A Ride on the Death Waltzer

Liners and obis, oh my...

The inimitable Sir Spencer Hickman.

I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while now, but I had trouble finding the time and the inclination, considering it’s a bittersweet one. I wanted to do something on the liner notes I’ve written for various things, but that also coincided with the news that good friend Spencer Hickman, who created Death Waltz Recording Company and eventually took it to Mondo to work with Mo Shafeek and Shannon Smith, is leaving Mondo and DW, along with Mo and Shannon, to do something new.

It’s sad for a number of reasons, chiefly because they made so many great releases there, but also because it followed a number of eyebrow-raising layoffs by Funko, who had previously bought the company. I don’t know anything else, and it’s not my place to speculate any further.

The thing is that Spencer was the first person to let me do this kind of thing, taking a chance on a film music nerd who bugged him about doing any kind of writing for what was at that point still a fairly new company - they launched in 2012 with Fabio Frizzi’s classic “Zombie Flesh Eaters” score, and I began working with them in 2014, beginning with their Record Store Day releases, which consisted of website copy for Clint Mansell’s “In the Wall,” Nicola Piovani’s “The Perfume of the Lady in Black,” and Nico Fidenco’s “The Degradation of Emanuelle.” Further titles followed, such as Joe Delia’s “Ms.45” and Ennio Morricone’s “Lizard in a Woman’s Skin.” Ennio fricking Morricone. That’s insane. Even more insane was being invited to write an essay for the liner notes for the 50th anniversary release of Akira Ifukube’s “Godzilla.” You know, the giant irradiated lizard I have TATTOOED ON ME.

Later, Spencer added obi strips to every release, inspired by the slip of paper found on the cover of Japanese records that itself comes from the actual obi, the sash worn by martial artists in Japan beginning around 700AD. So my words started appearing on those, starting with I think Fabio Frizzi’s “City of the Living Dead.” My memory is frazzled - thank god for Discogs.

Between Death Waltz and Mondo proper, I worked out I wrote in some capacity for around eighty releases, which is amazing. And some of the titles are astonishing, like the liner notes for “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and the award-winning miniseries “The Queen’s Gambit,” which by the way, had a great sleeve design. One of the great things about Spencer and co is the way they embraced some really creative and sometimes insane sleeves.

This led on to other work for other soundtrack releases and writing essays for Blu-ray booklets. I’ve written sleeve notes for Park Chan-wook’s “Vengeance trilogy,” Roy Budd’s essential “Get Carter” (coming soon), and even Sony’s “Watership Down” on CD and LP, the latter of which was exclusive to Barnes and Noble. I’ve also worked on booklet essays for Blu-ray releases of David Lynch’s “Dune” and “Howard the Duck” - for that, I also recorded an audio commentary with my good friend Dan Whitehead. You’d be surprised how many times in that movie you can see the performer’s eyes through the costume’s beak.

One of the greatest things about working with Spencer was having obi notes on a ton of Toho releases. Of course there’s Godzilla, but also “Rodan” and some of the weirder Toho flicks, including “Matango,” which is amazing, and “Space Ameoba.” It’s a combination of growing up watching these movies and just how good the music is - it really is wonderful. As far as I know, though, this is where it stops. I have one Toho title I’m working on now, but after that, no idea, although there were announcements on previous record covers of the final instalments of the Millennium series.

But it feels kind of melancholy, not about me, but Spencer, Mo, and Shannon going on their way, although at the same time, I can’t wait to see where they might go next. And despite what my imposter syndrome says, I’ve built up a great body of work thanks to Spencer, and it’s been an honour to work on all these great records. Maybe in some capacity, we’ll work together again someday, at least before we all die from a nuclear holocaust or super-heatstroke.