Soundtrack Saturday

I first saw Apocalypse Now! in the late night BBC2 slot at some point in the 80s. It came out in 1979 and in a few years became a record collection soundtrack staple- the blood red cover with the Vietnamese sun fading into an orange/ red haze, the scrawl of the film's title and then the disc inside, The Doors, The Ride Of The Valkyries....

It's still an astonishing film, Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece maybe- even the story of its making is an epic filled with disaster. Martin Sheen's opening scene and narration, 'Saigon... shit, I'm still in Saigon', the ever present whir of fans and helicopter blades, and the increasing madness of the trip upriver to find Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a US officer who has gone rogue. The scene with the Playmates choppered in to entertain US troops, dancing to Suzie Q by Flash Cadillac, Cynthia Wood packing pistols- everything, all the time, on the brink of chaos. 

The soundtrack is absolutely key to the film, as much part of the movie as Martin Sheen, Robert Duval, Dennis Hopper, the surfing, the napalm and the horror. Coppola's use of The End by The Doors is inspired. The Doors 80s revival started via Apocalypse Now! and Danny Sugarman's book No One Here Gets Out Alive (publsuhed a year after the film, 1980), and their albums and influence grew through the decade all the way to Oliver Stone's misguided biopic ten years later. The End is Doors max, their closing song in concert and on their debut album, a song that began lyrically when Jim Morrison broke up with his girlfriend Mary Werbelow but became something much darker, more Oedipal. It suited Coppola's vision of the film perfectly, explosions and the sky on fire, the end.... The version from the soundtrack opens with slow motion helicopter blades and then Robbie Krieger's eastern sounding guitar...

The End (Apocalype Now! Edit)

Most of the score for the film was recorded by Carmine Coppola with Francis along with a host of percussionists, synth/ keys players and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, twelve short pieces of music, thirty minutes long when sequenced together, that play a huge part in the film.

Apocalypse Now! OST

The Clash were paying attention, In 1980 they released their own epic, the six sides of vinyl of Sandinista! (an opinion splitting album- I love it, it's the very essence of the band for me). Mick's keyboard slashes and the slowed down helicopter blades that lead the song in are total Apocalypse Now! and the vocal refrain and song title is taken from Colonel Kilgore's famous line about the VC. 

Charlie Don't Surf

Echoes

I promised a post about Pompeii and here it is. Pompeii really is a most extraordinary place, a city of 20, 000 people that stopped in time in the year 79AD. Two weeks ago we spent several hours there- surprisingly for a Saturday in August it was fairly quiet too and there were times when we could turn a corner and be the only people in a Pompeii side street. Standing in the streets, on the pavements, in the houses, shops, baths and bakeries, is to feel some kind of connection with those people who lived there 2000 years ago. The extraordinary thing about Pompeii, apart from its size, is its ordinariness, its similarity to modern cities and to see that their lives were very similar to ours. 

There are pavements raised above the paved roads. There are grooves from the wheels of wagons that were making deliveries to shops and food outlets. There are stepping stones to cross the road safely. There are the large houses of the wealthy and the smaller houses and flats of the poor. There are streets of shops and the bakeries (25 of them) that provided the Pompeiians with their staple daily food. There are fast food units (thermopolia), their counters facing the street with sunken jars embedded into the counter to serve snacks from. The city of Pompeii feels very like a town or city that we might live in.

There are also the showpiece attractions- the theatre (the teatro grande) with its perfect acoustics, stage, backstage area and seats for 5000 people.

 

Next door to the teatro grande is the smaller odeon teatro next door, a venue for 1000 people, the equivalent of your small indie venue and the bigger medium size band venue round the corner. 

Those Pompeiians who could afford it decorated their walls with art, hand painted frescos supplied by local artists in whatever style and depicting whatever subject matter was fashionable and popular at the time. The survival of these, their colours and scenes is incredible (the frescos up the coast at Herculaneum are even more impressive). 

There are paintings that demonstrate the fun that could be had at the Lupanar brothel, for those with the  money and inclination. The women that worked there earned three times the average wage of unskilled urban labourer. 

And then there's this chap, in the House Of The Vetti, the home of two men who were freed slaves and made a fortune selling wine. The well endowed gentleman is Priapus (obvs), the God of fertility and abundance. As well as his enormous member there is a set of scales piled with money, representing the wealth the two men accumulated. 

The men who owned the house and commissioned the painting of Priapus were Aulus Vettius Restitus and Aulus Vettius Conviva. They likely had the same master and when freed went into business together.

At the centre of Pompeii is the forum, the public square (a rectangle actually) with the council offices at one end in the basilica and temples and shops round the other sides. Vesuvius looms in the background, the cause of the town's destruction and its survival. 

We wandered for hours, visiting the baths and the villas, walking up and down streets, poking our heads into people's homes and businesses, marveling at the size and scale of the place and how well preserved it is. The only place where access was limited was the amphitheatre- the floor was covered in chairs for a series of concerts being held there, titled Beats Of Pompeii, and with a line up including Jean Michel Jarre, Nick Cave with Colin Greenwood, Andrea Bocelli and Norwegian folk band Wardruna. It was disappointing not to be able to stand in the centre of the arena but in some ways it was good that the venue is being used, a stunning backdrop for any artist.

I've always been a bit averse to 70s Pink Floyd but their 1972 film Live In Pompeii has recently been re- released and it ties in nicely to this post. The band played songs over four days with no audience other than the film crew, director Adrian Maben and some local children who sneaked in. They had to pay local dignitaries off to get the use of the ampitheatre and had issues with the electricity supply. Floyd's gear took four days to arrive by truck and Maben spliced stock footage into the film alongside his own shots of Pompeii and the band. This is Echoes...

Vesuvius And Fuji

When we were leaving Rome for the Bay of Naples the receptionist at the hotel we were checking out of asked where we were heading on to. After telling her we were going to Pompeii she looked at us like we were mad- 'in this heat?!' she said. And she was right, it was very, very hot. But also a genuinely breathtaking and amazing place. Having walked through the streets of Pompeii we turned into the Forum, the centre of the town, a vast public space with columns and buildings around the four sides and in the distance Vesuvius lurked- the reason the town was destroyed, thousands killed but also the reason the town survived.

Eighteen years ago Fila Brazillia played at Fuji Rock. The 9 song set was recorded, has been cleaned up by Steve Cobby and is about to be released as the first Fila Brazillia album for nearly two decades. You can buy it at Bandcamp and watch A Zed And Two Ls below. The set also features Throwing Down A Shape, New Cannonball, Slow Light, Little Hands Rouge, Ridden Pony, 6ft Wasp, Pissy Willy and Harmonicas Are Shite. By 2000 Cobby and Dave McSherry's band was a fully fleshed out touring group, playing slow motion funk, disco inflected grooves, jazzy ambient house and every other down tempo genre you can think of. Cross pollination for the nation.