Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music in Film and on Your Screen **** By Bruce Marshall Film Score Monthly, May 2007 Roll over Beethoven and tell Max Steiner the news! Ever since the song “Rock Around the Clock” appeared on the soundtrack to The Blackboard Jungle (1955), rock and jazz have been an important force in movie music. For many fans of traditional orchestral backing (Waxman, Korngold, Newman, etc.) the release of The Blackboard Jungle is “the day the music died.” For Harvey Kubernik, it represents the birth of a vibrant, important piece of Hollywood history. Though Hollywood Shack Job has an academic imprint, this book is not only informative but entertaining. You won’t find any footnotes here. The author speaks the language of the street, not the thesis. Kubernik constructs the book as a series of interviews. We hear from music supervisors, film directors, rock musicians and just about every type of professional who determines the songs and soundtracks we hear on television and in the movies. Casual fans may not relate to many of the industry insiders interviewed, but they will come away with a rare insight into the soundtrack albums we all love (and sometimes hate) to buy and collect. Larry King, who managed the soundtrack section of Tower Records (the book was published before the chain went bankrupt) on Sunset Blvd., is just one of many to offer valuable and poignant anecdotes. Contemporary directors Baz Luhrmann, Paul T. Anderson, and Curtis Hanson (who mentions Jerry Goldsmith!) share their method of placing music into their films. Walt Disney, Elmer Bernstein, Alexander Courage, The Man With the Golden Arm, The Wild One, The Aviator, Six Feet Under and The Sopranos are just a sprinkling of the many personalities, movies and television shows covered. If I have one criticism of this book, it is the dearth of interviews with rock performers who made the leap to composing for films. Mark Mothersbaugh of the band Devo is represented, but I would’ve loved to hear from Peter Gabriel, Keith Emerson, Ry Cooder, Stewart Copeland and Jan Hammer. Miami Vice is conspicuously absent—not a single mention! This is all the more surprising since the author worked A & R for MCA/Universal until shortly before the series debut in 1984. Although the title suggests a book solely centered on Hollywood, this is, at its heart, a cultural and social history of post-war America. From radio to television to movies to home video...and from bop to the Beach Boys to Bono. No one better embodies this rich history than Kim Fowley, a larger-than-life character whose interview forms the heart of this book (the Yiddish-spouting promoter played by Ed Begley in A Mighty Wind was undoubtedly inspired by Fowley). The proudly non-P.C., self-described “goy schmuck” tells tales so outrageous you can’t believe they’re true. But they are! As a young aspiring songwriter in the ’60s, he navigated a business dominated by what he calls the “Negro/Jewish Mafia.” Eventually he became the first white person to work for Motown records. Later on, he directed the famous sock-hop scene in the classic American Graffiti. His life stories are a captivating read and alone make this book worth having. In the meantime don’t forget... see the movie, hear the hit song, buy the soundtrack! The reviewer can be contacted at combrm@yahoo.com. His article on the music of Miami Vice, “Vices Verses,” appeared in Film Score Monthly Volume 10, No. 5.