Monday, January 12, 2009

John Anthony & The Saturn Expedition - Theme for Apollo 11 \ Tel-star


The last time I cried in a movie wasn't Benjamin Butthead or whatever, it was watching the Discovery Channel series "When We Left Earth". And it wasn't when one of those brave astronauts died or anything like that, it was when we landed on the moon. When you sit down and watch a ton of documentaries on space travel (which is all I did at the beginning of this summer), you get in the mindset of these people, the work they were doing and the goal they were trying to achieve. And when they finally did it, it was so beautiful. I think it's lost on people my age since we grew up having done it, but landing on that other rock is something that shouldn't even seem possible, but we did it and it's the most significant thing we've done as a species.

So I certainly can't blame John Anthony here for making this 45 and I can't blame myself for buying it. I saw it in a corner of Jim Russel Records, and thought about rocket ships, surf music (given the cover of Telstar), and the fact that since this is a New Orleans 45 (or so the Jim Russell employee seemed to think, despite knowing nothing else about it) this would finally be one of the few posts that satisfies the three pillars of RRHHWW: New Orleans, Rock & Roll and Sci-Fi.

As much as I love Telstar, I think the A side here is the real winner. When it says theme it means it; this is fully orchestrated and really only borderline Rock & Roll. It would sound really appropriate as a TV Theme song, not that I think that's a bad thing at all. The beauty of these 45 posts is that I don't have to blurb all that much, you can just click right there.
Theme For Apollo 11







The Telstar cover is good, but it's hard to out-outer-space Joe Meek. And if you're looking to do that, making it jazzier won't be the way to do it. Still, who doesn't love hearing this song?
Tel-Star







Also to anybody reading this thread thinking "this idiot thinks we landed on the moon" I'd like to ask that you not spoil my movie, jerk.

1 comment:

Tom Rednour said...

Any chance on reposting this? I collect space-related songs and can offer a pile of trades! Let me know: trednour[at]verizon[dot]net