I came to learn a little about Metal music a bit late in life. I Have always felt there is no need to close doors to music simply becasue we get older. I think the first real Metal I bought (not counting stuff like Metallica or Megadeth) was an album by Naplam Death and I recall not liking it at all but thught the cover looked cool. As many years have gone I have developed a curious interest in the Metal genre and its different movements though I am by no means a true fan or follower. If I had to select a style I prefer the most it would be the Black Metal music of Norway over, lets say, the Death Metal style of the bands out of Florida like Cannibal Corpse. I do like some of the Morbid Angel material but they sound more European than American in their approach (in my opinion anyway) and I like some of the stuff by British band Carcass who is supposed to be a Grindcore band. I have read rabid forums posts about which bands are Thrash and which are Death Metal and which are Grindcore and so on. But I certainly have some fascination with bands with wild names like Carpathian Forest, Emperor, Mayhem Darkthrone and Satryicon. The songs are often epic in their scale and delivery and the sound is tastefully augmented with synthesizers, something not found on the hard core death metal albums. The lyrics typically focus on Norse mythology and similar grand themes.

MORE ABOUT THE DARK WORLD OF BURZUM HERE >>

Click on the album cover above to get to the original post featuring the complete seventeen track version of Goblin’s Zombi (Dawn of the Dead) original sountrack. Tracks are joined to make three longer -but easier for me to deal with- files. A couple  tracks had some technical issues and had were uloaded separately. I probably could have solved the problem but just wanted to get this stuff up. Still have to update my Jimmy Page Death Wish II OST and the Sream for Help OST by John Paul Jones then I am pretty much caught up with all my old audio files that went belly up when my last ‘free’ hosting service deactivated them for no reason. The fielsa re hosted now through my site and as long as I make my payments once a year they will be available to the needy public.

I was watching The Keep last night and was struck by the film’s soundtrack by Tangerine Dream. I have the soundtrack, and almost all of their music, but have seldom listened to it as I tend to listen to the same things over and over. I mostly listen to Stratsofear, Phaedra, Ricochet, Exit and Force Majeure. I also, however, listen quite a lot to the Thief and Sorcerer soundtracks. I recently got in both the AVI files for Thief and Sorcerer but have not had a chance to rewatch them as I ahve them them both a few times already. I also got in The Keep at about the same time and it is all a matter of strange coincidence that Tangerine Dream did the soundtracks to the three films. The group would undergo many lineup changes and the once three man outfit at some periods had four or more musicians. The lineup for Sorcerer is Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann and Christopher Franke. As far as I am concerned this is the lineup that did most of the groups most memorable music during the 70’s on the Virgin label. The first Tangerine Dream album I bought was Stratosfear with the original Virgin label designed by Roger Dean on the vinyl. Some parts of Sorcerer sound like very similar to sections of Stratosfear. The lineup for Thief and The Keep – both films directed by Michael Mann – is still Froese and Franke  but with Johannes Schmoelling taking Baumann’s place here and on much of the work done in the 80’s. I am not an authority on the group and later there are many lineup changes and the mood of the music changed at times but not too drastically. I tried to supply some more upbeat selections from the recordings here rather than some of the meandering incidental music that is nice to listen to while blogging but not the best examples to try and hook a new listener with. This style of music is what really helped me move from being a believer in vinyl and analog to someone who prefers digital music. The music of Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, Vangelis and Philip Glass has to be heard without surface noise and skips. I know there are the true believers who see digital as the end of music as we know it but I am not one of those. I welcome evolution and the necessary extinction of the BSR turntable and the 8-Track tape in order to bring forth a fitter form of listening pleasure. Enjoy the selections here in all their sacrilegious digital glory.

LISTEN TO SELECTIONS FROM TANGERINE DREAM SOUNDTRACKS HERE >>

Finally got around to updating my links to an old audio post that I got a comment on earlier today and therefore some motivation. That  post is gets lots of hits still and a regular comment here and there. That is my posts with MP3 samples for the Texas metal band Dead Horse. There are Rapidshare links on the site for the complete albums Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers and Horsecore. Click the image below to get to that post:

THE LAST HORROR FILM aka FANATIC

1982/Director: David Winters/Writers: Judd Hamilton, Tom Klassen

Cast: Caroline Munro, Joe Spinell,  Judd Hamilton, Devin Goldenberg, David Winters, Susanne Benton, Filomena Spagnuolo( Mary Spinell)

I am certain even the most modest horror film fan has heard of Hammer and Bond girl Caroline Munro. Her long brunette hair and statuesque features are simply stunning and she has starred in some fairly memorable horror flicks like The Abominable Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Slaughter High and the shlocky Italian sci-fi film Starcrush. One of her co-stars in Starcrush was New York City veteran character actor Joe Spinell. Spinell’s name may be less familiar to many except for the cognoscenti of b-films. He is more known as a supporting actor and had small roles in The Godfather, The Seven-Ups, Rocky and Taxi Driver before he had his first starring role in the 1980 William Lustig splatter film Maniac. We will get to Maniac in the second part of this double feature and instead will start off with what is sort of a follow up to Maniac pairing Munro and Spinell up again. That film is 1982’s The Last Horror Movie or Fanatic was it was originally released as on DVD. I got a hold of the Fanatic version of the film and not the new Troma release of the movie that is supposed to include a few extra minutes of scenes and some extras including commentaries and interviews. I have to be honest I never listen to DVD commentaries. Simply never. So I do not know if I going to go out of my way to find the Troma release but we will see. I would be interested in the interviews with Spinell’s buddy Luke Walter and Maniac director William Lustig who seems to have stopped directing films (his last being Uncle Sam, which I liked, in 1997) and now produces and is the head honcho at Blue Underground DVD.

MORE OF JOE SPINELL IN THE LAST HORROR MOVIE AND MANIAC HERE >>

Lately I am not too much in reviewing films though I have more than a few reviews in the draft folder I am finishing up and should be back to some film material with my next post. But for now I am happy to be back to being able to post audio files and I am going to try to promote a band I really have come to enjoy since hearing their rendition of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now. The song was played over the closing titles of the excellent Matt Dillon directed film City of Ghosts. The story takes place in Cambodia and I highly recommend the film and while it is a newer film I am planning a review of it here at the Café in the future. The band is Dengue Fever (I think pronounced dung-yi fever like the mosquito borne disease) and the band is the creation of brothers Zac (guitar and vocals) and Ethan Hotlzman (classic surfy Farfisa organ). While traveling through Cambodia the brothers were so enthralled by the style of music they heard they decided to form a band that played 60’s based Cambodian pop music with a slightly psychedelic San Francisco twist to the sound. They decided they needed a genuine Khmer singer and searched the clubs and karaoke bars of Little Phnom Penh in San Fransisco until they found the vivacious and talented Chhom Nimol performing with a small group of singers. She had a presence and voice that stood out and the brothers approached her. Nimol’s Cambodian friends were a little shocked and concerned at the wild appearance of the Hotlzman brothers and warned her to stay away but  she took the chance and a friendship and tight band were quickly formed. Nimol was a very successful karaoke singer and was able to support herself and was trying to have her family sent over to the States with her earnings. The little band has earned a good degree of success now and is on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label and I hope Nimol has been able to move her family closer to her. Most of the songs are covers of classic Cambodian pop songs but there are some originals and a few songs in English as well. As you may or may not know I live in Kunming China and I traveled to Laos for a month before and was so delighted to hear some style of music down there that was not the crappy J-Pop style music that is copied all over China these days. These are great songs and Nimol is a fantastic singer with heart and soul and you do not have to understand the words of the songs to understand the message.

COOL SONG SELECTIONS AND A VIDEO FOR SEEING HANDS BY DENGUE FEVER HERE >>

I am finally getting around to replacing most of my audio files thought the process is one post at a time and will take a little time. I have decided the best way to do audio files is to host them yourself. Do not rely on all those ‘free’ file storage services out there. Too many size and bandwidth rescritctions and after a lot of work you may find one day that all your files have been removed for no particular reason. I upgraded my package at Maiahost.com and now have more storage than I should be able to use any way soon. The links should be more reliable load a bit faster on a decent connection. There are download instructions at the bottom each post and if you have issues downloading I will try to help you. Best thing to do is work with a media downloader add-on in Mozilla. You can get audio or video from here if you figure it out. Realplayer and the full version of Quicktime have some options for downloading and saving audio and visual media as well. I may not replace all old audio posts and I will just have to wait and see. I will begin first by replacing album length features since those take a lot of time to do and I can get them out of the way. Some I will replace file in posts featuring hard the find albums Death Wish II by Jimmy Page, the rock opera Flash Fearless vs the Zorg Women parts 5 & 6, John Paul Jone’s Scream For Help and the European version of the Zombi (Dawn of the Dead) soundtrack by Goblin. But first I will link you back to one of my most visited posts ever, the one featuring Jimmy Page’s soundtrack to the Kenneth Anger film Lucifer Rising. In my original post I could only feature a version in two parts with about five trimmed off of it but now, for the first time ever, I present the entire uncut and unedited Lucifer Rising OST. While it is not impossible by any means to find this online some people just do not know how to search for this stuff or how to use things like bittotrrents or Rapidshare. So if you have been looking for this all your life and simply cannot find it anywhere then follow the instructions at the bottom of the post and you should be able to download the album with no major problems. And if you have some issues leave a comment and I will try to guide you through the fairly painless process.

CLICK HERE FOR THE POST FEATURING THE SOUNDTRACK TO LUCIFER RISING