O.H.M.S.S by THE AUTOBAHN OF LIFE

50 years ago today George Lazenby turned up to the premier of OHMSS with his beard


and here's a little featurette


and here is the theme tune, as covered by The Autobahn of Life

DO YOU KNOW HOW CHRISTMAS TREES ARE GROWN by CECILIA LUND

The second release from Cecilia Lund is a cover of the under represented Bond theme - Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?. It’s a must for fans of glacial Swedish poptronica.



The sixth James Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was released 50 years ago (on 18th Dec 1969). It was George Lazenby’s only stab at the role, and had a very different fell to the previous Sean Connery films. The film follows the plot of the 1963 book very closely, there aren’t the familiar gadgets, and it didn’t have a typical James Bond Theme, instead having an instrumental main theme, and two recurring tunes throughout the film – Louis Armstrong’s "We Have All the Time in the World" and a John Barry / Hal David song entitled "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?" performed by Danish singer Nina.

"I have to stick my oar in the musical area double strong to make the audience try and forget they don't have Sean ... to be Bondian beyond Bondian." – John Barry

wiaiwya, a London based record label, has set itself the task of releasing a never ending James Bond covers album, called A Girl And A Gun (the phrase 'all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun' is attributed to Jean-Luc Godard) – as every new Bond film is released, a new batch of specially recorded cover versions will be added to the track listing. Among the 40-odd tracks already on the album are Darren Hayman’s Goldfinger, The Left Outsides’ Diamonds Are Forever and Ed Dowie’s chapel organ take on the Bond Theme.

oh, and there's some other James Bond news today too - the first trailer for No Time To Die

SPYFALL

No Time To Die poster

JAMES BOND WILL RETURN

the A Girl And A Gun album can only be complete when there are no more James Bond themes to cover (god forbid!)


so please keep popping back to check for updates, keep supporting the amazing acts that have recorded their own versions of these themes, and keep telling your chums about this album

thanks - and JAMES BOND WILL RETURN

THUNDERBALL by THE VATICAN CELLARS

(thanks to Jeff Mellin in Q division who has worked his magic with Daniel Craig)

yep, it's finally here - TODAY IS A GIRL AND A GUN RELEASE DATE, and to celebrate, here's the Vatican Cellars take on Thunderball:



thanks to everyone who has kindly given their time and hard work to this album; the writers, illustrators, designers and musicians who made these amazing covers of the fantastic Bond themes - just as a reminder (and in order of release):

27-Mar Jack Hayter - Die Another Day
03-Apr Robert Rotifer - GoldenEye
10-Apr the Weisstronauts - James Bond Theme
17-Apr Simon Fox - All Time High
24-Apr Michaelmas - We Have All The Time In The World
01-May the Sly and Unseen - A View to a Kill
08-May Darren Hayman - Goldfinger
15-May Citizen Helene - For Your Eyes Only
22-May Deerful - Three Blind Mice
29-May the Great Electric - James Bond Theme
05-Jun Spaceship Mark - The Man with the Golden Gun
12-Jun Papernut Cambridge - The Man with the Golden Gun
19-Jun Elderly - Live and Let Die
26-Jun Seks Bomba - Casino Royale
03-Jul Jeff Mellin - You Only Live Twice
10-Jul picturebox - Surrender (from Tomorrow Never Dies)
17-Jul Ralegh Long - Tomorrow Never Dies
24-Jul Ani Glass - Tomorrow Never Dies
31-Jul DJ Downfall feat. Theoretical Girl - Moonraker
07-Aug the Left Outsides - Diamonds Are Forever
14-Aug Pam Berry - Underneath The Mango Tree
21-Aug Charm Bracelet - For Your Eyes Only
28-Aug Maija Sofia - Never Say Never Again
04-Sep Snow Leopard Brotherhood - The Living Daylights
11-Sep Tim the Mute - Licence to Kill
18-Sep Keiron Phelan - Another Way To Die
25-Sep Rory McVicar - Writing's On The Wall
02-Oct Ms Goodnight - Skyfall
09-Oct Rebecca Jade - You Know My Name
16-Oct the Fenestration - The World Is Not Enough
23-Oct the Vatican Cellars - Thunderball
30-Oct Cee Bee Beaumont - Death of Fiona
06-Nov the Leaf Library - From Russia With Love
07-Nov Ed Dowie - James Bond Theme (Union Chapel Organ version)

please tell your chums to drop by and download the complete album (and to pay-what-they-want), and to come along to the launch party at the Union Chapel on the 007th November

YOU KNOW MY NAME by REBECCA JADE aka LADY LOWREY

and as we all know, Casino Royale was the first Bond film without a classic gunbarrel sequence - here's the lot of them:

SKYFALL by MISS GOODNIGHT

yep, we're sticking with Daniel Craig - here's Ms Goodnight's take on Adele's Oscar winner, Skyfall


it's especially for YOU if you've ever wondered what Fleetwood Mac would have done with a Bond theme

Benjamin Lind of the Bond Bulletin reviewed the A Girl And A Gun LP:

There isn´t just Adele or Sheena Easton, Paul McCartney or Tina Turner – there are also Papernut Cambridge, Michael Wood or Ralegh Long who equally embrace and challenge the originals as well as their own talent.

here's the latest SPECTRE featurette


and here's a quick reminder of Adele's Oscar performance:

ANOTHER WAY TO DIE by KEIRON PHELAN AND DRITA KOTAJI

Bang, bang, bang…

I adore James Bond films. I adore the gadgets, the guns, the sexism, the violence, the villains and I entirely embrace the emotional Fascism. Consider; cats (by nature) are sleek, self-satisfied, vicious, promiscuous, immoral death machines. Yet they are greatly loved. So; why not Bond?

The only thing I dislike about the films is that they are rarely as good as the books. To this day I can recite, verbatim, the entire meal (food, type of wine, cocktails, etc.) consumed by Bond and M in Moonraker Chapter 5, ‘Dinner At Blades’. Time was I could remember the exact four hands of cards held by Bond, M, Sir Hugo Drax and Meyer in the final Bridge rubber played in Chapter 7, ‘The Quickness Of The Hand’.

Tragic, isn’t it?

Listening to the Bond theme songs, as a totality, the remarkable thing is how consistently good they are. There are, of course, some weak spots. ‘Another Way To Die’ (from the excellent, in my opinion, ‘Quantum Of Solace’) is sometimes considered to be one of those. However, I would contend that Jack White generated an exciting and appropriately Bondesque atmosphere in this song. It’s that atmosphere, therefore, that we’ve tried to junk and replace with something entirely different. Because, James Bond never really follows the orders, does he? So, we’re playing his rules…

Keiron Phelan: Vocal, guitar, piano, organ, flute, fuzz-tone electric flute.
Drita Kotaji: Vocal
Simon Trought: Bass, drum machine.
Q Branch: by Simon Trought.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN by MAIJA SOFIA

this week we have the theme to the second non-EON Bond, Never Say Never Again by Maija Sofia, which came out in 1983, just six months after Octopussy

the battle of the bonds:


in other news, we also have POSTERS and BOOKMARKS on the way:

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY by CHARM BRACELET and RAMESH

as Sheena Easton is the only singer of a Bond theme tune to appear in the opening credits we have a few videos for you today, starting off with those credits (and what title designer Maurice Binder referred to as her "70mm lips")


then a demo version of the Sheena Easton theme with the early lyrics


and here's a beautifully restored 35mm trailer from the 007 Dossier


and finally, the royal premiere:

MOONRAKER by DJ DOWNFALL feat. THEORETICAL GIRL

it's been a fun week for Bond music, with William Hill suspending bets on who will be recording the SPECTRE theme after someone whacked fifteen grand on Radiohead - before they took it offline the odds were:

Radiohead (6/4)
Sam Smith (2/1)
Ellie Goulding (4/1)
Adele (5/1)
Lana Del Rey (14/1)
Lorde (14/1)
Coldplay (33/1)

and now I think about it, if it's not Lana Del Rey, I kind of like the idea of Ellie Goulding singing with Radiohead.

"that's a wrap"

Moonraker was the third Lewis Gilbert Bond film (after You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me), and was filmed primarily in France (there were a lot of tax exiles about), which meant John Barry could return to do the soundtrack (his previous one had been the Man With The Golden Gun in 1974)



we all of course know that James Bond should have returned in For Your Eyes Only, but the world went space crazy in 1977 (oh, i just noticed Boba Fett was in The Spy Who Loved Me), and Moonraker was made instead... and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with the theme:

Moonraker was originally written by John Barry and Paul Williams for Frank Sinatra, and when (for whatever reason) that didn't happen it went to Johnny Mathis. Apparently Barry asked Williams to rewrite some of the lyrics, but Williams refused saying "when Sinatra likes a lyric, it's finished". Then the Mathis' recording wasn't quite right, and Kate Bush was considered. Finally, after calling Hal David in to write new words in a weekend (having not seen any footage or read the book) the Shirley Bassey theme was recorded.

Speaking of Dame Shirley - we're going DOUBLE BASSEY, with Diamonds Are Forever next Friday 7th August... see you then

NEW SPECTRE TRAILER