Twenty feet from Stardom

I will admit that I never distinguished the absolute importance of backup singers until i had to watch 20 feet from stardom. Now I cannot listen to a classic rock or pop song without noticing how much the song is dependent on the vocal harmony supplied by the backup singers themselves. The documentary really shed light on a profession that is most often taken for granted. The film really describes how important it is in unifying the sound that the singer is trying to achieve. One of my favorite parts in the film is when Merry Clayton is describing how she was woken up at two in the morning and told to go down to the studio and do the backup for a little know band called the Rolling Stones. She didnt really know who they were but they wanted her help with their new song Gimme Shelter. Now in my humble opinion Gimme Shelter is the Rolling Stones greatest song. Clayton describes how they wanted her to sing the chorus with the lyrics Rape......Murder its just a shot away.Mick Jagger was really supportive of Clayton, letting her put her own emotion into the song and not sing to support Micks lead vocals. Of course the high point in the song is when Clayton is refrained and lets loose with the high octave blaring of RAPE....MURDER she goes so high her voice cracks and if you listen closely you can hear Jagger yell Whoa in the studio because he was blown away by Clayton's voice. Its one of my favorite moments in the film, and its the best part of that song, and its the one part that isnt the bands, which shows just how taken for granted a good backup singer can be. The other part of the film deals with Darlene Love, who was asked to fill in with her vocals with the band but never given proper credit for that. Darlene Love and The Blossoms were promised a solo recording contract with Phil Spector but he made sure she was never able to break free. Ironically the song Darlene Love sang as part of the Crystals Hes a Rebel was their only #1 hit in the U.S. After that Spector did everything he could to keep her from leaving. When you realize that Darlene Love helped sing back up on Be My Baby, Johnny Angel, Monster Mash, Doo Ron Ron, Baby I love You to name just a few is amazing. And when Ronnie Spector couldnt hit the high emotional notes of Chrristmas, Baby please come home, Dalene sang it herself, and its still the best rock and roll Christmas song ever. And she sang the best SNL parody Christmas song ever as well with Christmastime for the Jews, which is hilarious. At least for her recognition came when she was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame.

Soundtracks

This week I had to re-watch Boogie Nights, for my film class which was fantastic. I was fourteen when that film came out and I remember going to the movies with my two friends Justin and Nathan, and sneaking into it at the old Copper 7 by my house. We knew we weren't suppose to, but we were tall, and no one questioned us once inside, and plus we really wanted to see Heather Graham cause we all heard she was naked in it. Well needless to say we were exposed to a whole host of new information, images and terms that at the time we didn't know what they meant, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the movie, and the soundtrack. The whole film was like a party, and the music just carried it along. When the film ended we felt a certain sense of triumph, at having succeed with our little plan of youthful mischief. Weeks later I bought the soundtrack at Media Play because I couldn't get the great music of 70's funk, and pop songs out of my head. Thus began my great love affair with soundtracks. Soundtracks when done right can  come together to create a perfect musical narrative. Plus sometimes I just want the one song without having to buy an individual artists whole album. I always liked how a song from a film can evoke  a powerful memory or feeling. Most people remember John Travolta strutting to Staying Alive by the Bee Gees without really remembering the actual film. Of course Pulp Fiction had a great soundtrack. Tarantino has a great knack of resurrecting long forgotten classics. Dick Dales Misirlou, Jungle Boogie, by  Kool and the Gang, Chuck Berrys excellent You Never Can Tell, and Lonesome Town by Ricky Nelson. Wheres else could you find such an eclectic compilation.Same with Jackie Brown, with its use of old funk songs Across 110th Street by Bobby Womack and Peace works so well within that film, and then you get Johnny Cash's Tennessee Stud, awesome. Other soundtracks I grew up with, were Trainspotting, which made Iggy Pops Lust for Life iconic, and then ending it with Underworlds Born Slippy made it even better. It was all the fun without the problematic heroin addiction. Wes Andersons Rushmore exposed me to the Kinks, and Cat Stevens. And then of course their is the Coen Brothers really use music to enhance the narrative of the film, even when unearthing obscure songs. Raising Arizona really only had one song Carter Burwells Way out There, that great yodeling song that is its theme, but damn if it isn't catchy. I remember seeing the trailer for O'Brother Where Art Thou, and buying it before it came out, because I loved hearing that old fashioned bluegrass music. That soundtrack had a lot of great old songs, of course the Soggy Bottom Boys Man of Constant Sorrow turned out to be a big hit when it was released. Sometimes you get a soundtrack with a song made directly for the film that goes beyond the film. Wonder Boys is one of my favorite films and Bob Dylans Things Have Changed made the film even better for it. American Gigolo is alright but the absolute best part of that film is Blondie's Call Me. That song should have won the Oscar that year, but when it comes to Oscar song winners it seems they rarely get it right except for Loose Yourself by Eminem from 8 mile that was right on. But sometimes you go to buy a soundtrack and the one song you want isnt on there because they didn't get the rights to the song or who knows. Why Does the Soundtrack to Blue Velvet not even have  Blue Velvet on it???? WHY!!! Oh well I digress, Here's to you soundtracks, keep on rocking....in films..and on cd because Iam the last person who still buys them.

PUNK

I love Punk music. Granted I never conformed to the look that so defied the punk movement. Mohawk, leather jacket, ripped ironic t-shirts etc. But like Johnny Rotten always said and I'am paraphrasing "once rich kids started dressing that way, the punk movement was over. We couldn't afford nice leather jackets, we were poor so we wore what we had." That's where I fit in, by the time i was in high school , I was dirt poor. I wore what i had but i tried hard not to dress poor. I went to school with rich kids who lived in Ken Caryl Valley and who wore bobby pins as earrings and neatly dyed florescent Mohawks. They said they were punk but they didn't have a fucking clue what that meant. It wasn't about the clothes, although that was a part of the anti-establishment routine,  it was more about the music as an outlet and expression of raw anger and dissonance. Anger at the ruling class majority that unified society through its conformity. Rebellion at who deemed what was  popular and acceptable and what wasn't.  Punk music stripped that all away, and let loose a torrid of fast unrellentless sounds that expressed the hidden feelings of a generation. Re watching the great documentary on the Sex Pistols the Filth and the Fury it is fascinating what they were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time, and how incendiary and original their music was. Theirs is an unlikely story. Coming from truly impoverished conditions, stealing instruments and teaching themselves how to play Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock Paul Cook and later Sid Vicious, somehow cut through the pretension that had defined England in 1975, and created a voice for the lost generation of youth that were living in squalled conditions in England and who was desperately looking to break free. Songs like Anarchy in the UK, and God Save the Queen came out at the right time and right place when music really mattered and actually had an effect on people. They were polarizing and represented the opposite of what was the norm was at that time. Saddled by miss management, and infighting, and the addiction of Sid Vicious is was inevitable that they couldn't have lasted any longer than the two years they were together. But is it better to burn out or fade away? For them it was better to burn out quickly and leave such a huge impact on society and future bands than to have continued on into the 80's and become parodies of themselves. They will forever exist in the cultural consciousness as young, raw, and indelible to their time and place. Besides The Sex Pistols and The Clash, my favorite punk band was The Ramones. Representing the New York punk scene the Ramones were the flip side of punk music. Their were a unified quartet  singing loud  and fast and  they told stories in their songs. Stories about everyday life and the hardships of it. It would be easy to just get lost in the fast tempo of their songs, and miss the theme altogether, but if you did, that was your problem. Songs like Were A Happy Family, Commando, and the KKK Took My Baby Away, were social commentaries, not so much about chaos and anarchy but what was recognizable about what was happening in your day to day life. I don't know what constitutes as punk music today. Whatever it is it doesn't matter to me, because it has already been done better. Thats the beautiful thing about the music of The Ramones, and The Sex Pistols, and The Clash, is that it doesnt age, or date itself, its just as raw and powerful as it was when it was first recorded.

Martin Scorsese The Music Master.

'From the first shot of his first feature,” Roger Ebert wrote in 1990, “Scorsese has loved to use popular music as a counterpoint to the dramatic moments in his films. He doesn’t simply compile a soundtrack of golden oldies; he finds the precise sounds to underline every moment.” This quote from Gantsters Mixtape: The Rock and Roll music of Martin Scorsese  perfectly sums up the very idea of what music means to films and to life itself. A song can inflect and infer so much more emotion and mood that dialogue alone can. And Martin Scorsese is the maestro when it comes to using popular music to define action and narrative within film. Mt favorite film of all time is Goodfellas. For me this film, reminds me of my family specifically my mother. We would always watch this together when I was growing up. She was Italian and grew up in North Denver in the 50's. Her high school classmate Skip Laguardia was gunned down in his driveway by the mafia in Denver, which if you didn't think their was any mafia in Denver, their was. I remember eating a Gaetanos restaurant when i was a kid and hearing stories and being both intrigued and scared because that place was in a shit part of town. So i was of course always fascinated by the mafia and what makes Goodfellas greater than most is how this tale of gangsters is told along with the music. The music is juxtaposed in-between dialogue, the songs themselves often comment on the action happening on screen, and the songs instantly define each of the decades represented within the film, from the 50's through the 80's. When I hear Tony Bennett's Rags to Riches, I can only think of Ray Liotta slamming the trunk shut and opening the film. It is undeniable  and brilliant, and sets the tone of the entire film. The early songs in the film when Henry is growing up, like "Cant we be Sweethearts" by the Cleftones, and Speedo by the Cadalliacs, give the first part of the film an nostalgic romanticized look into the past, that in retrospect wasn't as carefree and innocent like the songs themselves. Studying the musical cues of Goodfellas exposes just how perfectly the songs go with the scenes themselves. "I Will Follow Him" by Betty Curtis plays when Karen tracks Henry down after he stood her up the first time.  During the legendary 3 minute steady cam shot of Henry and Karen walking through the kitchen up to the restaurant "Then He Kissed Me" begins playing by The Crystals. The song begins with the words "he walked up to me" and from Karen's perspective Henry is walking and leading her into his world both psychically and romantically.The song comments on the scenes itself. Classical compositions in film convey mood, but popular songs underlie meaning. And that's what Scorsese is great at. Even if a snip-it of a song  is played for a second then switches into another song altogether it would appear random but like the mind itself always racing from thought to thought the songs demonstrate the frantic emotions of being human.

80's Movie Musical Montage

 Some of the most iconic and indeminable moments in film occurred  when music was grafted onto a specific scene or played out during a  riveting montage sequence. When done right it can be a magical thing, that can live on outside the entire film itself. Most people haven't seen Saturday Night Fever, but they know John Travolta strutting down the street to Stayin Alive. They know Rocky, running up the steps to Flying High. Now their is one decade that is always underestimated, one decade whose music gets criticized, and whose  films overlooked. And that decade is the 80's. But I don't care I love the 80's. I love the big hair, the shoulder pads, the neon, the kitsch, Max Headrom, Ninja Turtles, Freddy Kruger you name it. I love it for all the reasons people don't. For all its faults, it remains an identifiable decade. For me and i don't want to sound like an historical chauvinist, but since the Millennium, I cant distinguish it. It is a time of everything and nothing at the same time, does 2000-2010 feel or look different in its appearance to 2015? I don't know, and I dont really care. Anyways back to the 80's, it is easy to overlook and compartmentalize the music of the 80's. Yes, Pop music was fueled by synthesizers, and one hit wonders, who carved out their own niches between Michael Jackson and Madonna. But when I watch Ferris Buellers Day Off and Ferris sees Cameron's Dads, Ferrari and Oh Yeah comes on by Yello, it doesn't get much better than that. Or when Judd Nelson raises his fist at the end of The Breakfast Club and Dont You Forget About Me starts playing by Simple Minds i'm reminded at how perfect that song ends the film. Its easy to overlook the lyrics but if you take the time that song encapsulates the emotion of high school. Its no coincidence that those two films were made by John Hughes, who in my opinion stands well above  most filmmakers. As a writer and director he always managed to incorporate music in his films at the right place that always invoked a felling or image that was undeniable. Ferris Bueller lypsinging to Wayne Newtons Danke Schoen to the Beatles Shake it up Baby reveals Ferris as a character both childlike and sincere and a rock star at the same time, which is what he was. Or who could forget John Candy mimicking playing the piano to Ray Charles Mess Around, while driving down the highway in Planes Trains and Automobiles. Both hilarious and endearing and by the time and by the time the film reaches the last shot with John Candy and Steve Martin walking together to Every time You Go, your heart cannot well up fast enough. Thats how powerful music can be when appropriately integrated within a film. This got me thinking about other classic songs from films in the 80's, of course their is Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News from Back to the Future, Ghostbusters from Ghostbusters Ray Parker, and one of my personal Favorites, Call Me by Blondie from American Gigolo. Eye of The Tiger, Rocky 3, View to a Kill from the James Bond film of the same name by Duran Duran. Old Time Rock and Roll, Bob Seger, from Risky Buisness which is still a classic scene, and  thats the only rock song in the whole film the rest is Tangerine Dream and In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Then you had musicians contributing to the entire film soundtrack like what Prince did with Purple Rain and Batman. Jack Nicholson as the Joker, desecrating  all that artwork to Party Man by Prince perfectly encapsulates the Joker. And not mention my favorite band of all time AC/DC providing the soundtrack to Maximum Overdrive. When the drawbridge opens on its own in the beginning killing the people on the bridge and Who Made Who comes on, you know your in for a ride. Everyone knows the scenes from Dirty Dancing, Footlose and Flashdance. They have become like parodies of themselves, but that shouldn't diminish them, and besides that theirs also plenty of other great stuff in the 80's that gets neglected when it comes to the films and the music.

Rock Films and Gimme Shelter.

Rock documentaries or Rockumentaries as they are refereed to in the article On the Cutting Room Floor, have always appealed to me, as have rock biographies that have been made into feature length films as well. Reading about the chronological order in which they have evolved is a fascinating account. The article chronicles the birth of what essentially was a filmed concert known as the T.A.M.I.(Teenage Awards Music International) show in 1964 which featured an impressive array of talent. From the Rolling Stones to The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, Leslie Gore, Chuck Berry, James Brown, and Bo Diddly to name a few. It wasn't so much a look into the private lives of the performers which would define the later rockumentaries but more in the  vain of being a spectator in a concert hall with the best seat in the house. Then came Monterey Pop the film which was documented by D.A. Pennebaker who had previously chronicled cinema verite style Bob Dylan in Dont Look Back. Whats interesting in the trajectory of rock films up till then was how they retained a cult status, whereas they were films seen by the hard core fans only rather than the mainstream. This of course changed with the release of Woodstock which was filmed and released by Warner Brothers in 1979. Woodstock functioned as an event film directed by Michael Wadleigh the film featured "visual effects, consisting of split screens, superimposition's, and double framing, as well as interviews with the crowd as well as the concert footage made this documentary something special." This concert film had a higher ticket price of $5.00 it was a documentary that transformed the subject according to "Cutting Room Floor" to cinematic art". The film was a huge financial success. If Woodstock set the mode for the future of rock films, then Gimme Shelter set the tone of cutting edge documentaries regardless of the subject matter. What began as a chronicle of the Rolling Stones by the Maysles brothers and their Madison Square Garden concert turned into something far more disturbing and revealing. After the Garden performance the Maysels followed the Stones to the Altamont Speedway in California. The Maysels like they did with the Beatles when they first visited the States, approached the film with a direct cinema approach whereas the audience is a fly on the wall. But similar to what would be seen in news documentaries they did play the footage back while Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts looked on giving it a film within a film experience. What sets Gimme Shelter apart is that it at first appears to be a straight forward look at the Stones performing and letting their guard down somewhat. The footage isn't a Hollywood production like Woodstock, or in other rock films made currently but a single camera view of a great band. But then things turn once they reach the speedway, and the Maysles were their to chronicle it as if they were journalists covering a war zone. From the beginning of the free concert the crowd begins to arrive en-mass, but the vibes and general ambiance of the crowd is off. It is almost a palpable feeling that something is going to happen and its going to be bad. Once the Hells Angels arrive, you new it wasn't going to end well. When it was over four were dead, and the summer of love was officially over. Whats amazing now is looking back at the reception Gimme Shelter received at the time of its release. Critics labeled it "one of the most unpleasant, bleak, depressing movies they've ever encountered." They obviously missed the point. Filming a concert doesn't constitute anything other than a representation of what you couldn't see on your own. The notion that these films are made to expose the artists with their guard down, is somewhat of a fallacy because they still know their  being filmed, regardless of what they lead you to believe. But what the Maysles brothers did was have enough foresight to turn their attention away from the concert and show the cultural disintegration that was happening right in front of them. It was a clash of cultures fueled by drugs and violence that shattered the Utopian reality of Woodstock a mere two months prior.

Monterey POP

Looking back at the Monterey Pop music festival that was held in 1967 in California i can only wish that somehow I could go back in time and be their in person. Be their to  witness the historic American debut of Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Ravi Shankar, not to mention the incomparable Janis Joplin, giving a performance of a life time only to have it not be recorded. Reading about the Monterey pop festival from Flowers in the Dustbin, I am in awe at how this event was in a sense teh perfect meeting between folk music and legitimate Rock and Roll, standing side by side, in unison although To quote James Miller Monterey Pop integrated the hardest rock and Roll into the mainstream of the global music business. And after the summer of love Rock and Roll was no longer a genre of popular music it was Pop music." To me it seems that the Monterey Pop festival is somehow overlooked by Woodstock two years later, but for me Monterey was more tight knit, and welcoming. Woodstock was too big, a festival in excess, whereas Monterey Pop was still about the music first, before it become something garish. For me watching Ottis Reading in one his last performances before his premature death in an airplane crash six months later is both humbling and spectacular at the same time. Watching him sing Respect, and Satisfaction, backed by Booker T and the Mg's only enforces that he was the master of soul. In Flowers in the Dust Bin, Miller describes "Janis Joplin as someone of modest technical means, who shrieked and screamed, as if possessed in the grip of a demon." He would later say that upon Janis's first powerful performance which was accidentally not filmed, that her second performance wasn't as great, because hysteria is hard to fake a second time. I couldn't disagree more. I think to say that Janis Joplin was limited in her singing is an understatement. I believe that she was a master of vocal control, who chose to sing from the depths of her soul.  To describe her performance as hysterical, is an insult, especially to women, hysterical being an infliction that was imposed on women in the 18th century. What Janis Joplin did as a singer and performer was something akin to James Brown, or any other rhythm and blues singer. With each performance she left a piece of her soul on the stage. Watching her sing it is raw and gritty, and wholly original for a woman to be in the same league as her male counterparts.  Watching her sing Ball and Chain even if it was the second time is nonetheless spectacular.
    Other highlights of the show that were impressive, were of course The Who, who appropriately sang My Generation, a fitting tribute for the changing times and culture as witnessed by the massive crowd of hippies and counterculturealists sitting on the ground. It is safe to say that watching DA Pennebaker's film of Monterey Pop their is a sense of one-up-man-ship going on between the performers. Which leads to Jimi Hendrix. Its hard to top The Who, especially Pete Townsand, but I feel that Hendrix new that he could out-guitar-him, so to speak, and he did. Watching him bang out Wild Thing is at first disconcerting, then mesmerizing. He made it look effortless, as he strummed the guitar, and contorted it, exacting every conceivable sound form it, in every possible position. And when the guitar could no longer emulate the song Jimi simply offered it to the rock gods, and set it on fire. But whats funny is that it didn't seem pretentious, it was just a humble offering from a master. And to conclude the film is of course a 20 minute clip from Shankar's four hour performance. The performance acts as a cleanser, it is so original, the sitar just washes over you, clearing your mind of all worry and thought you become almost trance-like listening to it. I can only imagine sitting their for four hours, and what effects it would have had, especially high.