Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – Double Happiness OST
23 April 2013 at 11:45 am
by Patrick Michalishyn
I always called this l'il bub Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet album #3.5. When I was getting into the band, Owen Gwilliam's super-informative A Shadowy Site On A Shadowy Web became a daily visit/shopping list. Some of the singles, like the wedding 7″, I knew would be next-to-impossible to find, but it didn't keep me from trying. The CDs seemed a lot easier to obtain. I went through the site, made a spreadsheet of what non-album releases I'd need to get to have every song, and got to work. Well, kind of. Owen made it easy for me and sent me about 10 burnt discs (complete with artwork!!) of everything I could've ever needed, including this soundtrack.
If there's an "official" (or silver-pressed) CD, I will hold out for that. I listened to all of the CD-Rs that Owen had sent me, except for that one. I don't know what it is, but some formats cause a cluster of synapses to pop furiously (like CD-Rs, tapes, stupid-rare vinyl-only releases). I was on a mission to find this promo-only CD soundtrack to Double Happiness. It just took some time. This time, years. The soundtrack popped up on eBay in the "international results" section during my almost-daily eBaying (I had a lot of time on my hands, mostly misspent online). I'd never seen one before. I checked the end-time and planned my snipe (pick a price, and bid in the last 30 seconds), and a couple of days later, the disc was en route
After three albums (and a heap of singles and bootlegs), this super-short release was like whipped-cream and cherries for me. The album features 25 tracks in 22 minutes. Now split the amount of tracks in two, as half of the disc is dialogue snippets from the movie (Luckily, that only takes up about four minutes, leaving 18 minutes of mostly-new Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet music!). Now split the amount of songs there are in two; half of them break the 60 second mark. But with the Shadowy Men, I'm not complaining. From their work on The Kids In The Hall, they're adept at creating a sonic nugget that'll burrow itself into your head. These vignette-length songs are just as potent as the full-length ones.
The dialogue snippets stopped being interesting after the first listen (despite not having seen the movie, I'm not a big fan when movie clips are placed between songs on albums; it kills the flow), so I ripped the music to my computer and play it over and over, 18 minutes at a time. "Theme from Double Happiness" is my favourite song, starting off with a twee, Tiny-Tim "tiptoe through the tulips" vibe, then getting a little bit loungy before the key change. Like "5 American 6 Canadian" from Dim The Lights…, the song just sounds funny, begging to score a cute cartoon. "A Chance Meeting On Some Swings" is a pretty,somber Shadowy Men song that has the same feel as "Algoma Reflections" (from Sport Fishin' with a trickling guitar line that sounds like it was ripped right from The Cramps' "Lonesome Town". They even reprise "Honey, You're Wasting Ammo" from Sport Fishin' (here as "Honey You're Wasting Ammo Again"), cutting it down to 1/3 of its original length (basically fading out at the end of the first round of the metal guitar shred). I'm pretty sure it's a newer recording, and not just an edit.
"Tow Truck Drag" is drenched in reverby goodness. "Break Free Jade" has an insistent guitar stab that sounds like a siren while the bass handles the minimal melody. "First Date" and "Drain My Second Date" are different run-throughs of the same song. Whereas the first one sounds happy and hopeful, the instrumentation is changed for "Second Date", making is sound mournful and defeated. I like how that simple melody made its comeback. There's even a song here with singing! The film's director sings on the longest song on the album, one written by her and a guy named Harley McCauley and backed by No One In Particular (the always self-deprecating Shadowy Men, chasséing out of the spotlight) is pretty fantastic, both musically and vocally. It's got passioned, a-woman-scorned vocals delivered capably by Mina, and the Shadowy Men sound… perfect! The last song, "Credits, Credits, Credits!", is the perfect curtain-bow, walk-off-into-the-sunset denouement. It sounds like everything worked itself out by this. But what do I know? I haven't seen the movie. It might end with a murder-suicide, leaving everyone upset, and this song could be full-ironic. It's a funny thought, actually. Those wacky Shadowy Men… Anyway, the soundtrack is something I'd recommend picking up. I'm sorry that there's nothing on the Youtubes that I can share from this release, but I'm sure if you dug around, you'd find it.