Your Progressive Rock as a movie!

 

(oops I did)

 

Popol Vuh did ... I think 5 or 6 of these for WErner Herzog. "Aguirre" is the most visual of these and seeing the insane long shot in the film makes this piece sound even more far out! "Nosferatu" did not feature as much Popol Vuh as it did some Wagner and other music that also came off well. "Heart of Glass" had quite a bit of Popol Vuh, but none of it was as well used, as Aguirre, which is the quintessential piece for Herzog, where he really defined his use of music, and the only film where music ... was also the "movie". In all others, it became more ... just another movie. In the earlier films, I think that he was experimenting too much and did not know what to do with it. In "Aguirre" I think he finally got a "clue".

 

Make sure you read the interview with Florian Fricke that Mr. Eurock gave us here on the PA ... there are some funny lines in there ... that Werner was just grabbing the tapes off the closet and the following week he would show up saying ... look ... I got a movie! It is really far out in many ways ... and really tells you that these folks (as I always say and talk about) are much better aligned with each other than the stars! Literature, rock music, movies and theatre in Germany in the late 60's were tightly aligned ... and I think the words that Edgar Froese states in that special ... say it all ...

 

Terry Gilliam is another story, and he has the same birthday as I ... and my explaining him will drive you nuts, as his many attempts to do Don Quixote has given him fits ... my talks about progressive music history and quotidian study falls into the same quixotic concept ... but to me that is very important and we need to fight for it, or it will just be another number one film/story/song and tomorrow, "A Star is Born" will look and sound stupid for you and I ... already did for me 50 years ago! Most cardboard movie ever made! Terry is tough ... and for all intents and purposes, let's just say that he is nothing but a story teller for the big kids inside you and I ... trying to take this further is too difficult to explain and will drive you nuts ... it's a hassle trying to explain psychic abilities in 12 Monkees and how paranoid we are about them and then seeing the story become "real" ... it usually does because we kill that side of ourselves that "sees" ... and we become jerks, when you lose that inner sight and side of yourself ... it all becomes logic! And logic that can go wrong!

 

Haven't seen that yet and will look for it .... but I can list a few movies that are big for me interms of the way that the rock music was used, and not necessarily progressive ... but still great. I'll update as I can remember them.

 

The Wall (off course!)

 

Purple Rain -- deserves some credit, specially for the time that it came out. Highly individualistic in the Peter Hammill tradition, and the only sad thing is that he let fame get to his head. But the music in that one is fantastic all the way through and very progressive by any standards on that day ... when a lot of crap was on the radio and MTV!

 

The Commitments -- the original from England, not the bad copy with Tom Hanks.

 

All in all, more "movies" are being made of the classical side of things and the "experience" than th eones with rock music, which kinda tells you that rock music still has not matured to the point where people will take it more seriously -- which is the side I work on mostly ... but we have to stop talking about "favorites" ... we have to talk about the music solidly!

 

There are, over the years a myriad of films about music, and many of them were about the pioneers of music, and some of them about the extremes that people have to go to learn music and make it work. To me, that is more important than anything being "progressive" or "bs" ... because it is too easy, for an idiot to pick up a camera and glorify the Rolling Stones, when they don't need it, and they do not have anything going for them that most other bands out there already have, and are doing it better ... but they are the Rolling Stones and you are not!

 

I would like to see, someone be able to tackle "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" as a movie ... but it will fall apart in the writing when you get to the end ... and it "gives up" and becomes just antoher commercial song ... it's just rock'n'roll ... and in my book, that lowers the value of the piece and that is the one piece I would cut out of the production ... to be able to make the story stand out stronger in a play, or movie! A lot of top ten and "song" fans, would not be worth the movie, unless we're trying to make Justin look better than he really is, or a couple of the other girls and what not! Gads ... even Madonna was better than these, but then, even the Mormoms tried to get their famous family on TV, movies and everywhere for you!

 

I would like to stage ... The Fall of the House of Usher ... and use most of the music that Peter Hammill wrote. I would like to put on the stage the movie "Performance" ... with one problem ... how to use some of the music, which I probably would use a DAW and remove the vocals, so I could pay a tribute to several of the folks that were involved in that film with music. That film was so progressive in style, and was easily one of the first rock music video things ever done ... but it is a very tough film to sit through because you and I have no idea what it is about!

 

There is one novel I would like to turn into a movie ... Aleister Crowley's "Diary of a Drugfiend" but finding the musicians to illustrate that ... will be impossible ... as most rock idioms are too stuck up to be able to color something that far out and far off ... that can not have "conventional" music all around it ... but I doubt this will ever be done in my life time. Maybe if someone pays me for a couple of years, if I don't have to work, I can come up with this screenplay! It is a fabulous story that ends correctly with the proper information and conclusion about "drugs" ... and something that we don't like to deal with it. It has been one of my greatest learnings about these things ... if you have to do it again, it's over ... you're already dead ... and I tend to look at the arts the same way ... if all I can do is repat things, then something is wrong with my perceiving of it ... doesn't mean my body can not enjoy that girl anymore ... for example ... but it's sort of like the enjoyment of the person is no longer there ... and the attitude is wrong! All of this is a part of that story and then some. Massively great story for a movie, but the visuals and music ... will be hell!

 

Same for "Steppenwolf" though the movie that was made with Dominique Sanda way back when used cartoons for all the political/sociological scatology and it was actually neat ... but it created a problem ... the "magic theater" all of a sudden was not as important ... because of the cartoons. The film was not able to define the "magic theater" with its story or visuals, and it hurt! Now the best you can do is think of a cartoon, and it lowers its value! I would use, btw ... Hawkwind's song ... which is sooooooo good and on par with the story and book!

 

I would like to see "A Passion Play" done on stage, complete with Ballett and rock band, and theater and audience with the ballerina story as the side story ... that is absolutely one massively good piece for the stage and then some! And the staging would probably be similar to the Peter Brook's thing ... Marat/Sade! ... and yeah ... it would be bombastic and then some!

 

The beginning of the Krautrock special (the 6 part one) has its first 30 minutes that are ... unreal ... they managed to clarify the late 60's and what it was all about ... and adding that to London in the late 60's and its music would be wonderful ... as it would help explain "progressive" a lot more ... than we give it credit for ... the early KC was all about this ... but we do not accept that fact or compare notes on that fact! ... we only think about a guitar with no sould behind it, so to speak ... and look at the notes and the music ... and not what helped create its definition in the time and place! This is ... where the movies and all the stories are ... and we can get there and vilify and validate all this music even better ... if we are strong enough to appreciate it all ... and stop being fans and just talk about our favorites. There is a lot of music from the time that was not important to me ... even though Iron Man was a serious take on the lead and metal that bullets had! But we don't think of that piece as such ... or a serious anti-war song! And that hurts the value and quality of the material and the artists behind it!

 

I would like to see a copy of the Shakespeare production where the Midnight Mushrumps was used by the National Theater (I think) ... though I am not sure how the music is really used on the story itself, and more than likely during intermission or passages between the acts and scenes. But it is lovely music.

 

Another difficult, and extremely effective example ... if you can find the DVD/Video, catch Roman Polanski's Macbeth with the music by The Third Ear Band. Roman's shooting style was very much hand held and very close in a lot of moments and details, and this causes a lot of discomfort .. ex: Tess's rape, is like the camera is the person raping her ... and so on ... and the music in this film does the same thing for the wording and the acting ... it brings a raw attitude that makes the story ugly and the people uglier ... a sort of ugly street story ... that eventually became the romanticized Macbeth that we know. Very tough seeing for folks that like top ten movies and cardboard/cartoon/comicbook heroes. Very tough ... and this movie is brutal.

 

Fallstaff and his story from Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles) ... with Ian Anderson playing Falstaff ... adding the element of music and people not appreciating him for it, specially his friend that becomes king and an idiot! Great interpretation that really would give Ian a wonderful free form glow and show and play!

 

Lovely topic ... I could go on forever!

Clockwork Orange is another obvious one.

 

Speaking of Malcom McDowell, If would be another one.

 

And Quadrophenia? Ooh, the Tommy movie, The Wall...