Celebrating John Carpenter's birthday today with a prime example of the legendary film maker's influence upon popular culture.
The BBC series on film, Moviedrome was like Obi-Wan Kenobi to your humble host, as it helped me take my "first step into a larger world". My discovery of John Carpenter's siege thriller, Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) was when Alex Cox first introduced it back in 1990. This wasn't my first Carpenter film, but it was an early example of a developing appreciation for certain film makers.
Being a teenager at the time, imagine my surprise when I first heard that opening main theme blaring out and realising this was where Bomb The Bass got that awesomely catchy riff for the dance tune Megablast; a track forever associated with the Amiga shoot 'em up game, Xenon 2: Megablast (1989). In hindsight, this was perhaps the earliest example of Carpenter's presence being felt not just in cinema, but in other forms of popular entertainment for yours truly.
Since then, Assault on Precinct 13's theme and Megablast have been the select few pleasant and permanent earworms in this blogger's noggin. Cheers, J.C! Happy 75th!
EDIT: The day after this post, American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) unveiled the 4K restoration trailer for the upcoming cinema screening of Assault on Precinct 13. Deaf Crocodile has been working on this since the lockdowns, if I remember correctly.
Me too (no #MeToo) on pretty much everything in this post.
ReplyDeleteAlso see: hearing the Halloween theme on Ice-T's The Tower.
Yeah, contemplated adding a list of tunes with a Carpenter connection to this post, but could only think of a handful I really like, including The Tower of course.
ReplyDeleteHard to believe Megablast was a B-side, especially to such a forgettable A-side.
ReplyDeleteBig fan of Don’t Make Me Wait. 🏃♂️
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