Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Lions love








I was watching Agnes Varda's 1969 film "Lions Love" when the music started to sound both utterly foreign and eerily familiar. It turns out it was composed by Joe Byrd from The United States of America! Two huge spheres of influence colliding! The music is weird and Charles Ives-y and early modern and, at times, fuzzed out and rocking. This would have been right around the time of Byrd's American Metaphysical Circus, and there are a few cuts featuring the unmistakable voice of Dorothy Moskowitz. Perhaps these were outtakes that never made it onto the USA album? Score. The film is also very interesting, featuring Superstar Viva of Andy Warhol fame and the two dudes who wrote Hair.

7 comments:

  1. Dorothy Moskowitz has a wonderful voice.

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  2. Thanks once more Ben. I think I need to post some more musical thingies.

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  3. I would love to hear some of those Thai jams.

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  4. While it's nice this track and homage to Joseph Byrd is here, I can tell you with certainty, knowing both Joseph and Dorothy Moskowitz personally, that I've confirmed with both it's not Dorothy on this track, and at this point, neither I or Joseph are sure who sang this lead. It's not impossible it's Susan de Lange, who sang on The American Metaphysical Circus record Joseph did around this same time, but it could just as easily be someone else.

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  5. Thanks for writing, Tom. Please send my fan-love to Joseph and Dorothy. The music for this movie is totally amazing. Thanks for clearing up my mistake about the singer.

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  6. Please reupload the score, I love all music by Joe Byrd and I can't find this anywhere (except in the movie itself of course)

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