John Carpenter mix-tape (2013)

Another mix I have been working on. A little tribute to the musical works of the great John Carpenter. I have been a fan of his since I first saw Escape From New York at the age of 11 and its iconic opening theme that stuck in head. Below is a mix I put together featuring my personal favourite moments from a variety of the masters best films. Feel free to download and share.



On another note, Mediashite has deleted my account thus deleting the entire content of this blog and the past 5 years of posts. At the moment I'm not really sure what will happen to the blog but while I look at new hosting sites, if there is anything you want re-upping then drop me a line.

Goblin - Tenebre OST (1982)

Though often credited as a Goblin record, Tenebre is really a soundtrack composed by three former members of the Italian, prog-synth, rock freak out act. Once again working with Italian master Dario Argento, Simonetti, Pignatelli and Morante crafted a sturdy mix between the well known Goblin keyboard heavy sound and something approaching the more standard guitar based work that was popular at the time ( in all honesty the track "Lesbo" could have been omitted, it sounds like the theme tune to a dreadful beach set surf cop film/TV series). The film itself is one of Argento's most under rated efforts. As much as Suspiria and Profondo Rosso are well crafted classics, Tenebre holds a certain charm and nastiness about it. Goblin's iconic title track has one of the catchiest refrains going, I dare you not to be humming it after only a few listens. French dance gang Justice covered/sampled/homaged it on the track Phantom, off the "cross" album.

Goblin - Tenebre OST

Jerrold Immel - Megaforce OST (1982)

A fixture of my youth. Megaforce is probably one of the tackiest and mindlessly stupid movies you will ever see, but as a child, it was also the most awesome movie. A secret military force who use flying motorcycles, laser tanks, colour changing camouflage and the sort of wisecracks that even GIJoe avoided. What wasn't awesome about all this. 

The film was directed by ex-stuntman Hal Needham. The man responsible for Smokey & The Bandit, Cannonball Run, Hooper and 80's BMX classic Rad. It starred his stuntman buddy Barry Bostwick (pictured left), Coney Island Warrior Micheal Beck and the unstoppable Henry Silva. The soundtrack was handled by Jerrold Immel, a regular in TV soundtracks, having been responsible for the TV version of Logan's Run and most famously, Dallas.

Immel pulls a pretty sweet score out of the bag for this one. Based on the simple premise of uplifting motifs to represent the good guys and sinister orchestration to represent the bad guys, Immel utilised a heap of electronic organ and synthesiser equipment to replace the usual brass and string accompaniment.

All that aside its a solid piece of electronic drama. Get it downloaded.....

Jerrold Immel - Megaforce OST

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

Satanic Threat - In To Hell (2008)

We all have a love for the head banging fury that masters like Nunslaughter and the mighty Midnight obviously rule at. Now take members of both those mentioned acts and let them loose on some 80's hardcore records and you have this EP by Satanic Threat. Solid, US, 80's hardcore. Think Uniform Choice, Minor Threat, SSD and Youth of Today if they wrote songs about hating Christ and blaspheming. Solid, evil stuff.

Satanic Threat - In To Hell

John Farnham - Savage Streets OST (1984)

Linda Blair never really had the career she deserved. I mean, having your first major role as a possessed child who shrieks about sucking cocks in hell and crawls across ceilings may not have really paved the way towards a glittering ascension to Hollywood A-list status but it certainly gave her enough cred to make a string of low budget and mostly sleazy films throughout the 80's. Lots of female prison movies.
Savage Streets was another in the long line of "urban revenge" films that followed in the wake of Death Wish and Taxi Driver. Of course it doesn't possess any of the class or social commentary of these two giants of vigilantism but it does possess enough sleaze to qualify as a worthy watch.
Alongside many shower scenes and some pretty sweet harpoon-in-gang-member action the film features an early soundtrack outing for portly, Aussie sleaze muffin John Farnham. The master behind 80's jams for both Rad, Transformers and the single "You're The Voice". Farnham's contributions take up the majority of this album and are as solid as we have come to expect from the man. In fact its pretty much a John Farnham album. Of interest, an early version of the track "Nothings Gonna Stand In Our Way" is featured on here before being used years later for Transformers The Movie.
Here you go. The album was never actually released to the public other than a vinyl only promo sent out to radio stations and DJ's around the films release.

John Farnham - Savage Streets OST

Gonnamaketheponyhop Mixtape (2012)

I recently did a hip hop mix just for fun and as a chance to mess around with some new editing software. It's just short of an hours worth of  beats from Onyx, NWA, Big Juss, Dead Prez and loads more. I thought I might share it here with you. Feel free to download and share around all you want.

Acid Reign - The Fear (1989)

A prime slice of British thrash metal for you tonight. I will admit I wasn't sold on Acid Reign first time around. In fact, until I picked this album up in a charity shop some years ago I never really gave them much of a chance. Shame on me I know. Here's a full live set from 1989 in London......

...and here's the album.....

Acid Reign - The Fear

John Carpenter - Escape From New York Original Soundtrack (1981)

As far as directors go, John Carpenter is surely one of my favourites. The guy was responsible for Halloween, The Thing, Assault On Precinct 13, In The Mouth of Madness, Prince Of Darkness and the awesome Escape From New York. Not only is he unbelievably cool for creating such fine, cinematic masterpieces but he is also unbelievably cool for soundtracking ( with a few exceptions) nearly all of his films himself.
The musical influence of JC can't be denied these days. How many synth based, electro, 80's referencing bands have a little JC groove in them?
Escape From New York is known for the iconic main theme. The melodic pulsing synths and heart beat like groove stuck in my head from the first time I heard it. I am not even going to explain the film as you should be aware of it already.
You need the music and films of John Carpenter in your life.

John Carpenter - Escape From New York

Hall & Oates - Private Eyes (1981)

Its been a while since I last posted on here, I've been busy. End of. We all know the recent events that are going to impact the world of blogging, so lets just enjoy what we do for the time being.

Today's post is the awesome 1981 album by the golden touch, liquid smooth vocal rapists Daryl Hall & John Oates, otherwise known as Hall & Oates.
Private Eyes features their best selection of songs in my opinion. Every track is sure fire gold, assimilating R&B, soul, jazz and rock into simple, radio friendly bursts of pop. "Head Above Water" is the best unused pump-up/montage track as well.

Hall & Oates - Private Eyes

In other news I have recently took up posting over at the might Illogical Contraption. If you dig death metal, conspiracy theories, awesome stuff and futuristic shit then its well worth a read.

Claw Hammer - Q:Are We Not Men? A:We Are Not Devo (1991)

We all should like Devo. Its a basic fact. In California, there was a noise rock band called Claw Hammer who really did love Devo.

These guys love.......

...these guys. Lots.

 They loved them so much they recorded Devo's 1978 debut album Are We Not Men? We Are Devo in its entirety, in track order and released it under the title Q: Are We Not men? A: We Are Not Devo in 1991.
In a very similar vein to Pussy Galore and the Exile On Main Street cassette back in '86, what you get is those well known new wave jams being smashed through by some noisy punk rock kids who would go onto be Wayne Kramer's backing band.

Claw Hammer - Q:Are We Not Men? A:We Are Not Devo

Maybe I could wax on about this some more but its very simple. You like Devo, you like noise rock and punk, you will like this.

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.

Nihilist - Demo Collection (2005)

Not the actual Nihilist

The actual Nihilist

Before Entombed and Unleashed, there was Nihilist. These guys never recorded anything other than a few demos and a 7" single before calling it quits in 89 ( or they disbanded and reformed under the name Entombed due to not liking Johnny Hedlund, leaving him to form Unleashed). Thankfully someone decided to knock this compilation out in 2005 which compiles all the demos and recordings the band managed to produce. Included within is a Repulsion cover as well as Entombed's original demo. Bathe in the sweet, rough hewn, barbaric, late 80's death metal storm.

Nihilist - Demo Collection

Mutant Video - Head Scan (2011)

MUTANT VIDEO - PARKING LOT from john lukeman on Vimeo.

Been digging this lots recently. Lo-fi, dark synth sounds for a film that John Carpenter needs to make. Pretty sure its some people involved with the mighty Iron Lung that are also involved in this. Information is pretty scarce but I like that. This has been soundtracking my dark, early morning rides to work.

Mutant Video - Head Scan

I acquired this at the always awesome Terminal Escape. Its a treasure trove of awesome underground rumblings and well worth a browse.

Queen - Flash OST (1980)

I had a nice long post written about how awesome Queen are and how this movie was one of those that I always ended up watching when I was kid after taping it off TV. But I decided against all that because its obvious Queen are awesome isn't it? Its obvious Flash Gordon is a sweet movie? So those two elements combined would be awesome? Case in point below.....

Queen - Flash OST

Power Glove - EP1 (2010)

Perfect for sound tracking a rain swept, smoke filled, neon blasted drive through a future city sometime in the 1980's or fighting vampires/zombies in the club from Terminator while attack helicopters strafe your ass.

The Australian duo responsible for this ( who may or may not be lawyers from the future) have this EP and the second one available for free download online. They also had the track "Hunters" remixed by another electro duo, Lazerhawke, and included in the movie Hobo With A Shotgun. The scene when the Plague rampage through the hospital, that's Power Glove ( not to be confused with 8-bit covering metal band Powerglove).

Power Glove - EP1

Bonus high five for who can recognise which film they sample at the beginning of "Night Force"!

Siege - Drop Dead (1984)

Another RIP post. Sad news when it reached me. Kevin Mahony passed on recently. Kevin, along with his band mates in Siege basically defined the parameters and direction of hardcore punk back in the 80's.

If it wasn't for Kevin and Siege I wouldn't be doing what I do now. Here is the only release they ever managed. Drop Dead compromises the 6 track demo recorded back in '84 and 3 more tracks that came to light on Pushead's Cleanse The Bacteria compilation in 1985.
Basically the foundations of any band, musically and lyrically, that parades under the banner of fastcore/grindcore/power violence/hardcore whether your aware of it or not.

Siege - Drop Dead

Some pretty awesome, public TV footage as well.

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Basil Poledouris - Conan The Barbarian (1982)

A true classic of cinema scoring. In fact, in my opinion, the best orchestral score to any film ever. Mr Poledouris is responsible for quite a few great film scores but I always come back to his awe inspiring composition for Conan The Barbarian. Utilizing a 90 piece orchestra and 24 member choir alongside the unheard of the, then new, Musync editing software. A truly majestic and triumphant body of music and the last ever film score to be recorded in mono for a major motion picture. Its a manly listen for sure.

 

Basil Poledouris - Conan The Barbarian

The Time - Ice Cream Castle (1984)

A prime slice of 80's pop infused funk rock. The Time, assembled by Prince due to some legal billing in his contract and fronted by his long time friend Morris Day, had a string of minor hits in the 80's and made appearances in the movie's Purple Rain and Graffiti Bridge.
Pretty sweet eh? The long hidden truth was that The Time never played any of the recorded songs whatsoever. Prince recorded all the music himself, bar the vocals, but Morris Day had to follow Prince's note by note guide. This often caused much friction between the two acts. The Time would then attempt to upstage Prince every night on tour in a similar situation to how Prince and his band used to try and upstage Rick James when they acted as his opening/backing band.
Anyway, enough chatter, what time is it?

Morris Day & The Time - Ice Cream Castle

Harold Faltermeyer - Fletch OST (1985)

Faltermeyer nails it again despite only being responsible for about half of the tracks on here. But come on! Its Chase at his best. You can't argue with that. Bit by bit.

 

Harold Faltermeyer - OST