|Devin Warner|
Cinema Sorcery, an evening of music inspired by the Trylon’s Fall programming, happens at Berlin Jazz Bar on Wednesday, October 7. Featuring: Goblin covers by Thunderbolt Pagoda and magnetic DJ sets by Witching Hour. For tickets, showtimes, and other series information, visit berlinmpls.com
For those who are unfamiliar with the band Goblin (or as my Mom said upon hearing the Suspiria soundtrack she bought me for my birthday, “what is that noise?”), they are one of the most preeminent composers in cinema. They created the iconic sound for Italian giallo films such as Deep Red, Suspiria, and Dawn of the Dead, among others.
One of the most impressive things about Goblin is that for a band where the four core members Agostino Marangolo (drummer), Massimo Morante (guitarist), Fabio Pignatelli (bassist), and Claudio Simonetti (keyboardist) are synonymous with the band, there has been a total of 8 bands with the name Goblin all stemming from the original group. Lots of infighting took place between these men and all of them decided to take their ball and go home. They first began as the band Cherry 5, releasing a self-titled album that followed the adventures of a cockroach, before becoming Goblin and serving as the composers for Dario Argento’s hit film Profondo Rosso or Deep Red. The band broke up shortly after recording Dawn of the Dead in 1978, which is important because Tenebre, which is often thought of as a Goblin-scored film, was released in 1982. The core members of Goblin returned to score the film for Argento; however, they are credited by their own names rather than as Goblin. The classic four members remained broken up, with Pignatelli largely keeping the band name himself, until 2000 when Argento got them to reunite for Sleeper. They were scheduled to have a reunion concert shortly after but they fought once again and didn’t perform. Keyboardist Simonetti’s horror movie cover band Daemonia showed up to play instead. They couldn’t even keep it together for one show. Even the well-known volatile indie rock band Pavement managed to keep it together until their reunion tour ended.
After this brief reunion in 2000, there was a slew of fighting with the various members creating new bands, then fighting with the new band, and then saying, “I can do this without you” and forming another new band. In 2005, the main members, sans Simonetti, reunited to form Back to the Goblin. That lasted all of four years before Pignatelli was out and Simonetti returned to form New Goblin in 2010; Pignatelli decided he could do better and formed Goblin Rebirth. But by 2014 Simonetti left once again to be replaced by Pignatelli and the original name Goblin was once again reestablished. By 2024, the boys had once again quarreled and Goblin appeared to be done forever this time, especially in light of the death of Morante.
Today, Simonetti continues to perform full film scores under the name Simonetti’s Goblin, and Pignatelli has gone back to Goblin Rebirth. Various members brought in as session musicians in the Goblin spinoffs have now gone on to form Goblin Legacy. Despite the infighting, creating, disbanding and pettiness of these composers, they remain one of the most important composition groups in film history.
Now with all of these rotating members and a growing number of bands all trying to stake a claim to the Goblin name, the question remains: “Who is the one true Goblin?” While three of the members have performed together since breaking up (with Simonetti frequently being the odd man out), that might lead you to believe that they are the true Goblin. But upon breaking up, Claudio Simonetti continued to create the scores for Dario Argento’s subsequent films such as Opera, Mother of Tears, and The Card Player, among others. Simonetti may not have the name Goblin, but he represents the spirit and the tone of the band the best. He continues to be the man Argento turns to when he needs a new score to give his films a certain atmosphere. Even on some of Argento’s lesser offerings, Simonetti’s scores never disappoint.
After that brief Goblin lore breakdown I want to talk about my personal relationship with the band. Goblin has been a part of my life for quite some time. Like many younger millennials, my first exposure to the works of Goblin was through hearing a slightly remixed version of their track Dark Earth from the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack, which was used as the opening song to Gorillaz’ classic sophomore album Demon Days. Hearing that track when watching Dawn of the Dead in high school was neat, though I didn’t truly connect with Goblin as a band until I studied abroad at the University of York. The school library had an incredible DVD selection filled with movies I had little access to back in the States. The copy of Suspiria that they had was the special edition with the entire Goblin score as a bonus disc, which I immediately ripped to my computer. I listened to this soundtrack constantly and then delved further into Argento’s career, particularly the ones that had Goblin’s score. Due to them being a more traditional band before and a prog rock band at that, so many of their songs are enjoyable to listen to separately from the films themselves. They are one of the most atmospheric bands out there with their tempos and frequent use of off-beat percussion hits, making their music very unsettling and off-putting. Damon Albarn of Gorillaz chose to use their music on the Demon Days’s opener because he wanted a sound that would separate the listener from reality before delving into the proper album. I even had a similar immersive experience with their work in my early 20s. When I was still working in a small rural Ohio town, I walked home through an unlit wooded area listening to the Suspiria soundtrack. Listening to this atmospheric score about halfway home, I determined I had really fucked up with that musical choice. I ended up sprinting through the woods in what I’m sure could only have comically looked akin to Eva Axén’s Pat Hingle late-night flee from the opening of Suspiria.
Hearing Goblin music live is a truly fun experience because not only are all of these compositions great, but it is also cool to see the instrumentation that they use to bring these pieces to life. While watching a movie, you might think they’re using fancy equipment or specialized instruments to make certain sounds, but in reality it can be as simple as bending a string to make the perfect haunting chord. I’ve had the chance to see Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin twice: once performing the entire score for Argento’s Suspiria and again for Lamberto Bava’s Demons. Seeing a score played live was incredible because it truly highlights, for Suspiria in particular, just how important the iconic music is to making the movie as good as it is. After performing the score, Simonetti and his band came back out and played another hour and a half worth of main themes.
Now I’m not sure what songs Thunderbolt Pagoda plans to play for their Goblin set, I’m sure they’ll hit the Goblin classics such as Tenebre, Profondo Rosso and Dawn of the Dead but I hope they take a cue from Simonetti who is big on playing themes from some of his lesser-known films. During his most recent visit, playing the score for Demons, he played a track for a film I had never heard of called Cut and Run, a film from infamous Italian horror director Ruggero Deodato. The track was good, but seeing a crazed Michael Berryman attacking people in the jungle was even better. Discovering it at this concert prompted me to watch the film and then allowed me the opportunity to chat about it with Berryman at last year’s Crypticon. It’s a film no one seems to ever talk to him about. I was bummed to see that Simonetti isn’t bringing Tenebre to Minneapolis on his current tour this year. Hearing him use a voice modulator that Peter Frampton could only dream of is always a delight, and hearing him do it for the whole film would have been amazing. While we may not get that this year at least we still get to experience Thunderbolt Pagoda play Goblin’s music in a live setting that is sure to be a great time.
Edited by Finn Odum