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

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

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE by THE LEAF LIBRARY

The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that the last theme to be covered it the Matt Monro classic, From Russia With Love... so here we go, Ladies and Gentlemen - THE LEAF LIBRARY!


I’d like to be able to say that we’ve recorded this version because of my name-based kinship with Matt Monro, or that I personally identify with trying to bump off a British agent with a deadly shoe whilst dressed as a maid. But no, someone else got to The Living Daylights before we did. Dalton’s always been my man – melancholy, minimal and with really good hair. Plus, copping off with a la-di-da cellist always heavily appealed to me. (As it is I ended up with a violinist so can’t complain too much). Anyhoo, ‘From Russia With Love’ was the track we were allocated and there was no way I was going to let ‘M’ Jervis down.


I vaguely remembered the film from sleepy afternoons at gran’s house (mainly the ridiculous shoe/chair fight and JB’s subsequent smug smirk as they chug off into the Venice lagoon) but I didn’t know the song at all. Not the most memorable at the best of times, it has a weirdly vaporous quality that sees it drift away and instantly forgotten as the last note fades. I was so bored by it I couldn’t even be bothered to look up the chords online so we dispensed with trying to recreate it altogether. Instead I found a random Russian folk tune, played in the modern, highly polished style so beloved of our friends behind the curtain, and stretched it to a truly evil 750%, before setting my henchman Lewis loose with all his Russian-themed Ableton synth plugins. Add to that Kate’s gloriously deadpan and detached vocals (literally phoned in) and that’s about the whole of it. I’ve actually really grown to love the lyrics, as wishy-washy as they are, and Matt’s Wikipedia entry makes for some entertaining reading (including being billed on Peter Sellers album as Fred Flange). I like to think our version invokes the sounds of dying nuclear reactors and humming Siberian shortwave radio masts, so let’s just say that it does.

I have never been to Russia although I have read the Master and Margherita. That’s alright, isn’t it?

DEATH OF FIONA by CEE BEE BEAUMONT

just a week to go til the A Girl and a Gun launch at the Union Chapel in London - 007th November, from midday

there's a timely radio doc, narrated by Samantha Bond called Somebody Did It Better available in the UK on iPlayer about the songs that didn't make it as Bond themes.

and here's a piece on a new book called The James Bond Songs: Pop Anthems of Late Capitalism

SPECTRE release day

yep... it's out today, and i've got tickets to see it tomorrow (some friends went to the cast and crew screening on Saturday and have been very tight lipped, which is a good thing)

to celebrate we have a special SPECTRE(S) single release, featuring covers of Writing's On The Wall by ROC and Rory McVicar, as well as a special Left Outsides cover of the Spectres song that was mistakenly reviewed as the Sam Smith tune by the Evening Standard (among others)

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

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH by THE FENESTRATION

the 30th free download Bond theme comes from the Fenestration, and is their take on the theme for the World Is Not Enough, originally by Garbage:


we've had a bit of press coverage too; the splendid Say It With Garage Flowers blog have interviewed Ian Button from Papernut Cambridge, Robert Rotifer and me about the album, Bond themes and Bond films

in other news, SPECTRE is out in ten days and tickets have been bought for the 27th... excitement is mounting, so here are some trailers to whet the appetite:


and finally (just because) here's the tune Scott Walker recorded for the love theme (and potential closing credits) of the World Is Not Enough - there's no greater fool in the fool's hall of fame:

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:

WRITING'S ON THE WALL by RORY McVICAR

yep, the rather wonderful Rory McVicar has turned round his cover of the Sam Smith Bond theme in just over thirteen hours


and in case you've not seen, the Evening Standard (and who knows who else) have reviewed the Spectres theme by mistake (apparently not noticing the lack of Sam Smith)

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.

LICENCE TO KILL by TIM THE MUTE

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:

THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS by SNOW LEOPARD BROTHERHOOD

this week i learned that Miffy creator Dick Bruna also designed James Bond Book covers (if you are in Holland you could always go to this)

can we get the Snow Leopard Brotherhood to cover the whole a-ha back catalogue?

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:

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER by THE LEFT OUTSIDES

DOUBLE BASSEY!

erm... sorry...

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)

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

TOMORROW NEVER DIES by ANI GLASS

Aug Stone on Bond

Atlantic City, 1984. I’m eight years old and we’re on a family holiday. It’s now evening and the adults are off at the casinos whilst my older cousins are doing their version of babysitting. I’m playing with some penguin-on-wheels toy my grandmother has bought me earlier that day on the boardwalk when I hear my cousin Mark exclaim, “Yes! James Bond is on!” The excitement in his voice is that usually reserved for Van Halen coming on the radio and I wander into the other room to investigate what could possibly be so thrilling. On the television screen there are men in all black on skis intently pursuing a figure slightly ahead. I sit down captivated. There was just something about it all.

The film being shown is of course On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. And so I was introduced to the world of James Bond via George Lazenby. Who – although the question is a difficult one to answer – in the days before Daniel Craig, I would still rate as my favourite Bond. And OHMSS as my favourite film, and of course, I think most people are in agreement on this, the best book. A few years later in the sixth grade, I brought in OHMSS for our quiet reading time and the teacher called my mother saying this was ‘wildly inappropriate’. The OHMSS theme is also one of the coolest pieces of music ever written.

Let’s jump around a bit, shall we? The year before this, I fondly remember my father telling me one day, with an unusual excitement in his manner, that we are going to the movies this afternoon. This was no casual trip to the cinema. There was a new James Bond film out. Importance hung in the air. As the room darkened and The Living Daylights began I was once again enthralled. That opening scene, again a pursuit down a snowy mountainside, this time Bond and Maryam d’Abo escaping via a cello-case-cum-sled. Timothy Dalton was a damn good Bond. The Welsh one, after Lazenby’s Australian. Before the reboot with Daniel Craig, effectively a year zero, there was each a Scottish (Connory), Australian (Lazenby), English (Moore), Welsh (Dalton), and Irish (Brosnan) Bond. In my wildest imaginings, should they ever crazily opt for an American, I’m still game. Strange about Roger Moore. Much as I love his work, he was much more Bond as The Saint than he was actually portraying James Bond. It somehow became all one-liners then. But of course the films and the books should be treated as separate entities. I was very lucky. Before I saw any of the more outlandish films, my grandmother gave me her rad 1960s Pan editions of the books.

When I first moved to London in September 2003, I brought OHMSS with me to re-read on the plane. And was gutted mid-way through the flight to find that pages 160-168 had at some point become loose from their binding and had parachuted out of the book, deep now on a mission I knew not where. One of the first things I did, after checking in to my hotel off the Moscow Road, was to hightail it to the Notting Hill Waterstones and read those missing sections. That first three-and-a-half month stay in London was one of the best times of my life, and of course a wildly drunken affair. So much so that when I returned to the U.S. in January 2004, something quite special popped into my head. The character of James Vagabond, star agent of Britain’s Drunken Secret Service. It was the most ridiculous idea I’d ever had, and therefore I knew it was worth pursuing. I sat down and in five weeks wrote the first draft of Off-License To Kill . It was marvelous fun to revisit all the old Bond books and watch the films again. What particularly struck me was how in Moonraker it’s actually the girl (Gala Brand) who saves the day. How different from Holly Goodhead in the film. An over-the-top affair overall but I’m still thankful for it. Shirley Bassey’s theme is such a gorgeous piece of music. Back to the books, there was a bit in Goldfinger that has always stuck with me for some reason. Fleming writes about a British agent who had attempted to asphyxiate himself in order not to crack under Nazi interrogation. But he couldn’t do it. Life always wins out.

Goldfinger for me has all sorts of cool and strange resonations. The titular character’s first name being Auric, that ‘Au’ reflected in my own name, and of course being the chemical symbol for gold. Another film having an Avengers presence with Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore (both Diana Rigg and Joanna Lumley are in OHMSS and Patrick McNee – R.I.P. – in A View To A Kill. If only Linda Thorson had appeared in one…) Years later I learned of a rather amazing coincidence involving Goldfinger. There’s a minor character in the story named Mr. Solo who opts out of the gold heist and is then crushed to death in his car. One of my favourite songwriters, Mikey Georgeson from David Devant & His Spirit Wife, began a musical project in 2006 under the name ‘Mr. Solo’, taking the moniker from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In 2011, Mr. Georgeson was driving home one night and was hit by a vehicle carrying two tons of gold coins just stolen from Tower Mint. Crashing into Mikey thwarted the thieves. You can read the whole account here 

I wonder how many other such strange coincidences between two of my big loves – Pop Music and James Bond – lurk somewhere beneath the visible aspect of their connection, the James Bond theme tune. A song of cultural importance. This is a fact that needs to be recognised and gotten back on track. LET GOLDFRAPP DO IT. They’d make something worthy of the grandeur. The last time we had a really great theme was ‘View To A Kill’, 30 years ago.

It was exciting to learn in 1997 that various bands were asked to contribute songs for the Tomorrow Never Dies theme. Pulp did one, later surfacing as a b-side of ‘Help The Aged’. I’ve heard that Marc Almond and The Cardigans, as well as a few others, were also approached. And Saint Etienne contributed one.

Now, as obsessive as I am about Bond (more evidence here ), I may even be more so for Saint Et. When they’d play in Boston, Sean Drinkwater and I would go to that show then make the five hour drive to NYC for the two shows there, sleeping on floors and suffering miserable colds. But it was worth it. You can’t imagine the excitement when, after joining the fan club in 1999, I received my copy of the Built On Sand: Rarities 1994-1999 cd and finally got to hear their truly excellent Bond theme. And this only in demo form. When John Jervis asked me to contribute a cover to this

project, their ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ immediately sprung to mind, and the first thing Sean replied when I asked him was ‘Can we do St Et?’

Back then Sean and I always talked about having a St Et style band of our own, the two of us and a female singer. Who sadly we never found. The name of the project would’ve been the R.A.F. But we were busy anyway with Lifestyle. Sean at one point wrote a Bond theme of his own, ‘Never Go Uptown’ (https://soundcloud.com/lifestyleband/never-go-uptown-1999 ). (I think we only ever played this once, at one of the first Lifestyle shows of the 2001 line-up. A good tune though, that should be revisited.)

But things always have a way of coming together. This year Sean and I have been producing Ani Glass’ solo songs (Ani from The Pipettes and The Lovely Wars. First single out July 20th. Have a listen here - https://soundcloud.com/aniglass ). We record trans-Atlantically with us in Massachusetts and Ani in Cardiff. And when the opportunity arose, the three of us contributed our respective strengths to make a version of Saint Et’s ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ I couldn’t be more pleased with.

Postscript - On my first visit to Cardiff last year, on a night out in Grangetown, Shirley Bassey’s name came up and Ani pointed towards the bay and said ‘she was born right over there’. And that’s of course what used to be known as Tiger Bay, the title of Saint Etienne’s third album.