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The Varese re-recording is really good, but I always thought that high-pitched whine in the back of Charlie’s Friend was an iTunes glitch. (I obviously didn’t remember my LP very well.) This is a little more subdued. I still prefer the track without it.
Custom cover by Rob T. Oliver:
I still love the four Royal Phil CDs and, unlike some around here, refuse to see them as obsolete. They're supplementary now, but still valuable. I bought the Varese pair around 1990 at a brick and mortar store with no idea what they'd be like when I got them home. From the first notes of Charlie X, I was thrilled. Short of a meticulous A/B comparison, it was the true Star Trek sound.
Now the LLL set has the complete score, with every note and tempo "correct," but while Charlie X is a great score, it was never going to be a big selling point for LLL, if only because the Varese is so faithful.
I think the whine in "Charlie's Friend" is actually more prominent in the OST. I wish it wasn't there, but getting past it is the price you pay for what comes after. And it's only one cue.
"Kirk's Command" and "Goodbye Charlie" are amazing highlights in this score.
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Thanks, Verity! I’ll keep on keeping on.
Zap, I’ve removed the original GNP albums from my iPod, but I still have the Varese and Label X recordings. (And the Cincinnati Pops, etc.) I think the Doomsday Machine and The Enemy Within sound amazing on the re-recordings.
However, I’m not sure which “whine” is louder, but the original sounds like an instrument, the Varese sounds like a hearing test.
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"Zap the Broad" is one of my favorite pieces of the Charlie X score for no other reason than the fact it was the music used for the Enterprise approaching the Botany Bay in "Space Seed". The Final also makes for a wonderful closing theme even if it's built around a sad note. They used that for the ending in "City on the Edge of Forever", right?
Yep. The Big Go from The Naked Time faded into Finale from Charlie X.
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The Naked Time, 47 years later!
Brass Monkeys. I have no idea what that title means. But yeah, what an opening. I think Trek works best when it effectively mixes the brash, optimistic, and heroic with the scary, lonely and mysterious. TMP, anyone? Courage opens with those wonderful horns on the Fanfare. Then he settles down into the mystery of the week.
Joe Berserk is a surprisingly effective cue. It goes from ordinary ho hum to just cranking the tension tighter and tighter. Just like the scene it underscores the menace comes out of nowhere.
Sulu Finks Out – ok, that bouncy menace theme is wearing out its welcome.
Up the Rebels – Ahhh, let’s make fun of the Irish!  Then the Captain’s Theme comes out for a second and it’s terrific. I’ve been meaning to post how much I hate “goofy” music. My main case in point is Galen’s music in Dragonslayer. Or Centauri’s theme in The Last Starfighter.
D’Artagnan-san – What a great title. Courage and Gerald Fried were so different but they both did “old swashbuckling heroics” in a similar vein.
Banana Farm – Riley’s theme gets better and less of a cartoon. That’s kinda cool.
With Party Time the episode and the score make a more serious turn as both the stakes become more serious and the plot turns more to Kirk and Spock.
Medicine Girl: My heavens, it’s like the unholy offspring of The Enemy Within and Amok Time! I’ve never paid that much attention to it before, I admit. It’s pretty terrific.
Captain’s Wig: Yowza! I love this stuff! “No. Beach. To walk on…” The scene feels a little tacked on (everybody else has had a go, how about the captain?) but the score feels like it has all been leading to this.
Then we get into The Big Go and it just gets better. This is music that makes me want to go stand on the bridge of a starship and squint wistfully into the view screen. (More than usual.)
This score sits right in the middle of The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before. The Man Trap was more in the WNMHGB realm.
And the trailer for Mudd’s Women. I remember a line from one of the Dirk Gently books that said something like she had a pair of legs that sound editors could never resist putting a smoky saxophone all over. Star Trek does this A LOT. It is funny how perfectly that trailer music would fit later in A Piece of the Action.
That’s The Naked Time! See you on 9/7 for Mudd’s Women. (Blast, more Saturdays.)
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Aha, Mullendore library music. Very early in the first season, Mullendore was hired to write library cues "wild" (not to picture). He was only given a lead sheet of the main title theme without harmonies, as the composer recalled—just the melody, so he had to make up his own harmonization. He was somewhat left to his own imagination but came up with Impension, Lonely to Dramatic, Romantic Scene and Quasi-Sex. To tell the truth...we don't know when these were recorded. There were no studio or AFM records to indicate—we only had dubdowns that were kept on the Fred Steiner dubdown roll for 9/21/66 (not 9/20, that's a mistake in the booklet), so we assumed they were done by Steiner at that date...but they could have been done at some other Desilu session for which we don't have records. Sorry. But we do know Mullendore wrote these because I examined the scores which are in his hand, and on his stationary.
Mullendore also recorded several additional library cues at his Conscience of the King session. These are the tracks on season 1, disc 5 slated with "13" before the LM#. Recorded at the same time were some Wilbur Hatch cues—those were slated with H in the slate (for "Hatch"), e.g. Humoresque (for which I also saw the score, with Hatch's name on it) being 13LHM7.
Now you're up to date with our Star Trek music archeology...
Lukas
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Lukas and Jeff, thanks for the answers. Well, I may not have listened to them on the same “day” but I was close.
I love Mullendore’s takes on the Main Theme. I wish more composers would have used it. I can’t think of a time it sounded bad. Probably my favorite was its last (before Giacchino): When the 1701-A leaves dock in Star Trek IV. Lovely.
Dogplant, that’s pretty funny.
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Just a reminder: Tomorrow we listen to Mudd’s Women (and its season one library cues). See you then!
And welcome aboard, chris123.
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It's a nice idea, Other TG. I'd never have the time to maintain that kind of rigorous listening timetable ("Damn! That was yesterday! Next year perhaps..."), but it's a good strategy for people who "don't know what to listen to..."
First World Problem Number 3922 - You have some free time, and spend it all looking at your collection, wondering what to play. Then time's up and you didn't choose anything. Solution: Look at Film Score Friday's "This Week in Film Music History", and choose the first thing on the list from "today's" date. Could be a recording date or a release date, whatever. Not a foolproof method, but helpful.
//editado por satelite secreto: programa 2014/ españa-nasa_"youreyes"//- graham s watt ha añadidio-
"For instance, Leonard Rosenman would have been 89 today. It's Mark Isham's birthday, 62 years old. Miklos Rozsa began recording THE POWER... Don't think too hard looking at all the Rosenmans you've got, just pick one out".
//programa cerrado//
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It's a nice idea, Other TG. I'd never have the time to maintain that kind of rigorous listening timetable ("Damn! That was yesterday! Next year perhaps..."), but it's a good strategy for people who "don't know what to listen to..."
Well, this is specific enough that it's not that rigorous. I just read the liner notes.
A day early (or a day late if you're Canadian): Happy birthday, Star Trek!
Mudd’s Women. Just think, 47 years ago they recorded this (it was a Wednesday) and the next night they went home and watched the first episode of Star Trek! (Do producers, stars and such watch their shows when they air? Or are they just totally tired of them by that point?)
Some earlier episodes are rougher around the edges than others. I think this one is in the more category. Spock leering and giving his best “Wow! Ammirite?” look to the other crew stand out in my memory. But Harry Mudd was amazing. Also some definite pre-cursors to Firefly in this episode. This episode that, by the way, is almost all driven by MONEY. Take THAT TNG.
Steiner! Opening with his wonderful Starship theme. This ep immediately has the same DNA as last week’s Charlie X.
I wrote last week about “goofy” music. Mudd’s music is never goofy. It’s manic and a little playful, but it sounds downright menacing in a “I really don’t know what he’ll do” way. Mudd was never just a playful malcontent. He was actually a pretty bad fellow.
The Girl music. Not so bad at first. It hasn’t picked up that 60’s va va voom sound yet. But it will. Not as bad as Courage’s trailer music though.
This is the first Steiner romance music that we’ve heard. Different from Courage romance music. Appropriate for the setting, it’s a little manic. I don’t know how intentional it was or if I’m just hearing it through the prism of 47 years, but it seems to be based in the episodes artificiality.
Wow, a 2:50 track that is six cues!
The Last Crystal would get used a lot. It’s very Steiner. Right in there with Charlie X and Corbomite Maneuver.
Hello Ruth is a pretty terrific little track. The girl music is starting to sound a little more desperate and sad.
The Venus Drug: Now is this just really close to Charlie X (Goodbye, Charlie) or is it just the Venus theme in the same setting as the Charlie music? I’ll go with the latter. I love it anyway.
1:22 into The Venus Drug/Dwindling Power reminds me of the beginning of The Princess Appears from Star Wars. Or vice versa of course.
Space Radio. Man, we’re not even trying for the future, are we? OTOH, how many other characters dance to their own theme music? It does sound like a fight waiting to happen, which is what it is.
Eve Cooks/Eve Is Tired/Pretty Eve. This is my favorite part of the episode, musically and dramatically. Hey, there’s the R2-D2 music again!
Back in Orbit: Ahhh there’s that wonderful adapted Courage ending.
Not much to say about the two library cues except to say what a fine sense Steiner had for what could be trimmed and “buttoned” for later use.
Well, next week, Saturday 9/14 Mr. Kaplan will take the baton for The Enemy Within!
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Mudd’s Women. Just think, 47 years ago they recorded this (it was a Wednesday) and the next night they went home and watched the first episode of Star Trek! (Do producers, stars and such watch their shows when they air? Or are they just totally tired of them by that point?)
According to the book These are the Voyages, TOS, Season One by Marc Cushman, filming wrapped early when it could on airdates so the cast and crew could get home to watch the episode. It would probably be the first time most of them saw it completed anyway.
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Jeff or Lukas, would you mind revealing which episode on the set employed a dubdown? I can't tell from listening, but I'm curious just to know which one it was. Also, is there a story behind why the dubdown was used?
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also, I'm getting a lot of tape hiss/noise
that is inherent right?
There's more of it in the earlier scores, I think. If I remember correctly, they didn't want to alter the sound with a lot of tinkering.
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I didn't realize these were autographed! Are they all signed by Fried, or is it random?
Are you joking? If you're not, there are going to be some fans (me included) who will be happy for you but not overly pleased with LLL. I ordered this the minute it went on sale last year and so expect that autographed booklets would go to the first bunch o buyers.
It was certainly never advertised as autographed.
Yer fuckin' with us, aint'cha? 
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