Doo Wop

One of the things I love about creating music for media is that you never know what genre of music you'll get to work in next.

Writing in many genres of music is surprisingly liberating. After all, we are all rich, complex characters with more than just one simple aspect to our lives and working in different genres allows me to express myself in different ways.




"The Girl You Love"
written and performed by Don Bodin and Linda Abbott




The current film I am working on, Bobby Fischer, is a bio picture that documents the life of a world chess champion. The film spans from the 1940's to Fischer's death in 2008. In addition to instrumental underscore that I am creating for the film, music based on the popular music of each decade is needed as the film follows Fischer from childhood to his adult life.

Now, I am usually the last composer you want to hire to make "Sound-Alikes" - my forte isn't copying specific songs or themes. Luckily, director Damian Chapa trusts in my ability to create 'inspired' music that reflects the time periods and lets me run with it. I think of it like I am taking in the sound /language of the time, and creating something that could have been. In this case, one might even say I get to create across a "Phil Specter-um" of musical genres for this film ;).

I now call them 'Could-Have-Been' tracks. I usually only have about 4-6 hours to write, record, and mix the songs, but in that short time I invariably learn more about a style, music period or production technique that I otherwise might not have spent time absorbing.

Special thanks to vocalist Linda Abbott for a great performance as well as coming up with the lyric "You never told me the girl you loved, wasn't me."

The John Hughes Project

Had a couple discussions over the last week with close friends and realized that even some of my closest friends don't know about some the projects I am working on.

It didn't surprise me, since I am always finding or coming up with new music/song/art projects to work on and can barley keep track of them all myself. Last count was at 11 album projects and at least a dozen art projects.




Now I am not talking about projects for film or TV or ads, I am just speaking of projects for myself. I call them 'vanity' projects because I just want to do them and see what happens during the process. Its were I find an outlet for my creative juices, the juices that may not necessarily serve a film or other project.


Shall We Drive - First Mix
from upcoming release "The John Hughes Tapes"




One of the most satisfying parts of my 'vanity' projects (other than the process of creating) is that they always land me paying gigs and sometimes even get air play on radio stations or published in magazines etc . . They tend to make it out into the world and slowly find a home - despite my meager marketing budgets :)

For a couple months I have been working on a project with the working title "The John Hughes Tapes". Anyone who grew up in the 80's, like myself, was most likely influenced by the music from john Hughes' films (Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink . . etc )
The idea I had was to create a bunch of songs and with the aid of my trusty time machine, travel back to 1981 and deliver them to John Hughes in hopes he would license them for his next teen comedy.


This week has been about trying to wrap up this project. Will try to list more of my other 'vanity' projects as they start to crown.

Themes for Bobby Fischer Bio Pic

Working on the score for Director Damian Chapa's biographical dramatization of the life of world renown chess champion Bobby Fischer.


Got a few versions of the main theme written and wanted to share my current favorite.


CLOCK THEME
One of 5 possible main themes written for the film


Unable to hear the track? Download the MP3 here.




The film, which was filmed on location in LA, NYC, Russia and Iceland, follows the life of Bobby Fischer who is considered to be the greatest chess player of all time. He beat the Russians during the Cold War. The Chess match was historical in bringing relations between the USA and Russia to a more calm and cordial state as well as elevating chess to a much more mainstream and "cooler" status.

After his win, Bobby Fischer became a recluse and was exiled by then President George Bush Sr. As a result, Fischer lost all of his rewards, could not return to his home in Brooklyn USA and traveled in seclusion while spiraling down into psychological torment. He developed a strange rant of terrorist-like hatred towards America and Israel- even becoming anti-semitic even though he himself was Jewish.

Chapa has direct and stars in the feature film that spans the entire life of one of the most controversial historic figures in the game of chess

Radioactive Werewolf Claws It's Way Up the Top-Sellers List

I am happy to announce that my latest album, The Radioactive Werewolf and other Tales from the Southwest, makes a dramatic move for the first full moon of Spring.

The album has reached the 119th spot on the Classical/Film Score Top-Sellers list on CDBaby, the world's largest independent music distributor.

Though The Radioactive Werewolf plays out like a David Lynch soundtrack, the album is not a film score, nor is it a classical album as it spans several genres from hybrid 'Western' orchestrals to Southern rock songs.


Listen to
'DEVIL DOG ROAD'
from
The Radioactive Werewolf and other Tales from the Southwest



Unable to hear the track? Download the MP3 here.



DOWNLOAD FREE tracks from the album at: TheRadioactiveWerewolf.com

The album is available on CD or as an MP3 download.