Okay, so it’s not exactly about the Bacon Brothers, but the gist is the same.

This month’s challenge is to create a playlist where each successive song is related to the previous song. The allowed relationships:

• Performer
• Producer or engineer
• Composer

So it’s essentially a musical “six degrees of separation” - or “six degrees of Kevin Bacon,” if you’re into the whole pop culture thing.

(What are these “humps,” anyway, and why do they seem to matter so much to teenagers?)

I told Uncle Same and U.N.K.L.E. Matt that there would be “bonus points” for bringing the thing full-circle, adding another layer to the challenge. And like last month, edits are allowed to keep things within the 30 minute set limit.

There are many paths that could be used on this theme, so check back on May Day, as we all dance around the maypole and post our selections!

• Uncle Sam’s “Connecting the Dots with the Beastie Boys”
• Onkel Rudi’s “Musical Entomology: From Beatles to… Beatles”
• U.N.K.L.E. Matt’s “Seven Degrees of Horny Floydian Lips”

So a couple of weeks ago, I happened to turn on the telly late at night - which is rare since I’m usually online or watching a DVD or both - and flipped past Jimmy Kimmel. Some band was completely tearing it up. There were a bunch of them onstage, filling up a big sound with keyboards, chugging guitars, backing harmonies, and this wailing banshee of a lead singer. And they sounded so good live, better than people usually sound on late-night shows. The soaring lead vocals, catchy melody, prog-rock guitar solo, keyboard outro, it instantly bore into my head and I had to find out who these guys were. To The Internet! (and everyone raises their glasses and replies, “To the internet!”)

I was sure that these guys must be those Arctic Monkeys I’d heard so much about but heard nothing from. They were insultingly young and handsome and really really GOOD, so I figured now I’d heard what all the British press had meant about those Arctic Monkeys. I clicked on a few of their sample tracks… eh… So a guy who can’t sing is rambling over swingy beats… I mean, catchy enough, but as Sam said to me later, it was just cool enough when The Strokes or Franz Ferdinand did it. I know Jonathan Richman. He’s from my town. And you, Arctic Monkeys, are no Jonathan Richman.

So onward I plodded, glad I could forget those frigid primates, but still unsatisfied in my search for Kimmel-related knowledge. I think I knew the name of the song - People In Planes. Turned out to be the name of the band. Fairly new stuff, I may have caught them on their journey from nadir to zenith. And I bought their album the next day. (I do that kind of stuff - downloading is too painstaking a prospect for those of us in the dark ages of dial-up)

And y’know what? They were actually better live on the show than on the CD. They had beefed up the arrangement a bit, and the singer went absolutely ape. As in a singing ape, not a babbling monkey. And also unfortunate was the clarity with which I could now hear the slightly inane and self-serving lyrics. But hey, too late - the song was already burned in my brain. I was starting to wake up with the melody screaming in my head, and that hadn’t happened since Neutral Milk Hotel permanently rewired my ganglions into the shape of an aeroplane over the sea.

The rest of the album is impressive as well - somewhat eclectic, with bits reminding me of Incubus or The Mars Volta, and a band nobody’s ever heard of, Headswim. And there’s a healthy dose of the past - some of these guitar solo sounds haven’t been heard since Gilmour and Waters last worked together, and there’s hints of Yes, Soundgarden, Rush, Red Hot Chili Peppers, stuff like that. And if you described it to me thusly, I really wouldn’t have run out and bought it. But this song hooked me, and now I’m listening to a pretty good album by a pretty good band with wonderful arrangements and melodies and not too much to say lyrically or poetically. Just goes to show that late-night TV spots work!!!

• “If You Talk Too Much (My Head Will Explode)” - People in Planes (mp3)
  (Right-click/control-click link to download)

I could’ve gone with the obvious this month - after all, it’s tax season in the U.S.A., and there are a lot of appropriate angles I could’ve taken.

I could’ve gone with The Beatles and George Harrison’s superb “Taxman,” which is one of his most potent social protest songs and one of the first Harrisongs that was a real rocker. And it features a kick ass guitar solo from Paul McCartney (who knew he had those kind of guitar chops?).

Or I could’ve gone with Willie Nelson, whose run-ins with the IRS are legendary.

Then again, I could’ve gone with something non-seasonal, as I was totally mesmerized watching The Band’s The Last Waltz on DVD. So much of that concert epitomizes the term “epic” - it’s really great.

But it’s not to be.

My monthly crush is Dusty Springfield, the original queen of UK soul.

There are many who tout young up-and-comer Joss Stone as the first British woman to capture the Memphis soul sound. And I’ll give Joss her props: she’s quite good and has a wonderful feel for the music.

But 34 years before Stone’s The Soul Sessions was released (and 18 years before Stone was born), a young woman from the UK switched to Atlantic records after enjoying quite a bit of success in her native land. Known for soulful, sultry vocals, Dusty Springfield had already enjoyed a chart-topping hit in 1963 with the song “I Only Want To Be With You.” However, her career had become stagnant, and she bolted to Atlantic to find new energy.

The solution? Bring Dusty to the U.S. and have her record in Memphis, Tennessee, the home of southern soul and R&B. Stripping away the Spectoresque echo and bombast of her earlier work, Dusty was recorded in a method that placed her vocals at the fore. The resulting album, Dusty In Memphis, is a non-stop mix of soulful vocals and tasteful arrangements.

And it was a huge flop. The album peaked at #43 in the UK, and did only slightly better in the States. She did have a breakout hit with “Son Of A Preacher Man,” but the album was mostly misunderstood by the public (much like a similar landmark album, The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds). The commercial failure of Dusty In Memphis sent her career into a slow dive that saw her vanish into near obscurity (save for the inclusion of “Preacher Man” in Pulp Fiction) until her death from breast cancer in 1995.

Is the album a failure? Hardly. It stands up with the best the 60s had to offer, and the expanded CD version includes additional tracks that are equally brilliant. Much as Pet Sounds influenced The Beatles, Pink Floyd and other groups to follow, Dusty In Memphis has influenced soul singers since its 1969 release.

Even Joss Stone is quick to tip her hat.

• “Son Of A Preacher Man” - Dusty Springfield (mp3)
  (Right-click/control-click link to download)

Oh, there’s so much love to give this month. Narrowing it down to just one song was a toughie. Prince’s “Black Sweat” kicked my ass with some classic paisley funk; Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” showed that Danger Mouse is just getting better and better and better as a producer - his mix is complex and Cee-lo’s vocals match his grooves perfectly; The Sounds’ Dying to Say This to You was a catchy punch of bouncy synth-rock that’s certainly going to be finding lots of work on my iPod; some heavy Googling unearthed a bunch of really enjoyable demos from Guns N’ Roses’ long-gestating Chinese Democracy, the best of which (”Better”) rawks hard and is super-catchy; The Flaming Lips’ At War With the Mystics filled me with joy at every turn, especially “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song;” and I lived & breathed the Yeah Yeah Yeahs for about 2 weeks, seeing them in concert the same week their fantastic new disc, Show Your Bones, hit stores. In fact, I was going to write about them here, but I’ve had something different stuck in my craw in recent weeks.

My monthly crush? Massive Attack’s “Live With Me.”

For the unfamiliar, Massive Attack hails from Bristol, England, and helped create trip-hop, a dark, downtempo kind of dance music that’s best suited for late nights and unsettling dreams. You’re probably more familiar with their music than you know, too. The theme to the TV show House? It’s “Teardrop,” from Massive Attack’s 1996 album Mezzanine. Remember the beginning of The Matrix, when we first are introduced to Keanu Reeves? He’s asleep, wearing headphones, and listening to Massive Attack’s “Angel.” It’s in episodes of 24 and Cold Case, in Victoria’s Secret commercials, and now totally stuck in my head. Again.

I first obsessed over Massive Attack in college, when (and I can’t remember why right now) I bought a copy of Mezzanine. “Teardrop” became an instant favorite of mine - it was, and may still be, the most hauntingly beautiful thing I’d ever heard. When I first heard “Live With Me,” it reminded me of how freaking great they are, and I got hooked again.

“Live With Me” is a new song that made its’ way onto their recently-released greatest hits album Collected, and it’s a real thing of beauty. Lush, dark symphonic swells, a thick and slinky bassline, and complex percussion, accompany Terry Callier’s warm, soulful vocals to heartbreaking effect. The groove is warm and enveloping - listen to this with a pair of headphones for full effect. You won’t be sorry.

• “Live With Me” - Massive Attack (mp3)
  (Right-click/control-click link to download)

1. The Beach Boys, “God Only Knows”

The song: I feel I went back on my word a bit here by choosing a song that has been used in several films. But in my defense, I couldn’t think of one specific film with which it was immediately identified, and the opening scene to my film wrote itself in my head as I walked around with this song on “repeat 1″ for the last few weeks. So I needed this song, and bugged Uncle Sam until he said sure I could have it as long as I promised to stop there and go no further. Then I invaded Poland anyway and nothing happened. Ahhh, ain’t appeasement wonnerful? Anyway this, depending on which half of the glass your silver lining is buttered on, is either the happiest sad song or the saddest happy song ever created in the world of pop music. It is also the one song I’ve seen a general consensus on as just being one of the all-around best songs of all time. It sets the mood for my day, my life, and then of course my film. That being the case, I’ve described in full the moment-by-moment events of the opening scene, to better set the table for the feast to come. I promise descriptions of later scenes will be more concise.

The scene: (”God Only Knows” starts) Straight-on, mirror-point-of-view, we see a young woman in a hotel room getting ready to leave - checking her makeup, straightening her clothes, etc. Just before she leaves she takes out a marker and jots her name down on one of those “Hello My Name Is” stickers, and slaps it onto her chest, over her heart. It reads “Grace”. (I haven’t made up my mind yet whether I want to do something as cheesy and pretentious as superimposing “Saving” on the screen next to the sticker - probably not) She pops up, runs out of the room, where a bunch of other young women, similarly adorned with nametags, are also leaving their rooms at the same time. She joins the flow of them down the corridor, into the elevator, out into the lobby and onto the street outside. It looks almost as surreal and prosaic as an “Austin Powers” opening dance number. They are all talking and giggling as they walk. As a group, they traipse down the steps into an underground subway train station. The camera starts up a long shot from in front of Grace and her companions, backing up in front of them, until it backs up all the way into a subway train car, and the women enter en masse, squeezing into an almost full car. A woman with a baby, an older man wearing a white jumpsuit and a young asian couple have to move further in to make room for them. It’s only when Grace moves aside slightly that we see a man has appeared directly behind her, out on the platform. A young man wearing a long black cloak and looking down at his watch.

(We’ve reached those weird post-first-chorus harmonic stabs of “God Only Knows”)

The camera swings around from behind Grace to behind this man’s head, obscuring her. He then looks down and to the right, exposing her to our view. She’s looking directly at him. He notices and they make eye contact. Almost instantly gives him a little smile and says to her friend, “Hang on a second, I’ll be right back, hold the door” and pops out of the train, walks up to him and says, “hi”.

(Bridge and last verse of “God Only Knows” starts)

He replies, “Hello, Grace.”
She’s taken aback. “How did you-”
“It’s written right here”, he says, pointing at her nametag.
Embarassed, she rolls her eyes and there’s a moment of awkward silence, during which we hear the train conductor say over the intercom, “Please stand by, we will be moving momentarily.” Grace’s friend holding the door calls out, “Grace, come ON…”
Grace makes an exaggerated “I KNOW” motion with her face and hands, then turns back to the young man and says, “Um, I was just… Wait, are you waiting to get on? We can make room.”
“No, I’m just waiting”, he says with a slight grin.
“Ooookay…” She grins back at him, puzzled but intrigued, then the train conductor blares out, “Please let go of the doors, we’re ready to proceed…”, and Grace’s friend calls out to her again.
Grace says, “Okay look, I have to get going now, just wanted to say hi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi. Hey, so what’s your name by the way?”
“Don’t”, he replies instantly.
“Don’t… what?”
“Don’t go.”
Grace smiles and, seizing the opportunity, says, “Well that’s a weird name. I think I’ll have to stick around and find out how someone ended up with such a weird name.” She starts to turn back to her friends and then back to him and says, “I don’t usually do this, by the way…”
“Oh I NEVER do this,” he replies.
She chuckles, turns and walks back to her friend. Behind her we see that he’s wincing awkwardly a bit at his own words. She tells her friend, “Look, go on without me, I’ll catch up.” Her friend looks over her shoulder at the man in black. “Are you sure?” The train conductor says “ON OR OFF PLEASE…” Grace says, “Yeah, I’m fine, go on. I’ll see you soon.” The friend says “Okay, have fun. See you soon!” and lets go of the door.

(The last repeating chorus of “God Only Knows” starts to build)

The door closes and Grace steps back, then her face is lit up from below by some kind of flash. She looks down and to the right and sees a spark of some kind, an electrical arc down by the wheels of the train. Confused, she looks back up through the door at her friend, who is still smiling and sticking her tongue out at Grace. As the train starts to move, the spark blossoms into a small flame. Grace slaps her hand out against the door instinctively. Her friend inside sees her panic and slaps her hand out against hers, separated by the glass of the door. The train pulls out and there is a sudden bang that throws Grace back and she collapses onto the feet of the man behind her. A blue corona of electrical fire starts to spread around the train, but it’s not stopping, it is accelerating away, into the tunnel. Grace leaps up and scrabbles against the sides of the train as it passes, crying and screaming for help. The end of the train passes and it starts to shoot off into the tunnel, now engulfed in yellow flame, trailing black smoke, panicked shadows struggling inside, an utterly horrific sight. She jumps down into the tunnel and starts running after the train, screaming and crying. The camera view now is of her face-on, running and falling and crawling toward the camera, her face lit by the fire of the receding train. The light fades and we lose sight of her.

(Fade to black as “God Only Knows” ends.)

2. The Bulgarian Voices, “300 Pushki (Edit)”

The song: I first heard a Bulgarian women’s choir on a tape my sister got from a pen pal in Wales of legendary eclectic DJ John Peel. I was stunned by the level of complexity, the closer-than-close harmony and the tension and emotion all that conveyed. I’ve always been a fan of choral music, whether singing or listening, and this really blew me away. A bunch of years later I bought a few CDs, looking for that track. Still no luck, but I found a couple other gems I’m going to use here. I was going for the Melanesian Choirs feel that Terence Malick used to such great effect in “The Thin Red Line”.

The scene: Not much to write here, we just need a moment to contemplate and calm down from the horror and surreal beauty of what we’ve just seen. I’ll run opening credits over blueprints of subway systems mixed with medieval maps of heaven. Levels of heaven and earth.

3. Nick Drake, “Saturday Sun”

The song: Another famously sad/happy song, this has a personal connection to me as it was the song I had on at work when I got the call that my friend and bandmate Brian had died. I just put this song on repeat and looked out the front door and thought a lot.

The scene: A montage of Grace, silent and miserable and still covered in dried mud and tears, sitting in various places: an ambulance, a hospital, a police station, and finally a bench out in the sun. A hand protrudes into the frame, offering her a chocolate bar. She gives a little sad smile and accepts, saying “Thanks, I’ll split it with you.”
The man in black smiles back and shows her another chocolate bar, “Oh no, I always buy two. You never know.”
“Yeah, you never know…”

Anyways, to avoid brain-death, I’m going to condense my ideas as much as I can from now on. Sorry this is so long, for whatever reason all this sprung into my head listening to these songs. There’s pages and pages of script, since it boils down to really being just a conversation between two people as two other people look for them. But I’ll spare you all the line-by-line stuff and just offer a precis of what follows:

Grace, being worldly and movie-savvy, quickly realizes something supernatural is happening here, but she’s pretty cool with it, and thinks she’s got it all figured out. She was supposed to die on that train, but he saved her, so now she’s a walking spirit or something. Or maybe Death will now come looking for her, some bad mother-effer Sam Jackson cosmic accountant come to investigate why his ones and zeroes don’t add up. A war between Heaven and Hell over her. At which point the man in black asks if it was a delusions of grandeur convention she was headed to. Ha ha no, it was creative writing. So she wants to make sure nobody like that is coming after her, no karmic garbageman on his way to clean up. She is reassured nobody like that is coming after her. …Which brings us to:

Gary Numan, “Engineers (Edit)”

Another scene, another place. A cloud of thick grey dust clears and we see The Drab Man, completely colorless and covered in grey dust. He takes off his grey sunglasses and we see that his eyes are made of metal. He takes out a map, grey-on-grey, looks off into the distance and walks off, leaving behind him dusty footprints. He is leaving the freshly destroyed ruins of Pompeii.

5. Inspiral Carpets, “Two Worlds Collide (Edit)”

More question and answer time for Grace. Did the police question you too? “No, they didn’t want to see me”. Okay well if you weren’t there to save me… Oh my God did you cause this? Are you some kind of… “Terrorist?” Terrorist or something? “No”. No, of course not. “No, that part’s not my job.” Right… God, all those people… (She takes off her nametag to look at it) Why me? Why me and not Janet? Or Andrea? “You got off the train.” So that’s it? It’s just that easy - I get off the train and don’t die, and it doesn’t mean anything? Seems like it should mean something… “Of course it means something.” But you’re not going to tell me. “Not yet”. She persists that he should just tell her what’s going on because you know what happens to the guy in the movie who shows up and has all the answers but says I can’t tell you now it’s not safe meet me at the bar down the street at eight o’clock tonight - he gets into his car and it blows up! “Well, I don’t have a car.” Well that’s good… y’know for the environment… “We prefer to travel underground.” Yeah I mean the environment here on planet Earth… She lets the nametag blow off into the breeze, saddened by its reminder of a real world long gone by. She’s getting a little frustrated but is not losing her sense of humor and is willing to see how this plays out. She asks why he didn’t prevent the accident if he knew it was going to happen. He replies that he can’t prevent something that’s already happened. Everything’s already happened. In order to show her what he means, he takes her by the hand and they walk off.

6. The Bulgarian Voices, “Zavesata Pada (Edit)”

Another scene, another place. A blinding white flash fades, and we see The Brilliant Man, completely white and glowing. He takes off his white sunglasses and we see that his eyes are made of sunlight. He takes out a map, white-on-white, looks off into the distance and walks off, leaving behind him white glowing teardrops. He leaves behind a shadow burned into the wall on a building in Hiroshima.

7. Frank Zappa, “Trouble Every Day (Edit)”

I’m condensing bigtime here now. More questions and answers and traveling for Grace and the man in black. They are visiting many different disaster and accident scenes throughout different times and countries, some of them famous, some more personal. We also keep cross-cutting to The Drab Man and The Brilliant Man as they draw inexorably closer to the pair, walking through the city streets and eventually getting onto the same subway car. Nobody sees them, because like what happened with the police, people only see what they want to see. Similarly no one sees Grace and her companion as they show up at site after site of unimaginable tragedy. Lockerbie, Indonesia, Bangladesh, caves and mudslides and tornadoes, past, present and future…
“So you just go around and witness disasters and accidents and death. Seems like a hell of a hobby, it must suck seeing all that.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you ever get used to it?”
“Not really. But the chocolate helps.” They talk about miracles and he remarks that the sun and earth aren’t really miracles, it’s just science. It would all be happening anyway even if nothing ever evolved eyes to see it or brains to wonder about it. He thinks that a real miracle is that way that people can form their tongues and mouths to whistle notes and tunes. Or the way that a quarterback can throw a football forty yards downfield to a place his receiver isn’t yet but will be. He knows where his receiver is going to be before he even gets there. She responds that that’s just learned behavior, something you get used to doing until it looks effortless. Maybe that’s all that miracles really are.

8. Bob Dylan, “All The Tired Horses”

Answer time. Time is running out for our man in black. Having traveled all over the world in a day, witnessing different accidents and disasters, they are now at a train station having one last conversation. He explains that all of Creation is the result of what Man has thought up or written down. It’s a classic case of creating God in your image, as soon as we’ve thought of something, it pops into existence. Someone, the Creators, take these ideas and use the good ones. Everything we’ve thought of is true, in one way or another. God isn’t an old man with a long white beard or an elephant with six arms or anything; God is a little girl talking to her dead grandmother every night, or a mother hoping her son comes back from war. “So we humans are the Creators.” Yes, and in that paradox lies the one and only real miracle that has ever happened: when you thought yourselves up. All else followed - there are Destroyers and Collectors, who date back to the first imaginations of Man, where we thought that there must be gods who destroy and gods who conduct our souls into an afterlife. And then there are those like himself. He goes around to sites of disasters and accidents, people dying alone and screaming, and comforts them in their moment of death. He gives them what everyone dying peacefully in bed surrounded by family and friends gets. “We catch them when they fall”, he says. But there are so many, how is this accomplished? “Well, we take things one person at a time, but we often go back to the same site time after time. I’d already been to your train a few times before it was your turn. Andrea was one of mine, actually. But when it came time for you, the instructions were different.” But WHY? “I think it was something you wrote once…” And tears come to her eyes as she hears him rattle off her words as if they were gospel: “Every living being, just before they die, deserves to hear that they are loved and will be remembered.” By the end she’s mouthing the words along with him. Crying, she whispers that she got a C+ on that paper. “Well, there’s a different bell curve where I come from.” Someone thought it was a good idea, and so the man in black and those like him sprang into existence to fulfill this duty. And even though it’s only been a few years since she wrote those words, his kind have been literally making up for lost time; going back and catching people throughout history. Of course even though they only started when she wrote those words, in a way they already had always been doing it. Everything’s already happened. So how long has he been at this? “Since April 15th.” Oh, just five months? “1912″. Oh. …OH!

At this point, a subway car pulls up, and The Brilliant Man exits, walks past them, up the stairs and into the city, trailing his glowing teardrops. Grace marvels at this, and is told that this is a Destroyer. He is crying because his kind were given the saddest and hardest job. There was one on her train. Then The Drab Man, dusty footprints behind him, asks if the man in black is ready. It turns out this is his last day, his soul is ready to move on and a Collector is here to shepherd him on to the next world. Sometimes humans are plucked just before they would have died, and are invited to perform one of these jobs, or maybe a new one that someone somewhere just thought up in a prayer, and they do these for a while before their souls move on. It’s time for our man in black to move on, and so for the first time he took someone before they died. He found a replacement.

The Drab Man looks at her and says “Hello Grace”. She’s taken aback again, considering she’s no longer wearing her nametag, but the grey man says, “It’s written right here”, pointing at her heart.
She nods in understanding, and extends her hand in return. “Well, it’s good to meet you. It’s nice to have someone else here to back up his story. Less of a chance of this all being in my head, y’know?”
“I know”. They shake hands and some of his dried dirt and dust gets on her hand. “Oh I’m sorry. I tend to get pretty dirty in my line of work.”
“I know the feeling”, she says, showing him the dirt from the subway still under her nails. “So… you’re a Collector?”
“Yes.”
“And what do you call them?”, motioning towards the man in black.
“Vendors.”
And Grace laughs as she gets the movie in-joke.
The man in black says, “We’re both ready. I just wanted to give her a good last day.”
“And have one yourself,” says The Drab Man. “I understand.”
“Thank you. Here, you’ll need this,” the man in black says, and hands Grace his cloak.
She puts it on, glances at his chest, and her face lights up and she exclaims, “Oh, I can see you name!”
“Of course you can.”
(Tears are flowing on both sides now)
“But this isn’t how my story turned out at all.”
“Well, you did get a C+. I guess they applied some constructive criticism.”
“Oh ha ha” (laughing through her tears)
“This isn’t one-way, you know. Nothing really is. If you need me, just whistle and I’ll be there before you even get there.”
“…Effortlessly…”
They embrace, a long sad goodbye, and she says:
“I love you”
“Yes?” he replies.
“I’ll always remember you.”
“…That’s it. Exactly. You’ll do fine”, he replies softly, and they part.
“So what happens now?”
“Now you go that way. And I don’t.”
“Okay”.
And she walks up the steps.

9. Van Morrison, “And It Stoned Me (Edit)”

A big guy sitting on a train, on his way to work, reading a paper and juggling a cup of coffee. The train stops and he gets off and he walks up the stairs and into the city. It’s a beautiful sunny day, with a crisp chill of early fall in the air. He stops in front of the camera momentarily, then moves on, and we see that Grace has appeared behind him in a long black cloak, looking at her watch. The camera pans around behind her head the way it did in the beginning with the man in black. As the camera moves, we see that she is facing the bottom of the World Trade Center. She looks up. Fade to black.

10. Vangelis, “Heaven And Hell Part 1 (Edit)”

Closing credits.

So nothing happens in a vacuum, and much of this is hardly original. I’ll head people off at the pass and offer pre-emptive comparisons to Wings Of Desire, Faraway So Close, City Of Angels, Dead Like Me, Unbreakable, Quantum Leap, Men In Black, Final Destination, The Prophecy, The Seventh Sign, Dogma, Jacob’s Ladder, Millennium, The Terminator, Neverwhere and the new Doctor Who BBC series. It all went into my Magic Bullet of a head and got spit out with some (hopefully) original toppings of my own. I hope you enjoyed, sorry it was so damned long. - Matt

Download U.N.K.L.E. Matt’s Playlist!

This was NOT an easy exercise for me - Matt threw down an extremely big gauntlet. I’ve probably reviewed, revamped, reworked, and restarted this playlist more than anything I’ve ever written before, and that includes the eulogy I gave for my grandfather, the speech I delivered at my college graduation, and my wedding vows. What’s my problem? I’m a voracious consumer and snarky commentator, but feel I’m lacking a creative vision. This is why my brother’s a musician, and I’m an HTML code cleaner.

Anyway…

I beat my head against this theme for weeks, and I don’t have a coherent narrative. I don’t have three acts. I don’t have clearly defined characters and visions of what I want to see on-screen. I do have a tribute to the kind of soundtrack albums I enjoy most, and, evolving from that, a sketch of a story.

My most-enjoyed, non-orchestral soundtrack album is Badly Drawn Boy’s About a Boy (with an orchestra? easy - John Wiliams’ The Empire Strikes Back, but back to BDB…). The songs work brilliantly both in and out of the context, making it a great listen in a number of different ways. I’ve always been drawn more to soundtracks like this - I received some of my earliest exposure to S&G through my mother’s record of the soundtrack to The Graduate and to Bob Dylan through her copy of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. In fact, one of the first tapes I bought for myself was Prince’s soundtrack to Batman. Don’t get me wrong, I also dig elaborate collections like Pulp Fiction’s and Natural Born Killers‘ where the soundtrack is practically another character in the film, but I get drawn to single-artist soundtracks for their cohesion in theme, feeling, and sound.

So that’s where my playlist comes from - I thought: what single artist’s body of work is expressive enough to kickstart my imagination, and varied enough to take it to new places with each new song? Ladies and gentlemen, settle into your stadium seating and enjoy Eels.

What draws me to Eels is how direct & unflinching the songs are with feelings - sometimes it’s with words, but often it’s the music, and E’s melodies are extremely evocative. Sounds conjure images. Eels’ canon is musically diverse, too - sure, you’ll find some standard guitar, bass, drums, & keys songs, but others employ everything from Nawlins brass and toy pianos to fiddles and telephones. Yes, I said telephones. The arrangements are not a framework for an arty lyric pastiche like a Bowie or Beck - the songs feel grounded in real emotions and ground the story in our world. Oh, and I’m not the only soundtrack-compiler to discover them, either; their songs have popped up in a number of quirky films, including Shrek (”My Beloved Monster”), Shrek 2 (”I Need Some Sleep”), and the non-Shrek The Ice Harvest (”The Trouble With Dreams,” which scored every trailer & commercial for the film).

1. Eels, “The Sound of Fear”
   This is a great place-setter, not only because it’s a fantastic summation of Eels’ sound, but it also paints a good introductory picture with its’ words. When I sat & listened to this, eyes closed, I saw a guy with a routine. Suburbia. Breakfast. Newspaper. Normalcy. Maybe the camera starts in real close, right up on his sleeping head. When the drums kick in, he opens his eyes, starts his morning. Quick cuts around his house - brushing his teeth; scanning his closet, running his finger along a row of damn-similar suits, finally picking one; in his kitchen, pours a cup of coffee - the cup’s close up in the shot; he grabs it and sips while reading his paper; checks his watch, grabs his briefcase, runs out the door. Credits maybe run one by one along the bottom of the screen. Song’s a little sinister, though, right? Maybe something’s gonna happen, but he doesn’t know it yet. Maybe something bad, maybe something good, but something.
2. Eels, “Fresh Feeling”
   What makes this one effective is the familiarity of the melody - like you’ve heard it somewhere before, but you don’t know when or where. The strings give it a widescreen feel, but don’t drown the song in saccharine. It’s sunny, it’s springtime, love is in the air. Maybe our protagonist meets a girl and notices things hes never noticed before. He breathes the air deeper, he looks up at the sun through tree leaves. He feels a new sense of calm. He’s never met a girl like this, and he’s never been in love before. Life is suddenly sweet.
3. Eels, “Jungle Telegraph”
   The rhythm of this song makes it feel like a train chugging along. Things are moving quickly, changing quickly. Having a woman in his life turns things upside down for our man. The horn breakdowns sound of a little dischord, but soon things get back on track. Life is a whirlwind of going out, meeting new people. Strangers, mostly. Heck, the girl is still s stranger at this point. It’s a little turbulent and a little scary, but it’s still fun.
4. Eels, “That’s Not Really Funny”
   Things are darker than they seem. He doesn’t know everything there is to know about this girl, and it gets him/them into trouble. Something dangerous comes out of her past and flips everything upside down. The cacophonous, fuzzed-out guitars and insistent cowbell create a sense of tension, danger, and paranoia. Something big and violent clearly happens, possibly as an accident. Maybe someone important to our man dies?
5. Eels, “It’s a Motherfucker”
   The big comedown. The room is bright, but softly lit. Sunlight streams in through curtains. Our man is mourning. He wears a dark suit and sits forward, hands together, elbows on knees, in an awkwardly ornate chair. Not something he owns. The kind of thing you find in the sitting room of someone with old money. The camera moves slowly around him. He’s alone.
6. Eels, “Woman Driving, Man Sleeping”
   This song works on a very literal level for me - our man and his woman are still together, tho not necessarily traveling anywhere together. It’s dark or getting dark. They’re together, but emotionally far apart. There’s a space between them, maybe both literally & metaphorically, but there’s still a sense that they take care of each other.
7. Eels, “Blinking Lights (For Me)”
   The world is fragile, but things are looking up and relationships are getting stronger. Our couple realizes that things have been tiring and trying - up and down, a whirlwind of tragedies and all the other complications that life throws at you - but that they’re still together, and that this means something. Something important, something good.
8. Eels, “Ant Farm”
   It’s love, simply. They’ve survived everything together, and they are bound emotionally. This song is a warm embrace. There’s a kiss, a tender one, as the camera dances slowly around them.
9. Eels, “Losing Streak”
   The clouds part, things fall into place. Happily ever after, right? Maybe?
10. Eels, “Last Stop: This Town”
    Moving on. They’ve got a fresh start at a life together, maybe it needs a fresh locale, too. Bags and cars are packed, and one chapter in their life ends as another opens. As a trunk or car door is shut, screen switches to black.

Is this a cheesy 1-2 punch or what? Happy endings are okay by me, after all, I guess. Pardon the weak plot & gigantic clichés - I’ve just been thinking out loud here. Enjoy the playlist…

Download Uncle Sam’s Playlist!

So, in a secret red-bricked lair surrounded by the fiery ovens of hell (okay, it was Bertucci’s), the Selective Service Society (because just leaving it at two “S”s invites too much goosestepping) met recently to discuss plans for the next strategic strike in our gradual takeover and DOMINANCE OF THE WORLD!!! …wide web. This time, as determined many moons ago in the ancient and random combinations of deoxyribonucleic acids, I was second-tallest, so the final word on how we would proceed fell to me: U.N.K.L.E. Matt. (Y’know, I liked this name at first but now I gotta keep typing all those damned periods…)

Matt’s marvelous method of madness this month makes men market melodic music for made-up movies. (See, V? I can do it too!) The original idea I had was that we would come up with a 30-minute soundtrack to some fake film of ours, labeling each song as simply “Opening Credits”, “Chase Scene”, “Cheesy 80’s Huey-Lewis-style Montage Scene”, “Closing Credits”, that kind of thing. But this ended up feeling like something that would really only be interesting to us three, and specifically only to the creator - sort of like our responses to one of those generic “what is the soundtrack to your life?” questionnaires that float around online. So really we’d just end up with a collection of random songs we think are cool but have no connective theme and mean nothing to anyone else. Good thinking, Matt! This was straying away from the essence of my idea; that when I’m walking through Stop & Shop and “Roadrunner” pops up on my iPod, I’m suddenly in my own movie (or at least music video), and all sorts of visual possibilities come to mind. If, then, the next song to pop up is “The Things We’ve Handed Down”, I’m suddenly inhabiting a different type of scene altogether. So what I want this mix to be are songs that make you feel like you’re in a specific kind of movie scene when you hear it in your regular life. But how to convey that seemingly subjective experience to the general public? …of our three friends who are reading this?

In order to solve this problem and get people to, we (The Avunculum) decided we needed to be able to do two things.

1. Edit the songs, if needed, to spotlight a certain section we’d use to best convey the emotion of the scene. Examples I used were Scorsese using the “Layla” reprise for his cleaning-up montage in “Goodfellas”, and Wes Anderson using the “You are forgiven” part of the Who song for “Rushmore”. This cannot of course be overused, for we could jam-pack a CD full of 30 minutes of our favorite bits from 40 songs. That is neither a realistic total of music you could use in a film, nor how actual soundtracks work. The entire “Layla” song is, of course, included on the “Goodfellas” soundtrack. But we agreed that if there was some huge long song that had a wonderful little bit to it that could correspond nicely to a specific scene, we could snip that piece out and call it “Oops I Did It Again (excerpt)” or something like that. But the main idea would still be to use entire songs that seem perfect as is for use over long scenes - the opening credits, the driving scene, the chase scene, the closing credits, that sort of thing.
2. We saw we had to come up with at least a general story outline for our fake film (this is turning into a lot of work, thanks Matt!) so that our masses of fans would have a context in which to place these songs. I think it means a lot more to label a song “The Death Of Qui-Gon Jinn” if people actually know who the hell the guy is first. So I proceeded to outline this little idea I’ve had kicking around in my head for a while, and by the time I was done, my mozzarella fritta was cold and Sam and Rudi were looking at me with a combined expression that said, “Um, we’re not Hollywood agents, and this is not a script pitch…” But then the main courses came and with them, INSPIRATION… We’ll all come up with little movies, title them, describe shots if needed, let you know the whole plot ahead of time, so it’s like you’ve seen our imaginary movie, and then downloading our mix will be like buying the soundtrack. Simple, right?

A couple of tacked-on restrictions were to refrain from using anything that was specifically recorded for a film or a soundtrack (”Wind Beneath My Wings”), or something that has been irrevocably linked to a well-known scene in a popular film (”Lust For Life”). There will inevitably be some crossover between our ideas and those used by all filmmakers everywhere - we can’t promise that our songs have never before accompanied moving images. But the idea is to limit ourselves to stuff that really strikes a visual and emotional chord for us, possible-Gregg-Araki-use be damned!

Full of ideas and cheese, we stumbled out into the chill of the evening, saying goodbye for what felt like the first time, determined to go write that movie and do our best to develop mental telepathy between now and April Fool’s Day, not only because that would be really cool, but then we could make other people see what we see in our heads when we hear these songs. I guess we’ll just have to pick really good songs then. Or you could just tune in May 1st when Rudi, Almighty Tallest, has a much simpler and more elegant idea for a monthly selection…

• U.N.K.L.E. Matt’s “Saving Grace”
• Onkel Rudi’s “Around The World (and Down The Street)”
• Uncle Sam’s “Sketchy”

U.N.K.L.E. Matt & I totally punk’d Onkel Rudi and y’all. Our monthly selections will go live tomorrow. Happy April Fool’s Day!

This month’s challenge was just that: challenging!

Y’see, I’ve never overtly thought of outlining or writing a movie. Yes, there are those days when I feel like I’m living a movie - but that’s another story and doesn’t advance the plot of this challenge.

See - now I’m analyzing this whole thing. It reminds me of when I was in AP Music Theory in high school, during which I learned to analyze the chord structure of songs on-the-fly. Of course, that meant that I was analyzing everything I heard. It made listening to something like The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” in a purely analytical mode - not exactly enjoyable listening. Almost seven years passed before I completely shook this habit.

So anyhow, back to the challenge at hand: the soundtrack to a movie that I’m (theoretically) pitching. Or, at the very least, that I’m pitching the soundtrack to a filmmaker. But in this case, I’m being Cameron Crowe (at best) and Paul McCartney (at worst), having control over both the story and the direction.

Title: Around The World (and Down The Street)

Synopsis:

Steffi and Terry, both 8, are the best of friends and have overly active imaginations. The two of them often get together to play, either at Steffi’s house or at Terry’s house. These two
were never short of creative ideas, and shared everything with each other. Even at this early age, they could often complete each other’s thoughts and ride off of each other’s emotions - soul mates from the beginning.

Steffi and Terry live a mile away from each other on Keeler Lane, a street in a middle-class neighborhood in a medium-sized American city. Their neighborhood has tree-lined streets, a corner store, a park with a pond, hill and playground, a small movie theatre, a diner, a firehouse, and many bungalow houses dating from the late 1940s.

One day, during one of their playdates at Terry’s house, the two decide to do something they’ve never done before: walk the long, four-block distance to Steffi’s house.

In doing so, they go on the adventure of a lifetime.

The “lifetime” in this adventure is a sequence of fantasy flash-forward scenes. After all, to a young child, four blocks is “a world away” - it’s all a matter of scale.

The songs I’ve selected play to certain scenes in the film. I’ll explain ‘em as I go along.

And now, the playlist:

1. Opening Credits: “Ten Years” - Paul Simon

   The whole film traces Steffi and Terry from the ages of 8 to 18 (and a bit further - the last two scenes flash-forward to the pair in their 20s and 30s). But the opening scene (over which the credits roll) starts with Steffi and Terry at 18, at odds with each other, looking at photo albums in their rooms. They open their books and this song starts, turning the pages to all of the highlights of their lives: the trips they took, tea parties in the backyard, going to the lake, racing go karts, etc. The theme of the song is how quickly ten years can come ands go, and how many things happen and don’t happen - how we take certain paths, try and bite off as much as we can from the tree of life. The tempo of the song also has a pace that, to me, invokes travel and remembering the high points.

2. Playtime/Terry’s House: “Golden Touch” - Razorlight

   The opening credits dissolve into a scene with Steffi and Terry playing in Terry’s house. They’re doing roleplaying - a game of defend the castle. Both are wearing baseball caps for their favorite team (the Chicago White Sox). The two are having a great time, free-forming the plot and having very similar ideas on how to develop their further “missions.” Steffi takes off her hat, revealing a full head of blonde waves that were tucked into her hat. This song starts as the hat comes off, and Terry looks at Steffi. There is a flash-forward to when they’re 12 and Terry looks at Steffi doing the same thing with her winter cap after a day of sledding - the first time that Terry ever saw her as a young woman, as somebody to whom he had more than just a friendly attraction (though he didn’t realize it at the time). The driving beat of this song represents the hardcore tennis game going on inside Terry’s heart and mind as he tries to process the feelings.

3. First Steps/Summer Days: “Hot As Sun” - Paul McCartney

   Terry and Steffi, having exhausted the areas where they were allowed to play at Terry’s house (in the house, on the porch, in the yard), decide that Steffi’s place “isn’t too far away,” so they pack their things in backpacks, don their ballcaps, and head out toward Steffi’s place, which is on the same street, a little over a mile away. When Steffi says “let’s go,” this instrumental starts. The footage of the pair walking down the sidewalk is interspersed with flash-forwards to the two at summer camp in their teens, leading hikes to lakes where they would leap into the water, fully clothed and having waterfights with other campers, or taking campers along ropes courses where Terry and Steffi would show their younger charges how to do the course. In both flash-forwards, the two act as one inseparable pair: completing each other’s sentences, exchanging long, trusting looks, and playing as only best friends can. McCartney’s song moves along at the pace of a summer camp, where the days can seem slow, yet are over before you know it.

4. The Market/Trip To The Flea Market: “Ladyflash” - The Go! Team

   The first major stop on the walk to Steffi’s place is the town market, a typical bodega with a self-server soda fountain, an aisle of candy in colorful wrappers, and an old video came console near the back. To these young kids, it’s a treasure palace: so many things to see, touch and grab. The scene flash-forwards six years to the pair at the end of a summer, when their families stopped off at an international flea market taking place at a local school in the neighborhood. The kids peer around the booths, trying on all sorts fo silks, funny hats, and even books-as-hats. Terry shows Steffi a stack of old Motown and Stax records, which they listen to on the old turntable setup in a booth. Steffi finds some newer rap records that also find their way onto the turntable, and you see the pair grooving to the music as the market continues around them. They also encounter the school’s jocks and cheerleaders, who are fundraising for the upcoming season. This song by The Go! Team has all of these elements: middle eastern instruments, soul beats and samples, rap, strings and cheerleader calls - a perfect fit.

5. The Park/Playground: “Livin’ In The Sunlight, Lovin’ In The Moonlight” - Tiny Tim

   The kids make it to the park and run to the playground, where their fantasy play takes over the jungle gym, the slides and the swingset. The flash-forwards to scenes between five and six years in the future, where they’re playing and flirting with each other in the same park, at the mall, at a White Sox game, and at the park pond. Which segues to….

6. The Pond/Lost Innocence: “The Great Gig In The Sky” - Pink Floyd

   The young Terry and Steffi stopping at the park pond to catch their breah where they see ducks floating along on the water. Frame rate of the film slows as the image of the lake surface dissolves into a flash-forward where the 15-year-old Steffi has her first deep kiss with her first serious boyfriend, who is verbally abusive to her. In the same flash forward, Terry is seen hanging with new boys, trying to impress them, and not able to show how worried he is for his best friend while trying to act cool in front of his new clique. The Floyd’s song is one of agony and extacy, a slow pace but very powerful in its delivery.

7. The Diner/The Munchies: “Get It On” - Rudi Riet

   At this age, the town diner is just a place to stop and eat some fries while sharing a big soda. Flash forward seven years, though, and it’s an organic café where Steffi and Terry go to satisfy the munchies they have after smoking their first joint. This is the music playing on the sound system in the diner during that flash-forward.

8. The Movies/On A Date: “Fakin’ It” - Simon & Garfunkel

   The pair stops by the movie theatre and sneak in the side door, where Wayne’s World is playing in matinée. The pair sneak into seats in the back of the house, where a teenage couple is necking a few seats away. Steffi and Terry stare at the couple. The scene flash-forwards eight years to Steffi and Terry in the same area of the theatre with Scary Movie on the screen, but the two are on dates with different people, on a double date. At this point in their teenage years, they each realize that their perfect mate is the other - thus the double date (though they don’t openly admit it). But they each gamely play along with their dates, sucking face and pretending to enjoy the moment. When the flash-forward ends, the two mutter an “eeew” and sneak back out the door and onto the street.

9. Firehouse/The Quarrel: “What Goes On” - Sufjan Stevens

   The afternoon is getting late, and the two kids, while almost 2/3 of the way there, are beginning to wonder if they’ll ever arrive. They start getting argumentative, trying to blame every little problem on each other. This scene seamlessly flash-forwards to a scene where they are 18, in front of the same firehouse (now undergoing renovation to become a restaurant or club), again engaged in argument. The older Steffi and Terry are arguing over whether they want to date each other. Terry calls Steffi a tease, Steffi replies with an accusation of his inability to commit to be with her. The argument cuts between the older and younger youth, showing how much the arguments deveolve into basics as the emotions get more heated. This song’s lyrics speak to such an argument (leave it to Lennon and McCartney to write a perfect song for this), and Sufjan Stevens’ reinterpretation fits the afternoon scene: sunlight with a few developing thunderheads in the distance.

10. Almost There/Arrival at Steffi’s House: “When I Reach The Place I’m Goin’” - Tracy Grammer

    A transitional scene that plays as the pair walks the last block to Steffi’s house. It has started raining and is blustery, and the flash-forward scenes show the two at their respective colleges and workplaces, working hard through tough conditions.

11. The Proposal/Closing Credits: “Other Side Of The World” - KT Tunstall

    A song of one couple being opposite halves of a complete circle: without both, the world isn’t whole. This song plays as the young Steffi gets down on one knee in front of Terry, the scene flash-forwarding to a 25-year-old Steffi and Terry in the same position, with Steffi proposing marriage to Terry. He accepts after visualizing all of the wonderful and painful times the couple has experienced over the years. The scene and film close with both the older couple and their 8-year-old selves being freeze-framed in pictures on opposite sides of facing pages in a photo album, which is closed with the final word of the song.

So…. there ‘ya go! There are a lot of scenes left out in this description, but I hope the gist comes through clearly. Getting the songs to fit in our time allotment was tough, and I did a lot of editing on songs to make them a bit more taught. A few are their full-length versions, but many have been sliced-and-diced - it’s a lot easier to do in this digital age than it was back in the days of tape splicing.

U.N.K.L.E. Matt laid down a great playlist challenge - I only hope to follow with something equally challenging and interesting.

Download Onkel Rudi’s Playlist!