A student film written and produced at UC Santa Barbara for the Center for Information Technology and Society's 2006 Santa Barbara Forum on Digital Transitions: Social Collaboration and Dynamic Communities.
Tune into your source for all things soundtrack, Morricone Youth, this Sunday, February 27, from 2-4pm ET, for Morricone Youth's review of scores released in 2010 in honor of the 83rd Academy Awards honoring the year's best films scheduled to take place later that day at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California at 8pm ET.
Host Devon E. Levins will play a brief rundown of the nominated original scores (the original songs are, as usual, unplayable) before focusing on his obvious pick for the Oscar...as well as some of the overlooked scores from last year.
Tune into your source for all things soundtrack, Morricone Youth, this Saturday from 10 p.m. to midnight ET, when host Devon E. Levins will spend time chatting with singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Brian Carpenter of Boston's Beat Circus and NYC's Ghost Train Orchestra discussing and playing some of Brian's favorite film music as well music from Dreamland, the first of Brian's "Weird American Gothic" trilogy, and Beat Circus's upcoming Boy From Black Mountain which drops on September 29th on Cuneiform Records. Devon is crossing his fingers that Brian arrives with a copy of Beat Circus's version of Sicilian Clan.
Beat Circus will be one of the first bands to unveil the Knitting Factory Brooklyn on Saturday, September 12th.
A Las Vegas punk rock fixture, The Vermin, are in town for another yearly round of Frank Wood shows and will be stopping by to hang out, play and discuss some of their favorite punk rock, Las Vegas and B movie soundtracks on this weekend's Morricone Youth (Sundays 2pm ET).
The band, whose punk rock roots date back to the 80's Las Vegas hardcore scene, has provided music and appeared in B movie cult favorites as Ted V. Mikels' Mark of the Astro-Zombies (sequel to Mikels' 1969 Astro-Zombies) and Mack Hail's Switch Killer, the former of which stars legendary actress Tura Satana. Rob Ruckus, the band's bassist and Double Down Saloon LV graveyard bartender, moonlights in rockabilly hall of fame musician, film producer, composer, actor and wrestling manager Johnny Legend's rockabilly band. With song titles such as Creature Feature Love Attack, Vampira Blues and Livin' in Sin with a Siamese Twin, you get an idea of where they are coming from.
The Vermin will playing Hank's Saloon, Friday, March 2nd with Psychocharger, TV Tramps (Ween members) and Morricone Youth (the band), Otto's Tiki Room on Sunday, March 6th after the show with Flack Blamingo (featuring Billy Ficca of Television) and, of course, hanging out at the Double Down Saloon NYC on Saturday night for its Anniversary Party, home of the Bacon Martini, Ass Juice and the one rule, "You Puke...You Clean!"
John Barry, composer of nearly 100 films and 25 television shows including the scores to 11 (arguably 12) of the James Bond films, died last Sunday at the age of 77 at his home in Oyster Bay, New York. Barry's career span for over 50 years beginning with his own band in 1957, the John Barry Seven, and resulting in Oscars for The Lion in Winter, Born Free, Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves. Barry will also be remembered for his unforgettable scores to Midnight Cowboy, Game of Death, The I.P.C.R.E.S.S. File and Body Heat. More recently, Barry's work has been introduced to a new generation sampled by everyone from Wu-Tang Clan, Dr. Dre and GangStarr to Fatboy Slim, The Sneaker Pimps and Robbie Williams.
The Twist was the first international dance craze in the early 60's inspired by rock and roll, particularly Hank Ballard's 1959 B-Side "The Twist" (to “Teardrops on Your Letter”) and most famously covered by Chubby Checker in 1962 to become a No. 1 hit. It was in 1961, at the height of the craze, when patrons of Manhattan's Peppermint Lounge on West 45th Street were twisting the night away to the house band, a local Jersey outfit called Joey Dee and the Starliters, and their song "The Peppermint Twist" inspiring the first of many "Twist" movies with "Hey, Let's Twist." The film and soundtrack solidified making the Peppermint Lounge a world-famous venue. The craze continued with Sam Cooke's "Twistin' the Night Away" and The Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout," also later to be made even more widely-known as a No. 2 hit for the Beatles.
Drawing fire from critics who felt it was much too provocative for the day's youth, the dance inspired such dances as the Watusi, the Mashed Potato, the Jerk, The Pony and the Funky Chicken before being steamrolled by the British Invasion; however, not before film and television got its hands on it. Some may have been more recently introduced to the dance in 1994's Pulp Fiction when Uma Thurman and John Travolta twisted to Chuck Berry as part of the Jack Rabbit Slim's Twist Contest (reviving Travolta's career) or in 2007 in an early episode of Season One Mad Men when Peggy Olsen and her Sterling Cooper co-workers celebrated her promotion to copywriter by twisting to Chubby Checker.
This week on Morricone Youth (Sunday 2-4 pm ET), your host of all things soundtrack Devon E. Levins will be digging a little deeper into the craze exploring how it was portrayed internationally in film and television. That's right! It's 50 years later and no doubt that 2011 is the Year That The Twist Broke. Don't Knock It!
(Originally posted on EVR blog 1/28/11 5:05 PM ET)
Tune in this afternoon (Sunday 1/16) from 2-4pm ET for an in depth talk with our first Oscar award winning guest Elliot Goldenthal to discuss his latest score to Julie Taymor's The Tempest and his illustrious 20+ year career (Blank Generation, Drugstore Cowboy, Interview with a Vampire, Batman Forever, HEAT, Public Enemies, Frida)...
1/16/11 11:43 AM ET
(Originally posted on EVR blog 1/16/11 11:43 AM ET)
Chris Stillwell is a professional collector and dealer of rare out-of-print vinyl records with a penchant for 50's - 70's soundtrack LP's. Chris is also the bassist for San Diego'ssoul jazz outfits The Greyboy Allstars and Karl Denson's Tiny Universe. Not only did Chris collaborate with his Greyboy cohorts on the score for Jake Kasdan's first feature Zero Effect (Ben Stiller/Bill Pullman), he later Chris delved into television and film work closely associated with composer Michael Andrews and is now credited to Starsky And Hutch, 40 Year Old Virgin, The Dewey Cox Story, Out Cold, Nothing, Stuck On You, Wonderfalls, amongst others.
