I’m going out on a limb and posting some stuff from a rare out-of-print soundtrack. The last time I did that I faced the wrath of Steve Winwood, hopefully that won’t be the case today.
The soundtrack in question the soundtrack to Lost Angels, a completely forgotten 80s flick with Donald Sutherland and Adam Horowitz, AKA Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys. It was directed by Hugh Hudson, who blew his creative wad with his debut feature, the epic Chariots of Fire in 1981. He followed that up with the mediocre Greystroke: Legend Of Tarzan in 1984 and the “holy shit that was fucking awful” Revolution in 1985, a film that damn near killed Al Pacino’s career. After this flick he went on to do a film called My Life So Far a decade later and then I Dreamed Of Africa, a movie that nearly killed Kim Basigner’s career. Dude needs to stop making movies. Hell, maybe he has, I Dreamed of Africa was the dude’s last movie and that was nearly 10 years ago.
Anyways, despite Ad-Rock starring in Lost Angels, the soundtrack was Beastie-less and instead featured a weird combination of established and up-and-coming alternative acts. Album cuts by The Cure, the Pogues, Soul Asylum, Soundgarden and Toni Childs were all included, but since all of those songs are on easy-to-find records I’m not including them here (check out a tracklsting at Allmusic. Instead I’m only focusing on the stuff that’s still pretty hard to find, such as…
The Happy Mondays – Do It Better
Ah The Happy Mondays, the band that bankrupt Factory Records and proved that while acid and ecstasy are a-okay when it comes to writing acid house inspired rock, angel dust and crack certainly are not. “Do It Better” is certainly not a rarity by any stretch of the means, it appeared on the band’s sophomore album Bummed, but this version did not. In fact, I don’t know the story behind this version of the song at all, which I think was exclusive to this soundtrack. If anyone has additional information on it I would be grateful.
Apollo Smile – Let’s Rock
Speaking of wanting additional information. What the fuck happened to Apollo Smile? Does anyone out there remember this chick? She was the poster child for the self-promotion, basically willing herself into record contract and a TV host gig on Sci-Fi Channel by basically proclaiming herself to be a “live-action anime girl” (whatever that means). If you’re a video game nerd you probably recognize her voice as the voice of Ulala from the Space Channel 5 games. Was she a prefabricated creation with little-to-no depth? Possibly. Was she hot as hell and super-cool in a silly nineties kind of way? Definitely! So what the fuck happened to her? A quick search for her online finds that her official site has vanished and all that remains are some embarrassing late-90s fansites that haven’t been updated in a decade. I’m not the only person who has pondered this, check out this article (and this one) for a little more information/wondering. Hey Apollo are you out there? Want to do an interview? This tune, which samples some Led Zep, it totally awesome.
Raheem – Self Preservation
Speaking of Led Zeppelin samples, this rap track from Raheem of the Ghetto Boys samples “Whole Lotta Love.” But the no-doubt illegal sampling doesn’t stop there, as this track aslo lifts from Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” Two classic rock riffs for the price of one, done well and in an original way. Hey Kid Rock, pay attention!
The Royal Court Of China – Love Long Gone
The Royal Court of China, what an awful name for a band from Nashville. Mediocre tune that I’m including just to be a completist.
John Williams and Wayne Shorter – Lost Angles Theme
John Williams is an Academy-Award Winning composer who gave us the themes to Jaws, ET, Star Wars and dozens of other classic films. Wayne Shorter is a legendary jazz saxophonist from the 1960s. Together they created this utterly forgettable piece of music for a movie starring a Beastie Boy. The late 80s were really weird man.
Unfortunately, you know just about as much as everyone else does about Apollo Smile. She did have one major label release on DGC (bka Geffen) and it pretty much sucks, but she was hot and sounds hot on the vocals. If you want it, which I’m assuming you do, I’ll be glad to post it for you. Most interesting thing about it, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that it features a little production work from Matt Dike, best known as the head of Delicious Vinyl and one of the guys that created Paul’s Boutique with the Beastie Boys. It’s got some decent beats but the songs themselves are WAY too sugary for my tastes. Anyway, I’ll upload it later and post a link for you.
Yes please, I would very much like to hear it.
… genius … I had forgotton that this existed. Thanks.
One thing that I am baby desperate for is the utterly wicked mix of Dr Mabuse (from the propaganda remix album ‘Wishful Thinking’) that was used at the start of ‘Some kind of Wonderful’
Here is your Apollo Smile album. Let me know what you think.
http://www.mediafire.com/?orzngofwlao
oh man, i remember her from ’98 during that anime week on sci-fi when she called herself the “live action anime girl”. apparently she’s shying away from the anime thing and is looking to do more conventional film stuffs. eh…oh well heh.
Apollo Smile. Ha ha, there’s a name that takes me back! I wrote her a fan letter in the 90s (based on the 2 songs by her that I managed to hear, including this one) and got quite a nice response — written in character! — which I have since misplaced. Always wondered what the rest of the album sounded like.
Anyway, excellent blog, thanks very much, I appreciate all these posts. 🙂
I actually help write for another blog and the Apollo Smile album was featured a while back. She released two other albums Love Kisses and Grenades and Wrecking Ball which I'm desperate to get hold of.
I investigated to try and find her and she's still very much around, but not in the celebrity circle:
http://www.dancebyleslie.com/staff.html
So there's one mystery solved, but the two albums I still can't find lol