Sun, 26 June 2016
A Musical AMA. Host Brandon-Shea Mutala loves music in all forms. The sounds of Star Trek are great, but this love was making him antsy. He wanted to play different kinds of music on Melodic Treks. Inspired by Reddit's popular "Ask Me Anything," Brandon-Shea opened the floodgates on Twitter, Facebook, and in The Babel Conference. He hoped listeners would ask him to play some other music. They responded admirably. In this episode of Melodic Treks, we take a more intimate look at the man behind the mic. So listen on and discover Brandon-Shea's favorite composer, his favorite summer tunes, the music that changed his life, his five favorite scores, his happy song, and his three favorite albums of all time. He also talks about his faith journey, his favorite character in each Star Trek series, and who he thinks was the best Batman! Chapters Host Production |
Sun, 19 June 2016
Star Trek Generations and Dennis McCarthy. Over the span of 18 years, Dennis McCarthy composed 257 pieces of music for Star Trek, making him the largest contributor to the sound of the franchise. During that period, he composed for 88 episodes of The Next Generation, 76 episodes of Deep Space Nine, 64 of Voyager, and 28 of Enterprise. He also scored the film Star Trek Generations. This work received a fair amount of attention from the Emmy Awards, earning him nine nominations and one win. In addition to taking home the 1993 Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Main Title Theme Music for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, he was nominated in the category of Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore) for the episodes “The Child,“ “Yesterday's Enterprise,“ “Half a Life,“ “Unification, Part I,“ “All Good Things…,“ “Heroes and Demons,“ “Workforce,“ and “The Expanse.“ In this episode of Melodic Treks, part 2 of a 13-part series on the Star Trek films, host Brandon-Shea Mutala is joined by Zach Moore to discuss McCarthy and his Star Trek contributions. We also cover his contributions to other television series including V, The Twilight Zone, MacGyver, and Sliders, as well as the film Letters from a Killer. Chapters Host Guest Production |
Sun, 12 June 2016
Goldsmith vs. Jones. Ron Jones has said that one of the major influencers on his work was Jerry Goldsmith. The latter brought fans incredible scores for film’s such as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Final Frontier, and First Contact, as well as the Emmy Award-winning theme from Star Trek: Voyager. The former was a prolific composer of the music that brought TNG to life. In this episode of Melodic Treks, host Brandon-Shea Mutala compares the plots of and scores for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Datalore” and the 1979 Sci-Fi/Horror film Alien, which was scored by Goldsmith. He also conducts an in-depth analysis of the themes and motifs used by Ron Jones in the music of “Datalore.” Chapters (All tracks composed by R. Jones except ”Hypersleep” and ”Sleepy Alien,” composed by J. Goldsmith) Host Production |
Sun, 5 June 2016
Melodic Connections: Avery Brooks and Kevin Conroy. Have you ever played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? It's a now-classic game based on the idea that any two people on Earth are just six or fewer acquaintance links apart. While Kevin Bacon has become the game's bundled playing piece, it works with other people too … even in the 24th century. In this episode of Melodic Treks, host Brandon-Shea Mutala casts galactic distances aside to put a Star Trek twist on Six Degrees. We challenged the members of The Babel Conference, Trek.fm's listeners' group on Facebook, to come up with the name of an actor to connect to Avery Brooks. The winning choice, submitted by listener Davis Grayson, was Kevin Conroy. These two actors have been in many films and television productions, so we decided to use only movies whose scores were composed by Star Trek composers. Listen on to trace a path from Brooks to Conroy. Chapters Host Production |