Star Trek, the Last Voyage

In 1976, just at the end of their first season, the cast did an extended Star Trek skit which few people will remember. It’s remarkable in multiple ways. First, of course, it features John Belushi as Captain Kirk, with Chevy Chase as Spock and Dan Aykroyd playing McCoy. Given that, we know we’ve got great talent on the stage.

 

The first thing that’s so striking is the combination of their age and weight. Both Aykroyd and Belushi were relatively svelte in contrast to the way they both overindulged over the ensuing seasons. And the audience is appreciative but hardly wild about their entrances on set. It’s just the first season, after all.

Then comes the skit itself, clocking in at 12 minutes in length – wonderfully over-written! And evocative of a different era when long dialog and single camera shots were the norm. This whole thing would’ve been a tight 5:30 had it run even ten years ago.

What we get, though, is a very apparent set of building blocks that become the bones of those SNL years. Belushi has somehow rallied himself into clear enough consciousness to do a bang-up job impersonating William Shatner, complete with the intensity, over-enunciation and attitude, blowing through a hugely wordy script in a single, fluid take with nary a flub.

Chevy is truly funny as Spock and Aykroyd struts his deadpan attitude with doctoral style. And it’s wonderful watching them work together, with our advance knowledge of their future careers arcs. Chase will leave for big screen shenanigans. Akyroyd will partner with Belushi for the Blues Brothers and the HOUSE of Blues and Belushi will, sadly and shockingly, go out in a drug overdose his cohorts must have feared, at the peak of his short career.

As to the skit, no story spoilers here. Just an appreciation of some of the earliest iterations of the extraordinary SNL juggernaut. Enjoy!

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War of the Worlds

No, not red vs blue, think bigger! In 1898 HG Wells, one of the founding fathers of the Sci-Fi genre “gifted” us with some incredibly imaginative thinking about an alien invasion, bringing a whole new (ahem) alien concept into sharp focus and leaving us howling at whatever planet suited our fancy.

It took the genius of Orson Wells to turn that story into a radio drama in 1939, when his troop of players, the Mercury Theater, performed a live version of it on the air. This time, it was far more realistic. Using cutting edge tech – radio broadcast – and cutting edge techniques – sound effects, live orchestra, inspired performances – he simulated an invasion of Earth by wicked, up-to-no-good Martian invaders, whose advanced weaponry promptly flattened our puny defenses, dispatching with great swaths of humanity, as on-scene reporters, bystanders and military brass helplessly intoned the bad news in real time. 

One of the coolest concepts that gave the show a more believable bent was to use a small live orchestra, whose job was to play insipid dance music, simulating a normal evening radio broadcast, only to be repeatedly interrupted with breathless reports uttering “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this special bulletin” or even more convincing: “We now return to our program of evening music…” at which point the (really awful) dance music midst would be cut back into.

The effect was electrifying, so much so that it caused actual panic in the streets, with people spilling out of their homes, armed with guns and pitchforks. Heady stuff.

Now comes the latest iteration of the show (which was redone as  2005 Spielberg feature with Tom Cruise), a War of the Worlds OPERA (!) staged by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, based on the Mercury Theater broadcast, based on the book. The company has gone so far as to schedule not only the premier performance at Disney Hall in downtown LA, but a simulcast at three additional yet-to-be-announced outdoor public spaces, where a live actor will take to a makeshift stage and perform along with the live show. This will be done via loudspeakers mounted on poles built to hold the original 50-year old air raid sirens that were installed back in the days of the Red Scare. Quaint!

Just bought tickets (including the $14 per ticket convenience charge) and can’t wait to go next week. Stay tuned for broadcast interruptions.

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Where was the future in the year 1700?

From all the info I can gather, science fiction got its more or less official start in the early 1800’s with the appearance of one Dr. Frankenstein. Written by Mary Shelly in 1811, it basically crowned her the Mother of Science Fiction. Try smoking that one, guys…

But prior to that, we have a distinct lack of evidence of anything quite so fanciful and a big part of the reason is, in my mind at least, for lack of things electric. Oh, there were drawings from Galileo – fantastical ones – and a great TV series based on his life as well. But story telling? Not so much. You need to have some basic understanding of possibility in order to dream in scifi and without having any clear concept of propulsion, for instance, how are you gonna get there?

It looks like it may have taken the industrial revolution to get the wheels turning, from laying powerful railroad systems around the world, to great migrations into the cities, factories, efficiency, suffering and overcrowding – the kinds of concepts that might have been quite different in the 1700’s, when the world was still tilted towards agrarian. 

What did your average peasant think about space travel, robotics, reanimation and ray guns? I think religion must have had a huge impact on the way we ALL thought about things in the 1600’s. Religion was the answer for questions unanswered, the purview of the wisest and most powerful figures and a convenient way of explaining unexplainable phenomena.

And strict interpretation and god-fearing belief was undoubtedly the most acceptable, politically correct and life-affirming path to take. You want to take a stroll down that corridor to the suite of rooms we keep for trouble-makers downstairs, do ya? I didn’t think so. Any more questions, my son?

Given the baseline of info we own, it’s easy to teleport into the next galaxy for a 10-year old. Were kids thinking about star-hoping in the middle ages? I’d love to be able to ask ‘em.

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Shooting the Moon

Dateline 1871

There has been examination of the makeup and content of the moon that encircles the earth, with fanciful poetry and lore of the Man who lives there. Undoubtedly, his face is plainly visible at times, a sign from the heavens that he beckons us with open heart and good will.

Astronomers tell us the orb is outside the reach of Man, but the engineers at Winchester now believe it is indeed within the realms of possibility to construct an instrument with such length and power as to create a predictable trajectory that with recently devised chemical compounds affixed therein, power a massive projectile capable of striking its surface with some assurance of accuracy.

The bullet casing has been estimated at a circumference of 3 meters in width and 6 meters in length, sufficient for a coterie of scientific scholars to enter into a padded and succinctly prepared interior and travel the distance without physical harm.

It is of the political opinion that such a journey would do great justice to the country of origin from which the shot would take place and that a suitable location could be created in the Hoboken dockyards of New Jersey, suitably removed from denser, more populous areas, thus insulating them from the great boom of the cannon and creating a zone of serenity around its immediate functionality.  

Once lunar contact is suitably arranged, Earth would rapidly create an alliance between itself and the Moon populace, establishing trade and mineral rights, greatly benefitting the United States. Winchester, Inc. stands ready to cooperate with the government, as always, in arranging for a demonstration of its capabilities and to successfully launching a new phase of extra-heaven communication.

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“Our Tomorrow” vs Software Tech

The end of my live retro scifi futurism show features an original tune called "Our Tomorrow" which is about connecting with intelligent life on other planets. Simple concept, dramatic tune, it starts quietly emotional, lyrics describing the frustration of not yet making contact, then builds to a big gospel-tinged finish about reaching for the stars, while videos display dramatic galactic zooms alternating with real people reaching towards the sky.

As with most all the tunes I write and record, everything gets properly sussed out in my home studio over a period of weeks. I have the unnerving habit of gradually building up different revs of each tune in a quest to get it to a place that's both personal and satisfying. And unnerving, because that takes WAY longer than it should, averaging 1-200 hours of studio time. Crazy, and for me, impossible not to do -- it's my l'il process!

Two key elements on this one: tempo and back-up singers.

By the time it got good, the tune seemed a little sluggish, beat-wise. It's easy to just hit some keystrokes and speed it up, but you lose little bits and pieces of fidelity when you do that, unless you isolate each track and process it separately with high-end tempo software. Which turns out to be a lot trickier than it looks. 'Took three days to get it right. That was to move the needle from 116 beats per minute to 118. That was all it needed -- quite subtle, very powerful. Three days = 0.67 beat per DAY. Why? Timing and algorhythm issues constantly warring, even when carefully aligned. Ugh -- next time I'm going for the couple o' keystrokes.

Now the good stuff: the singers. Was fortunate to snag two terrific voices, Amber Sawyer and Mayia Sykes, both artists in their own right, for the live session. Both helped to lay down a rich tapestry of harmony, then at the end of the session let loose with a tremendous set of high-energy step-out gospel stylings that infused the Reach for the Stars chant into an emotionally winning frenzy. Truly, were they great. Just finished sorting through and stacking those tracks and can't wait to share and perform the tune live. At the right damn tempo. Here's a photo...

Left: Mayia Sykes, Right: Amber Sawyer

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Keepin' Up With the Jetsons

What's it gonna be like to run with the fast crowd in the year 2400? Will we still be waiting at rope lines to get into the coolest zero-grav clubs? Dropping big bucks on magnums of GoThereJuice and sporting the latest pomp-doos?

I wrote this song to give myself a little tour of what money could buy 383 years out. Or whatever money's called by then. Maybe retinal scans will be so retro you'll just need to think’n’pay... Jet packs, vacation planets, fetching androids, textured ultra-beats, flying cars! Oh, it's ALL comin' baby. 

The twist in the song is about being able to AFFORD it. You think you can join in on a piddling salary? Honey, if you have to ask... So my avatar in this one is bound and determined to be a playa, even though he has no business being there. His FOMO runs so deep, he's about run through his second mortgage hangin' in, and those beautiful people he's running with? Every now and then one whispers to another: Wait, WHO'S this guy again?

You know the type, the sad wanna-be who's just so doggone determined, he'd be cute if it weren't for how hard he was trying to be someone else. Give the dude a nod for tryin', but without the scratch (or whatever slang it'll be then) it ain't gonna happen. With this crowd? You gotta be bad, beautiful or filthy rich -- pick three.

But thanks for playin' our game, and damn, look’it the time. Gotta jet!

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Where Retro Meets Futurism

In 1928, Fritz Lang unleashed his masterwork, Metropolis, on an unsuspecting movie-going public. No one had had ever seen the spectacle of a beautiful female robot brought to life via the genius of a possessed inventor using glowing animated electrical rings pulsating up and down the length of her body. The spectacle of her first animate move, then gesturing towards a male visitor with mechanical precision in a slow-motion movement of arms and hips that was wondeorously sensual in its precision and cold silence.

This, whilst an entire underground city labored around towering expressionistic machines to provide the energy needed to power the machinations of a foppish above-ground populous blissfully unaware of its very existence.

It happened again in 1931 as Dr. Frankenstein linked massive tesla arcs of power to shoot through his monster in the raucous splendor of a castle laboratory at the top of a dark European castle, losing his mind as the formerly dead body reanimated and came to life.

In France, a series of illustrations were published in 1902 depicting life a hundred years hence, with vivid illustrations of flying automobiles, societal parties featuring projections of living operatic performances broadcast from some stage a hundred miles away while its viewers listened in on candlestick phone devices.

So that by the time Arthur Radenbach shared his depictions of a streamline future in the late 1950’s we’d already become used to a rich pastiche of trailing imagery that made his incredible predictions easy to associate and believe were just around the corner.

SciFi was born out of fantasy and imagination dating back hundreds of years and works on the same logic, informed principle and vastly increased sense of magic we’ve come to expect from a culture that has assimilated a trail of visions of flying spacecraft, alien invaders, medical breakthroughs and unexplainable phenomena that begs to be taken literally in the name of a future we never cease to dream of.

It’s our nature to dream, invent and progress. And is a product of dreamers and visionaries who wove the path we will continue to broaden, explore and constantly bring to a closer reality. To witness that progression is to be dipped into the past and appreciate the culture that brought it to spectacular light.

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Voices

My career has been a winding road of artistry and entrepreneurship-by-necessity. Fortunately, I've been able to make left-brain choices that closely supported right. Early on, I realized that working from home offered the great advantage of time and convenience and by my junior year in college, I had my first little 2-track tape studio set up in a corner of the bedroom. It was a cool-looking 7" reel-to-reel Sony tape deck with professional-size VU meters whose needles danced to every wave my Shure 565 picked up. Finished in silver and black, I was like a kid with his first bike.

It was a three-head machine, which meant there were three magnetized 1/2" little blocks the tape dragged across, spaced a quarter inch apart. When chosen, the first head erased the previous recording, the second recorded and the third played it back.  This was a big deal, because it meant you could set it to monitor both recording and playback over headphones or speakers. And because the tape was travelling at a fixed 7 1/2" inches per second, the delay from record to playback caused an echo that could then be repeated over and over, until it faded out, replaced by the next sound.

You could sing "Your love is fading" and instantly get FADING, Fading, fading, fading... And brotha, with some mind-altering substance in your brain enhancing that headphone experience, ooooo, time stood still.

I had a flute that sounded like a soaring bird with that echo effect turned on. Vocals could almost be doubled live, which was both thrilling and confusing. It's weird trying to sing something new while the line you sang a second ago still echoes in high fidelity in your ears. Weird and totally cool.

I was playing in a popular local band call the Ramrods at the time and we often drove off in a giant Ford station wagon pulling a trailer full of equipment, going out for a weekend in some distant part of New England. Returning late eve one Sunday, contemplating the classes I was gonna skip in the morning, I arrived to find my front door gone -- replaced with a new one --a bit disorienting -- along with a note from my landlord explaining that my old door had been literally smashed to bits by persons unknown, who had then ransacked and robbed the place.  In their haste, they'd grabbed some loose cash, wrenched a window air conditioner loose, taken a sax in its case and disappeared. I ran straight towards the corner with Sony, which I'd installed in a recessed bookcase so it was flush with the wall. They'd moved right past it, distracted by my more accessible goods – which bounced me back and forth between murderous anger and eye-blinking relief. That memory still evokes the angst of the moment and nostalgia for the simplicity of just laying down a live track in real time and blissfully leaving it at that.    

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