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Transcript

SALON DU MONDE: Blasters of the Puniverse

A remake of a lost record to accompany a Masters of the Universe kids story book from 1984

Art Corner

We’ve done it again. The bar continues to rise and fall at the same time like Mary Lou Retton grappling with Shroedinger’s cat.

A year or so ago, my kids found an old book from my childhood. At the time of its release, in 1984, this book came with a record that you could play with a word-for-word read-along including “exciting sound effects”.

The book

The original record is lost, but the book remains.

My kids enjoy this book and depending on how ridiculous I feel, I read it with the similar dramatic expression as heard in this video—minus the sound effects.

Why not recreate the music and read the story to replace that lost record with my own musical score so that my kids can have the same experience? It is an experience that I absolutely do not remember—but I can imagine it.

It is a pretty dumb idea but you can’t spell Salon du Monde without the dum.

When I was four, I adored He-Man and Masters of the Universe. The strange sci-fi/fantasy world only looks more odd in retrospect. My twin four-year-old boys are fascinated with the story, or perhaps I’m projecting my own nostalgia.

He-Man IP remains ubiquitous given my generation is now at peak consumer age and the only thing that seems to sell is nostalgia. I imagine there are ownership interests for these characters and I hope to avoid injunction or lawsuit given that this is a free post and satirical re-telling with original music—though I’m no “law-talking guy”.

I hope you enjoy it and I think it is suitable for kids. They might like it more than you according to our latest market research. I am simply reading the book, doing some voice acting and created a series of musical themes to accompany the story and characters. It’s a soundtrack.

Here are some questions for you:

  1. Is any part of the music worthy of a shortened dance remix?

  2. What do you think of He-Man?

  3. Will I be sued for this and, if so, how should I get out of it? (I’m only accepting legal advice from certified law-talking people)

Salon du Monde, Fremont: The Soundtrack

Speaking of soundtracks, LABELABEL now has a home and a product. If you are interested in sampling and supporting some excellent musical artists sharing their work on Substack and beyond, please consider purchasing a copy of Salon du Monde, Fremont: The Soundtrack.

Get the Cassette and mp3

The cassette tape and digital versions are only available via a new way to release creative work: Metalabel. To learn why and how this all happened, check-out the Metalabel posts linked below.

We’d love to have some reviews of the album. If you’d like a promotional digital copy for review, reply to this email or send me a note at rjstubbs@gmail. Or, slide into the DMs…

Metalabel
In groups we become stronger
When we first started working on Metalabel, we imagined a hypothetical situation for how groups like the ones we were thinking about would start: Imagine a group of newsletter writers who cover the same topic. They get tired of competing against each other for likes and attention. One day decide to start making projects together instead…
Read more
Metalabel
Oral History: Salon Du Monde, Fremont
We invited members of a fascinating new project called Salon Du Monde, Fremont: The Soundtrack to share the story behind their new Metalabel release — a series of cassettes that are just the tip of the iceberg of a fascinating experiment in collaboration…
Read more

See ya round the webs, friends!

RS

Washed Memoir in Real Time
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