Think of ruins in a jungle – not the cutesy Indiana Jones kind, but more mysterious and slightly threatening with a majesty that almost hides the danger lurking in the shadows.  (I love old Tarzan movies)

A cool bongo and flute style tribute to the quirky beatnik character portrayed by Bob Denver (of Gilligan’s Island fame) on the old Dobie Gillis television series in the 1960s.

This was performed on my CZ-101 synthesizer from Casio way back in the early 1980s.  It struck me as kind of a steampunk calliope, though the word “steampunk” hadn’t been coined yet, hence the name it’s stuck with.

I picture a high-tech Jules Verne style merry-go-round where each disturbing animal mount is some creature from a different planet.  As you ride faster and faster around the circle, you eventually dematerialize and your consciousness is transported into the body of that same creature on another world as an adventure.  But just as in Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, the rides at “Cougar and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show” often come with consequences.

As you can hear, I was getting a little more comfortable with my synth and stretched a little farther here than in my earlier song, Anticipation.

Once I got my own synthesizer (the Casio CZ 101 – first home programmable synth for the consumer market), it took a bit of time to understand the potential of the instrument and how to use it. I had always dreamed of multi-tracking so I purchased a TEAC 3340 SC four channel reel to reel tape recorder to go with my synthesizer.

This tune is one of my first on this new set-up.

I took a year off after high school and worked at MacDonalds while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. When I started college, I majored in cinema, as I had been making experimental movies for years in Super 8.

In 1975 I got engaged, married in ’76 and had my first child in ’79. I was so with college and work, marriage and parenthood that had little time to play my guitar, much less record anything. And, of course, my parents had the piano, and I couldn’t have one in our apartment.

Back in 1979 I was fresh out of the USC school of Cinema and directing my first feature length monster movie, “The Strangeness”, which was recently released in a special “Thirtieth Anniversary DVD” with commentary (by me and the gang) and all new interviews. 

We made that movie for about $28,000, and you can see every penny on the screen!  To save money, I wrote the soundtrack as well.  I rented a “Jupiter 8” synthesizer – in fact, the exact same one that was used to create the powerful threatening bass tone created for V’ger in the original Star Trek the Motion Picture. 

It was great to have time on a keyboard again. Alas, you can hear much of my soundtrack in the film as the distributor didn’t like it and hired some other guys to replace it. But, you can at least hear one of my compositions called Harmony Blue as an instrumental played on harmonica by one of the characters in the film as they fist enter the cave where the monster lurks.

I recorded the instrumental song in this post, Voices in the Wind, on that Jupiter 8 since we had extra days on the equipment rental. I recorded this for fun on the living room floor where we had all the sound gear spread out and kluged together.  Never used it in The Strangeness, but in 1982 I used the recording to open my second film, “Brothers of the Wilderness”.

So, it has a tie in with the first Star Trek movie and it is also part of the first sessions I composed and recorded on keyboard since leaving home to get married. I was so taken with the possibilities, I soon purchased a Casio CZ-101, the very first programmable synthesizer for the home music enthusiast. I took to it instantly, and over the next few months knocked out a number of innovative music that was light years beyond anything I had produced before. Just for yourself on Voice in the Wind.

Actually, this one is pretty good. I just couldn’t resist the title. If I ever revisit this one it would make quite a nice quiet love song with some unusual and interesting chord progressions.