From ANDRAS JONES: TOM PATTERSON is the music supervisor on Lodge 49. (Check out their Spotify playlist) He’s also one of the editors at Shindig Magazine in the UK. Thus, when we spoke to him on July 24th, Tom was experiencing something akin to what we in the US may have been feeling in November of 2016, in response to the ascension of Boris Johnson to prime minister of his home country. This event forms the basis for Tom’s Pop Oracle question, but what I find most interesting about this conversation were the parallels to be drawn between Tom and the character Jocelyn Pugh played by Adam Godley in Lodge 49. Both are Englishmen whose jobs take them to California. Both are born into a relationship with fraternal orders. Sure, Tom looks cooler in shades and he’s probably a better dancer than Jocelyn but there’s definitely an odd connection between these two worried Brits and their Long Beach dreams.

In the episode Tom mentions the “manifesto” he wrote for Lodge 49. The following is not that. Unfortunately, it holds confidential information which cannot, at this time, be divulged. Instead we have this essay which, I have to say, is very illuminating.

From TOM PATTERSON: “Wherein a gold ring leads a wounded squire to a castle sheltering the fading embers of magic in a dying kingdom…”

So reads the title page of Episode 1 of Lodge 49. It’s not every day you receive a script that opens with such an otherworldly prologue, especially one that’s superficially about the working class denizens of a Long Beach fraternal lodge and the inner machinations of the SoCal plumbing business. Then again, Lodge 49 is a uniquely magical show that slowly reveals a wonderful and mysterious world hidden in the everyday setting of contemporary Southern California – a world that I wanted to reflect and enhance in the music.

The hazy golden sunshine of SoCal, and themes of alchemy, medieval quests, Egyptian magick & dusty secretive organisations immediately lent themselves to an off-kilter, jasmine-scented, intoxicating vibe; a semi-psychedelic, partly-folky, sometimes jazzishly languid backdrop.  There’s a heady, beckoning incense in the air in the California of Lodge 49, and the music was designed to reflect that.

Conversations with creator Jim Gavin were far ranging about how best to achieve a soundtrack that would fit the opiate-laced, siren seductions of the show. He’d already included the tentative starts to a far-out roadmap with tracks he’d written into the script – Jack Nitzsche’s magnificent ‘The Lonely Surfer’; the wild electronic experimentations of Silver Apple’s ‘Oscillations’; the garage rock freak-out of The Squire’s ‘Going All The Way’. Jim’s a chap with consummate taste and a deep and abiding love of music, so curating the music to Lodge was always going to be a joy.

Psych rock, acid folk, exotica and psychedelic soul were all obvious touchstones for us, but it was important that Lodge 49 didn’t end up sounding like a generic ‘60s show, or confuse viewers into thinking it was a period piece. To that end, I aimed for unusual, obscure and little heard tracks from bygone eras that would perfectly underscore our tone and themes, alongside music by contemporary bands who tap into an esoteric vein such as The Superimposers, The Greg Foat Group, the Hauntology bands of the Ghost Box label and Broadcast (the legendary British group who crop up in both Episodes 1 and 10, and whose much-missed lead-singer Trish Keenan is Jim’s spirit animal).

Dud is an ex-surfer, and surf rock would always have a place in the show, but it was important to Jim and show-runner Peter Ocko that Lodge 49 didn’t become known as ‘that surf show’. To that end, surf music is an important element of our sound, but one that is used judiciously and sparingly – except in Episode 9, when the lodge’s resident surf rock group Don Fab and the Longshoremen put on a show, rocking out to music especially written for us by a composer introduced to us via the BMG production library called Justin Tapp. His work is an absolute delight.

There’s also a snarling garage rock sound Jim and I love, which fits into the world perfectly – I imagine many of the bands from the garage rock scene of the ‘60s would have played party nights at the lodge back in its heyday, and these bands often had a medieval look with their pageboy haircuts, alongside medieval sounding names (Shadows of Knight, The Baron Four, and of course, The Squires). We didn’t want to overwhelm the world with this sound, but here and there, it perfectly compliments the show’s subtexts.

Whilst it was never explicitly discussed, it also seemed a great idea to showcase music from Southern California (Long Beach and LA in particular), so there are plenty of home town heroes, such as contemporary groups White Fence, Lilys and Long Beach hip-hop artist G Funk Supreme. I also drew inspiration from the Californian godfathers of exotica Martin Denny and Eden Ahbez, whose music has always been as seductive to me as the lodge is to Dud.

We also discussed the musical tastes of our protagonists and I created playlists for each major character, attempting to formulate a personal sound for each of them; and whilst 95% of these tracks never made it to air (nor were they intended to), they were useful in figuring out the sonic architecture of the show (and I still maintain that Ernie has a dozen Sun Ra albums he never listens to, which he bought in Barnes & Noble whilst looking for a CD with an Egyptian flavour).

Likewise, there were discussions about the background music for our key locations – Shamroxx, Donuts and the lodge itself. I raided the BMG and Spirit music libraries to create an affordable jukebox we could use in service of these places. It was particularly fun populating Shamroxx with corporate cock rock par excellence, whilst Donuts has an AM Radio sound culled mostly from ‘60s and ‘70s easy-listening tracks, giving it the sort of out-of-time vibe where a chess game can last an eternity.

Once a musical blueprint was formulated, I bombarded the creators and editors with songs to try out in the show. I curated track listings for each episode, with suggestions for individual scenes, and I also created playlists with specific themes, such as Egypt Songs, Alchemical Songs, Medieval Songs, California Songs, Water Songs and so on. As well as conjuring up a certain sound, I wanted to hew as close as possible to thematic strands in song titles and the names of the acts we used. I wasn’t always successful, and it’s not always obvious, but the eagle-eyed may spot recurring motifs in many of the song titles and band names that appear on the soundtrack…

As we progressed, one band constantly re-emerged as a key inspiration – The Soundcarriers. Based out of Nottingham, the quartet has a wonderful neo-psychedelic sound that perfectly encapsulates everything I was trying to achieve with the music of Lodge 49. Ultimately not only do they open Episode 1, but they also appear across the series, contributing 7 tracks in total to the show.

Then there’s our extraordinary composer Andrew Carroll, who has provided a unique score that not only perfectly knits Jim and my selections together, but also makes the on-screen action truly soar. Initially the Lodge team had discussed trying to create a soundtrack using only needle drops, but as we moved forward, it became clear it would be a tricky undertaking budget-wise. Instead, we tasked a handful of composers to write us a title theme as part of an audition process. Some were composers I’d worked with previously, some were Peter’s contacts and all produced tremendous samples (especially given the nigh-on-impossible brief I’d provided to marry Edda Dell’Orso to medieval madrigals with a hint of psychedelic rock and Martin Denny). Yet the person who truly nailed the brief was Andrew, a composer who actually came to us via Andy Siara, our superlative writers’ assistant. Formerly a member of LA band The Lonely Wild, Andrew has written scores for a few independent movies and composed theme tunes, but this is his first full TV show. Perhaps it was a gamble hiring a composer with little prior TV experience, but he has absolutely nailed it, and I can’t imagine the show without his brilliant cues.

Of course, when it comes to curating a soundtrack, it’s one thing choosing a song, but it’s an entirely different matter clearing the rights to use it – and considering the obscure provenance of many of our tracks, our work was cut out for us. Some of our music was drawn from dusty old 7 inches in my collection which have never been previously officially digitised (hello The Jack Gold Orchestra’s ‘It Hurts To Say Goodbye’ and The Hot Dog Stand’s ‘C’mon Summer’s Happening’), and the rights to much of our music has been lost in the sands of time (cue coronaries for our marvellous clearance guru Linda Osher and AMC’s legal team). Yet once we’d hit upon the perfect song, I was bulldog-like in tracking down the rights, using skills and contacts cultivated in my position as Contributing Editor to the British music magazine Shindig!. I searched out defunct Vegas-based publishing companies, dug through ancient vaults, contacted wigged-out garage rock fans, hired private detectives, made pals with the writer of the theme tune to Happy Days and became a bit too friendly with the Swiss-German jazz underground in order to nail the rights to tracks such as ‘Time Marches On’ by The Peels and ‘Alchemy is Good For You (Don’t You Know It)’ by Round House. And even though I’m biased, I think it makes for a one-off and utterly memorable soundtrack – and with at least 10 tracks that aren’t officially available on any online platform, from Spotify to Apple Music, it’s ensured that some artists are now making money from their music, in many instances for the first time ever!

Ultimately, Lodge 49 has 46 needle drops, 58 library cues, 6 specially recorded surf tracks, 2 karaoke songs and 1 unique and haunting cover of the Eden Ahbez track ‘Nature Boy’ – making 113 tracks in total, not including Andrew’s fantastic score. And whilst that may seem like a lot of music, hopefully it all works in service of Jim and Peter’s fantastic visions of Long Beach and the delights that lay bubbling deep below the surface of Lodge 49.

POP ORACLE Song of The Day (August 3, 2019): LEVI FULLER “Just Like Santa”

Insecurely

Your love may be driven and pure
but you
feel neither safe nor secure
you know
that ultimately
you can
never be sure
that when she goes
outside and she comes back in
she won’t be comparing you
to him
unfavorably
when that’s
exactly what she’ll be
doin’ as
long as you’re so scared of the dark
and ambiguous spark

that you can only ignite
when you’re…
Somewhere else
doin’
Something else
But all the thoughts in your head
just ain’t enough to deny
all the things that she said
that she thinks she’d like to try
and though you know
that it’s gonna hurt you
for a long a day or three
can you really assert
that that’s the
way you wanna be
just because she’s…
Somewhere else
doin’
Something else
Somewhere else
How many gods does it take to screw
a light bulb in
securely?
How many gods does it take to screw
your light bulb in?
No don’t tell me.
How many gods does it take to screw
your light bulb
in
secure?
Bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah…
How many more time must I say,
“I really don’t mind if you stray
just so long as you come back safe”
before I actually feel that way?
Until that day I’ll
just live secure in the fear that
whenever you are not here there’s
a chance you might be
doin’…
Something else with
Someone else

Somewhere else