The Thief of Bagdad

At age nine, after seeing the movie The Thief of Bagdad, John Fahey began composing "cerebral symphonies every day. It was a pleasant pastime." At age 61 he took this to the public when he scored The Thief of Bagdad for the Red76 Silent Film Festival.
The Not the Gas Station Tape, discovered (but misidentified as The Gas Station Tape) by David Gardner, contained a fragment of the 1940 film soundtrack, referred to in the Requia liner notes.
The 1940 fragment found on Not The Gas Station Tape - Real Audio clip

No word about how this turned out. Witness input is welcome.


Portland Mercury
09/28/00

RED76 FILM SCORING SERIES STARRING JOHN FAHEY, MOMERATHS

(Medicine Hat) It's full-on art school flashback for music and film lovers alike in this debut of the Red76 Film Scoring Series. Tonight, it's John Fahey, playing a live improv score to the silent film The Thief of Bagdad. Fahey's stalactite, slide guitar should be quite dramatic paired with the decadent 1924 Douglas Fairbanks classic. Mome Raths take a different angle, their music always somewhat improvisational, with electronic sound effects and sparse rhythmic bass to Luc Besson's Atlantis. This should be an interesting, unique night, and whatever music occurs cannot be reproduced. JS

from Red76 creator Sam Gould:

"Well, it's been going on since about Febuary/March. It started off as something that would happen once a month. A day long show once a month. The show would incorporate music/visual art/ film/design/what have you, anything that was a creative outlet for the person that made it kind of. We still have the (basically) once a month shows. Though, we have taken a bit of the summer off. The next of those big extravaganzas will be held at the Viscount Ballroom on Nov.5th.

They start at about 3pm with an art gallery up, plus small group experimental music, and films, then at about 7pm it focuses more on the music side of things. The gallery stays up, and about four bands play for the night. People read their short fiction/poetry in between the bands sets, do performances. This all usually ends around 2am, though it's been know to go as late as seven in the morning. We've started to have off shoot events too, like this silent film scoring thing we're doing this weekend."
Friday September 29, 2000
Red76 Silent Film Festival
with John Fahey, Mome Raths

Medicine Hat Gallery | 1834 NE Alberta St | 503-778-7700 10pm

Red76.com

Show starts at 9pm.
John Fahey will score The Thief of Bagdad.
Mome Raths will score Atlantis.
(And there's more on Saturday.)