We started before we knew we had won the contest, brainstorming what sort of music to use and who could provide it for us. We sent out feelers to musicians we knew and people we knew who knew people we wanted. The initial response was strong, with people from New Orleans to San Diego expressing enthusiasm. But while we heard “count me in” often enough, time passed and we didn’t hear anything else.

Specifically, we didn’t hear any music. As the deadline loomed, my emails to musicians asking for status went unanswered. One of the guys out in New Orleans, Mr. Neato, was working on some stuff and making progress, but so far I haven’t heard it any of it. I was starting to worry. fuego was calm, though. We had a lot of lines in the water; one was sure to get a bite.

While we waited, we also sent pie-in-the-sky messages to major bands (and actors) we thought would be ideal. Neither Flogging Molly nor any of the others ever got back to us. No surprise, but hey, a guy can dream.

Enter Genie, owner of the Wild Horse Mesa Bar. “My nephew’s in a band,” she said, “and he was wondering if you needed any music for your movie.” It took her three more days to relay the word “yes” back to the guy, and in the meantime we missed a chance to hear him play. Finally she gave Rudy the musician’s number on the back of a business card and Rudy passed it to me. “Cloud,” the card said, followed by a number.

It turns out Cloud is his middle name, which led to some confusion in phone messages, as he called himself Eddie. Once we got that straightened out, we agreed to meet up so we could hear the stuff he and his buddies were working on. Sunday afternoon we met Cloud and his squeeze and followed him to his friend Martin’s house. They rummaged around for a bit and found some tracks martin had been working on, and they were pretty good. One was definitely usable. fuego and I explained a bit more of what we were looking for, and Cloud thought of a piece they had just been working on, with a punk beat, strong rhythm guitar – and slide guitar on top. They couldn’t dig up a recording of it, so they set up and did the drums and rhythm guitar live and they were rocking, and I was imagining just how the the opening titles would go with that music. They also do country music, and fuego and I discussed how to move from the raucous highway music to the interior of the bar before the pirates arrive, and if these cats can put those things together we have music that is not just good enough, it’s downright tasty.

Not all the music issues are solved, but we’ve got music coming in from other sources now as well, and anything they don’t cover I’m confident my man Cloud and his friends can fill in.

Rock on, Scurvy Dogs!

1

Sweet!

Thanks!