For those of you in Los Angeles:



Can't come to the show? buy the DVD release of it :)

Synopsis:

The Plague has come to the small village of Bezirksstadt.

Fathers and Mothers, sons and daughters, all fall to the sharp sickle of Death. Manfred, the Chair of the Medical College, and his fellow Physicians are baffled at finding any way to combat the disease and save their fellow people.

Janick, a young doctor whose radical medical theories about life and death have made him a near-pariah at the college, tries to bring hope in the form of an electrical device capable of re-animating dead tissue. He is decried a heretic, his methods and tools are labeled blasphemous, and he is cast out. But the Plague causes not only sickness, but desperation, and Janick is attacked and his face burned with acid by a thief.

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Composer & music pioneer Isaac Hayes died Sunday in Memphis, where he lived. He was 65. Most people know him as composing the theme song to the 1971 movie "Shaft" , recording artist, composer, and voice talent for "South Park".

This is a short clip that I submitted for a film composer contest. The film is "The Temptress" starring Greta Garbo & Antonio Moreno. Music is composed by me and performed by MUSA. I found this file on a German Greta Garbo site that had it. When I saw it I realized I composed it! (they gave me credit so all is fine) Enjoy!

Wow, what a long day. It's interesting how one day could equal like 15 dull days.

So it started off with me jumping into a pirate costume and going to the casting studio. Usually you are never to wear a costume to an audition but the casting agent told me to. So I arrived and someone asked (seriously) if I was there for the American Express commercial or the pirate film audition. I felt like telling her I was there for the Geico commercial and which lizard should I talk to? but I didn't and told her.

So I was nervous all morning reading my lines and I walk in and the director was all curious by my costume and I had to explain it for several minutes. Then they have me reading lines in this scene with another woman where we are supposed to be in bed. Except we weren't we were sitting on folding chairs. So I am stretched out on the chair pretending I was laying down. So I did my lines ok except the director asked "be more Irish but not too Irish" . So I tried again and I probably sounded like a retarted Scottish. Hell I don't know I never had formal dialect training. So then they placed me with another actor (a male one this time) and gave me a hat and a really cool pistol. So I barked out orders in my Lucien's-version of Irish and then that was it. I doubt I will get the part but at least it was a learning experience. I think next audition I will learn my lines instead of partially reading them.

So I left all relieved that the whole ordeal was over and drove to Cambridge to park my car. I was scheduled to go to the Audio for Film Networking Conference in Boston. The problem was I was still dressed as a pirate. I thought about changing in a parking garage and thought I probably would get arrested. So I went to the Cambridge library to sneak in and change in the bathrooms there. Everyone is staring at me, this crazy looking pirate, and the people in front of me was slow...not like slow but close-to-death slow. I had people coming up to me asking "why are you dressed as a pirate?" and I had to explain the whole audition thing which lead to explaining the movie. ANYWAYS.. so I finally get pass the 4 people in walkers to get in to the library. I get the key and then change in probably one of the most disgusting bathrooms in Cambridge. Jumping out as Clark Kent Lucien I set forth into public back into the 21st century.

I had a lot of time before the conference so I went to Harvard Square to see if I could get the latest Dame Darcy comic at Millionaire's picnic. Then I went to Newbury Street and eat at Deluca's Deli right behind someone of some public stature (I don't know who it was some lady that the paparazzi was taking pictures across the street at her) . Then I walked by Owen Wilson who was dressed like he was playing on a 1970's basketball court.

So finally I went to the convention and met the most composers in one location ever in my life. I usually meet a composer once every..... 10 months? not very often... here they were all assembled talking about scoring for films. I didn't learn anything I didn't know but it was interesting to see some of the demos by other composers. I was rather surprised the bulk of them are using loops and midi samples to score. Which I guess is fine for temp tracks or if you are using elements of loops and samples within "live" instruments but to make an entire score is just lazy and trite. The ones that used actual real instruments in their recordings sounded soooooooooooooo much better.

Last but not least my ALBUMS CAME ! the first shipment from the manufacturer. They came out perfect and the printers did an awesome job (I didn't get a physical proof of it just a digital copy so I wasn't sure). When will YOU get them? May 27th. I can't have any for sale until that date for strict legal reasons because of publishing rights.

Now I am beat. I didn't get much sleep last night trying to think what would Sam Bellamy do? First I need to eat some Captain Crunch then sleep............

It's been raining like crazy here today. Which is fine because if it was just a little bit colder there would be a blizzard. I have been complaining constantly of the weather lately. I just want to go outside without wearing a jacket as thick as an astronaut.

I forgot to post the trailer for the film "Red Sister Red" on here so here it is! (viewer discretion is advised)



Special thanks again to Wendy Mittelstadt for the violin and the vocals at the start of it. The film is still in production and I will be working on the soundtrack in a few weeks. The music will be like this trailer but also containing Irish elements to it.

This week I am rehearsing my set and doing all the organization of material for the design of the album cover. I want to especially give thanks to >Robin for the inspiration of the cover of it. She did some amazing digital manipulation of the photo that Kris made. I still have to write out the linear notes and the credits for it. I dread doing linear notes because I thank everyone than I can think of on it but I almost always forget someone. I shouldn't worry about it because not a lot of people bother reading them and more people will be downloading it anyways.

Right now I am reading a book called White Chapel Gods by S.M. Peters. It's a steampunk-era book set in Victorian London with man fighting machine that controls the city of London. It seems like a good book. I am also reading Professor Winsnicker's Book of Proper Etiquette for Well-mannered Sycophants by Leven Thumps. Which I picked up at a bookstore not knowing anything about the series it's based on. I just liked all the scribbles in the margins of it and the drawings. Between those three books I have been reading a collection of short stories called "The Steampunk Trilogy" by Paul Di Filippo that has some rather funny parts in it. There is this one story where they replace the Queen of England during the Victorian era with a human-sized licentious salamander. Need I say more?

The HorrorPops came out with a new album last week called "Kiss Kiss Kill Kill" . I liked it better than their last (2nd) album "Bring It On!". This new album is a lot like their debut album "Hell Yeah" with the lead singer having Siouxsie Sioux's voice.

I am back from my lightning-fast trip to Hollywood for the screening of Prometheus Truimphant from Mad Monkey Productions directed Jim Towns and Mike McKown. The screening went pretty well. It was the first time I had seen the film on the big screen. I was used to seeing it the size of a postcard on my monitor screen in my studio for so long. It looks great on a larger screen. There will be more screenings of the film in the near future in different parts of the U.S. so all of you must see it!


Mike McKown (director) , Melissa Troughtzmantz (actor in the film), Jim Towns (director), & me .
(left to right) photo by: Kim Hutsell



The screening was held at The Egyptian on Hollywood Blvd. It was the site of the premiere for a lot of silent movies like "The Gold Rush" .

More pictures and what else I did while there below
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I finished recording for the music for the trailer "Red Sister Red" . It should be coming out shortly. The front section of it I had Wendy Mittelstadt do the violin and the vocals at the start of it. She did a great job with it and I couldn't be more pleased how it all sounds. One of the greatest joys of being a composer is creating music that is performed by others. It's great to hear what musicians can bring into the piece that you compose (all those slight nuances) . I am sure an architect probably has the same feeling when he see something he/she created being constructed.


Next Saturday I will be in Los Angeles for the screening. My suit is being tailored and I already got a haircut. The last time I was there was back in 1999 and I am sure it has changed a lot since then.

I watched a cool movie last night called "The Mephisto Waltz". Alan Alda and Jacqueline Bisset are in it. Alan Alda plays a classical piano player on the rise who befriends afamous player himself who's at death's door. Unknown to Alda, the guy is a satanist, who arranges to have their souls switch places at his death, so that he can be young again and continue to play piano (thus needing a skilled piano player like Alda to switch bodies with). It's truly a weird an unusual film. What made it fascinating to me is the soundtrack is so strange. It was composed by Jerry Goldsmith and it's so unique and disturbing it completely carries the film.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and/or holidays. It's great that such a holiday that spans over 4000 years in origin is still celebrated. I will tell about one of the coolest presents I ever got in my next posting.

I have been working on the trailer music for "Red Sister Red" . Yesterday I got some more guidance on the orchestration for it. The sounds of it is going to be very Irish which I think will translate pretty well on film.

I saw on the news that Boston is becoming the North Eastern Hollywood. Last year more than 8 major films were shot in the area. This year there is about 10 or 15 that will be in production around the area. It's great news considering the film industry here was nearly dead 4 years ago.

Sweeney Todd is an excellent film. I was exposed to Stephen Sondheim's work when I was working for an opera company in High School. (oh wow he is still alive today I didn't know that) ,,, so at the time I hated...HATED Sondheim. it was the song "Johanna " that is in it that drove me nuts. I had trouble playing it at the time and the music director would have fits that I made mistakes during rehearsals for it (I was playing the piano for their rehearsals and auditions). I just hated that one song because I never liked the 3 notes that are used in the Jo-han-na. I would have used a different set of three notes. The company I worked for loved his work though and I kept playing it and playing it. I really don't have such a hatred for the music now so I liked the movie. The imagery of it was wonderful and some of the scenes felt like it was lifted straight out of an Edward Gorey Illustration .

Today I was working on the trailer music for "Red Sister Red" . The trailer will make it's debut at the screening next month. I wrote out :46 seconds of the trailer down on paper. I started off in G Minor and was 4 measures in and it sounded like the opening chords to a MUSE song. Which irritated the hell out of me. So I scrubbed it and started again in A Minor and it's a lot better. I planed on it being in A Minor why I went to G I have no idea. The trailer starts off very airy and romantic with a solo violin playing followed by a female Celtic voice over it , then a low drone starts (bass strings), then bodhráns and from there it's all chaos.

Tomorrow I will do the :46 seconds to 1:02 seconds and maybe actually finish it. (which will be @1 minute 27 seconds). Then I'll send off the music to the musicians , schedule a recording session and the final mix it. I really need an assistant once I start working on the full film score. There are too many administrative tasks that need to be done that I can't do alone (first of the year I will find one) .

It was today in 1808 that Ludwig van Beethoven premiered his Fifth Symphony in Vienna.



Happy Winter Solstice to everyone!

Well it is confirmed that I will be attending the screening of Prometheus Triumphant on January 19th in the Steven Spielberg screening room at the American Cinematheque Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, California.

The film runs about 80 min., and will be proceeded by two short films by Mad Monkey Productions, 2003's The Sleep of Reason (5 min) and a new film written by Jim Towns and directed by Mike McKown called Red Queen (10 min), and also by a trailer for Jim Towns' Red Sister Red, due out later this year. This marks the first time any of these pieces have been screened for an LA audience, so we'd love to fill the house as much as possible. There will be a short Q&A following the film with the filmmakers and myself, the film's composer.

If you'll be in town and think you can make it, please send us a message so we can put you on the guest list, as seating is limited!


In other news. I got a copy of the soundtrack of the new Sweeney Todd movie. It's very Stephen Soundheim! I wonder if a lot of people will be attending the film thinking it was composed by Danny Elfman and being shocked while watching it...very broadway llike. My friend Kris thinks Johnny Depp's hairstyle in the film was directly lifted from Dave Vanian lead singer from the band The Damned.

The snow is sticking on the ground here in New England. It makes everything seem all festive-like for scenery.

Jim Towns, the director for the film Prometheus Triumphant, has started editing the trailer for "Red Sister Red" in time for it to be shown during the Prometheus Triumphant screening in Los Angeles in January. So I will be working on the music for the trailer in about 2 weeks. It should be a lot of fun to work on it since I will be working with Irish musicians.

In other news I was surprised that

Here is the trailer for Prometheus Triumphant that I scored the music for:

Description:  Two years in the making, Mad Monkey Productions' most ambitious project to date, Prometheus Truimphant, isa feature-length motion picture set against a backdrop of Germa nExpressionist sexuality. It is also a hypnotic retelling of a very old tale about love, fate, death and resurrection.

Prometheus Triumphant Trailer

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Last night I read a brilliant script that I am going to be doing the soundtrack for. It's from a director from Los Angeles that I can't say who it is or what the name of the film is at this time (mostly because I haven't asked if I could mention it to anyone) . When I finished reading it my initial thoughts were "wow! this is going to be a lot of fun!" .