[sdiy] Re: Forbidden Planet trivia

[Peter Grenader]

A bit of trivia.  

Louis Barron has passed away, but Bebe is very much alive, a marvelous
woman, still an active board member of SEAMUS, the American Composers
Foundation/LA and in new music in general and an acquaintance of mine.  We
don't exchange xmas cards or anything, but I we have shared a few meals and
stories.  She is real real close to Barry Schrader, my long time partner in
crime.

Recent news is about four years ago she was commissioned to write a piece of
music at the CREATE center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

After Forbidden Planet, the Barrons moved their studio to Los Angeles in the
hopes of striking it big in Hollywood.  A not widely known stat is that
Planet was not their first soundtrack (MiraMagic preceded it by two years).
While FP did bring them a lot of media attention and they did continue to do
some film work afterward (Jazz of Lights (also 1956), Bridges (1969) ),
things never panned out the way they had planned.  After Louis passing, Bebe
remained in the SoCal area and lives in Beverly Hills today.

On a pleasent note: To this day, the soundtrack to Forbidden Plant is still
the best selling all-original electronic music record ever released.

- Peter

Colin f wrote:

>>> Take a listen to the soundtrack of the film 'Forbidden Planet' made by
>>> Disney in the mid 50s.
> 
> MGM actually.
> 
>> AFAIR this was the first movie soundtrack 100% made of electronic
>> sounds.
>> And the composers / performers used modified military equipment
>> (such as radars) to generate the sounds...
> 
> They (husband and wife team Louis and Bebe Barron) supposedly built
> circuits based on cybernetic principles, which were born, lived and died
> (i.e. were turned on, made a mental noise, blew up).
> These sounds were recorded onto tape, then re-assembled music concrete
> style into the sound track.
> You can get it on CD, a quick google search for "forbidden planet ost"
> will turn it up.
> That film seriously warped my mind at a very impressionable age...
> 
> Colin f
> 
> 
> 
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