When I look at two iconic soul and funk groups of yesteryear, I pinpoint Kool & The Gang and The Isley Brothers, two bands who began their runs with one signature sound, then morphed into something wholly different.

I prefer the early years of Kool & The Gang, the funk and jive ensemble from 1969 to 1976 before they broke out huge from 1979 through the mid-Eighties with their popping commercial hits “Ladies Night,” “Get Down on It,” “Celebration” and “Too Hot.” You can actually get two best-of compilations breaking the band down between these eras. The latter year stuff is what sold, though you could readily add “Jungle Boogie,” “Open Sesame (Get Down With the Genie)” and “Summer Madness” as bridges to the commercial era, even if they were still more horn-driven and chittering synthesizer than the moneymakers were. I love all these tunes, but the real Kool & The Gang for me is “Funky Stuff,” “Hollywood Swinging,” “Give it Up,” “Love the Life You Live” and “Kool It (Here Comes the Fuzz).”

The Isley Brothers, who threw down Sixties rump-shaking party jams like “Shout,” “I Turned You On” and “It’s Your Thing” evolved into a soul-kissed, lightning bright funk troupe with some of the most sizzling guitar solos out there dealt by Ernie Isley. No doubt picking up what Funkadelic was laying down, the Isleys of the Seventies were the real deal. They could fry your brains with hard funk and acid washes on “That Lady,” “Take Me to the Next Phase,” “I Wanne Be With You,” “Fight the Power,” “The Pride” and red-hot “Live it Up.”

In the Seventies, the Isley Brothers became social protestors with their music aside from sultry smooth gigolos. Their influence was so huge you can hear “Footsteps in the Dark” sampled by Ice Cube for his biggest hit “It Was a Good Day” and the Notorious B.I.G. flooded his work with the Isleys “Between the Sheets.” More recently, hip hop superstar Kendrick Lamar hoisted the Isleys’ “That Lady” for his banging cut of positivity, “i.” Eighties supergroup The Power Station did a slamming cover of the Isleys’ “Harvest for the World” on their only LP. This as the Isleys themselves did a stirring, emotive cover of Seals & Crofts’ “Summer Breeze.”

I had the hardest time picking what I wanted to bring you all from the Isley Brothers for this week’s Thursday Throwback Jam. That was, until I put myself into my little kid shoes and let my mind drift to my mom (a soul loving whitey sista who seldom missed an episode of Soul Train) gliding around the living room with the radio on to this sensuous classic, “For the Love of You.” It’s a song that stops me in my tracks and makes my head slide and my hips move, as recently as a few months ago in a furniture store where I think I endeared myself to our soul sista rep watching me geek out to this cut.

Two bands, one I love more in their beginning steps, the other in their colossal overhaul many years later. Dig it.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

With the Alien: Earth prequel miniseries underway (dialed up on my viewing queue for tomorrow), here’s a musical reminder where the franchise started, on the spools of Jerry Goldsmith’s otherworldly opening to the 1979 original, Alien.

I was age nine when Alien came out, no hope of getting to see it as a rated R flick. Sure, they sold Alien trading cards at our local 7-11 and I bought a handful of packs to satiate my curiosity about the horror-sci-fi classic. There was that impossibly huge 18-inch Xenomorph action figure in our local Mammoth Mart that I never could save my allowance up to get, since it flew off the shelves in the same week of its release. I was later handed the same toy, sans the creature’s back tubing, in my 20s, and it was still a joy to have.

Suffice it to say, once I got to see Alien then Aliens and so forth, it became one of my favorite franchises ever. Landing a copy of Goldsmith’s iconic score became a treasure in my late forties, and I’m still immersed and enthralled by the entire soundtrack. There was a reason Goldsmith was entrusted with Alien, coming right off the heels of his heroic score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In space, they might not be able to hear you scream, but there’s plenty other clang and clatter in the furthest reaches of Andromeda.

Bring on Alien: Earth!

A true maverick of her time, the Queen of Rockabilly, Wanda Jackson. She carried the swagger, the attitude, the rhythm guitar and the country swill shoved with confidence into the new brand of rock ‘n roll music which blossomed then caught like madfire in the 1950s. Seldom few women were given the leverage Jackson had in her time, at least to throw down with a snarl and a hint of trifling with her comes with a wicked price. She was girl power before such a thing ever existed.

One of Wanda’s bigger hits from the day, “I Gotta Know” appears in the opening scene of my story “Chickeerun” from Bringing in the Creeps. A game of vehicular death set in 1957 for which I culled an entire soundtrack of tunes from the day. I set out to make Rebel Without a Cause meets American Graffiti meets Stephen King’s Sometimes They Come Back, and Jackson’s twang and bangs her way over the outdoor dancing of the teen populace in my story.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

One of the most crankable tunes from the later Seventies and early Eighties new wave scene is Missing Persons’ riff-o-matic strutter, “Walking in L.A.”

Most folks who know and care about Missing Persons recognize them for their heavy synthesizers and particularly punkette lead vocalist Dale Bozzio’s pipsqueak rim shots. She savvily dropped them with precise timing as accent marks at the end of verse lines, most famously to the point of delightful annoyance in “What Are Words For.” Or in this song’s case, as a snarky pop at the tail of “Walking in L.A.”‘s” choruses to punch out an “ay-ay!”

All to juice up her former husband Terry Bozzio’s jab at the pretentious elite of Los Angeles circa 1982. Also reportedly cooking up this juicy number in reaction to many local comedians of the day poking fun at everyone in the city driving around aimlessly. Likely to peacock behind the wheel more so than for actual commuting purposes.

What I love best about this song aside of the biting sarcasm and Dale Bozzio’s jagged huffing are those punchy, snapcase guitars. You can’t not plow this sucker into the open air from the rolled down windows of your car. No doubt the precise subtext behind the message Missing Persons was dropping here.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Brazilian thrashers Sepultura have a long and storied past, and I’ve had the privilege of interviewing many of their members, including the Cavalera brothers, Max and Iggor and the matriarch of the Cavalera tribe, Gloria. A beautiful family, and collectively with my time spent chatting with Andreas Kisser and second stint vocalist Derrick Green, all being some of the finest hours I spent in the music industry.

The classic and confrontational Chaos A.D. album from 1993 saw Sepultura slowing down a bit from their steady stream of speed metal, but the changeup in attack plan was to the better. The dialed-back, steadier grooves allowed the band to better shove their war protests and hostile sociopolitical condemnations with such seething anger it wouldn’t have resonated as much playing at breakneck. Sadly, 32 years ago, the themes Sepultura were balking at (political corruption, racism, corporate greed, countries tearing each apart on battlefields manipulated by dictators) have reared their ugly heads again in modern times.

The anarchic lead song, “Refuse/Resist” needs no further preamble, other than it’s a blistering stomp anthem kicking off one of metal’s most important records of all-time. By the time this bombastic march spills into the ferocious and skulking “Territory” thereafter, if you’ve never heard the entire Chaos A.D. album, you’ll know in a hurry you’ve been put on the front lines of a brutal world that needs even more change today than it did in 1993.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

This week I’m throwing a double shot of Throwback Thursday Jams to honor the passing this week of two legends who pioneered funk, soul and rock in immeasurable ways. Sly Stone and Brian Wilson. Geniuses not only in their respective genres, but fearless innovators who molded the future of music latched onto and made further imperative through future icons like Prince and Radiohead.

Get yourself revved up in remembrance by this popping live rendition of “I Want to Take You Higher” by Sly and the Family Stone. By live, I mean live, no synching, played there in the studio, with Sly and Rose Stone literally taking it to Ed Sullivan’s gleeful, clapping audience. This clip alone stands as a celebration of the man’s life and music and his mission to flower power the masses with social-minded, rump shaking funk.

Though “I Get Around” is my favorite Beach Boys song and they have scores of breezy, jumpy numbers which were staples for decades, I chose to tip my hat to Brian Wilson with his fervent and melancholic “God Only Knows,” perhaps his greatest singular masterpiece. From the Pet Sounds album, which has rightfully ascended to a place of prominence in history, an album once vilified by some. If you know the legend, Wilson felt a quiet competition with The Beatles, with whom he was friends. Upon hearing their masters for Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Wilson was that devastated by their game-changing art, he was compelled to experiment in similar fashion with Pet Sounds.

Rest in power, Sly and Brian.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

People forget what a stir the erotic thriller Basic Instinct caused in 1992, but I’ll never forget (other than who my date was, lol) when I engaged the film with a sold-out audience. Already culling a reputation within a week of release for Sharon Stone’s bursting sexuality (particularly the notorious upskirt interrogation scene), I loved the movie for its tenseness and noir overtones and thought Stone and Michael Douglas played their adversarial dark romance to perfection.

I remember everyone in the theater nervously laughing at the fearlessness of Stone’s on-top grinding motions in the sex scenes, seldom depicted so boldly in a mainstream rated R movie. Once she and Douglas are in the rave club (with the amazing slam of LaTour’s “Blue” throbbing all around them and us, as the viewers) and we discover Stone has a jealous female lover, everyone gasped and groaned. Bisexuality was seldom touched on in film back then, keep in mind. With this playing into the film’s finale, it’s no wonder everyone laughed again as Stone shags Douglas once more, making us feel he is yet again on the edge of death’s door. Is this thing between them for real, or is Stone really going to take him out like a black widow after jetting her juice? La Petite Mort? Fake out! But WTF? That icepick under the bed!!

Now, as many of you know, I’m a madman for film scores and soundtracks. I always play a score when writing fresh material. The late composer Jerry Goldsmith’s gusting noir behind Basic Instinct is one of his many masterpieces. Breezy, impetuous, sexy. Deadly. One of my go-tos for creation.

I recall being enthralled in the theater in ’92 by the haunting and elegant tapestries Goldsmith weaves into the film and even my date commented on its gorgeous breeziness. She’d grabbed for my hand once at a jump scare in the film, that sticks out in my mind. All these years later, I play the soundtrack more than the movie, though I figure I’m overdue for a return drop into Stone and Douglas’ sensuous playground of murder.

As to Goldsmith, I hear numerous hails of Alex North’s Spartacus score from 1960 and passages from Miklós Rózsa’s Ben-Hur, 1959 in the opening sections. The rest of Goldsmith’s Basic Instinct comes (to my ears) a more Gothic soar from blueprints laid down by John Williams, even if comparing both of these masters’ work to one another is ultimately a cheat.

Goldsmith and Williams are, combined, the most prolific film composers of all time when you span Jerry Goldsmith’s career back to scoring 1950s t.v. series. Alien, the original Planet of the Apes and The Omen, Poltergeist, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (and many other Trek projects), Chinatown, Papillion, both Gremlins movies, Total Recall, Hoosiers, L.A. Confidential are some of his most iconic film scores and I assure you I’m nowhere near skimming the surface to Goldsmith’s mountainous resume. His work behind 1999’s The Mummy is probably my most-played score of Goldsmith’s, but when I’m working on something sinister, flirty with an edge of dirty, you better believe the music of Basic Instinct is often fueling me.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

It’s been my earworm for four days straight. It remains my favorite non-scored piece of music from the entire Friday the 13th legacy, and I’m damned partial to Lion’s “Love is a Lie” from Friday the 13th Part IV: The (not-so) Final Chapter and Pseudo Echo’s “His Eyes” from the fifth Friday film. Alice Cooper’s “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)” is a post-disco death dream come true that’s also up there for me. Even The Hives’ “Tick Tick Boom” in the banging 2009 Friday the 13th remake, though I’d already long been on Team Hives then.

The laughable dreck that is Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan didn’t deserve the graces of its finest Jason actor (Kane Hodder), nor was it worthy of such a funky, jazzy hard rock number from the one-and-done Metropolis of 1989. Not to be confused with the German prog band nor the mid-Nineties hair resurrection group. All three were blips on the rock map, but it’s this Metropolis we’re concerned about here, the masterminds of bassist/vocalist Peter Fredette and drummer/guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Stan Meissner. The only Metropolis band to leave an imprint that counted, even kicking off one of the most abysmal horror sequels of all-time.

Now, because Kane Hodder is so good, so savage and at times purposefully hilarious as Jason Voorhees, that’s really the only reason drop into Friday VIII. As I stated in a film review I did back in the day on the movie for my college campus newspaper, Spectrum, it should’ve been subtitled “Jason Takes a Cruise,” since that’s the primary habitat for his ’89 murder spree. Hell, most of the city footage was filmed in Vancouver, not New York, even with accurate cityscape montages and Hodder’s hysterical rampage through Times Square.

“The Darkest Side of the Night” burns like a fire, as Fredette and Meissner claim in lyrical form. Even today, it reminds me of the pimp-swinging chimes behind long forgotten shaving cream and cologne ads from the day, but the swagger and strut of this tune is goddamn infectious. So much, I feel myself sag whenever I play the entire film’s clattery synth score by Fred Mollin, who took over full duty from his prior collab with the iconic Harry Manfredini in the seventh film. Mollin was already scoring the ill-fated, if fan popular Friday the 13th: The Series, and he does possess a sense of dank atmospherics to his work.

Yet, most people could care less. I’m not the only fan of Metropolis’ classy and elegant pumper “Darkest Side of the Night,” and I’m confident in saying those of who actually care about it feel like we’re taken back home to better (if cheesier) times. I back it up three times, maybe four, whenever I put it on. Smiling there’s an instrumental version of the cut at the rear of the soundtrack. Paramount knew what they had back then, kudos to them.

Enjoy this well-done threading of Friday VIII’s kill scenes and Hodder’s genius comedy timing set in time to the song. Show some respect and try to survive on the darkest side…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Here’s your earworm of the day, because it hasn’t stopped wriggling inside mine since yesterday. I have memories of being a child and my mother playing the Captain & Tennille in the mid 1970s on vinyl and of course, there’d they be again, on AM radio, which was still hip then.

Funny to watch this thing now, since lip synching was the norm for decades on musical variety shows. Where’s the drummer and bass guitar player? Hmmm. Well, still easy to fall in love with that dusty bob and those glittery teeth with the ultimate pop candy of the day with more sugar than a bowl of Boo Berry cereal.

You’re welcome.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.