Dave Grusin's Candy

Dave Grusin is technically a jazz pianist, but he's also a pretty notable film composer (even some movies you've actually seen). But did he make psychedelic noise rock?

Absolutely. I doubt he's proud of it, but i have his soundtrack to a movie Roger Ebert called "a lot better than you might expect [but the book was much better]." High praise, indeed. I don't need to see the 1968 sex-farce Candy. Little known fact: i stopped caring about movies after The Matrix Reloaded (2003), and i abandoned attentively watching them altogether after Occulus (2013).

Anywho, let's attack this for what it really is: a jazz pianist writing symphonic psych-rock that builds toward a Steppenwolf song. That's a reasonable concept, and i don't need to know the actual source of the structure; like the tone poems of Smetana or Straus. Yeah, a psychedelic tone poem based on two songs by John Kay for a movie based on a book that's a satire of pornography. How's that really any different than Coheed and Cambria? It's not. Good, i'm glad we got that settled.

It's a bit clumsy though. Obviously, the pieces themselves have to fit with the movie timing, and that makes them awkward as tracks on a record. But musically speaking it's great stuff, and i wish it really was an actual album. If i had a time machine, i'd tell him to avoid the movie and just make this a real band.

I think real rock based symphonic music should exist. Not the god awful things Yngwie and Clapton did with symphonies backing them (or the obvious disaster of U2 and Spiderman the musical), but using the orchestra as a legitimate part of a rock band. Dear composers, learn how to write wacky stuff like this and we all might have a future in the performing arts.

This is exciting stuff, like Spirit and even Beacon Street Union. I'm convinced there's more super obscure stuff like this out there, and i desperately want to find it.

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