Interstate '76

Nearly 10 years ago, Activision released a computer game called Interstate '76 that featured muscle car mayhem, afroed sidekicks, and a protagonist named Groove Champion. I remember it being fun (but barely running on our computer) and it was followed by a dismal sequel Interstate '82.

The key ingredient that made the original game so good was the wicked funk soundtrack that accompanied the vehicular combat. Heavy on the wah-wah pedal, lots of fuzz, and sexy sax. You can totally imagine this groovy music overlaying a 70's police car chase or possibly porn.

This was one of the first games (that I remember) with professionally recorded soundtrack where the game CD could actually double as an audio CD. As you raced around blowing up other cars, this awesome music played on endless rotation off the CD , which made it easy to ignore the choppy, repetitive gameplay and mediocre graphics (hey, they were cool at the time).

The soundtrack was performed by the one-off band Bullmark headed by Arion Salazar (bassist of Third Eye Blind) and made up of Brian "Brain" Mantia (drummer for Primus), Santana's keyboardist, and other session musicians. Some of these songs are among my most played iTunes tracks, which goes to show how these have long outlasted the novelty of the game.

Here for your listening pleasure is the soundtrack from Interstate '76, which I snagged off Arion Salazar's now-defunct official website (my own game CD long gone).

Interstate '76 soundtrack by Bullmark [via MegaUpload; you usually have to click to close an ad that appears over the download link... SaveFile was acting up]

NOTE: these are the 16 tracks that came off the actual game CD. In fact, I only know these songs by track number. Activision actually released an official soundtrack with even more tracks (with real names), which you can read a review of here. I would kill for this soundtrack, though it may be lost for eternity. [EDIT: Found it!]

My fav tracks: #4, #7, and #16 (which was the wicked opening title music).

Also: #10, #5, #9, #2, #3
. . . . basically, check them all out.

Oingo Boingo

[EDIT: links fixed, I hope!]

Back in his pre-composer days, Danny Elfman headed a band called Oingo Boingo. He'd later be known for his movie and TV themes including the The Simpsons, Batman, and most if not all of Tim Burton's films. The Nightmare Before Christmas is particularly brilliant with Danny Elfman penning all the songs and providing the singing voice of Jack Skellington. Corpse Bride had its moments, but I'd say not as memorable as Nightmare. I don't really know too much about Oingo Boingo, but they dabble in sort of the same science fiction/experimental/satire/new-waviness category as Devo. And like Devo's covers of Satisfaction or Secret Agent Man, Oingo Boingo's covers are similar only in name to the originals. Just listen:

Oingo Boingo - California Girls [originally by The Beach Boys]
Oingo Boingo - You Really Got Me [originally by The Kinks]

There's this cult film called Forbidden Zone directed by Danny's brother Richard Elfman, which features the music stylings of The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo (they shortened their name later). I had borrowed the soundtrack from the library and enjoyed it so much that I bought the newly released special edition DVD of it. I guess it's one thing to listen to these wacky songs and another to watch the no-budget 90 minutes of "plot" tying them all together. Surrealist to say the least (with Knick-Knack as the midget king of the 6th dimension)... I don't really know what to say about it. I wish I could say I truly enjoyed it, but it was a bit pointless for my taste. That said, the soundtrack is fun, particularly the rendition of Minnie the Moocher with Danny Elfman as Satan.

The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo - Squeezit the Moocher (Minnie the Moocher) [originally by Cab Calloway]

Israeli Mission: Impossible

I was just re-listening to this Best of Mission: Impossible CD that was discarded by the public library and really diggin' this live track:

Mission: Impossible Live From Israel
Lalo Schifrin conducting the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra

Nice! Starts off with "The Plot" music (and gets really groovy during this part) then moves into the oh-so-familiar M:I theme.

The 3rd movie comes out a few days after I leave for Europe and I'm kinda sad about having to miss it. Well, not really. Poor crazy Tom Cruise is looking to be the worst part of the movie. The whole ad campaign is based around this Philip Seymour Hoffman "Then..I'm going to kill you.. right.. in front of her" quote and the blown sideways into a car money shot. Remember the trailer for the first Mission: Impossible? Tom Cruise flying through the air from an exploding helicopter onto the back of a TGV train, face grunting at the camera... ridiculously impossible, but still cool. Now, he flies 5 feet sideways into a car and it's supposed to be impressive. The whole ad campaign seems to neglect what is the best cast assembled so far:
Ving Rhames (always cool)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (newly Oscar minted)
Simon Pegg (the "Shaun" of Shaun of the Dead)
Laurence Fishburne (hell ya)
Johnathan Rhys Meyers (best Woody Allen film in ages)
Maggie Q (cool name and very cute as she blows up a fancy car)
Billy Crudup (Almost Famous, one of the best movies ever)

Weakest Link: Tom Cruise (crazy)
Questionable Link: J. J Abrams (first big screen film; seems to be reusing action scenes from the previous 2 films but on a TV scale)

Remember when Carrie-Anne Moss, Scarlett Johanssen, Kenneth Branagh, and Ricky Gervais were all cast at some point...? With David Fincher directing. But delays and more delays led to them all dropping out to accomodate Crazy Tom's schedule (my interpretation). They need to revamp this series to be more like the original show: a group of IMF agents that actually worked together AS A TEAM. Bring back Martin Landau!

More Dudes

Just a heads up on another cover of All the Young Dudes, performed live by Jill Sobule & Billy Bragg in 2004.

Check it out at Jill Sobule's website, which always has a good rotation of mp3 downloads (sometimes covers).

Dream a Little Dream

Not quite sure who Terry Hill is... nor am I familiar with Marijne, singer of a band called Salad(?). But together they managed to put together one of the best versions of the oft-covered Dream a Little Dream. It's taken from the 1995 War Child charity album called "Help: A Charity Project for the Children of Bosnia," a project I think spearheaded by Krist Novoselic (the semi-anonymous third member of Nirvana).

Terry Hill & Marijne - Dream a Little Dream

According to a brief wikipedia entry, this song was originally written in 1931 by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt. The most well-known cover was by Mama Cass of The Mamas & The Papas, though there are numerous other covers that I can't even be bothered to mention. Just listen to Terry & Marijne.

Woke Up This Morning

So I'm kicking this popsicle stand and taking off to Europe in just over 2 weeks. Until I leave, I'm going to be posting faster and furiouser than EVER BEFORE in what amounts to a farewell tour since I'll be gone for 2+ months. That means posts will be short and plentiful (I hope) as I try to showcase some last minute tunes, covers and otherwise. NOTE: from here on end, I'll be throwing these up on SaveFile.

First off, I wanted to draw your attention to a bizarre CD I borrowed from the trusty Edmonton Public Library:


This is a recording, handmade by Jimi himself, bootlegged, then semi-officially released under various titles. The sordid history of the recording is recounted in the liner notes with not much authority. There's some more info on it here.

The semi-historic significance of the recording is that a drunken Jim Morrison mumbles and yells obscenities throughout, particularly on the notoriously dubbed Morrison's Lament. Johnny Winters is apparently on rhythm guitar and Buddy Miles may or may not be on drums (depending whose liner notes you believe).

The quality of the recording is rather horrid and not really worth listening to, even though Jimi does a cover of Tomorrow Never Knows and Sunshine of Your Love (a better version of this can be found on his BBC Sessions CD).

Give a listen to: Morrison's Lament

Well, that was fun and bizarre. The idea of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison together is certainly tantalizing, but the results are not exactly inspiring (depressing, perhaps). Both died within 3 years of this gig.

To combat the bad taste of that recording, here's a couple covers I dig:

Shirley Bassey - Light My Fire [originally by The Doors]
I think I may have posted this cover before, but it's so wonderfully overblown I can't resist. The best is around the 3:00 mark when she belts, "Come on baby light my--" [everything grinds to a halt] "FIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEE" (which lasts about 15 seconds). I was almost tempted to go see her at Wembley Stadium in June, but then my wallet and head came to their collective senses.

Santana - Spanish Castle Magic [originally by The Jimi Hendrix Experience]

T. Rex

"I got your body right now on my mind but I drunk myself blind to the
sound of old T. Rex" - You Better You Bet

"Practice my T-Rex moves and make the scene" - The Wake-Up Bomb

"The television man is crazy saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks
Man, I need a TV when I've got T. Rex" - All the Young Dudes

The common thread to the three tunes from the last cover riddle is the references they make to T. Rex, the early 70s glam rock band fronted by Marc Bolan. Some versions of All the Young Dudes also use the lyrical variation: "Who needs TV when I got T. Rex?"... I'm not sure which is more definitive. Google searches pull references to both.

Before I go any further, does any remember this show?


Whenever I think of T. Rex (the band), the chorus to this half-forgotten theme song to an obscure cartoon springs to mind. It was called The Adventures of T-Rex, a ninja turtles clone from the early 90s about 5 colour-coded dino brothers who are stand-up comedians by day and by night the crimefighting supergroup T-REX. When I was about 9 years old, this was on TV every day when I got home from elementary school. I remember almost nothing about the show except that it had this damn catchy theme song. I went on one of these google frenzies to track down an mp3 of the song, which at first required finding out the proper name of the show (googling "T-rex" is not very helpful). This was trickier than expected because at this point the show is almost 15 years old and it hasn't really inspired a cult following. Just as I was lamenting the disappearance of the T-Rex theme song and cursing the relative ease with which you can find the theme to Denver The Last Dinosaur, I stumbled upon some yahoo group devoted to T-Rex. I momentarily signed up on the off-chance that it had an mp3 and it did! Pure gold, baby. Now if I can snag the theme to an old Dino-ghetti commercial, my life will be complete.

For your listening pleasure: The Adventures of T-Rex
I can listen to this ALL NIGHT LONG. Don't laugh.





Speaking of Denver The Last Dinosaur, a couple weeks ago a friend was commenting on the creepy undertones of the line "he's my friend and a whole lot more". Uh oh, what's that supposed to mean? The sexual connotations of that line become full blown if you watch the intro to the show where Denver is raped and/or molested by 4 children... or the line "Shows me a world I never saw before" at which point Denver reaches into his rucksack and pulls out an illicit sex object and thrusts it in the children's faces.
I'm only half kidding. I'll leave it to you to find other unintended sexual imagery on your own.
view Intro to Denver The Last Dinosaur




Another key childhood memory is the album Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers, a cassette that was on heavy rotation in our family's tapedeck on many roadtrips. Sort of a precursor to mash-ups or probably more accurately a descendant of Stars on 45. I have to credit Jive Bunny for introducing me at a young age to both Sweet and T.Rex, though it wasn't until years later that I acted upon the impulse to rediscover the original songs in a nostalgia-induced fever. The song below includes excerpts from Sweet's Teenage Rampage and two T.Rex tracks: Bang a Gong and Hot Love.
Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers - Do You Wanna Rock

OK, onto T. Rex covers:

Children of the Revolution
To Marc Bolan & T. Rex's credit, none of the guys below can touch the original song.
Elton John with Pete Doherty (from Live 8)
Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer (from soundtrack to Moulin Rouge)
Violent Femmes

Jakob Dylan - Bang a Gong (Get it On)
This is a lo-fi rip of the song featured "exclusively" on JCPenney. It's not a bad cover, but why was this recorded exclusively for JCPenney? That makes about as much sense as-- oh, say, his dad hawking Victoria's Secret lingerie...

T. Rex - Summertime Blues [originally by Eddie Cochran]
Interesting cover history trivia: singer Gloria Jones who sang Tainted Love, whose covers are arguably more well known than the original, sang backing vocals for T. Rex between 1973-77 and was Marc Bolan's girlfriend. She is also the mother of their son Rolan Bolan.

T. Rex - Dock of the Bay [originally by Otis Redding]
More interesting cover history trivia: Aretha Franklin's Respect is a cover of a Otis Redding song. I found that out just now. Isn't that weird when you uncover a cover?

The Shins - Baby Boomerang
Certainly one of my favourite covers over the past year, which I snagged with my free eMusic trial. Best deal ever, just for this song. Hearing this actually inspired me to look "beyond Bang a Gong" to discover T. Rex awesomeness.

New Cover Riddle & Overdue Answers

I know, I know. I've been slacking with posts and this trend looks to continue in the foreseeable future. To compensate, I'll try to cram a few extra tunes in here.

There's some unfinished business with the David Fincher cover riddle. Fincher is one of those music-video-turned-film-directors from back when that inspired an "Oh, that's interesting." rather than an "Another bloody music video director!?!" response. Among the videos he directed were:

Paula Abdul's Straight Up covered here by Halifax
George Michael's Freedom '90 covered here by Robbie Williams (as Freedom '96)

...and he even directed the video for Billy Idol's cover of LA Woman [originally The Doors]. Kudos to him!

I've even got another semi-cover riddle lined up for you:
What is the common theme between these tunes?

The Who - You Better You Bet
REM - The Wake-Up Bomb
&
All the Young Dudes
This was originally written by David Bowie for Mott the Hoople and becomes one of those complicated instances of who you credit the original song to... My instincts are to credit the song to Bowie who didn't release an album cut until later, although Mott the Hoople's version came out first. Oh the dilemma.
The F-Ups
Jill Sobule
Ozzy Osbourne
Des de Moor and Russel Churney
Switchblade Kittens

Cover Answer #4 (sort of)

Alright, no time for a proper post-- but I figured it was about time I revealed the answer. I've been told the answer can be discovered with a little help from Google... Damn you, Google, ruiner of trivia!

So the answer is that the three songs prior were used as the music at the end of three consecutive films of David Fincher, a near-great director who's been missing in action for the past few years though seems to be on the verge of a comeback with films coming out this year and next.

1. Se7en (1995) - Trent Reznor's remix of Bowie's "The Heart's Filthy Lesson"
2. The Game (1997) - Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit"
3. Fight Club (1999) - Pixies' "Where is My Mind?"

These films are bookended by the flawed Alien 3 (1992) and the disappointing Panic Room (2002), which may have only been disappointing because it happened to follow SE7EN, THE GAME, and FIGHT CLUB. I would easily consider Se7en and Fight Club to be two of the best films of the 90s. Coincidentally, both containing Brad Pitt back when he used to act instead of playing himself. Fight Club also marked the last time Edward Norton was in anything worth watching. Prove me wrong, Ed, prove me wrong. Se7en also features a pre-Scrubs John C. McGinley who is described as "hardcore" by Fincher and Pitt on the DVD's commentary, which I still distinctly remembered when I started watching Scrubs years later. The Game is oppressive and relentless with its story, yet simultaneously darkly amusing. Highly recommended as well.

But the conceit of these cover riddles is that I answer in the form of covers... so you can ponder what I might post in the near future (when I have more free time!).

Cover Riddle #4

Riddle me this, riddle me that: How does anyone find the time and motivation to post on their blog on a regular basis?*

After a disappointingly easy Cover Riddle #3, I tried to come up with something a little trickier. That said, I guess it's very obvious if you already know the answer... (well, obviously). Also check out this week's Coverville episode, for Brian Ibbott's version of Cover Riddles. My guess is that it has something to do with the Oscars-- at least three of the songs are featured in Oscar-winning films, though I'm not sure about the others. I'm amused because a couple weeks ago Brian also beat me to a video games cover post, which I may still do in the future because he left off one of the best ones...

Alright, what is the unifying link between the following covers?

The Heart's Filthy Lesson by Lunasect [originally by David Bowie]

White Rabbit [originally by Jefferson Airplane]
For some reason, when I first heard White Rabbit I immediately thought it'd make a good cover song for an up-tempo rockin' version. I've yet to hear the perfect cover of it, but The Damned's is pretty damn close. I have 14 covers of White Rabbit and these are the best ones:
Karen Abrahams with The Austin Lounge Lizards
Blue Man Group featuring Esthero
The Damned
The Murmurs (this one is distinctly Björkish)

Where is My Mind? by Ghoti Hook [originally by the Pixies]

=========================
And now for something completely different...

Watched the Oscars tonight and it played out just about as expected including the not-so-shocking "upset" of Crash for Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain... Memoirs of a Geisha was nominated for and won more Oscars than I realized... this year they added elevator music to the thank you speeches to distract the winners, I guess... more arbitrary montages than I remember in past years: tribute to biographies! tribute to epics! Jon Stewart quipped: "Coming up next, tribute to montages!"...

It was slightly embarrassing that they let a bunch of sound editors/costume designers/actors ramble on while totally gypping the winners of Crash (twice) on their speeches. Shouldn't the winner of the night's ultimate prize get to speechify to their heart's content? No. Crank the music, cut to ceiling shot, and show another JC Penney commercial featuring non-stop Bang A Gong remixes. Classy stuff. If they're trying to save time, seriously cut the barrage of montages.

Some favourite moments from the show:
-montage of controversial/socially conscious films including clips from (among others): In the Heat of the Night, Born on the Fourth of July, Hotel Rwanda, The China Syndrome, Network, The Insider, Philadelphia, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and The Day After Tomorrow. Way to go, Roland Emmerich. Your important contributions to cinematic history are duly noted.

-some Oscar winner for Memoirs of a Geisha thanked director Rob Marshall-- and the camera cut to a nodding Steven Spielberg. Ha.

-Crash wins Best Picture and half the crowd stands up and hugs because apparently everyone was in Crash

-Jon Stewart's analysis after the Best Song Oscar for It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp: "Martin Scorsese: 0; Three 6 Mafia: 1." Frightening, but so true. Robert Altman got his honorary Oscar too... he's now tied with Three 6 Mafia.

-Rachel Weisz wins her Oscar and as she's walking up, the announcer proudly announces she was in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns

-sorta of lame opening with past hosts, but then Mel Gibson comes on in full-Apocalypto mode (my sister has no idea what's going on)

-bizarre camera angles from behind the Oscar winning speeches like an SNL monologue with continuous reaction shots from Matt Dillon

-after Paul Haggis' speech, the co-writer for Crash steps up to the mike and is brutally cut off with the camera cutting away to an agog Charlize Theron who is clearly appalled at the Academy's lack of class

-the South African winner for foreign film demands the cameras to show the two stars of his film, Tsotsi.

-Stewart looking to Spielberg for a Jewish Tragedy Trilogy: "I can't wait to see what happens to us next!" Spielberg did not seem overly amused.

-Ang Lee gives props to China; my dad walks in and asks: "Is that John Woo?"




Cover answers next week (hopefully sooner than later).


*I have absolutely no idea.