R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen 1920 – 2013

R.I.P.

Well, here’s some bummer news via Bloody Disgusting.com: It has been confirmed by his family that legendary animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen passed away today at the age of 92. Via the official page on Facebook they released the following statement:

The Harryhausen family regret to announce the death of Ray Harryhausen, Visual Effects pioneer and stop-motion model animator. He was a multi-award winner which includes a special Oscar and BAFTA. Ray’s influence on today’s film makers was enormous, with luminaries; Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, John Landis and the UK’s own Nick Park have cited Harryhausen as being the man whose work inspired their own creations.

Ray was a true visionary and be it 50′s sci-fi or 60′s fantasy his work was truly in a league of its own. My personal fave is his 1963 Jason and the Argonauts - and I’m willing to bet Sam Raimi‘s as well as his skeletal army in Army of Darkness: Evil Dead 3 looks like an homage to the one in said movie – so how about checking out the trailer:

UPDATE: I just had to share this to showcase just how much Ray’s work influenced so many of us out there. Here’s blues punkers The Jon Spencer Blues Explosions‘ Burn It Off, a video that’s nothing but a three-minute homage to Ray and his magnificent creations. Rest in peace.

Vivian Maier

This is just amazing: The most important American street photographer of the 20th century was a 1950′s nanny who kept to herself and never had a single photograph sold or published during her life time. Meet Vivian Maier - born in the US, raised in France (with some connection to Jeanne J. Bertrand) who moved to New York in the early 1950s and spent all her free time from the sweat shop she worked at to document the street life of her home town as well as Chicago. Following a career change to nanny she held that occupation for over 40 years, while still continuing her hobby.

Decades later, and by sheer coincidence, Chicago real estate agent John Maloof bought a huge box of undeveloped film at an auction, for the asking price of $380. Slowly developing her work he discovered the massive talent of the then-unnamed photographer and became obsessed with trying to find the creator of the 100,000+ negatives. In 2007 he found her name. In 2009 he found out she had died the previous year at the age of 83. Deciding to tell her story to the world he started working on the documentary Finding Vivian Maier – soon to premiere this year. In the mean time her work is rocking the exhibitions in cities like London, New York and Los Angeles.

In a day and age where most of us can spam the shit promote everything from our selves to our local garage band having their debut show, a friend’s art exhibition or just what we’re having for lunch via social media etc., I found it both fascinating and heartbreaking her work was completely unknown. Watching it now at the official site I am impressed by the quality of her photography and find a weird sort of comfort that even though she’s passed on she finally gets some recognition. Read up on her story here and spread the word!

copyright Vivian Maier. Year unknown.

Kickstarter (update)

copyright Sellergren Design 2013!

Make sure you head over and check out the Kickstarter campaign for They Call Me Superseven as me and producer/creator Robert Griffith decided to sweeten the deal by offering every backer a free download of Call Me Greenhorn‘s They Call Me Superseven OST album! Yeah,  not only are you doing the production a great service, you also get screen credit plus some nice tune-age for your computer, iPod etc. to enjoy while basking in your new found celluloid glory. Check it out here.

Speaking of the album: The stats on Bandcamp are quite impressive, and I’m thrilled to see the sounds are getting spread all over the dang planet. A bit frustrating when it comes to Twitter though as I’ve found out it’s damn near impossible finding any post pointing people in your direction – I’m a nerd and really want to send out thank-you notes to those that actually take their time to promote my music. Still available here and there’s also a sample track on my SoundCloud:

Richard J. Brooker Dead

It hasn’t been confirmed officially yet, but Richard J. Brooker‘s fanpage on Facebook as well as the Crystal Lake Memories page just started buzzing with condolences regarding his passing. Now, these things happens every now and then – Jackie Chan comes to mind as he’s “passed away” about umpteen times according to rumors – so keep an eye out on his official website for confirmation. He starred as Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part III and was the first to don the now-iconic hockey mask. Check out the trailer:

UPDATE: It has been confirmed via Friday the 13th: The Film Franchise that Richard indeed has passed away. This was posted by his former business manager Eric Branden on his Facebook:

UPDATE 2: His passing has been confirmed by dailydead.com,  FEARnet and deadwintercon.

Les Rayons Gamma!

En français, s’il vous plaît!

Well, as I am getting pretty damn close to finishing the soundtrack album for The Adventures of Superseven and Sandra West‘s feature They Call Me Superseven – it’s been sequenced and I’m finishing up the final song – I thought it was time to share a second teaser taste from it: Call Me Greenhorn‘s Les Rayons Gamma featuring a vocal contribution from ‘Seven himself! There’s a nice, almost Aerosmith-y Walk This Way kinda beat to it with some pretty gnarly hammonds wailing away on top of it. Check it out on SoundCloud.com here.

Like I already told Jerry Kokich – who stars as Superseven – the album is coming near to completion now. There’s one more track to be finished, then it’s just a matter of some overall audio tweaking before it’s released. Fourteen songs in total (give or take just in case I get super-inspired this coming week), give it a spin below:

The Thing (literally!)

Oh wow, even though enthusiastically following the progress of the Russian scientists located at Lake Vostok in Antarctica for the past year, I still gotta admit I was actually kinda creeped out by the latest claims that the more than a million-years-old bacteria found in the lake is a completely new life form! Of course it’s on one hand super-cool they’ve found a species who’s DNA only matches other life forms by 86% – literally making it alien to us – ’cause it goes to prove that yes, life in itself can survive some pretty grim conditions, making moons around planets like Jupiter and Saturn potential homes of  ‘something.’ Still, I am freaked out by this.

Why? Well, to put it short this sucker hasn’t been active on this planet for a million years, meaning than nothing that walks the Earth right now has any immunity resistance to it whatsoever. The life forms that did died out a long time ago. And let’s not forget that the sole purpose of bacteria is to fuck shit up uh, break down decayed organic matter. So even though I’m confident the scientists are handling this material with the utmost care, it’d still only take one ‘whoops!’ to release Chainsaw Sally and get the proverbial Armageddon going.

Oh well. We’ll see how this story develops. Still got me thinking of John Carpenter‘s The Thing though. Let’s hope the movie doesn’t turn out to be prophetic.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot

Well, as I stumbled over it on YouTube I figured I just had to share it: Ever heard of Jeff Krulik and John Heyn‘s 1986 cult classic Heavy Metal Parking Lot? A PBS video short it documents the heavy metal fans hanging out in the parking lot of Capital Centre in Maryland before a Judas Priest concert (with opening act Dokken), and features a lot of Camaros, mustaches and people claiming to be ‘f***ed up.’ There’s also some epic statements about punk rock and Madonna.

Originally just a broadcast aired on local cable, this was taped and became an underground phenomenon that kind of grew to a legendary status – I googled and found out it was a tour bus favorite for Nirvana – found among tape collectors all over the world. Touring California in 2000 I was amazed and amused finding out one of our hosts popped it in his VCR asking if we’ve ever seen it. Getting  a limited theatrical release back in 2003 you can now purchase it on DVD with tons of bonus material via the official website. Check it out here and visit Krulik’s website here.

Evil Dead 4

‘Happy happy joy joy…’

Yeah, this is my face when I visit Ain’t It Cool and read that yes, Sam Raimi is teaming up with an unnamed brother to work on the script for Evil Dead 4. Most likely to star Bruce Campbell. Picking up where Army of Darkness: The Evil Dead 3 left off, so there’s a chance of poor Ash battling Deadites in a post-apocalyptic world. Read all about it here.

Roll Call!

Here we go with a little update from Camp Superseven: The opening and closing titles of the second feature entitled Superseven Is Still My Name! Looks great and I think this quicker editing-style fits the format really nicely. I’m excited as hell and can’t wait to see the finished results!

The opening sequence (above) uses The Jimmy C‘s Astro ZX-9, and the closing credits (bottom) features my track Superseven Chase Theme as well as Jimmy’s great track Movie Theme. I don’t have a date yet when these will be released, but I’ll make sure to post something about it when it happens.

Superseven Chase Theme

For a brief taste of what I’ve been up to lately music-wise, check out this early look for the end credits of the second film from Camp Superseven entitled Superseven Is Still My Name. Heavy on the 60s influence I tried to make a really ‘jumpy’ track using mostly analog sounds – in fact the only electronic instrument used is the theremin! – and taking my cue from Italian soundtracks of the era.

I think this looks and sounds great and Jimmy C‘s Movie Theme off his Project E.G.O. album fits nicely. I can’t wait to see the finished results!