Category: Music

Van Dyke Parks’ Columnated Ruins Domino

In a post about Grace Kelly in the movie The Swan I asked who the boy was that played her younger brother. It was Van Dyke Parks, first a child actor, but best known for his musical collaborations with Brian Wilson.

Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson

Van Dyke’s lyrics have been characterized as being obscure, most famously the line “columnated ruins domino” in “Surf’s Up,” a song that was originally a centerpiece of the SMiLE album that Wilson abandoned, but finally completed and released in 2004.

Here is “Surf’s Up” as recorded for the Beach Boys album of the same name in 1971. Another great example of the virtues of Vinyl Music. Rubber Soul.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/SEP07/SurfsUp.mp3]

Bob Dylan’s Dire Warning

On October 1, a big Bob Dylan CD collection is being released. On October 2, D. F. Rogers and I will be seeing Dylan in concert, appearing with Elvis Costello. Dylan has always been forward thinking, and being in the middle of watching Battlestar Galatica on DVD, I’m right with him on this important warning.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/DylanCylons.flv 400 300]

More Help for HELP!

This is the trailer to the Beatles movie HELP! as posted on YouTube™.

Here it is as done by yours truly, taken (of course) from a 20-year-old LaserDisc. Better, yes? This is why I avoid YouTube when I can, although I must say the new, interactive Flash player is slick.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/HELPtrailer.flv 400 300]

The narrator is Mason Adams. Didn’t have to look him up, I recognize his voice. Remember him on Lou Grant?

Sunrise On Sunset Boulevard

I could have sworn I made a comment elsewhere about sneaking a peek at a movie my parents were watching one night, after I’d gone to bed, but now I can’t find it. But anyway, I have a vivid memory of the image that I’ve put in the preview frame of the video player.

That sneaked peek was around 1967. I was a year or more into comic book collecting, making the transition from the lighter DC Comics to the heavier Marvel Comics. I loved the whole feeling of the opening minutes of Sunset Boulevard. I thought it was just like a comic book, with William Holden floating face down in the pool, narrating his own story from beyond the grave.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/SunsetBlvd.flv 400 300]

Note: Petula Clark played Norma Desmond on Broadway in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical adaptation of Sunset Boulevard.

HELPed Back

The second Beatles movie, HELP!, first mentioned here nearly a year ago, is being re-re-released on DVD. The Beatles were terrorized by a fanatical eastern religion that was out for blood! I love this movie, it always makes me laugh, and I think it HELPed prime my generation for enjoying Monty Python.

John Lennon knocked HELP!, but it had much more influence on the 60’s as an era than A Hard Day’s Night. And, in fact, I think it had influence on the Beatles themselves, as seen in this video I spliced together.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/HELP.flv 400 300]

“I can say no more” has been a running joke between me and D. F. Rogers for decades. Did you notice three things seen for the first time that would be seen again later?

  1. John’s wire-rim glasses
  2. Indian instruments
  3. The boys in Sgt. Pepper-ish garb

George Martin is also not particularly fond of HELP! because he didn’t score the incidental music. This is what Martin had to say about it in his book, All You Need Is Ears:

On the Beatle front, the next film was Help!, and that was done without my help! I produced all the Beatles recordings for it, of course, and they certainly thought I was going to do the film music; but since the director was Dick Lester again, it was hardly surprising that, to quote Sam Goldwyn, I was included out. The music was done by Ken Thorne, a buddy of Lester’s.