We've been told Skyfall, this year's Bond, isn't bad at all as far as the movie goes but the title song is here sung by Adele and it definitively won't leave any memories...

There are very few music themes as remarquable as the Monty Norman's immortal James Bond theme and, with the help of Vic Flick and that incredible guitar riff, is no doubts one of the best lmusic theme ever bar Morricon's Good, Bad And The Ugly, Hitchcocks' The Birds, Jaws, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

This strange mixture of bombastic brass, major seven intertwining with minor notes and diminished fifths who give that incredible suave melange of tension, drama, excitement and expectation. Truly a wonderful piece of timeless music. Let's look at some of Bond's finest musical moments...

1962: the original theme, penned by Monty Norman and played by the John Barry Orchestra.
1964: the lavish Shirley Bassey in Goldfinger
1973: the very raw Paul McCartney/Georges Martin's Live And Let Die.
1985: Duran Duran sings a John Barry's impeccable A View To A Kill
1987: A-Ha does the same with The Living Daylight
1995 sees Bono and The Edge delivering "Golden Eye"...

Might be summer time, might be because this oldie is a goldie: Steven Spielberg speaks with John Williams about the music of Indiana Jones.

Maybe you feel the same: doesn't it look like Steven Spielberg has spend half of his live directing (great) movies and the other half is spent explaining how he did it for DVD bonuses ? Well, in this video, John Williams (who scored Indiana Jones) get to explain how the main theme (the very famous tatalaaa tatalaaa) came about with actually two different themes they mixed as one being the main hookline and the other a bridge...Another interesting point is how much music is being used below the Indiana movies: they are pretty filled up.

John Williams, known for his full blast symphonic scores is the second more nominated person Academy Award, losing only to ...Walt Disney. He won 5 Academy Awards, 4 Golden Globe Awards, 7 BAFTA Awards, and no less than 21 Grammy Awards...His credits include no less than ET, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Superman, Close Encounters and...Tintin.

Son of a jazz musician, he went to Julliard School to perfect his skills and his career in movies started in 1960 with Checkmate but his big break...

It's not the first time a movie on Jimi Hendrix is being derailed by the Hendrix Experience Estate as they seem to dislike any initiative: they already turned down a movie script with Lenny Kravitz to act as the legendary guitar player (!).

But this time, John Ridley ( a novelist/movie director) will tell the story from a totally different angle one can expect as this movie will be the (true) story of a woman named Linda Keith, then Keith Richards' girlfriend, who discover a musician called Jimmy James and convince him to turn himself into Jimi Hendrix and will, despite the initial closed doors she encounters, get the left-handed genius to truly believe in himself. Far above another boring story about a musician and drugs/rock n'roll, this biopic might very well turn into a masterpiece and show how this very hard working musician bursted into the scene (the years are 66 and 67) and took music to an all different level.

Interesting enough, we found a 2 years old text from the director himself who talks about Linda Keith (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129855398 but...

Acrassicauda was the first Iraki heavy-metal band and as such it has been thru hell...They kinda could play gigs under Saddam's regime but headbanging wasn't authorized as it was too reminescent of the orthodox jews headmoves when praying (!) and they had to compose a song to the glory of the ex-dictator.

Vice magazine, a Montreal-born pop cutlure mag, wrote about them back in 2004 and that started interests from readers everywhere, and maybe too much interest from islamic factions which started to persecute Acrassicauda, thinking they were Saddam's protegees or, wost, US Forces protegees. Life began to be extremely difficult for them and they had to flee Irak and went to Syria. In 2007, the documentary "Heavy-Metal In Bagdad" (with Spike Jonze as exective producer !) started to be filmed and that angered the Syrian authorities who threw the band out of visa. They had to go to Turkey and sell all their equipment to be able to survive.

The Vice Magazine somehow felt guilty of such troubles as they were the ones behind the exposure of Acrassicauda to the world, and the documentary was their project. They decided to give 40.000 us $ to the band and relocated them to...

We were talking a few weeks ago about the Majors' decision to let the CD behind, to concentrate on digital and only use the shiny plastic for limited editions - be them "pure edition" (low cost low packaging CD) or luxury editions.

This move is commandeered for several reasons but here are two obvious ones: digital sales is picking up steam against CDs and retail shops are simply disappearing from the main streets.
In an era where social recommandation is the talk of the town and allows nearly every music startup a decent first round of the table, the end of the record shops (the ultimate place for real curated, knowledgeable recomm') sounds like an ending to all hope to see a music industry rise above the last ten gloomy years. That would be true if the love for music had disappeared but many, many people across the globe still have that special relationship with music, be it on vinyl or CD. And even tho they disappear from Main Street, we can see dedicated music shops appearing here and there. There will always be a place for music lovers to gather around.

The music loving english director Jeanie Finlay has done a beautiful crowdfunded documentary on...

Why oh why didn't the Penguin win over Gotham City and spare us of all the greedy franchising and let's -tour-the-worlds-arena-and-make-millions-with-this-obsession ?
Feels like any idea these days has to be marketed to endless repositioning of its famed assets to be redeveloped for new audiences, and hopefully new market shares...
What's next ? The TV serial Lost double-cheese hamburger ? A special edition of the Ford Focus equipped with the Harry Potter GPS guiding system that gives you the faster road to Harry's Hogwarts school ? A special Mojito cocktail called the Inception and which guarantees you to be drunk before even drinking it ?

This said, this Batman Live Arena tour looks decadent enough for sure, and has great music played with frantic light show for sure...Let's give it a chance, but nothing will beat the original Gotham Saviour in a movie theater. With Christian Bale behind the hood.

And let's all concentrate on doing great, original art, not ready-to-be-franchised mashed up art...
http://hangout.altsounds.com/features/...

David Lynch, the fantastic movie director of Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Sailor And Lula and the list goes on and on and on..., will released "Crazy Clown Time", a 14 tracks solo album, on November 8th.

This album has been penned by the Master himself, with the help of singer Karen O (The Yeah Yeah Yeahs). No doubt will it be featuring haunting tracks filled with strange vibes and organic twisted sounds...

Incidentally, the video for "I know", one of the song featured on the album, was done by by Tamar Drachli and chosen by David Lynch as official video thru a competition that saw 450 entries.
Some funny facts appeared on the way Lynch likes to work and one of them comes from Angelo Badalamenti, the composer of Falling (Twin Peaks thema): Angelo and David would sit down at a piano and Angelo would play immediately the moods described by David. Then, Angelo Badalamenti would be on the set, playing his music live while the actors would do their part...Aaaah, the magic of movie making :)

On the side, when not busy jamming with his buddy Moby in his recording studio or having speeches about transcendental meditation, David Lynch has found the time to...

Youtube is a marvellous maze which can contains anything from the most bizarre things to the worst kitch lolcats videos...It's also an incredible vault and sometimes browsing there can unveil things that were long forgotten. Some deserves to be that deeply hidden, some can really do with a second look cos they are captivating and brilliant moments worth seeing again.

Like this soundtrack from Alain Goraguer, a french composer who made himself a name by composing iconic french songs for Boris Vian (Fais moi mal Johnny, La Java des bombes atomiques,...) or arranging some of famous singer Serge Gainsbourg's extraordinary sixties albums. One of his biggest moment was when a Gainsbourg's song he did the arrangements for, "Poupée de cire poupée de son" sung by France Gall, won the 1965 Eurovision song contest.
He also wrote quite a few soundtracks and this is where we can dig this very strange yet captivating science-fiction cartoon called "La planête sauvage". We're a long way from Disney movies here, and the settings can be quite rough for the younger minds. Nevertheless it is a very poetic movie and a strong, inspiring soundtrack.

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