Things that don't suck, and yet also do (Updated)

(…and pushed, too)

My friend Gary Lucas, one of the most dazzlingly invent­ive gui­tar­ists work­ing today, will per­form his ori­gin­al solo-guitar score for the 1931 Spanish-language muta­tion of Dracula this Saturday, October 9, at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s New York Film Festival. If you are in the vicin­ity, you abso­lutely should go, and I say that as someone who will in fact there, and not even via the guest list, at that. (I sup­pose I could have asked, but it’s the prin­ciple!) Much more inform­a­tion and a vari­ety of scin­til­lat­ing links can be found on the Dracula page of Gary’s own fant­ast­ic web­site, which deserves the book­mark of any self-respecting music lover. 

UPDATE: The Saturday even­ing event was ter­rif­ic, an intox­ic­at­ing blend of music and imagery. NYFF pro­gram­mer Scott Foundas intro­duced, and Gary talked a little about the 1931 film, pro­duced in tan­dem with the Bela Lugosi clas­sic, before get­ting down to busi­ness with two gui­tars, one elec­tric, one acous­tic. Like the Todd Browning pic­ture, the Spanish-language Dracula has very little music, incid­ent­al or oth­er­wise; a theme from Swan Lake at the out­set (also used, some might argue even more mem­or­ably, in The Mummy) and not a whole lot after that. Gary’s new score does some extra­pol­at­ing off of the Tchaikovsky, and builds a nice, eer­ie mood; switch­ing off from the reverb-and-delay laden elec­tric, he waxed more lyr­ic­al on the acous­tic gui­tar, although even there he would reach for the cos­mic, or even kos­miche, with an effect or two. Gary’s also known for play­ing out with his score for Paul Leni’s Paul Wegener’s and Curt Boese’s silent The Golem, and that’s a much dif­fer­ent bit of busi­ness than this one. Replete with music­al allu­sions from “Adon Olom” to “Ride of the Valkyries,” the Golem score is more a piece of com­ment­ary on the film. What Gary goes for—and gets—with his Dracula score is more an immer­sion in an atmo­sphere of per­di­tion and romantic long­ing. Helping him out immeas­ur­ably with respect to both is the film’s lus­cious lead act­ress Lupita Tovar, whose cos­tumes become more an more reveal­ing the fur­ther she sinks under the title vam­pire’s spell. There’s talk of an enhanced CD, but there really should be a DVD of the film with this score. I’ll keep you pos­ted on future per­form­ances until that becomes the case (which does­n’t seem imme­di­ately likely, alas).