Friday, May 15, 2009

True Blood composer, Nathan Barr soundtrack release in August

We first heard about this directly from NB a few weeks ago here

Nathan Barr's soundtrack to True Blood’s first season will be released by Varese Sarabande Records and will officially hit music stores nation-wide this August. The soundtrack will feature an instrumental mix of score tracks from the show as well as Nathan Barr’s song with Lisbeth Scott, “Take me Home”.

Barr recently also co-created a composer-centered monthly web-series called OPEN BARR which will begin airing on www.nathanbarr.com in June. The series features one-on-one interviews with various successful composers from the music world focusing on but not limited to the film and television world. During interviews, guest composers are asked to divulge how their careers developed, where they get their inspiration, and explain the complications and triumphs of specific jobs. The pilot episode of the series will feature composer, Tyler Bates (WATCHMEN, 300), and future episodes will include acclaimed composers such as Jim Dooley, John Debney, and many more.

Recently nominated for a BMI award for his work on TRUE BLOOD, Nathan will be attending the awards show on May 20th at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel to receive the award. This is the second nomination for Barr, as he received his first in 2006 for his rock-inspired score for THE DUKES OF HAZZARD. BMI is the leader in the industry’s most important awards and honors. Its roster of songwriters and composers is unparalleled, ranging from industry to legends to the best of today’s hitmakers.

Barr attended the Paley Event for TRUE BLOOD at the Cinerama Dome at Arclight in Hollywood on April 13th, where he was given a great nod from Alan Ball. Patrons of the event enjoyed music from the series composed by Barr himself. Other attendees included: Alan Ball (Executive Producer), Stephan Moyer (Bill), Anna Paquin (Sookie), Ryan Kwanten (Jason), Sam Trammell (Sam), Rutina Westley (Tara), Alexander Skarsgard (Eric), Carrie Preston (Arlene), and Nelsan Ellis (Layfayette).

Webpage http://www.nathanbarr.com/

Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/nathanbarrmusic

press release here

True Blood goes to the movies: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian starring Patrick (Chow ) Gallagher

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian starring Patrick (Chow) Gallagher opens May 22nd ( sneaks this week)

Patrick stars as Atilla the Hun and says he has to wear 40lbs of yak fur.

Here is his IMDb page
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0302466/

When the Museum of Natural History is closed for upgrades and renovations, the museum pieces are moved into federal storage at the famous Washington Museums. The centerpiece of the film will be bringing to life the Smithsonian Institution, which houses the world's largest museum complex with more than 136 million items in its collections, ranging from the plane Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) flew on her non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic and Al Capone's (Jon Bernthal) rap sheet and mug shot to Dorothy's ruby slippers, Fonzie's jacket from Happy Days, the still from M*A*S*H and Archie Bunker's lounge chair from All in the Family.

With a forwarded resume, Larry (Ben Stiller) becomes another caretaker at the Smithsonian, where Kahmunrah, an evil Pharaoh will come to life with the reestablishing of a tablet as a magical force in the museum bringing the old exhibits (Such as Theodore Roosevelt and Dexter) and new exhibits (like General Custer and Al Capone) back to life, and in conflict with each other. Larry enlists the help of Amelia Earheart, who he develops a romantic interest in, and together they try to put everything back in order.

You can see him at 1:35 and click on his image here
http://www.nightatthemuseummovie.com/

True Blood Season 2 Possible Title Song: Ep. 9 " I Will Rise Up"

** Wow, this is a great song!

This is exciting ! We now (might) know the titles of the first 10 episodes of True Blood for Season 2.

Now the one thing we know about True Blood is that the episode names come from the a song used in in the soundtrack of that episode and that it is somehow significant to that episode.

So far for Season 2 we have :
Episode 2.01 - Nothing but the Blood
Episode 2.02 - Keep this Party Going
Episode 2.03 - Changed to Scratches from Scratch My Back
Episode 2.04 - Changed to Shake and Fingerpop from Let's Take a Trip Together
Episode 2.05 - Never let me go
Episode 2.06 - Friend is a Four Letter Word
Episode 2.07 - Release me
Episode 2.08 - Timebomb

All we know about Season 2 spoilers, casting calls etc. can be found here
All Season 2 videos ( including my great slide shows) here

We know that Alan Ball and the amazing Gary Calamar put great effort into musically curating True Blood !
Episode 2.09 - I Will Rise Up, this is only my guess, I just research the various songs with the leaked title and come up with a song I think it might be.

'I Will Rise Up' just has to the the Lyle Lovett song. 'I Will Rise/Ain't No More Cane' comes for the August 2007 album " It's not big it's Large "
Lovett was born in the unincorporated area of Klein, Harris County (suburban Houston), Texas. Lovett attended Texas A&M University, where he studied German and journalism. ( HE IS AN AGGIE!)

The title is a play on the name Lovett has given to his touring band since 1988. Lovett explains the title in an interview: "We've always done arrangements that border on blues music, that border on jazz arrangements, that border on what folks might think of as 'big band', but we don't really play big band music. But we've always had a lot of people in the band so that's why I call the band the 'Large Band' and not the 'Big Band'. But invariably people refer to the band as the 'Big Band' and ... it's not big... you get the idea."

'Ain't No More Cane' is a traditional work song of the American south

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_Lovett

http://www.lylelovett.com/

Lyrics


In the darkest hour, in the dead night,
As the storm clouds gather, and the lightning strikes,
And the thunder rolls, and the cold rain blows,
The future it holds, what God only knows.

And I will rise up, and I will rise up,
Though I be a dead man, I said yes and amen.
And I will stand tall, and I will stand tall,
Until I meet my end, until I meet my end.


Blood Copy a crisis and a busker - follow Andrew on Twitter !

** also follow Andrew on Twitter here : Blood Copy twitter http://twitter.com/andrewbloodcopy

A BUSKER FOR VAMPIRES

May 15th, 2009

Here’s a profile from the TBBN network about a smart human who realizes that there’s a mutually satisfying way to get along with the vampire world. He’s a street busker, or performer, who discovered that if he learned the old tunes vampires remembered from their youth, he could support himself handsomely.

As I mentioned, many vampires have had a long time to build their coffers, and can count themselves among the well-off. Normally their money goes towards necessities and lifestyle maintenance. But in cases like these - where humans are providing a service they value- vampires can also prove themselves to be most generous tippers.

Who knows. One day years from now I might even be compelled to offer vast sums of money to a street performer who’s bothered to learn about Grunge Rock.



ECONOMIC CRISIS

May 14th, 2009

Everyone’s feeling an economic crunch right now. Nobody’s immune, whether they be vampire or human. In most cases, I like to believe that this has led to positive contributions: later business hours, new ranges or products and services, not to mention a number of consumers with years of stored wealth at their disposal. But here’s an interesting video from a news program exploring the other side, how vampires’ coming out of the coffin has had a detrimental effect.

While I don’t want to see humans hurt by vampires (or vice versa), in this case I can’t find myself fully sympathetic. For years, a subset of humans have become involved in the Goth community, a thriving counterculture for people who fantasized about being vampires, or at least some facsimile. In short, they were poseurs, pretenders, claiming powers and abilities that weren’t necessarily even accurate, much less theirs to boast.

So in this case it’s refreshing to see that more and more of them have abandoned those who profit from manufacturing an illusion to seek out the real thing.

While it’s unfortunate that this woman has lost her business, her hate filled rant proves that she’s forgotten any lessons she might have learned from the Goth scene about tolerance

How does Sookie feel in Dead and Gone?

One of the first things I think we should look at in the book are the many, many times in 'Dead and Gone' we are told by Sookie that she doesn't feel well, feel like herself or feels out of control.

We know the book is told in the first person narrative and it's being told to us by someone who by her own admission isn't feeling "right"

What ones have missed and what does this mean ?

It took me a moment to pull myself back into my own skin. My life was too weird. I had that out-of-control feeling again, as if I were spinning too fast to stop. pg 46

It was like holding hands with a statue, a very beautiful statue. Again, I felt oddly peaceful for a few minutes. Pg 48

I was mad at almost everybody when I drove home that night. Every now and then, I had spells like that; maybe everyone does. It's hormonal or cyclical in some other way. Or maybe it's just the chance alignment of the stars. I was angry with Jason because I'd been angry with him for months. I was angry with Sam in a kind of hurt way. I was pissed at the FBI agents because they were here to put pressure on me-though in truth they hadn't done that yet. I was outraged at Eric's stunt with the knife and his high-handed banishment of Quinn, though I had to admit Eric had spoken the truth when he said I'd given Quinn the heave-ho first. That didn't mean I never wanted to see him again. (Or did it?) It sure didn't mean that Eric could dictate to me who I saw and who I didn't. And maybe I was angry with myself, because when I'd had the chance to confront Eric about all kinds of stuff, I'd gone all goopy and listened to his reminiscences pg 61

I had a weird, out-of-body feeling. Pg 74

Yet here he was, and his big warm hands were resting on my shoulders. Any pleasure I might have felt at seeing him again was drowned by the wave of anxiety that swept over me. I felt trouble in the air."You shouldn't be here," I said. "Eric turned down your request; he told me so.""No, but that's not the point," I said. I felt rage on the wind. It wasn't my rage.
"I think it is."pg 76

It was almost impossible for me to feel anxious, I noticed in a distant kind of way. And yet surely I ought to be upset and angry? pg 78

If I was getting harder, it was in response to the world around me. Jason pg 85

I was still feeling the ebbing power of the huge wave of guilt that had washed over me. I should have been upset that the Fellowship guy was dead, I suppose. But I wasn't. pg 93

I climbed into my car, feeling absolutely numb I felt cold to the bone and wished for the first time that Sam had thought about stocking a Merlotte's sweatshirt. My reflection in the bathroom mirror was awful: I was white as a vampire, I had big circles under my eyes, and I guessed I looked exactly like someone who'd seen a lot of people bleeding that day.pg 93

I had to stand still for a minute because the room seemed to be a little lopsided. After a second or two, I felt steadier. I wondered if I could make it through the evening.pg 95

I had another moment of sickening dizziness, but it passed quickly, as it had before. Sam didn't even notice. He was lost in gloomy reflection, at least as far as I could read his twisty shapeshifter mind.pg 96

Feeling oddly numb, pg 109

Maybe, since I'd had Eric's blood, I was feeling the heat of his battle rage.pg 134

And finally..

He bent and kissed my cheek. There was power in his touch, and I suddenly felt better. Before Jason could gather himself to object, Niall kissed his forehead, and Jason’s tense muscles relaxed. pg 139 ( last paragraph)

Dead until Dark audiobook

The Williamsburg Regional Library write a great review about DUD and gushes about audio version-If you haven't "listened" to a Sookie book you are REALLY missing out..

I fell in love with audiobooks about a year ago. They’re great to listen to while doing housework and driving to and from work. A month or two ago, I decided to give Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series a try, to see what it was I was missing. My husband loves these books, and I usually share his taste.

The main character, Sookie Stackhouse, is not a vampire, she’s a telepath. She lives with her grandmother and works as a barmaid at Merlotte’s, a bar in Bon Temps, a small town in Louisiana. Vampires have recently become legal citizens, after the Japanese develop a synthetic blood that makes it possible for vampires to live in the open, since they no longer need to hunt humans for sustenance.

Sookie falls in love with the first vampire who walks into the bar, an undead Civil War veteran named Bill Compton. Being a telepath makes relationships difficult, and Bill has a mind that is silent to Sookie. She loves that she can’t hear what he’s thinking.

Shortly after Sookie meets Bill and some of his undead friends, one of her coworkers turns up dead, and Sookie has reason to fear for her own life. There are at least two murders in the first book, and the solving of them wasn’t what made the mystery a good read. The fact that I can’t remember if there were two or three murders attests to that. They seemed almost incidental to the story, which was more of a humorous romance and vampire story than a mystery.

Listening to Johanna Parker reading Dead Until Dark is a lot of fun. She uses a Southern accent for Sookie and sounds like she’d fit right in in a small town in northern Louisiana. There’s a bit of gore, a bit of vampiric sex (which apparently is easy for the characters to become addicted to), and quite a bit of humor. Dead Until Dark is the first in the series. So far, there are eight volumes in the Southern Vampire mystery series with a ninth coming out this month. I’ve gone through three so far and am about to start on the fourth.

Check the WRL catalog for the audiobook, Dead Until Dark

Check the WRL catalog for the book, Dead Until Dark

http://bfgb.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/dead-until-dark-by-charlaine-harris/

True Blood Music Video of the Day: I'll Fly With You



I'll Fly With You (L'Amour Toujours) by (I don't know which version this is- experts ??? ) LYRICS

Thanks, FaithLillisir