I was at the flicks this afternoon and there was a wonderful moment at the end of the Addams Family reboot. The original theme tune played and the whole audience (youngish kids and their parents) started finger snapping along. The most famous finger snap in popular music?
Another moment of musical magic occurred on Sunday afternoon. Biograf Reflexen, where I am a volunteer, was hosting a sneak preview of SVT’s Vår Tid är Nu (an enormously popular Swedish drama series). It is set in the 1960s and the audience were encouraged to dress up in period gear. To add to the he atmosphere we had booked local combo, the Flåset Brass Octet, to play outside the cinema. Really into the spirit of things, they turned up in uniforms that Sergeant Pepper’s band would have been proud of. And their repertoire was ace: Yellow Submarine, Putting on the Ritz and many more vintage faves.
What was especially pleasing was how much the children in the square were digging the band. Particularly memorable were two tiny tots dressed in bright yellow raingear who were really getting into the groove and moshing around joyfully.
To my delight, Flåset played the Wallace and Gromit theme. A piece of music that sounds as though it has been around for donkeys’ years.
Two very popular tunes that until today I did not know the composers of. I do now: Victor Mizzy and Ian Nott.
Here’s a thread in homage to all those composers, writers, actors, painters whose work we know but whose names we probably do not. Get Googling!
Did I dress up in period togs on Sunday? Damn right.
I went our local chazza and explained my vintage needs. I was hoping to look like Jimi Hendrix. Axis: Bold as Love! I ended up rocking a multi-colour beret and an eccentric woolly cardy that resemble a chunk of shaggy rug .
I looked more like Grand Uncle Bulgaria of the Wombles than denizen of Electric Ladyland. Definitely more Wimbledon than Woodstock.
Kaisfatdad says
A long and very interesting interview with Ian Stott about his work for Aardman.
https://cnmsarchive.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/julian-notts-nice-music/
An obituary for Vic Mizzy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/vic-mizzy-composer-who-wrote-the-catchy-theme-tune-to-the-addams-family-1810459.html
Horrible Histories riffing on the Addams Family theme to tell the story of the Borgia Family. They do not get any ookier!
Kaisfatdad says
Uncle Fester is far better known than his creator. The Addams Family have been around since 1938 when Charles Addams’s cartoons first appeared in the New Yorker.
When the TV series appeared in the 60s, the current editor of the magazine got very snooty about the cartoons.
“During the original television run of The Addams Family television series, The New Yorker editor William Shawn refused to publish any Addams Family cartoons, though he continued to publish other Charles Addams cartoons. Shawn regarded his magazine as targeting a more refined readership and he did not want it to be associated with characters who could be seen on television by just anybody. ”
Thank you Wiki. I also learnt that Addams was friends with Ray Bradbury.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Addams_Family
The cartoons have aged rather well
https://charlesaddams.com/
hubert rawlinson says
William Shawn is the father of Wallace Shawn, one of those actors who appears in a film and you say ‘oh it’s him, whatisname’.
Skirky says
Inconceivable.
Sniffity says
Another classic by Vic Mizzy
Kaisfatdad says
Uncle Fester was probably not a particular inspiration for The Cure. But where would the Girls of Goth be without Morticia?
Mrs Addams was their prototype.
Carolyn Jones
Angelica Houston
A few choice quotes..
https://www.revelist.com/influencers/morticia-addams/11938/so-raise-a-teacup-to-morticia-addams–the-most-inspirational-darkhearted-woman-in-movie-history/18
Kaisfatdad says
A couple of more modern TV themes.
Jim Parker wrote this wonderfully spooky piece.
And then there’s Downton Abbey by Jim Lunn.
And Downton in dub
Mike_H says
If Bill Bailey’s Downton Abbey Theme version is permissible, then surely so is this.
Kaisfatdad says
You won’t be surprised to hear that I loved that, Mike. It made my day. YerTube suggested that I watch Tim Minchin have a bash.
Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Ron Grainer do NOT belong on this thread as they are household names. Even Macca visited Delia’s garden shed.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/mar/22/paul-mccartney-dr-who-yesterday
Ooops! It looks as though those dastardly daleks have hijacked this thread. Here comes another cracking, totally epic cover of Ron and Delia’s hit.
Wow!
Ooops! We are going seriously off piste now, but this is a joy.
The sort of gig that the kids there will remember for the rest of their lives. Symphony orchestras the real deal!
Zanti Misfit says
I love Vic Mizzy’s stuff. Here’s his OST from the first horror movie I ever saw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC2tf4ammpU
Kaisfatdad says
I am very impressed that you have heard of Mr Mizzy, Sniffity and Zanti.
Then again, I might have heard tried to find the names of the composers who did the Hammer films I loved as a teenager.
I’ve just stumbled across one of them: James Bernard.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/aug/20/guardianobituaries.filmnews
A thoroughly interesting chap.
Dracula has risen from the dead
The Damned
The Ian Nott interview I posted above is very revealing in many ways.
If you are a film composer, being known by the audience is pretty unimportant. Being known in the business by people who need scores written is what it’s all about. Even then you can lose a job. Nott had hoped to do Chicken Run for Aardman.
Some geezers from Hollywood got the gig. Nott is very gracious about his competitors.
Kaisfatdad says
When I wrote that the Grand Day Out Hitmaker, ,Julian Nott, had a low profile I wasn’t kidding.
I got his name wrong in the OP and nobody noticed!
There are several Ian Stotts but none of them are composers. This one is an angler.
https://gardnertackle.co.uk/gardner-fishing-videos/ian-stott-reveals-key-rig-caught-5-x-uk-50s-one-winter/
My profoundest apologies to Julian Nott, Naughty Corner for the rest of the week for me.
Here is the original version of the W & G theme which was recorded on a shoestring.
He is also known for the Peppa Pigg theme
And this is the Very Hungry Caterpillar Theme.
Larkrise to Candleford
What the AW does not know about larks is not worth knowing!
Finally, the complete Grand Day Out OST.
Kaisfatdad says
I know I should be listening to Bruce and Patti, but instead I am preoccupied with Wallace, Gwendolyn and Wensleydale. W & G have been going for 30 years now.
This site provides a cracking overview of their career.
https://wallaceandgromit.com/history
Time to persuade Bio Reflexen to do a retrospective,
Mike_H says
On Saturday afternoon, on my way home after Daylight Music, I chanced to catch a programme on BBC Radio 3 about Video Game Music “Sound of Gaming”. I am not a video games person and, although a few game titles are so ubiquitous that even I have heard of them, I had never considered games music to be anything other than basic bleeping and blooping. Wrong! Games music is a serious part of the exoperience these days and some pretty lavish soundtracks are commissioned and composed. A revelation.
Saturday’s programme played some rather amazing examples and featured a pretty good interview with games composer Grant Kirkhope. Here’s some of his music played by an orchestra.
Sniffity says
There are plenty of unknown names on music library records. The Chappell and KPM labels have plenty of material by Jack Arel, Keith Mansfield, Alan Hawkshaw etc that is well-known to the public as TV theme tunes and the like, but few would know the composer (or performer, for that matter).
For example, Johnny Pearson’s Pop March
GCU Grey Area says
George Fenton has written loads of tv themes and incidentals, including;
Wonder if any the shows he wrote for featured;
Rostrum Camera – Ken Morse
in the credits?
Moose the Mooche says
Ken Morse, described in the Biff strip as “The Rostropovich of the Rostrum”.
My mother’s favourite of these is a name which usually crops up in the credits of house or antiques programmes – Franny Moyle. The name is usually to be repeated in a high-pitched hoity-toity voice, like Jennifer Aldridge on steroids.
Mike_H says
My current favourite name that crops up in a good few BBC radio credits is Darby Dorras of Somethin’ Else Productions.
Kaisfatdad says
Thankyou! Franny Moyle and Darby Dorras have just brightened up my day. I will practice doing a high-pitched hoity toity voice.
How about Anon Sangsanoi.
I am fascinated to discover that Anon is common boys name in Thailand.
I am curious how many pieces of music are attributed to Anonymous. Most folk music of course and several hymns.
Kaisfatdad says
I had completely forgotten the word anon which is a synonym for shortly which derives from Old English.
As in “I’ll see you anon.”
The dictionary tells me that it is crusty, dusty and archaic. I will now endeavour to use it regularly.
Kaisfatdad says
That is interesting. It makes sense. Those game companies have loadsamoney and very high production standards.
Here is the programme.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0009rfn
Kaisfatdad says
The theme tune from one of my favourite Swedish comedy shows Hipp Hipp.
No idea who Metro Jets are but it’s a great tune. And was a great show….
Kaisfatdad says
Izzt Wizzy! let’s get Mizzy!
Vic throws in the kitchen sink on this theme from The Ghost and Mr Chicken.
A film that many of you have seen of course.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0461455/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm
Kaisfatdad says
This site is a total treasure trove for anyone interested in film music.
https://cnmsarchive.wordpress.com/about/
I have just been reading about James Bernard and his work for Hammer.
https://cnmsarchive.wordpress.com/2013/12/26/james-bernard/
And here is Vic Mizzy talking about the Addams Family.
https://cnmsarchive.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/vic-mizzy-on-the-original-addams-family/
Back in the 60s, the composer fr TV show was far more hands on.
Here’s the theme he wrote for Morticia. Classic 60s.
Sultry sounds of Shroud No 9.
Here is a whole episode. Carolyn Jones was drop dead gorgeous.
Kaisfatdad says
“Satan’s Harvest Home: or the Present State of Whorecraft, Adultery, Fornication, Procuring, Pimping, Sodomy, And the Game of Flatts, (Illustrated by an Authentick and Entertaining Story) And other Satanic Works, daily propagated in this good Protestant Kingdom.”
I mentioned Anon’s musical compositions above. When it comes to his literary works, as you can see, things got very racy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan%27s_Harvest_Home
This is the kind of books that Rees Mogg would be proud of.
“It claims that, in past ages, British middle-class gentlemen had led moral, industrious lives, serving King, country, and family. This era, the pamphlet claims, was now past and lost; the constitution of the gentleman has deteriorated.[8] Contemporary infants, it says, faced grim prospects, being pampered in nurseries by mothers who dominated their weak fathers.[9] Such children, the pamphlet argued, could not help but to grow up effete and were “scarcely worth raising”. Some of the blame for this, the pamphlet claims, lay with the increasing popularity of raising children at home, and having them educated by women, rather than sending them to school or to be apprenticed. Lacking the boisterous companionship of other boys they could not acquire manly traits;[10] governed by women, they never learned to dominate women themselves, which, the pamphlet claimed, was requisite to please a wife.[11]” (Wikipedia)
I could spend a happy few hours browsing through the works on this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Works_published_anonymously
hubert rawlinson says
Saw this the other day on Talking Pictures.
I’m sure some amongst us remember the snow of 63.
Music arrangement Johnny Hawksworth
Music effects Daphne Oram.
Gets a bit manic at the end with the editing to the music(or was it vice versa?)
Moose the Mooche says
Daphne was one of the BBC Radiophonic mob.
Kaisfatdad says
One of the mob? Delia was the Queen of the Radiophonic Kingdom!
Way ahead of her time.
Moose the Mooche says
Yeh, the mob. I think of the BBCRW as the Wu Tang Clan of analogue electronica. Inspectah 4 Track, Ol Dirty Erase Heads and Ghostface Tapedelayah.
Kaisfatdad says
That is a wonderful thought. I saw the Wu Tans this summer at Roskilde. It was magnificently chaotic and the central message seemed to be that they are not people you would want to t mess with.
I am not sure I can envision Delia prowling round the stage muttering “Don’t fuck with the Radiophonic Workshop!!” But it is a wonderful thought.
Mike_H says
Daphne Oram was there at the foundation of the Radiophonic Workshop with Desmond Briscoe in 1958 when she became it’s first studio manager. She resigned in 1959 over the BBC’s continued refusal to push electronic music into the foreground of their activities. By the time Delia Derbyshire arrived at the workshop in 1960, the tape-manipulation techniques introduced and perfected by Ms. Oram were well-established there.
Shortly after leaving, she developed a method of creating music by painting onto 35mm film stock, which came to be known as Oramics.
She was the first woman to independently direct and set up a personal electronic music studio, and the first woman to design and construct an electronic musical instrument.
Moose the Mooche says
Seriously, these people ought to be on the stamps.
Kaisfatdad says
That was very enjoyable. Hubert.
A marvellous combination of images and sounds. To my shame, I kept thinking about the Fat Controller and Thomas the Tank.
Kaisfatdad says
Time for us to get down with Delia and the kids.
This is extremely entertaining.
Do German schoolkids do similar projects about Kraftwerk, Neu and Tangerine Dream??
Moose the Mooche says
First project at any Berlin kindergarten is usually constructing a scale model of Klaus Schulze complete with papier-mache Moogs.
Kaisfatdad says
Thanks Mike. Daphne Oram was a new name for me and definitely another remarkable composer.
Kaisfatdad says
Daphne Oram lead me to French composer Eliane Radigue,
This comment by Lucy Williams was rather pertinent
“Interesting to notice how a lot (if not most?) of the pioneers of ambient and electronic music from the 60s across to the early 80s were women..Eliane Radrigue, Laurie Spiegel, Pauline Oliveros, Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire, Charlotte Barron etc….”
Kaisfatdad says
Cracking fingerpicking, Gromit!
Back to Julian Nott for a moment. I just stumbled across these delightful covers of the W & G theme.
Guitarist Adam Gardino
And here it is as a snippet of Swedish chamber music by celllist Camilla Malén Friman!
Aardman fans will recognise this tune too
Julian Nott has written for all kind of movies.
http://coolmusicltd.com/composers/julian-nott/
Not to mention the TV series A Respectable Trade.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0154083/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt