Record #1978 - The "Moment by Moment" Soundtrack

Oh boy. Here we go again.

So, there's this movie that came out in 1978. It stars John Travolta and Lily Tomlin. The film is called Moment By Moment, and it is by far, the most disgustingly terrible film I have ever seen.

And this is the soundtrack...

So in this movie, Lily Tomlin plays Trisha, a drug addicted rich lady who is insanely bored with her life. The film starts out with Trisha having a chance meeting with a drug dealer named Strip (no, I'm not kidding... that's really the character's name) at Schwab's Pharmacy, where she finds out that she's run out of her sleeping pill prescription. Strip follows her home and they start a really creepy relationship in exchange for drugs. Of course, to make things worse for everyone involved, they have lots of sex, and make out in a hot tub.

Ugh.

Why does this movie exist?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

"Ohhhhhhh, Strip!"

*GAG*

Seriously, guys. It's the worst.

In fact, Moment By Moment is so freaking bad, it's never been released on DVD or VHS or Beta or Laserdisc or even CED!!

Well, you know, except in Germany... because we all know how much Germans love repulsive love stories.

Aaaaaanyways, even with all the star power of Lily Tomlin and John Travolta, this movie just didn't do great. Apparently, people just don't want to see a love story about two super famous people who are obviously not attracted to each other... and also look like brother and sister.

No, seriously... Lily Tomlin looks exactly like Ellen Travolta!

See?!?

Creeeeeeepy.

Also, weirdly enough, this film was written and directed by Jane Wagner, who is the longtime romantic partner of Lily Tomlin. Oddness.

Also, this movie was apparently going to be featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but at the last second, they weren't able to get the rights to do it. Damn it, that would've been awesome.

SUBJECT CHANGE!!

The music in this film is kind of ridiculous, and adds to the insanity of it all.

And of course, it being the late 70s, and it being a crappy love story, the Moment By Moment soundtrack includes one of the worst "love" songs ever — "Sometimes When We Touch" by Dan Hill.

Basically, it's all the kind of music you'd find on Los Angeles radio smooooooth jazz... 94.7... The Waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy-haaaaaaayyyyyyyvvvve!

Yuck.

Also, I have a theory about playing non-stop smooth jazz in prison... but that's a whole different (and perhaps more political) post altogether.

You can download the soundtrack to Moment By Moment HERE!!

GAH! Kill me.

Also... ENJOY!

Article #73 - The Soul Hustler Pressbook and Soundtrack!

Today's awesome post of awesomeness is the original pressbook and soundtrack for the 1973 film Soul Hustler, starring Fabian Forte and Casey Kasem! 

GAH! What a badass poster.

As you may or may not know, I am a gigantic dork for films about religion — but mostly weird religion films about Christian cults... and Soul Hustler is one of the weirdest ones there is.

The story is about a druggie/hippie named Matthew, who, after accidentally killing his wife and kid in a car accident, goes on a crazy bender. He picks up a hitchhiker named Brian, and on the way to nowhere in particular, he stops at a church tent. He gives this crazy testimony, and claims to be the son of Jesus Christ! He's so charismatic that the crowd believes him, and the creepy pastor sees a moneymaking opportunity. After Matthew gets thrown in jail for fraud, the pastor comes and bails him out on one condition — he's got to join the pastor in his evil quest for money from gullible religious jerks! Along the way, Matthew becomes a huge deal, being the rock and roll star son of Jesus and all, and the pastor ends up hiring a press agent, played by Casey Kasem! Insanity ensues!

It's one crazy ass fun movie, and one that deserves to be seen more! Fabian is awesome as the singing son of Jesus Christ and Casey Kasem is perfect as the sleazy agent.

The movie's directed by Burt Topper, who also directed The Devil's 8 and The Hard Ride, amongst others. He also produced some awesome movies like Wild in the Streets, Devil's Angels, Thunder Alley, and Fireball 500!

The music's not half bad either. It's all fun fake Christian music, and perhaps that's why I love it. I sure do love me some fake Christian music. The songs and score are written by Harley Hatcher, who also wrote music for The Wild Angels, Kelly's Heroes, and another weird Casey Kasem movie that I've written about here before, Wild Wheels!

All the music is performed by the cast, too, so you're in for a lot more groovy Fabian-ness!

Like the Girl in Gold Boots pressbook, the Soul Hustler book contains a few pre-written articles that theaters were supposed to send to newspapers! Obviously my favorite of these is the one about the blasphemous nature of the film —

Well, there you go. The Soul Hustler is a really interesting early 70s cult film that definitely deserves to be rediscovered! While it's essentially a low budget B-Movie, it's well made and has a great message.  Fabian is actually really awesome in the movie, and the music is fun!

As always, you can CLICK on the photo(s) to enable the ENLARGE-O-MATIC™ PHOTO EMIGGENER®!!

You can download the Soul Hustler pressbook and soundtrack HERE!!

Aaaaaaand if you wanna give the actual film a shot, which I highly suggest, you can purchase the VHS over at Amazon... or you can just watch it on this semi-legal interwebsite.

Enjoy!

The Girl in Gold Boots Memorabilia (Part 6 of 3)

Oh, just accept it. There will never be an end to the Girl in Gold Boots memorabilia.

The record is by harmonica guy Danny Welton, who also did the theme song from Looking for Mr. Goodbar! 

This record includes two instrumental/incidental songs from the "soundtract"... ALL OF THE SINGLES SPELL "SOUNDTRACK" WRONG!!

The track "Julie" is the full length version of the "A New Companion" track from the earlier soundtrack, so this replaces that one on the "soundtract".

I can't figure out where the song "Stroblights" is in the film, but then again, it might not be in the finished film so I just tacked it on at the end.

Also, THEY SPELLED "STROBE LIGHTS" WRONG!!

Seriously, what is up with this misspelling conspiracy?!

You can download the updated version of the Girl in Gold Boots Soundtrack HERE.

Record #1960something - Wild Wheels (Soundtrack)

Today's record is the soundtrack to the weird 1969 bikers vs. surfers movie Wild Wheels!

If you can't tell by that amazingly un-groovy cover to the soundtrack, this movie isn't that good. The soundtrack on the other hand, is super groovtastic.

In the movie, these biker people come to Malibu and are all like "HEY MAN, WE WANNA TAKE THIS BEACH!" and the surfer dudes go "NO WAY, BROSKY!". Music, love, action and adventure all take place and hilarity ensues. 

Okay, that last part was a lie.

Oh, and did I mention the bikers are led by Casey Kasem?

Yup. Shaggy. From Scooby-Doo. As the leader of a biker gang.

Oh, the 1960s, how I love you.

Anyways, like most 1960s B-movies that take place near a body of water, this movie includes musical performances by country and rock bands that you probably never heard of before, and most likely won't ever hear from again.

Well, except for Terry Stafford, who was an actual real life musician. He co-wrote and recorded the classic country song "Amarillo By Morning".

For a sample of some of this crazy movie and it's super fun music, check out this clip of The Saturday Revue performing their song "Holiday Rider"!!

Or you can check out this clip from this drabtastically filmed "movie", if you can even call it that. This time, we have the song "I Hear Music" by the 13th Committee! Yippee.

As you can see, the music isn't half bad. The soundtrack definitely stands on its own as a compilation of obscure late 60s country rock/pop. So check it out, yo!

You can download the soundtrack to Wild Wheels HERE.

Record #85432 - Don't Make Waves (Soundtrack)

Today's record is the Vic Mizzy/The Byrds soundtrack to the Alexander MacKendrick film Don't Make Waves, starring Tony Curtis!

It's kind of a weird (well, to me anyways) that the director and star of Sweet Smell of Success would decide to make a Beach Party-esque film.

To be perfectly honest, this is a strange movie. In fact, I'm not really sure how to describe this film. Because I'm insanely lazy, let's let the trailer do the explaining!

Does that help? No? Yeah, that's what I thought.

The movie's actually pretty fun all around, but my favorite thing about this film is the performance from the awesome character actor Robert Webber. He's just always super entertaining. Go watch his Rockford Files guest appearances -- especially the one where he's a Criswell-esque psychic. Oh yeah. It's just as groovy as it sounds.

The film also includes one of the few leading roles from Sharon Tate, who was murdered in the infamous Manson murders! Creeeeepyyyyyyyyyy.

The soundtrack is awesome, and hey, why shouldn't it be? It's by Vic Mizzy, who did some of the best soundtracks of the 60s, including the William Castle films The Night Walker, The Spirit is Willing, The Busy Body, and my second favorite movie of all time, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken!!

Also cool, is the theme song which is written by Roger McGuinn (under his real name, Jim) and performed by his band The Byrds. Super groovy.

You can get the Don't Make Waves soundtrack HERE.

Record #79 - Elvis - Original Soundtrack

Today's record is the soundtrack from the John Carpenter TV film ELVIS, starring Kurt Russell... but not sung by Kurt Russell. Because that wouldn't make any sense, now would it?

So this is the soundtrack to the John Carpenter TV movie ELVIS... obviously. This movie was his first released after Halloween and the TV movie Someone's Watching Me!, and was the first time that John Carpenter and Kurt Russell worked together. It's also Kurt Russell's first real grown-up film after making all those hundreds of Disney movies... WHICH I LOVE.

By the way, Now You See Him, Now You Don't is THE BEST. And when I met Kurt Russell that one time I told him how much I loved it, and he looked at me weirdly. I don't blame him.

Of course, after ELVIS, John Carpenter and Kurt Russell made the super groovy movies Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, and Escape from LA. And hopefully they will make MORE MOVIES BECAUSE I WANT MORE MOVIES FROM JOHN CARPENTER AND KURT RUSSELL.

MORE MOOOOOVVVIIIEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!

Anywhoo, the soundtrack is all sung by this guy named Ronnie McDowell, who is a country musician and, apparently, an Elvis impersonator on the side.

Sooooo yeahhh, you should see this movie. You can get it on DVD and watch all 3 hours of it! Do iiiittttt.

And you can download the soundtrack HERE.

The Girl in Gold Boots Memorabilia (Part 3 of 3)

And here we are, at the final installment of the Girl in Gold Boots memorabilia! (Also, it's my 60th post! Woo, I guess.)

Today, we've got the as-complete-as-musically-possible Girl in Gold Boots Soundtrack Album!

Being the ginormous Girl in Gold Boots fan that I am, there's nothing I've wanted more than the soundtrack to this film. The film has some great 60s rock/pop by Larry Cartell and Chris Howard, and an awesome incidental score by Nicholas Carras that has moments very reminiscent (at least to me) of a low-budget film noir soundtrack.

Most of the rock songs in the movie were written by Chris Howard (the lead singer on screen at the Haunted House AKA that guy that looks like John Tesh) but a most of them, including the title song, were actually sung by Larry Cartell - that "Cowboy Santa" guy.

A Happy Go Lucky Sound!

As you can see, that "Cowboy Santa" song went to #1 on the charts. I wonder why it never became a holiday staple, like "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". I mean, I never heard of it until this movie. Weird.

From what I can gather, most, if not all of the songs in the movie were recorded by artists on the Glenolden label. All except one of the 7"s that I've collected were released on the Glenolden label. I assume the other label (Colossal) was a label that absorbed Glenolden whenever it closed.

Three of the songs in the movie were written by Jody Daniels (aka Critter). In the early 60s, he was on the Dot record label, which released many famous artists including Louis Armstrong, The Surfaris, Liberace, The Andrews Sisters, The Chantays, and everybody's favorite... Leonard Nimoy.

As far as I can tell (and find), Jody only released one single with Dot Records, and I assume he never released a full album. If he did, I'd love to find and hear it. 

There is another 7" single I've found on a label called N-Joy Records under the name of "Jody Daniel" with the songs "At The Go Go" and "Quando Calentia Del Sol"... but I'm not going to pay $103.06 for a record, especially for only 2 songs.

The song "Gold" is by a great loungey-type singer named Joe Valino. He released a bunch of singles, including his most popular, and still pretty well known song "Garden of Eden". Joe was also the first person to record the song "Learnin' The Blues" which was later made famous by Frank Sinatra. He released one really great album, called Sinner or Saint, which we'll come back to in another post. Also, I think he kind of looks like Al Lewis aka Grampa Munster.

One song in the film is by Jerry Wallace, who was a country/pop musician who recorded for many labels, and is probably most well known for his song "If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry" which was featured on an episode of the classic Rod Serling show Night Gallery.

There is only one song in the film that has completely evaded me, and that is the song that is played during the infamous diner scene where Buz appears out of nowhere. Just so you know, this only happens in the TV/VHS version... not on the DVD. So get your laughs out now!

So, if you know what song that is, and I'm assuming it's called "The Hurting Game", let me know! I'd love to find it. It's a pretty good country song!

Anyways...

There is another fan-made version of the soundtrack floating online, where all the music is taken directly from the DVD. I have used the DVD tracks for the Nicholas Carras score, as well as the songs that weren't put on any official record ("Do You Want to Laugh or Cry", "I Just Want to Rest", "Lonesome Man", "You Gotta Come Down", and "Bongo Madness").

But all of the other tracks come directly from promotional 7"s released on Glenolden Records, and are the full and complete tracks, with no dialogue/sound effects overlapping the songs, unlike on that other soundtrack that's around the interwebs. I've also included an alternate version of Larry Cartell's "Jimmy's Girl" that I like more than the one used in the film. So there.

UPDATE (11/02/12) – added two Danny Welton instrumental harmonica tracks ("Julie" and "Stroblights") from a Girl in Gold Boots promotional soundtrack 7". "Julie" replaces "A New Companion", since it's the full length version of that song. "Stroblights" is added on at the end of the album, because I'm pretty sure it's not in the finished film... also, they spelled "strobe lights" wrong.

And so here we are at the end of the Girl in Gold Boots memorabilia. Except for one more thing... a promotional photo. It's the only one I've got, but it's a good one! If I get anymore, you'll be the first to know... whoever you are.

You can download the unofficially official soundtrack to Girl in Gold Boots HERE!!

Enjoy, yak boys and girls in your gold boots movin'!

Record # 11 - Red, White and Blaine: The Musical

Today's musical fantasticality is the official, unreleased, promotional only soundtrack to the amazing Christopher Guest film Waiting for Guffman.

The music in this film is pretty hilarious, and why shouldn't it be? It's written by the trio that made up the super rockin' band Spinal Tap - Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. By the way, Harry Shearer annoys the crap out of me... but that's a different story for a different time on a different planet and in a different galaxy.

Well anyways, Waiting for Guffman was the film that was Christopher Guest's return to the style that Rob Reiner, Guest, Shearer, and McKean perfected - the mockumentary. In the film, a group of wanna-be theater actors from a small town put together a play about the history of their town, Blaine, Missouri. Hilarity ensues.

Hilarity ensues thanks to the insanely funny cast of Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, Christopher Guest, Bob Balaban, and the funniest man alive, Fred Willard. 

The only reason I can come up with why this soundtrack wasn't released officially is because since the songs are intentionally terrible and unprofessional sounding... although that's why fans would want to buy the soundtrack... right?

So here, for you, my loving lovers of love, are all the songs from the movie/play in their full, uncut form!

Download "Red, White & Blaine - The Musical" HERE!

Enjoy!

Record #72 - The Heartbreak Kid - Soundtrack

Today's record is the soundtrack from the classic 1972 film The Heartbreak Kid, starring Charles Grodin, written by Neil Simon, and directed by comedy genius Elaine May.

Unlike the terrible remake that shall not be discussed, Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid is a really great film. It's one of my favorite comedies of all time. If I had to describe it with one phrase, I'd call it "the anti-romantic comedy".

The Heartbreak Kid is the story of Lenny, a young guy who, while on his honeymoon in Miami Beach, meets a new woman named Kelly. While his wife Lila is stuck in the hotel room with an insane sunburn, he spends all his time hanging out with Kelly, realizing he wants to be with her. He eventually decides to break it off with Lila and follow Kelly back to her home, and all the while, her no-nonsense father does everything in his power to destroy the ill-fated relationship.

One thing that makes The Heartbreak Kid so great is the fact that Elaine May is a master of directing awkward situations, and this film is chock full of awkwardtoscity. Every single moment in the film is great, but by far the best parts are the insanely uncomfortable interactions between Charles Grodin and Eddie Albert's characters -- just check out the trailer!

The soundtrack for the film is a prime example of classic 70s (and 60s) background music. It's very lounge-y and definitely blends into the background of any cocktail party.

So here's what you should do -- you should gather a bunch of friends, grow some super groovy Grodin sideburns, get a bunch of martinis, and put this soundtrack on in the background while asking each other intense Trivial Pursuit questions about Russian Communist propaganda films.

That'll be fun!

Download the soundtrack to The Heartbreak Kid HERE!

Record #1987 - City of Crime (Theme from "Dragnet")

This is the blog -- Los Angeles, California. I write here. I carry a badge.

The article you are about to read is true. The names have been kept the same, because it would be less interesting if I changed them.

DUN DA DUNNNNNN DUN DA DUN DA DUNNNNN!!

In the late 1980s, someone had the bright idea to hire Dan Aykroyd to write and star in a comedy film based on the classic TV cop drama Dragnet. Since Jack Webb wasn't around, they cast Dan Aykroyd as Sgt. Joe Friday's nephew with the same name, and gave him a new sidekick named Pep Streebek, played by Tom Hanks. Yes, that Tom Hanks. The film also featured the original Bill Gannon from the 1960s series, Harry Morgan!

In the film, Captain Bill Gannon puts Sgt. Friday and Pep on the case of an evil cult that goes by the the awesome acronym P.A.G.A.N., which stands for "People Against Goodness And Normalcy". I seriously love that.

Now, to be honest, the film isn't so bad. In fact, it's quite funny. Dan Aykroyd does a pretty great Jack Webb impersonation, and Tom Hanks is just perfectly hilarious. Having the original Bill Gannon from the 60s TV show adds more hilarity, and there are some great supporting parts by Dabney Coleman as a Hugh Hefner-type and Christopher Plummer as a televangelist. It also has a great foul-mouthed cameo by the hilarious 1960s character actress Kathleen Freeman. It's just awesome.

By the way, I subscribe to the belief that Harry Morgan is one of the funniest people in the history of the universe. His voice and his delivery as the comic relief in the 1960s Dragnet have made me laugh harder than some comedians can.

I only have one problem with this film. It's also the problem I have with most films from the mid to late 80s. That problem is -- the use of crappy "rap" music.

Almost all of these late 1980s soundtracks include horrible "rap" songs.

Why? I have no clue.

This film is no exception.

Dragnet has a RAP THEME SONG performed by its stars Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks.

Yes.

I am completely serious.

See?

Although it may be pretty terrible, I have be honest, I have way too much fun listening to Academy Award® Winner Tom Hanks SCREAM his sweet flows at me.

THEY GOT THE GIRL ALL FRIGHTENED, THAT'S NOT NICE!!
I THINK SHE IS THE VICTIM OF A SACRIFICE!!

Good God, man. I can hear you just fine!

Well, here you go. Here is the original 5 MINUTE (HOLY cRAP!) rap theme song to the classic 1980s comedy Dragnet, as performed by Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks, from the original 12" single.

Download "City of Crime" HERE.

I leave you with this 1970s comedy sketch featuring Sgt. Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon interrogating comedy legend Jack Benny.

The blog you have just read is true. No names were changed, because no one is innocent.