John Barry – The Ipcress File

[1965]

The coolest theme tune to a movie ever. Double retro of the mid 60s then this vibe was revived in the mid 90s with all the great trip-hop, lounge and downtempo gear. I have a vague recollection of a trip-hop act sampling this maybe, am I right?

That's not a guitar or a harpsichord no this one's all about the sound of that mysterious cimbalom, a Hungarian hammered dulcimer, giving this sparse spy jazz a sophisticated Euro touch. The moody vibes, creepy flutes and lonesome distant ghost of a trumpet combined with the menacing mellow melody of the cimbalom perfectly evoke a shadowy cold war atmosphere.  

DJ Crazee M - The Message

DJ Crazee M - The Message (1993)

Hardcore going into the darkside but not becoming overtly jungle-y. Bangin atmospheric techno more than anything. Fucking relentless and goes hard with the parapsychological sonics into the transmutating darkness. Totally plugged in to an inescapable visceral force. 

Jaime Mendoza-Nava - The Brotherhood of Satan

[1971]

Fitting creepy end title theme from the regional 70s horror cult movie set in the isolated small desert town of Hillsboro, where deadly accidents are rife, children are disappearing and the elderly residents just might be a coven of satanists. Fits right along side of similarly themed cult flicks of the same era Lets Scare Jessica To Death and Messiah Of Evil but not quite as legendary. 

Oh wait... just discovered the ever reliable Fish Man on youtube has put together a nine minute suite of music from the film... pretty eerie and pretty freaky... 

Jaime Mendoza-Nava seems to be another one of these composers who are so under appreciated they're barely recognised at all yet he is a serious composer with an extensive body of work from the sacred to the profane working with The Bolivian National Orchestra and Madrid Symphony Orchestra to scoring soundtracks for Westerns, B-Movies and even Disney cartoons.

SPORTS TV Themes

BRITISH EDITION

La Soiree - David Ordini

When I was little and used to play pretend soccer in the dining room this was the theme that we would belt out "baba ba baba baba ba baba" while pretending to be either Kenny Dalgliesh or Archibald, the only two British players we knew in 1979 or 80. So i finally figured out it was the theme tune to ITV's The Big Match which must have screened here in the 70s and 80s when it was just the first division English Football League... you know not corporate globalist social justice bull twang that it has become just like our very own Australian rules football league is now.

Grandstand Theme - Keith Mansfield

We got British soccer and snooker shows but we didn't get things like Grandstand as we had our own sports roundup shows so we missed out on this classic theme. It might actually be genius. Sprightly xylophones, triumphant brass, boings, brisk bongos, a searing lead break and a victorious fist pumping finale. A relentlessly upbeat anthem. Winners need only apply. We are all winning. The feel good anthem of our lives. 

The Doug Wood Band - Drag Racer (1976)

Here's a crackin theme tune. This was for BBC Snooker back in the 70s and 80s. I mean they needed a high octane and totally smokin funky blues fuelled jam because it was the snooker right. Many believe this to be the all time great sports tv theme tunes. 

Chase Side Shoot Up - Brian Bennett (1974)

Here's another spectacular theme that the BBC used back in the day. This was the theme for BBC Golf. Brian Bennett, a doyen in the fields of rock, tv themes and library music, is of course best known for being in The Shadows and his legendary theme for Channel 9's Cricket broadcasts. He always delivers. How does he inject so much positivity into a tune? Chase Side Shoot Up is a drivin' funky synth jam of the anthemic variety with forays into daydreamy moods, no wonder everybody loved it and hated it when the retards at the BBC changed it in the 00s after 25 years.  Peak Bennett!

These tunes aren't just kitschy nostalgic fun, no these sports telly themes are some of the greatest music made in the 70s.  

The Doug Wood Band - Cranes 

Some anthemic proggy synth funk goodness for the bbc darts show. It's all done and dusted in under a minute. Incredible stuff. Also darts is fucking great telly entertainment. Actually this is a bit like a horror synth prog jam in the vein of Goblin, Tangerine Dream or John Carpenter. Strange but then again darts is not a particularly normal sport if indeed it's a sport at all. I mean isn't it just a game for pissed people with the added danger of these drunk people handling a potentially dangerous weapon. 

The Big Fight Live Theme

A rip-snorter jock-rock disco anthem for some kind of Friday night boxing show on ITV. This is so plugged into the vibe of being pumped on a Friday night, being pumped for some boxing, being pumped for any old action and being pumped because you're alive living in the moment, it's perfect.  

Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) - Edwin Astley

[1969]

The brilliant theme tune by Edwin Astley. So 60s, so soundtracky, so damp, so English, so good with its moody harpsichord, deluxe sinister horn and string arrangement and downtempo beats. 

Unlike his contemporaries like John Barry, Edwin Astley (Virginia's dad) was quite under-documented for a top notch 50s & 60s British tv composer until 2008 when Network started issuing a series of soundtrack cd compilations. Still a lot of his film work has never seen light of day.

The original British opening credits to this unique occult detective fiction series ie. a show about the antics of a private eye and his ghost-y partner and his lovely widow. Hopkirk being a ghost gives the show a similar madcap quality to shows like I Dream Of Jeanie and Bewitched. The supernatural element lends itself to delicious comic situations.

The American opening credits. 

Here's My Late Lamented Friend And Partner the first episode of Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) from September 1969. It's a good fun show with great cars, vintage interiors, classic furniture and choice locations. I love the bit where they obviously had no budget to be smashing up cool expensive cars so they just parked an un-dinted car up to a pole and opened the bonnet to depict it had crashed. Can you imagine getting empty London streets to film in these days. The time capsule of a London that's never coming back... 

Imprint recently reissued a box set of the entire series on blu-ray. 

More On Movies... the return part V

The House That Vanished (1973)

British giallo directed by Jose Larraz. It's all about the stunning Andrea Allan's hair and well she gets her tits out too. Dilapidated mansions, black gloves, shine-y knives, masks, murder, boobs, sleazy photography, dark rooms, gloomy weather, fog, scrap car yards, shonky dudes, foxy ladies, incest, rape, birds, pet monkeys, the 70s, 70s furniture, 70s cars, 70s fashion, 70s England, 70s hair, 70s busters... 

Hell Or High Water (2016)

Good lil' low-key crime drama in the contemporary noir-western style Good. Written by Taylor Sheridan of Yellowstone fame. 

Somewhere In The Night (1946)

Paranoid amnesia noir. If Joe Mankiewicz had removed half an hour of fat from his flick it would be an all time top 10 of Film Noir instead of the underrated flabby coulda-been a masterpiece that it is. The captivating Nancy Guild shines here yet she was only in a handful of movies. 

Call Northside 777 (1948)  

Tedious ripped from the headlines crime noir... just who fucking cares? Shut up James Stewart!

1984 (1984)

The drab omnipresence of the globalist unaparty is here. When are the thought police catching you? That is the question in 2024. Your nightmare was foretold many years earlier... it's all so obvious now that you're a boring hack for pointing this out.

California Split (1974)

Peak Bob Altman. Peak Elliot Gould. Peak George Segal. Peak 70s. Peak America... even the seedy underbelly was better back then. Peak film-making. 

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The omnipresent Bond fans are so insufferable it's hard to care one iota about their beloved slice of pop culture but this is a bit of fun if you're in the right mood. Most notable for Barbara Bach's charms and the awesome submarine car. Roger Moore is best Bond, the only Bond really.

Carry On Abroad (1972)

The Carry On movies had been repeated on Aussie telly ad nauseam since I was born then to my surprise Morrissey did an article, in the pages of NME during the 80s, on his love for these movies. I've never had the appetite to investigate wether his point of view was valid or not until until now. 

I could not believe how much I enjoyed Carry On Abroad. Much to my amazement there were some hilarious jokes amongst the lame ones. The ensemble cast and their acting chops is what is really impressive here. Obviously Kenneth Williams is obviously the star, I mean it's obvious but actually they're all stars. 

Carry On Screaming (1966)

This one's all about the foxy Fenella Fielding, she was a goth icon 10 years before Siouxsie. Also stars handsome Harry Corbett as Fielding's love interest. Kenneth Williams as the mad scientist is outstanding. This is a Hammer horror parody with some pretty weird bits, I mean kidnapping young pretty ladies and turning them into mannequins to sell to department stores isn't your usual movie plot line. Probably the best atypical Carry On movie.

 

Carry On Henry (1971)

Sid James as Henry VIII who wont shag his new missus Marie Of Normandy (Joan Sims) because she's got bad breath, let the ribald shenanigans begin. Kenneth Williams plays Thomas Cromwell. It's historic.

Carry On Loving (1970)

A dating agency is run by Sid, Hattie and a room sized computer. Let the romantic misadventures begin. 

Carry On Doctor (1967)

I found this one just tedious... quite unbearable really. I mean Talbot Rothwell wrote 20 scripts in 10 years or something so.... Still the mismatched romance scenes with Kenneth Williams as Dr Tinkle and Hattie Jaques as Matron are brilliant and iconic!

Carry On Camping (1969)

The Carry On movies were way more about sexual repression than anything else although spoiler alert Sid gets his end away at the end of Camping but with his actual girlfriend Joan Sims and not Babs who he'd been ogling for the second half the movie. Also features a scene with a rather delightful disdain for hippies at the end with Kenneth & Hattie spraying a field of hippies with disinfectant - punk! 

The Faculty (1998)

Surprising monster movie from the 90s. I missed this Invasion Of The Body Snatchers meets The Breakfast Club meets The Thing mash-up at the time. Usher is in it. The Faculty though is most notable for possibly the worst haircut on a lead actor in film history on this dude named Josh Hartnett, absolutely shocking, a crime against humanity.

The First Omen (2024)

Spectacularly put together sound and vision experience like a good music video but a pretty daft, incoherent and surprisingly un-horrifying story. Abortion subtext: Nobody cares.

Conan The Barbarian (1982)

Managed to avoid seeing this my whole life until now despite it always popping up in books on cult movies. I guess I always thought this kinda shit was for dorks... there are some funny moments like when Conan chucks a devil woman into the fire and when he punches a camel but is that enough though...

Prince of Darkness - John Carpenter & Alan Howarth

tune... the long version no less... 

...ominous...

Alan Howarth released these original unedited long versions on a homemade 2cd back in the 00s via his website just prior to the synthwave kids blowing up with their wholesale appropriation of the Carpenter/Howarth aesthetic.

Now it's the soundtrack of our overlords ordering the suppression of ordinary Aussie citizens into legislation via the misinformation bill.

You are a pleb. You are a deplorable. Your views shall not be heard or thunk, in fact we a going to criminalize them. There is only one viewpoint, the state sanctioned one. No more parody. No more dissent. No more memes. No more thinking for yourself. Your fun and freedom is over and it's about time!

The gloomy Prince Of Darkness theme was also used to great effect in the Adam Curtis' documentary series The Power Of Nightmares (2004).

NRBQ - Ridin' in My Car

[1977]

The greatest golden oldie that wasn't even a hit. 

Cars and girls: You really can't beat it as a pop song theme/concept/aim. This is a vibe but I feel like it's a lost vibe and it crushes my soul that we all aren't striving to be living this romantic carefree feeling on a daily basis in 2024.

Then when you actually have a think about the lyrics its really kinda sad and not particularly care free. This dude's spent a year and a day thinking about a girl he hardly even had a romance with. She's all he can think about while he's in his car... yet there's a romantic innocence to it all and it seems a bit like he enjoys ridin' in his car thinking about this girl and a love that could have been. Also he seems to really like riding in his car.  

Anyway what a bittersweet tune. It's pop perfection innit.

...can't forget you while I'm ridin' in my car... 

...best outro ever.

Nut-E-1 - Underwater Fireworks

Nut-E-1 - Underwater Fireworks (1993)

A frantic Amen smasher with supreme ghostly eeriness followed by otherworldly change up at 3.11. An industrial dub bass line, philosophical sci-fi dialogue and cracking choppage until its all engulfed into the pitch darkness. Atmosphere provided by two Jean-Michel Jarre samples.

Peak darkside jungle.

The Foot Soldier - Give It to Me Baby

The Foot Soldier - Give It to Me Baby (1993)

Prime uncanny darkside whilst still retaining all the vitality of hardcore. Frantic, hallucinatory darkened delirium... utterly unique. 

The best.