Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

       There have been compilations of songs from The Police before, but I noticed they tend towards only songs by Sting. What if the other two lads got their chance to shine? Here is a collection of music written by Copeland and Summers no songs that they wrote with Stingo. I had initially wanted to include Andy Summer's love song "Sally", but just like "Baby, You're a Rich Man" by the Beatles was put together from two separate pieces written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, "Be My Girl" by Sting was put together with "Sally".       Hear songs by the drummer and guitarist here:  THE POLICE Greatest Hits Copeland & Summers - YouTube

        Kentucky Fried Movie  hit the theaters in 1977. It was the first movie from the twisted minds of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, who went on to make Airplane!  and the tv series Police Squad. They hired John Landis to direct, who had only made Schlock  before this, but this got him hired to direct National Lampoon's Animal House . KFM was mostly short sketches skewering television and movies. The longest section was Fistful of Yen, a spoof of Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon.          There was a theater that used to show different double and triple features each night. I saw Enter the Dragon  along with Jackie Chan's The Big Brawl  but they also included the Fistful of Yen section. The downside was they played before the Bruce Lee movie so when the audience watched EtD  they would laugh thinking about the scenes spoofed with Evan Kim.       You can watch Kentucky Fried Movie ...

       I originally saw this pilot movie years ago and it stuck with me. Years later I tried to find the name of it using the actors names I remembered. With the help of the imdb I found the name was High Risk. I tried to find it on DVD but the search kept bringing up the 1981 movie with Lindsay Wagner and the Jameses, Brolin and Coburn. After many more years of searching I found on Amazon a DVD of High Risk starring Buono and Cameron, ordered it immediately and when it arrived it was the 1981 movie. Then a few months ago I checked YouTube yet again and found ffernan312 had recently uploaded it.      I figure if it had been turned into a series it would have storylines like a wife trying to help her wrongfully convicted husband, someone from Walker-T's past calls him about a problem and the group finding out their boss has been kidnaped. For anyone who has read this far, I have an offer: if enough people are interested, I will write one of those storie...

      In the 1970s bands needed to have a "hook". They couldn't just be musicians, no, they had to be musicians who solved crimes, or had animal members, monsters, fairies, etc. Since I did fictional bands of the '60s and '80s, I decided to do something different with the '70s. The amount of pop music written for American kid's shows in the late sixties and seventies is staggering. Most of the "bands" I included had an album put out by labels like Decca and Capitol. The Josie and the Pussycats here is different from the one I had on this blog before. The cartoon was popular enough to release a record announcing, "now a real live group!". Cheryl Ladd was one of the members, then going by Cherie Moor. Gimmicky Bands of the 70s - YouTube

       After 1975 John Lennon wanted to spend more time with his son Sean and less time with The Beatles but that didn't mean there wasn't a new album in 1976. After recording Blast From Your Past , McCartney suggested a tour again. They settled on one live performance at the end of 1975 in New York City so John could go back to the Dakota afterwards. In this alternate reality a live album of the event would released in 1976.      In reality, John joined Elton John at Madison Square Garden for three songs on 28 November 1974. All three songs can be found on disc three of the Lennon  box set from 1990. Paul played the Garden with his band Wings in May of 1976. Selections from the tour were on the triple album Wings Over America . George Harrison played with Ravi Shankar at the Garden in December of 1974. Unfortunately, no album was put out of the concert.      For this fictional album I started of with "Be Bop A Lula" and the playlis...

       1975 saw the release of John Lennon's Rock n Roll , an album of cover versions of rock songs from the late fifties and early sixties. McCartney's Venus and Mars  hit the record shelves, Harrison had a new album called  Extra Texture  and a compilation album of Starr's music, called Blast From Your Past  was put out. The story behind Lennon's album involves lawsuits, stolen master tapes, re-recordings and an album released without John's approval. Look it up. It is an interesting story and could make an HBO movie.       For this what-if, I propose that the Beatles put out an old-time rock n roll album so I used tracks from different years from the other three. Since Paul put out an album in 1988 similar to John's I used four tracks from that. John and Paul both covered "Ain't That a Shame" and I chose Paul's version, also his "Twenty Flight Rock" (which he first played for John when they met), "Lawdy, Miss Clawdy" and ...

           We made it to the Beatles in 1974. John Lennon released Walls and Bridges, which I think is one of his best, George Harrison released Dark Horse and Ringo Starr had Goodnight Vienna. Since I used Red Rose Speedway (which was released early 1973) this uses Paul McCartney's Band on the Run (came out the end of 1973). There was so much good music from the four of them I decided to make this a double album. From Paul I pulled "Band on the Run", "Jet", "Bluebird", "Mrs. Vanderbilt", "Let Me Roll It", "No Words" (which ironically has words), and "Helen Wheels". John gives us "Going Down on Love", "Whatever Gets You Through the Night", "Old Dirt Road", "What You Got", "Scared", "#9 Dream" "Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)" (which references the Beatles song "Drive My Car") and "Beef Jerky" (which has no words)....

       Continuing with the Beatles imaginary albums, here is 1973. All four had an album out and they all had hits on the radio. From Lennon's Mind Games  I used the title track, "Out of the Blue" and "I Know (I Know). McCartney's Red Rose Speedway provided "Big Barn Red", "When the Night" and the hugely popular "My Love." From Harrison's record Living in the Material   World,  I grabbed not only the title track but the title for this album. I also used his "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" and close the album with "That Is All", which has George singing harmony with himself half way through that I like to imagine is Paul and John with him. Starr's 1973 album was called Ringo , and John, Paul and George all appear on it. I pulled "I'm the Greatest" which Lennon wrote and both he and George play on. I also gave Ringo a rare second song, "Photograph", which he wrote with Harriso...

       In 1971 John Lennon released the album Imagine . I used the title track for the album opener, also from that album I pulled "Oh My Love", "It's So Hard" and "Jealous Guy". Paul McCartney put out Ram  the same year and his "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" opens side two on this "what if" album. Ram also supplied "Backseat of My Car" and "Eat at Home". I pulled the single "Another Day" to round things out. George Harrison's album from 1971 was the live concert recording of The Concert for Bangladesh  which didn't fit for this project.  However the B-side to his "Bangla Desh" single was the studio song "Deep Blue" and I gladly grabbed it for this. Ringo Starr did not put out and album that year, to be fair, he did release two albums in 1970. His international radio hit "It Don't Come Easy" was released in 1971 so that had to be included especially with Harrison...

       In 1974 ABC Television aired a tv movie of Wonder Woman starring Cathy Lee Crosby. A year and a half later ABC tried again with Lynda Carter. This version was more like the comics and took place during WWII. It was picked up as a series and ran on ABC from April 1976 to February 1977. Then CBS picked it up for two more seasons, made it modern and now she worked for an intelligence agency like the 1974 pilot.       I have wondered what the series would have been like if they stuck with Crosby version. I imagine the rogue Paradise Island friend of Diana's would come back having been experimented on with Cheetah blood and become a powerful nemesis. As the show went on, they would probably incorporate more from the comics.       Above is sleeve for the DVD case and the outer slip sleeve case for this imagined series.       There was another proposed Wonder Woman series in 1967. Whenever you pick on an adaptati...

  Quinn Martins was all over the television in the 1970s. He produced "Streets of San Francisco", "Barnaby Jones", "Cannon" and many more show about crime solvers. In 1978 he teamed up Brian Clemens who had been working on the British series, "The Avengers". Together they tried to make an American version of John Steed and Mrs. Peel. The pilot was a "movie of the week" on CBS. It did not do well enough to get a series. I would have been curious to see where it would have gone. If you are curious, the pilot can be viewed here; CBS Network Special - Escapade - WBBM-TV (Complete Pilot Broadcast, 5/19/1978) 📺

       On a forum some years ago, I asked if anyone would have wanted period appropriate music for the movie The Sting  instead of Ragtime music. Someone responded that since the music won an Academy Award for best score, it was ridiculous to consider anything else. I presume they were someone that had agreed with all of the Academy's choices but that's not me. I love the soundtrack to The Sting  but, you know me, I can't leave well enough alone.       Since the movie takes place in the 1930s, I tried to find a musician/composer who could fill the appropriate moods needed for the scenes. For the opening credits, instead of Joplin's "The Entertainer" I chose Django's "Are You in the Mood?", I substituted "Tears" for the track "Luther" where Hooker finds his partner had been murdered and the original end credits had the jaunty "Ragtime Dance" over which I replaced with Django's equally jaunty rendition of "Ava...

  In honor of the Kashyyyk holiday of Life Day I present an alternate Star Wars. Not only did I use alternate casting of people who screen tested for the roles but also used the original title logo and Ralph McQuarrie's original designs for the characters. Since I am going back to the 1970s I also based the design on the movie's original VHS box. Watch William Katt's audition for Luke with Kurt Russell's audition as Han Solo here: William Katt's Star Wars Audition with Kurt Russell

  September of last year I mentioned my friend Stefan had the idea of putting popular songs into a movie that only had incidental music. I've posted my version, which was Blade Runner , and he has allowed me to share his musical choices. Of course, being me, I designed the cd booklet and tray card. Star Wars alternate soundtrack - YouTube You can find Stefan's kindle books here: Amazon.com : stefan boales

  This is a "what if" album for Jefferson Airplane for 1971. Fans might be saying "they already released an album that year called Bark ." Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady had started a second band called Hot Tuna and in 1971 put out a second album that also had Papa John Creach. He put out a self-titled album that year that had Kaukonen and Casady on it as well as Jefferson Airplane drummer Joey Covington, Paul Kantner and Grace Slick. Kantner and Slick released Sunfighter . It looked like enough material for another Airplane album to have been released in 1971.  From Hot Tuna's First Pull Up, Then Pull Down  I only used "Been So Long". I had hoped to use more but the sounds of the live audience made it hard to fit in. From Papa John Creach  I pulled "The Janitor Drives a Cadillac" with Covington on drums and Grace Slick doing vocal and "Jet String Rock" which had Casady, Kantner and Kaukonen. The rest of the songs are from Sunfighte...

  In 1978 Kiss were at the height of their popularity. Instead of releasing a new studio album they released four, or none depending on how you count it. Each of the four members released a solo album under the Kiss banner. For this alternate take I chose songs from the four albums to make one Kiss album. I tried to avoid choosing favorites and just pick which might be on a Kiss album. I loosely based the structure on 1979's Dynasty, so one song from Peter, a few from Ace and split the rest by Paul and Gene. I had three songs from Peter that I kept vacillating between. I settled on "Don't You Let Me Down" which was also on the 2005 greatest hits collection Kiss Gold. For Ace I chose "Rip It Out" and "What's on You Mind?". I was going skip his cover of Hello's "New York Groove" but it was the biggest hit from the four albums and I figure it would be this album's analog to Ace's cover of the Rolling Stones song "2,000 M...

      Mel Brooks' 1974 comedy  Blazing Saddles had Richard Pryor as one of the writers. Brooks had wanted Pryor to play the lead as well. However, the studio did not want to back the film with him starring because of his various drug arrests. The role went to Cleavon Little who made a memorable character of Bart. Gig Young was cast as the drunken gunslinger but when they started shooting he had the DTs so bad they couldn't continue so Gene Wilder was hired with whom Mel Brooks made the movie The Producers . Two years after Blazing Saddles  Wilder and Pryor were in Silver Streak  and they made such a good comedic double act that they made four films together.

  Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel started singing together as kids. They put out their first album in 1964. After five albums the duo broke up. Like Wham! one person's career took off while the other's didn't.  In 1975 they reunited to record a song Paul Simon wrote called "My Little Town". It was Simon's album Still Crazy After All These Years and Garfunkel's album Breakaway . For this project I used the title song from Garfunkel's Breakaway  and his cover of "I Only Have Eyes for You" since that was the song he sang on Saturday Night Live to promote his album along with Paul Simon. I excised "Gone At Last" and "Silent Eyes" from Simon's album to make room for Garfunkel's.  https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCHnLE0OxajEkxPswE2Ww_1jNcqSpUc_c&si=rtEPSC9Nh4ccXFCA