The cover of one of only 150 known copies of ‘Waiting Out The Eighties,’ the sole album from The Coupe de Villes—a trio featuring director John Carpenter, Nick Castle, and Tommy Lee Wallace.
Horror fanatics, especially those dedicated to the films of director John Carpenter, are likely familiar with this image taken from Halloween‘s wrap party in 1978. In it we see three performers all wearing Michale Meyers’ aka The Shape masks. The trio would then lose the masks and reveal themselves to be John Carpenter, Nick Castle, and Tommy Lee Wallace or The Coupe de Villes. The long-time friends would start making music for films in college at USC Cinema in mid-1971 where Carpenter had become a bit of a go-to for USC students when it came to providing the music they used in their films. According to Wallace, they wrote music together with Carpenter and Castle contributing most of the content which Wallace describes as “kind of satirical, nostalgic send up songs,” that also happened to be “solid musically.’ Carpenter even snuck some of The Coupe de Villes’ original music into Halloween during a scene featuring Jamie Lee Curtis (Laurie Strode) and Nancy Kyes (Annie Brackett) smoking a joint in Annie’s car with the radio blasting a 1950s sounding jam and the lyrics “Let’s Go! Sha-na-na-ha, Sha-na-na-na,” before the music in the scene flips back to film’s unnerving main theme. Carpenter mused about this Easter egg in an interview from 2016 where he also spoke about some of his early musical inspirations:
“I was into the British Invasion, The Byrds, The Doors and 50’s stuff big time. Dark Star (1974) was my first synth score. I started hearing synth music back in the 60’s and I realized you could sound big with only a keyboard. Claudio Simonetti was a huge influence to me, especially the soundtrack to Suspiria (1977) and Deep Red (1975).”
The band would later appear as The Coupe de Villes in Carpenter’s film Big Trouble in Little China (1985) performing the film’s namesake song. The thing is this—that same year The Couple de Villes recorded a seven-song album Waiting Out the Eighties at the Electric Melody Studios in Glendale, California. Electric Melody is run and operated by Carpenter musical cohort, composer Alan Howarth who has collaborated with Carpenter on his film soundtracks since 1981.
A shot of John Carpenter’s band featuring Nick Castle (a college pal of Carpenter’s who portrayed Michael Meyers/The Shape in 1978’s Halloween), and Tommy Lee Wallace (a teenage friend of Carpenter’s who, among many other things, created the infamous Michael Meyers mask), The Coupe de Villes and their appearance in Carpenter’s film ‘Big Trouble in Little China.’
If you’re hoping to score yourself a copy of this ultra-rare record, forget it. Only 150 copies were ever pressed. Financed by Carpenter’s wife at the time, actress Adrienne Barbeau, all copies were then divided evenly between the three members of The Coupe de Villes. The album was mastered by Bernie Grundman, a rather legendary Hollywood-based mastering engineer with over 5000 credits to his name. Many fans have wondered if Grundman still has the master tapes for Waiting Out The Eighties, hoping the coveted album might someday see a re-press. At the time of this writing, I found one Mint/Near Mint copy of the elusive record for $3500 plus another five and a half bucks for shipping. Now that we all have yet another reason to dig the work of John Carpenter, let’s check out a few tracks from Waiting Out the Eighties while wishing him a very happy 75th birthday today.
Have a listen, after the jump…
