Toadcast #84 – The Playing With the Pastcast
Playing With the Past is an annual (we hope) event at the Edinburgh Film Festival where contemporary bands are invited to write new soundtracks for old films. Last year was the first of these, when the superb British Sea Power wrote a brilliant score for Man of Aran, a (slightly fake) documentary about the lives of the inhabitants of a remote island off the West Coast of Ireland (extract here).
This was such a success that the band have been performing it all over the place ever since. This year David Drummond, who put the event together, decided to invite three different bands to work with roughly half an hour or so of footage each, and he started off by inviting eagleowl, who suggested a number of other bands, from which David chose FOUND and Meursault.
We decided not to include more than a few excerpts of the music in this because the bands were a little uncomfortable about listening to too much of their stuff in the absence of the film to which it belongs. So a big thank you to Tommy, Bart and Neil for coming in to talk about their music, and to David and Theresa from the Filmhouse who came by to chip in at the beginning, before having to rush off. It may not be the catchiest of podcasts in a musical sense this week, but I think this is easily one of the best podcasts we’ve done – one of the most interesting, certainly.
Also, although I haven’t tracked down all these films on the internet, I have got some bits and pieces for you to give you an idea of what was going on. Confusingly, they all have the original scores on these clips, but erm… well, hopefully you’ll find them instructive.
The Films:
1. eagleowl: Granton Trawler
2. eagleowl: Begone Dull Care
3. Meursault: Stan & Ollie
4. Meursault: Night Mail (Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3)
5. FOUND: Camera Makes Whoopee (Sorry, couldn’t find this one anywhere – here’s a Google search though if you want to have a go yourself. And a bit more about Norman McLaren, here.)
Toadcast #84 – The Playing With the Pastcast
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01. British Sea Power – Oh Larsen B (06.17)
02. eagleowl – Granton Trawler (Excerpt) (17.16)
03. eagleowl – Begone Dull Care (Excerpt) (24.46)
04. Six Organs of Admittance – Eighth Cognition/All You’ve Left (27.34)
05. Meursault – Night Mail (Excerpt) (35.46)
06. Meursault – Stan & Ollie (Excerpt) (43.24)
07. The Books – All Our Base are Belong to Them (46.25)
08. FOUND – Camera Makes Whoopee (Excerpt 2) (56.43)
09. Marvin Gaye – T Plays it Cool (68.39)
10. FOUND – Camera Makes Whoopee (Excerpt 1) (72.56)
Great Toadcast. Night Mail, I think, was my favourite… It was just so damn moving – I almost teared-up.
Oh wow, this looks to be brilliant. I’m going to listen to this one tonight, after bedtime, to avoid interruptions. Ever heard Philip Glass’ “re-score” for Dracula?
Honestly, this is starting to look like genuine journalism, instead of the usual quasi-alcoholic pish. I must put a stop to that as soon as possible and record another dreadful sweary one!
Yeah, the tone has become a little too serious.
Bum tit tit, bum tit tit. Play yer hairy banjo!
Bum tit tit, bum tit tit. Play yer fanny organ!
Hello,
I haven’t listened to this yet, bit pissed really so I’ll deal with the whole toadcast thing in the morning.
Fanattica are amazing, so fucking good they blew my mind. See you all the morns hopefully,
Dav x
Please don’t shy away from the odd bit of actual journalism. Most music I work on is complimentary so it was really fascinating to hear the chaps talk about the song writing process and the differences between writing and writing for a film.
This is probably one of my favourite casts.
Mine too actually – I just reckon that in the long run it will prove to be one of the least popular. Still pretty much going to be one of my favourites though.
I love the British Sea Power – Man of Aran even without the movie
although I guess it’s playing in my head. My brother Spinning Boy isn’t as appreciative, when I sent him a link to it a while back, he replied.
“‘British Sea Power’ have a hard neck putting music to Ireland’s cinematic epic. My new act, ‘Irish Republican Army Explosives Division’, will be doing the soundtrack to Grierson’s ‘Night Mail’ in retaliatory move.”
However he was prepared to acknowledge
“Flaherty was a bit of blagger anyway. He arrived on the Aran Islands where everyone was on the dole and said he wanted to shoot the famous shark hunting for documentary. The boys all had a good laugh at this telling him no one had done that for 50 years
‘I’ll pay you to let on – says he’ thus Man of Aran came about.”
Matthew has a cock like a carrot