:11):
it like a score. Yeah,yeah, know that this is this is
something that is you know, composedand performed by it by by an orchestra,
and it surprises Oh you know whatwhat am I talking about? The
the the Van Gelis score for Chariotsof Fire had to chart some very high

(01:12:31):
had had to yeah, because thatwas that was omnipresent at that point.
But name another one since can youknow? So for the final final spin,
I'm gonna ask the question what wouldthe soundtrack to your life be called?
And who would be the preferred composer? And I'm gonna ask you first

(01:12:51):
bottom alone. Oh, I don'tknow what the title would be because that
that presupposes that there would be amovie. Or is it one of these
situations like where the soundtrack has aseparate title than the movie, like the
soundtrack to the Last Temptation of Christby Peter Gabriel is actually called Passion,
so is it? Yes? Ohthat's a great Oh my good lord.

(01:13:16):
Let's let me let me that's thankyou for clarifying. Let's put it this
way. Uh, the movie ofyour life, what's it call? And
who's going to compose the soundtrack?It's going to be called background player?
Okay? Title? I actually reallythat that's very literally. I think that
might be better than mine. Yeah, And if I get to choose the

(01:13:42):
composer from the soundtrack of my lifeout of left field, I'm going to
choose Mark Mothers. Yes, ohI was. I was tempted to go
from Mark Mother's bos but but I'mglad you picked him. I mean,
he's not my favorite composer, buthe's pretty fucking close, you know.
He has such a great background injust the world of music, and all

(01:14:05):
of his scores are really rock solidand good. Like Elfman gets all the
attention, but Mother's Buds are reallylike right on top of it. That's
an excellent choice. That's a goodone. That's a very good choice.
All right, Heather, I'm dyingto hear what you have to say.
On the side. The title wasthe hardest part for me, to be
honest, because um, I wouldnever just the thought, even though even

(01:14:28):
as a hypothetical like a moving onmy life gives me I'm like, oh
no, like you know. Butbut if we're plain hypotheticals, the title
would have to be Mondo potso okay, because that was not just because that
title, uh was the genesis ofthe inspiration of me taking on Mondo as

(01:14:53):
a name back when I saw thetrailer for it on Real Wild Cinema as
a teenager. Uh. And that'sa great trailer and a great sort of
bombastic narration. But the composer,I have to pick the one and only
my man, Mark Garson and say, somebody might be listening like Heather.

(01:15:14):
Oh no, it's okay. Iwas gonna say more Garson as well,
again, this is all right.Let's I should have said somebody living,
because I don't believe more Garson.No he's not. This is my movie.
I will, I will, Iwill practice the dark arts of necromancy.
Sir. It's a get. It'sa good one. That's a good

(01:15:38):
one. I like I said,I was. I had him typed into
the movie and then I said no, no, no, he's dead.
I couldn't do that. I missedthe living part. If I had picked
a living one, it's my fault. I didn't. I didn't. Well,
then I'm sticking with more Mark Garsonbabies. No, that that's that's
great. I think we will.We will get a chance to talk about

(01:15:58):
the Wizard of Is at some point, hopefully soon, and we will well.
He also did a film soundtrack.He to myology is at least contributed
to two films. Uh the better, No, I want to sun a
Blob which that title track is Purifier, but also there's a really obscure movie
and a stads tracks. Finally,in print, the movie is not called

(01:16:19):
didn't you hear? And we willdig into Mark Garson, probably to Father
Malone's eternal schugrin, because we're justgonna go crazy talking about him. I
love the guy. Uh, thiswas this is not easy. The the
the title, Uh, it's it'snot as good as as yours, yours
or Father Malone's. My title wasjust going to be something to the effect

(01:16:41):
of fanfare for the exceedingly common man. Yeah, I love that. I
love that. I just couldn't.I couldn't think of anything else. And
I think my my composer, althoughhe's not a composer in the vein of
somebody like a John william but Iwould like to see what this person would

(01:17:03):
do with the soundtrack of My life. That person is Christopher Guests of This
is Spinal tab Goffman Fame. Ithink he is. He's a very very
good musician. I think in hismovies, especially I'm thinking of a mighty
Win, he's able to write toa specific genre or period and make it

(01:17:26):
really work, but also make itreally interesting and funny and commenting on the
events of the movie in addition tobeing very authentic. I'd love to I'd
love to hear a dramatic score byChristopher Guest Honestly, I don't know why
he doesn't, because he is.He's a very good musician. I just
don't and I've read articles over theyears. This is just a complete side

(01:17:48):
doown that he does perform and doeslike Celtic music. I think he plays
a lot of mandolin. He doesside projects with different people. But to
my knowledge, I've never come acrossthese as you know, bodies of work
that you can purchase, like,you know, like like something like a

(01:18:08):
Bacon Brothers. There's no Christopher Guestcollection that I can get outside of his
movie soundtracks or or whatever spinal tapproject they're doing to keep the copyright you
know, enforced. So I don'tknow. I'd like to see what he
can do with it. It's proofthere is no God that the Bacon Brothers

(01:18:29):
are readily available in the Christopher Gueststyling. Okay, Rococo now okay.
And with that, I think Ithink there there is no better sentiment to
wrap up the show on. Ilove that. Uh, we're gonna go
ahead and wrap it up here.We're gonna give some plugs, Uh,
Father Malone, why don't you tellthe folks where they can hear you?

(01:18:54):
You can head over to weirding WayMedia dot com. It's probably where you
heard this, where you can hearthis show, and I do a whole
bunch of other shows like Astounding Talesof the Public Domain nos are enhanced audio
performances of classic sci fi or darkDestinations. It's a half hour radio drama
I right and produce or Midnight ViewingThe Night Gallery Podcast where I talk about

(01:19:18):
the Night Gallery television series. WeirdingWaymedia dot com and Heather, Where can
we find you? You can alwaysfind me over at my website, which
is Mondo Heather dot com. Ialso have a Patreon, so if you'd
like, if you're able to support, if you can't know words, but

(01:19:39):
you if you're able to, youcan check out my my fun articles,
little sundry supplementals, occasionally videos,and all kinds of just weird. Oh
Mondo Heather or Monto, Patsos Terrikit too. That's great As for myself,

(01:19:59):
you can also find me and theall over the weirding Way network as
well. I am the co hostof the Wolf and Raising Banna Check podcast
with fadom Alone. We also cohost the Night Mister Walters Taxi Podcast.
I've done some guest spots here andthere on the Culture Cast, so look
for me there and uh yeah soagain weirding Way Media. Go check it

(01:20:24):
out. So thank you both verymuch. Another wonderful discussion here, really
really uh good good, some goodstuff. I look forward to the next
edition of the Movie Soundtrack Discussion.But anyhow, for myself, for Heather,
and for Fadom alone, this isnoise junkies. Thank you very much

(01:20:45):
for listening.