As you might have expected, Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan has an awesome record collection.
The frontman for the seminal indie rockers Superchunk as well as founder and head dude of Merge Records has found a cinematic kindred spirit in Canadian filmmaker Matt Bissonnette. Back in 2002, Bissonnette handed McCaughan a script after a performance in Montreal and asked him to do the score to his debut feature, “Looking For Leonard.” McCaughan agreed, making his debut composing work for a feature film and has only worked with Bissonnette since, again writing tunes for the director’s sophomore feature “Who Loves The Sun” in 2006.
For his latest film, “Passenger Side,” Bissonnette once again got in touch with McCaughan whose role this time was to help put together the soundtrack for the road trip film using the director’s wishlist as a starting point. “Matt basically said come up with a dream list and see what you can get,” he says. “He gave me a list of the type of stuff he already had in mind and I add a whole other list.” McCaughan also penned one new song for the film as well.
As you might expect, the resulting soundtrack is pretty awesome and is pretty reflective of the kind of record collections most college kids would’ve had in the ’90s including classic cuts from the likes of Smog, Unrest, Silver Jews, Guided By Voices, Wilco, Dinosaur Jr. and Camper Van Beethoven.
While the music isn’t exactly current with the film’s setting, McCaughan says these choices were deliberate, as he used the tunes as a sort of texture to help build where the characters are coming from, “The music is not so contemporaneous with the story, because it’s from so many years previous. I don’t think it’s just background noise because it does have some meaning in the whole scheme of things. You don’t want it to intrude too much, but I think that there is something to that.” McCaughan further explains his approach saying, “The whole idea of the way the soundtrack was going to work evokes a lot of things about how you come to love music in the first place, and thereby evoking a certain age.”
“Passenger Side” has been doing festival rounds but from what we can gather, no set release date is yet in place. For our Toronto readers, there will be a screening this Wednesday April 7th at the Royal Cinema with McCaughan and Jim Wilbur in attendance. You can find out more details at the film’s official website.
The official synopsis, trailer and soundtrack listing is below:
Michael Brown’s (ADAM SCOTT) birthday begins with a telephone call from his estranged, drug addicted brother Tobey (JOEL BISSONNETTE). Tobey is totally unaware that it is his older brother’s birthday, but he is very aware that his car is broken, and he begs Michael to drive him on various apparently legitimate, vital errands.
As Bruce Springsteen has astutely noted, “a man who turns his back on his family just ain’t no good”, and so Michael puts off his seemingly romantic birthday plans, and with his brother embarks on a sketchy, meandering day long odyssey though the mysteries of Los Angeles County.
As the day wears on, it becomes clear that this drive will lead them to some very unexpected destinations.
“Passenger Side” Soundtrack Tracklisting
“Punks In The Beerlight” – Silver Jews
“Hit The Ground Running” – Smog
“Cannibal Café – SNFU
“Mini T.V.’s” – Chad VanGaalen
“Ordinary Night” – The Mekons
“Kid Dynamite” – Squirrel Bait
“The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory” – Guided By Voices
“Good Guys & Bad Guys” – Camper Van Beethoven
“Call Of The Wild” – The Nils
“Final Day” – Young Marble Giants
“Jak” – Volcano Suns
“Driveway To Driveway” – Superchunk
“Freak Scene” – Dinosaur Jr.
“Fucked Up Ronnie” – D.O.A.
“Isabel” – Unrest
“Wild Sage” – The Mountain Goats
“We Saw Jerry’s Daughter” – Camper Van Beethoven
“Rough Gem” – Islands
“Be What You Want” – Asexuals
“Suzanne” – Leonard Cohen
“You Don’t Have To Make Me Feel Better” – Mac McCaughan
“Last Night On Earth” – The Mekons
“Graveyard” – Chad VanGaalen
“Hard Drive” – Evan Dando
“Passenger Side” – Wilco
“Hit The Ground Running” – Smog
“Driveway To Driveway” – Superchunk
“Isabel” – Unrest