Reassembling The Main Title From "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"

On May 27, 2025 news broke, via Variety, that La-La Land Records would be issuing John Barry's score to the sixth James Bond film, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (OHMSS), on CD at some point during the summer. A little over a month later on July 1, the album was released. I've had the great pleasure of producing and mixing this release and wanted to share a little behind the scenes insight into one of the tracks.

Album cover for La-La Land's new "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" CD

The score to OHMSS has been issued basically two times since 1969 on various formats. There was the original 38 minute program which has also been issued on LP, CD, high-res digital and probably a few tape formats. In 2003, my friend and colleague Lukas Kendall produced a 79 minute single CD expanded version which presented a quasi version of the original 1969 soundtrack album and a slew of additional tracks. That album brought a lot of happiness to listeners over the last 20+ years, myself included.

The original LP cover. Note Domino from "Thunderball" on the right.

For this new La-La Land Records release I had access to the same material used for the 2003 album. These were the original 1/2" analog scoring masters while the song "We Have All The Time In The World" was recorded to 1" tape. These tapes contained most of the takes recorded for the picture and original album. One reel couldn't be located, presumably damaged, but otherwise, all of the takes were there...it only required some looking.

While no two projects are the same, they usually have one thing in common: all of the takes are available, uncut and in recording order. That wasn't the case with OHMSS. What happened with these tapes is after scoring, the album was constructed by physically splicing these first generation recordings. Let me repeat that. The tapes that went through the machine as the score was being performed were cut to create the 1969 album. The optimist in me would like to think this was done to preserve the first generation quality, while the realist in me thinks it was done to save time and money. Regardless, the tapes were cut.

What this means is anything that wasn't on the original soundtrack album survived in uncut condition. If there were ten takes recorded of a cue not on the OST, I had all ten takes intact on the scoring masters. But if there were ten recorded takes for a cue presented on the album and the album used take ten, that performance was removed from the master reel and placed onto an "album" reel. Still first gen, but separated from the scoring masters. But wait, there's more! Let's say for the soundtrack album the producers decided that take ten's opening should be replaced with the opening of take eight. That means another take would be physically cut out of the master reel and edited together with take ten on the album reel. Still first gen, but now spliced together onto another tape. So now let's say you hear the engineer on the album reel call out "1m5 [reel 1, music 5], take 8" and the cue plays in full, would you assume take eight was the only take used on the album? I would! What I've just described is exactly what happened with the "Main Title" for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." And sure enough, this intercut performance is what was heard on the 1969 album and other releases. More on that in a bit.

In the meantime, this release isn't only presenting the original soundtrack album. As with other expanded Bond albums from La-La Land Records, this release presents the cues as intended by the filmmakers. That means there may be some different takes as heard in the film than on the album. It's the same musical composition but a different performance. The "Main Title" is one of those cues. And here's how I figured it all out. This seems obvious now, but at the time I had a lot of confusion. Part of this is because I didn't have any paperwork to guide me and also the unusual methodology described above to create the album in 1969.

There were two things that made me realize the album "Main Title" was intercut. First, and really the dead giveaway, was the opening didn't match the mono film audio I was using for reference. To restore these scores properly, I always go back to the original film audio to use as a guide for take selection. These are the performances the composer, music editor and other filmmakers deemed satisfactory for the film. The second thing is when I realized these tapes had been cut. On the scoring master reel with the "Main Title" recordings, take eight was completely absent. Hmmmm, this supported my theory that take eight was the full album take. But then when I got to take ten it had a vocal slate,  the opening and a smash cut to the ending, with no middle. Why would John Barry record this? What was the purpose? I'm slow sometimes. Armed with the mono movie audio, I lined up the opening of take ten with the mono movie ref and there it was, a perfect match! Then I moved on and checked the ending of take ten and again, it was exactly what's heard in the film. So where did the middle of take ten go? The album! This was when I realized the album reels contained intercuts. That meant anytime I heard an abrupt cut on the scoring masters a section was removed and placed onto the album reels. It happened again with the end of "This Never Happened To The Other Fella" and the opening of "We Have All The Time In The World – James Bond Theme."

The skill with which the original engineer cut these takes together is fantastic. I get to do it non-destructively in the computer with multiple attempts and precise crossfades. They got to do it with a razor blade and adhesive tape! It was done so well, I'm not sure anyone ever realized it was in fact two performances cut together. That could explain why the 5.1 home video remix created in the 2000s uses the album intercut for the "Main Title," presumably straight off of the album reel. For this new CD I've digitally reassembled take ten, making this the very first release of the film version of the "Main Title" to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in stereo. It only took 55 years.

The opening of the "Main Title" lined up in Pro Tools. Note for the first 8 seconds they are different.

The new 2-disc expanded release of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is available on CD now from La-La Land Records and the 007 Store. For more insight into this score and other James Bond films check out my interview on the "To Live and Let Die in L.A." podcast.

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!

Three First Victims in Basic Instinct

Last year I had the pleasure of working with Quartet Records and scoring mixer Bruce Botnick on an expanded re-issue of Jerry Goldsmith's Oscar®-nominated score to Basic Instinct. This was the third release of the score on CD, but we were able to locate material that had never been released before and fix some sonic anomalies in the original recording. We're all very proud of the album, and I wanted to write about one cue in particular.

The expanded Basic Instinct album from Quartet Records.

The film segues from the main titles into a cue titled, "The First Victim". Basic Instinct pushed the boundaries of the American film rating system and two versions of this scene were created. One featured more sex and violence than the other. The more "adult" version was shown overseas while American audiences got a toned down cut. Goldsmith scored this scene twice, once for each version. The unrated version opens our album, combined with the "Main Title", as it is heard in the film. The R-rated version appears as a bonus track. Interestingly, during the murder, the R-rated cut uses the music intended for the unrated cut. The album presents the cue as recorded, not as it was edited in the film.

Don't pick your nose! Johnny Boz (Bill Cable) becomes "the first victim" in a close-up from the unrated cut.

However there is a third version of "The First Victim" on our album that may not be as obvious. The "End Titles" featured a combination of the "Main Title" with "The First Victim". While the "Main Title" is the same performance that opens the film (albeit, one slightly shortened with edits not duplicated on our album) the replay of "The First Victim" in the film is an entirely different take. To summarize, the unrated cut uses take 61 of "The First Victim" and the R-rated version uses a combination of takes 63 and 61, while all versions of the movie end with take 59.

Sometimes when making these albums one cannot help but have multiple alternates play in a row. In the case of Basic Instinct, there was an elegant way to get the three versions of "The First Victim" used in the film on the album without becoming monotonous.

The Quartet Records release of Basic Instinct is available here.

Sequencing The Blue Max

Earlier this year, La-La Land Records released a 2-CD set of Jerry Goldsmith's score to The Blue Max. This was the 6th release of this score, with two previous vinyl issues and three previous CD issues. I co-produced this newest release with Nick Redman and while we came up with our own unique playlist for disc 1 (one that is closest to the final movie) we wanted this to be the last word on this terrific score. With Mike Matessino handling the restoration and mixing and Daniel Hersch the final mastering, sonically we knew this would be the best Blue Max yet. But in terms of content, how do you please listeners that have been listening to this music for nearly 50 years? The solution was to figure out what all of the previous albums had on them and make sure it was represented in some capacity. Today, I'm going to share with you how to use the La-La Land album to sequence any of the 5 earlier incarnations of this score.

To do that, I'll list the five earlier albums. The first release is the original album release from Mainstream Records. Prior to the La-La Land release, this sequencing of the score was never on CD.

The second release was from Citadel Records. This release changed most of the original cue titles and the first pressing even swapped two titles on the packaging, so it was the most confusing to figure out. Like the Mainstream, it has never been on CD.

The first CD came from Varese Sarabande in the mid 80s.

The second CD came from Sony in the 90s and had almost the entire score.

The third CD was from Intrada and was released only a few years ago and quickly sold out. It also presented nearly the entire score, but went back to some of the album edits from the Mainstream Records release.

Here's how to listen to any of the earlier releases.

Mainstream Records:  This is the easiest one to re-sequence. Put in disc two and listen to the first 15 tracks. That's the Mainstream Records release! And don't be fooled by the listing at SoundtrackCollector.com. The three source cues were at the end of side 2, not interspersed with the main score. I'll also point out that there were two versions of this album, a stereo release and a mono release, but the musical content was the same.

The cover of the later pressing of the Citadel Records release.

Citadel Records:

1. Main Title - Disc 1 Track 1
2. First Flight - Disc 2 Track 25
3. The New Hero - Disc 1 Track 6
4. Desolation - Disc 1 Track 7
5. Passacaglia - Disc 2 Track 23
6. Mocking Waltz - Disc 1 Track 11
7. Love Theme - Disc 1 Track 12
8. Prelude to Part Two - Disc 1 Track 15
9. Taste of Blood - Disc 1 Track 16
10. Lonely Hero - Disc 1 Track 17
11. Retreat (Part One) - Disc 1 Track 18
12. Retreat (Part Two) - Disc 1 Track 19
13. The End of Bruno - Disc 1 Track 23
14. End Title - Disc 2 Track 12

The cover of the first pressing of the Citadel Records release.

Note that the first release of the Citadel had "The New Hero" before "First Flight". This was a typographical error, the musical content was right. The title swap was fixed on later pressings.

Varese Sarabande:

1. Main Title - Disc 1 Track 1
2. The New Arrival - Disc 1 Track 2
3. First Blood - Disc 2 Track 25
4. The First Victory - Disc 1 Track 6
5. The Victim - Disc 1 Track 7
6. A Toast to Bruno - Disc 1 Track 3
7. The Attack (parts 1 & 2) - Disc 2 Track 26
8. A Lonely Hero - Disc 1 Track 8
9. A Small Favor - Disc 1 Track 11
10. The Lovers - Disc 1 Track 12
11. Finale to Part I - Disc 1 Track 14
12. Prelude to part II - Disc 1 Track 15
13. The Bridge - Disc 1 Track 16
14. Stachel's Confession - Disc 1 Track 17
15. Retreat Parts I & II - Disc 2 Track 27
16. Stachel in Berlin - Disc 2 Track 11
17. Kaeti Has a Plan - Disc 1 Track 23
18. Stachel's Last Flight - Disc 1 Track 24
19. End Title - Disc 2 Track 12

Sony:

1. The Blue Max (Main Title) - Disc 1 Track 1
2. The New Arrival - Disc 1 Track 2
3. A Toast to Bruno - Disc 1 Track 3
4. First Blood - Disc 2 Track 25
5. First Victory - Disc 1 Track 5
6. The Captive - Disc 1 Track 6
7. The Victim - Disc 1 Track 7
8. The Cobra - Disc 1 Track 8
9. The Attack - Disc 2 Track 26
10. A Small Favor - Disc 1 Track 11
11. Love Theme - Disc 1 Track 12
12. The Rivals - Disc 1 Track 13
13. Finale to Part 1 - Disc 1 Track 14
14. Prelude to Part 2 - Disc 1 Track 15
15. Love Theme - Disc 1 Track 10
16. The Bridge - Disc 1 Track 16
17. Love Theme - Disc 1 Track 17
18. Retreat - Disc 2 Track 27
19. Stachel to Berlin - Disc 2 Track 11
20. Nothing Needed - Disc 1 Track 22
21. Kaeti Has a Plan - Disc 1 Track 23
22. Stachel's Last Flight - Disc 1 Track 24
23. End Title - Disc 2 Track 12
24. Pour Le Mérite March - Disc 2 Track 14
25. Presentiar March - Disc 2 Track 18
26. Student Song Medley - Disc 2 Track 16
27. Artist's Life - Disc 2 Track 21
28. Gloria March - Disc 2 Track 22
29. Deutschland Über Alles - Disc 2 Track 15
30. Watch on the Rhine - Disc 2 Track 13

Intrada:

1. Main Title - Disc 1 Track 1
2. The New Arrival - Disc 1 Track 2
3. A Toast to Bruno - Disc 1 Track 3
4. The Balloon - Disc 2 Track 24
5. First Blood / First Victory - Disc 2 Track 4
6. The Captive / The Victim - Disc 2 Track 6
7. The Cobra - Disc 1 Track 8
8. The Attack - Disc 2 Track 26
9. Love Theme from "The Blue Max" - Disc 2 Track 2
10. A Small Favor - Disc 1 Track 11
11. A Lonely Hero - Disc 1 Track 12
12. The Rivals - Disc 1 Track 13
13. Finale to Part 1 - Disc 1 Track 14
14. Prelude to Part 2 - Disc 1 Track 15
15. The Bridge - Disc 1 Track 16
16. Stachel's Confession - Disc 1 Track 17
17. Retreat - Disc 2 Track 27
18. Stachel to Berlin / Food Riot - Disc 2 Track 11
19. Nothing Needed - Disc 1 Track 22
20. Kaeti Has a Plan - Disc 1 Track 23
21. Stachel's Last Flight - Disc 1 Track 24
22. End Title - Disc 2 Track 12
23. Finale to Part 2 / Exit Music - Disc 2 Track 28
24. Pour Le Merite March - Disc 2 Track 14
25. Student Song Medley - Disc 2 Track 16
26. Presentiar March - Disc 2 Track 18
27. Artist's Life - Disc 2 Track 21
28. Gloria March - Disc 2 Track 22
29. Watch on the Rhine - Disc 2 Track 13
30. Deutschland Uber Alles - Disc 2 Track 15

There was another release of this score, this time married to the picture. The Blu-ray from Twilight Time features the score isolated on a separate audio track. And the alternate cues are interspersed on a commentary track featuring Nick Redman, Julie Kirgo, and Jon Burlingame.

Special thanks to John Takis and Jeff Bond.

I'm Ignoring You

Please don't take this personally, but I'm ignoring you. Not in real life. Feel free to call or send me a message. However, there is a very good chance I'm ignoring you on Facebook. Don't worry, I didn't go out of my way to intentionally hide you or block you. The past week, I've been ignoring my entire newsfeed. Instead of scrolling down, I'll usually see the top entry before moving over to "Close Friends" or checking out some of the groups I enjoy. But the feed has been ignored and there are many updates I haven't seen.

Over the past few weeks Facebook has been more aggravating than entertaining. Between the deaths of famous actors filling up my feed and ice bucket clutter, I wasn't enjoying my time on Facebook. Constantly reading the same thing from different people was gratuitous and annoying. Previously, Facebook was fun. Suddenly I was getting pissed off at a website. The best thing for me to do was step away.

Of course I'm a tremendous hypocrite and kept posting to my page, but I've come to value Facebook as a kind of online diary. So I've been updating it occasionally with things I'm doing or articles that are of interest to me and maybe my friends. But if something important happened to you, I'm sorry if I didn't see it. And if a famous person died, don't worry, I have other sources for news.

Bat Rambling

1989's summer movie season was an historic bloodbath. In about a month, the record for having the biggest opening weekend was broken three times. First by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, then Ghostbusters II, and then finally by Tim Burton's Batman, which opened 25 years ago today. I was 12 going on 13 when it opened, and I was the target audience. I had started reading Batman comics a few months earlier, just after the "A Death in the Family" storyline.

Cover art for "A Death in the Family" graphic novel.

But I didn't get to see it on June 23. Or the 22nd, when it opened early. Or the 24 or 25. I didn't get to see Batman until Monday, June 26. That was tough for 12 year old me to handle. I don't want to blame my mom for this, but it was her fault (sorry mom). My Bar Mitzvah was on June 24 and she wouldn't let me be out at night, thinking I needed my rest for the big day. I don't think she understood the desire to see this movie. On June 24, my cousins came over to go to the synagogue with us. Guess what? They went to the advance showing on the 22 and decided to re-enact many of the highlights of the film for me. To this day, when I see the Joker dancing and shooting Grissom, I'm reminded of my cousin Alan's recreation. The line, "Bob, gun" also sticks in my head from this early spoiler.

As mentioned above, I did get to see Batman opening week. My mom took me to the AMC Marlton 8 in the evening. I won't go into too many details, I'll just say I left the screening less than impressed. In fact, it was the only time I've seen that movie in the theater. I never had any desire to revisit it on the big screen. I've seen it a few times on home video, and I still don't like it. It was an odd feeling. Summer 1989 belonged to Batman. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing a Bat-symbol advertising the movie. It was the movie everyone was talking about. I kept reading the comics, too. But for some reason this movie has never connected with me and I'm still baffled by its popularity.

Thankfully there was one thing that came out of the movie that I did enjoy, and that was Danny Elfman's score. It wasn't released until later in the summer. Instead, the big Batman soundtrack that was in all of the stores was an album of Prince songs, only some of which were in the movie. The Elfman score was released though, and I remember finding it and buying it immediately. I found it on cassette first, so that's what I listened to. A short time later I found it on CD, and I bought that, too. It became one of those albums imprinted onto my brain. Which was fortunate!

The original CD album cover.

A few years ago, I found out that La-La Land Records was working on an expanded release of the original CD. I called them and asked if I could work on it, since I was familiar with this score. I was told they had a producer, but if they had any problems they'd get in touch with me. It turns out, there were some issues with the materials they had and things were missing. I was asked to see if I could locate some of these missing cues. I made some calls, we brought in some more elements, and we were able to piece together the score. The CD was completed on time and they debuted it at Comic-Con in 2010, where it was a big success. At that convention, Danny Elfman was interviewed by Jeff Bond (who wrote the notes for the La-La Land album) and while this panel was meant to plug another project, our CD got mentioned!

Danny Elfman and Jeff Bond at Comic-Con in 2010.

Since then I've had the opportunity to work on the sequel scores, "Batman Returns" and "Batman Forever" and remain hopeful that someday we'll get to complete the series with "Batman & Robin", which never had a score release.

Here I am with Danny Elfman.

Later, he signed the CD I co-produced!

Presentation is Key

In my last post, I talked about all of the screenings in LA. It's true, we get a lot of great movies here. But are they always shown properly? Seeing a movie presented properly can sometimes be a challenge. One of the theaters I wrote about was the New Beverly. They try to show 35mm film whenever possible. I only just saw my first digital showing there, but as it was a new movie that may not have had a 35mm print made, this was acceptable.

It was a double feature of "Jodorowsky's Dune" and "ALIEN" in honor of Swiss surrealist, H.R. Giger who recently passed away. "ALIEN" was shown on film, the New Beverly's preferred format. For a theater that loves to show film, one would think they'd be better at it.

35mm prints come on reels, each about 20 minutes long. The previous generation of multiplexes put these reels together to make one long continuous print. If the person assembling those reels did the job properly, you should never be aware of the changeover between reels. The New Beverly doesn't use this system. Instead they use two projectors.

This is the way things were done before multiplexes and "platters", and it's a skill for sure. The timing has to be perfect, and back when there were actual projectionists, a good changeover was the sign of a competent projectionist. The New Beverly rarely has seamless changeovers and I can't figure out why. "ALIEN" started out of frame. That means the top of the screen was actually the bottom of the image and vice versa. Reel 2 started out of focus. And reel 7 had an issue with a plate inside the projector so an extraneous part of the film, one never meant to be projected, was showing up on the scrim to the left of the image. That means there was a distraction during the climax of the movie. This was not the sign of a good presentation. The digital showing of "Jodorowsky's Dune" was perfect.

This would seem to indicate that digital must be superior to film. I won't get into that debate here. Both have their advantages, but I'm more inclined to see a movie if I learn that a print is being shown. And I've seen bad digital presentations. In fact, I experienced one last week in an unexpected place! We went to one of the tiny screening rooms on the Sony lot. I've been to these screens numerous times and they are top-notch. They have spectacular sound and usually look great. However, for this showing of "Neighbors" I sensed something was wrong with the presentation. After the movie was over I found the projectionist and I mentioned to him that the image seemed a little dim in the theater. He went on to tell me that they were having a 3D show the next day and the special attachment for that was still in place. So instead of a good looking bright image, we were treated to a muddy dim mess. I will admit it was refreshing to get an honest answer from the projectionist. Usually, when you have a complaint about something technical, people look at you like you're crazy.

I once saw "Superman II" with Ilya Salkind, the producer, in attendance and the left speaker and center speaker wires were crossed. This meant for the entire show, the dialogue came out of the left speaker, instead of the center channel, as it's supposed to. I may have been the only one to notice this. I spoke with the projectionist about it afterwards but I don't know if anything was done to fix it and I'm not sure I was believed. I suspect that when it comes to movie sound, people are not as observant as they are with the picture. If you've never thought about where the sound comes from, you're not going to notice when it's wrong. But everyone can see when a movie is out of focus or improperly framed. And some of us can tell when it's too dim!

My hope is that the presentation and showmanship improves at all of these theaters. We're not just watching images flicker away on a white sheet with multiple speakers blasting around us. A well shown movie will transport the audience and make the movie come alive. It can be a magical experience and that's why I love going to the movies.

Revival Screenings

We bought a new rack to hold our movie collection this week. This rack holds all of our movies on Blu-ray and DVD. I don't buy as many movies as I used to. Most new movies have become disposable entertainment for me. It used to be I would watch them over and over. Now if I see a new movie once, it's usually enough. I see less artistry in them. If I want to watch a movie again, I have quite a few streaming services available. So collecting movies is not the priority it once was.

Another reason I don't collect as many movies as I used to is because of where I live. In Los Angeles, beloved movies play all the time. Marie and I have known each other for a little over three years. We've seen "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in the theater four times. I wouldn't have that film on Blu-ray if I hadn't won it in a contest. It's always playing here. This week it's playing three times at the New Beverly with "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". All three "Indiana Jones" films have played within the last year at the Cinerama Dome and next month the trilogy will be playing at the Egyptian. Why would I want to watch a movie at home on my TV when I can see it as intended on the big screen with movie theater sized sound? Yes, I know the video costs less but watching a movie at home rarely has the impact as seeing it in a theater, and you can't put a price on that. At least I can't.

Here's the top row of our Blu-ray collection (minus "Blow Out" which is out on loan). See that copy of "Air Force One"? I got it inexpensively and I've never watched it. But this Wednesday I'm going into Hollywood to see it at the ArcLight. A few spaces down is "ALIEN", a film I love (I'm listening to the score as I type this, as the movie opened 35 years ago today). Marie and I are seeing that sometime next month at the New Beverly. "The Avengers" will be playing at the ArcLight next month as will "Casino Royale". This represents just one month of movies and one shelf of our collection. Since moving here, I've also seen "The Adventures of Robin Hood", "Airplane", "Aliens" (once from James Cameron's own 70mm print!), "Batman Begins", "Caddyshack", and "Carrie" in local revival theaters. I could have seen "Carlito's Way" as well last year, but I had watched the Blu-ray a few days before the screening was announced. You can be sure I would have gone to that otherwise.

With all of the great revival theaters here in LA (The New Beverly, The American Cinematheque, which runs the Aero and the Egyptian, the ArcLight, Cinefamily, the Nuart, and of course the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), I feel less of a need to own a movie. I know at some point a superior presentation will be driving distance from me and I'll get more enjoyment that way. I know I'm not alone in this thinking. I just learned "Raiders of the Lost Ark" will be playing at the AMC, of all places, next month!