Number 47

Day 1 - Friday

I knew the weekend ahead was going to be a great one when I found myself greeted by my rental car with a door chime that played the love theme from Sparatcus! I kid you not, the chime used the exact 3 note motif playing it 3 times just like in one of the variations of the theme. All it was missing was the 4 note cadence to end the phrase. Ironically, my first stop after getting my car was to go to the offices of Varese Sarabande where I was to meet Robert Townson so he could sign my copy of his Spartacus book. [Insert Twilight Zone theme here!]

A couple of days before I left on my trip to LA from Houston, I made arrangements with Robert to drop by his office to get his autograph and also so I could congratulate him in person for his epic release of the score that has meant so much to me personally. I figured I’d be there for about 5 minutes. Although he was very busy trying to tie up some loose ends before the weekend, Robert graciously took the time to chat with me about Spartacus, Jerry Goldsmith and a couple of other film music topics. He took me on a quick tour of the rather small office space of Varese to show me the Peak paintings that were commissioned for the Varese re-recordings.  They were hung on every wall I could see. He especially wanted me to see the painting for North’s 2001 which of course was the one I wanted to see the most. It is by far the largest painting covering nearly an entire wall in the open area of the office. I had no idea these paintings were so huge!

I found Robert to be exactly the person I had heard he was, a pleasant, unassuming man without airs of any kind who truly was interested in talking with me about film music just like any film music fan would. After 20 minutes I departed, but not before Robert gave me a long sheet parchment copy of the first page of the conductor’s score for the Spartacus “Final Farewell and End Title” cue. He made it before I arrived because he thought I would enjoy having it. He was so right! Such a thoughtful thing to do and just shows what kind of person he is.

The next event of the day was to meet for drinks at the Tiki-Ti tropical drink bar on Sunset with any interested parties. I arrived after 6:00 and Peter “drivingmissdaisy” Hackman, his partner Brian and Justin Craig had already been there for while. The group assembled came from Texas, Indiana and New York to socialize in this tiny hole in the wall Tiki bar. We drank a number of very powerful drinks during the course of the evening and were feeling no pain as we talked and laughed our way through the night. Later in the evening we were joined by none other than Henry “Morricone” Stanny. It was really nice having such a long standing citizen of the boards and a true gentleman join us “foreigners to LA" in our revelry. We continued on until around 11:00 I think before going our separate ways. Yes we talked about film music while we were together, but not as much as we did about other things in general. Film music is our common bond, but certainly by no means was it all we could talk about and we got to know each other just as regular people. That is, as regular as exceptional people like us can be! Out of this shared time together grew some new friendships. This was exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for on this trip!

Day 2 - Saturday

The FFM big event that Peter Hackman and Daniel “Onthescore” Schweiger put together began at 11:00 a.m. at Dark Delicacies in Burbank. The first hour was set aside for us to meet and mingle with our fellow film score friends. As we entered the store and signed in we were given a La-La Land goodies bag filled with some of their CDs. Also we got a bright red tube containing a poster made up especially for the event by Peter.

I met up with a lot of people, some for the first time because I either didn’t get to meet them at last year’s FSM event or because they were new to this one. I probably won’t remember everyone I did meet since there were so many, but here’s my shot at a list: Peter of course, Daniel Schweiger, Jeff Bond, Lukas Kendall, Henry Stanny and his wife Nancy, Mike Joffe, Taylor Fenno, Neil Bulk, Justin Craig, MV Gerhard, Matt Verboys, “Tiziano”, Brian Satterwhite, Preston Neal Jones, Jon Broxton and Marshall “CLaFong99” Harvey. Forgive me if I left out your name. Please let me know in the comments and I'll add you to the list!

The composers all arrived around noon and we started the panel Q & A moderated by Daniel Schweiger. The composers attending were Tyler Bates, John Debney, Tom Hadju (of tomandandy), Daniel Licht, John Ottman, Stu Phillips and Michael Wandmacher. I won’t go into any details about the discussion, perhaps leaving that for another blog entry later.

Suffice it to say it was a fascinating couple of hours with a lot of candid and passionate discussions and Daniel asked some excellent questions of all of the composers. It was very eye opening as we got a peek into the world of present day film scoring from those inside who live it every day. Tying into that was the perspective of how it used to be from some of the veterans, especially the venerable Stu Phillips. There was also some time for audience Q & A. Hopefully next time there will be more time for this, but we were constrained a bit by Dark Delicacies' schedule and the understandable need for them to use their store to make money. Special thanks go out to Del and Sue for letting us use their place to house the event! At the end of the discussion several prizes were given away in a drawing and I was one of the 4 lucky winners. I won a book of interviews with film/TV/video game composers, “Keeping Score” by Tom Hoover, that was previously signed by a number of composers. I got John Ottman and Tyler Bates to sign their chapters since they hadn’t signed prior.

After the discussion we got to talk briefly with each of the composers as we got them to sign our FFM posters which were specifically designed by Peter for this very purpose, and also any covers we may have brought. This part is always fun as you can tell the composers really enjoy talking to their fans, which we know is a very small group of people. After the signing we were able to talk to them aside or they could be found talking to each other. It was a fantastic event on all counts and I must congratulate and thank Peter for putting it on as a dedicated film music fan of the highest order and Daniel for his important role in making it such a success. Way to go guys. Can’t wait until next year!

Since there are still several more activities from the weekend to cover, I’ll wait and continue with those in part 2 next week. I’m still a bit tired after the non-stop parade of activities over the weekend. It’s exactly how I wanted it to be when I went out there and boy did I get it!

To be continued next time…

                                                     Epilogue

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