A Saturday to remember

Last week the unthinkable happened: on Saturday, January 26th I finally met the man who messed up my brainwaves 18 years ago - the original composer of the Airwolf Main Theme: Sylvester Levay. All thanks to Martin Grant of the Airwolf Documentary for which he gave an extensive interview with many interesting tidbits.

Mark J. Cairns, Sylvester Levay, Jan Michal Szulew in front of Sylvester Levay's studio

The following might sound cliché, but seriously, Sylvester is a wonderful host and a very flamboyant guy. We (Mark and me - Airwolf Themes; Martin, Marcus and Per - Airwolf Documentary) spent an entire day together in his studio on the outskirts of Munich and got a real kick out of it. Sly has really surprised us with how much he actually remembers about the main theme which he wrote 29 years ago. A copy of CD1 that I gave to Sly was given the "ultimate audition" - i.e. using his sound system in the studio. We mostly went through the orchestral tracks and Sly praised my execution of brass parts (specifically lead trumpets and horn staccatos in ascending bridges).

After the final notes of "Journey to Red Star (Movie version)"

The last track we auditioned was obviously the big orchestral main theme from the pilot episode. When we were leaving for the interview Sly gave me his final verdict:

and the final verdict is in...

"This is serious s#!t"

This was a truly amazing, exciting and an unforgettable weekend; I never actually imagined this would happen and if someone told me back in 1994 when I first heard the Airwolf Theme (which I found utterly boring at that time as it was Koto's cover version!) that I would someday meet its creator... you know. I don't think my 12-year old brain would dare to comprehend it.

"Great work!"

Thanks to:
Sylvester Levay and his family for being wonderful hosts. And for the incredible Weißwurst!
Mark J. Cairns for taking care of the logistics for me
Martin Grant for arranging for this to happen
Mövenpick Airport Munich hotel staff for making the best scrambled eggs I had in my entire life.

Please check Airwolf Documentary and Airwolf Themes blogs for related information about this event.

Minor CD1 tracklist changes

As promised by the "subject to change without notice" disclaimer a couple of days after announcing the CD1 tracklist we made some minor track order changes, mostly related to Season 1:

• "Pilot, Season 3 - Journey to Red Star (Movie)/'EAGLES' aerial (extended)" is now moved way down to the latter half of the CD (after "Season 2/3 - Generic Closing (extended)")
• Season 1 tracks are significantly reordered

Also the track durations have been aligned to the 75 frames per second Red Book CD standard.

Go to the AET CD1 tracklist for details.

Track titles are still subject to change (their musical content won't though).