Article about recording the music from Rhythms Magazine

Rhythms Magazine Sea Hear Column January 09
By Martin Jones
I think I may have just played a role in making a significant contribution to the canon of great surf movie soundtracks. At least I hope so.
It all started a couple of years ago when guitarist Tim Gaze was invited to write and record some music for a Hot Buttered surf film Hot Buttered Soul. Seeing as engineer Mick Wordley had all his gear set up at Andrew Kidman’s house in Northern NSW recording an album for Kidman’s band The Brown Birds From Windy Hill, it was decided that Gaze would bring a rhythm section to Andrew’s house. The Birds and Gaze’s team combined to conjure a free flowing hour-long soundtrack that was performed live whilst watching the movie. You hear stories of the original Bruce Brown films being scored like that, and other surf films of the ‘70s, but I wonder… how many bands have ever actually recorded the entire soundtrack to a surf film from beginning to end whilst watching the footage? It’s certainly a lost art in these days where cramming a soundtrack to the brim with splices of known songs and acts in order to help sell the film and its ‘Official Soundtrack CD’ is the norm.

A young fellow Jolyon Hoff made a low-budget documentary about legendary Gold Coast surfer Michael Peterson last year and this year secured some funding to re-edit the film, produce a bespoke soundtrack, and give the film a wider release. The doco, Searching For Michael Peterson, features some of the classic Peterson footage from Morning Of The Earth so, with the flowing Hot Buttered Soul soundtrack in mind, Jolyon rightly reasoned that Tim Gaze (who of course played guitar in Tamam Shad who contributed significantly to MOE) would be perfect for the MP doco. He’d also seen the Brown Birds From Windy Hill in action. I’m not sure who contacted who, but next thing you know Mick Wordley (who also recorded the Delightful Rain surf music CD) is flying over with a swag of recording gear, Kidman and the Brown Birds are on board, Pete Murray graciously agrees to allow us to use his home studio near Byron Bay, and it’s on.

Surprisingly, a modicum of preparation is applied by the Brown Birds. Kidman digs up a song he had written some time ago but never found a use for and with some reworking it’s perfect as the flagship track for the album. Entitled ‘Iron Eagle’, it uses the decaying eagle sculpture on the point at Kirra (Michael Peterson’s home break) as a symbol of the decay of the golden era of Gold Coast surfing, a decay that saw sand dredging/pumping kill Kirra’s perfect point waves (check out kirrapoint.org for more information) and an influx of drugs and alcohol ruin the lives of many talented surfers, Peterson included. The poignant lyrics are set to a rocking tune that openly pays tribute to the Australian surf sounds of Radio Birdman and The Sunnyboys. The Birds rehearse this particular song (including a lengthy intro and outro from which grabs can be taken as soundtrack material) furiously – well for us, anyway. When Tim Gaze joins us in Murray’s studio, it only takes a couple of runs through before he’s picked it (and us) up and ‘Iron Eagle’ is cooking.

We get up to the studio on a Saturday afternoon and set up all in the one room, with Mick Wordley knowing exactly which microphones to use and where to place them. We’re off and recording straight away, often coming up with unrehearsed one-take gems to use as background music.
Jolyon, thankfully, has strong ideas about pieces of music he requires for certain scenes. He originally had the key surfing footage soundtracked by The Saints’ ‘(I’m) Stranded’, which helped us shape the style of ‘Iron Eagle’ to what he wanted. Jolyon sits us down with specific grabs of footage and we compose and shape pieces of music to fit the mood and length of the scenes, playing and recording live whilst watching the film. These range from moody piano pieces with Gaze’s lap slide sighing over the top, to some gorgeous acoustic guitar picking (Gaze again), to stomping country/rock instrumentals straight out of the ‘70s, to dark, twisted bursts of noise.

Of course it was fantastic to be writing and recording with someone as accomplished and flexible as Tim Gaze, but the real buzz was composing with a purpose; shaping a piece of music out of nothing and (very quickly) getting it arranged and recorded. Over the course of two afternoons/evenings, we emerged with around a dozen strong tracks. I’ve just started getting the first mixes back from Mick Wordley and they sound warm and alive and will go to make up a soundtrack CD. For me, the most exciting thing is going to be watching the completed film with the snippets of music edited in. Keep your eyes and ears out for it, it’s called Searching For Michael Peterson. There’s a promo edit of it on Myspace if you go searching…

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