Here we go: The final Call Me Greenhorn release of April! Entitled Chasing the Dawn this is actually way more 80s New Wave than my other stuff and there’s a background story to that. A couple of months ago I stumbled across this kick-ass movie project to start production this fall and immediately got in touch with the producers trying to pimp my shit, uh, let them know I was willing and available if they needed some fitting audio.
They replied with “Great, thanks!” but informed me that the They Call Me Superseven tracks I sent as examples of my work wasn’t that retro-sounding as they had in mind – the movie in itself is very 80′s – so I spent that following weekend channeling John Carpenter recording the title track and the chase-theme Across the City just to prove that yes, I can do New Wave too! Mission accomplished as they got back with a much more positive response they’ll definitely get back to me to secure either one of the tracks or having me create a similar one for their feature.
Three tracks in total, including the kinda weird Skulking – that sounds like some damn trippy theme for an old Nintendo game – so check it out on my Bandcamphere, give it a spin below and share away!
COMING NEXT WEEK! As April draws to a close it’s time to launch the third (and final) Call Me Greenhorn release of the month: Chasing the Dawn! Three 80′s sounding tracks in the sort of New Wave vein written specifically for an upcoming feature film set in 1980′s Los Angeles. Think Carpenter, ninjas and neon.
There’s an unmastered rough mix teaser taste available on my SoundCloud, so go get a taste here, or just listen below. As always share away and spread the word!
Yeah, so while busying myself with finishing up a ton of stuff right now I also took a short break to finish up a sort of made-for-social-network advertisement for Call Me Greenhorn‘s 2013 releases. And I’m pretty damn impressed by the sheer output once I sat down and collected ‘em all into one place.
Anyway, if you got a minute to spare I sure as heck would appreciate you taking the time to share this .png on your Facebook or G+ page with the text below. And if you spam the shit out of it do a darn good job spreading the word I promise I’ll make it worth your while! Share the pic, copy and paste the text below. Thanks!
My my, it’s gonna be a most productive ol’ 2013! Slated for release – with a chance for a couple of bonus goodies – we’ve got the following stuff ready for release. Check it out and please share!
IN SPACE EP: Six track synth-ish EP inspired by general space geekiness. Features the rough-mix of the title track that will appear on the S/T full length.
ARMAGEDDON DUB: Two dub tracks deemed “too dark” for inclusion on the S/T full length. Features guest appearances of Australian musician The Jimmy C and The New York Brass. Heady and heavy!
THEY CALL ME SUPERSEVEN: Seventeen tracks written for and inspired by the The Adventures of Superseven and Sandra West web series/feature. Very 60s sounding. Very loud. With some xylophones too!
CHASING THE DAWN EP: Three 80′s sounding tracks written specifically for an upcoming feature film set in 1980s Los Angeles. Think Carpenter, ninjas and neon.
CALL ME GREENHORN 2 EP: aka ‘The Abandoned Project’. A total of eleven tracks written and recorded throughout 2012 (and 2013!) that were scrapped in favor for the new material created with more up-to-date equipment. Plunderphonics meets the kitchen sink! Features appearances by The New York Brass.
S/T: Currently in the works, this is technically the second full length from this solo project. Features all kinds of sounds ranging from garage to dub to Kraftwerkian beats. Guest appearances from all over the damn planet!
L´ISOLA DEI MORTI VIVENTI: Ever heard of Fabrizio Ardente‘s ZOMBIES: Island of the Living Dead? Don’t feel bad if you don’t ’cause it never existed. Inspired by the late 70′s synth sounds created by Fabio Frizzi for Lucio Fulci‘s cult classic Zombie Flesh Eaters, this faux-OST will feature songs imagined for a gory, Italian-produced video nasty circa 1982. Currently in the works it’s most likely to turn out as an 8-song EP.
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.
Well, fever and sore kidneys be damned, I gotta create dammit! I’ve been cooped up too long and getting pretty damn restless just lying around at home, so I kinda made this up on the spot: Call Me GreenhornChasing the Dawn, which is pretty much me trying to out-Carpenter John Carpenter. I’m pretty satisfied with the results and the sleeve looked kinda nice, so check it out on my SoundCloudhere and please share.
UPDATE: I’ve just had it confirmed in writing that this, or “a similar track”, in fact will be used in an upcoming action feature length due to be released in 2014.
The Rat Pack meets alien attack in the brilliant John Carpenter‘s The Thing: The Musical! Created by Jon and Al Kaplan that gave the world Conan: The Musical this comes complete with lyrics so you can swing, baby, swing while The Thing, uh, does its thing I guess. I love stuff like this. Ever seen the footage of Tom Hanks doing the Transformers ThemeFrank Sinatra style?
Please note that the trailer offers some pretty graphic sequences.
Via Eva Halloween I found the second red band trailer for the 2013 remake of Evil Dead. And I gotta admit, for someone who turns into Angry Old Fart way too many times for comfort when it comes to this phenomenon, the trailer looks great! They certainly didn’t skimp on the gore, there certainly are gonna be scenes at least as intense (and with a bit of luck even more) as the original, and even though I think some of the male characters, well, look like wimps, I’m waiting ’til I’ve seen it before I go whining about “bad casting”. Sure, the dub step music is a bit of a turn off, but I doubt today’s 18-year-olds are as big on The Ramones as me.
Now, I know there are some “original, real fans” out there – and just out of curiosity, how would you distinguish a “fake one”? – who sees it differently and sure are spending a lot of time grumbling and trolling about this, but c’mon, does this look like a cheap Hollywood knock-off to you? If the producers wanted to make a quick buck out of this franchise they would’ve gutted it completely! If you’re such a great fan (and have that much free time to spend), treat yourself to a game and pop in your original VHS while taking notes of all the commercial no-nos it offers. Remember that this was released unrated back in the 80s because the MPAA frankly wanted to pretty much neuter it, and when it was resubmitted in 1994 it received an NC-17 “for substantial graphic horror violence and gore.“ Remove all that and what would you have left of the original concept? I’ll tell you: A bunch of stupid teenagers going to a remote cabin. The end.
Just like the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre or The Exorcist, what blew me away with Sam Raimi‘s horror debut was that it was just one long, uncompromising and exhaustingly horrific experience that just kept pummeling you silly for 90 minutes, and when it finally ended you were actually relieved it was over! Now, even though it offers spoilers Ain’t It Cool News offered a script analysis in February 2012 (check it out here, but as I said, there are spoilers) and sums it up “it reads like NC-17″ and calls it a “beast” – not words commonly used when talking about anemic remakes, and pretty reaffirming if you ask me! If still in doubt we’ve got script writer Diablo Cody‘s making comments like it’s “unbelievably violent” and “It was really important again to the filmmakers that it remain totally grounded in reality and timeless. They weren’t trying to make some hip trendy horror movie full of pop culture references” (check that one out here) and you’ll at least know it looks killer on paper. And if nothing else they at least are trying to avoid the typical “ironic” approach so common in horror and remakes. Add the fact that ‘Mr. Groovy’ himself Bruce Campbell have offered statements reassuring fans that neither he, Sam, or Robert Tapert were out for a quick money grab – you really think they need it after the Spider-Man trilogy? – and that they have the highest confidence in both cast and director, well, I for one am pretty assured about the end results.
So, long story short, judging by the new snippets found in this compared to the first trailer I wrote about here, plus the additional arguments offered here, this looks even more like a highly intense remake that once again will scare the crap outta you. I mean, Tom Savini made a great remake of Night of the Living Dead, John Carpenter made a killer job with The Thing, and don’t forget David Cronenberg‘s amazing (and genuine reboot!) of The Fly, so the occasional good remake actually does happen. And to me this has so far the signs of actually being another one. My birthday is in April and I am so treating myself to a movie ticket!
Oh man, I was reminded of this via Eva Halloween‘s latest post (and I choose not to comment on the “death by Snowman butt-hurt” *ahem*): The original 1974 stalk-and-slash classic Black Christmas! Directed by Bob Clark this pre-dates John Carpenter‘s Halloween by at least three years, and even though it’s nowhere near as gory as today’s slasher films (or the slashers of the 80s) it’s one hella creepy flick, mostly thanks to the complete and utter nut job that’s stalking a dorm of sorority girls the night before X-Mas holidays. It may be anemic but it’ll scare the pants off you!
Funny anecdote when it comes to that whole “origin of the slasher film” – told by Clark himself in the audio commentary available on the great Tartan Grindhouse DVD release – he was actually approached by then-inexperienced director Carpenter who really wanted to see a follow-up to his film. Clark declined but Carpenter refused to take no for an answer. They communicated for a while on this subject, and when Carpenter finally realized Clark had no interest in doing a follow-up he asked him to at least toy with the idea. And Clark told him that for a sequel he’d start with the killer escaping from prison/mental hospital and return to the town where the killings took place to finish off the ones that escaped. And he’d set it in a different holiday like Halloween.
No matter what (there are some confirmations that Carpenter actually served as an apprentice for Clark) this is a killer movie (pun intended) and if you haven’t seen it – do!
Man, this week has been utterly insane. I thought I’d been intense before when it comes to output, but this has definitely been something else. And I’ve got the bloodshot, baggy eyes to prove it! But I am done. Finished. Allowed to just sit on my behind and spend the rest of the weekend getting into the second season of The Walking Dead. It’s a bit slower-paced than the first, and they sure do get a lil’ bit preachy in this one but it’s still – easily – one of the best tv-series I’ve seen in years.
Anyway, finishing up the final details for The Norliss TapesIt’s Halloween EP yesterday I decided to make a video for it on the spot. The song was great (Staffan had the verse finished, I wrote lyrics to the melody and he finished up with the chorus) and hearing the finished audio track I knew I just had to get going. And I totally lucked out choosing Herk Harvey‘s 1962 chiller classic Carnival of Souls as it hasgreat tone, some beautiful photography and a truly great performance by lead-actress Candace Hilligoss. And lots of the edits in the video just came together so beautifully I can assure you it was such a fluid process it really didn’t feel like “work” at all. Easily one of my all-time favorite horror movies it was made for a ridiculously low amount of money and is considered by some to be an independent cinematic masterpiece. If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it! Considered to be in the public domain you can find it online at Archive.org.
I gotta say that with this EP the whole project sure took some strides forward. Me and Staffan were truly riffing off of each other and like I already stated what began as an idea of doing one seasonal song and give away for free we ended up with a five-track mammoth offering tons of variety. We’ve got some Carpenter, some Kraftwerk, some Beastie Boys influenced weirdness and cool samples from horror classics like Dracula starring Bela Lugosi and George Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead. Check it out on Bandcamphere and how about a tiny taste? Maybe you wanna sing along?
Bonfires light up the night, offering protection
As we slowly retreat to the warmth inside
Under the full moon’s light, somewhere in the cold
There’s a sudden howl, come closer child
It’s Halloween
It’s Halloween
Soon skeletons walk, they’re the dancing dead
Demons gather in shadows, they’re allowed to feed
And as lovers caress, clutch themselves for safety
They pass through the trees, shrieking with delight
It’s Halloween
It’s Halloween…
Yes, boyfiends and ghoulfriends, it’s Halloween! My fave holiday of the year! Nothing wrong with spending X-Mas with your family or getting hammered on Midsummer, but All Hallows Eve is dedicated to horror fer chrissakes – how can you not love that? An age-old tradition it dates back to the 9th century, and unlike what some party poopers claim it is far from satanic and actually a mix of the Old religion and early Christian faith marking the Fall equinox. The Celts called it Samhain and the night was spent lighting huge bonfires to chase evil away while beggars went door-to-door offering prayers for dead relatives souls in return for “soul cakes.” This of course mutated into the “trick or treat” tradition.
Being on a worknight I’m making bigger plans for the weekend but tonight I am definitely getting cozy on the couch with some old faves like George Romero‘s brilliant Night of the Living Dead, the super-chiller Carnival of Souls or Vincent Price‘s Last Man on Earth. And John Carpenter‘s Halloween is mandatory viewing of course (it’s pretty much a no-brainer), but I think I’m saving that for the weekend.
So how about lighting some Jack o’ Lanterns (actually an Irish tradition) to keep the darkness away and pop in a couple of old faves in the DVD player? I’ve got some soothing music to get you in the mood baby!
