16th century: Legend has it (or an expressionist German film, if you wanna get into particulars) that a rabbi in Prague created a golem to protect the Jewish people from persecution. This being the era before the publication of Frankenstein, before malevolent sentient computers were even a twinkle in unborn sci-fi nerds’ unborn eyes, the rabbi was, of course, toooootally not expecting his creation to go all wacko punk rock and try to DESTROY EVERYTHING.
1920: The aforementioned film comes out in Germany, with cinematography by Metropolis mastermind, Karl Freund.
1921-2007: Film forgotten. Golem sad. It’s hard out there for a mud man.
2008: The San Francisco International Film Festival revives (ugh, sorry: total dad joke) the film and recruits Black Francis to create a live score, which he later records at Hyde Street Studios.
2010: The Golem “rock album” is released onto an unsuspecting populace! (Dad jokes and golems just go hand in mud-hand, don’t they? Sorry.) The album features a one-hour ‘rock opera’ assembled from material from an earlier, limited-edition version of the album that was sold exclusively through the Black Francis web store, as well as a DVD. This new version will be available November 16 from Amazon and… the Black Francis web store.
The Golem tracklisting:
01. Miriam and Florian theme (version 2)
02. Makanujo
03. Bad News
04. The Flower Song
05. (Oh How I Wish I Could) Stay
06. The Word
07. Astaroth
08. The Obedient Servant
09. The Maharal
10. Little Stars Theme
11. Miriam and Florian
12. The Conjuring
13. Meet Me at the Ghetto Gates
14. Stars
15. Custom All the Way
16. You’re Gonna Pay
17. The Word (reprise)
18. The Maharal (reprise)
• Black Francis: http://www.blackfrancis.net
