If you happen to be interested in Oklahoma-related movies and music, you might want to check out a couple of newly released articles penned by your faithful (sort of) correspondent.
The current issue of Fangoria, No. 270, carries the story of my visit to the set of Soul’s Midnight, a vampire film starring Armand Assante that’s due out on DVD even as we speak. My Oklahoma City-based friend and entertainment insider Bud Elder, who was helping with publicity for the movie, got me down to OKC and in to see Gray Frederickson, the Academy Award-winning producer who was overseeing Soul’s Midnight for his company, Graymark Productions. Long affiliated with Francis Ford Coppola, Gray was a producer on the Godfather films (he won his Oscar for Godfather: Part II), Apocalypse Now, and The Outsiders, among many others.
An Oklahoma native, Gray decided to return home a few years ago and make some movies that, thanks to his skill and savvy, look a lot bigger that their budgets would suggest. On Soul’s Midnight, he had a solid group of familiar faces in the lead roles, topped by the veteran Assante. I was able to visit with Mr. Assante in his trailer, and I’m happy to report that he was pretty much how you’d hope he’d be — sophisticated, kind, thoughful, and articulate. In fact, everybody on the set — beginning with Gray — seemed to go out of their way to tell me or show me whatever I might need for the story. In my nearly 30 years of writing about entertainment, I can say that this is something that doesn’t always happen in set-visit situations, and after my evening on the Soul’s Midnight set, I came away pulling for Graymark and for everyone associated with the picture.
One of those people, by the way, is Harry Basil, a stand-up comedian as well as a director, who was a protege of the late Rodney Dangerfield. Basil is justifiably proud of Soul’s Midnight, as well as another Oklahoma-lensed Graymark picture, ,Fingerprints — as you can tell from the sidebar interview I did with Harry for the Soul’s Midnight story.
I’m proud to say I’ve been appearing in Fangoria, the world’s most popular horror-movie magazine, since issue No. 23, which came out in November of ’82. I broke into Fango by writing up an interview with the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre‘s Ed Neal, who was a fellow guest at one of Larry Lankford’s wonderful Fantasy Fair conventions in Dallas. For more on the magazine and the whole Fango empire, check out www.fangoria.com
The music story appears in the current issue of Oklahoma Magazine (Vol. XII, No. 2), in which I have a bimonthly (soon to be monthly) column, It’s an interview with my pal David Teegarden, the Top 40 hitmaker (Teegarden & Van Winkle’s “God, Love, And Rock & Roll” in 1970) and longtime drummer with Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band. Dave tells the story of the long-suppressed rock ‘n’ roll/political documentary, Ten for Two, in which he, Seger, and Skip “Van Winkle” Knape appeared. It’s a fascinating story, and I hope I did it justice.
You can judge for yourself — for free — by picking up Oklahoma Magazine‘s latest issue, available at finer restaurants and clubs (and possibly, a dump or two) in the Tulsa area. I believe they’re also in some Oklahoma City venues as well. And they don’t cost a dime.
For more info, check out www.okmag.com
As always, thanks for stopping by.