May 21, 2011: Judgment Day

Morricone Youth played the Turtleneck Party Last Wed

Last Wednesday, May 18th

Morricone Youth played a primarily instrumental set of 60's soundtracks for

Alex Gimeno (Ursula 1000) and Evan Tritt's (DJ Xerox) 

monthly Turtleneck party at Otto's Shrunken Head.

Turtleneck!

A Retro Futuristic Playground

DJs Ursula 1000 and Xerox took us on a trip to back in time to the future!

Flew with us at supersonic speeds as we took a groovy romp through

space age pop, spy soundtracks, tv themes, exotica plus all the

swingin tunes from Bedrock all the way to Orbit City.

Each Month features a different $5 Specialty Martini to enhance

your listening pleasure. This month was the Morritini in our honor.

Also on the bill were El Muchacho and the awesome Daikaiju - psycho surf band from Alabama!

Future Turtleneck party information can be found HERE!

 

Bear McCreary on Morricone Youth May 15th

On Morricone Youth this weekend, host Devon E. Levins will welcome onto the program acclaimed film, television and video game soundtrack composer Bear McCreary for an exclusive interview and in-depth listen to his music.

At the ripe old age of 24, Bear McCreary was launched into pop culture with his score to Sci Fi Channel's hit, Battlestar Galactica.  Four seasons and seventy-five episodes later, Galactica is universally revered, having won the prestigious Peabody Award and special recognition from the United Nations, establishing himself as a major creative force in the industry.   Io9.com declared Bear McCreary one of the Ten Best Science Fiction Composers of all time, listing him alongside legends John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann.  He was the only composer under 50 on the list, (he is now 32).  Teaming with renowned musicians such as Steve Bartek and Vatos Hernandez of Oingo Boingo, McCreary created the Battlestar Galactica Orchestra which he has conducted before audiences in sold-out venues around Southern California and, in 2010, Spain playing with the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and Choir for a massive concert in the world-renowned Tenerife Auditorium. 

McCreary's unique combination of atypical instrumental background (he is a professional accordionist) with rigorous classical training (degrees in Composition and Recording Arts from the prestigious USC Thornton School of Music) prepared him to write for quirky, off-kilter ensembles or symphonic orchestras.  Or both at once.  Among the select protégés of the late Elmer Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, The Silencers, Man With the Golden Arm, Ghostbusters), McCreary worked closely with the film music legend for nearly a decade.  Working from Bernstein's own hand-written pencil sketches, McCreary completely reconstructed and re-orchestrated Bernstein's 1963 score for Kings of the Sun, starring Yul Brynner.   Elmer Bernstein himself conducted McCreary's Kings concert suite in performances around the world.  The collaboration resulted in the first time the complete score became available as a soundtrack album in forty years.

Bear McCreary has provided unique and critically acclaimed scores for FOX's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the NBC medical drama Trauma, and SyFy Channel's hit series Eureka and Caprica.  He also provided an unprecendented live orchestral score for FOX's comic-book action series Human Target, recording with the "largest group of musicians to play on a live-action TV series in years."  In the summer of 2010, McCreary scored his first theatrical feature film, Step Up 3D, for Touchstone Pictures.  McCreary's other feature film work includes Warner Bros.' Rest Stop (2006), its successful sequel Rest Stop: Don't Look Back (2008), and Twentieth Century Fox's Wrong Turn 2 (2007).  He most recently scored The Walking Dead, AMC's adaptation of the beloved comic book, collaborating with writer/director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) and producer Gale Ann Hurd (Aliens, Terminator).  He is currently composing a full orchestral score to NBC's superhero drama The Cape.

To add to McCreary's video game score credits (CAPCOM's Dark Void and its retro spin-off Dark Void Zero), McCreary's Original Soundtrack for the highly-anticipated next generation console entry in Sony Playstation's best selling franchise SOCOM 4, was released last week as a deluxe 2CD (limited edition 2,000 copies) by La-La Land Records.  "SOCOM 4 is the most exotic score I’ve composed," states McCreary on his website (www.bearmccreary.com).  "One that represents a striking step away from the usual tone of the shooter video game genre."  It features a full orchestra and Asian instruments, including the spectacularly other-worldly tones of a gamelan ensemble.  Bear McCreary will be signing copies of the SOCOM 4 at Dark Delicacies (3512 W. Magnolia, Burbank, CA  91505) on May 21, 2011.  This, along with the composer's illustrious career, will be the subject of this Sunday's edition of Morricone Youth.

Listen live or to the archive HERE starting at 2pm ET on Sunday!

 

Devon E. Levins

Morricone Youth

Sundays 2:00pm-4:00pm ET

Photos From Rubalad

Mama Drama: Morricone Youth Pays Tribute to Mothers Everywhere this May 8th

It's the second Sunday of May this weekend. You know what that means? Yep, It's Mother's Day! You can scramble to get some flowers delivered, fight for a brunch reservation at the last minute, or simply sit around your computer or mobile device and listen live to your source for all things soundtrack, this Sunday at 2pm ET, when hosts Devon E. Levins dedicates the entire two hours to film music for Mom's of all kinds, everywhere.



Devon E. Levins
Morricone Youth
Sundays 2-4pm ET

eastvillageradio.com

May Day 2011

May 1st


Mayday Mayday


Billy May


Brian May


The Other Brian May

Heaven's Gate

Finally took on Michael Cimino's epic Heaven's Gate, the film which is attributed to single handedly leading to the demise of the director-driven film production Hollywood era of the 70's. I can't say it was as bad as everyone says but it was admittedly self indulgent and unnecessarily 3 hours and 39 minutes. Definitely a great looking film with the love triangle between Kris Kristofferson, Isabella Huppert and Christopher Walken driving the plot. The composer David Mansfield, The Alpha Band violinist/guitarist with T Bone Burnett and Stephen Soles, has a few cameos, one as the town roller skating fiddler, one of the more memorable scenes which can be seen HERE.  Huh?  In the old West? The bottom line is that it is a great looking film:

April 28: TCM featuring five Bernard Herrmann scored films tonight

8:00 PM - The Snows Of Kilimanjaro (1952)
10:00 PM - The Wrong Man (1956) - Filmed in Jackson Heights (whoop whoop!)
12:00 AM - North by Northwest (1959)
2:30 AM - The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
4:15 AM - On Dangerous Ground (1951)







http://www.tcm.com/

CRASS The Documentary

Who needs to see the doc when you finally got to see Steve Ignorant play the songs??

Pretty much makes sense being that I happened to see the Season 4 episode of Buffy the Vampire Killer, I mean, Slayer where her boyfriend Riley turns into an Anarchist (on 4/20) after finding out that Buffy slept with Angel.  Not sure how the master illusionist from Tennessee Harris III fits into all of this...

Pretty Productive Day

Watched/Re-watched three films today...

I had not seen "Mad Max 2: Road Warrior" since seeing it originally in the theaters in Las Vegas circa 1982. After similarly re-watching Mad Max 1 in San Diego last month, I felt like I needed to finish what I started ("Beyond the Thunderdome" is on deck, of course). Even better than I remembered considering what a turd this guy turned into the past 10 years. M.Youth drummer Sal A. Mander should dress as Bruce Spence for Halloween. Notable is Brian May's Chase Theme (the Australian composer, not to be confused with the Queen guitarist):



After receiving Mr. T connoisseur Dion's blessing, I proceeded to watch Joel Schumacher's second directed film "D.C. Cab" for the first time. First credited film for Bill Maher and Paul Rodriguez although everyone knows the real reason for watching this film is Mr. "I Pity The Fool" T who surprisingly had a relatively minor role compared to Gary Busey and Adam Baldwin of "My Bodyguard" fame. Giorgio Moroder scored this sucka!



I always assumed that 80's Tucson band Naked Prey (post-Green on Red, pre-Calexico/Giant Sand) was named after the 1966 Cornel Wilde film so I finally watched it. Didn't realize it was filmed in South Africa with a primarily South African cast and soundtrack (which features Nguni tribal songs specifically recorded for the film). Relates to Road Warrior because the aforementioned turd supposedly ripped parts of this one off for his "Apocalypto" which I refuse to independently confirm.