R.I.P. David Hess

David Alexander Hess started out his incredible career as a songwriter and musician. At the age of 15 he was the first to record Otis Blackwell's "All Shook Up". Later picked up by Elvis.
His stage name was David Hill.



He also penned (with Aaron Schroeder) "I Got Stung" for Elvis and then also co-wrote and recorded "Speedy Gonzales", later made famous by Pat Boone. He now called himself David Dante.



He then went on to record 2 solo albums for Kapp Records.
At the end of the 1960s he co-wrote the rock-opera 'The Naked Carmen' with John Corigliano.


In the 1970s he also started to act in movies. His first major achievement was as Krug Stillo in Wes Craven's 'The Last House on the Left' in 1972. He also penned and recorded the score for the movie.


In 1977 he starred in the italian crime 'Hitch-Hike' as the psychotic and sadistic hitcher.


In 1980 he had a seat in the director's chair himself and directed 'To All a Good Night'. Apparently a typical 1980s teenage horror flick.

He also starred or participated in several other horror and/or cult flicks, such as Ruggero Deodato's 'House on the Edge of the Park'; Craven's 'Swamp Thing' and in later years 'Zodiac Killer'.


-Why don't you lay back and enjoy being inferior?

I do, I do. Now, rest in peace.

Complete Piano Music, Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg - Complete Piano Music. Performed by Edward Steuermann. Available thanks to A Closet of Curiosities.


Zwei Klavierstuke, Op. 33a and b

Compleanno Felice, Maestro.

Happy 82nd birthday, Ennio Morricone. "Chi Mai" is one of my favorite of his pieces, so here it is with some pretty pictures.

Ornette on Jaw's Harp

Lonely Woman for ukelele, bass harmonica, or toy piano? Sure, why not? What's In My iPod has the sheet music of compositions by Ornette Coleman from his milestone Change of the Century and Shape of Jazz to Come albums.

Il Medico... la studentessa

Roberto Pregadio's score to the soft erotic Il Medico... la studentessa (IMDb) is available thanks to monone's library.
Roberto Pregadio - Il Medico... la studentessa
Boomp3.com

Piero Piccioni

Piccioni all day and all night long at Isbums Place - and don't forget to suggest/post your favorite Piero Piccioni track here (for an upcoming online tribute compilation).
I feel quite embarresed to suggest ... you know ... my theme ....
Well, there is alot of other brilliant stuff coming from the Piccioni catalogue.

Daphne Oram

" ... Oram was one of the first British composers to produce electronic sound, a pioneer of what became "musique concrete" – music made with sounds recorded on tape, the ancestor of today's electronic music. Her story makes for fascinating reading. She was born in 1925 when Britain was between two world wars. She was extremely bright, and studied music and electronics – unusual at the time not only because electronics was an exciting new industry, but also because it was a man's world. ..."
Daphne Oram: Portrait of an electronic music pioneer, article in Guardian by Robert Worby. (via Up-Tight)
boomp3.com
boomp3.com
Both tracks taken from the 2007 compilation Daphne Oram - Oramics.

Note: More info about Oram can be found at her Wikipedia-entry and at this lengthy article.

Four Corners of the World

Esquivel's 1958 album Four Corners of the World is available thanks to Psychotic Leisure Music.

Morton Feldman

"It is therefore not merely of anecdotal interest to document Feldman'splaying and that of his first interpreters, for here it is made clear howmuch Feldman's entire oeuvre developed from this approach. He shifted the implicit precedence of artistic realization from a negligible peripheral issue to the center of his focus. From here on, the traditional musical parameters of harmony, form, time, instrumentation and arrangement are stripped of their essential features and in Feldman's playing, are heard again anew. The present recordings, primarily from Feldman's early period, present different solutions to the same problem. ..." (From the liner notes)

Morton Feldman - Morton Feldman, shared by A Closet of Curiosities.

Harry Partch

Part one of a half hour program produced in 1968 at KPBS in San Diego, featuring music and interviews with maverick composer Harry Partch.

Harry Partch is best known as a composer of music based upon a 43 tone musical scale. When conventional musical instruments became too limiting, he was compelled to modify and then create his own--which are works of art unto themselves. Partch once said, “I am not an instrument-builder, but a philosophic music-man seduced into carpentry.”

John Carpenter, composer

Egg City Radio (formerly known as Post-Punk Junk) aims the spotlight On John Carpenter's soundtracks.
Bret has also posted the complete score to 'Halloween III: Season Of The Witch' at his other blog CineFile Video.

Berry Lipman

Berry Lipman (real name Friedel Berlipp) began his musical career at the age of seven with classical violin lessons and compositional studies. Although he lost two fingers of his hand in a war injury and had to switch from violin to guitar, he got his first professional engagement as a musician in 1945. He soon got the chance to arrange for several radio stations until the first recording company (Decca) called for his services. Three years later he became chief arranger, studio orchestra leader and house composer for EMI Germany, where he tailored hits for Gitte, Conny Froboess, Chris Howland, Lale Andersen, Cliff Richard and many others. When he moved on to Ariola in 1961, he added work with international artists such as Charles Aznavour, Dalida and Zarah Leander to his list of accomplishments. The German branch of Vogue offered him the position of production head in 1964, where he produced Petula Clark, Pat Boone, Billy Vaughn and JonnyTeupen, among others. At this time, his publisher came up with the idea for him to change his name to something more international sounding. Berry Lipman was born. Since 1967, Berry Lipman has worked steadily as a freelance producer. With the singer James Lloyd he hit it big with an international number one song, "Keep On Smiling". In the same year, Lipman founded the Berry Lipman Orchestra, for which he created what's been dubbed the original "Berry Lipman Sound".
(Bio text from moviegrooves.com)

"The Girls from Paramaribo" by Berry Lipman (single track)