Second Blood

Cover for the new remastered soundtrack from Intrada.

I never expected to work on the Jerry Goldsmith "Rambo" scores. Douglass Fake of Intrada seemed to have closed the book on the series with expanded CD releases that were well received and weren't limited editions. Then in 2022 Jose Benitez of Quartet Records hired me to produce expanded LP presentations for "First Blood," "Rambo: First Blood Part II," and "Rambo III." The result was "Rambo: The Jerry Goldsmith Vinyl Collection."

For that release, I wanted to dive into the material and not just dump the CDs onto vinyl. If it says "Produced by" me, it should be produced by me. However, there was a roadblock. We couldn't find any scoring material. These films were made by Carolco, an independent company that no longer exists. After some emails with Doug and Roger Feigelson at Intrada, they kindly sent us the pre-mastered stereo mixes for all three films. "First Blood" had the most material, as Doug had mixes of every take recorded for the film.

Working on "First Blood" followed my usual routine of cutting up and ID'ing the music in the actual film first. This provides the reference for many things, notably takes and speed/pitch. And here's where things took a turn. The very opening guitar in the main title ("Homecoming") is its own take for the first few seconds and none of the takes matched the movie. It's always a little scary when the very first cue is an issue. In this case I determined that the stereo music mixes were running at the wrong speed. Was it the entire score (I hoped not) or just the guitar (please, please, please)? Using pitch and time software in Pro Tools I was able to correct that opening guitar and moved onto the rest of the main title and again, it was too fast.

It turned out all of the material for "First Blood" was fast. How did this happen? I don't know, I wasn't there for the transfers and I don't know what the material was. So for the vinyl I went through every cue, matching the speed and takes to the movie. And yes, the irony of correcting the speed for vinyl, a format not renowned for speed accuracy, wasn't lost on me. But it was important for me to get this right. As an aside, let me point out this issue did not affect the two sequel scores so please don't ask about those. I kept detailed notes for all of the "First Blood" work and of course saved the material just in case the project ever came around again.

And it did. A few months ago I was speaking with Roger at Intrada about various things and I blurted out, "What about 'First Blood?'" as a title to revisit. I then explained the speed problem and how it could be corrected. He got back to me a short while later and suddenly it was a "go" project.

This time things would be different again. This wasn't going to simply be the vinyl masters dumped onto CD. It was going to be a 2-disc re-build with the score on disc 1 and the original 1982 album assembly on disc 2. This was going to require a bit of work, as the 1982 album had many unique combinations of cues and at times different takes and I've never re-cut that. My methodology has also changed regarding correcting speed, so all of the work performed in 2022 would have to be redone.

My first task was to handle the cues for the film. With that complete I could then put the film takes up against the album to hear where combinations were made and where different takes were used. What did I use as a reference for the 1982 album? Good question! I had two sources, the first was Intrada's 1988 CD which was the primary reference for the album, as the speed was much more accurate than the later album reissue. Weird, I know. I also had access to something very limited and incredibly rare, Jerry Goldsmith's own acetate reference master, made prior to manufacturing the original vinyl. There is no higher authority.

Outer sleeve for Jerry Goldsmith's acetate ref.

If you previously bought the "Rambo" box set from Quartet, congrats! You've been enjoying a pitch corrected version of the score for a few years and maybe you don't need to buy this score again. For others, this may be a good reason to upgrade from prior CDs. And if you've never owned the score, now is a great time to get acquainted with it. The score and album have been entirely rebuilt digitally, eliminating any physical tape bumps and both discs have been mastered by Mike Matessino, a recent GRAMMY nominee.

Finally, if people look at the credits, they'll see I share the producers credit with Douglass Fake. While he sadly passed away in July 2024, his presence was felt throughout the production of this album. "First Blood" was an important score for him and for Intrada. This release retains not only his stereo mixes but also his liner notes from the 2010 album, with some small adjustments to bring it inline with this update, and we've retained many decisions he made for the earlier album as well. I could not have done this without him and I hope this release lives up to his high standards.

About That Mono Goldfinger Single

Last year, to honor the 60th anniversary of the release of the James Bond film "Goldfinger," La-La Land Records was asked to produce a new soundtrack album. This was one that was never on my "to-do" list because by all accounts the scoring masters are missing. But with the request in and a desire to continue having a roof over my head, I went ahead with the search for the score to "Goldfinger." While we wound up with many different album masters made over the years, no extra music was present on any of them. A search of the inventory at MGM did reveal one set of DA-88 tapes and we had those transferred.

Album cover for the 60th Anniversary Edition of the "Goldfinger" soundtrack

These tapes were digital back-ups of original 2-track 1/4" tapes from 1964 and contained the main title only, including the stereo mix of the version used on the soundtrack album and film (where it was folded down to mono). For that performance, Bassey recorded her track live with the orchestra. Once a completed take was in the can, that orchestra recording became the basis for a mono single that featured Bassey singing a fresh interpretation of the song. The tapes had those alternate takes with her on channel 1 and a mono mix of the orchestra on channel 2.

YouTube video of the original 45rpm mono "Goldfinger" single.

Evaluating all of the takes I determined that three of them (10, 12 and 15) were used to create the mono vocal performance. Listening to the original mono single an observant listener might be able to hear where those intercuts are. With digital editing it's much easier to make the transitions seamless, to preserve the illusion of a single performance. But there were still some issues, most notably that mono orchestra track still had remnants of Bassey belting out the lyrics from her booth. At times you can hear two voices on the original mono mix, such as around 1:12 where you can hear Shirley in the booth sing "It's" right before the alternate vocal comes in. Working with engineer Chris Malone, we were able to clean up all these stray bits to present the mono single in the best way possible. It's included on the La-La Land CD as track 17.

So why did we keep this mono and not create a stereo version? The answer is simple: we never found a stereo only mix of the orchestra. If one had ever been created, it's lost now, along with the rest of the score. But having access to the recordings revealed to me this was always intended to be released monophonically. That's why she was recorded against the mono mix of the orchestra. Could it be done with AI or some other computer trickery? Sure, but it would go against the intentions of the artists and may function as a curiosity but not a replacement. I'm thrilled with the work we did on this and it made the "Goldfinger" project, one I was initially skeptical about, worth doing.

Six Things About Six Soundtrack Albums

 Quick post here with behind-the-scenes trivia about some recent album releases.

Jurassic Park III

I edited this album for Mike Matessino and La-La Land Records. We had 5.0 mixes of every recorded take. This was recorded in the era where digital editing had hit an all new-level of precision. Performances could now be perfect with the ability to edit multiple takes seamlessly together. Here is an example.

I don't remember what cue this is, but this represents three different takes in five seconds. I'm able to do this by precisely lining up the recorded takes to either the film or original album which are used as reference.

The Godfather Part II

So I've established that I match performance takes to the film as reference. But what if the cue in question is for a deleted scene? That happened on "The Godfather Part II." On that score we only had the selected takes and in many cases they were able to do it in one take but for cue 19m2B, the second half of "Remember Vito Andolini (Film Version)" on disc 1, we had two takes and the scene was cut from the film. Which take should I use? Luckily, I remembered this deleted scene was on the television broadcast. I asked co-producer Dan Goldwasser for the scene which he had extracted to his computer. Sure enough, they intercut the two takes together and I duplicated that for the album.

Spider-Man 2

This was a challenging project because so much of the music was changed in the final film, with different composers coming in and even cues from the first film being repurposed for this film. We had stereo mixes of all of the final intended cues, but in some instances, once again, the takes we had didn't always match what was in the film. My theory is what existed was the entire score cut together, possibly to assemble the original album. That makes sense, right? Anyway, I was able get the missing takes and reassemble performances to match what was selected for the film. The ones I remember spending the most time on were "Spidus Interruptus" and "Armageddon." One of the Christopher Young "Demonstration" cues was also an edit of two takes.

Heavy Metal

If you like the original score album for this, thank Jeff Bond for its inclusion on this release. In 2008, Film Score Monthly issued the full Elmer Bernstein score on CD for the first time using the composers tapes which contained the film mixes. For our release, we stuck with the same transfers of these tapes. Jeff Bond, who wrote the notes, said it sounded good, but he preferred the mixes on the original album. So I reached out to Warner Music Group and sure enough, they had the original stereo 1/4" album master, already transferred in high-res 192 kHz/24-bit. The transfer ran a little fast but I was able to correct all of that and now Jeff Bond is happy. Looking at it now, I love this cover, too.

The Man With The Golden Gun

Surprisingly, there isn't much to say about this score. It's well known that it was completed in a hurry and there weren't many variations. It was a surprise though to learn "In Search Of Scaramanga's Island" was a different take in the film than on the album. The film uses take eight while the album uses take four. So if you're wondering why disc 1, track 22 says "Film Version" now you know.

Licence To Kill

One of my favorite things to do is rebuilding original soundtrack albums with our new transfers and mixes. In some cases, like "The Godfather" and "Moonraker," there is a major sound quality upgrade. In the case of "Licence To Kill," the original CD already had good sound but for some reason it was the editing that could be improved. The album track "Licence Revoked" had a cut in it that always stood out to me but in analyzing all of the score cues on the original album I found edit points that weren't the most refined throughout. That's all been addressed on the new CD.

Moonraker On CED

In my previous post I mentioned the old RCA CED video format a few times. Then the other day, my YouTube feed included a CED stereo demo disc video. Coincidence?

I've seen this video a few times since it was posted but I forgot that "Moonraker" was part of the demo, starting around 3:58. For copyright reasons the entire scene was not posted, but it's the Venice boat chase, which in the film also includes "The Tritsch-Tratsch Polka" by Johann Strauss II. More on this in another entry.

A few other things to note from this video. At 13:14 they show "Star Trek – The Motion Picture" on stereo CED with the wormhole sequence. This movie was only ever released monaurally on CED. The same is true for "The Muppet Movie" which is also featured on this demo disc.

This video also reminded me of how much I like that old stereo logo. I wonder if I could use this on a future CD release.

Moonraker...At Last

On Friday, November 29 La-La Land Records issued the long-awaited expanded soundtrack to the James Bond film "Moonraker." I was the producer on this release and worked with everyone to bring it out. My dad likes when I write notes for these albums, but what I have to say about this score and project may be too personal for an officially licensed product. However I'm happy to share some details here.

Album cover for the new "Moonraker" CD

I first saw "Moonraker" in the summer of 1987. It was the 25th anniversary of the James Bond film series and the television special, "Happy Anniversary 007: 25 Years of James Bond" had aired earlier in the year and turned me into a James Bond fan. We already owned the first three James Bond films on the extinct RCA CED video format, and that was basically all I'd seen of the official series. I taped that television special, hosted by Roger Moore, and watched it almost every day after school. I became determined to name what film each clip was from, so I started renting the tapes and going through the films in no particular order.

I was 10 going on 11 when I watched "Moonraker" that summer, and as I've said over the years, that's the perfect age to see this movie. As an adult I maintain that if you cut out some of the jokiness "Moonraker" is a solid spy film....that still ends up with James Bond going into space with space marines getting into a laser battle. But this is precisely why as a 10 year old, "Moonraker" was the greatest movie I had ever seen. I was floored by this film, right from the amazing aerial pre-title sequence. I loved the movie so much my mom bought the film on VHS for me for my birthday, CED being dead and buried at this point.

Over the years, I've collected "Moonraker" on various home-video formats, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and now 4K digital. Shoot, when I first discovered eBay I even bought it on CED. I've also attended various 35mm repertory screenings, the first of these was a midnight show at some theater in Philadelphia. I went to this theater because they were playing "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" at midnight and I saw a flyer on the door advertising "Moonraker" showing in the coming weeks. This was in the early 2000s and for a brief moment, when I saw it was going to be playing, I turned back into that little 10 year old boy. I was so excited to see it, and you know what? It didn't disappoint on the big screen.

My most memorable viewing of "Moonraker" was on February 26, 2011. My friend Athena (that's her below giving it a "9" out of 10) was celebrating her birthday. To mark the occasion she wanted to watch and rank every James Bond film in order with friends over the weekend. I couldn't make it on Friday for the early films, but I showed up on Saturday towards the beginning of "Moonraker." There's video and I show up around 2:20.

            

That's me in the front row on the left giving "Moonraker" a "7" (10 year old me would be so disappointed). See that lady sitting right next to me in the grey shirt also giving it a "7"? We met that day and this is the very first photo of us together. About 2 1/2 years after this photo was taken we were married. That's right, I met my wife Marie while watching "Moonraker."

Now that all the personal stuff is out of the way, it's time to discuss the new 45th Anniversary Expanded Edition from La-La Land Records. A little history first on the status of the soundtrack. The original soundtrack album was released concurrently with the film in 1979 on LP. It featured the main and end title songs performed by Shirley Bassey and about 25 minutes of the score. This same program has been issued twice on CD. In 2000 two cues were re-recorded for a James Bond compilation album, but it turns out these recordings were takedowns from listening to the film, duplicating tracking and not having endings because they weren't in the film. In 2015 there was a Kickstarter to re-record the score, but despite being funded, the project was cancelled due to rights issues. So for 45 years, there was a 30 minute album and two incomplete re-recorded cues.

Enter MV Gerhard and Matt Verboys of La-La Land Records, a label that specializes in issuing classic film scores with additional, previously unreleased music. Over the last few years we've been working with MGM and EON Productions on reissues of the classic Bond scores. Last year, after wrapping up "Live and Let Die" and "Octopussy" I submitted a list of suggestions and "Moonraker" was one of the titles. At the time I didn't know what existed as there was an internet rumor the tapes were lost. That didn't faze me as when we started on "Octopussy" nothing could be located and we wound up finding the entire score. In March 2024 "Moonraker," along with "Goldfinger" and "The Man With the Golden Gun," was approved so work could begin.

While waiting for the inventory report I was talking things over with my friend, colleague and mentor Mike Matessino. I mentioned "Moonraker" is happening and I'm not sure what the elements will be like yet, although at this point I heard it could be multi-track. Before I could finish asking Mike if he wanted to mix it, he'd said "Yes." So that was settled, now I just needed to know what we had. When I got the report I immediately called writer and friend Jon Burlingame, who was going to write the notes for the album. I couldn't quite contain my excitement. I had to let him know. Based on the report, it looked like it was all there. A short while later, I had all of the data on my computer ready to dive into the score.

The first thing I heard was the engineer speaking in French as the score was recorded in Paris. This was going to be a challenge. While I took French in high school, it was 30+ years ago and I was a lousy student. After awhile though, I did start to understand the engineer calling out the reel and part numbers. I needed to listen carefully, as currently I didn't have any paperwork to indicate what was on the tapes. I figured out most of the cues and I also discovered that there was a 3-track LCR stereo film mix on the tapes along with the sixteen separate, discrete tracks for each section of the orchestra. Playing only the 3-track made editing to the film easy and I was able to confirm we had the proper film and album takes. I still requested photos of the tape boxes and any other paperwork to aid in this work and MGM was great at delivering this imagery. The most gratifying part of this process was realizing all of the correct takes were on these tapes. I was concerned that maybe these were tapes that had the selected film takes cut out. Luckily that was not the case. So much for the "lost recordings" rumor.

Were there any surprises? Plenty. There are six score cues completely unused in the movie while many of the cues in the film are shortened or changed and we now had the full recordings. Hearing the score as intended was a revelation. Figuring out where the unused cues went was an exciting challenge. My friend, and fellow Bond fan, Harry Frishberg helped make videos restoring the unused music to the movie so Jon could see how the music was intended for his liner notes.

The biggest surprise though was uncovering the Paul Williams version of the title song. Burlingame had written extensively about this in his book "The Music of James Bond" but I never expected to hear it especially from the original multi-track tapes. Remember, at this point I didn't have any documentation to explain what was on the transfers, so I was going in blind. Yet here it was and I immediately called Jon when I made this discovery. I'm happy to report that we got all of the approvals needed to include two versions of this song on the release.

Because the Williams lyrics were abandoned, Hal David was brought in to write the final lyrics. This version was recorded in the US. There were two dates, May 7 and May 14. The May 7 session, the source for the "alternate" main and end title instrumentals, did not have vocals archived on the 2" tapes. Engineer Dan Wallin wrote a note on the box saying as much. Shirley Bassey recorded the main and end titles at the May 14 session although keyboardist Michael Boddicker came back on May 15 to record an overlay heard in the film version of the end titles. As these were recorded in Los Angeles, these all had vocal slates in English. The track layout was a little different as well compared with the Paris recordings and a 3-track mix was not archived on these tapes, which is not unusual for a Wallin recording. I've encountered this before on other projects like The Karate Kid and Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan.

Once I had all of the music sequenced and edited it was time for Mike to mix it. This was a rewarding process. Mike would upload the latest mixes every night and in the morning I'd wake up and there'd be a few more cues waiting on my computer for me to evaluate. I'd been listening to the 3-track mixes and while they differed from the 1979 original soundtrack album mixes (which it turns out none of us were crazy about) they couldn't prepare me for what Mike accomplished with access to the full multi-track. This was "Moonraker" supercharged! As I listened I took notes and we'd discuss what we thought was best and the mix came together. There were a few times where tears started forming during this process. That's when I knew we were on the right path.

By the beginning of June, the mixes were finalized and I was able to go back and rebuild the original 1979 soundtrack album. The album takes were the same as the film with the exception of the ending to "Bond Lured To Pyramid." The album used take 3 exclusively with a slow fade out at the end while the version on disc 1 uses a combination of takes 3 and 4 to match the choices made for the film. Other subtle differences between the film and album were addressed in mixing. I also prepared all of the album combos to match the timing of the original album release. With that in place it was onto mastering.

I love when albums are getting mastered. This is the part where it all comes together. Until an album is mastered, the final assembly only exists on a spreadsheet and in my head. Doug Schwartz was the mastering engineer on this and all of the other previous La-La Land James Bond expansions. Doug is incredibly patient with every nitpick change I want to make and he also has great ears and taste which always brings out the best in the music. Again, there were moments of intense emotions listening to this music.

And while all of this is going on, Jon is busy writing his notes and Dan Goldwasser is busy designing the booklet. We also worked with Jim Titus on the images. I had very specific ideas for the packaging and it turned out better than I imagined. As of this writing I haven't seen the final printed version, but I must have reviewed about 20 different versions and proofs.

Beyond all of this, there's also a lot of administrative work between the label and the various rights holders. I won't detail it here, but I'm thankful for everyone at EON Productions, MGM and Universal Music Enterprises who made this release happen.

Something else to note, while all of this is occurring, I was also working with Chris Malone on "The Man With The Golden Gun," sometimes evaluating his new mixes at the same time as Mike's new "Moonraker" mixes. I was also in the middle of "The Godfather Part II," "Spider-Man 2," "Jurassic Park III," "Last Action Hero," and some other titles that haven't been announced yet.

And there it is. After wanting this score expanded and remastered for years, it was all done in about seven months. I'm thrilled with the final release. We include the original 30 minute LP program, but also over 55 minutes of additional score, source cues and alternates. According to my music player roon, I've listened to it over 30 times but that doesn't count all of the times I had to listen while editing, mixing and mastering and I'm still not tired of it. I hope everyone enjoys it as much.

I'm sure once people listen to this and the newly-released "The Man With The Golden Gun" album there will be some questions. I'll post a follow-up entry about both once people have listened to them.

Neil Bulk Will Return

The Swarm Album Cover

When working on The Swarm for La-La Land Records I envisioned the cover looking like the original vinyl. Here's what that looked like, courtesy of an eBay auction.

The black background and red text looks great and I figured with a red border and "Expanded Archival Edition" we'd have a winner. Dan Goldwasser, the art director for the album, added his own touch. Below is our original cover for the album.

For reasons not clear to me, this cover was rejected and we had to stick with the theatrical one-sheet instead. I mentioned that poster was not only the cover of the previous album but also the bootleg and we should differentiate our release from those, to no avail. If you look at the rest of the booklet you can see the entire design was based around this cover.

I still have to remind myself this wasn't use because it's what I use in my digital music library. For those interested, I use Roon to play my music and I love it.

About a year after The Swarm came out I was working on The Time Tunnel, another Irwin Allen project. This time my cover suggestion of a black cover, mostly red text and a simple graphic was used.

The La-La Land Records/Tomorrow Never Dies (25th Anniversary Expanded Edition) FAQ

On November 29, 2022, La-La Land Records issued a 2-CD set of David Arnold's score to "Tomorrow Never Dies." The release was a great success but there have been a few questions repeatedly asked about it. I hope this page answers those questions. If you find it valuable, please help get the word out. Before getting to that, I want to thank everyone for supporting this album, listening to it and taking the time to ask about it.

Hey, I bought the new TND CD and I think I noticed a bit of music missing. When Bond is first seen with the woman in bed learning "a new tongue" there's soft music playing and it's not on this album. Did anyone else notice?

The scene you're describing is tracked with the 2nd movement from Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor." This was not recorded for the film and was an existing recording, licenced (<---- British spelling) by the filmmakers. If you'd like to hear this music apart from the film, there are many recordings available.

As an aside, while working on this album I saw the latest "Batman" movie and heard this piece during a scene between Bruce Wayne and Alfred.

Did anyone else notice music missing from the beginning when Stamper shoots the survivors and Carver's men go aboard the sunken ship and retrieve the missiles? Why isn't this on the new album?

The music used for the events described above is on the album. It's found in the cue "Underwater Discovery," (disc 1, track 20) which the filmmakers tracked earlier in the movie for this scene.

I was talking to this guy who knows a fella who says he heard you're working on the next James Bond album. Here's what I'd like it to be and what I'd like on it. First, I want.....

Let me cut you off right there. As of this writing (January 2, 2023) I am not involved with nor do I know of any upcoming James Bond albums. I also have my own wants and desires and having now worked on three of these scores and having worked continuously on specialty soundtrack releases for nearly 15 years, I have a good grip on what the public wants and how to deliver it.

For all of the latest official news on all of the latest releases I suggest following and/or signing up for emails from the various specialty labels like La-La Land Records, Quartet Records, Intrada Records and Varese Sarabande.

Thanks and have a Happy New Year!