Vintage Soundtrack Ads From Fangoria

So I found some fantastic old Fangoria mags the other day which had some glorious old advertisements for soundtracks in them. I'd thought I'd post them up so everyone can have a look.

They are just brilliant to look at. Most of these range from 1981-1986.

 

Who Is Peaver1? (My First Interview)

So when you're a collector you find yourself doing sad/exciting things. Things like trawling eBay to see what's selling. This can happen at anytime of the day or night and now in this day and age of smartphones, anywhere as well.

All it is really is a form of digital window shopping. A way of playing "imagine if" or "pretend to spend a grand in  30 minutes"  without having to leave your couch.  When I'm trawling  I'm looking to see whats out there. Looking to see whats newly listed. Looking to see if stuff I want is still waiting for me to save enough money, or seeing if items I already have are fetching a good price online  (you know....if hell freezes over and well you never know, I might be called upon to sell off some stuff to help Satan defrost the lake of fire.)

So its a bit of windowshopping and a bit of stock forecasting and a bit of fun to get a good look at the collectors scene as a whole. Also did I mention I might be a little obsessed?

So it was during one of these 3am eBay digs that I started to see a lot of good titles up for sale and not the usual stuff you see either.  Really good stuff. Really rare stuff. Usually really expensive stuff. And they were all starting bids of $9.99. With $20 postage mind you but as I've been finding out not that far off the mark when ordering stuff overseas. Dropping $30 on one of  these items seemed like a fair cop considering the rarities of these titles. I really wasn't that flush with cash but i placed a few in my "Watch List" and waited to see what happened.

The items all sold really well. About 60 in total. A phenomenal catalogue of titles. Then an amazing thing happened. These same items went up for auction again. Like new ones!! Almost the exact same collection but now with even more amazing things which I never believed I would see.

So i decided I would look up the sellers name and see what else he had on offer. His eBay name was Peaver1. When I clicked on the link for Seller's Items I was astounded. Another 60 titles. All for auction and all starting bids were $9.99. This was incredible. I mean copies of Inseminoid turn up on eBay every once in a while but two in two weeks? From the same seller? This was amazing. I started to speculate about who this Peaver1 was. Was he another collector? Did he own a shop? Did he work at Varese Sarabande? Did he have a magical fountain of records out the back of his house? What on earth was his story?

The second round of records sold really well. Nearly all this time, and some of the really rare ones sold for really great prices. The idea of the bidding price being so low really created a whirlwind of interest among collectors and although many of the rarer items sold for a song they still cost a pretty penny.

But then, a third round went on sale!! Another 60 or more titles and again they were lot of the same ones. My curiosity was totally freaking peaked. Was this a hoax? Could this be real? I've heard of collectors who keep doubles of their items but triples?? This was insane. I had to know more. If I wasn't in a position to splash some money on these items maybe I could find out more about the person selling them?

So I contacted him through eBay and asked if he would agree to a quick interview. Turns out he was more than happy to help and so I drew up a few quick questions and sent them off and here goes....



Name: Peaver1
Age:66
Location Longbeach, California


How big is your collection and do you collect from any specific genre (i.e. soundtracks) or do you collect other kinds?

  My collection is over twenty thousand records. I collect movie soundtracks & TV related lps & 45's w/ picture sleeves; I also collect rock, jazz & soul. I have one of the most complete "TV related" record collections on the west coast.


 How long have you been collecting?

 I've been collecting since the 1960's.


 Do you collect for love or money or both? (by this I mean do you own and run a record store? Or do you just sell records on ebay? Is it business or a hobby or both?) 

 I collect for the enjoyment of collecting. I sell on ebay, but primarily, I'm always looking to add to my collection. 
 .
 What's your most favourite record?


The soundtrack from the film "The Caine Mutiny".

 What's the most valuable record you own?

The Caine Mutiny is valued at about $6,000.00.*


 What's your holy grail? What record(s) have you been looking everywhere for but still elude you?

I'm looking for a movie soundtrack from the 1960's called "Pillow Talk"; It was only given out as a promotional gift at early screenings of the film in the early 1960's. It's jacket is shaped like a sofa pillow. It's a very hard one to find, especially in good condition, because the shape of the jacket caused it to become easily damaged.

Photo courtesy of collectorfrenzy.com

 Throughout your collecting career have you lately noticed an increase on prices for collectible items now that Vinyl is apparently on the comeback? 


 I believe there is definitely more interest in vinyl today than in the past decade. A new generation has discovered the joy and thrill of listening to and finding collectible records to add to their collections. 


So there you go, my first interview with another collector. I hope you guys enjoyed it. So far I've watched some 200 records be sold through Peaver1's eBay shop and more keep coming. They're not to everybody's taste but if you're a Horror Movie Soundtrack Collecting Boffin like myself its truly a wonderful selection of items. I'd love to see the stuff he actually keeps.



*The Cainer Mutiny is a legendary LP. Perhaps the most expensive soundtrack in history to date. Here is the  Wikipedia entry about why....





"The original soundtrack album for The Caine Mutiny was never actually officially released, and hence it is one of the rarest in existence; perhaps a dozen copies survive. RCA Records planned an LP release with musical excerpts on the first side and the complete dialogue of the climactic court-martial scene on side two. But Herman Wouk felt that including this scene was an infringement on his recently opened Broadway play dealing with the court-martial, and he threatened to prohibit Columbia Pictures from making any further adaptations of his work. According to Wouk, "[Columbia head Harry] Cohn looked into the matter, called me back, and said in his tough gravelly voice, 'I've got you beat on the legalities, but I've listened to the record and it's no goddamn good, so I'm yanking it.'"^[11] In October 2012 a copy sold on eBay for over $6,000. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321002330371?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649"

Rekkids of my Youth Part 3

So here we are again, Part 3 of my ongoing rant of rants about records that I grew up with. This time The Shower Scene From Psycho.

A three piece hailing from inner city Melbourne in the early 80s TSSFP brewed up  a whirlwind cacophony of psyched out cover songs and originals. A post-punk tribute to the saccharin overdose of  sugary pop songs of yesteryear pasted together with  tape sampling and home made "tricked out"  children's toys.

Totally fucking cool right?

But the first thing to  grab your attention was the singers voice. WTF? It wasn't uncommon for anyone having not seen them (this blogger included) to exclaim "Who is that girl and how does she sing like that?"

Although it wasn't a girl. It was a guy. Singer Simon Grounds. An insane vocal chameleon who really captured that bubblegum pop sound with  his incredible falsetto.

Here is a clip of their cover to Georgy Girl.  A total winner of a track.

What did I say about that voice right? Amazing.

This was another fave played on my friend Sean's radio show and in the late 90's having moved to Melbourne from Adelaide I found a copy of their EP Exploding Hits at (the now defunct) "The Last Record Store" on Smith Street for $10.

Photo from website Fitzroyalty

There's very little else about them on the web. There's an extensive interview over on Mess and Noise, and a handful of youtube clips.

They're a beautiful and unique gem on the Australian musical landscape and I'm glad I was able to snap them  up when I did . Finally if you want to hear one of TSSFP's crowning achievements then click on over to Grooveshark and listen to their glorious track  The Monster from Exploding Hits.

The Greatest Deleted Scene Ever

I've never seen this. This has made my day. A deleted scene from High Fidelity. It is just fantastic. Brilliant. I love Beverly D'Angelo's parting line about the Sex Pistols record.

Just Awesome.

Enjoy.

So Why Soundtracks?

So it's no secret by now, I fucking love soundtracks.

I've been collecting them for over 20 years and as of last count I own 76. All on vinyl.

A majority of them are horror soundtracks and that seems to be the genre I gravitate towards. I started collecting them a long time ago before their value as collectors items was even an ascertainable notion. A lot of the ones I have are now worth 10 times as much as I paid for them but even as the collectors market has made prices increase again and again I haven't stopped. I keep buying them. I recently spent 58 Euro (just over $80) on an original 1977 pressing of Goblin's Suspiria. 

I'm 40  years old. I'm recently separated.   I'm a Single Dad. Surely it's time to put these things away and get on with growing up. Right? SO why can't I? And why won't I? and why has something that started as a teenage quirk grown into an adult obsession?
With this post I'm gonna try to explain and explore why. I'm going to try and be as honest as I can, acknowledging some of the things I know which are flawed with it and by association flaws in myself. Also why I'm still obsessed even though the flaws are staring me in the face. Maybe I am just looking in the mirror. Oh!which reminds me of another album cover.

Anyway here goes....

1) I'm chasing a high.

Yes I am. If I'm brutally honest with myself I'm like a junkie trying to relive the first time I got high. I mentioned earlier about finding Evil Dead in the early 90s. It was a revelation. Not just the score itself but the iconic look of the poster on the cover. Stephen King's infamous quote "The Most Ferociously Original Horror Film of 1982" emblazoned in yellow font. The score is a perfect mission statement for the film. Experimental and atmospheric the soundtrack grabs influences from earlier horror film scores but then continues on in new directions  creating some great moments of tension and avant garde brilliance. Finding this and discovering its many layered secrets is something I've never really been able to recapture. Some have come close and some have been new favourites in their own right but whenever I see a soundtrack to an iconic horror film I'm secretly hoping it will be the same experience as discovering Joseph Loduca's score so long ago.

2) Soundtracks are the Underdogs Or "The Little Albums That Could"

Whenever you go into a record store do you know where the Soundtrack Section is? Its Usually down the back if at all. Usuaslly two racks at the back. A-L and M-Z.

Rock, Pop, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s, Male Vocal, Female Vocal  they all take up the majority of the buyers choice in the market, but soundtracks are relegated to the corners. In some instances they don't even warrant there own section. This is the most solid indicator of the Film Score's popularity in the music industry. Next to none.

I know that what I collect has an element of uniqueness. I know that it's an obscure little niche. and its these reasons that also fuel my desire to buy and own these relics. I see them as an extension of my personality. I have a taste for the unique and overlooked and I see this as a reflection of myself. I wanna stand out and the way I do it is by saying "Hey I get my musical kicks in places that other people don't even look!!".
In  that way (and here is another sad truth,...are  you sitting down? Here goes?)I'm no different to any other hipster really. Wanting to stand out by reveling in a unique choice that goes against the grain of popularity. I'm not only into bands no-ones heard of, I'm into a genre you don't even see. Forget Akron/Family, I'm into Fabio Frizzi, Screw Margot and the Nukes, have you heard Richard Band? Fuck Neutral Milk Hotel are they anything like Pino Donaggio??

3) I love the thrill of the chase.

Finding something  of value for a fraction of the cost is always a thrill. Buying  a priceless vase at the local thrift shop for a pittance  or finding out the family heirloom gathering dust in the attic is actually worth a small fortune is a common held fantasy for everybody and with record collecting it's no different.

Every collector is on the lookout for their wishlist item. But being able to then find that item for a song is always an exhilarating experience. Although the internet has made this experience even more of a rarity its still known to happen.

Whenever I go into a record shop and I stream over to the Soundtrack section I'm always hoping that special something is there, Maniac, or The Bird With the Crystal Plumage or another mint copy of Phantasm and that the proprietor having never done much trade in Soundtracks has  put a $10 or hell even $20 sticker on there and left it at that. WIN! All those items fetch at least a couple of hundred online.

It still happens.I found my copy of Elvira's Haunted Hits in Melbourne recently for $20. Near Mint. It fetches $120 plus amongst collectors online.

. Same with Dick Jacob's Themes from Horror Movies

A gorgeous record which i also got for $20 but I know can fetch $30 more.

But here is the sad part, I know I'm not really saving $30 or even $100 for that matter. I've still just parted with $40 for two records. It's like my brain has learnt how to trick me into parting with cash because I know the record  has extra value elsewhere. I'm never going to sell it. I'm never going to make  a profit but knowing I could  somehow gives the purchase more significance. Every collector brags about finding that one a-list item for a steal and in a way it's a badge of luck. Its a secret way of saying

 "I found fifty bucks in a shop the other day, it only cost me twenty"

To which someone (perhaps a non-collector friend) might add

"Really? Thats great, what did you spend the extra thirty bucks on?"

"Oh nothing, I had the fifty bucks sealed in a plastic cover and mounted on my wall."

"Oh i see, next to that other twenty? How much was that? Ten bucks?"

"No that cost me eighty. But it's "never-been-spent-money" so its worth more"

I know!! How shit is that? But we're still suckers for  it?? Or at least I am.

4) They are rare and beautiful objects.

So thats something you can't dispute. Records are beautiful. And they look great. And a horror record is a beautiful thing.
Firstly it's big. The artwork is big. You can hold it in both hands. You can look at it while you play the record. You can read it while you play the record. You can even  hear the record while you play the record.
Its the perfect keepsake for a film. you get some iconic poster art, some incredibly beautiful and strange  music and in a lot of cases some great liner notes in regards to the soundtrack process.

Just check out the back cover to Halloween

The entertainment value is threefold; you've got something to look at, something to read and something to listen to. So it all adds up to  cool little  multimedia package. They are the original "Special Features" if you will and unlike a DVD or CD cover you don't even have to squint to read them.

5) The Holy Grail and Serendipity Tax

The last and final factor is what I call The Holy Grail . It's similar to the chase but it works on a different level.  There are things I am aaaaaalllllllwwwwaaayyyysss looking for. Items which if I saw I would grab instantly. Without question and without much thought to budget constraints. The rarity and desirability  (what i call the I want! I want!-factor) of the soundtrack creates a rare once in a lifetime opportunity. Its there, you've crossed paths with it and you aren't ever going to be able to have it so instantaneously if you walk away. Thats why, even if I'm flat broke, or at least on a "no-credit-card-"month, I will still walk into a record store, especially if I haven't been there before just to have a look. I am in there for one purpose and one purpose alone . I am looking for Holy Grails.

Which brings me to another factor about collecting a term which I call Serendipity Tax.This is when you see something for sale and its a little bit more than the fetching price. I've walked away from lots of records because I know I can get it cheaper online. Or I can get it for realtively the same amount online. When you factor in postage a record sent from overseas can equal what you might regularly pay for something at the store.. Or the other factor is that it doesn't hold much interest for me. Take it or leave it I'll grab it if i see it for cheaper. But then along comes  Serendipity Tax. Where patience and common sense (cents) give way to the notion of Having It Now!!!!! For $10 or $20 more you can do away with postage and you can do away with having to wait for 6-8 weeks. It can be yours!! Do you succumb? Do you give in? Fate has bought you into the presence of your beloved. The planets have aligned to bring you here to this moment,. Do you defy the celestial embodiment of the ether and consult the gods of eBay later at home  or sacrifice some fiscal lambs now so you can hold it in your unwieldy little  fist? Do you dare pay the dreaded Serendipity Tax?

 See why sometimes I worry about myself?

So it's a deeply problematic thing this collecting business. Its fun and rewarding and can be good for the soul but when you're up past midnight on eBay watching a bidding war erupt over an item you're not even buying just because you want to see how much it  ends up selling for, you come to realise you could do with a little persepctive.

A friend of mine recently told me that he thought that my collecting was important. That he saw it as a form of preservation for  posterity and in a way I guess he's right, I'm rescuing these items from obscurity. I do feel precious about them. They are rare objects of beauty and they're mine. Sometimes i think of myself as an archivist rather than a collector and in that regard the description fits. Also it rings with more purpose than being labelled an Obsessive and you've got to be happier with that.


Anyway folks thanks for listening, this has been fun  to write, albeit with a lot of truthful soul searching along the way. Thanks for reading. Catch you next time.

Luke

Rekkids of My Youth Part 2 (or AKA How the Yanks Appropriated the Term Grunge and Made It Their Own)

So here we are folks. Welcome back to Part 2 of my nostalgia trip to end all nostalgia trips. Last time I talked about two very important Australian albums. Foot and Mouth "Philosophy of Fossoss" and Black Eye Records Comp "Waste Sausage."

This time I've got another thing which was very much a part of my growing up. Imagine you're 14 years old. You're trying to find out who you are. You're into A-ha, Kenny Loggins, Bananarama and Billy Ocean because, well, everybody else is but while watching top 40 video on a Saturday morning that horrendous shlub John Farnham comes on, with his chart topping You're the Voice bullshit, so you switch it over to the ABC because there's another music type show on there called Beatbox. For those of you who remember this was the youth programming supplement on Aunty. This show has mutated and evolved over the years, other incarnations were the Factory and then REcovery.

This is such a blast from the past and if you watch the REcovery clip (above), yes that is Leigh Wannell the star and co-creator of The Saw films.

But I digress, like a i said, imagine you're 14, Top 40's all you know and then you see this clip.....The Southern Fried Kidneys-Graveyard

Yes. 14 year old mind  BLOWN!

It wasn't til a couple of years later when I was 16 that my post-punk/Alt Rock verve really kicked in and I bought the single for $3.99 at "Underground Music" (yes the shop was literally called that!!) in Rundle Street Adelaide. I loved them, implored everyone to listen to them and adored their swampy fuzzed out tone. It was a new type of rock and the young kids across Australia were calling it Grunge.

That's right. It wasn't all shotguns and heroin and No.1 selling albums back in the day and it was happening here, in our own backyard. IN and around 1986 there was a groundswell of music coming off the east coast of oz that, although it was difficult to define,  was becoming a recognised musical movement that had its own moniker.... Grunge.
SO what happened? How come we haven't gotten our day in the sun for creating an era-defining genre of music? Well... in a way i guess we have and a quick search of the interwebs reveals that it did  originate here but how has it gone overlooked? And why aren't we  staking more of a claim to it?

Well i think i've worked out why.

You see in the late 80s there were some  great Australian bands making a great impact on the scene. King Snake Roost, Cosmic Psychos,  The Scientists, Lubricated Goat and Bloodloss
 to name few, were all getting a good name for themselves through extensive touring. Although these bands could all fall under the term of Noise Rock and sound very little like the Grunge we know of today, they were part of an underground scene that was completely overlooked by mainstream music and therefore were really at the whim of their fans as to determine what  style they would be called. Music fanboy-ism hasn't changed much since the late 80s and therefore over genre-fication of bands was rife in the day. A symptom which Metal has fallen under the spell of almost  since its inception.

No no no no no no this isn't post-folk, symphonic-operatic, necro disco metal!!!

It's  pre disco folk-symphonic necro opera metal!!!!

So in short one man's grunge is another man's noise rock and so on and so forth. But how did it get over there??

Well a lot of the aforementioned bands would tour the US quite regularly and low and behold one of the nicest places to go gig while on the west coast was none other than Seattle Washington. With a lively little scene already in place the denizens of Seattle really took to the new Australian sound. Alliances were made, friemdships were formed and local record label Amphetamine Reptile started putting these band's records out there. So when it comes to the term Grunge being taken over by America/Nirvana/Seattle et al it really starts to makes sense. Cosmic Psychos, Lubricated Goat and King Snake Roost were already  part of the Seattle landscape. The term Grunge had no doubt been blathered around a lot already. It was just another way to categorise a lo-fi punk aesthetic which a lot of these bands were all aspiring to,  another way to loosely define the undefinable.

Now (well 1989-1990) enter A & M and  Geffen records. Two labels who went on to sign Soundgarden and Nirvana respectively. Scanning the rock landscape for the "Next Big Thing" they happened upon Seattle and as they say the rest is history. No doubt the word grunge would've been heard somewhere in the mix and alas a genre was born. By the time Nirvana was number one, the term Grunge had taken on a life if its own albeit co-opted by the corporate music industry and the mainstream. We gave it it's name and they gave it worldwide recognition, millions of album sales and baby face mascot of angst in the likes of Kurt Cobain.

I don't know what happened to Southern Fried Kidneys, if anybody knows I'd love to hear  about where they ended up. There are a few clips on Youtube including a long live set in Sydney. This goes to show how unique and exciting they really were..... check out part of the set here.

I found the "Graveyard/Psychedelic Clothes"  7 inch in Melbourne last month and couldn't resist grabbing it. Suffice to say I paid a little over 5 times as much as I paid for it way back when.

Anyway peeps. Part 2 Finito. Lots more to come with "Why on Earth Do I Collect Soundtracks?" and of course Part 3

Drive in Delirium Volumes 1 & 2

Just a quick swerve left from records for the moment.

I've been watching Drive in Delirium. A stupendous and staggering collection of movie trailers from the B-Grade, Exploitation Era and beyond. Lurid and hilarious these trailers are the best.

There's truth in the old adage "They Don't Make Em Like They Used To"

They have everything. Sleazy sex, bad gore, shit acting, unfeasible plots. And the fonts, such beautiful wondrous titles and fonts. Just check out the trailer.

There's a plethora of sneaking under the censors going on here as well. With a  lot of the women here, when savaged by the blood beast, or sub-humanoid or sea weed demon, you'd have a hard time telling if their screaming in terror or screaming in ecstasy and that in fact was how it was done back in the day. You weren't allowed to see a woman writhing in real pleasure on the screen but you can if we veil it under a flimsy veneer of terror and suspense.

Same goes for the Women in Prison Films which  there are plenty of. Whether tied up and whipped by guards or tortured  by Ilsa the Nazi Prison Warden they don't seem to give much protest instead seeming to moan in a state of  pre-orgasmic fever.

The contrast can be jarring, but ultimately hilarious when put in context.

But it's not all Punanis in Prison, there are plenty of other old school gems buried throughout the full 24 hours over 8 discs.
Divided into sections by genre, style or just association (Roger Corman's New World Pictures Studio gets it's own section called New World Nuggets) the sections hold something for everybody.

If you want Blaxploitation there's Bad Muthas, for cannibal lovers there's We're Going To Eat You. For all your "When Animals Attack" needs there's Nature Gone Wild (including some of the classics of the genre- Jaws, Tentacles, Piranha, Grizzly etc)  and Undead and Loving It- for lovers of Vampires and Zombies ,which includes this hilarious and very little seen clip of Romero's Day of the Dead

The sections often end with  films from the late 80s and when they appear side by side  it becomes unmistakably apparent the stylistic debt they owe to these buried treasures of the past.

This is a genre lovers answer to staying up and watching Rage on a saturday night. Clip after clip of Grindhouse campiness and frivolity where if the trailer your watching doesn't grab your fancy the next one might hold something for you and stop you from  going to bed.