Thoughts of the month and
A Fistful of Soundtracks episode
previews for May 2002.
Jim
Aquino hosts and produces A Fistful
of Soundtracks (Sundays 2-4PM on KZSC
88.1 FM in Santa Cruz and anytime at
Live365.com), writes for Silicon
Valley Community Newspapers and Metro Newspapers in San Jose and just recently snagged a part
in Star Wars: Episode III as the vaguely ethnic comic relief
— Biggs Dogeater, a spaceport security screener with
a hankering for Spam and rice.
Like a streak of light, he arrives just
in time
I'm looking forward to the Spider-Man
movie, which I haven't checked out yet. I'm glad Tobey Maguire
was cast as Peter Parker/Spidey and not Freddie Prinze, Jr., who
was an early shoo-in for the role. Peter should be meek and sensitive
and a bit of a New York wiseass instead of a chiseled, witless
stud. Prinze, Jr. is more like Flash Thompson. I've been so eagerly
anticipating the movie for years because I grew up reading Spider-Man
comics. The period when I was most heavily into Spider-Man comics
was the late '80s/early '90s Todd McFarlane era, when McFarlane
revamped Spider-Man with a more spidery look, which was a really
cool take on the character. But McFarlane made Mary Jane look
like a big-haired hoochie. What was up with MJ's Jersey mob wife
look?
Check it out now, the funk soul fratello
One of my personal favorite editions
of A Fistful of Soundtracks is "Fistful Internacional,"
a November 2000 show centering on funky scores to B-movies from
Italy, Spain, India and Germany. The German porno music from that
show always gets listeners pumped.
I just recently received my order of
Beretta 70, a '70s Italian cop movie theme anthology, in
my mailbox. The crown jewel of Beretta 70, Armando Trovajoli's
Blazing Magnum theme, is a great chunk of Love Unlimited
Orchestra-style Italian funk. I didn't have Beretta 70
in my collection when I compiled "Fistful Internacional"
back in 2000, but now that I do, selections from Beretta 70
and other funkdafied foreign film soundtracks that are new to
Fistful's playlists will be featured during "Fistful
Internacional Month." The three "Fistful Internacional
Month" shows are: the original "Fistful Internacional,"
"Bollywood Swingin'" (which originally aired in January)
and one new show that's tentatively titled "Mah Na Mah Na
Hey Hey Hey Goodbye." This series of shows comes out at an
interesting time for this kind of music: movies like Ghost
World and Monsoon
Wedding have brought Bollywood tunes
into the limelight, and Dr. Dre looped what I'm betting is a Bollywood
musical number for that Truth Hurts/Rakim song "Addictive."
There's a cool site that's devoted to the "Fistful
Internacional" scores: scorebaby.com. It's loaded with helpful, to-the-point groove
soundtrack reviews. The pics of steamy album covers are another
plus.
In space, no one can hear you swing
Lately on Fistful, I've been
playing a lot of cuts from May 19 birthday gal Yoko
Kanno's offbeat and off-the-hinges jazz
soundtracks for the 1998 anime noir series Cowboy Bebop
— which has quite a following on the Web — and the show's 2001 feature-film
spinoff, Knockin' on Heaven's Door. I'm hoping the exposure Cowboy Bebop has been getting on the
Cartoon Network will make more people take notice of Kanno's original
score music, which juggles bebop, blues, ska, swing, jungle and
even country. How can anyone not take notice? The music Kanno
wrote for the 26-episode series (like The Prisoner, Bebop
was written to last for only a certain amount of episodes) is
so amazing that I had to devote part of a show to it back in January.
Each episode of Bebop opens with
what has to be my favorite TV theme of the moment, performed by
Kanno and her rock/jazz band Seatbelts. When I first caught the
show on the Cartoon Network, the theme got me hooked and made
me want to immediately buy the imported soundtrack, which was
followed after its release in 1998 by the Vitaminless EP,
plus two more volumes of score tracks, a remix album and a soundtrack
for Knockin' on Heaven's Door. (The feature — which
is set during events that take place between episodes 22 and 23
of the show — hasn't been released yet on DVD in America.
There's a rumor that it's been delayed because of post-Sept. 11
concerns over how the film's counterterrorism plot will be received
here in the States, which is odd because shortly after Sept. 11,
everyone in America started renting action movies.)
The Bebop opening theme is called
"Tank!" — such a fitting name for a hard-hitting
instrumental. Brassy, badass and sexy, "Tank!" is an
irresistible throwback to the Jonny Quest/Peter Gunn
big-band crime jazz style of scoring. The title sequence that
accompanies the theme is great too: a homage to '60s spy show
title sequences, pulp novel artwork and vintage Blue Note jazz
album covers.
The series, about a bickering trio of
interplanetary bounty hunters, isn't too shabby either. Though
it's set in the future, Bebop is more of a detective show
than a sci-fi show. (There are no aliens and the show's space
travel technology is on the low-key side — the characters
travel through "hyperspace gates" in cramped, worn-out
spaceships, a far cry from the snazzy "mecha" spacecraft
of other sci-fi anime shows.) Bebop features some surprisingly
well-done American dubbing, as well as terse, quirky and mature
writing in the style of shows like The Rockford Files and
Farscape. That might be the best way to describe Bebop
to viewers who have never seen it: an animated cross between Rockford
and Farscape. Catch it on the Cartoon Network — or
better yet, uncensored on DVD — when you can.
Quick kicks
...Now that Transformers
nostalgia is all the rage, is G.I.
Joe nostalgia next? (My favorite
'80s Joe character? Shipwreck, a G-rated knockoff of Jack
Nicholson in The Last Detail.)
...Todd Inoue gave me a big up in his
review of American Adobo. When a movie opens
with the words "ABS-CBN Presents," you know you're in
trouble. ABS-CBN is a Filipino TV network that airs unintentionally
hilarious Filipino soaps, which is what American Adobo
basically is.
...Maybe I should change my first name's
spelling to "Jhimmy" just to mess with people's minds.
...The toughest job in the world besides
lion tamer? The poor sap who has to do closed captioning for Ozzy
Osbourne.
...They're releasing all
kinds of TV shows on DVD now. What's
next? Emeril: The Complete First Season?
...I can't get enough of "What
Planet Is This?" from the Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's
Door soundtrack.
...Same thing with the Lo Fidelity Allstars
remix of the X-ecutioners' "Play That Beat."
...Fistful's fifth anniversary
is coming up. Five years of cool movie music and drunken
Santa Clauses.
Jhim Aquino
May 10, 2002
© 2002 Jim Aquino
Playing on Fistful in May:
Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's
Door — O.S.T. Future
Blues (Victor)
Cowboy Bebop: No Disc (Victor)
Monsoon Wedding (Milan)
Easy Tempo Vol. 1: A Cinematic Easy Listening Experience (Right
Tempo)
(Italian Girls Like) Ear-Catching Melodies (Dagored)
The Goblin Collection: 1975-1989 (DRG)
Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party (Motel)
Schoolgirl Report (Crippled Dick Hot Wax!)
Bollywood Funk (Outcaste)
Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars and Sitars (Motel)
Bombay 2: Electric Vindaloo (Motel)
Beretta 70: Roaring Themes from Thrilling Italian Police Films,
1971-80 (Crippled Dick Hot Wax!)
Beat at Cinecitta (Crippled Dick Hot Wax!)
Morricone 2001 (Dagored)
She Had a Taste for Music (Dagored)
Music for a Darkened Theatre — Film & Television
Music, Volume One (MCA)
Music for a Darkened Theatre — Film & Television
Music, Volume Two (MCA)
Spider-Man (Columbia/Roadrunner/Island Def Jam/Sony Music
Soundtrax)
See previous "Intros"
April 2002:
On streaming, an April Fools prank, Room 222, Chuck Jones
and Billy Wilder
March 2002:
On Lalo Schifrin at Cinequest and Fistful getting streamed
February 2002:
On excerpts from a reporter's notebook-style diary
December 2001:
On the 2001 Fistful Christmas Special
November 2001:
On the 2001 Fistful Halloween Special
October 2001:
On Sept. 11, Asian American Comedy Night and the Enterprise
theme song
September 2001:
On the deaths of Pauline Kael, Manuel Ticsay (an uncle) and Aaliyah
August 2001:
On the Fistful episode "Fistful on the Run"
July 2001:
On new Fistful IDs and the Fistful episode "Up,
Up and Away"
June 2001:
On Fistful's fourth anniversary