Album Review: Rob J Kennedy - 1950's Sci Fi Suite

Rob J Kennedy

1950's Sci Fi Suite

** out of *****

A few months ago I heard the song "Telstar" by The Tornadoes for the first time. One of the reasons I review music all over the map is because there is so much amazing stuff out there that I never knew about, such as a genre known as Space Age Pop. Needless to say I went youtube diving and found a bunch of cool tunes, so when Robert J Kennedy's 1950's Sci Fi Suite came onto our bandcamp radar earlier in Jazzy January we knew we wanted to cover it.

Kennedy is a an Australian composer who has dreams of becoming a "movie music composer" and posts prolifically on bandcamp. The majority of these tunes are synth keyboard based but with lots of flourishes. The album does exactly what it sets out to do, pay homage to 1950's Sci Fi Films, if not that energetically; no big rocket chase or laser climax here, just drifting mellow sounds, rising and falling.

Using strings, sounds and metallic bleeps and bloops the mood is set for each song. "A Woman? Are You Serious?" vacillates back and fourth while "I Had My Molecules Rearranged" just floats through the cosmos propelled by a light flute. The swelling and vibraphone work of "The Mad Scientists Brain Ticks Over" is a fun ride, but feels more contemporary worldly than retro 50's gazing.

Things are a too much one note though as "The Brain That Slowly Ate The World" is dull and never lives up to it's title hype while "The Creeping Unknown" offers pleasant flute, but it is a path Kennedy has shown us a few times already. A bit more variety around the genre would have been appreciated as some of those early Sci Fi Films had a sense of humor about them that isn't represented here.

Not being very knowledgeable of 50's Sci Fi movies (outside those featured on MST3K that is) the titles could mean something, thus the songs may match up to black and white scenes, which would be cool, but not necessary to the listening experience.  The album could work as a score, background music, or a mellow headphone trip out to the stars, whatever is your pleasure.
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MST3K Returns Friday! A Look Back Part 2: Our Favorites

It is pretty amazing that one of the smartest television ideas/written shows is returning this Friday with new episodes on Netflix. Mystery Science Theater 3000 gets a full on reboot on the streaming service starting, April 14th.

Original creator Joel Hodgson did a crowd sourcing campaign to get the Satellite of Love back into space, to be tormented by bad movies and it was wildly successful. For those not aware of the original show, the gimmick was bad movies (really bad movies) would play and a human with two robot sidekicks would make quick fire sarcastic retorts, 70's cultural references and intelligent quips that you had to really think about at the screen and with the viewer. The humor was all over the map, from fart jokes to grand sociological statements.

That may sound like high praise, but the show clearly took a lot from the great Monty Python in that they played up to their audience always expecting them to be smart enough to get the jokes, they did win a Peabody after all.

Yesterday we focused on the shows classic episodes. Those are pretty rock solid and almost all fans would agree those five are their most known/beloved episodes, however everybody has their personal choices for various reasons.

For instance, one episode that just missed this list is Time of The Apes a Japanese TV show cut together and then showed as a movie somehow. I use the quote "I Don't Care!" on a daily basis, and every time I watch the beginning of that episode I still laugh:


There are countless moments like these so click on that read more button and dive in...we got movie sign!!!

MST3K Returns Friday! A Look Back Part 1: The Classics

It is pretty amazing that one of the smartest television ideas/written shows is returning this Friday with new episodes on Netflix. Mystery Science Theater 3000 gets a full reboot on the streaming service starting April 14th.

Original creator Joel Hodgson did a crowd sourcing campaign to get the Satellite of Love back in the stratosphere to be tormented by bad movies and it was wildly successful. For those not aware of the original show, the gimmick was bad movies (really bad movies) would play and a human with two robot sidekicks would make quick fire sarcastic retorts, 70's cultural references and intelligent quips. The humor was all over the map, from fart jokes to grand sociological statements.

That may sound like high praise, but the show clearly took a lot from the great Monty Python in that they played up to their audience, always expecting them to be smart enough to get the jokes, they did win a Peabody after all.

There is also a direct musical connection (not including the countless musical references during the shows themselves) as Joel mentioned in past interviews that he got the idea for the look of the main scenes from an insert picture on Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Over the last year, we've had some extra time on our hands and the show we've watched the most without question is MST3K, they are constantly funny and immensely re-watchable. Thanks to the amazing fans there are tons of episodes online.

To commemorate the return of the show we wanted to take some time on RtBE to talk up our favorites. These posts are not meant to be comprehensive, you can go to other sites for more info as the internet is full of them. We are however dedicating two posts it, which will highlight 10 episodes total. Today we will focus on The Classic Episodes, tomorrow our Personal Favorite's. Click that read more below to dive into Part 1: The Classics