Florence Foster Jenkins Wants to Murder Your Ears

WTF?, , ,

This video is NOT for the hung over, the easily irritated, or for anyone with an irrational fear of out-of-tune singing. Florence Foster Jenkins, was, by the accounts available in the usual places, a complete nutjob who was CONVINCED she was the Maria Callas of her day. If there is ever another sequel in the SAW franchise, it should be dedicated to visualizing the sonic torture this poor deluded tone-deaf throat scrambler has inflicted on many victims by way of vinyl and live performances.

Brace yourself:




Turntabling Films?

Events, Media

It’s true–Turntabling.net is producing a short film called 45 RPM. It’s a murder mystery that features a vinyl record as a central part of the plot. More details are pending but the script has already been written, casting is due to start in a couple of weeks, locations have been scouted.

We’re still looking for a Chicago area record store to shoot our credit sequence and opening scenes in–the entire story is set up in the early shots in a record store and we would be very happy to find a shop willing to let us use their space long enough to get our shots without bothering early morning customers too terribly much. We did inquire about one or two Chicago area locations–one store wanted us to pay them $3000 to close the store for the duration of the shoot. Since this isn’t a large budget feature, but a short film produced by an indie crew Larry Cohen-style, we had to politely decline.

45 RPM is an Italian-influenced mystery/thriller that features a seven-inch single as the focal point of the mystery. It’s only fitting that Turntabling would sponsor/produce a movie about vinyl–even a non-fiction one. And we have Larry Cohen to thank for the initial inspiration to use a vinyl record as the jumping off point for the plot. Cohen was visiting Chicago several weeks ago, screening a new film he wrote called Messages Deleted. He mentioned that, thanks to that film, he had written a trilogy of phone-centered plots. (He also mentioned that three movies with phone themes is all we get!)

Naturally that got the wheels turning, one thing led to another, and….45 RPM was born.

If you know anyone who would be willing to let us use their record store, please get in touch with me by e-mail: jwallace (at) turntabling (dot) net.

More news about 45 RPM as it develops. I’ve started a production blog about the making of this film which you can read at Now-Sound.com.

–Joe Wallace

WTF Album Covers: Fleetwood Mac

WTF?, , ,

Fleetwood Mac have been immortalized in the not-so-hallowed halls of bad album artwork before, but this truly is one of the most bewildering LP covers in their history as a band. If someone knows WTF they were thinking when they approved the artwork for Heroes Are Hard To Find, perhaps sharing that information could clear up the mystery.

One suspects that the driving motivation behind this album art was that it was mostly black, enabling one to quickly locate a small quantity of leftover cocaine residue left behind by the previous snorter, if one were so inclined.

Beyond The Black Rainbow Soundtrack

Media, ,

Beyond The Black Rainbow is being described as “Stanley Kubrick Meets David Lynch”, and the cinematic equivalent to LSD. Made in 2010, it’s only now hitting selected screens in the USA and it looks–and sounds–pretty amazingly strange. In other words, right up our street here at Turntabling.net

One of the most interesting things about the film (trip-a-delic visuals aside), from what can be gleaned out of the official trailers, is the amazing soundtrack by Jeremy Schmidt. He did an interview way back in September, 2011 about his work on the soundtrack for Beyond The Black Rainbow and even, tantalizingly, hinted at a vinyl LP release of the soundtrack.

From the trailer, Schmidt’s work is deliciously analog and calls back to the trippiest of 80s/90s synth experimentation. It’s not emulating Cabaret Voltaire, Coil, Clint Mansell or YMO, but it does occupy a similar musical zip code. Sadly, this vinyl treasure proves elusive. For now. But we have high hopes that it will be released eventually based on the buzz over the film and its limited screenings.

Have you seen the trailer for this? It looks nothing at all like 2001, The Holy Mountain, THX 1138, Scanners, or Eraserhead, but it has spiritual ties with all of those and more.