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Sex soundtrack evolves, porn industry focuses on music |
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Written by ASAP
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Wednesday, 17 May 2006 |
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Porn music is cheesy. Even the sanctified masses who claim never to have laid eyes on an adult film know this to be true.
It’s all funky guitars grinding out BOW-chic-A-bow-WOWs over fat bass and sleazy beats, right?
That’s what Adam Goldman of Los Angeles-area band Bedroom Walls thought. Then an adult film director asked him if he could use the two compositions from the band’s new album in his movie.
The last thing one might expect to hear as a backdrop to a skin flick is the warbly, bell-like hum of a vibraphone solo. Or a delicate, electro ballad titled “In Anticipation of Your Suicide” that is also decidedly un-groovy.
“It’s kind of a weird fit,” Goldman says, summing up his band’s sound as “romanticore” or “orchestral indie rock.”
“We’re not the kind of band we’d normally associate with pornography,” he says.
In hopes of expanding their audience, some purveyors of adult fare have begun mining indie labels and MySpace.com to find music that appeals to punk rockers, indie shoe-gazers, goths and others throughout the ultra-hip alternative strata.
Last month, VCA Pictures, a unit of Larry Flynt Productions, released a film featuring some 30 songs by more than 25 indie and unsigned bands, all plucked from MySpace. Other films with music from young bands are in the works from VCA and industry powerhouse Vivid Entertainment Group.
“This is a different generation,” said Eon McKai, producer and director at Vivid Alt, a unit of the Los Angeles-based company launched with the mission to dish out porn for the alternative crowd.
McKai went to this year’s South by Southwest music festival in Austin to chat up bands and labels for future projects.
“It’s kind of hipster porn, youth culture scene-related porn,” he said.
One upcoming Vivid Alt release, “Rebelle Rousers,” features a track by the 13 Cats, a rockabilly band that includes former Stray Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom.
“Putting real music that’s real to the scene in adult films gives the movie legs,” said McKai, whose stage name is clearly an homage to uber-independent musician and Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye, a man who would probably rather sell his limbs than let his music be in a porn movie.
While superstar recording artists aren’t beating down the adult industry’s doors, some better-known acts, such as punk rockers Rancid and rappers Kurupt and Lil Jon have licensed songs for adult films.
Lil Jon actually made a non-erotic cameo in his feature, “Lil Jon’s Vivid Vegas Party.”
“He was involved in the entire production from beginning to end -- on set when we shot the movie, he created all the music and allowed us to use his name as part of the marketing,” said Vivid CEO Steven Hirsch.
VCA, meanwhile, released an R-rated version of the film based on a music video shoot for Kurupt -- he’s also not involved in any sex scenes -- that’s available in record stores, said Peter Reynolds, vice president of sales and marketing at VCA.
Such deals are rare in a multibillion-dollar industry that cranks out product on shoestring budgets, often relegating music to little more than an afterthought, taken from a stock music library or created with do-it-yourself music software.
The release of several anthologies of 1970s porn music in recent years suggests
nostalgia for the cheesier compositions of the past is alive and well. But to woo hipper, younger audiences, auteurs in the new porn game have realized they need to make music at least as important as set design, acting and plot.
Hey, maybe even more important.
“There’s always going to be people who like meat and potatoes porn, but this is a generation raised on MTV and everything has to be taken up a little,” said Ron Royster, who produces and directs films for VCA. “They’re expecting better music and better visuals.”
His latest feature, “Atomic Vixens: Escape From The Valley of The Sluts,” comes with a second DVD loaded with MP3s of bands culled from MySpace.
“Anytime you release your music on a compilation or a movie soundtrack or whatever, it does give you a bit of exposure, which is always good,” said Ashe Ruppe, half of a Fort Worth, Texas, goth duo called The Elysium Facade, who licensed one of its songs for “Atomic Vixens.”
The bands rarely get any money on these deals. They often settle for being given a song credit at the end of the film or having a link to their Web site advertised in the credits or the DVD box.
Porn-as-marketing isn’t for every artist, however.
While Goldman helped finance his band’s first record by jamming out more conventional-sounding fare for some 25 adult films under the name Chuck Bronco, his decision to license music created by his band for use on “New Wave Hookers,” a VCA film directed by McKai, didn’t sit well with one of his bandmates.
“I was sort of heartbroken that music I participated in is one of those films,” said keyboard player Melissa Thorne, who was on hiatus from the band when Goldman cleared the songs for use in the film.
Management at Bedroom Walls’ indie label, Baria Records, was supportive, however.
“Something you realize at cocktail parties is everybody, whether they love or hate or are indifferent to porn, everybody loves to talk about porn,” Goldman said. “The label saw it as ‘this is great.’ They only saw it as a great opportunity.” | Only registered users can write comments.
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