“‘Oh that’s it! Angelo, oh that’s tearing my heart out, I love that, just keep that going. Now, she’s starting to leave, to fall down, keep falling, keep falling and falling. Now go back into the dark woods, that’s it, keep going … just keep it going, very quiet and mysterious.’ David got up and gave me a big hug, he said Angelo … that’s Twin Peaks.’”
As is customary for celebrity these days, there was an online outpouring of appreciation for composer Angelo Badalamenti when he died mid-December. Unlike other pop culture passings, the most-respected musicians, composers, filmmakers, and artists that were the ones doing the appreciating. It’s not a surprise, since Badalamenti collaborated with Nina Simone to the Pet Shop Boys, Dusty Springfield to David Bowie, Siouxsie Sioux to Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries. He scored National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, he scored A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, he scored The City of Lost Children. And, of course, he was the essential collaborator of David Lynch; it was Badalamenti who solidified the dark, ethereal, dream-and nightmare-like composition of many of Lynch’s best works, including Twin Peaks (you can really feel their relationship on the above quote), Wild at Heart, Lost Highway (it was this soundtrack that featured Bowie and NIN that introduced Angelo to ’90s music fans who then became die-hard lovers of his style), and others. The appreciation continues at the Parkway with a musical tribute and screening of Lynch’s early masterpiece Blue Velvet, the film that included so many of what would become his trademarks— like Kyle McLaughlin, unnerving surrealism, and dark comedy—that is so effective, thanks in large part to Badalamenti’s musical work. Arrive early to hear duo Danger Pins—vocalist/guitarist Shannon Pettini and vocalist/percussionist Joseph Pettini—imagine and present a live music tribute to Badalamenti to set the tone for Blue Velvet.