The Incredibly Strange Film Band – “Over two decades of casual knitwear and wah wah pedals”
Aside from the sideburns and unusual trouser architecture of their hairy-chested heroes, part of the magic behind cult films and TV series from the 1960s and 70s was their soundtracks. Their music was unique – regularly combining the funkiest of grooves, discordant jazz and impossibly complex arrangements - and alongside unusual camera angles helped define the style of movies of this period.
At a time when soundtrack racks in record shops are ever widening, striding into the fore come the custodians of the 1970s sound track, The Incredibly Strange Film Band. Celebrating their 22nd anniversary this year, the role of this London-based film band is to bring this extraordinary music to new ears and to reacquaint older audiences to tunes they have not heard for decades but they can hum so deep-seated are they in their sub-conscious.
A 10-piece band with brass section and flamboyant guest vocalists, The Incredibly Strange Film Band specialise in the film and TV theme music of the 70’s. For example there’s the bad-ass sounds of Lalo Schrifin, who wrote the themes to many top films of this era such as Enter the Dragon and Dirty Harry. Where else could you hear a rip-roaring rendition of the sounds that accompanied the Robert Shaw-led New York tube train hijacking that is The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 and the funk magnificence of rain-coated Sidney Poitier in They Call Me Mr Tibbs or blow your mates away to Michael Caine in Get Carter or a composite of Tarantino’s more contemporary Pulp Fiction? Watch your beer tremble to their full-Bassey shaken and stirred rendition of the Bond classic Goldfinger.
Yet the Incredibly Strange Film Band is not only about playing homage to the music of testosterone-fuelled indestructible blokes with large guns and babes with big hair. Yeah folks, they show a sensitive side too, with the kitsch heartfelt tear jerker, Doris Day’s Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps, the Andy Williams crooner, Music to Watch Girls By and the gonad wrenching falsetto of Sesame Street plus the amateur art sounds of the vibiest vibes of Vision On.
There is something for 1970s TV watchers too – listeners can practise their bonnet slide to the ISFB’s arrangement of Starsky & Hutch, or can prounce around catsuited to The Avengers, try out Lewis Collins’ patent jaw clenching during The Professionals or simply titter at the memory of the young Roger Moore, black and white and complete with moving face, in The Saint.
From the early days playing it’s part in London’s famed ‘Easy Listening Revival Scene’ the ISFB have entertained constantly all across the UK and have played numerous festivals including Glastonbury (twice), the Big Chill and the Bristol Harbourside Festival. And from 2002 to 2014 we were the house band for the annual British Independent Film Awards playing for the top names in British and international cinema.
All of this is delivered with a suitable humour befitting their celebration of one of the more eccentric components of our rich TV and cinematic history… …to Shaft, to Bond, and Beyond…