Called it an early night at Vets' Hall last night. Just didn't feel good - something I ate earlier must have violently disagreed with my digestive system - and I didn't want to aggravate it with copious amounts of alcohol. Much better now.
Cooked up some breakfast - lots better fare than the PDR - and after cleaning up the 'kitchen' area set about to clean up my room while listening to my favorite vice - movie soundtracks. I have varied music tastes depending on my mood... anywhere from heavy metal to classical.
It must run in the family; my late grandfather used to collect Broadway musical soundtracks that he taped onto reel-to-reel tape. Sadly, they were never played again after his death and were probably disposed of after my grandmother passed away in 2000. I started collecting them in earnest during my teenage years with vinyl soundtracks of the James Bond films. When the CD came along, most of the vinyl LPs went digital for me. In the early 90s I found I wasn't alone and there was a loyal following of film music fans on the Internet. I now have some rare soundtracks that I wisely copied into MP3 files (the originals are safely home!) that I either listen to on my laptop or on my MP3 player. (One of them, the original soundtracks to the films The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno command high prices in the secondary collectors' market (read: eBay).
Probably the most well known film soundtracks are from the James Bond films - every film since the series made its debut on the silver screen in 1962 has a unique sound that complements the film. The use of contemporary artists performing the film's main titles (only three films had an instrumental-only main title: Dr. No, From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service) keeps the series fresh, at least from a musical standpoint. A few years ago most of the soundtracks were reissued, remastered and expanded from their original issue, and with the help of some basic sound-editing software and information from fellow film music fans I was able to create custom CDs with the music rearranged as it appeared on film. I created re-sequenced soundtracks for Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever. (Don't ask; they're not for sale; with a little searching on the Internet, you can put them together fairly easily. But for Kwaj Kats and Roi Rats, I usually make an exception.)
Other soundtracks I'm particularly fond of listening are those by Jerry Goldsmith (In Like Flint/Our Man Flint. The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Blue Max and many others), Bill Conti* (The Right Stuff, Rocky), Lalo Schifrin (Mission: Impossible, Bullitt) and other artists.
[* Useless trivia: Bill Conti is an alum from my high school, North Miami Senior High School in North Miami, Florida. He graduated long before I did, in the Class of 1959. I graduated in 1983.]
Of course, being a rabid film music geek, I can tell you that the main title for From Russia With Love is slightly different than the one issued on the official soundtrack - the film version has a what sounds like a ballpark organ playing in the background. Or that Monty Norman gets official credit for composing the world-famous James Bond Theme, though it was reorchestrated by John Barry at the very last minute before the film premiered - the tropical-flavored music by Norman just didn't work for the producers.
And now to bike down to Vets' Hall and drop off some steaks and bratwursts to marinate and cook on the grill tonight.
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