Utahpolis

So, Utahpolis is on hold for the time being.  Sorry!

Ah, the wonders of myspace. The rest of the world has now fully bought into the site, allowing for limitless exploration of the sounds of other nations.

I particularly enjoy listening to hip-hop when the primary language isn’t English. Now, there’s definitely a lot of great English rap out there, but it can often get bogged down with predictability and stereotypical phrases. When you can’t understand a word that is being said it allows you to focus on the sounds and beats of the words themselves. Sometimes this works really well, other times not.

Some languages have a natural flow to them that syncs up well with the hip-hop beat. German is not one of those.

MC KlIcKKlAcK a.k.a. ALKAN - Ein TEUFFEL weint nie (A Devil Never Cries)

MC KlIcKKlAcK is one of probably millions of rappers around the world. It’s amazing just how pervasive American music is. Check out any random country’s music on myspace and chances are that most of it will sound very familiar to you.

Here we have a kid from Wels, a city in Austria near the German border. The town was under heavy Allied bombing during WWII and was the home of a concentration camp.

It’s the homeland of Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Strauss, Mahler and presenting…..MCKlIcKKlAcK….straight outta Comp….er…Wels!

The concert film, URGH! A Music War, is a great little time capsule of the art rock scene in 1980. Punk had flung open the door to the underground and new-wave, post-punk, synth pop, hardcore and no wave, among others, were ready to burst out onto the world.

The film is shot documentary style, but with no narration or explanation of what you’re seeing. Just the jams, man. Just the jams. I’ve never actually seen it, and probably never will, considering that the legal issues involved in getting the rights to all of the songs performed. Luckily, ol’ buddy youtube saves the day yet again. Also, I possess copy of the soundtrack on vinyl and have recorded a few of the tracks for your listening pleasure. There are other dubs going around on the net, but they have severe hums from where the turntables weren’t properly grounded. Hopefully, mine will come out a little better. Naturally, if you are in one of these bands or own the copyright, let me know if you want the files removed.

The movie takes bits from several different concerts and combines them into one epic show. I’ve sorted all of the songs by the concert they were performed at, to give a little better perspective on the setting.

Frejus Amphitheater - Paris, France - August 28th, 1980

The Police - “Driven to Tears”

XTC - “Respectable Street”

Jools Holland - “Foolish I Know”

Skafish - “Sign of the Cross”

Santa Monica Civic - Santa Monica, CA - August 16th, 1980

Wall of Voodoo - “Back In Flesh”

Wall of Voodoo - Back In Flesh

The Members - “Offshore Banking Business”

Pere Ubu - “The Birdies”

Magazine - “Model Worker”

Magazine - Model Worker

ICA - London, England - September 5th, 1980

Tonya Wilcox - “Dance”

Guild Hall - Portsmouth, England - September 19th, 1980

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - “Enola Gay”

John Otway - “Chery’s Going Home”

The Whisky - Hollywood, CA - August 17th, 1980

Oingo Boingo - “Ain’t This The Life”

Oingo Boingo - Aint This The Life

Go-Go’s - “We Got The Beat”

Alley Cats - “Nothing Means Nothing Anymore”

The Ritz - New York, NY - August 22nd, 1980

Klaus Nomi - “Total Eclipse”

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - “Bad Reputation”

The Lyceum Ballroom - London, England - September 17th, 1980

Athletico Spizz ‘80 - “Where’s Captain Kirk”

Athletico Spizz ‘80 - Where’s Captain Kirk

999 - “Homicide”

The Rainbow Theater - London, England - September 18th, 1980

Steel Pulse - “Ku Klux Klan”

Gang of Four - “He’d Send In The Army”

The California Theater - San Diego, CA - August 20th, 1980

Devo - “Uncontrollable Urge”

The Lyceum Ballroom - London, England - September 7th, 1980

Echo & the Bunnymen - “The Puppet”

The Au Pairs - “Come Again”

Santa Monica Civic - Santa Monica, CA - August 15th, 1980

The Cramps - “Tear It Up”

X - “Beyond And Back”

Hammersmith Odeon - London, England - September 16th, 1980

Gary Numan - “Down In The Park”

CBGB’S - New York, NY - August 21st, 1980

Fleshtones - “Shadow Line”

If you’d like to hear the rest of the soundtrack, go on over to The Lost Turntable. All of the songs are there, but the turntable isn’t grounded and the speed is too high. Still, it is one of the only ways to hear these tracks.

Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man

As most of you who know me are aware, I’m a huge Donovan fan. Naturally, I was pleased, then, to find a copy of Donovan’s recently published autobiography at a used book store a couple of months ago.

Donovan remains a bit of a mystery to most people, including myself. While he was hugely popular in the 60’s, his fame has dwindled over the years. I’d imagine this is due either to the fact that his flower-power music (he claims to have been the inspiration for the term) hasn’t aged well, or that he made some awful albums in the 70’s and 80’s and was deservedly ignored. Whatever the reason, his peers have countless books written about them, yet Donovan’s autobiography is the first I’ve come across relating to him.

In the book, Donovan focuses almost entirely on the 60’s. If you believe what he says, he basically retired from music in 1970. This is quite odd, since he continued to record steadily up to the early 80’s, not including his more recent come-back albums. Just because those awful records are out of print doesn’t mean they don’t exist, Donovan! You can’t fool us all!

Now that I think about it, though, I’m kind of glad that he left out the bad times and focused on the good. It would have been somewhat depressing to read about why and how he went from his former greatness to new-age fluff.

For me, the book flew by. Donovan is a great story-teller and has plenty of tales to choose from. Somewhat surprisingly, he comes off as a bit of a hedonist. Throughout the book, Donovan discusses with great detail his various exploits with the ladies. This caught me off guard. I’ve always thought of him as this super-polite harmless fellow, and phrases like “I would have to creep up on her body delicately and have my fingers in her panties before she knew it” certainly throw a new light on our old buddy.

Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven

Other points of hedonism? Well, there’s the expected drug use, but it isn’t really a major part of his life. One thing that struck me, though, was Donovan’s desire to escape society. After leaving home at a young age he became a beat, living on beaches and enjoying the proto-hippie lifestyle. Once he became famous, it seems like he spent as much time trying to stay out of the business as he did staying in. The book is sprinkled with extended stays in Greece, India, Ireland, Mexico and an aborted trip to sail around the world.

Donovan - Sunny Goodge Street

If you’re interested in reading about the music side of things, that’s all there to. He talks about meeting Dylan, a brief romance with Joan Baez, hanging out with The Beatles, the demise of Brian Jones, getting busted for drugs, etc. It was most fascinating to read Donovan explain how his albums were made. Some of his arrangements were so out-there and I always wondered what possessed him to do this or that in a certain song. Thankfully, Donovan gives us great insight into the making of his albums.

It’s also refreshing to see Donovan stand up for himself, to a degree. Most people don’t know it, but he was an influential figure and helped to shape a lot of the music that came out of the sixties. In the book, he’s quick to point out where he didn’t get credit for creating flower-power or being the first to embrace sitars or adding jazz to pop music. He does seem a little bitter at times, but he has a right to be.

If you have the slightest bit of interest in Donovan, I definitely recommend picking up this book at some point. It’s a quick read and stays engaging all the way through.

Cover Lay Down has a nice article on the modern-day perception of Donovan, along with some recent covers of his music.

Sadly, I can’t find any tour dates to announce. If you get a chance to see a rare Donovan concert, don’t pass it up! I had to suffer through a John Mellencamp show a couple of years ago in order to see Donovan do a thirty minute set and it was totally worth it. The best part was when Donovan came out with John Mellencamp and Stephen King (!!!) to do “Little Pink Houses”. Biggest WTF moment of my concert-going career. Ain’t that America, indeed.

I watched Anatomy of a Murder yesterday and I decided to do a write-up here afterwards. While doing a bit of research on the film, I noticed that a fellow named Saul Bass was responsible for the opening titles of the film. Whoever posted the sequence on youtube decided to feature Saul’s name prominently in the description of the video. You don’t usually see the opening credits given so much attention, so this peaked my curiosity and I set forth to investigate.

Be warned, however. This post will be extremely heavy on youtube videos. If you’re reading this in a RSS viewer or on facebook, please navigate over to utahpolis.com so you can see the clips I’m talking about. If you’re on a slow computer, I feel your pain but can’t be of any help.

Here’s the sequence that got me interested in all of this…

And there you have it. The tone of the movie is set. You now have a set of images and sounds in your mind so that when the film begins you’re in the proper mindset. Also, the musical themes have been introduced. When they reoccur throughout the movie, the audience is subconsciously reminded of the title sequence where the initial mood was associated with the musical theme. This may seem somewhat inconsequential, but it’s a very important part of modern cinema. Don’t believe me? Check out the following intro to Star Wars done in the style of Saul Bass.

Well, that was fun. Now imagine watching the rest of Star Wars after having seen that opening. It would be the same movie, sure, but I’d argue that it would have more of a comedic feel. Even if nothing in the movie is funny, you’ve been conditioned by the opening credits to believe that good times are ahead and your mind will seek them out even if not there. Feel the power of the Saul. It is your destiny.

So, where did this all get started? Well, it turns out that Saul Bass was one of the pioneers in the world of opening credits.

Saul was working in Hollywood doing print work for film ads when director Otto Preminger (who directed Anatomy of a Murder, among other great films) came along and asked Saul to design a poster for Otto’s new 1954 film, Carmen Jones. Otto liked the work so much that he asked Saul to produce a title sequence for the film as well. It was then that Saul realized the potential to go beyond simple names up on the screen; He saw the opportunity for creativity in the titles and knew that they would ultimately enhance the films.

Things really got rolling a year later, in 1955, when Saul did the titles for another Preminger movie, The Man with the Golden Arm. The movie itself was controversial; Frank Sinatra played a heroin addict. Accordingly, Saul did something unorthodox. The titles were animated and didn’t feature the star of the film, Frank Sinatra. Instead, you were presented with a crippled and disembodied arm, symbolic of the junkie. Furthermore, the idea of even paying attention to the titles was novel; Film projectionists had to be instructed to make sure the curtain was open while the titles were playing. Prior to this film, the curtains often were left closed until the movie began!

Saul would continue to work with Otto Preminger, but wasn’t exclusive to him. Alfred Hitchcock also used Saul in a number of his films, including Psycho, North By Northwest and presented for you below, 1958’s Vertigo.

He wasn’t always at the beginning of the film. Here, in 1961’s West Side Story, we see Saul’s work at the end of the movie.

As time went on, Saul began to use live action in his titles as well. Here’s the opening to Walk on the Wild Side. I can haz titlez?

This next one is just outright disturbing. It’s from Seconds, released in 1966. Interestingly, Saul would use portions of this intro for Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear.

Saul would eventually try his hand at film making. Here’s a scene from his short film, Why Man Creates. While this would win an Oscar, his other attempts at directing were not so fortunate.

Towards the end of the sixties, Saul’s signature style began to go out of fashion and he once again would focus on graphic design. This must have been quite lucrative for him, as he created the logos for AT&T, Continental Airlines, Exxon, Girl Scouts, Kleenex, Minolta, Quaker Oats, United Way and United Airlines.

He would return to film again, however. Many of the directors of the 80’s and 90’s grew up on Saul’s work and were thrilled to have him do their title sequences. Here is one of his final pieces, the intro to Scorsese’s Casino. Saul Bass would pass away the next year.

Still not sold on Saul’s influence? Take a look at these two opening scenes. The first is from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the second is Casino Royale.

And there you have it. I know that I will never watch the beginning of a film the same way again. Thanks, Saul!