John Carpenter Escapes to New York
Septuagenarian horror master brings his film music to life in Queens
Wondering how many directors toured and played their own music from their movies?
Sure, Hans Zimmer does his orchestral-electronic scores worldwide to acclaim, but he ain’t no director. Clint Eastwood, Jim Jarmusch and Woody Allen made music for their flicks, but none of them hit the road to play it out. That just leaves 77-year-old iconoclast John Carpenter.
Drawing in tension and suspense through wide-angle shots, throughout the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s, Carpenter unleashed on-the-edge crime-drama (Assault on Precinct 13), apocalyptic sci-fi (Escape From New York) and some of the best horror ever made (The Thing, Halloween, The Fog, Christine), not to mention the socially conscious cult classic They Live, and also provided the music for many of his films. True, some of his ‘90s films fell off (a Chevy Chase ‘comedy’ and an Escape sequel), but who the hell cares? The man is still badass — Dr. Dre, Ice-T, Wiz Khalifa and plenty of others have all laid down tracks using his music.
As of 2010, he gave up directing, instead focusing on albums of “lost themes” (music for imaginary movies) and soundtrack reissues for hip indie record company Sacred Bones, where he appropriately became labelmates with Jarmusch and David Lynch.
Now, Carpenter’s taking his music on a road show and, like John Fogerty and Willie Nelson, he brings his kids along for the ride — in this case, his son Cody Carpenter on synth and god-son Daniel Davies on lead guitar — for his first concerts since 2018. Physically, he ain’t exactly imposing — a bald old guy with a walrus mustache, pot belly, thick rimmed glasses couldn’t scare a girl scout — but give him a screen and/or synthesizer and he’ll get you to crap your pants or make your skin crawl.
VIDEO: Assault on Precinct 13 trailer
A seven date, bi-coastal tour kicked off with a show at the Knockdown Center in Queens last Thursday, flooded with Gen Z fans, which was interesting ‘cause Carpenter had already finished making most of his films before they were born. No doubt they glommed onto all the Halloween sequels in the recent years, which he’s been providing music for and doing executive producer work too for, and then these young-uns found out, “hey, this dude did all these other cool movies too!” Demographics-wise, it was good to see a healthy mix of genders there, too (no sausage fest there thankfully), arguing what his best films were and some decked out in goth outfits and horror shirts. If you didn’t have the right outfit, no need to worry — the crowded merch booth provided Carpenter shirts and caps, alongside posters, soundtrack albums, They Live sunglasses and sticker packs.
Picking October, the month of his most famous film, for these shows was an obviously irresistible draw for many horror fans and he gave ‘em what they wanted and even what they didn’t know they wanted. At the start of the show, the empty stage was bathed in bright red light as the hacker conspiracy dialogue from They Live blasted over the speakers, with its anti-authoritarian message from the ‘80s sounding even more prophetic today: “Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness.” With that, Carpenter strode onto the stage decked out sunglasses and a black outfit, alongside his sons and the trio that makes up Tenacious D’s backing band: guitarist John Konesky, bassist John Spiker and drummer Scott Seiver. Just like on his previous tours, which stretched back to 2016, a giant screen behind them flashed highlights of the film scores they played, which were cut-ups of the best action scenes and/or goriest sequences. Carpenter parked himself in front of a synthesizer and to his credit, he only squatted once on the stool behind him for the show (compare that to Dylan’s recent live act).
Like his earlier tours, he didn’t just trout out his “greatest hits” and well-known score tunes, but added in some surprises, which is pretty gutsy and not something even most legacy acts would dare. This time out, I missed some of his earlier “lost themes” he used to offer up live like “Vortex,” “Distant Dream” and “Mystery” and the lonely, country-flavored material like “Coming To L.A.” (from They Live) and the Calexico-like “Santiago” (from Vampires) but sure as hell not the wistful, dreamy “Starman Leaves.” Carpenter’s musical stock-in-trade is more dark bubbling synths with menacing sequencer lines chugging alongside- after all, the man did narrate a musical doc called Rise of the Synths.
After dishing out They Live’s strident, industrial “Wake Up” for the first time live, he premiered another “lost theme” from last year, the New Order-goes-goth “Last Rites,” only going for familiar territory on the third song, the shuttery, creepy main title song from Assault on Precinct 13, which got some cheers of recognition. “Alive After Death,” another recent “lost theme,” carried things along eerily before he confessed to the crowd that one of his other main title themes, from Escape From New York, was a mix of “The Man With the Golden Gun” theme (from the James Bond film) and Bette Midler’s “The Rose.” Of course, the crowd didn’t mind at all, especially when they played it alongside Kurt Russell’s hyper-violent ring fight scene from the movie. The driving, crunching rock of “Pork Chop Express” (from Big Trouble In Little China) also benefited from Russell tangling with over-the-top sci-fi villains on the screen behind the band.
VIDEO: Big Trouble in Little China trailer
(Gotta pause to mention that Carpenter trotted out the devil horns as much as any metal band and considering his status as a horror god, he had every right to do it as any leather-clad act. He’d flash ‘em up in the air, he conducted the band and the crowd with ‘em, he made weird shapes with him and everyone loved it. Even the brief bits of shimmy-shake he did were kind of cute and funny.)
For The Fog’s main title theme (with eerie piano, skittering electro-drums and celestial synth tones), it seemed strange that there wasn’t any accompany video, only purple lights, smoke and lasers, until you realize that the ol’ master cannily turned the venue into the pea-soup of the movie itself. So yeah, the guy is still a cunning director at heart.
After yet another recent “lost theme,” the booming noir of “My Name is Death,” cheers rang out when the crowd recognized the creepy, distant, minimal synth building in intensity which was the main theme from The Thing, penned for him by another soundtrack master, Ennio Morricone. The screen splashed some of the most wildly gory bits of the classic flick and by the end, the crowd gave an extended roar of approval.
But Carpenter was able to kick it even up a notch more, for what everyone there was really salivating for. “And now for the theme of the movie I’m most known for and it’s not Satan’s Cheerleaders, though I wish I directed that!” And with that, the simple, effective, eerie piano notes of the Halloween theme (which is his “Free Bird”) rang out as Davies later wailed on guitar while we saw poor Jamie Lee Curtis desperately trying to escape Michael Myers. Then after the marching, scrunching synth and howling guitar accompanying Sam Neill doing some great scene-chewing bits from In the Mouth of Madness (a very underrated film of his), Carpenter waved himself off the stage.
But of course, that wasn’t the end. After sustained cheers brought him and his crew back, he premiered yet another menacing song, “Lord of the Underground” from the upcoming album, Lost Themes V: Cathedral. Then he returned to form with the usual encore feature, “Darkness Begins” (from Prince of Darkness) and its ghostly, haunted synths. Before he finished, he had one important last message for us: “Please drive carefully going home… Christine is out there!” which raised the roof. From the movie about the infamous killer car, “Christine Attacks,” with its repeated insistent 1-2-1-2 piano/synth line and slow, menacing, deliberate sequencer driven sound, was still his reliable old show closer and no one at Knockdown was disappointed by it.
You can have your haunted house and trick or treating, but where else are you gonna get horror, cinema, movie music and goofy humor in one place? We should be so lucky to have the old codger haunt stages with his real and fake soundtracks well into his 80s and 90s.
- The ‘Soul’ of Gregg Allman - June 17, 2026
- Haitian Divorce: Steely Dan’s ‘The Royal Scam’ at 50 - May 28, 2026
- Twinkle, Twinkle Uncle Floyd - January 29, 2026
You May Also Like
-
October 9, 2025 -
September 23, 2020 -
March 29, 2020
