A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Hey Boy Hey Girl (performed by the Chemical Brothers)

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Some day, I’m going to make and publish a list that will entitled “Top Ten Songs To Dance To While Wasted.” Until I get around to that, I’ll just take a few minutes to highlight the song that would probably come in at number 3 — Hey Boy Hey Girl by the Chemical Brothers.

I really wanted to put up the music video that features the kids in the museum and the skeletons having sex in the public restroom. However, every version of that to be found on YouTube comes with one of those really annoying “embedding disabled by request” tags. Bleh on that.

So, I’m including two videos. The first one is simply the song as it appears on 1999’s Surrender. The second is a clip of the Chemical Brothers doing the song live at Glastonbury in 2007. Personally, I love the 2nd clip. If you ever get a chance to see the Chemical Brothers live, you must take it as surely as you must breathe oxygen to live.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Buio Omega (performed by Goblin)

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of my favorite movies of all time is Joe D’Amato’s haunting 1979 romance Beyond The Darkness. Not only is it one of the best Italian films ever (and the best film ever directed by D’Amato) but I think it’s also one of the best films ever made.

One reason the film is so effective is because of its soundtrack, which was composed and performed by (who else?) Goblin. The music will be familiar to any Italian horror fan, largely because it was reused by about a thousand other movies that came out in the years after Beyond The Darkness. (Director Bruno Mattei, in particular, was fond of it.)

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Gimme Shelter (performed by Merry Clayton and the Rolling Stones)

Posted on November 8, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is November 9th. I’m 25 years old today and I don’t want to talk about it. Bleh. Instead, let’s just play one of the greatest songs ever written, Gimme Shelter.

Gimme Shelter is one of those songs that seems to turn up in every fourth movie that I watch and it’s easy to tell why. It’s a great song. Despite the apocalyptic subject matter, this is an undeniably exhilirating song. This is a song that makes my heart beat faster every time I hear it. If I ever happen to total my car again, it’ll probably be because I was listening to this song while driving. If I ever make out my list of top ten songs to ~~fuck make love~~ fuck to, Gimme Shelter will be at the top of the list along with Blondie’s Atomic, Siouxsie and the Banshee’s Kiss Them For Me, and every song on Moby’s Play CD.

Is it possible that Gimme Shelter is the greatest song of all time?

Yes.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Smashed Blocked (performed by John’s Children)

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Four years ago, I was in Recycle Books in Denton, Texas and I came across a book called something like “Unknown Legends of Rock and Roll.” The book came with a CD that featured music by some of the bands featured in that book. The first song on that CD (and my personal favorite) was Smashed Blocked, a song from a band called John’s Children.

(It’s a good book, too.)

Now Playing: The Disco Love Theme From Caligula

Posted on August 7, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When the infamous epic Caligula was first released back in 1979, a disco version of Caligula’s love theme — We Are One — was also released as a promotional gimmick. If you’ve sat through the behind-the-scenes footage on the Caligula Imperial Edition DVD, this song has probably been forever branded on your brain.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

This song is so over-the-top, so blatantly exploitive, so insidiously catchy, and so totally inappropriate for the film it was written for that it simply cannot be ignored. To me, this song represents everything that makes the Grindhouse great.

(As well, I hope whoever was playing bass got paid extra…)

While we’re on the subject, I’m also going to include the opening credits of Caligula because I’ve always liked the use of Profokiev’s Romeo and Juliet.

(I also love the fact that the screenplay is credited as being adapted from a script by Gore Vidal yet no one is given credit for doing the adapting, the editing is credited to “the production,” and director Tinto Brass is credited with “principal photography.”)

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Death Disco a.k.a. Swan Lake (by Public Image, Ltd.)

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Recently, I’ve been reading Clinton Heylin’s history of punk rock, Babylon’s Burning: From Punk To Grunge. Not surprisingly, one of the main characters in this book is John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten). Along with detailing Lydon’s time as the lead singer for the Sex Pistols, the book also examines Lydon’s subsequent career as the frontman for Public Image, Ltd. The book also inspired me to track down and listen to one of PIL’s earliest efforts, a song that was originally called Death Disco (though it was also released under the name Swan Lake for reasons that become obvious once you listen to the song).

Death Disco was written after and in response to the death of Lydon’s mother. Though the song is now over 30 years old, it remains a powerful and cathartic cry of pain and loss.

As an added bonus, here’s two interviews with Lydon, one from the late 70s that was recorded shortly before he formed Public Image, Ltd. (and in which he looks so incredibly young and, dare I say it, rather adorable in his bratty way) and one from 2007 in which he discusses the meaning of life.

No full lengths? No problem: Boris in 2009

Posted on January 5, 2010 by necromoonyeti

I got pretty excited when asked to write an article on Boris. After all, 2009 was their best year since Flood. I’m not kidding. In fact, it wouldn’t even be fair for me to describe their new material. I’d just be spoiling it. Instead let me help you piece it all together. Boris revealed 10 new songs last year, totaling 62 minutes and spread out over six different releases. Four of them were to some extent intended to be pieced together into one. The other two are just too good to exclude. Here’s what to look for:

split w/9dw – Golden Dance Classics (2009 Catune)
split w/Torche – Chapter Ahead Being Fake (2009 Daymare)
Japanese Heavy Rock Hits v1 7″ (2009 Southern Lord Records)
Japanese Heavy Rock Hits v2 7″ (2009 Southern Lord Records)
Japanese Heavy Rock Hits v3 7″ (2009 Southern Lord Records)
Japanese Heavy Rock Hits v4 7″ (2009 Southern Lord Records)

The first two are available on cd, but don’t ask me where. The Heavy Rock collection has to the best of my knowledge only been marketed on vinyl. Volume 4 is only available in a limited edition when you order 1-3 as a package from Southern Lord, and consists of a cover of some 1970 single by a band called Earth & Fire. Volume 4 and Chapter Ahead Being Fake both contain one Boris song, and the rest have two. Now go get all of them. If you’re downloading, note that Luna ends abruptly and Tokyo Wonder Land begins abruptly. While I’m not convinced that the former is by design, I have yet to hear of a version that contains the last few seconds of the song.

As for the order you should experience them in, the Heavy Rock Hits follow a logical progression (with the last track of 1 and the first of 2 being the only real downers out of all 10.) The 9dw split was released first, but Tokyo Wonder Land is definitely not an intro track. The abrupt ending and beginning I mentioned make for a logical transition between the very different styles of the two splits, and the monolithic mindfuck that is Luna would make Golden Dance Classics a downer of an outro, so I suggest Chapter Ahead Being Fake – Golden Dance Classics – Heavy Rock Hits as the most logical order to listen in. At least that’s how I queue them up.

Like I said, I don’t want to go into detail about the songs, because they’re really something to experience, not describe. Suffice to say I consider Boris’s 2009 collection as a whole second only to Flood as the best hour of music they’ve yet recorded. Expect to be blown away, beaten into a pulp, chilled back out, then taken on a roller coaster through the extremities of Boris’s present potential, all the while wondering if it’s one big joke. Enjoy what would have easily topped my year-end list could I call it a singular album. And check out the rest of the splits eventually. 9dw and Torche contribute some nice tunes.

For whatever it’s worth, my favorite tracks are Luna, 8, and Black Original. Tokyo Wonder Land comes close.

Slava for great justice…

Posted on January 5, 2010 by necromoonyeti

Necrosomethingorother here, I’m going to be doing periodic album reviews for a while. My first one involves some rather controversial material, but hey, it’s what’s new in the metal world.

As I write I am acquainting myself with Nokturnal Mortum‘s sixth studio album, leaked Christmas day when I was too busy to notice. The Voice of Steel starts off where the Eastern Hammer EP ended, hurdy gurdies blazing in a mind-blowing intro, and then slowly transitions into some weird amalgamation of pagan nsbm and spacey Pink Floyd guitar solos. It’s still got some battlecry sopilka breakdowns of classic Nokturnal Mortum, the intense tribal drumming that first greeted us on To the Gates of Blasphemous Fire’s Cheremosh, the violin over epic synth that characterized Weltanschauung…
But it also has clean vocals and Pink Floyd guitar solos, and I’m just not sold on them yet. The Voice of Steel is in some ways amazing, in others irritating. It’s a decent album, no doubt about it, but it sure wasn’t what I was hoping for. Nothing would have made me happier than a whole album of the Eastern Hammer remake of Kolyada, and that The Voice of Steel is certainly not.

The album has some real gems, notably Shlyakhom Sontsya. It also has tracks like Moei Mrii Ostrovi that would fit in a lot better on an Amorphis album and just clash entirely with the group’s extremist views. They’re trying to mature musically, but they have to mature mentally first to really pull it off.

Extremism has produced some amazing music over the years. Wrath of the Tyrant, Det Som Engang Var, NeChrist, they all share in common a level of passionate convictions taken so far as murder, arson, or white supremacy. Obviously I don’t have to condone these acts to appreciate their origins, but the musicians have to come to terms with them eventually. Ihsahn seems to recognize his youthful escapades as a childish outlet for his anti-Christian views and now writes more mature music effectively. His album After, another new release, is pretty damn impressive. He can still frown on the Christian culture of servitude without letting it consume him and his innate musical talents. Meanwhile you’ve got Varg writing dissertations on the likelihood of Aryans being an advanced race from outerspace, and I have pretty low expectations of his forthcoming album.

I hear in Knjaz Varggoth’s new music a reflection of this Vargian state of depravity. Their old songs embodied folk, and they believed in it so thoroughly that they took on extremist views, but that was only the lyrical focus. NeChrist was packed with anthems to what the band barely understood, aggression married to mysticism, white supremacy only a catalyst. The aggressive desperation with which they summoned a bygone era made their music a mirror into the past. It was as though the songs they played were ancient melodies shouting, screaming to be heard once again over the clamor of modern rock by any means necessary. I can’t expect another masterpiece like NeChrist, maybe not even something as good as Weltanschauung, but a stylistic evolution means a mental one too, and I hear in songs that combine clean vocals and Gilmour guitars with cries for the motherland the path of Varg, not Ihsahn. It’s hard to appreciate music that’s neither passionate nor mature. The Voice of Steel is not culture triumphant, it’s more like a methodic racial manifesto. Come on Knjaz, either sustain your fire or light a new match, don’t slump into dogma.

For a far more heartfelt nsbm album, check out Temnozor’s 2010 offering, Haunted Dreamscapes.

Review: Conan the Barbarian Soundtrack (composed by Basil Poledouris)

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Arleigh

In 1982 maverick director John Milius wrote and directed a sword and fantasy epic based on the Robert E. Howard pulp character Conan the Cimmerian. Though some changes were made to the character and his adventures to make a much more accessibe fantasy epic, Milius’ Conan the Barbarian became a smashing success and ushered in the Age of Schwarzenneger. Milius had his leading man and an action-packed script with exotic locales to shoot the film at. Now all Milius needed was someone to compose a film score worthy and complementary to the character and the film. The person he ended up choosing to score his epic would be Basil Poledouris and it would turn out to be a very wise choice.

Basil Poledouris’ took on a different tack in scoring Conan the Barbarian. Instead of just coming up with music as a background to scenes in the film he opted to score the film as if it was an opera. Taking his cue from Wagner and Carl Orff (whose Carmina Burana was a heavily influence in the tracks Riddle of Steel/Riders of Doom and Battle of the Mounds), Poledouris created a score that could stand on its own as a piece of operatic work. His use of leitmotifs to sound the arrival of the main characters was reminiscent of Wagner’s work especially that of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Conan and his archnemesis Thulsa Doom would have their leitmotifs intertwined in the tracks Riddle of Steel/Riders of Doom with their pounding drums, crashing brass and triumphant horn section. This motif would return once more in the Battle of the Mounds track.

Another recurring motif would be the light and airy theme Poledouris came up with for what I call the introspective section of the film. This section of the score made great use of this motif which used less of the drums, brass and french horns in the more militaristic and martial beginning of the film. A trio of tracks made up this section with Theology/Civilization, The Wifeing, and The Leaving/The Search with the first of the trio being a light and playful tune smoothly segueing into the intimate and ultimately mournful middle track of the trio. The third and final section would combine the two towards a determined conclusion to Conan’s introspection of what his decision should be in his quest for vengeance.

Other tracks in the score adds its own personality to the story being told. There’s Gift of Fury which starts off as a slow dirge to the aftermath of Conan’s village being razed by Thulsa Doom’s men to a gradual dramatic crescendo marking the end of young Conan’s innocence and path to bondage and slavery. The other track of note which helped give the scene it was composed for a greater impact would be The Kitchen/The Orgy. This track with its dual personality of Thulsa Doom’s martial motif smoothly transition into a sensuous and decadent, albeit discordant theme showed the dual nature of Conan’s rival. A nature both militaristic and disciplined, but also hedonistic and debased. This was one piece of the score which stood out to show Poledouris’ great understanding of the characters and the subject matter he was scoring for.

Poledouris’ final score for the film works well within the boundaries of the story being told. It both complements the action and thoughts shown on the screen and enhances its dramatic weight. In fact, the symphony and choral work done in the score could be listened to without seeing the images on the screen with just the CD liner as a guide and the story would be easily understood. On its own the score would count as a great symphony which told a story through music. But when combined with the words and images crafted by Milius on-screen it takes on a greater dimension.

Conan the Barbarian was a film that helped usher in Arnold Schwarzenneger as a force in Hollywood. It was also a film which showed that sword and sorcery fantasy could be done seriously and done so with quality in mind. The film and Milius’ choice who to score it would resonate in the film scoring community for years to come as it showed that a film score didn’t have to be just a secondary afterthought in the filmmaking process. Poledouris’ score for Conan the Barbarian still counts as his best to date and remains the standard-bearer for fantasy film scoring. It’s influences could be felt as recent as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy where film composer Howard Shore uses Poledouris technique of Wagnerian leitmotifs to help tell the story as if it was an opera instead of just a film. A masterful work by a master of his craft that would live long after all the participants in the project are long dead and buried.