02 July 2008

fresh hell: the "seven songs" meme

Ryan over at Holy Embers of Dreams tagged me with a meme:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now.


So, without any fanfare or heartfelt effort, here we go:

1. "You Know My Name," by Chris Cornell, from the soundtrack to Casino Royale
I've long been a sucker for cool Bong BOND theme songs, and this one has been hitting me in my happy place really hard really often of late. I've had it stuck in endless rotation for many nights as I toil away on... well, "something." (And no, it's nothing remotely related to the Bond series in subject or character or even genre, so don't bother).

2. "Dayvan Cowboy," by Boards of Canada, from the The Campfire Head
A weirdly cool piece of electronica that works a really groovy nerve up my spine and into my brain stem. I found it as the soundtrack to a weird mashup video of the world tallest parachute chute them morphing into always cool slo-motion surfer highlights, kinda like "Endless Summer" is dropped into the 21st century.

3. "Rice Birds," by Adam Carroll, from Far Away Blues
Carroll is maybe my favorite texas singer-songwriter these days, as he has an uncanny ability to spin simple and absolutely true and honest little moments of specific Texana in a way that makes me ache with jealousy even as I am smiling and nodding approval though misty eyes. The Man just KNOWS, ok? Much like "Mr. Erroll's Song," another note-perfect slice of East Texas life from a previous album, I listen to "Rice Birds" and laugh that somehow someone else stepped in and heard my memories and set them to music.

4. "Gift of Fury," by Basil Poledouris, from the soundtrack to Conan the Barbarian
CONAN has long been one of my fave soundtracks, as it just smells like steel clashing and blood surging through bulging veins and hooves thundering through frozen wastes. This one is stuck in my player as mood music for... well, something far more tonally and stylistically similar than in the previous ref to current projects.

5. "It's A Long Way To the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll," by AC-DC, from TNT
Some people claim "Back in Black" or "Shook Me All Night Long" as their favorite AC/DC song, but for me, the unquestionable ne plus ultra of the Young brothers band has to be this little head-bobbing ditty. Never before or since has a bagpipe seemed so hard rocking (and to hell with BIG COUNTRY), and Bon Scott's alcohol-soaked sneer never again sounded so smug and irresistible. This is the absolute perfect sound for a certain '80s-themed beast I have been wrestling with for years, and when this song gets stuck in the player, the words start to come fast and silly.

6. "Yeager's Triumph," by Bill Conti, from 'The Right Stuff"
Hero's need soundtracks, I reckon this one works just fine.

7. "Love Plus One," by Haircut 100, from (some album from the 80s)
I'm not even going to try expaining this one,. I just know that this song has always made me giggle like a loon, and that's held true for something like 22 years straight now.

-=-=-=-

I'm supposed to tag five people, but considering the fact that I am pretty well convinced that nobody reads this damned fool blog anymore, I'll just declare it "Tag Your Own Self Day" at ye olde blogge. If'n ya feel like picking up this flag and carrying it further down the field, then do so-- tag yourself and link back here so we can follow.

If'n ya don't feel such love, well, then to hell with you anyway.

Weasels.
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B

12 comments:

marcoguarda said...

Basil Poledouris rocks.

When you hear the opening notes of Conan, you are flung right away into the bowels of primeval time, when to be a common man or an animal was not much of a difference after all.

It's simply amazing.

The list of Poledouris' soundtracks is way too long to be numbered here.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006231/

I'm very fond of Ennio Morricone, Vangelis, John Williams [of course], as well.

http://www.filmsite.org/100soundtracks.html

This list forgets many, as Hunt for Red October, original soundtrack by Basil Poledouris, too.

greebs said...

You wrote:

I've long been a sucker for cool Bong theme songs...

Dude! You really are ill suited to be in Texas. Come out to California with the rest of us Bong song lovers...

aggiebrett said...

(sigh)

"Bond."

(shit shit shit)
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sweeper said...

Some Basil on the side please.

If I'm correct, he did the soundtrack for "Starship Troopers" which was better than the movie but not as good as the book.

I don't think it's been emphasized enough that it's the soundtrack that can make or break a movie. In many cases, I've gone to see a movie only because Tangerine Dream was doing the music. John Carpenter is always a great. Poledouris is always solid.

marcoguarda said...

Uh-- I forgot Giorgio Moroder.

And Hans Zimmer - Klaus Badelt for POTC I.

Thomas Crymes said...

From the Conan soundtrack I like Battle of the Mounds (or is it on the Mounds?). It is a great soundtrack.

James Horner, although seemingly unable to make fresh music for the longest time, has composed some of my favorite movie music ever.

Aliens
Field of Dreams
Glory

The Triumvirate as I call them. Aliens has some tremendous pounding sound not unlike Conan.

Brent said...

Not like anyone cares but click on my blog to read my list

Cathy Fielding said...

From my iTunes playlist (in order of number of times played):

Chevaliers de Sangreal - by Hans Zimmer, from "The DaVinci Code"

Theme from Schindler's List - by John Williams

Sarabande - From "Barry Lyndon"

Theme from "Courage Under Fire" - by James Horner

Sophie's Choice - by Marvin Hamlish

Yeager's Triumph - by Bill Conti, from "The Right Stuff"

Adagio for Strings - From "Platoon"

Unknown said...

Just FYI, Lucinda Williams did #5 in Jersey last week, rocked the house, it did.

aggiebrett said...

Was at the public library two weeks ago (the big full-flavored one downtown-- not one of the safe clean antiseptic suburban ones) and was thrilled to find a sizable pile of sountrack CDs to burn into the laptop's iTunes library.

Among the cooler finds already soaring up my playlist:

the them to KING OF KINGS from Nino Rota.

Epic cool stuff, maynard.
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marcoguarda said...

Ouch! Mr. Rota wrote whole oceans of music!

----

Hi there, Brett.

I'm your monthly kick in the pants.

What about those satus bars?

Are you working already on the next two scripts to send to Nick, or whatever else comp next year?

[more you have to work on the last script, which needs some fine tuning, as you said in earlier posts].

Time waits for no one, and kids will grow just fine.

In sixty years many of the old ones will be gone.

So? Where is that ground-breaking epocal script we all are waiting for?

You know it is just behind the corner, waiting for YOU.

There is a legend going on about how POTC came to life. The saying goes that Mr. Wolp and Mr. Beat one day met, and decided to just write a story about PIRATES!

I know there is much further adding to this story and embellishment, and myth. More those two were not (or were they?) in the latest revisions of the script.

I also suppose much of the flesh and blood and soul of the story came from Big D's amusement park, but it all started that way!


So, as I told you before, glue the seat of your pants to that chair, and just WRITE!

WRITE!

WRITE!

WRITE!

WRITE!

WRITE!


M.

aggiebrett said...

No real reason to fiddle with the progbars for now. There has been some progress, but not enough in any direction that motivates me to mess with code (yet).

Been out of town the last three weekends in a row, and return this week to find the old van gone, a new van (and van payment) in it's place, and the other car in for more than a grand of repairs and maintenance, so we've been dancing around one vehicle to get all the usual stuff done.

Progress will be made.

I just can't say when, or on what, or to what degree.