Movie Scores

You know, I'm a big fan of movie scores, particularly symphonic ones. Morricone and Elfman come quickly to mind, the former slightly more limited to a handful (The Mission in particular), and the latter - well, for nearly everything of his. John Williams stuff, though, is in a separate category, above and beyond all others.

I'm listening to Gustav Holst's The Planets, as performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus and conducted by James Levine, and I've come to a realization. It's the best John Williams composition he never wrote!

And no, I'm not just referring to Mars, the Bringer of War, which Williams pretty much looted lock, stock, and barrel to create the Imperial Stormtooper theme for Star Wars - the other planets seem to have imprinted themselves throughout all of Williams' stuff.

Which, by the way, is not a Bad Thing.

Pieces of Me: Smoke Signals

Where there's smoke
there's fire,
Don't be playing ball in the street...

Extreme - Smoke Signals

Not only is Extreme very fond of writing songs out of nothing but cliche; not only has their vocalist gone on to become (briefly) the worst lead singer Van Halen ever had (despite being the most talented of the bunch); not only did said vocalist attend high school with a close friend who hasn't made it into these stories yet; not only did their bass player lose his wifegirlfriend to me (for which he thanked me later, at a time when I knew exactly how thankful he was, and why - indeed, I thanked my successor as well, although he judged the next in line to be too psychotic for civil conversation, thus breaking the chain), not only did all of the above happen - but it has absolutely no bearing on the rest of this.

( In which this particular episode is discussed, in some length (but not that much. Just enough to need a cut, really.) )

Where there's smoke
there's fire,
What you sow is what you reap.

Extreme - Smoke Signals