“Last Days of Left Eye” was released on DVD on September 9.

“Go-Go Beach“ played a few more places including high schools in Australia and Metro Detroit, bringing us to 107 lifetime performances spanning 4 countries and 12 US states.

I wrote the music for a full-length dance show conceived and choreographed by Jeff Shade called “Playground“ which was presented in December at the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center.

Here’s a quick overview of some things coming up for us in 2009.

• March 25-29 – “Go-Go Beach” at Centennial High School in Roswell, GA.
• April 18 – Mike’s newest choral work, “I Want More Life”, will be premiered by the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus for the occasion of the Tony Kushner Celebration at the Guthrie Theater. Commissioned by the Chorus especially for the Kushner Festival, the work is a TTBB setting of a monologue from Kushner’s play “Angels In America: Perestroika”. The performance will be at the Festival’s Community Kick-Off event prior to the opening of “Caroline, or Change”.
• May 3 – “I Want More Life” will be performed by the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis at a concert in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Minneapolis-based professional chorus VocalEssence. The TC-GMC was invited to join five other choruses to mark the occasion. (tickets)
• May 8-9, 15-16 – “Go-Go Beach” at ShowBiz Starz in Taylor, MI.
• May 15 – The second performance of “I Want More Life” in conjunction with the Tony Kushner Celebration at the Guthrie Theatre, performed opening night of the world premiere of Kushner’s new play “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures“.
• June 2 – The third and fourth performances of “I Want More Life”, for the Guthrie’s “Talk-About” series.
• June 6-7 – “Through A Glass, Darkly”, performed by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC at Lisner Auditorium – GW Campus, Washington, DC. (tickets)
• June 8 – The fifth performance of “I Want More Life”, prior to Tony Kushner’s “Global Voice” talk at the Guthrie Theatre.
• June 19-20 – “Through A Glass, Darkly”, performed by the Miami Gay Men’s Chorus at the Miami Beach Colony Theatre.

That’s not to say I’m not doing anything… just nothing with dates yet. Ben Britten, Mike, and I are writing an iPhone game, hopefully releasable by mid-year. Being our first game together, we really don’t have any idea how long it will take to complete, tho. I am also developing a theatre-related website with some folks, but it’s too early to talk about that. And a few music projects in mind, once the paying work clears up.

Mike is also scoring a short film by filmmaker Andrew Lund and edited by our film cohort John Daschbach. It is looking to be a serious contender this film festival season. There are some rumblings about possible future choral commissions, too. More as things develop.

If you’re still mad that Mo’nique’s “Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School” preempted seeing our names in the credits, get yourself a copy and re-enjoy the movie too.

Click the image below to purchase from Amazon, and Frankie and Roscoe will get a scoop of food on you.

This brings the number of titles in the FatLab DVD library to three — Waking Dreams, Through A Glass, Darkly, and now Left Eye.

(Netflixers, click here to add “Left Eye” to your queue.)

Previously:

• Lauren Lazin NPR interview and New York Times review
• Cue LL42 Cotton Club
• Left Eye advance press
• Cue LL39 (+ Vh1 airdate announced for “Last Days of Left Eye”)
• “Last Days of Left Eye” opens 31st Atlanta Film Festival
• SXSW 07

Singer at the End of Time: The Video Diary of Lisa Lopes –Virginia Heffernan, New York Times, May 19 2007

About 9 minutes into the documentary when Lisa is talking about her grandfather playing at the Cotton Club, there is a 25 second cue of old-time swing music. Well, I wrote that and the full cue is 2:38. I also wrote it for trumpet, but was asked to switch it to sax to fit Lisa’s story.

Since MTV owns this track and the guys at the club worked really hard to learn it, here is the full Cue LL42, as I intended it, for trumpet, clarinet, trombone, tenor sax, piano, bass, and drums.

(btw, there were no guys at the club. it’s all synth.)

Can’t find these two online yet, but People Magazine (3 of 4 stars) and Entertainment Weekly (B+) are also running reviews. First airdate is this Saturday, May 19 at 9pm Eastern, with more showings over the weekend. (Showtimes)

Clipping from People Magazine

Clipping from Entertainment Weekly

(Click above to see the full postcard.)

So since we don’t have cable, someone set your DVR for Saturday, May 19 – 9pm EDT. (More showtimes)

In celebration, we’re posting another track used in the film. I should mention that we didn’t score this film to picture. We met weekly with the director, Lauren Lazin, and produced a custom library of music for editor David Beinstein to cut to. The final variations on 80+ tracks and themes totaled over 4 hours of music. We wrote each track to have a lot of variety to choose from, and often times they chose just a certain 15 seconds of a couple minute long track. So we are posting cue “LL39″ (for lack of a better name) here in its entirety so that it does not go unheard.

Mike and I couldn’t go to this screening, but a quick Google search brings back these reports:

• VH1s Last Days of Left Eye –allurbangossip.com
• The life and death of ‘Left Eye’ –accessatlanta.com (evil registration required)
• SOUND CHECK: MUSIC INSIDER: IN APPRECIATION OF…Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes–accessatlanta.com, Sonia Murray of Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Lisa Lopes: All eyes on ‘Left Eye’ –atlanta.creativeloafing.com
• Smiles, tears for ‘Left Eye’ documentary –Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mike and I scored this documentary, which has been playing in European and US Film Festivals, and is expected to air on Vh1 this June.

This track is the main recurring “Theme from Last Days.”