Roger Daltrey has taken on the roles of tour guide, time travelerand history student to host the new program, Extreme History, onThe History Channel. G&E’s Glenn Schloss and Erik Blicker composed,recorded and delivered a rootsy-techno theme song to ExtremeHistory‘s producers Matt Ginsberg and David Leepson of New YorkCity’s Boom Pictures.
Schloss said that their winning theme song came out of a G&E jamextravaganza, recorded to Pro Tools at G&E’s New York City studio.”Erik and I had a great session, just jamming on some grooves,” relayedSchloss. “I was programming and creating loops in real time with Blickjamming along on acoustic guitar. We created some great drum loops onthe Korg Electribe. We played around with different thematic conceptsinspired by these grooves and eventually settled on this nasty littleslide guitar melody, which became the official theme.”
G&E’s Schloss, Blicker, Brian Quill and Rauri Finan contributednearly 200 tracks during the course of four to six months while theshow was being produced.
“We essentially created an exclusive Extreme History Libraryfor them to choose cuts from,” noted Schloss. “When Boom started theproject, they were a bit frustrated with most of the library music theyhad at their disposal—having to audition and preview track aftertrack only to come up short or just not be totally satisfied with themusic. So they hired G&E to create a custom music palette for themand their editors. It turned out to be a great partnership.”
On a show-by-show basis, the composers at G&E would score to avibe described by the producers “instead of picture in manycases,” noted Blicker. “There were all different dramatic cues: bighits going into an eerie, death-is-around-the-corner, to happy big hugepanoramic views of the mountains. All the drama cues you could expectfrom a show like this.” Without seeing a visual, G&E FTP’d severaltracks at a time, composed to order by vibe, so that the producers hada selection from which to draw. Schloss and Blicker worked with a fewdifferent editors, making changes speedily and efficiently over theInternet.
Like the theme song, the score combines acoustic strums and picks,with electronic grooves and beat box hits. “We wanted the music to feelorganic but not dated,” said Ginsberg. “We told them, it’s cool to runwith loops and beats, but we don’t want a ‘Playdough’soundtrack that was entirely squeezed out of a keyboard. So the boysfrom G&E kept it real and banged on some guitars and their dozensof pieces of percussion. These guys got dirty, which is what the showwas all about. We hear from a lot of people who dig the show and raveabout the music!”
For more information, visit www.gemusic.com.
