The Ventures were a band out of Washington state that earned their fame with a slew of surf rock instrumentals. Their biggest hit was “Walk Don’t Run” from 1960. It reached #2 on the Billboard singles chart. They entered the Top 10 again when their version of the theme song to the popular TV show Hawaii Five-O made it to #8 in 1969.
Along the way, somewhere around 1963, the band entered into a contract with the California guitar maker, Mosrite. From that time, until the contract expired, the band used the “uniquely styled, futuristic-looking Mark 1 electric guitar model” exclusively. It became their trademark.
Between 1960 and 1970 The Ventures released over 30 albums on the Dolton and Liberty labels. (I must have about 25 of them!) Most of them are listenable, but the one that I always go back to when I’m in the mood for that type of Rock is Wild Things!, from 1966.
Wild Things! is a theme album. Its mix of originals and covers almost all have the word “wild” in their titles. The best is one of the originals, “Wild Trip.”
“Wild Trip” rocks! It’s so good that the Athens, Georgia punk/garage rock group, Flat Duo Jets, covered it in 1990 on their Go Go Harlem Baby album.
I’m back! That is, I’m back with the next installment of my series on rock music in films. You would be on solid ground if you assumed the series was completed since my last post on the subject was back in August. That essay covered soundtracks written by Rock artists. This one covers soundtracks that use a compilation of songs by Rock artists as the soundtrack.
The granddaddy of them all is the soundtrack to Easy Rider (1969). It included cuts by a who’s who of counter-culture acts including Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix, The Byrds, and The Electric Prunes (yes, that was really the name of a band!). The movie also used “The Weight” by The Band, but ABC/Dunhill couldn’t license their recording for the record, so a cover by Smith was used as a replacement.
I’m going with Hendrix – “If 6 Was 9.”
In 1973, George Lucas released the classic film, American Graffiti. The movie starred Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, and a very young Harrison Ford. Suzanne Somers also appears as “the blond in the T-Bird.”
The ‘50s nostalgia story had a soundtrack that was consistent with the era. (It was also the inspiration for the TV sitcom “Happy Days”, also starring Howard.) The “oldies” format used recordings mostly released between 1955 and 1962 and were heavy on the doo-wop. It seems weird to me that this collection of songs was considered “oldies” when the oldest one was released only 18 years before the film’s debut. (Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was released almost 18 years ago, so I guess that’s an “oldie” now.)
One key difference of the American Graffiti soundtrack is that it was used as diegetic music – that’s music that the characters are presumed to be hearing themselves as part of the scenes.
One of my favorite songs in the movie is “Since I Don’t Have You” by The Skyliners (1959).
In his 1989 book The Heart of Rock and Soul – 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, music critic Dave Marsh slotted “SIDHY” at #36. Guns N’ Roses brought the song into the ‘90s with an excellent cover version.
Two other important Rock soundtracks were released in 1983 — The Big Chill and Dazed and Confused.
The Big Chill takes place in the early ‘80s when a group of friends that attend the University of Michigan together reunites for the funeral of their friend. Appropriately, the soundtrack skews towards ‘60s soul and Motown. The song that I always enjoy hearing is the “deep cut” “Tell Him” by the Exciters (1963).
The soundtrack for Dazed and Confused is something entirely different. This film about high school life is set in Texas, 1976. The music leans toward the hard rock of the day, and every track is a winner. I’m going with Edgar Winter’s “Free Ride.”
Another great Rock soundtrack was compiled for the movie Almost Famous (2000) and was rewarded with a Grammy award to prove it! The Cameron Crowe film’s plot centers around a young (15-year-old) Rock journalist that goes on the road with a (fictional) band – Stillwater – to get a scoop for Rolling Stone. One of the most memorable scenes in the movie is when everyone on the tour bus spontaneously starts singing along to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.”
Of course, there are many more great compilation soundtracks. In the 2000s, soundtracks were often used to help launch the careers of obscure bands. But that’s the subject for a later installment of Rock Music in Films.
In 2019, The Rolling Stones released a 50th Anniversary edition of their classic album Let It Bleed. It came in a variety of multi-format packages but had no alternate versions or outtakes. What the hell was the purpose of that? As great as that album is, how many copies do we need? That reeks to me of a money-grabbing rip off.
Fast forward a year to 2020 and the group released a “Super Deluxe” boxed set of Goats Head Soup (1973). Now this one was done right. It has a remixed version of the original album on one disc. A second disc has rarities and alternative mixes including three previously unreleased tracks. One of them, “Scarlet,” is today’s SotW.
Devoted Stones fans have always heard rumor that there was an unreleased track that features Jimmy Page. Well, here it is! Of “Scarlet,” MOJO magazine said: “A mesmerizing groove, propelled by three interlocking guitar riffs, this bafflingly-shelved gem points towards the crunching ‘80s Stones of Start Me Up.”
A third disc contains a previously unreleased, complete concert — The Brussels Affair— recorded live at the Forest National Arena in October 1973. Goats Head Soup has been underappreciated. This set proves that it is worth reevaluation.
Today’s SotW was written by guest contributor, Matthew Wells. Matthew and I have been friends for over 40 years. He was among the first guest contributors to the SotW, way back in 2009.
I came up with the idea of posting about a song inspired by a science fiction novel several years ago but didn’t feel qualified to write it. I knew Matthew was my man! In addition to being a successful playwright, he has a scifi novel in his top drawer that should be published. Read on!
When you think about songs based on works of science-fiction books, there are obvious ones that come to mind, like “Rocket Man” by Pearls Before Swine, which is based on the Ray Bradbury story of the same name, and “1984” by David Bowie (he wanted to do a stage musical based on the book, but couldn’t get the rights from the Orwell estate).
And then there’s “Fifty-Third Calypso,” from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel Cat’s Cradle, otherwise known as “Nice, Nice, Very Nice:”
Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen—
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice—
So many different people
In the same device.
The Calypso is part of a religion, invented by a man called Bokonon and named after himself, whose believers accept that life is meaningless but still want some kind of hope to cling to, even if it’s a lie.
There are three musical versions of it that I could find. The earliest is from the self-titled first album of the prog-rock group Ambrosia, in 1975.
In their version, the group added an additional stanza and a bridge:
Oh a whirling dervish And a dancing bear Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire Or a teenage rocker Or the girls in France Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance
Nice, nice, very nice Nice, nice, very nice So many people in the same device
I wanted all things to make sense So we’d be happy instead of tense
The mix of organ, horns, and drums give this version a spacy, psychedelic feel, like the musical version of a trippy religious experience. Kurt Vonnegut is credited as co-writer on the song, and from all accounts, he liked this version. In a letter he wrote to the band in 1976, he says:
“I was at my daughter’s house last night, and the radio was on. By God if the DJ didn’t play our song, and say it was number ten in New York, and say how good you guys are in general. You can imagine the pleasure that gave me. Luck has played an enormous part in my life. Those who know pop music keep telling me how lucky I am to be tied in with you. And I myself am crazy about our song, of course, but what do I know and why wouldn’t I be? This much I have always known, anyway: Music is the only art that’s really worth a damn. I envy you guys.”
The song also shows up in “Ice-Nine Ballads,” a 1997 collaboration between Vonnegut and Dave Soldier in which Soldier’s arrangements for songs based on Cat’s Cradle are accompanied by Vonnegut’s voiceovers.
In this version, Vonnegut’s voiceover has the offhand cool of William S. Burroughs, and Soldier’s arrangement sounds like a Frank Zappa B-side. (Odd fact: Soldier is the musical persona of Columbia University neuroscientist David Sulzer.)
To me, these two versions of Vonnegut’s lyric are nice, nice, very nice enough, but neither of them meet the challenge of turning the song into an actual calypso, like something that could have been sung by Harry Belafonte. Or Louis Armstrong. Why Armstrong? Because the tune in my head is pretty much the same as Cole Porter’s “High Society,” which Armstrong sings at the beginning of the 1956 movie. To me, it has the right tempo, and the right tune:
