The Goonies Project

This is the account taken by me, Donnie Maleriamax, one week after the completion of Goonies. I'm not going to try real hard on this one, just going to put down my views on what happened over the course of those two weeks in which my life was run by that movie.

Of course, once we had the idea of doing soundtracks to movies, we decided that Goonies would eventually come up. What better choice than a movie that everyone knows scene by scene, (almost word for word for a few of us)? So the summer was spent in a sort of preparation for that day on the horizon, when Goonies was to make itself ready to do.

Sunday. Materials gathered, players prepared. It didn't take long to realize that we still had no idea what we getting ourselves into. The obvious challenge of fitting over 15 characters into a four track was in our face, and we decided on solving that problem by doing the movie scene by scene, changing tracks as often as necessary. This required something we've never encountered before as All-Stars--thinking ahead. So we got one scene done that day, "Overture." Introducing each character as a different instrument and setting the tone for the album (a tone which was destined to change each day anyway).

Burt Shmartzky quits due to creative differences. It was for the better. Parts he had recorded were left as is and the All-Stars plodded ahead. Driven by Charles Lift's pseudo-metal licks and arpeggios, the rest of the All-Stars made it through the slowly developing beginning of the movie with everyone staying with certain characters and trying to create musical personalities for the on-screen alter egos. "Attic" managed to manifest a satisfying spookiness with its quiet melodic line and random crashes and bursts of vocals and brass. The approach was finally abandoned, celebrated by the symbolic escape from the home on bicycles culminating in careless rocking out (well, as close to rocking out as you can get with a guitar and a trumpet and two guys screaming along).

The next wave of scenes, The Cabin Scenes, followed a slightly reorganized approach. They weren't so good. There's still interesting work here, especially the attempted hoots and hollars of Bobbi and the introduction of Sloth's wah-wah voice.

Once the movie gets down in the caves, the music gets more inspired than the usual Meadornack offering. By this time, we were all realizing how long this thing was really going to take. A few players had burned out early, but Donnie and Walt and Charles were still going strong at this point. Melodies were played with and the rules of the composition were stretched a little to come up with new ideas. Slippy brought his amazing Drum Set of Junk to make good bangin' for a scene in which the kids bang on water pipes and create havoc on the Country Club above.

The breakup of action between the kids and Chunk's adventures with Sloth and the Fratellis makes for good changes in mood. We got sick of doing them all piece by piece, though, and did a string of four or five scene changes in one take, switching instrument on the fly and rewinding the tape and throwing in left out parts in one take. Most All-Stars were getting tired of this wandering around tunnels they had all been doing.

The emotional peak in the soundtrack (as well, I believe, as in the film) comes at the point in which Mikey delivers his Speech at the Well. Slippy laid down a painful lament (Mikey) over a sad Charles Lift guitar riff (Mouth). No one could hear his cries during the live recording, but when the tape was played back, all were astonished. Stunning.

The songs became more self-encompassing from then on. An organ (Cop) and wah-wah song undercut Walt's yelping and crying (Chunk) in one song. The microphone wouldn't go as far into the organ as we had wanted, but it sounds pretty cop-like. A bass/guitar duel with no set grouping pattern turned out to be one of the more rythmic sections of the project. With me on bass, Charles muttered to himself "I think this is the hardest thing I've ever done." It took the two an hour to align their parts correctly to the fast changes in the Fratellis' pursuit of the Goonies, ending in the relieving but dizzying "Slick Shoes" scene. Also present at this scene, playing trumpet (Data) and theremin ("Crabs"), Walt and Bobbi sat and watched all this take place with visible frustration.

The organ scene is the first major departure of the Chaos Theory Meets Foley Artist formula loosely followed thus far. All characters were still present in instrumental form, but all played according the chord that is actually played by Andy on the "bones." From E Major to A flat diminished, this was the first time the instruments were told when and what notes to play. A truly pinnaculous moment for Walt Meadnornack and His All-Stars.

The conceptual ideal of that scene was topped only by the next, "Waterslides." Walt and I to blame here--a whole song made of water being poured into a bucket (four takes were necessary).

The last few big scenes were excercises in desperation--we really wanted to get this damn thing done. So Walt, Slippy, and I buckled down and did it. They wrote a pirate song, complete with pirate lyrics. They toiled through the same scene five or six times, doubling up on instruments and overdubbing anything they could think of. The final scene, the reunion on the beach with all the parents, was completed using a sampler for nearly all characters (except the parents, who were well represented by whistles, oboes, jew's harps, and other toys).

After another three days, I had the whole album mixed on a rough 110 minute cassette tape. It was the night before Slippy's departure to the center of Ohio. It was distibuted. We had spent about five hours a day for two weeks straight on this project, time we'd never get back. Was it worth it? Was this something we would be proud to tell people about or simply embarrased? When I later found myself in the position to watch the movie with other people in my living space, I found myself fearing the possibility of possible trauma and a case of the heavy underpants. What if I couldn't control myself in front of people? Would I ever be able to watch this film in public without falling into a manic fit? We had watched every scene over and over and over, analyzing every tonal nuance of emotion and expression. I can tell you the exact millisecond in which Brand strikes his "gay boy pose" on the Walsh's front porch. Everything. What a horribly fulfilling experience.
--Donnie