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DavePSB · #1 Post by **DavePSB** » Thu 15 Sep 2005, 6:49 pm

BBC news website

Pet Shop Boys bid for Battleship tour

The Trafalgar Square screening tied in to anti-war protests last year
British duo the Pet Shop Boys have expressed their hopes of touring with their soundtrack to the classic Sergei Eisenstein film Battleship Potemkin.
Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe first gave a public performance of the soundtrack at a free concert in London's Trafalgar Square in September last year, alongside a screening of the 1925 film .

At the time, the concert was linked to anti-war sentiment in the UK capital.

Tennant told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme he was hopeful of taking the performance on tour - specifically to places where the film's message could be highly sensitive.

"We would love to do it in other, specifically political places - I think to do this in Tiananmen Square would be incredible; to play the Odessa staircase sequence where that terrible massacre happened," he said.

"I don't think they'd ever let us do it - which is interesting, because it's a Communist regime, and it's a supposedly Communist film.

"We have actually approached Iran, to perform in Tehran with this. Of course Tehran is nominally a revolutionary society - but they're not having it."

Music and images

The duo, who first achieved success in the 1980s with hits such as West End Girls and It's A Sin, recorded the soundtrack with the Dresden Sinfoniker orchestra.

Battleship Potemkin, which details the brutal suppression of the Russian Revolution of 1905, was originally a silent film - but it was the wish of director Eisenstein that it have a new soundtrack every 10 years.

Some critics were unimpressed by the new soundtrack
Most existing copies of the film are either silent or feature a version of Dmitry Shostakovich's 5th Symphony spliced to fit the scenes.

Tennant also told The Music Biz why the duo originally took on the job.

"We don't really ever have the opportunity to write a long piece of music - 70-odd minutes long," he said.

"Originally we were asked to do it and perform it as a free concert in Trafalgar Square. It seemed an amazing thing to be asked to do... there's something about the epic scale of it that appealed to us."

Lowe explained that the soundtrack was crafted on keyboards, working to fit the music to the images.

"The screen was totally in sync with the music that we were creating.

"The images suggested certain types of music, for instance Full Steam Ahead, where the ships were going at full speed... we used that as a starting point using all sorts of industrial sounds.

"The images kind of suggested the musical style that we would be doing."

Dipso · #2 Post by **Dipso** » Thu 15 Sep 2005, 6:59 pm

The full interview can be heard here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/progr ... _biz.shtml

Pani · #3 Post by **Pani** » Thu 15 Sep 2005, 7:23 pm

Thanx!

Janet Street-Porter · Thu 15 Sep 2005, 8:15 pm

I'm certainly surprised that the Iranians didn't allow a couple of renowned homosexualists to perform a revolutionary piece in the middle of Tehran.

Next week Neil asks The Queen her permission to bum Prince Edward in Pall Mall during the Trooping of the Colour.

Dipso · #5 Post by **Dipso** » Fri 16 Sep 2005, 10:14 am

Janet Street-Porter wrote:I'm certainly surprised that the Iranians didn't allow a couple of renowned homosexualists to perform a revolutionary piece in the middle of Tehran.

Next week Neil asks The Queen her permission to bum Prince Edward in Pall Mall during the Trooping of the Colour.

Don't put ideas into his head!

dVTB · #6 Post by **dVTB** » Fri 16 Sep 2005, 11:00 am

Janet Street-Porter wrote:I'm certainly surprised that the Iranians didn't allow a couple of renowned homosexualists to perform a revolutionary piece in the middle of Tehran.

Agreed. This is probably the most insane thing Neil ever did in his life: asking to perform in a country that puts homosexuals (even teens, like recently happened) to death.

*sigh* Why is Neil wasting energy on such things? Why not invest time in some promotion in either the USA or Europe?

Zeus On The Loose · Fri 16 Sep 2005, 11:14 am

Yeah, why is he wasting time on going on and on about a failed side-project noone cares about. He should just shut up and let Chris do all the talking while they both work on making a decent new album.

Vince · #8 Post by **Vince** » Fri 16 Sep 2005, 11:17 am

dVTB wrote: *sigh* Why is Neil wasting energy on such things? Why not invest time in some promotion in either the USA or Europe?

Now thats not fair.... expecting them to do promotion only in the west.....

dVTB · #9 Post by **dVTB** » Fri 16 Sep 2005, 11:30 am

Vince wrote:
dVTB wrote: *sigh* Why is Neil wasting energy on such things? Why not invest time in some promotion in either the USA or Europe?
Now thats not fair.... expecting them to do promotion only in the west.....

Why on earth would PSB want to perform in any country that doesn't respect human rights, or in particular in a country were homosexuality is punished with the death penalty? Do you think Seal would perform on the next KKK convention?

If you look back at the very poor promotion of PopArt, and the lack of effort they put in it, it's even more remarkable to see how much effort they put into promoting this low-key release.

Zeus On The Loose wrote:Yeah, why is he wasting time on going on and on about a failed side-project noone cares about. He should just shut up and let Chris do all the talking while they both work on making a decent new album.

It's not necessarily a 'failed' project if you don't like it. It's just not commercially successful, but that was never the intention of this project, hence the 'Tennant/Lowe' release. My problem is not that they wish to perform this soundtrack 300 times in as many countries as they want to, my problem is Iran in particular, as I tried to explain.

Or: why not promote PopArt in [fill in the name of any European country that's not named England, Germany or Norway], while putting energy into performing Battleship Potemkin in anti-gay Iran?

Zeus On The Loose · Fri 16 Sep 2005, 11:37 am

Maybe because world-peace is more important than gay rights in the Middle East and they'd rather perform an original piece of music they have written in a place that intrigues them and would ultimately be a far more important political statement than Stonewall and maybe because they're human and artists and not gayers firstly and foremostly and the O.S.T has nothing to do with being gay at all?

jamie1978 · #11 Post by **jamie1978** » Fri 16 Sep 2005, 12:21 pm

Zeus On The Loose wrote:Maybe because world-peace is more important than gay rights in the Middle East and they'd rather perform an original piece of music they have written in a place that intrigues them and would ultimately be a far more important political statement than Stonewall and maybe because they're human and artists and not gayers firstly and foremostly and the O.S.T has nothing to do with being gay at all?

Well said.

Dipso · #12 Post by **Dipso** » Fri 16 Sep 2005, 12:30 pm

In another interview Neil said that the British Embassy in Tehran said they couldn't and shouldn't perform there. I don't think the project ever got anywhere near the Iranian authorities.

jamie1978 · #13 Post by **jamie1978** » Fri 16 Sep 2005, 12:31 pm

Ugh, when will this Potemkin misery end?

The album has been released, and it has failed miserably to ignite anyones interest apart from their own.

dVTB · #14 Post by **dVTB** » Fri 16 Sep 2005, 2:28 pm

Zeus On The Loose wrote:Maybe because world-peace is more important than gay rights in the Middle East and they'd rather perform an original piece of music they have written in a place that intrigues them and would ultimately be a far more important political statement than Stonewall and maybe because they're human and artists and not gayers firstly and foremostly and the O.S.T has nothing to do with being gay at all?

I disagree with this. A consequence of PSB performing in Iran would be that they agree with the government in this country. The way you say it, it appears that their personal preference as artists ('a place that intrigues them') is more important than the crimes against humanity this country commits. And despite some threatening language from the USA, Iran is currently not in war with any other country, as far as I'm aware.

Of course they are first of all artists, but they are also both openly gay. Would you come to perfom in the Netherlands, if we had a law over here that says: "All Greeks should be killed" ?

dVTB · #15 Post by **dVTB** » Fri 16 Sep 2005, 2:32 pm

jamie1978 wrote:Ugh, when will this Potemkin misery end?

The album has been released, and it has failed miserably to ignite anyones interest apart from their own.

Why do you continue to emphasize that the album has failed miserably? Trafalgar Square was totally filled on 12 September 2004 and the concerts in Germany were also attended well enough. The album has entered the German album charts (one of their 2 biggest markets), so that's even a small commercial success for a low-key side-project.

What do you expect? That this album spends weeks in the UK album Top 10 or so? If they wanted to achieve such a result with this album, they would have promoted it with singles.