Hello everybody! We have begun a FREE PREVIEW of FSM Online and everything that is usually behind our subscriber paywall. We’re not sure how long it will last, but at least a week as we reach out via mailing lists and social media for a much-needed subscription drive. Check out the newest issue, as well as the redesigned search engine of the 20+ years of online issues—and the archives, both online (2006–today) and print (1990–2005). For a table of contents of the print issues

FSMCDs.com will be live on Tuesday, June 23, at 10AM Pacific / 1PM Eastern with a couple hundred new CD listings—including some out-of-print John Barry titles. See you soon!

Folks who go way back to the 1990s black-and-white issues of FSM may remember that Box 1554 was my address at Amherst College, 1992–1996. I was extremely, well, not popular, but certainly well-known at the campus post office for the amount of mail I got—not only submissions, subscriptions and correspondence, but packages of CDs to review (yay!). For reasons I still don’t understand, there were two deliveries a weekday—a batch of mail in the morning, and another in the early a

I have created a new blog/community/portal called PROTOCALIA, which is a word I invented to encompass a certain kind of elevated genre storytelling—concerned with the systems created by human beings, and the pressures they put on the individual. It’s simultaneously the thing I want to do most—build an audience to make the kinds of films and TV shows I love—but also the thing I find most daunting, because of the heavy lift involved...and the fact I’m starting from scratch. But

I almost skipped Star City, but I checked it out and I am glad I did, it’s terrific! This look at the franchise’s alt-history space race from the Soviet Union’s point of view is a cracking good Cold War thriller. I never had any particular interest in what went on behind the Iron Curtain, but I always liked Gorky Park—and Chernobyl was mesmerizing. Like Chernobyl, there seems to be a lot of attention to the drab, brown details of Soviet life, and the terror, absurdity and lon

Exciting news in the field of Star Trek theme archaeology. Loyal Trekkies will recall that there were two versions of the title theme in season one: the first had the theme performed by electric violin, recorded by Alexander Courage during the session for “The Man Trap.” This was replaced by a version with the theme played by celli, arranged and recorded by Fred Steiner. But when exactly was the change made? We haven’t been sure, since the episodes in circulation now don’t ad

I am loving the 2CD Intrada release of Explorers with the previously unreleased alternates on disc two! I found the alternate of “Crazed Bubble” with the foregrounded “Wak boogie” especially interesting. Per the liner notes, Joe Dante asked Goldsmith not to tease the Wak/alien music before the final act reveal of the character himself, which was the right call...but it reminds me of being 11 years old in the movie theater thinking, whaaaaaahhh? This movie was on the way to be

As a born-and-bred New Englander of course I despise all of the New York teams. But I admit I was happy for the Knicks breaking their championship drought. It certainly seemed like a team of destiny. The Red Sox are so lame this year, it’s mystified. They have so many good players but are so dull to watch. And the World Cup is here, which I’ve always enjoyed. I was amused to see that FIFA won’t promote any companies without a direct bribe, so all of the American football stad

I thought I knew a lot about Shaft, having produced our 3CD set anthology years ago, but I had never heard this fascinating interview with the original wah-wah guitarist. Fun!

I had such a great time at Disclosure Day. Spielberg’s still got it! No spoilers here, so this will have to be brief. What a gift to have a new John Williams score! Screenwriters should study this for one of the all-time great “in medias res” openings. There is a massive amount of exposition built into an opening chase. The degree of difficulty with this is almost off the charts. Spielberg is the GOAT, what can we say? Just for the moving masters alone. Wow. Can’t say much mo

Here is an updated spreadsheet of FSMCDs.com inventory. Thanks! A shout-out today to Tim Burden who produced a concert in Dublin with Peter Bernstein to celebrate Elmer Bernstein’s centennial. They are now selling a 100-unit only 3CD set of the complete concert. Please see all the details at their Bandcamp page. A very special item—check it out. Thanks!

Thanks to everybody who bought from the new FSMCDs.com sale yesterday. We are shipping the new orders asap! Here is a spreadsheet of the current inventory. I am so excited to see Disclosure Day tomorrow for many reasons—but here’s one you might not have thought of. As far as I am aware, this film is set in the present day (or very near future). Since Jurassic Park and its sequel, Spielberg has directed 19 films. Know how many have been set in contemporary reality? Just three:

We are live with new listings at FSMCDs.com! We have slimlines and FYC CDs from Jeanne Jones’s collection, sealed FSM editions and box sets from my mom’s basement, and some neat CDs and cheapo damaged CDs from another collector. Here is a spreadsheet of inventory. And the site, to order, as always: FSMCDs.com. Happy shopping and thank you!

Be here tomorrow for our next CD sale: we have around 850 items from the Jeanne Jones collection, consistingly mostly of promos in cardboard sleeves and “slimline” cases. We also have a few hundred CDs from another collector, including a bunch that were water damaged (but the disc is fine) for only a buck of three. Finally, over the years I used to send a copy of each completed FSM album to my dad and another copy to my mom. I sold the “dad collection” a few years ago through

I saw Backrooms and thought it was cool. For all the talk of Backrooms and Obsession being game changers, as far as the young, YouTube-era filmmakers, I think it comes down to people wanting to see a new movie that’s different and has a cool, easy-to-understand concept. Word gets out that it’s good, and it takes off. I remember when the found footage craze happened, and it was similar: dirt cheap horror movies becoming massive phenomenons. But it was not sustainable indefinit

The June issue of FSM Online is live! Cutting and pasting the announcement email: The June issue of FSM Online is ready for your reading and listening pleasure! To check it out, click here. This month, we have THE BOROUGHS (John Paesano), KRAKOW FMF 2026 (James Newton Howard, Antonio Sanchez, Robert Townson), MORTAL KOMBAT II/WELCOME TO DERRY (Benjamin Wallfisch), MOVIESCORE MEDIA TURNS 20 (Mikael Carlsson), Scott Dunn on his GOLDEN AGE FILM MUSIC CONCERT "From Hell to Hollyw

This is the first chance I am having to lavish well-deserved praise on Quartet’s new recording of The Ipcress File, the John Barry spy classic. The soundtrack album is a classic but much of the original score as heard in the film has never been released—and with both recordings and written scores long lost, the only way we’d ever hear it is through a painstaking reconstruction and new performance. This is exactly what Quartet’s team has done—Leigh Phillips for the reconstruct

Wow—so grateful there is a new John Williams score to discover and enjoy! I thought this might never happen again, but it’s here, and of course it’s great. (Shades of Born on the Fourth of July.) Sample on YouTube: How lucky we are!

I am back from the East Coast and just a short note today to plug the return of BuySoundtrax’s Mystery Box for Father’s Day: 30 CDs from BSX, Dragon’s Domain, Citadel and others for $44.99. Details here! Offer good through end of day on June 17th.

I’m leaving in a few hours (30th college reunion, wow!) and back middle of next week, so this column will stay atop the blog. FSMCDs.com is open for business and here’s a spreadsheet of the current inventory, so please, if you want to order, order! Orders placed last week will ship this Friday the 29th. Orders placed this week will ship June 3rd at the earliest. Thanks! Please see yesterday’s column about the importance of new subscribers to FSM Online, and hope you can check

It’s about to be June, which is the month I use to celebrate FSM’s anniversary—I forget the exact date, but the first newsletter that became FSM is labeled “6–90 Update.” Since that time—36 years ago—there has been an uninterrupted publication of FSM, either in print or online. This sort of blows my mind. We started out by reporting that Alan Silvestri had returned to score Back to the Future, Part III. It feels like ancient history but we’ve been publishing ever since. And w

Just a heads up that our next CD sale will be Tuesday, June 9, at 10AM Pacific (1PM Eastern). I am going out of town this coming week—it’s my 30-year college reunion, what the heck happened?!? Rather than try to rush things, we’ll just pick June 9th and keep our usual Tuesday sale date. See you then, thanks!

I’ve been so busy with our Kickstarter that I haven’t had a chance to talk about how much I enjoyed the end of The Boys—and this entire demented, perverted show. No notes! Just loved it. Bravo to everybody involved.

We have finished our Kickstarter to record a new album of James Horner’s 1980s television music past the original goal and past the stretch goal as well—thank you! Truly, thank you to all the donors, and I also want to shout out everybody who helped spread the word—including friends at Neumation Music, La-La Land Records, Intrada, Screen Archives and BuySoundtrax who generously helped with the publicity. The campaign is set to enable late backers for anybody wanting to add yo