Fred "Sonic" Smith's Rendezvous Band

There you are in the studio.

You've recorded both sides of your first single.

However, you only have enough money to afford to mix the A side.

What are you going to do?

You decide to put the same track on the B side, of course! 

Not wishing to shortchange your fans, you make one side stereo and the other mono.

Except you don't. 

It's the same track - in mono - on both sides.

And so it was with Fred "Sonic" Smith (and his Rendezvous Band) with his first recorded release since a sickly MC5 imploded in 1972 - "City Slang", which ran for an unfashionable five minutes plus. 

In fact, this was the last official recording Smith would make for 14 years, and the only band he'd lead. Sonic's Rendezvous Band broke up in 1980, the year he married Patti Smith, and his musical efforts and energies were concentrated on her from then on; playing on, writing for and producing her 1986 album "Dream of Life" - his last major project. Smith died in 1994 of heart failure. 

Sonic's Rendezvous Band - SRB from now on! - comprised Fred on guitar and vocals, along with Scott Morgan on guitar and vocals, Gary Rasmussen on bass and Scott Asheton on drums. It was an interesting mix of talent, fostered by four major Detroit bands, and revealing their influences which drew from punk, soul, rock & roll, hard rock and even some late 1960s West Coast stylings. 

Fortunately, although the official output of SRB is basically one side of a single, there's quite a lot of live bootlegs - some of it good to very good quality, so it's here we have to go to understand what made the band so special.

So, what can we take away from these recordings?

First and foremost, Fred's snotty attitude - reflected in his vocals. Not a good voice in the conventional sense of the word, but full of passion that sometimes sneers at and harangues the listener. Then there's the superb guitar playing - razor sharp rhythm and a lead style that owes much to Chuck Berry as well as more modern rock guitar influences, and which combined seamlessly when he played a solo. Sometimes, he'd stretch out, as exemplified by the instrumental "China Fields" with its guitar interplay - a furrow further ploughed by Television a few years later.

The rest of the band spurred Smith on, with sympathetic guitar support from Morgan, and Rasmussen and Asheton's granite bedrock which kept the band anchored for the guitars and vocals to roar over.  

One thing the band wasn't was punk. OK, there were clearly punk influences, but an SRB set song was likely to contain extended guitar solos and stray into hard rock, as in this live track...  

Then there's the eclectic nature of SRB's set lists which can be found buried in the mess and mass of unofficial live material. There's a 10 minute slow blues, a 16 minute psychedelic raga jam (with improvised vocals and an extended sax solo from Smith!). covers of Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", Huey Piano Smith's "Roberta", Ray Charles' "I Believe to my Soul", quite a few Chuck Berry songs and a couple from the Stones - "Flight 505" and "Heart of Stone".

Although we're lucky to have live recordings from SRB, they've been compiled, recompiled and released so often that there's often duplication, and some of the album's track lists are taken from various gigs, and so lack cohesion. Attempts have been made to rationalise the existing recordings, but without some sort of effective copyright control - which is absent, as is the case with bootlegs - they've just been bootlegged to create more albums. 

To sum up, here's that A side again - "City Slang" - sometimes described as the greatest rock & roll single ever. Perhaps...perhaps not, but it's hard to argue with this description and summary of the band:

"5:15 of assault guitars, railroad drumming and Smith's determined-rebel call - has all you need to know why SRB were masters of their domain."

 

Some prime SRB up for grabs as soon as I decide what to pick out from their messy back catalogue!

Pugwash ahoy!

Those of you from the UK...

...might recall Captain Pugwash. He was a bumbling pirate captain in a BBC children's animation series.  

Somehow, an urban myth arose claiming that there were characters in the series called "Seaman Stains" and "Master Bates", but this was false and eventually creator John Ryan took legal action....

In 1991, the Pugwash cartoonist John Ryan successfully sued the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian newspapers for inaccurately claiming that some Pugwash character names were double entendres. The claim may have originated in student rag mags  from the 1970s.

Amazingly, Captain Pugwash had a very long life - starting out in black and white, as live action cardboard cut outs, in 1957 and continuing into the first couple of years of the next millennium in colour, using traditional animation. In 2017, there were even plans for a live action reboot, but this came to nothing.

But let's drop the "Captain" and say hello to just plain "Pugwash" instead. 

Pugwash was a band that started off in the imagination of Irishman Thomas Walsh. He'd received a substantial compensation award, following a childhood accident, and eventually decided to turn his parents' garden shed into a recording studio - broadly following the example of XTC's Andy Partridge. So, starting in the early 1990s, Walsh adopted the moniker "Pugwash" and started recording demos - dozens and dozens and dozens of them. In 1995, one of these was named "Demo of the Year" by top Irish music magazine Hot Press. By some tortuous route, this attracted the attention of the legendary Kim Fowley, who then recruited Walsh to sing and play guitar for him.

 

Eventually, Walsh formed a band - "Pugwash" - and recorded an album Almond Tea, which gained high praise from Hot Press and set Walsh and his band  mates on an 18 year career that saw a lot of critical success and the establishment of a very loyal fan base, but failed to break the band commercially. The line up of the band changed over the years until Walsh was left as the sole member for the last album, Silverlake.

Over that whole period, people such as Andy Partridge and Dave Gregory of XTC, Jason Falkner of Jellyfish, Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy, Michael Penn, Ben Folds, and Brian Wilson collaborator Nelson Bragg became involved with Walsh and the band in various ways, including production, arrangement, performance and composition.

Jason Falkner and Thomas Walsh

Hell, even Brian Wilson was a fan!

“Back in 2006 Brian Wilson’s manager David Leaf obtained my e-mail through an acquaintance and sent me a mail saying that Brian loved my track ‘It’s Nice to Be Nice’ and as he was coming to Dublin to play in Vicar Street he’d love to meet me. MEET ME!!?? He came, I met Brian, he said ‘Hey! You’re the nice to be nice guy.’ I said, ‘Yes’ and he said, ‘Great song’…..I still think it was all a fantastic dream to be honest”.

But what of the music itself?

It's convenient to describe it as power pop, and it has many of its influences - the Beatles, ELO, XTC, the Kinks, Jellyfish, the Beach Boys, and Honeybus, to name just a few. There's some jangle in there, as well as gorgeous sweeping harmonies and melodies that are so catchy that you'd swear you'd heard them before. It's certainly not soft rock - sometimes the music is quite muscular and it's not afraid to show it. The production is often very punchy, which lends even the gentler songs a certain strength. 

Not that the music is formulaic, either, or too hung up on its obvious influences. There's enough originality in Walsh's songs and the arrangements to ensure that they stand up to scrutiny on their own terms. 

To take one example, the song that Brian Wilson loved, It's Nice to be Nice, is a perfect pop song, with the melody well to the fore, but there's all sorts of extra little touches - the banjo arpeggios, the tick-tack bass, the mellotron swells and the guitar lines that embroider the arrangement but don't detract from its directness. Individually, you've heard all this stuff before, but now it's all together in one place and it works. Lyrically a little gauche, perhaps, but the sentiment suits the upbeat feel of the song.

Apart from Pugwash, Walsh had another band which was with Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy - The Duckworth Lewis-Stern Method - who recorded two albums with cricket-based lyrics. In spite of such a venture appearing rather niche, the albums sold well and Walsh actually made money from it - money which had been in short supply with Pugwash, but which was quickly spent on a coke habit and booze. Fortunately, Walsh got clean and sober after a two week hospitalisation following a major health scare and then a spell in rehab.

Walsh and Hannon

Walsh seems to have adopted a rather low profile of late, with just the very occasional gig, although his Patreon page offers regular pay-per-view live sets.

I wish I could be more optimistic about Walsh's future, but unless power pop has some sort of miraculous and massive flowering of popularity, his music is never going to be anything but a happy memory of the power of a good melody well-presented, but ultimately leading nowhere.

If pushed, I'd have to say that my favourite music of all is a well-played pop song. Pugwash is one of the finest examples of how it's not yet a lost art.

Remember, it's nice to be nice...

You must be a Libra

During my mid-teens...

 ...amongst my circle of friends, there were quite a few albums knocking around that were freely lent and borrowed, in spite of them being treasured possessions: the purchase of a full price vinyl album represented a fair chunk of disposable cash to a 16 year old back then. Looking back, many of these records were pretty normal fare for that time, so 1967 saw Sgt Pepper, Are You Experienced, Safe as Milk, Cheap Thrills, Disraeli Gears and all the usual suspects being shared to death - and gradually getting more scratched! 

However, there was one album released that year which seemed to inhabit a slightly more exotic niche and have a cachet all of its own, with its mix of poetry, rock and strange electronic sounds, and all housed in a very trippy looking sleeve.

It was this.

"Cosmic Sounds" by The Zodiac. 

Or was it "The Zodiac" by Cosmic Sounds? 

Or "The Zodiac with Cosmic Sounds"? 

Or even "The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds - Celestial Counterpoint with Words and Music"?

It wasn't entirely clear.

Encouraged by the success of the Doors' debut album, Elektra label boss Jac Holzman hired Alex Hassilev of early 1960s folk group The Limeliters to produce an album of psychedelic music. Hassilev then asked Mort Garson - his partner in a production company - to write the music, with the "lyrics" provided by Jacques Wilson. 

So far, it sounds like a recipe for an instant psychedelic album and, indeed, the musicians involved reinforce this impression. There was Hal Blaine on drums, Carol Kaye on bass and Mike Melvoin on keys - all Wrecking Crew session players. Bud Shank also featured.

However, what really set this cash-in apart from the rest was the inclusion of Paul Beaver on one of the earliest Moog synthesisers. Although Beaver is the only credited synth player, it's highly likely that his long time collaborator Bernie Krause also played on the Zodiac album. Holzman had introduced Beaver to Krause and the pair pooled their money together to buy a Moog. "Cosmic Sounds" is regarded as the first rock album to feature the revolutionary instrument. 

  

 Beaver & Krause

Also appearing on the album are uncredited electric guitar (any bets on Tommy Tedesco being one of the guitarists?), sitar (naturally) and tablas - the last played by ace percussionist Emil Richards, who also played on a few Zappa albums.

Lumpy Gravy?

There are also some passages of original poetry delivered in a very manly baritone by Cyrus Faryar, a singer who worked on the fringes of the Spector organisation, when he formed the Modern Folk Quartet, before eventually ending up producing the Firesign Theatre, amongst other things. Faryar's an interesting character who's played with all sorts of people - including the late Dave Crosby - during a long and distinguished career.

I hadn't heard the album for a very long time - I'm guessing 50+ years - until I managed to snag a copy a few days ago. I was really surprised by how much of it I remembered, but was getting reacquainted with it a good experience?

Well, with the pedigree of its musicians it's certainly still listenable with plenty of psychedelic stylings - from folk rock through raga rock to guitar freak outs - that often work really well, with "Capricorn - The Uncapricious Climber" standing out for me with its mysterious vibe.

In the end, what really stops this album from being an A++ grade slab of psychedelia are the spoken passages - "478.5 is the wavelength of blue". A fascinating fact - if it is a fact - but not something I really want to hear on a record. The poetry really places the album firmly in the late 1960s, when it mattered far more what star sign you were born under. 

That said, I enjoyed revisiting the album and I won't wait fifty odd years to listen to it again. In fact, it's been played a few times here over the past couple of days. If you can screen out the spoken passages, it's really very good - the playing is great and the early use of Moog shows how effective a synth can be when used as an added musical texture.

So, a bit of a curio and very much of its time, but eminently listenable - but see what you think!

Oh, and like the sleeve says, play it in the dark, man...

Samplin’ The Past

A guest post from Koen - last heard of with a dose of Covid. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery!

In hindsight, the first form of sampling I probably heard was Buchanan & Goodman’s wonderful “The Flying Saucer” (1956), which still is worth hearing.

Many, many years later I was a regular buyer of UNCUT magazine with their Unconditionally Guaranteed CDs, a great way to keep in touch with new and old music.
The June 1999 edition featured a Moby track that sounded very different from anything he did before. 

Moby’s dance music had no appeal to me at all, but ‘Natural Blues’ certainly did!
A little later I found that he had sampled Vera Hall’s Trouble So Hard, from a 1937 recording by American folklorist Alan Lomax. Apparently, Moby first came across this song on the Lomax collection Alabama: From Lullabies to Blues.

However, the way Moby ‘discovered’ that Lomax collection is another intriguing story This track sort of introduced me to Alan Lomax and his enormous archive of field recordings.

One year later, UNCUT’s June 2000 edition featured St Germain’s Sure Thing on its CD.
Having John Lee Hooker’s Harry's Philosophy (from The Hot Spot Soundtrack, 1990) being part of it turned it into a great track imho. Plus as a bonus, it also had that Vera Hall song!

By now the possibilities of sampling began to look interesting.

Break In Services

During an annual Netherlands visit, I stumbled upon a cheap Rounder sampler: Presenting the Alan Lomax Collection which (surprise, surprise) got added to my goodies to take back home. Besides 12 fascinating recordings from the past, the cover mentioned that these were the originals from the Tangle Eye remix…

Tangle what? Never heard of it, but a quick Google search revealed Alan Lomax's Southern Journey Remixed (on Zoë Records, part of Rounder!), with some positive reviews as well.
I found one track as an mp3 somewhere, really liked what I heard, and requested assistance from a musical friend.

The postal services didn’t let me down (in this part of the world it happens from time to time) but nicely delivered the CD in question to our home address.

Very listenable indeed, the emphasis is more on the original vocal tracks than anything else, combined with present-day musicians (incl. Meters bassist George Porter, Jr., bluesman Corey Harris, banjo player Tony Trischka, guitarist Jeff Raines, and trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis) doing the backing tracks, produced by Scott Billington and Steve Reynolds.
This stayed a one-off project as far as I know.

What is your opinion about combining the past and the present in this way?
Do you have any favorites?

Looking forward to hearing from you all again!

Rewards: Right out of the oven rips of both above-mentioned CDs!

In praise of Free (and Andy Fraser!)

Arriving on the scene a little too late for inclusion in the 1960s ‘British Blues Boom’...

...Free had a lot in common with the movement initially, especially in terms of their early blues covers set material, and were named by the late, great Alexis Korner – sort of. He suggested ‘Free at Last’, which was soon shortened to ‘Free’.

What a lot of people don’t realise, is how young Free were when they started playing together.

Lead singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke were both 18, guitarist Paul Kossoff was 16 and bassist and keyboard player Andy Fraser only 15.

Within 6 months they’d recorded their first album ‘Tons of Sobs’ which was very blues based, but showed their funky side: the quality which made the band stand out amongst the rather led-den (sic) groove that many other hard blues/rock bands seemed to fall into.

There must have been real chemistry at work when they got together .

Rodgers on lead vocals had – still has – an amazing voice. With Free he took centre stage and used the mic stand to great effect as he strutted about and indulged in some proper groin-thrusting.

Kossoff on guitar had a great Les Paul/Marshall sound and he played using a very distinctive vibrato. Whilst he didn’t stray too far from the pentatonics, he used them melodically and his rhythm playing was sparse, with some interesting chords using the open strings together with fretted ones. No power chord thrashing for Kossoff!

Fraser on bass was amazing. Using a short scale Gibson bass, he played a heady combination of melodic lines on the upper frets and heavy root notes on the bottom ones. Above all, he left spaces in his bass lines, reminiscent of reggae and funk bass styles, and really helped let the music breathe. 

Making up the quartet was drummer Kirke who always kept it simple, powerful and exciting. Using an extremely small kit – snare, kick, two toms, ride and crash cymbals and hi-hat – he could be almost jazzy at times, which tied in well with Fraser’s syncopated and often spare bass lines to create a rhythm section that floated and skipped but never plodded.

The old adage ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ applies to Free very, very well. The combination of the instruments and Rodger’s charismatic stage presence and soulful vocals produced a sound that was intense, but never bludgeoning, and their use of dynamics was second to none, with the band dropping back when necessary and then cranking it up in complete contrast.

Not only was the band a musician’s delight, but in their glory days, they were a pop phenomenon, too. Live recordings at the time of ‘Alright Now’ (their biggest hit) reveal teenage girls screaming in the same way that the Beatles had once experienced and the band became teen magazine pin ups.

Although the band had a US hit with "Alright Now", and toured there, most of their popularity and success was restricted to the UK and European market with barely a handful of hit singles and as many hit albums. Not really all that much of a recorded legacy for a band who are still fondly remembered and highly regarded.

So, what of the four band members today?

Rodgers went on to form Bad Company with drummer Kirk, ex-King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell and ex-Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs. He then went solo, joined Queen (a disaster in my opinion; as fine a singer as he is, he’s no Freddie Mercury) and performed with Bad Co on various reunion tours. He’s still a force to be reckoned with, solo, but has never regained the success he once had.

Kossoff left Free in a heroin haze. His playing and behaviour became so erratic that he was sacked. He went on to form Back Street Crawler, but then died of a drug related heart attack at the age of 25. A total waste of a great talent.

After Bad Co, Kirke didn’t do too much until their eventual reunion gigs, although today he’s on the Grammy awards committee and still plays in bands around the Manhattan NY area.

Frazer possibly had the most interesting post-Free career. When Free broke up, he went on to form the underrated ‘Sharks’, and ‘The Andy Fraser Band’, and then embarked on a bizarre but pioneering series of projects that culminated in the formation of the McTrax record label, although it didn't exactly set the world alight. Fraser died in 2015 at his home in California of a heart attack.

Nothing that they went on to do, however, comes anywhere near approaching the magnificence that was Free, and that quality stands out best in a live setting.

Fortunately, video footage still exists to illustrate this and there’s one show in particular that captures the band perfectly. It was produced by Granada TV and shows the band in a television studio with a fair-sized and quietly appreciative audience. It’s well-shot, with good sound and excellent picture quality, and the cameramen made sure that they gave equal attention to all four players.

Rodgers moves about like some randy cockerel, Kirke plays his tiny kit with his typical high arm movements, and Kossoff gurns a lot (although I think he means it) and plays some beautifully understated guitar.

However, it’s Fraser who really shines, as far as I’m concerned.

His body movements and playing epitomise total involvement as he rocks back on one foot and alternately soars over and rumbles under the rest of the band. There’s such deep joy in his playing and I’m certain that he’s not putting on a show. He’s just happy playing what he’s playing, who he’s with and the zone that he’s in.

In many ways, Free was the perfect rock combo, and showed that with just basic vocals, guitar, bass and drums, hard rock didn't have to steamroller its audience relentlessly - sometimes the foot could ease off on the throttle.

Just answer the simple question below and get some Free goodies!

I heard Sonny Boy blow!

One of the most interesting characters in blues history...

...and one who epitomises everything I find engrossing about it, is Sonny Boy Williamson. To be exact, Sonny Boy Williamson II. Actually, to be even more exact, Aleck or Alex or Willie or Rice Miller, or Willie Ford. (When I say exact, I mean as exact as Sonny Boy II cared to be about himself…)

He was also known variously as Sonny Boy Williams, Willie Williamson, Little Boy Blue, Harmonica Blowin' Slim, The Goat and Footsie. 

Footsie?

However, I hear you ask, if Aleck was known as Sonny Boy Williamson II, was there ever a Sonny Boy Williamson I? Yes, there certainly was a Sonny Boy the First and he was born John Lee Curtis Williamson in 1914, dying in 1948.

Like Sonny Boy II, Sonny Boy I was a harp player and singer who pioneered the instrument as a solo player. He had a great deal of success with his many recordings and kept such illustrious company as Muddy Waters throughout his relatively short professional life.

So, Sonny Boy I and II were both significant harp players and singers, but they weren’t even remotely related.

Why then did Sonny Boy II ‘borrow’ Sonny Boy I’s stage name?

Well, if you thought “money?”, then you’ve guessed right.

As this very informative article puts it:

By the early ’40s, he was the star of KFFA`s King Biscuit Time, the first live blues radio show to hit the American airwaves. As one of the major ruses to occur in blues history, his sponsor - the Interstate Grocery Company - felt they could push more sacks of their King Biscuit Flour with Miller posing as Chicago harmonica star John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson.

It was a rather clumsy deception but it obviously worked, as the name stuck with Miller and there don’t seem to have been any lawsuits. Although the Insterstate Grocery Company didn’t actually pay him much, they allowed him to plug his gigs on air and this helped push up his earnings by getting bigger crowds to see him.

Indeed, such ruses involving aliases and stage names weren’t uncommon, with luminaries like the late, great John Lee Hooker recording for different record companies under a variety of names early on in his career.

[As well as his own name, he recorded under the names of Texas Slim, Delta John, Birmingham Sam and his Magic Guitar, Johnny Williams, The Boogie Man, Johnny Lee (getting slightly less imaginative now), John Lee, and even John Lee Booker and John Lee Cooker. The latter two names must have taken several hours to think up…]

Anyway, to his grave, Sonny Boy II dubbed himself the ‘real Sonny Boy Williamson’, in spite of appropriating Sonny Boy I’s stage name whilst #1 was at the height of his career.

It probably helped both men that Sonny Boy #2 didn’t start recording until after #1 was dead and buried, although his recording career didn’t exactly set the world alight. In fact, somewhat ironically, it wasn’t until his contract was sold on to Checker Records – a subsidiary of the famous Chess Records Company – because he was so difficult to work with, that he started to get blues chart success.

Recording with the likes of Elmore James, Willie Dixon and Robert Lockwood Jr, Sonny Boy II wrote and released many songs which have since become blues standards – all marked by witty, sometimes desolate lyrics, a quavering delivery and sharp piercing harp lines. Notable successes include ‘Eyesight to the Blind’, ‘Help Me’, ‘Checkin’ up on my Baby’, Nine Below Zero’, ‘Don’t Start me to Talkin’’ and ‘Bring it on Home’, the latter covered by Led Zeppelin on their second album, but attributed to Page and Plant…

Sonny Boy II was a real showman. He’d play with the harp inside his mouth and even with his nose.

He spent a lot of time in Europe towards the end of his career - in common with many of his contemporaries. Indeed, at one stage he appears to have been thinking about applying for UK citizenship, and even wrote a song about it.

It wasn't just a distinctive vocal and harp style that Sonny Boy Williamson II worked on. Over the years, Williamson had acquired a rather eccentric image, sporting a checkerboard suit, a bowler hat (occasionally a beret), a furled umbrella and a briefcase which held his harps and a bottle of whiskey.

And yes, Sonny Boy #2 liked a drink…in fact, as well as being a drinker, he was a gambler,  an occasional brawler (wiry, but 6 feet 2 inches tall and often with a straight razor to hand, although he was no Little Walter!) and a ladies man, with a wicked sense of humour,

He was backed by some of the early UK beat groups when he toured there and dubbed the Animals the ‘Mammimals’ and, with reference to the Yardbirds, he had this to say:

“These British want to play the blues so bad…and they play the blues so bad!”

One of the more amusing stories about his visits to the UK is that he once set fire to his hotel room, whilst trying to cook a rabbit in a coffee percolator. True? We'll never know.

He died in 1965 soon after he returned to the US after recording and extensive gigging in the UK, but even his gravestone is somewhat ambivalent – not about his name, but about the year of his birth. Although it states 1908, Sonny Boy #2 claimed it was 1897 or 1899, although census evidence suggests it was 1912.

If it was 1912, as seems most likely, then 53 years of hard living had certainly taken their toll!

However, amongst all the hard living and roguish antics, Sonny Boy II was generous when it came to helping his fellow players. He mentored a young Howlin’ Wolf – his brother-in-law – and also helped spread the word about a guitarist and singer who went on to be known as BB King.

So, Sonny Boy II was many things throughout his life, some of them of his own invention, but his one constant was his music. The more you dig into his life story, the more you find that much of what he claimed wasn't entirely truthful, but it was told in such a cohesive manner, with truth and deceit so carefully entwined, that it was never questioned. However, doubts are now being raised and there's a fascinating article here that exposes some of Miller's subterfuge. It could well be that the true story of his life and career turns out to be even more interesting and convoluted than the one he left us with.

To get some Sonny Boy #2 goodies, just answer the simple question below...

Sounds & Visions

A short but sweet guest post from Koen...

 

Early 1985, in Bangkok, as a bunch of grubby backpackers (incl. yours truly) are heading towards the Goethe Institute for the free screening in the garden(!) of ‘Paris, Texas’, a new Wim Wenders movie.

 

All of us are massively impressed by the combination of the visuals and Ry Cooder’s guitar work, although personally, I found the story less compelling.

When I finally returned home months later one of the first things I did was find the soundtrack album! All tracks were specially composed for this film, but even when old songs are used for soundtracks they can be incredibly effective.

Remember ‘The Big Chill’? A great collection of old Motown and assorted hits really enhanced the movie.

 

Another example is ‘Trainspotting’, I also saw this one in Bangkok at an international film festival and thought it was hilarious to be introduced by the British ambassador as a great example of English culture, a movie about mainly Scottish heroin addicts - thank God it was subtitled! But the use of Lou Reed’s Perfect Day in this grimy epic was outstanding.

 

 

A personal favorite original soundtrack is Hans Zimmer’s ‘Black Hawk Down’, an excellent fusion of traditional North African & Middle Eastern music meeting the late 20th century with elements of techno. For this film, Zimmer put together a one-off BHD (kind of jam) Band which included himself on keyboards, guitarists Michael Brook & Heitor Pereira, and string players Craig Eastman and Martin Tillman, all to great effect in providing a highly effective background for this failed Mogadishu mission by UN peacekeeping personnel in 1993.

 

Please tell us something about your favorite soundtrack and why it made such an impression on you.

As a reward, I have two freshly ripped John Lurie-related soundtracks for you!