Awesome night underway here in Portland, and I was thrilled to meet Mr. Howarth. He is very personable and friendly with his fans, who are out in force tonight for this show that sold out over a month in advance. I was also able to ask him a few questions:
The upcoming mono Halloween reissue was sourced by Howarth from his original stem files that he also used to create the first 5.1 surround DVD release. Also, he said the ‘79 Columbia Japan release is a re-recording he was not involved with (sounds like it was
Osamu Shoji-san on his own) If you listen to Howarth's recent interview on the Scored to Death podcast, he shares that the wicked percussion added to his stereo album mix of the main theme was created from a synth metronome track that sounds like “pssh pssh pssh pssh”. The podcast is a good interview with him, recommended.
Stoked about the concert to follow the film.
-edit: Enjoyed hearing Alan's one-man band. He puts together some interesting soundscapes of his material. Highlights for me were the Christine/Halloween III medleys, and both of the Halloween II and IV suites which were phenomenal. He jammed out of lot of numbers from the Carpenter catalog: EFNY, Assault on Precinct 13, Big Trouble, and They Live, and also managed to sneak in The Thing and The Lost Empire, along with some music from Retribution ('87) which I was not familiar with. Good times.
