Radio Helped the Soundtrack Star
We get more and more letters from people doing or hearing soundtrack
radio shows - which is great! Here are two notes, followed by an essay
below of one man's daring soundtrack radio mission.
From: Jeff Berkwits <ASTERISMSF@aol.com>
Here in Chicago a well-known local afternoon drive DJ named Steve
Dahl (www.dahl.com) played both the opening and closing themes - in their
entireties and without interruption - from Earth to the Moon and waxed
rhapsodic about them (and the mini-series) for about 20 minutes this afternoon.
The station (WCKG - 105.9 FM) is a classic-rock type station with a lot
of talk (Howard Stern mornings, Johnathan Brandmeier middays, etc.). Dahl
is infamous as a shock jock for his Disco Demolition held in 1979 which
halted a double header between the White Sox and Red Sox.
From: "Jason Gray" <ihadariver@hotmail.com>
My name is Jason Gray, and I'm writing to inform you of a new radio
program that will debut at 10:00 P.M.(Central) Wednsday, May 27th on KOHM
89.1 FM, Lubbock, TX (NPR member station). The one-hour program entitled
ScoreNotes, is dedicated to the history, the composers, and the music of
the film composition world.
If you have a movie music radio show, tell us about it, we'll tell the
readers. In related news, I'm told that today in Los Angeles is the day
when KKGO will play the Jerry Goldsmith "Music for Orchestra"
performed by the L.A. Phil a few months ago... unfortunately I do not know
WHEN just yet. If we find out, we'll post on our message
board. And, needless to say, if anyone knows, please post it there
yourself. -Lukas Kendall
A Fistful of Soundtracks
by Jimmy Aquino
I'm Jimmy "Mack" Aquino, the host of A Fistful of Soundtracks,
a film-and-television music show on KZSC 88.1 FM, University of California-Santa
Cruz's radio station. The program, which premiered June 21, 1997, airs
Saturdays from 12PM to 2PM. A longtime fan of Robert Emmett's The Norman
Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show on Los Altos, California's KFJC-FM, I always
wanted to do a show like Emmett's in the Central Coast, which was lacking
such a program.
Although I've written film reviews for the San Jose Mercury News and
I'm currently the managing editor, the arts/entertainment editor, and resident
film reviewer for UCSC's weekly student newspaper, City on a Hill Press
(www.slugwire.org), some might think
I'm the unlikeliest host for a film-score show because I listen to lots
of hiphop. But I also have an affinity for the music of Ennio Morricone,
Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Quincy Jones, Danny Elfman, and John
Barry's scores for the James Bond movies.
I named A Fistful of Soundtracks for A Fistful of Dollars as
a tribute to Morricone, my favorite composer. It's also a tribute to Sergio
Leone, one of my favorite filmmakers. (I thought borrowing the program's
name from a movie that starred Carmel, California resident Clint Eastwood
was appropriate because of his popularity in the Central Coast. I always
have this feeling he might be listening to my show.) The main title music
from A Fistful of Dollars serves as A Fistful of Soundtracks' opening
theme, and I use the end credits music from Shaft (which accompanies
Richard Roundtree as he utters the film's famed closing line, "Close
it yourself, s----y!") as the program's closing theme.
I often enjoy doing theme shows. When Tomorrow Never Dies was
released, I did a special two-part James Bond edition. I'm so proud of
that Bond special that I reran it, and I will probably reair it several
times more. I'm also proud of the two-part "Special Black History
Month Edition" that I assembled in February; the first part of that
two-parter consisted entirely of scores by black composers like Quincy
Jones, Bill Lee, Terence Blanchard, Isaac Hayes, and Curtis Mayfield, and
the second part was made up of scores from films about Black history, including
Rosewood (John Williams), Dead Presidents (Danny Elfman),
and Glory (in my opinion, James Horner's best score). That second
part of the Black History Month show was probably the most moving edition
of A Fistful of Soundtracks I ever did because these films and their scores
-- as well as the history of African Americans itself -- are filled with
a lot of tragedy and sadness. Horner's stirring work for Glory affects
me in a way that his overrated music for Titanic couldn't, and so
does Bill Lee's pensive "Wake Up Suite" from Do the Right
Thing, which I closed the Black History Month show with.
Whenever a composer has a birthday, I devote an entire show to his scores.
Elmer Bernstein recently had a birthday, so I delved into both my collection
and the station's library and played cuts from The Great Escape, Three
Amigos!, The Age of Innocence, and To Kill a Mockingbird --
I even played Bernstein's theme from The Rookies. And when Henry
Mancini and Miklos Rozsa had birthdays the same weekend, I played Mancini's
best-known themes for the first hour, and then played Rozsa in the second
hour. Towards the end of May, I'll be putting together a two-part birthday
tribute to Danny Elfman, whose birthday is on May 29.
I'm currently doing a series of shows called "Batmay," in
which I play scores from the animated Batman movies and interviews
I did with people like Michael McCuistion, a composer for Batman: The
Animated Series and the new made-for-video Subzero movie, Randy
Rogel, Subzero's co-writer and a songwriter/composer for Animaniacs,
Warner Bros. Animation voice director Andrea Romano, and Batman writer/producer
Paul Dini. For those of you who are thinking of starting a film-music radio
show, getting exclusives is the best thing about doing these programs.
I have some tips on how to do a film-music radio show if you're going
to start one:
1. Write a script for the show if you have a tendency to get nervous
on the mike. It's radio, so no one's gonna know. I always come to the studio
with a script of what I should say on the air. Without a script in front
of me, I find myself turning into Jonathan Demme at the Oscars. You don't
want to stutter on the air, and you also shouldn't sound dull or mechanical,
like Howard Stern in those college-radio scenes from Private Parts.
Throw in some little facts about the movies and the composers to amuse
the audience. Do impressions of film stars. Make some snide comments about
a Hollywood actor's recent turkey or something. Infuse humor into the show.
(A Fistful of Soundtracks is the type of program where you'll hear "Ave
Satani" on Valentine's Day.)
Film music is different from rock or pop music, so you have to sound
a little classier. A script makes you sound professional. Too many college-radio
deejays sound like they've come to the studio hungover or high, and I never
wanted to sound like them, which is why I decided to type out a script
each week.
2. Buy a lot of compilation CDs. They save you money and help a lot,
especially when you're looking for a piece from a hard-to-find score. TeeVee
Toons' Television's Greatest Hits series and Rhino Records' Ennio Morricone
Anthology: A Fistful of Film Music are some wonderful collections.
Varese Sarabande's 1992 CD Hollywood Backlot: Big Movie Hits Volume
Three is a great compilation of early '90s scores.
3. Life hands you lemons, so you make lemonade. If a listener calls
you to say he or she is irritated by what you're doing as a host, ignore
him or her. They're not in control of the studio -- you are, so you can
do whatever you want. Some boozehound once called me and said, "Why
don't you shut the ---- up? You talk too much in between the music. I just
wanna hear the music." So the next week, I decided to do a 15-minute
film-music-news segment.
On the weekend before the Oscars, I did a tribute to the songs and score
of L.A. Confidential, and a female caller objected to my use of
the words "damn" and "butt-naked little golden guys"
(my description of the Oscars) in my introduction. I now try to make it
a habit to say "damn" and "butt-naked" at least once
each show.
And now, here are some things I've learned from doing my program:
1. People like The Omen. I don't know if it says something about
the religious beliefs of people in Santa Cruz or if it just shows how popular
the music is, but it's A Fistful of Soundtracks' most-requested score.
2. Doing A Fistful of Soundtracks has made me appreciate music more.
The scores I've played have opened me up to different kinds of musical
genres. Now I want to learn to play the trumpet, like my idol Morricone.
Also, thanks to the show and the Film Music class I took at UCSC in the
winter, I've developed a knack for recognizing what sort of instruments
are used in scores. The show has made me -- a guy who once couldn't tell
an oboe from a clarinet -- listen to music better. For instance, now I
know that beautiful-sounding instrument that I always liked hearing at
the beginning of "On Earth as It is in Heaven" from The Mission
is a harpsichord.
I know how much I care about something when I have dreams about it.
I recently had a couple of nightmares where I did the show and things would
go wrong -- the cart machine wouldn't work, I started stammering on the
air, and so on. I guess A Fistful of Soundtracks is now my baby. I've watched
it grow from a crudely done, modest little midnight show of nothing but
music to a polished, focused program with interviews and exclusives you
can't really hear anywhere else, like the Subzero score.
So if you're in Los Gatos or the Central Coast area -- Santa Cruz, Monterey,
Salinas -- tune into KZSC 88.1 FM every Saturday at noon, and join me as
I pay tribute to film scoring -- an art form that's been underappreciated
for far too long.
Send your comments or show plug! MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com
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