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The Department of Tangents Podcast


Years ago, playing a sort of improv game with friends in which we all picked super powers based on our personalities, I dubbed myself “Tangent Lad.” I was not a very strong superhero, and I could not defeat a super villain on my own, but I could distract them with Monty Python quotes and football trivia. I have many times since apologized to an interview subject in my capacity as a journalist by saying, “I am either very good or very bad at tangents, depending on how you feel about tangents.”

I had a rough time coming up with the concept and naming this blog/podcast. I knew I wanted to create a place where I could address things I’m passionate about – comedy, music, and horror. Finding a name that communicated all three of those things proved a bit impossible. I bugged my friends, and they all tried to help. To no avail. Then I thought, maybe I’m approaching this from the wrong angle. Maybe my lack of focus should be the focus.

As a journalist, I have written for The Boston Globe since 2000, starting out writing CD reviews and then writing a regular column on comedy for seven and a half years. I still contribute there, and to Kirkus Reviews, and other publications. I’m also a musician, and released my debut full-length album, Blue Skies and Broken Arrows, in March of 2015. And I’ve been publishing short horror fiction for a couple of years.

I like to climb into things I love and see how they operate. That’s what the Department of Tangents is for. The main thing here is love. To talk about the things that make I’ve loved forever, and some new things that might stand the test and be around, at least for me, for decades to come. I’ve had to be critical in my writing at times, and it might not all be nonstop roses here, but in the end, what I really want to talk about is the good stuff. That’s why I will regularly write about things I think are “Perfect,” even if someone can demonstrate empirically that they are flawed. Still perfect to me.

Also, fish.

I hope you, dear anonymous surfer person, will come to expect only the highest-quality, free-range, grass-fed tangents. And I hope some of you love the same things I do and find it useful. Or at least a welcome distraction until the others get here.

Jul 17, 2019

I had been thinking a lot about how sound - the score and incidental music - effect the mood and even the story in horror movies and looking for a way to discuss that on the podcast when I came across the book <em>Blood On Black Wax: Horror Soundtracks On Vinyl</em>, written by this week’s guest conversationalists, Aaron Lupton and Jeff Szpirglas. It is, as the name would imply, a guide to horror movie soundtracks, including scores and compilations, that can be found on vinyl. But it’s also a history of the changing styles of horror films, a peek into the minds of composers like Jerry Goldsmith, John Carpenter, and Goblin, and an art book with beautifully rendered reproductions of album art work. The book covers everything from <em>The Shining</em> to <em>Street Trash</em>, from the incidental sound collage of the <em>Texas Chainsaw Massacre</em> to symphonic scores like Goldsmith’s brilliant work on <em>Gremlins</em>.

Both Lupton and Szpirglas review soundtracks for <a href="https://www.rue-morgue.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><em>Rue Morgue</em> magazine</a>, and they have an expansive knowledge of their subject, and somewhat different tastes. Their descriptions can be fairly granular, down to describing common horror soundtracks instruments like the waterphone, which we talk about here. I’ll post a demonstration of that instrument on the blog so you can hear it for yourself. They also talk about details like how good George Romero was at finding the perfect library-sourced music on a budget, how many genres of music horror soundtracks cover, the resurgence of soundtracks on vinyl, and even the complexities of reproducing soundtracks live with the movie playing on a screen behind the musicians. And I also ruin Avengers: Endgame for Aaron. Sorry, Aaron.. You can find <em>Blood On Black Wax</em> at all the good bookstores, and some record stores, and online in all the usual places. And you can also find more of their ongoing work in <em>Rue Morgue</em> magazine.

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I discovered this week’s featured track while I was getting ready to produce this episode. I’d had another song in mind, which you will hear in a future episode, but this one is perfect for this episode. With its chaotic guitar riffs and punk attitude, it could easily be the lead single from a horror movie soundtrack. And it is, in a way, because the video is a short horror movie itself, featuring a young couple looking for a place for an amorous tryst in what looks like a creepy concrete warehouse, as young couples often do. And, also as young couples often do, they find themselves menaced by ghoulish employees who just won’t let them be. Miss June’s debut LP, Bad Luck Party, will be out September 6 on Frenchkiss Records. I think you’ll be hearing a lot more from them. Keep track of them on their website, and you have to love this, at <a href="http://ihatemissjune.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">www.ihatemissjune.com</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ihatemissjune/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">on Instagram also under ihatemissjune</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/missjunenz/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">on Facebook under missjunenz</a>.

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