What A Good Score! – # 30: The Boys by The Necks
What A Good Score! – # 30: The Boys by The Necks
What A Good Score is an occasional series here at Off The Tracks – looking at movie soundtracks, the good, the band and the astounding…
Australian film The Boys is brutal, and it had a huge impact on me. I was craving these sorts of films at exactly the time when I saw it, right when the film was released. In fact, I saw a promo VHS copy of it because my upstairs neighbour was a journalism student, and she had been given the early screener because she was interviewing the film’s star. It wasn’t a big budget feature, it didn’t even play in cinemas in New Zealand (I’m pretty sure). But wow. What a film. And it’s part of a legacy of incredible Australian movies that I absolutely adore. They’re too full on for many, but there is a poetry in beauty within the ugliness they show for the screen. There’s a bravery – in the filmmaking, a poignancy.
In the case of The Boys, part of the magic was in the music, sparse, intense, beautiful, so full of just the right kind of movement. I hadn’t really heard film music like that. Or at least, if I had, I hadn’t noticed it (and that’s obviously one of the goals of a lot of score, to just be there, but to mostly go undetected).
My viewing of the film cut off before the credits and I never thought to investigate who made the music.
And I’ve never watched the film I second time. I’m ready now – but for the longest while it felt like one of those films that would just stay with me forever. I mean, it has. But I need to see David Whenham in that role again. And Toni Collette in hers. I’m such big fans of both, here they were still in their infancy in a sense, but so utterly captivating and amazing.
Anyway, fast-forward about three years, and I’m seeing Australian band The Necks at the Wellington Jazz Festival. And, I’ve written about this often. It was a mindblowing gig, perhaps a life-changing experience in some sense. I read the advance-hype and decided they were the band for me. Somewhere in that blurb it mentioned the music of The Boys and that was enough to have me fully hooked. I got in early and sat in the front row, three metres from the band. They played with full heart and soul, two sets, each one a 45-60 minute improvised piece of fluid, forward-moving music. And I was transfixed. I bought two of their albums from the merch stand, because that was all I could afford on the night. And I listened to those two albums nearly non-stop, until I could find and afford more. Including, eventually, the soundtrack to The Boys.
I’ve been buying each new Necks album ever since.
Their usual ‘thing’ is to make one side of music. So a CD is 45-75 minutes long. A couple of the albums have been made specifically for the vinyl format, so a 23-minute side of music followed by another on the flip, a contrasting mood. Or a double-LP that has four sides of differing vibes. Some of the earliest albums have 10 and 20-minute pieces, rather than the usual album-lengther. And of course their soundtrack to The Boys features cues, but most of them still clock towards three and four minutes, and a couple are 10 – rolling, improvised, and then cut in and around the movie’s scenes. The Boys is comparable to Paul Kelly’s music for Lantana. Kelly in fact had The Necks (and their debut album, Sex) on his mind when approaching his score for Lantana. I’ve played the two albums together, and alone for years.
I lost my copy of The Boys a while back, traded it in during a mad rush no doubt. And regretted it. A few years later they reissued it with a couple of bonus tracks, 10th Anniversary of the film or something. And I kept that new CD copy for a while. Then sold it or loaned it – and again regretted it. The Necks don’t really like their music being on Spotify. And fair enough. They are an albums band. It is about the experience of sitting down with their music. They also don’t write hit singles. They are in no danger of becoming a runaway success. They are a cult band that has been making exploratory music through the jazz-trio medium for closing in on 40 years now. And they are one of my favourite groups of the last quarter century. To think about, write about, and listen to.
I just paid full price for a brand new CD copy of The Boys – and I’m so glad I did. Playing it through for the first time in a while, as a whole album, I was struck about how it is the perfect business card for the band, and all they do. And it makes me want to find the movie for that long-delayed second screening. I dream, always, of seeing The Necks again. I follow their updates, and try to hope I’ll be in Aussie when they’re playing there next, or will they be in America when I’m on holiday; will they ever come back to New Zealand? Their pianist was born here, and once I interviewed him live on air in Australia on a friend’s radio show. But that’s another story. Though I’m beyond thrilled to say that actually happened. Sometimes you have to pinch yourself.
Like the movie, I’ve only seen The Necks that one time. And it’s stayed with me forever.