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.
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.
I was mighty sick for much of the week, Friday into Saturday being absolutely brutal. My wife pushed her remedy of dandelion tea with apple cider vinegar at me like it was my favorite vitamin water to clean out all the toxins that were chewing my guts out. Yesterday, I felt like a million bucks and spent hours grinding out promotional and requests like a madman for Bringing in the Creeps. Boom!
The moral of the story, according to this ad, my friends, is, if you don’t want Godzilla wrecking your city, give the big boy all the damn Snickers bars he wants!
Staying hot while the oven’s cooking. Coming soon, my horror story, “Bentalou Crush” (all my 29 years’ worth of mortgage title company peeps are gonna want in on this) will be appearing in the terrors from the workplace anthology, Dread Mondays. Edited by Stephen Capone, 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.
Roads Lesser Traveled 