Did you know that I had a Soundcloud page? Yeah, neither did I. I mean,
I must have known at some point but I totally forgot about it
until I came across it by accident a little while ago. The only thing on it is an All Region Player recording session
from eight years ago. This was at Peter Karl's studio when
he was still on Douglass Street. Scott Friedlander took the pictures. What was I planning to do with these recordings? I don't know.
Presumably I wasn't entirely satisfied with how they came out
and that almost certainly means that I didn't like my own playing. Ben and Andy sound great, as always. And, you know, listening
to it now, I like what I do on it also. And I don't play like this
anymore so I'm glad there's this record of it. Here's Scott's photo that I'm using for the "cover":
I was especially pleased that our cover of Akira Ifukube's Latitude Zero theme got several positive responses.
Click on the photo to check it out!
2023 September 20 • Wednesday
Here it is, almost autumn. And appropriately enough, the new Gutbrain
release is out and it's the latest record by that master of
autumnal moods, Bob Davoli.
So buy it here and listen and read!
2023 September 18 • Monday
Merrill Jenson's score for Windwalker is the 796th Soundtrack of the Week.
2023 September 15 • Friday
Early on in the Rockford Files episode "A Bad Deal in the Valley", Jim Rockford
walks into a trap, as frequently happens. The first indication that it's a trap comes when Jim sits down
in a waiting room, picks up a magazine to read and remarks, with
disbelief, that the magazine is Collier's.
The Gutbrain library contains some issue of Collier's but it wasn't immediately
clear to the archivist here, overworked as he is, why this should be a red flag
for the redoubtable TV detective.
Well, "A Bad Deal in the Valley" was broadcast on March 19, 1976, and that's
also more or less when it's supposed to take place. The month and day
are fairly elastic but the year, not so much. (March 19 is also Patrick McGoohan's birthday. COINCIDENCE?) Collier's was long gone by 1976. The last issue's cover
date was January 4, 1957. The actual one that Jim is perusing
has a cover date of June 22, 1956. So his incredulity is understandable.
I forget who was setting this trap but I think it was a law enforcement organization,
the FBI or the Treasury or something like that. How did they end up with a twenty-year-old
magazine? Whatever the case, it's a nice touch.
2023 September 13 • Wednesday
In the Six Million Dollar Man episode "The Day of the Robot",
Steve Austin plays tennis with his old friend Frederick Sloan.
But unlike Jaime Sommers, a professional tennis player who retired from
competition once she got bionic limbs, which would give her an unfair advantage,
to put it mildly, Steve Austin uses his bionic powers for exactly this
purpose, to beat his friend at tennis. Interestingly, he does this in the worst possible way, using not his
legs or arm but his bionic eye to look at where he wants the ball to go
when of course taking your eye off the ball is the most common way to make
an unforced error.
Two years later, Jim Rockford and sort-of client Marcus Hayes are in a foot chase,
car chase, shots fired situation in what appears to be the same park.
I spent minutes comparing the two scenes and I'm satisifed that they, like,
probably use the same location. There's a book about The Rockford Files
that I'll probably read someday and there's probably also one about The Six Million
Dollar Man and maybe they'll confirm this.
2023 September 11 • Monday
The 795th Soundtrack of the Week is this CD of music
from Jacques Tati films.
Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot is represented by four jazz combo
pieces. Three of them, by Alain Romans, are Peter Gunn-ish
in their late-night, post-bop swing and use of electric guitar and vibes.
The other, by Maxime Saury, looks back more to an earlier hot jazz era. James Campbell's contribution is more crazed percussion and organ and
is considerably more out there then you might expect. The remaining pieces are by Francis Lemarque and range from Mancini-like
small group jazz, to very "French" accordion-powered compositions. The last two films represented, Trafic and Parade are both
scored by Charles Dumont, who shows a talent both for catchy jazz soundtrack
music as well as ethereal vocal numbers and yet more accordion work-outs.
2023 September 08 • Friday
In "The Carriers", an early Mission: Impossible episode, the
team has to infiltrate a deinitely-Soviet-but-technically-not-Soviet-because-the-foreign-countries-are-always-fictionalized-versions-of-real-countries
training camp for agents who are going to be sent to the United States
ton infiltrate everyday society. Not exactly sleepers, the idea is that these agents will have jobs
in which they interact with large numbers of people. Because
the agents will all be infected with a deadly and highly contagious
plague, of which they'll be unaware. It's a good episode, notable for, among other things, the guest stars
George Takei and Arthur Hill. But what about your doctoral thesis? you ask. Well, pop cultural representations
of small town midwest American life has been done to death, so why not
try pop cultural representations of representations of small town midwest American
life? Here, you can compare the (presumably) behind the Iron Curtain
fake Illinois town of Willow Grove, from "The Carriers", with the explicitly
behind the Iron Curtain fake town of Indian Springs, Nebraska, from the
movie The Experts.
And interestingly enough, Travolta's outfit in The Experts, and the centrality
of the dancing scene, seems quite similar to the famous Pulp Fiction number,
set in a retro 1950s club.
Dave Thomas of SCTV fame directed The Experts and there are
actors playing parts that clearly could have and perhaps should have been played
by Rick Moranis and John Candy. Certainly there could have been things for the
whole SCTV crew to do, though the film's cast do an excellent job.
2023 September 06 • Wednesday
The assertion that all good things come to those who wait is insane but
certainly some good things do. Or at least things. It's been over thirty years since I heard of a late-1950s television
show called 21 Beacon Street, a precursor to Mission:
Impossible, so much so that the creators of the earlier
show sued the creators of the later show for plagiarism.
"And Jim, a jack of all trades." It's pretty easy to see how these track to the Impossible Missions Force. Instead of opening each episode with Chase receiveing an assignment, 21 Beacon Street generally shows
the criminals in action first, then an appeal to Chase and his staff, after which
they begin their planning.
Chase himself narrates the program and gives a bit of a teaser for the
next episode, a la Rod Serling in The Twilight Zone.
The theme music for 21 Beacon Street is a very slow, moody, almost static
piece for small jazz combo with baritone sax as the voice. It's not especially
melodic and if it swings at all, it's only in trace amounts. No composer is credited in the show itself but "the internet" claims it's Dave Kahn,
a name not known to me. So after watching the first four episodes, my impression is that 21 Beacon Street
is definitely a neat idea and, while it's really interesting that this prototypical
Mission: Impossible exists, presumably created to appeal to the same
audiences that were making Peter Gunn such a popular show, it's just
kind of boring. And while suspension of disbelief is part of the standard package for a show
of this sort, 21 Beacon Street makes it a little too difficult, often
by imposing ticking-clock deadlines that just don't seem feasible and are probably
only there to manufacture tension. I intend to slog through the whole thing, however, even though I've already
fallen asleep during a couple of episodes.
2023 September 04 • Monday
The 794th Soundtrack of the Week is Henry Mancini's music for
Peter Gunn. Again! However many different recordings
there might be of this repertoire, it's not enough. This time around
we have Aaron Bell and His Orchestra paying tribute.
2023 September 01 • Friday
You can always count on Claire Daly. I wouldn't run to buy a new recording
of jazz standards performed by most people but since this is Claire's
group and Claire's record, there was no hesitation. And sure enough, VuVu for Frances is absolutely brilliant
and has been wearing out the turntable here at Gutbrain Headquarters.