(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-MarJack Hayter - Die Another Day
03-AprRobert Rotifer - GoldenEye
10-Aprthe Weisstronauts - James Bond Theme
17-AprSimon Fox - All Time High
24-AprMichaelmas - We Have All The Time In The World
01-Maythe Sly and Unseen - A View to a Kill
08-MayDarren Hayman - Goldfinger
15-MayCitizen Helene - For Your Eyes Only
22-MayDeerful - Three Blind Mice
29-Maythe Great Electric - James Bond Theme
05-JunSpaceship Mark - The Man with the Golden Gun
12-JunPapernut Cambridge - The Man with the Golden Gun
19-JunElderly - Live and Let Die
26-JunSeks Bomba - Casino Royale
03-JulJeff Mellin- You Only Live Twice
10-Julpicturebox - Surrender (from Tomorrow Never Dies)
17-JulRalegh Long - Tomorrow Never Dies
24-JulAni Glass - Tomorrow Never Dies
31-JulDJ Downfall feat. Theoretical Girl - Moonraker
07-Augthe Left Outsides - Diamonds Are Forever
14-AugPam Berry - Underneath The Mango Tree
21-AugCharm Bracelet - For Your Eyes Only
28-AugMaija Sofia - Never Say Never Again
04-SepSnow Leopard Brotherhood - The Living Daylights
11-SepTim the Mute - Licence to Kill
18-SepKeiron Phelan - Another Way To Die
25-SepRory McVicar - Writing's On The Wall
02-OctMs Goodnight - Skyfall
09-OctRebecca Jade - You Know My Name
16-Octthe Fenestration - The World Is Not Enough
23-Octthe Vatican Cellars - Thunderball
30-OctCee Bee Beaumont - Death of Fiona
06-Novthe Leaf Library - From Russia With Love
07-NovEd 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
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.
A shy, bookish ten year old with no toys, I threw myself headlong into the exciting world of books. I would read anything at the library whose titles I vaguely recognized from pop culture. James Bond was an obvious contender, his action-man status recognized through several generations of ten year olds as an untouchable ideal of cool. When my favourite teacher took away my James Bond books and told my mum I was reading filth, I was confused. Never had I thought to feel ashamed of my own titillation at the hands of sex and violence. Suddenly, I knew myself.
some new SPECTRE artwork and a tv spot have also been released today:
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
Diamonds Are Forever was the 7th Bond film (and the last EON one to star a tired Sean Connery, returning after Lazenby's OHMSS)... i'm not sure if you had already suspected, but this album (and blog) started life as a quick side project for the wiaiwya-7777777 singles club - a number seven obsessed seven inch vinyl club.
subscribers to wiaiwya-7777777 were to get seven 007 songs as a mid-year bonus... thankfully it all took on a life of its own, and more incredibly talented people than i could have imagined said yes to recording cover versions - among them the remarkable Left Outsides (fresh from releasing their latest long player)
anyway, it co-starred Jimmy Dean (as Willard Whyte) perhaps most famous for "Big Bad John"
i'm currently reading Diamonds Are Forever too - an ex-library copy of those lovely anniversary editions with Michael Gillette covers (one day i'll treat myself to a Live And Let Die print)
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
James Bond, for me, was definitely more TV than cinema. Childhood TV too. Hence the “was”. So in that sense he was a lot like Batman or The Six Million Dollar Man, less so Wonder Woman. He didn't have any super powers but lots of gadgets and his own special vehicles. Again like Batman. I didn't associate him with anything in the real world at all. I certainly never thought who the enemies were or why he should be after them. The same as never questioning why The Penguin was The Penguin. They were just these enjoyably far-fetched films that appeared on TV, mostly at holiday times it seemed, when we weren't out playing football.
I know I enjoyed them as I remember rushing off to draw bits on the reams of “computer paper” our elder brother recycled our way from work. I also remember seeing “The Spy Who Loved Me” on Betamax, taped off the telly and thinking “That's Ringo Starr's wife,” as Barbara Bach played tunes on the gears in the van. And being confused by Jaws, thinking 1) isn't Jaws a shark? And 2) why has he got big metal teeth anyway? They were no advantage in Moonraker, one of the only ones I ever saw at the cinema.
My brother had the toy Lotus Esprit car, the white one with fins that came out to help it go underwater and several red plastic missiles that could be fired. Or, more likely, lost. I think I had a Starsky and Hutch car myself, as everything had to be fair.
I didn't see much of Mr Bond from the early 80s on till he chucked the Queen out of a helicopter at The Olympics. But I did hear the music.
For this version of “Surrender”, I tried to imagine I was on Chemikal Underground, maybe in Arab Strap, doing it for The Breezeblock or a Peel Session. Cos you have to start somewhere. I wanted that slightly discordant picking guitar which I'd never played before, I wanted it as slow as I could go, and the vocals as low as I could go, even lower, till I chucked them for a robot. The lyrics sound incredibly creepy, so having them as an unwelcome message on an answer machine seemed ideal. And a message left by a robot, why not? It was all experimental. I began to feel quite sorry for the robot by the end. So it seemed like time to call a halt.
once again, i'm sorry to say we're dedicating this post to another screen legend - Sir Godfrey Tibbett and of course John Steed - Patrick Macnee
Casino Royale by George Hall
Like most kids my age, I grew up on James Bond movies. Between the impossibly cool title character, giant technicolor explosions, absurdly ingenious devices and beautiful cars (I still have my toy Aston-Martin), I - a nerdy little kid parked at his parent's TV - was immediately hooked.
And then there's the music, with its dark minor keys and fiendish deployment of the augmented fourth (aka the "Devil's Interval") coupled with sweeping, ominous strings and twangy rock 'n' roll guitar. Composer / arranger John Barry became an early musical hero, though I didn't know his name until years later (or his guitarist, the perfectly named Vic Flick).
In a world without TiVo, video rental or on-line streaming, the only way to see the earlier Bond movies was to scan the TV Guide pocket magazine for listings. At a certain point, I was sure I'd seen all of them, but it turns out I missed one: "Casino Royale."
It turns out that long before Sean Connery's Bond debut in 1962's "Dr. No," James Bond had appeared as (of all things) an American in a 1954 episode of a US TV show. The episode, titled "Casino Royale," took it's name from Ian Fleming's first Bond book. The film rights were later re-sold, then re-re-sold to a certain Charles K. Feldman who, after failing to put together a deal with "proper" Bond film series producer Albert Broccoli, decided to try another tack.
Having seen "Dr No," Feldman knew he couldn't possibly compete - but it being the 60's, with Batman, Susan Sontag and general post-modernism bringing camp into the mainstream, Feldman thought "why not a camp James Bond?" A team was assembled, which included such bona fide legends as Orson Welles, John Huston and Charles Boyer along with contemporary stars David Niven, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers and even onetime "Bond girl" Ursula Andress. Hi-jinks necessarily ensued, budgets were broken repeatedly, coherence was out the window, and (spoiler alert!) everything blows up at the end.
Make no mistake, the movie is a mess best enjoyed in snippets by fans of 60's kitsch (you know who you are), but the music was another thing entirely. Assigned to hit songwriter Burt Bacharach, who'd worked on Allen's "What's New Pussycat" and "After the Fox," the result was nothing like John Barry, but quite wonderful its own right and even included a couple of hits in Dusty Springfield's timeless smooch-inducer "The Look of Love" and the title track, a #1 Easy Listening hit for Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.
The latter is covered here by Seks Bomba - a mostly instrumental band from Boston, MA who absolutely revelled in this sort of thing - in a version which originally appeared on their intermittently obscure 2nd release, 2001's "Somewhere in this Town."
Personnel:
Lori Perkins - Hammond organ
George Hall - guitars, ebow
Chris Cote - guitar
Matt Silbert - bass guitar
Brett Campbell - drums
Live & Let Die was the first Bond movie I saw in a theater, and I loved it. In fact, I still love it, despite (or perhaps because of) not having seen it since – I mean, why subject a perfectly good, happy childhood memory to the inevitable trauma of informed, adult scrutiny?
I remember the giant, colorful explosions - our TV at home was still black & white - making up for the disappointing lack of a singular, iconic Bond mobile (not an Aston Martin to be seen!), along with the creepy exotica of New Orleans which, come to think of it, made it my first "blaxploitation" film as well. The switch from erstwhile Bond Sean Connery's vaguely and/or not-vaguely menacing drollery to Roger Moore's blithe (and veddy English) dispenser of one-liners was apparently reviled by "serious" Bondophiles, though I don't recall this being a problem. at least as long as stuff kept blowing up. There was also a boat chase,possibly the greatest in the history of cinema, by my entirely unscientific reckoning.
But above all, there was that Paul McCartney theme song.
THE SONG
As a Beatle freak from the moment I caught a TV re-run of their movie "Help!," I was prepared to love it no matter how terrible it was, but - luckily for me - its combination of high kitsch, pop smarts and absurd-yet-flawlessly-musical lyrics made it an instant classic. I must've been 10 or so when I first heard it, and I'm still 10 whenever I hear it, even today!
THE ELDERLY
The Elderly are a widely unknown supergroup from Boston, Massachusetts, comprising members of such regionally popular performing units as the I Want You, the Weisstronauts, Kingsley Flood, Eddie Japan, New Million Box, Seks Bomba and others. They are responsible for 2 releases, one of which is better than the other.
Jim Gerdeman - vocals, guitar, tin whistle
Kevin Quinn - vocals, bass guitar, patois
Joe Kowalski - misc keys, riddim assemblage, samples, tympani
Michael Spaly - violin, zipper, misc strings, bg vocals
George Hall - guitar, bg vocal
Rafi Sofer - guitar, technical jibber-jabber
Will Davies - drums, bg vocals
Chris Barrett - trumpet, euphonium
Recorded & mixed by Rafi Sofer at Q Division Studios, Somerville, MA
Baby, You're the Best – James Bond is Forever
by Kelly Snape @lostinindiepop
Bonds always have and always will be Sunday afternoons. My first, glimpsed through a fug of cigarette smoke from amassed relatives in my Nana's front room, was almost certainly Moonraker. Richard Kiel's Jaws, rather than Moore's Bond leaving a lasting impression on me as a kid, as he did for many of my generation. But if you come to love Bond, like I love Bond, those Sunday afternoons – like, I imagine Saturday afternoons at the football, if you're so inclined – have a way of permeating into the other days, weeks, months, years and decades of your existence.
My (now ex-) husband, a talented engineer, had an odd job ('scuse the pun) that combined practical scientific knowledge with jumping out of helicopters for a living. He'd nearly, very nearly, worked somewhere else. But we don't like to talk about that. We lived, for a while, in the picturesque riverside village where Richard Chopping (who drew the original covers to the Fleming novels) had lived. As spouses we had little in common but what we did share was a love of all things Bond.
At some point we progressed from just being armchair Bond fans and for a while, all the day trips and weekends away I planned seemed to have some sort of Bond connection. The Ian Fleming Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum (I had to be forcibly removed from DC's bloodstained shirt).....Bonds on the big screen in the Barbican on our anniversary weekend (Connery on the big screen makes so much more sense)....the Sunday lunch hotel pianist, who when I requested a Bond theme played us a medley of every single one and some rejected Bond themes to boot....three days in an obscure part of Austria just so we could visit the opera set from the Quantum of Solace on the way home...a trip to BAFTA to watch Guy Hamilton talk about Goldfinger....Vesper Martinis in a fancy hotel bar in Brighton...three nights in Monaco for my 30th including a trip to the Casino de Monte Carlo, where I asked him to order me a Vodka Martini (it tasted like meths...not that I've tasted meths but you get the idea). My then husband's Dad was unemployed, his Mum was a cleaner, my Dad left school at 16 with no qualifications. There were times in our new life where we had to pinch each other.
And yet...all was not well. Or at least I wasn't. In 2006, I was diagnosed with depression. It was a feeling of heaviness within my soul that never really went away. But I distinctly remember the first time that feeling left me, just for a few hours. It was somewhere between the word “considerably” in the pre-title sequence and the last shot of the opening titles of Casino Royale. It was like someone had given me a shot of adrenaline: my brain had crisp, clear thoughts again and I remembered there was Bond before I was born, Bond in the now and Bond in the life yet to come. Thank god there was Bond in the life yet to come. And no, it wasn't just the homage to Ursula Andress. Let's address this right now. Daniel Craig's biceps are eleven kinds of awesome, but I couldn't understand why everyone was raving about his exit from the sea and not how masterfully he was wrestling around on the floor with Solange...An adrenaline shot indeed. It was normally a short 15 minute walk back from the cinema to home. That night we got a taxi.
Adrenaline shots (unlike diamonds) don't last forever and a few years later cosy Sunday afternoons curled up in front of Bond were replaced with stony silences and marriage guidance counselling. Unlike, say, The Simpsons, which I couldn't watch for years, Bond didn't feel like he belonged to “us”, he was most definitely mine. He was mine as I bought in New Year's Eve alone watching Casino Royale on a laptop in what had been our and was now my bedroom, until a few weeks later when I was forced to start a new uncertain life, alone and soon-to-be unemployed in a grotty flat. He was mine as my friend Lynne kept me from despair, showing me Roger's worst hits on what otherwise would have been lonely, rainy Sundays. And thankfully he was still mine as, years later, over a hundred miles away, I sat watching Skyfall in Sheffield's Odeon. I'd say I was watching it alone but you never feel alone amongst other fans. A packed house at 5pm in the evening. A Mum with her eight year old to my right, an eightysomething four rows behind me, all waiting for our hero to return.
When we got married, I'd wanted Nobody Does it Better as our first dance but this was swiftly vetoed by my fiance. Knowing what I know I now, nearly four years after our divorce, I suspect he feared living up to the title. I couldn't possibly comment. Despite some rocky years, I'm still a romantic at heart, which is why my favourite piece of Bond music isn't a theme song but instead is City of Lovers, David Arnold's refashioning of his earlier Vesper theme from Casino Royale. It accompanies, what is to my mind, five of the most romantic minutes of cinema ever, running from the scene where Bond throws Vesper onto his hospital bed, then through the section as they sail into Venice and ends as they leave their hotel room, Vesper putting her arm across Bond's chest, the absolutely picture of romantic, filthy, gorgeous love. Until a few minutes later, when she disappears off with the treasury's money and meets a grim, watery end, the way that Bond girls so often do. David Arnold, the heir to John Barry, just gets it, so, so right. Every soaring delicious romantic string. Heavenly. I've played this three minutes of soundtrack on my mp3 player whilst travelling on buses, trains and even walking around my local Asda. It never fails to lift the mundanity of life into a glorious adventure.
A penchant for fancy hotels, a fascination with a certain type of ego, a place where brutality meets seduction; three decades of Sunday afternoons in the presence of arguably the most famous fictional character on the planet can't help but weave a thread through your life. Bond got me through the bleakest of times and he's still here in the glorious now, as I knew he would be, and will be in the life yet to come. Some people have football, or Doctor Who or an allotment. I have an alcoholic, womanising hitman with a penchant for sadism and serious commitment issues. And, in his current guise, utterly delicious biceps. Nobody does it better, makes me feel sad for the rest. I love you, 007. Baby, you're the best.
Kelly Snape
and as a bonus, here's Monty Norman talking us through writing the Bond Theme
