Set at a house party, The Last Hurrah has wall-to-wall music. Forty-one separate music cues!
The Mae Shi
My friend and editor, Jay Trautman, has turned me onto a lot of local Silver Lake and Los Feliz punk bands. Underground groups that play The Smell or Spaceland. There are some real gems.
Jay - our one-take editor - also "edited" this one-take music video for The Mae Shi. They are a local pop-punk band. It sounds like we may get to use their music in our movie!
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUKAcKKQns4&rel=1]
Getting Great Musicians
I am so thrilled to be working with musicians I have admired for years. You spend years playing their CDs in your car on the way to work, and never dream you'll one day be calling them on the phone telling them about your movie. I am completely stoked to be including music from amazing musicians like Adam Daniel, Sugarman 3, and Typical Cats.
Working with Friends
It's also a great feeling to be using music from my buddies. Libbie Schrader is a really talented singer songwriter who was in my college a cappella group. Kelly Perine, of Birthday Suit, was in my college improv group. And rapper "DW" is none other than David Wachs - one of the stars of The Last Hurrah.
Music We Can't Use
There are musicians I love who I have not been able to get permission from. Earlimart, M83, The Airborne Toxic Event, Tandemoro, and Spoon. Well, I didn't expect everyone to say yes. No matter how "indy" a band is - their labels are in the business of making money.
What surprises me is when the unsigned bands don't return my calls. That's not good business sense, in my opinion. But it's fine - we want our musicians to be as enthusiastic about us as we are about them.
Finding the Right Fit
It is amazing how hard it is to fit a song to a scene. I estimate I listen to twenty songs for every one song that makes it into a temp session. The process is fun, but unbelievably time consuming. I don't know what music supervisors did before MySpace.
Bands under my magnifying glass include:
Geggy Tah, Division Day, Meiko, Nasoj Thing, The Kax, Alison Block, Nous Non Plus, Tigers Can Bite You, The Deadly Syndrome, The Transmissions, Thinking Aloud, The Shark That Ate My Friend, The Henry Clay People, Gabe Mann, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Monolators, Castle Door, The Happy Hollows, Eagle and Talon, The Primos, Thailand, The Eulogies, Andy Frasco, Blood Arm, Die Rockers Die, Totally Radd, Bang Sugar Bang, Spindrift, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Health, Prefuse 73, Bizart, Radars to the Sky, Eskimo Hunter, Ferraby Lionheart, One Trick Pony, Matt Nathanson, Porterville, You Me and Iowa, Kissing Tigers, 8bit, Mezklah, I Make This Sound, and Lo-Fi Sugar...
