Roy Budd - Get Carter OST (1971)

In 1971, Mike Hodges released the seminal, British crime flick, Get Carter. It divided opinion and suffered somewhat due to the declining interest in the British film industry as well as the amoral approach and attitude of Michael Caine's Jack Carter.

Its a great film. Its nasty and gritty, plenty of violence and just the right amount of nudity needed in any revenge film. Allegedly Mike Hodges only had £450 to spend on a score. In steps British jazz musician Roy Budd. Working with only three other musicians, Budd created the perfect jazzy accompaniment to Carter's violent investigation around the Newcastle underworld. Often imitated never bettered. here you go.

Roy Budd - Get Carter

Blazing Magnums - Eurocrime Mixtape

Here is something I put together for a friend's birthday recently. Fans of Eurocrime, Italian cinema and 1970's amoral Police procedure movie's should hopefully enjoy it. Evoking the spirit of Henry Silva and Franco Nero and creating the perfect soundtrack to your next rooftop chase.



Lalo Schifrin - Harry's Creed 
John Saunders - Gunman 
Franco Micalizzi - Folk & Violence 
Brian Bennet - Drama Montage 
Ennio Morricone - Un Amico 
Franco Micalizzi - Affano 
Goblin - La Via Della Droga 
Keith Mansfield - Jagged 
Dave Gold - City Police 
Franco Micalizzi - Criminal Gang 
Guido & Maurizio De Angelis - New Special Squad 
Franco Micalizzi - Dark Suspense 
Lalo Schifrin - Scorpio's Theme 
Guido & Maurizio De Angelis - Life Of A Policeman 
Franco Micalizzi - Running To The Airport 
Guido De Angelis - Goodbye My Friend

Alejandro Jodorowsky - El Topo OST (1970)

Writing about the work of Jodorowsky is a task in itself. Everyone has varying opinions on his work. So instead of getting hung up on what its all about lets just enjoy the jazzy, funk, acid trip score to his Surrealist, spaghetti western classic, El Topo.

Alejandro Jodorowsky - El Topo

Sho'nuff Grooves Vol.2

I recently put together another mixtape for the night me and my good friend Macky are responsible for. Its basically us playing all the stuff we like while drinking cocktails and showing a whole host of awesome cinematic treats on a big screen. People get drunk, play air bass and dance in front of images of women being hacked up and dudes being dudes. Its pretty fun.

Sho'nuff Grooves Vol.2

The mix features a pretty good cross section of everything we touch upon, Kiss, Oingo Boingo, The Time, Joe Tex, Stevie Wonder, NWA and loads more. There is also a Sho'nuff Grooves Vol.1 available here.

Fabio Frizzi - City Of The Living Dead/The Beyond Soundtrack mixtape (1980/81)

Everyone knows Goblin. Of course you do. Goblin are awesome. They are generally the first name when you think of 70's/80's Italian cinema's defining composers. Just behind Goblin ( and in no way inferior) though was the one man genius of Fabio Frizzi.

As a frequent collaborator of Lucio Fulci he is responsible, in my opinion, for a lot of the atmosphere Fulci had in his films. The theme from Zombie Flesh Eaters set to the shot of the undead shambling across the bridge into Manhattan was a pretty important image from my youth. From there, I began investigating the world of Italian cinema and horror. The first call, via the patronage of Necrophagia, was The Beyond. Closely followed by The City Of The Dead. I can safely say I have never looked back since. So to celebrate the awesomeness of Frizzi's work here are both these soundtracks zipped up. I would highly recommend the films themselves. Alongside other Fulci gems like Manhattan Baby and the afar mentioned Zombie Flesh Eaters.

Fabio Frizzi - The Beyond/City Of The Living Dead OST Mix

Ron Grainer - The Omega Man OST (1971)

A fine piece of original scoring for you today. The full soundtrack to the second ( and my personal favourite) film version of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, the Charlton Heston starring The Omega Man.
Grainer worked on a lot of TV and film music, even helping compose the famous theme to Doctor Who, and was very progressive in the use of strange sounds and electronic musical instruments. The Omega Man uses these odd effects but also balances them with uptempo, almost psychedelic rock, glimmers of folk and some very stirring orchestration to soundtrack Chuck Heston's running fight with "The Family". I won't recap the film as its been adapted four times for the big screen, my favourite posted here, the 1964 The Last Man On Earth, 2007's I Am Legend and those cheeky devils at Asylum Films knocked out their own adaptation in the same year, I Am Omega. So here you have it, one of my favourite 70's scores, a very hard to find one at that. It never got a proper release until a 3000 copy pressing in 2002 and then a general release in 2008.

Ron Grainer - The Omega Man OST

David Hess - The Last House On The Left (1972)

RIP David Alexander Hess 1942 - 2011, a very dark and intense actor responsible for many villanous roles, his most important and commonly recognised one was for the 1972, Wes Craven classic, The Last House On The Left. Not only did he turn in a suitably nasty turn as the psychopathic Krug Stillo but he also composed and recorded the psychedelic, folk inspired soundtrack. Which is here......

David Hess - The Last House On The Left OST

For further David Hess viewings I would highly recommend Hitch Hike (1977), House on The Edge of The Park (1980) and despite its patchwork editing and plot, Swamp Thing (1982) for Hess pulling, a pretty much spot on comic book villain, out the bag.

RIP Krug

Graham Central Station - Mirror (1976)

Larry Graham has got a fair few decent things going for him. He was a key member of Sly & The Family Stone, he is often credited with pioneering the slap technique applied to electric bass and he also worked with Betty Davis, Tower of Power's horn section and The Pointer Sisters. Amongst all this, he found time to form Graham Central Station back in 1973 with various musicians picked out of Jefferson Airplane, Santana and Hot Tuna. Mirror show cases this collectives combined playing skills on many levels. Some of the tightest and most energetic playing you are likely to hear.

Graham Central Station - Mirror

FUCK!!!! Some tight ass playing right here!

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (1971)

No explaining necessary. You should listen to this album. Look at those guys above! They know.

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain

Gene Page - Blacula OST (1972)

Some solid, hard funk for tonight. This is Gene Page's complete score for William Crain's classic Blacula. Page managed to get The Hues Corporation to help out with some of the music and they appear in the film in the night club scenes as the house band. This obviously makes it clear that this isn't just some standard, orchestrated, strings and horns horror score. Obviously with the setting being funky LA and the fact they where tapping into the Blaxploition market, the accompanying music is pretty groovy. Plenty of smooth bass, flute and staccato horn work. You can't really imagine Nosferatu grooving up that stair case to this can you? William Marshall  brings a certain dignity to the role. I really think it's a combination of his turn as Dracula's "soul brother" and this soundtrack that lift Blacula above the tepid waters of 70's explotation films. In fact, if you didn't know what the album was you would never have this pegged as the soundtrack to a black vampire movie. "That's a baaaaaaad cape".

Gene Page - Blacula

The awesome theme tune and opening animation is really good......................

Heart - Little Queen (1977)

A stone cold classic of 70's folk influenced rock. The Wilson sisters where in the zone.

Heart - Little Queen

 

Ike & Tina Turner - Funkier Than A Mosquito's Tweeter (2002)

Keep this short. You really can't do justice with words to the quality, creative output of a violent, corrosive and sexy married couple like Ike & Tina. In the immensely slim chance I ever have kids, they are going to be named Ike and Tina I reckon.
This album is one of my favourites. A compilation of a ton of the rockin' 70's stuff the pair blasted out. A whole load of classics and covers. Seriously, this version of "Whole Lotta Love" is hands down the sexiest Zep ever sounded.

 

Ike & Tina Turner - Funkier Than A Mosquito's Tweeter

Sho'nuff

Tonight we spin tunes while trying to soundtrack films being projected onto a wall.It has huge disaster written all over it. Anyone that lives in my shitty neck of the woods come down. Which is no one.

James Brown - Revolution Of The Mind : Live At The Apollo Vol.3 (1972)

The Hardest Working Man In Showbiz! Mr Dynamite! Mr Please Please Please Please Her! Minister Of The New New Super Heavy Funk! Soul Brother Number One, are just a few of the names he goes by.

James Brown - Revolution Of The Mind : Live At The Apollo Vol.3

One of the best live albums ever! Fact! But don't just take it from me.....

Phyllis Hyman - S/T ( 1977 )

Been away recording this past weekend. Post recording blues have brought out this album. Long out of print and not as common as some people reckon. I got into this album due to The Boondocks, one of the best Adult Swim shows. There is a scene where two of the main characters fight in a cinema in true Shaw brothers style. The musical score has a sample of Loving You, Losing You. This is what brought Phyllis Hyman to my attention.
Its in no way as upbeat or fun loving as a lot of similar soul and disco from the era. In fact, apart from the lazy disco-lite groove of  One Thing On My Mind it has no relation to disco/funk in the slightest. Its a far more soulful record that has a surprisingly bleak outlook. Especially once you read about the late, great lady herself.

Phyllis Hyman - S/T

Lalo Schifrin - Dirty Harry Anthology (1998)

An addition from my own collection ( please ignore the naff cover, it's really that bad). Lalo Schifrin should need no introduction to anyone that I deem cool enough to be my friend. His work on Coogan's Bluff and friendship with Clint Eastwood gave Don Siegal all confidence he needed to hand over full score rights to Schifrin. Who turned in one of the most distinctive musical scores in modern film history in my humble opinion. He went on and composed the music for all of the sequels with the exception of The Enforcer in 1976. His work on Dirty Harry and Magnum Force is the obvious highlight of this collection. A combination of grimy jazz, fusion guitar, haunting vocals and genuine fear makes them classics. Weirdly cool but also unsettling. The music for Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool isn't too bad but doesn't really match the first two films atmosphere. That said. The Dead Pool is worth it for Jim Carrey lip syncing to Welcome To The Jungle in a Exorcist style setting.
But back to Lalo. This is a superbly atmospheric soundtrack and one that I can't help but notice has influenced so many over the years.

Lalo Schifrin - Dirty Harry Anthology

A true classic movie............

Recent viewings

Well had quite a bit to watch these past few weeks. Continuing my disintegrating bank account mission on great/shit films has led me to acquire the following...

Crocodile (2000)
Tobe Hooper's worst film ( I have seen at least). I am a sucker for giant monster/creature films so on a Poundland shopping spree it popped up on my radar. Usual teen slaughter fare. Incredibly annoying, intensely dis likable spring breakers get munched by a giant Egyptian croc. Pretty funny in places. mostly for the fact the animatronic crocodile is so much better than the naff Ocean PC game style CGI. No where near as good as Alligator (1980).



Cat In The Brain (1990)
Budget Luci Fulci "giallo". Cobbling together footage from his previous films to tell a film-within-a-film style story. Fulci plays himself as he begins to see scenes from his own movies played out in real life. Chuck in a psychiatrist and plenty of boobs and you have it. Not one of Fulci's best by any stretch but pretty enjoyable for many amusing death scenes involving chainsaws, wheelchairs, hooks, knives and plenty of other nasty things.

3D cover woo.

Loose Cannons (1990)
Buddy cop movie with Gene Hackman and Dan Akroyd. Completely silly and ridiculous, mindless fun. There is a plot about Nazi's and stolen film but the main attraction is Akroyd's schizophrenic detective putting on different characters and persona's. Hackman is pretty good in this but he does seem to be running on auto pilot for most of it. It does have Dom Delouise in as well. Which reminded me that there is a hilarious clip from SNL where Chris Farley plays Dom and the sadly missed Phil Hartman plays Burt Reynolds. Its pretty sweet. I can't find a trailer for this film but there is a song of the soundtrack performed by Katey Segal and Dan Akroyd himself.



Inglorious Bastards (1978)
The original "macaroni" war movie version. Tarantino loved this film so much he borrowed the title for his own and gave cameos to quite a few of the cast. Sort of like the Dirty Dozen but slightly dirtier. A bunch of American soldiers under court marshal manage to escape during a attack and make for the Swiss border. Along the way they heavy handily deal with racism, first love and loyalty and get caught up in a mission to scupper some Nazi rocket. Enzo Castellari believes this was one of his best films and I would probably agree with that. Solid, WWII action fodder. Plus its got Fred Williamson in it which makes any film that slight bit cooler.

Strange Bedfellows (2004)
Another Poundland buy. 100p got me a film where Paul Hogan pretends to be gay to get tax benefits. I would say that's a pretty sweet deal. The actual plot and story was ripped off whole sale by Universal for I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry (2007). Funnily enough this film was released in Europe as I Now Pronounce You Ralph And Vince. There is some sort of legal dispute going on about all of this. I would say this is the better film. Genuinely sweet and harmless fun if not a little heavy handed in its portrayal of gay culture. But its Paul Hogan pretending to be gay! So that is worthy of a pound.

The Fist Foot Way (2008)
The first film to really show off Danny Mcbride's acting talents. Tells the tale of a black belt Taekwondo instructor as his life falls apart. Its one of those films alongside Baseketball that is best watched late at night with your friends and some drinks. Features so many quotable lines that have now passed into use amongst people I know and has one of the best characters in Mike McAlister ( Jody Hill) as a intense martial artist. Will Ferrel liked it so much he released it through his own Production Company. So there.

Other than that everything else is still pretty crap. Thank god for Sabbath and The Dillinger Escape Plans cover of "Paranoid". Originally recorded for some Earache/Sabbath comp. I don't think it ever got released. it features the original DEP line-up and a swing break in the middle. Classy stuff.

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Paranoid

Now get out my house.