Henry Mancini has captured my life!

[sumgai]

Salutations.


For the life of me, no matter where I turn, I hear the Peter Gunn riff, in the widest possible array of formats and interpretations. From 1958 on, that "bum-bum-be-bum-be-bum-be-bum" has infiltrated all kinds of music so insidiously that I now eat, drink & sleep "Peter Gunn", even after a hard day of listening to surf music. I may have to seek professional help here, I swear.....


Then it hit me, just this morning. With some fine "medicinal" herbal assistance, I was able to figure it out - I'd been playing this thing over and over and over, almost hypnotically. Go ahead, give this a listen:





See what I mean? You can't get away from it! (And don't ask me how a quilt turns out when this comes on the player, it ain't pretty.)



Now, the point of all this is not to seek therapy.... what I'm gonna ask the hordes in The NutzHouse is this: where have you found Peter Gunn hiding? Can you link to other tunes/songs that contain that riff? I can, though not too many (consciously), but that''s not the point. Me sharing a couple of links isn't the idea here, the idea is to see who else has been subjected to this subliminal indoctrination of our pysches. IOW, can you provide links to vid's with the P.G. riff, or perhaps even just to pages referring to it? Even if you have only a scrap of a distant memory, with no current link, that's cool too - give us your story!

I'm wondering just how far the music scene has become ingrained with this infatuation, ya know what I mean.

No limitations on musical style, artist, country of origin, nuttin'. Let the electrons flow!





sumgai

[4real]

There are times when 'The Pink Panther theme' "earworms" itsway into my head...Mancini is great.

I think everyone has played the Peter Gun them or tried too...

here's a few versions that come to mind...

The amazing 'Steven King' showing that the bass is not the only part of the gutiar and it is not just the notes but how they are played, all those slides and micro bends...and all on one guitar too...



The fantastic Jeff Beck is often playing this tune and similar era things in his unique style...here with the Les Paul Tribute night DVD which is a fantastic DVD to pick up and generally going cheap these days...also contains a lot of surf and rockabilly stuff...



In his usual more jazz-rock mode too...



It's just one of those spy tunes, like the mission imposible theme or 007 that is so effective desite a relentless not changing of chord...

[col]

Planet Claire - B52s.

[ux4484]

Col... You stole my thought....

But there are a number of B-52 songs that could fit that bill, including the last 16 bars of Rock Lobster.

[col]

Here's a variation on the theme:

Pink Cadillac - Bruce Springsteen

[newey]

Another close cousin. The Yardbirds version, with Clapton on guitar, is perhaps better known, but we gotta pay homage to Jimmy Reed . . .

[ux4484]

The Clash-Brand New Cadillac:

I miss Joe Strummer.

[sumgai]

Leave it to Jeff Lynne to reveal that Mancini was actually channeling none other than Beethoven!

[ux4484]

[Deleted]

Well not exactly similar but close : "beds are burning" by "midnight oil".

[ux4484]

There must be something about Caddy's and Peter Gunn...
New Caddy commercial during the Bears game tonight with a group of thirty-something's
full on Peter Gunn theme the whole time.

[sumgai]

Sept 22, 2013 23:10:05 GMT -5 ux4484 said:

There must be something about Caddy's and Peter Gunn...
New Caddy commercial during the Bears game tonight with a group of thirty-something's
full on Peter Gunn theme the whole time.

Like col said above, once Bruce Springsteen puts it to vinyl, the meme is pretty much cast in stone.

[ux4484]

The Clash beat him to it by a few years...

[sumgai]

Sept 23, 2013 6:07:41 GMT -5 ux4484 said:

The Clash beat him to it by a few years...

This is your Cadillac on The Clash:





This is your Cadillac on Bruce Springsteen:





Any questions?

[newey]

The association with Cadillac is even more funny when one considers that, in the TV series, Peter Gunn drove a Plymouth Fury. He's supposed to be this suave, cool-jazz private eye who charges top dollar, and he drives around in your Grandma's Plymouth? Never did make a lick of sense.

TV detectives are supposed to have cool rides. Even porky Frank Cannon got a Lincoln to drive. Magnum PI rated a Ferrari 308 GTS, even though it wasn't technically his. The Saint drove a Volvo P1800 sports car, very cool back in the day.

And, of course, in the spy thriller genre, we have Bond's Aston Martin DB5 and Maxwell Smart's Sunbeam Tiger. Heck, even Austin Powers rated a Mini Cooper.

So, Gunn should have had a Caddy at the very least. Probably, Plymouth was a sponsor or something.

[ux4484]

I was waiting for someone to mention that no caddy was involved in Peter Gunn!

Gai,

The Clash song DOES go: "My baby drove up in a BRAND NEW Cadillac"

[sumgai]

Sept 23, 2013 17:08:07 GMT -5 ux4484 said:

Gai,

The Clash song DOES go: "My baby drove up in a BRAND NEW Cadillac"

Yes, they did, but they've been gone and buried for nigh on to 28 years now, whereas The Boss is still belting 'em out.

Moral of the story: The Clash made no lasting impression, not even on Oldies Radio. Compare that to Bruce, and it's easy to see who, or what image, comes to mind first when thinking Cadillac.


BTW, Burke's Law star Gene Barry got a Rolls, but Columbo's Peter Falk only got a '59 Peugeot 403. But not to derail my own thread or anything.




sumgai

[ux4484]

Yea, I guess John Lennon's comments on The Boss's popularity were quite a bit off the mark.

Concerning popularity... Maybe on your stereo...

Personally, I only like ALMOST a dozen or so Springsteen songs...

But I'll still sometimes pull up The Clash collection on my phone and let it roll till I've heard it all twice.

Daughter #2 was much less enthused over Green Day when she realized they just stole The Clash's act.

Mick and Paul are part of the touring company of "Gorillaz" these days.

[newey]

Columbo's Peter Falk only got a '59 Peugeot 403

Even more amazing, it (usually) ran.

But unfair to throw an underpaid public servant into the mix, we're talking private dicks here.

(Not to continually derail your thread or anything . . . )

[sumgai]

^^^ s'funny.... I thought we was talkin' 'bout music and cars, not securing one's anatomy from view.......


And ux... I've never particularly appreciated The Boss, but I'm in the vast minority, I know. In fact, Dancing In The Dark is about the only thing of his that I actually go out of my way to play, on ocassion. But my point was, you can't buy a ticket to see a Clash concert, and haven't been since 1986. Bruce is still going at it pell mell, and it's not just the FOG's that are putting money in his pockets, there's a whole new generation that are into him too. With more on the way, I'm sure. The point being, that's a lot of exposure, and when it comes to remembering who's who in the zoo, I daresay that The Clash won't come on anyone's All-time Hit Parade nearly so quickly as Bruce. Hence, my position that as a meme, Cadillacs figure with Peter Gunn solely because of B.S. and not due to The Clash.

But then again, it's all good, right?






sumgai

[ux4484]

... That with the irony that Bruce is a HUGE Clash fan...




...gets me nowhere.

[col]

Sept 23, 2013 0:40:55 GMT -5 sumgai said:

Sept 22, 2013 23:10:05 GMT -5 ux4484 said:

There must be something about Caddy's and Peter Gunn...
New Caddy commercial during the Bears game tonight with a group of thirty-something's
full on Peter Gunn theme the whole time.

Like col said above, once Bruce Springsteen puts it to vinyl, the meme is pretty much cast in stone.

Did I say that? I didn't mean to imply it! Oddly, I much, MUCH prefer The Clash over Bruce Springsteen*, but didn't think of Brand New Cadillac. Since Springsteen is so far off my radar, I have no idea how Pink Cadillac occurred to me over Brand New Cadillac.

Here's another close variation on the PG theme:

Moral of the story: The Clash made no lasting impression, not even on Oldies Radio.

I suspect they are played far more on UK radio compared with the US, but irrespective, The Clash have obviously been a huge influence upon others.

*I may not be a fan of Springsteen's music, but I like the man.

[sumgai]

col,

That last one by the Cramps, that's what I was looking for when I started this thread - thanks!


What you say is likely true, about The Clash being more popular in GB than here in the States. Even with the advent of internet-based radio, we all still tend to listen locally. (As a background, during all the texting....) Myself, I don't even use the radio anymore, except in the truck, which has no mp3 or CD player. Even there, I usually tune into a local non-commercial kid's music station (www.c895.org) - I can't stand commercials of any kind. Which limits my exposure to things like classical rock, or even Classical as in Mozart. (Seattle has one of the best classical FM stations in the world, www.king.org - but they have ads, dammit.)


I'm sorry we've all gotten off on a Clash/Springsteen/Cadillac tangent, though it was fun to suss out those images I posted, but I do hope that more members chime in with notes on Peter Gunn or variants. Again, links to videos or audio recordings are the best way to illustrate, but even just links to pages describing something related would also be cool.

Thanks.




sumgai

[sumgai]

ux,

I should've used the last reply, but was in a hurry. Sorry man, I didn't forget you!

I think col's point above about popularity in England versus the States is telling. I'll take his word for it that they are still on many listener's radar over there, but here they were a flash in the pan. That was all due to Marketing, with a capital letter. Very large investments were made in making Springsteen a force to be reckoned with on the popular music scene. Nearly every British band that got airplay in the States failed to garner that kind of marketing force (not all, but nearly all of them), and they are now consigned to moldy-oldie radio stations, and again, that was due to marketing. The powers-that-were chose not to invest the level of money that they put into acts like Springsteen, and that's the end of the story.

For whatever reason that a band disbands, once they've done that they are no longer top-drawer attractions, and marketers/promoters move on to the Next Big Thing. Solo name performers tend to last longer, unless they hit Skid Road for some reason, so they tend to be more marketable.

Case in point: Did you know that Joe Satriani is the rhythm guitarist in his new band? Did you even know he has a new band? Since 2009 he's been one-quarter of Chickenfoot, alongside of Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith, but he's adamantly not the headliner here. Sort of reminds me of Paul McCartney and Wings, same thing happened there. Joe certainly is marketable, but he's at the point where he doesn't have to be marketed - he's his own force to be reckoned with, which allows him a lot of freedom to do what he wants. Right now it's submerging his own talents as a star and merging them with other talents to make a supergroup the likes of which we haven't seen since Vanilla Fudge.

And yet, Joe has said that this not the endpoint of his musical career, it's only a stop along the way. He hasn't crashed and burned, not by any means, he's only having fun in the way he sees fit. Gotta admire a man who can sit back and enjoy his surroundings, without worring about what his fanbase thinks of his current activities. (Nor for that matter, what his agent(s) and any promoters think, either.)

OK, I've imitated gumbo long enough, time to get this puppy back on track. Who else has something to impart vis-a-vis Mr. Gunn?





sumgai

[ux4484]

yes, I picked up cfoot1 on 2.99 day on Amazon.