On my way out of James Wan’s “The Conjuring” last night, I noticed Ryan Gosling’s name in the credits. A bit of curiosity led me to his band, Dead Man’s Bones. I wasn’t aware he sung, but he’s pretty good at it. Feeling like a mix of The Doors & Roy Orbison, this song really matches with some of the creepiness of the film. Here, the band plays “In The Room Where You Sleep” , with kids as the background vocals. Enjoy.
Category Archives: Song of the Day
Song of the Day: Gipsy Danger (by Ramin Djawadi)
This latest “Song of the Day” will be the second of what will be a trifecta of my favorite tracks from the Pacific Rim soundtrack by composer Ramin Djawadi. The first one was the main theme from the film and featured Rage Against the Machine lead guitarist Tom Morello providing lead guitar work. This second track I’ve chosen is siply titled “Gipsy Danger”.
Where the main theme has been everyone’s favorite in the entire soundtrack it’s difficult not to enjoy the motif for the main character of the film. Let’s be honest and just admit to ourselves that the main character in Pacific Rim is the jaeger christened Gipsy Danger. The track which introduces her theme in the film actually precedes the main theme. We actually hear the “Gipsy Danger” theme right from the start of the film. It combines some of the hard rock melodies and chords from the film’s main theme, but also expanding on the deep bass tone (sounding like a fog horn blowing) that punctuates throughout this theme more than it did in the main theme. This deep sound I always thought of as the “monster arriving” musical cue. It appears not just when Gipsy Danger makes her initial appearance but also whenever a kaiju emerges from the ocean and makes landfall to cause destruction. It’s a sound cue similar to classic giant monster flicks from Japan that announces either Godzilla or one of his kaiju brethren which was followed-up by the iconic monster scream.
We get both the rock and roll and heroic sound from the main theme combined with the more ominous musical cue in this chosen track. It pretty much focuses on one of the film’s taglines about creating monsters to fight monsters. The Gipsy Danger jaeger is a monster in her own right. But then she’s our monster and we always have a fondness for monsters as long as it’s our own.
Song of the Day: Tool – H.
For those of you who have yet to get the memo, music industry giants in 2013 decided that it was time for the 1990s to be cool again. I’m pretty goddamn stoked about it myself, and I hope the sort of neo-grunge/alternative that’s going to be really popular 3-4 years from now inspires a lot of talented musicians to crawl out of the woodwork and start producing quality uncastrated rock again. In the meantime, I’ve been dusting off my neigh-forgotten guitar and revisiting a lot of the bands from my high school days to see if they were really as great as I remembered. (Alice in Chains? Check. Rage Against the Machine? Holy mother of Check. Sublime? Bzzzz, back to the “nostalgia” m3u and dusty jewel case with you.)
There have been a few 90s bands that never really left my playlist all this time. Smashing Pumpkins’ catalog from Siamese Dream though Machina kept on rolling like they were all just released yesterday. Pearl Jam and Nirvana still found their way into Winamp from time to time. And I never quit listening to Tool. My Tool selection for the past decade though has consisted almost exclusively of the Opiate EP and Undertow–those nostalgic recordings that were inevitably rolling in the background every time I ever skipped school to play paintball, experimented with a new drug (I haven’t done any “drugs” since high school, but I must say tripping on shrooms completely changed my perspective on life in a positive way), or got drunk when it was still a novel experience.
When I was a teenager though, it was never Opiate or Undertow that I listened to at home. They were the party albums that all of my friends would play ad pleasant nauseam. In private, I listened to Ænima. I’d all but forgotten about it until a week ago. I’ve kept it on repeat while engaging in the oh-so-rebellious task of remodeling my kitchen, and wow… Fast-forward from having naively experienced a few hundred mass-marketed bands to having researched and intelligently engaged thousands of different acts, I have to say Ænima remains one of the greatest recordings I have ever heard.
Right now I’m peaking on Pushit. It was, alongside Jimmy and Third Eye, one of the tracks I pretty much ignored as a kid, and I’m now hearing it in a new light as one of the most overwhelming tracks on the album. I want to showcase H. though, because it was my favorite Tool song prior to the release of Lateralus (the way I connected with the lyrics to Lateralus’ title track at the time is difficult to describe and sadly lost to me now), and because I do still regard it as my favorite track on the album (Ænema comes pretty close).
The way Maynard’s vocals interplay with the instrumentation is absolutely beautiful; I think Ænima represents Tool’s peak as innovative song-writers, bridging the gap between their earlier edginess and their later brooding experimentalism, and no song captures that quite so extensively as H. The crushing chorus acts as cement to piece together Maynard’s vocals and Adam’s guitar at their most mutually fragile peak. The lyrics present a simple clash between emotions and wisdom under a veil so deliciously esoteric that it might feel personally and uniquely relevant to each individual listener in a legitimately different way:
What’s coming through is a lie.
What’s holding up is a mirror.
What’s singing songs is a snake,
Looking to turn my piss to wine.
They’re both totally void of hate,
But killing me just he same.
The snake behind me hisses what my damage could have been.
My blood before me begs me, open up my heart again.
And I feel this coming over like a storm again.
Venomous voice tempts me, drains me, bleeds me,
Leaves me cracked and empty,
Drags me down like some sweet gravity.
The snake behind me hisses what my damage could have been.
My blood before me begs me open up my heart again.
And I feel this coming over like a storm again.
I am too connected to you to slip away, fade away.
Days away I still feel you, touching me, changing me,
Considerately killing me.
Without the skin,
Here beneath the storm,
Under these tears,
The walls came down.
At last the snake has drowned,
And as I look in his eyes,
My fears begin to fade,
Recalling all of the times
I could have cried then.
I should have cried then.
As the walls come down,
And as I look in your eyes,
My fear begins to fade,
Recalling all of the times
I have died,
and will die.
It’s alright.
I don’t mind.
I am too connected to you to slip away, fade away.
Days away I still feel you, touching me, changing me,
And considerately killing me.
Song of the Day: Orion (by Metallica)
Been more than a bit listless and tired of late so what do I do to fix that than listening to some classic metal. One can’t get any more classic metal than one of the best metal instrumentals ever: Metallica’s “Orion” off of their Master of Puppets full-length album.
“Orion” would mark one of the the last great works by Metallica’s great bassist, Cliff Burton. He would pass away while on tour to promoting this album. Details of his passing could be read anywhere so will bypass that to instead celebrate one of his great achievements with this extended instrumental which just showed how great a metal bass player he was, but also just one of the greatest metal musicians of his time.
Fans of metal always wonder just how much more he could’ve contributed to Metallica’s success if he had lived. Would their later albums have been up and down in quality? Would he have gone along with the changes wrought by the band’s producer after his death, Bob Rock, whoguided the band out from their thrash metal roots and into a more pop-friendly hard rock sound. Metal will never know the answer to these questions, but if Burton had lived and remained with the band it’s more than likely that Metallica wouldn’t be the one we know now after their many stylistic changes, but probably still considered by their early, loyal fans as being pure thrash.
One thing for sure, we probably would’ve been given more extended instrumentals like “Orion”.
Song of the Day: Pacific Rim Theme (by Ramin Djawadi feat. Tom Morello)
Ok, to say that my latest musical obsession comes directly from Pacific Rim shouldn’t be quite a surprise. I’ve been so hyped about Guillermo Del Toro’s valentines card to all things mecha and daikaiju that it is only logical that it should progress right to it’s soundtrack. The latest “Song of the Day” is the awesometastic and auralgasmic opening theme song to Pacific Rim composed by Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi featuring the lead guitar stylings of Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello.
The “Pacific Rim Theme” is quite the homage to the classic mecha and giant robot anime series of the 70’s and early 80’s. It doesn’t go for the recent trend of classical-based opening credits song with the latest mecha series from Japan, but it instead goes for the full-on rock’n’roll treatment. It’s mostly brass and strings with some cameos from the horn section. It also makes great use of the electronic style that evokes early John Carpenter and some of the scifi action films of the early 80’s.
It helps to have Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine doing lead guitar duties throughout the piece.
In the film, the Jaeger pilots were seen as rock stars by the public and this theme made damn sure that we know that when it plays out in the beginning.
Song of the Day: Haunted (by Rob)
Today’s song of the day is an instrumental piece from the latest horror remake, Maniac. Composed by the French musician Rob, Maniac‘s score is just as important to the film’s unlikely success as Elijah Wood’s disturbing performance in the lead role. Reminiscent of the scores composed and performed by Goblin for the films of Dario Argento, Rob’s work here results in one of the best horror scores ever recorded.
Here is Haunted.
Song of the Day: Isolated System (by Muse)
World War Z premiered over this past weekend and as I mentioned in my review the film was better than expected and showed something which previous zombie films have never truly shown and that’s the epic nature of just how a zombie apocalypse would look. While the film probably has disappointed fans of the novel for it’s massive and major deviations of the novel it was adapted from it was still a fun film.
It was from the opening title sequence of World War Z that I was first introduced to the song that comes in as the latest “Song of the Day”.
The song “Isolated System” from Muse’s latest album, The 2nd Law, really comes off as a nice precursor to what will be an apocalyptic event just around the corner. The whole song is an instrumental piece that’s interspersed with voice clippings from news reports that just have a hint of something ominous about to happen. The song looks to have have been influenced, whether by accident or on purpose, by another song which works well as a soundtrack to the apocalypse: Godspeend Ye! Black Emperor’s “East Hastings”.
Even if one didn’t like the film World War Z, this song was at least a nice find for those who haven’t been introduced to it.
Song of the Day: Never Forget (Midnight Version by Kazuma Jinnouchi)
It looks like I have finally reached a personal milestone on this very site which I began on an overcast morning the day before Christmas 2009.
With E3 in full swing and video gaming sure to dominate pretty much everything entertainment throughout the week I thought it best that the latest “Song of the Day” come from one of the best video game soundtracks I’ve heard since I began listening to them these last 20 or so years.
“Never Forget (Midnight Version)” is the reimagining of the classic song from both Halo 2 and Halo 3 by the franchises original composer Martin O’Donnell. This time 343 Industries in-house composer, Kazuma Jinnouchi takes the “Never Forget” song Halo fans have come to love and gives it new life and adding some minor touches to make it fit the bittersweet end to the very emotional ending to Halo 4.
There’s a bit more electronic instrumentation to Jinnouchi’s reimagining and the nice touch of putting some extra emphasis on the brass section of the orchestra to give the song a martial feel to it.
I love O’Donnell’s version, but after hearing this reimiaging by Kazuma Jinnouchi I do believe that it’s the best version out there, IMHO.
Song of the Day: The Rains of Castamere (by Ramin Djawadi & performed by The National)
HBO’s fantasy drama series, Game of Thrones, has gained the reputation of having the penultimate episode of the season (episode 9) play out a shocking event or moment that non-reader fans were not expecting. For fans of the show who have read the books the surprise is not as shocking but still worth the wait to finally see on the screen. Season 3 of the show looks to have shocked both types of fans.
In honor of the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones third season I’ve chosen the song which will forever go down in pop-culture history as the song that ushered in the “Red Wedding” to the tv landscape. It’s finally turned the series from must-see TV into one of those rare few shows that’s become an event that everyone will speak of for days, weeks, months and even years to come.
The Rains of Castamere
And who are you, the proud lord said,
that I must bow so low?
Only a cat of a different coat,
that’s all the truth I know.
In a coat of gold or a coat of red,
a lion still has claws,
And mine are long and sharp, my lord,
as long and sharp as yours.
And so he spoke, and so he spoke,
that lord of Castamere,
But now the rains weep o’er his hall,
with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o’er his hall,
and not a soul to hear.
And so he spoke, and so he spoke,
that lord of Castamere,
But now the rains weep o’er his hall,
with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o’er his hall,
and not a soul to hear.
Song of the Day: Seasons In The Abyss (by Slayer – R.I.P. Jeff Hanneman)
Today marks a sad day for the metal world as Jeff Hanneman, guitarist and founding member of the metal band Slayer, passed away at the age of 49.
He now joins other metal gods (Burton, Dimebag, Bonham and Dio just to name a few) who were taken too soon up in Valhalla where, I sincerely hope, they’re starting up a jam session to create the metal supergroup of supergroups.
To commemorate and memorialize Hanneman’s impact on the metal scene these past 30 or so years I’d like to share my favorite Slayer song: “Seasons In The Abyss”.
R.I.P. Jeff Hanneman…
“Lo there do I see my father, Lo there do I see my mother, my Sisters and my brothers , Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning. Lo, they do call me, they bid me take my place among them, in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live forever.”
Seasons In The Abyss
Razors edge
Outlines the dead
Incisions in my head
Anticipation the stimulation
To kill the exhilaration
(chorus:)
[part 1]
Close your eyes
Look deep in your soul
Step outside yourself
And let your mind go
Frozen eyes stare deep in your mind as you die
[part 2]
Close your eyes
And forget your name
Step outside yourself
And let your thoughts drain
As you go insane… [go] insane
Innate seed
To watch you bleed
A demanding physical need
Desecrated, eviscerated
Time perpetuated
Close your eyes
Look deep in your soul
Step outside yourself
And let your mind go
Frozen eyes stare deep in your mind as you die
Close your eyes… and forget your name
Step outside yourself… and let your thoughts drain
As you go insane… [go] insane
Inert flesh
A bloody tomb
A decorative splatter brightens the room
An execution a sadist ritual
Mad intervals of mind residuals
Close your eyes
Look deep in your soul
Step outside yourself
And let your mind go
Frozen eyes stare deep in your mind as you die
Close your eyes… and forget your name
Step outside yourself… and let your thoughts drain
As you go insane… [go] insane
