Night After Night

Critically acclaimed film director, producer, and screenwriter M. Night Shyamalan will host an evening to celebrate one of the most successful collaborations between a contemporary film director and a composer—Shyamalan and the Emmy® and GRAMMY®–winner, James Newton Howard. This performance highlights Howard’s haunting scores that became part of the identity of eight of Shyamalan’s eerie, mind-bending thrillers—The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, The Last Airbender, and more. Howard will lead Your Philadelphia Orchestra with special appearances by pianist Jean Yves Thibaudet, violinist Gil Shaham, and cellist Maya Beiser in this incredible one-night-only event!

Click below for tickets...

Anthology II: Movie Themes 1976-1988

Coming October 6th from John Carpenter...

Anthology II (Movie Themes 1976-1988) continues the celebration of his compositional genius via an excellently sequenced collection of some of his most iconic pieces of music from his extensive filmography, all newly recorded with his musical collaborators Daniel Davies and Cody Carpenter. 

The compilation includes selections from Escape From New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, They Live, Assault on Precinct 13, Prince of Darkness, The Fog, Halloween (and its sequels), and beyond.

Click below for an amazing track from the album...

Scored To Death

Really looking forward to this documentary.

I love that there's an interest in stuff like this these days (assumption).  Film music, Horror or otherwise, was always such a part of my life when I was growing up.  You could tell who a composer was back then, just by listening to the music.  And if you couldn't, you certainly could tell the good ones.  Like you knew something magical was happening when you heard Carpenter's HALLOWEEN...  Or that beautifully creepy motif in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.  The massive scores of James Horner, John Williams, or Jerry Goldsmith were their own characters in those movies they scored.  And something like Bill Conti's theme from ROCKY was legit a living person.

Enter buzz kill:

Do modern scores do anything these days?  I can't think of a single one that I'd really want to listen to over and over again.  Scores used to be fun stand-alone things.  Now they're just like the movies they're slapped onto - fast and forgettable.  I can't think of a single modern motif or theme.  Here's hoping there's a Cultural Rennaissance coming.  I think I need one.  

Click below for the trailer...

Now Playing: Christine (Simulakrum Lab Cover)

Thinking of that time I hung out with John Carpenter as he played some tracks for me (I was in the audience at one of his concerts in 2016).  Though I'm certain our eyes met at one point (they didn't).

Click below...

‘Homecoming’: All the Classic Movie Soundtracks In The Series – And Why Sam Esmail Used Them

Wow.  This is nuts.  Neat article about the music used in this new series.  I scrolled through and saw episode 7's music:

Episode 7

“Gray Lady Down,” composer Jerry Fielding
“The Thing,” composer Ennio Morricone
“The Andromeda Strain” (TV Series), composer Joel J. Richard
“Christine,” composer John Carpenter & Alan Howarth
“The Parallax View,” composer Michael Small
“The Thing,” composer Ennio Morricone
“The Fog,” composer John Carpenter
“Halloween 3,” composer John Carpenter & Alan Howarth

I then checked out the episode (by clicking through it to find the tracks) and it really seemed to work perfectly.  Definitely going to give this series a try.

Click below for the story:

Interview With Cody Carpenter

This brief interview made me pretty excited about the upcoming HALLOWEEN score and what the experience has been like for John Carpenter's son Cody.  Must be neat to work with your dad on something like this and not end up realizing why you stopped buying Father's Day cards years ago.

Click below...

Two Versions Of The Halloween Theme?

Never knew [noticed] that the Halloween theme from the film is different from the version found on the soundtrack.  As a guy who THINKS he's a refined film score/movie music aficionado, I simply cannot believe my brains never detected a rather significant difference between the two. 

Click Michael below to hear for yourself...

Thanks, Sara, for sending this link my way (and for ruining everything).

John Carpenter: Anthology

My GOD, man.

“Anthology is a near-comprehensive survey of John Carpenter’s greatest themes, from his very first movie, the no-budget sci-fi film Dark Star, to 1998’s supernatural Western, Vampires. Those sit alongside the driving, Led Zeppelin-influenced Assault on Precinct 13 theme, Halloween’s iconic 5/4 piano riff, and the eerie synth work of The Fog. Carpenter and his band also cover Ennio Morricone’s bleak, minimalist theme for The Thing.”

“We also get vital new recordings of the themes to ’80s classics and fan favorites Big Trouble in Little China, Escape From New York, Christine, and They Live, along with the romantic Starman. The collection is rounded out by the menacing, heavy themes to Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness, the latter a Metallica-inspired riff originally played for the film by Kinks guitarist Dave Davies, and now played by his son Daniel.”

Here’s the full track list:
1. “In the Mouth of Madness”
2. “Assault on Precinct 13”
3. “The Fog”
4. “Prince of Darkness”
5. “Santiago (Vampires)”
6. “Escape From New York”
7. “Halloween”
8. “Porkchop Express (Big Trouble in Little China)”
9. “They Live”
10. “The Thing”
11. “Starman”
12. “Dark Star”
13. “Christine”

More info here...

Halloween II Suite B (Bonus Mix)

I must admit I never heard this track before.   I created a John Carpenter Pandora channel and it's been glorious, with gems like this one.  Stuff from Bladerunner, Tangerine Dream, Carpenter's Lost Themes albums, the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, and all the Carpenter films (as well as tracks from Tron: Legacy? [love it though])...

Click below for the Halloween II track...

Now Playing: Collage

Horner's score for Titanic is one of the best-selling orchestral soundtracks of all time. He won an Oscar for that score and another for the film's theme song, Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." But his career began much more modestly: He started out scoring pulpy B-movies, including Humanoids from the Deep for Roger Corman. His wife, Sara Horner, remembers meeting James when they were both students at UCLA.

"He took all of the money he made on Humanoids from the Deep, and then dumped it into the next score — he didn't take any money out," she says. "He used it to make the music as good as he could and lived off the money he made as a TA at UCLA."

She adds, laughing, "We just lived on nothing, just nothing."


Click below for samples from his Collage release:

Click here for the article.

Now Playing: Lookout Point

By James Horner.

Today is the one year anniversary of his untimely death.

Wanted to post an appropriate track from a favorite soundtrack...

Now Playing: Wild Horses

By François-Eudes Chanfrault, composer of the amazing score to Jamie Marks Is Dead.

Now Playing: Waterland

By Carter Burwell.

Click below (and then scroll to the bottom right [it's worth it {seriously}]):

Scary Scores: Continued

Sinister had a pretty intense and scary score.

Click below for a favorite scene.  And make sure to turn up the volume nice and loud so you can fully appreciate the subtle and unnerving dark ambient-ish track...

Scary Scores

Neat article over at Bloody Disgusting:
Which Horror Scores Actually Scare You...
As a guy who loves film music and dark ambient stuff, I have to ponder this one.
The Fog?, Silent Hill?, Suspiria?,... Halloween?

Click below for the article:

And click here for a spooky track from James Horner's Aliens.

Now Playing: Brothers In Arms

Now I really have to see this film.

Click below:

 Image source.

Now Playing: 30 Days Of Night

Mr. and Mrs. Sheriff. 
So sweet. 
So helpless against what is coming. 

Click below for the complete soundtrack:

Phantasm V

Incredible poster for the potential fifth film in the series (I LOVE the first one).

Click here for more information.

Click here for a track from the soundtrack.

Soundtracking

Dug out this old favorite - James Horner's score to Star Trek III:  The Search for Spock.  Probably the scariest and darkest of all the Trek films.  The Enterprise gets mothballed.  The Genesis Planet is a failed experiment.  Two starships get blown up - one is packed with Federation crew, the other is loaded with Klingons (so we're happy about that one).  There are horrible Klingon bastards, who take hostages.  Kirk's son is one of those hostages, and they murder him.

It's a dark, slow movie.  And it's my favorite of the series.  And as I listened to the soundtrack last night, I realized that it would never get made today.  It wasn't over-the-top enough.  It wasn't packed with chaotic effects and people running and shouting.

The score was massive.  Ten feet thick in most places.  So you had this giant score put to slow-moving scenes of slow-moving starships and slow-moving drama.  And it worked.  Incredibly. 

I felt kinda sad knowing that there will never be something like it again from Hollywood.  And weird to ponder that most of the cool movies I worship from my youth would never be made today. 

But I felt lucky to have known it.  So there's that.

Click below for a cool track to a nice drawn-out scene where two starships are about to wrastle.

In The Wall

Great track by Clint Mansell.

Click below: