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Watch Keith Emerson and Dario Argento work on the soundtrack to ‘Inferno’ in 1980
03.15.2016
02:38 pm
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Keith Emerson and Dario Argento
Keith Emerson and Dario Argento
 
In light of the loss of yet another rock legend last week, prog-rock pioneer, keyboardist and composer Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake & Palmer or ELP, I thought I’d share this video of Emerson in the studio with director Dario Argento working on the soundtrack to Argento’s 1980 film, Inferno.
 
The cover for the soundtrack to Inferno
 
The critical reception to Emerson’s Inferno soundtrack didn’t see it receive the same accolades as the Goblin-composed Suspiria‘s music did, which is understandable on many levels, but the fact is that Argento specifically requested that Emerson create something far different than Suspiria‘s much loved score.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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03.15.2016
02:38 pm
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Emerson Lake & Palmer: Do they suck?


 
Over the weekend and for half the day yesterday, I tried—TRIED—to figure out if there was anything worthwhile in the Emerson Lake & Palmer catalog.

The answer is yes, but not that much! For the most part, they’re bloody horrible, exhibiting the very worst muso excesses of any of the progrock bands. Musical hubris on a very grand scale, pop pomposity writ large. Genesis seem humble compared to these guys. Even Yes never got even close to the edge of what ELP were all about. One album after another struck me as tedious, boring and just “virtuoso” shite, but there was occasionally a number—or a snatch of something, a moment in one of their longer pieces—that was not just good, but excellent. Those highlights were, quite honestly, to my ears, few and far between.

At their best, ELP could be sublime. No really. Carl Palmer is a truly great drummer. Keith Emerson is a keyboard god. Greg Lake, that man could sing! At their worst, they sound like three goofballs whose best idea was to rip off B. Bumble & The Stinger’s “Nut Rocker”, play it on the Moog and add an orchestra! Their problem isn’t their musicianship, it’s the fact that they have terrible, terrible tacky taste.

My wife politely inquired at one point “What the fuck is this shit?” When I told her, she rolled her eyes, shook her head and walked away from me, disappointed.
 

 
This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to figure out if there is anything decent in ELP’s recorded output. A double A-side of “Lucky Man” and the even better “From the Beginning” was one of the very first 45s I ever bought and I had most of their albums, purchased at a garage sale for 25 cents each. For a nine-year-old kid, the die-cut, fold-out H.R. Giger cover of Brain Salad Surgery seemed extra mysterious and cool, but the music left me totally cold. It’s not like I didn’t try to listen to it. A) I only had so many records at that age and B) because they were such a monster group, I wondered if maybe it was something that I wasn’t getting. (I listened to Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music around that same time, over and over again on headphones, because it irked me that I didn’t quite understand it.)

By the time Never Mind the Bollocks was in my hot little hands, I never gave Emerson Lake and Palmer another thought. Probably like the vast majority of you reading this, I would imagine.

Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to name a band so more or less forgotten, but who were once so MASSIVELY POPULAR. During their heyday, ELP sold over 25 million albums. There were basically tied with Led Zeppelin for the top-grossing touring act of 1974 and they co-headlined (with Deep Purple) the massive “California Jam” concert that year, a gig that drew over 250,000 people.
 

Awards? We got ‘em!

The next time I was reminded of them, they were hawking their box set on Live with Regis and Kathy Lee in the early 90s looking rather well-fed.

This is not a troll post, I promise. Maybe I’m the one still missing something… I’m happy to listen to anything by ELP that anyone cares to post in the comments. Here’s the best of what I found, my (admittedly short) list of Emerson, Lake and Palmer favorites.
 

“From the Beginning”—this song, a typical acoustic “Greg Lake number”—is killer. I’d rate this song a perfect 10/10. It’s awesome. Check out that fantastic Moog work from Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer’s delicate percussion. Why couldn’t they always be this restrained?
 

“Lucky Man”—another “Greg Lake number” (and written when he was just twelve years old!). This one’s a stone classic, nothing controversial in that statement, right? A great pop song. One for the ages.
 

Here you can see Emerson Lake & Palmer play Mussorgsky’s 1874 piece, “Pictures at an Exhibition” at London’s Lyceum Theater in 1970. Because this composition is often used to demonstrate “prowess” by concert pianists, I’m including this out of respect for Keith Emerson’s prodigious talents, but… yeah. This is all kinds of Spinal Tap…
 
More ELP after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.14.2014
03:34 pm
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Progrock on Broadway? Keith Emerson & the Nice take a stab at ‘America’ from ‘West Side Story, 1968
01.03.2012
12:09 pm
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Keith Emerson and The Nice performing a wild live version of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s “America” from West Side Story. “America” was the second single from The Nice, released in 1968 on Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate Records..

This is the earliest color live footage that exists of the band, a clip from the Swiss television program, Hits a GoGo. Emerson does that thing with the knives stabbing his keyboard that he continued to do onstage with Emerson, Lake & Palmer. In the interview afterwards with co-hosts Suzanne Doucet and Hardy Hepp, Emerson gets asked “what’s with the knives?” Aside from the practical (he can hold down notes with the knives and play other things) and that it looks really cool, he says they’re symbolic of the violence and assassinations gripping America that year. In a protest against the war in Vietnam, Emerson once burned the American flag onstage during this number.

Emerson would often embellish the tune with melodies heard in Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” and Dave Brubeck’s jazz standard, “Blue Rondo ala Turk.”
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.03.2012
12:09 pm
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Jim Hendrix on French pop TV show ‘Dim Dam Dom’


 
The folks at Mod Cinema just keep the goods rolling out, don’t they? It’s hard to stay up with the embarrassment of riches on offer from them. Take for instance their recent duo of double DVD sets featuring unedited episodes of Dim Dam Dom, the distinctive, ultra-hip, fashion-forward late sixties French pop TV series. Dim Dam Dom had a very French “mod” sensibility, giving it a vastly different look and feel to British programs like Colour Me Pop or Top of the Pops and American counterparts like Shindig! and Hullabaloo.

Dim Dam Dom was a music variety hour produced for the Deuxième channel in France. The title summarizes this shows concept, “Dim” for Sunday, “Dam” for ladies, and “Dom” for men. Pioneering the creativity of the show was Daisy Galard. From the elaborate dance choreography, to the set design, to the production and staging, Dim Dam Dom serves as a colorful time capsule of pop music in 1968.

Included in Mod Cinema’s two 2-disc Dim Dam Dom sets are several complete unedited episodes (most in color, a few in black & white) with rare performances by Johnny Hallyday, Mireille Darc, Grapefruit, Marie Laforêt, Nino Ferrer, Eddy Mitchell, Stone, Memphis Slim, Ronnie Bird, Françoise Hardy, Procol Harum, The Electric Prunes, Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity, Sylvie Vartan, Jacques Dutronc, Pussy Cat, The Moody Blues, P.P.Arnold, Serge Gainsbourg, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jacques Dutronc, “Les Bee Gees,” Claude François, The Easybeats, Manfred Mann, France Gall (who also sings the shows “theme song”) and many many others.

Order Dim Dam Dom from Mod Cinema here.

Below, The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.”
 

 
Bonus clip after the jump: A young Keith Emerson and The Nice performing “Karelia Suite” on “Dim Dam Dom,” 1969.

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.07.2011
12:07 pm
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