I was watching the penultimate episode of the latest series of 'The Simpsons' the other day, and at the end we were treated to the end credits played by Weezer, which got me thinking about other T.V. themes that have been covered by rock bands, and there are more than you would think. Some have even been hit singles for The Manic Street Preachers, The Timelords and The Dickies, and in their naive Australia for Silver Studs, and many famous bands like to pay homage to their favourite T.V. shows by covering the theme tune. The James Taylor Quartet jazzed up 'Starsky & Hutch' for their second album following the success of their mini-album of film themes in 1987, and the latest example is a frankly unrecognisable version of 'The Golden Girls' theme 'Thank You For Being A Friend' from St. Vincent. Pantera have shredded 'Mission Impossible', just as Weezer have done with 'The Simpsons', whereas a couple of the best covers are from artists previously unknown to me, Shagpile with a lovely cover of the theme from 'Cheers', and Mateo Oxley with a similar version of the theme from 'Friends'. Also tucked away on here is Sun Kil Moon's take on 'The Partridge Family', 'Laverne & Shirley' from The Squealing Pygmies, 'Welcome Back Kotter' from Swedish hipsters jj, and Husker Du paying tribute to their hometown-based 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'. The theme from 'Batman' has been covered by many rock bands, including The Who, The Jam, Link Wray, REM, and The Ventures, but I've gone with The Flaming Lips' version here, and we round the whole thing off with the track that started this idea, Weezer playing out 'The Simpsons'. Hope you enjoy this little diversion, and now that I've got this out of my system I'll get back to the normal rock stuff.
01 Theme From Starsky & Hutch (The James Taylor Quartet)02 Making Our Dreams Come True (The Squealing Pygmies)03 UFO (The Wedding Present)04 Theme From M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless) (Manic Street Preachers)05 Mission Impossible (Pantera)06 Thank You For Being A Friend (St. Vincent)07 Batman Theme (The Flaming Lips)08 Banana Splits (The Dickies)09 Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Shagpile)10 Doctorin' The Tardis (The Timelords AKA The KLF)11 Love Is All Around (Husker Du)12 Get Smart Theme (Agent 86) (Agent Orange)13 C'Mon Get Happy (Sun Kil Moon)14 Theme To The Persuaders (Jah Wobble)15 Welcome Back (jj)16 Happy Days (Silver Studs)17 I'll Be There For You (Mateo Oxley)18 Spider Man (Ramones)19 The Simpsons Theme (Weezer)
I was answering a comment the other week on one of my Manfred Mann posts and it reminded me that the 1973 hit single 'Joybringer' was based on the melody from 'Saturn:The Bringer Of Joy' from Gustav Holst's 'The Planets Suite'. It's always been my favourite piece of classical music - one of the few pieces that I can listen to regularly - and I wondered if any other rock songs were based on sections of it. I know that when Gustav Holst died his daughter Imogen took over looking after the copyright of his music, and one thing she was very insistent on was that no other form of music other than orchestral was to be used while it was in copyright, so I've often wondered how King Crimson got away with using 'Mars:The Bringer Of War' as the basis or their 'The Devil's Triangle' from their 'In The Wake Of Poseidon' album in 1970, but somehow they did, and so I now had two pieces. The rest of the album took some research, as those did seem to be the two most popular pieces, but once I found Cailyn Lloyd's 'Voyager' album from 2015 I had the choice of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, all of which he'd covered in a progressive rock style, with organ and guitar well to the fore. Jeff Wayne and Rick Wakeman had also decided to record an album based on 'The Planets', but they covered the whole suite, using keyboards and orchestra, and so I chose what was generally considered to be the best track from that recording, 'Venus:Bringer of Peace'. When Holst wrote the suite, he originally intended the whole thing to be played on two pianos, and it was later scored for orchestra to become the classical piece that we know today, but I thought it would be interesting to hear at least one piece in its original form, so 'Mercury:The Winged Messenger' is played on two pianos by Richard Markham and David Nettle. On my trawl of the net in search of new interpretations, one of the most unusual that I found was a Youtube video of a concert by a jazz trio, led by pianist Ryan Skiles. He's scored the whole thing for a jazz trio, and it was something of a triumph, with many complementary comments, so I decided to use 'Saturn:The Bringer Of Old Age' from the concert for this album. To round it all off we have Neptune:The Mystic' from probably the most famous modern interpretation, by Isao Tomita, who recorded the whole suite on keyboards and synthesizers in 1976. This was the first time that Imogen Holst became infamous in the rock world when she forced the withdrawal of all UK copies of the album, although I managed to get my hands on one just before they were recalled, as did a number of other fans of the Japanese synth wizard, and the album is more freely available now since the copyright expired. If you haven't heard 'The Planets' played by an orchestra then I do recommend it, and you'll recognise at least a couple of the pieces even if you aren't into classical music. If you are already a fan then I hope that this rock version shows it in a new light.
Track listing
01 Mars:The Bringer Of War (King Crimson)02 Venus:The Bringer Of Peace (Rick Wakeman & Jeff Wayne)03 Mercury:The Winger Messenger (Richard Markham & David Nettle)04 Joybringer (Manfred Mann's Earth Band)05 Saturn:The Bringer Of Old Age (Ryan Skiles Trio)06 Uranus:The Magician (Cailyn Lloyd)07 Neptune:The Mystic (Isao Tomita)
While I was on holiday I was treated to a non-stop bombardment of modern dance music from the bar, and as it's not really my favourite genre I had to try to drown it out as much as possible by listening to heavy rock and loud indie on the headphones. However, it did remind me that I didn't always dislike dance music, and back in the good old days, when John Peel was alive and Radio 1 was actually worth listening to, I used to record his shows every night and listen to them in the car on the way to work, and if he played something that I liked that I wouldn't be able to find in the record shop then I used to re-record them onto a cassette tape. He played a lot of the new emerging hip hop and dance music in the late 80's, mostly electronic and often including (illegally sourced) samples from old films and TV shows and weird sound effects, and I really liked some of them, so before long I had enough for a couple of hour-long compilation tapes. When I got back from holiday I decided to dig them out to see if I still liked them, and it turns out that I do. They included a number of tracks that have since become House standards, like 'Beat Dis' and 'Doctorin' The House', so I've sourced better quality copies where possible, and mixed them into two forty-minute albums. If you fancy a trip down memory lane to relive the beginnings of the Chicago House scene then dive in, and the second volume will be along shortly. 
Track listing
01 The Finest Ingredient - DJ Megamix / Theme From S'Express - S'Express /Beat Dis - Bomb The Bass / Hey Rocky - Boris Badenough /Paid In Full - Eric B. & Rakim / Check This Out - L.A. Mix / Shake! - Gene & Jim / Sure Beats Working - Beats Working / Beats & Pieces - Coldcut
As promised, here is the second of my mixes of late 80's House music, courtesy of the John Peel show. Once again, a couple of these were quite big at the time - 'Doctorin' The House' and 'Voodoo Ray - but with some of the pieces I never got an actual title at the time and so couldn't find the tracks online, and for those I've had to use my original cassette recordings from 30 years ago. Hopefully they don't sound too bad compared to the newer recordings.
Track listing
01 Doctorin' The House (Speng Mix) - Coldcut Featuring Plastic Man And The Plastic People / Ha Ha Ha - Unknown Remix / Voodoo Ray - A Guy Called Gerald /Help! - Unknown Remix / The Dream - Swan Lake / Dance With The Devil - The Project Club / Hey Hey Mama - Unknown Led Zeppelin Remix / Big Band House - Aqua Regia
