Music composed and conducted byBrian May

Music Studio Armstrong Audio/VideoEngineer Roger Savage

"There" and "Can't Stop Rock and Rolling"by arrangement with Mushroom Records

"Angela" and "Magazine Madonna"performed by Sherbetby arrangement with Roger Davies Management

Born 28th July 1934, Brian May began life in music studying piano, violin and conducting at the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide. He joined the ABC in 1957, and formed the ABC Adelaide Big Band, and when he was 35, he moved to Melbourne to take charge of the ABC's Show Band there, making his radio debut with the band in 1969.

May started to record television underscore, most notably arranging and recording George Dreyfus's score for the ABC goldfields drama Rush.

May became interested in composing for feature films, and The True Story of Eskimo Nell was his first score. It also marked the beginning of a collaboration with director Richard Franklin, perhaps most successful in the 1977 thriller Patrick. In turn, this led to other film scores for producer Antony Ginnane, including Snapshot, and perhaps most importantly to the score for Mad Max (though cultists will have a soft spot for Turkey Shoot in 1982).

The story goes that Bryon Kennedy and director George Miller were convinced there was no one in Australia who could compose the score for their film, but when they were having dinner one evening with Franklin, Miller asked what Bernard Hermann score was playing on Franklin's stereo.

It turned out that it was May's score for Patrick, and so May got the gig. May would also do the score for the second Mad Max, but Universal preferred to go with Jerry Goldsmith when they gave the chance of making Psycho II to Franklin. May also lost to out Maurice Jarre for the third Max Max, and turned to writing the score for the TV mini-soap Return to Eden in 1986.

May did write a few more horror film scores, but his later titles were not as appealing as his early work.

His wiki is here, but at the time of writing, it failed to mention his first feature film score - an important step in his career. The wiki is also careless with chronology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May_(composer)

There is a sympathetic study of his work here in the form of an obituary.

(Below: composer Brian May)

Cultists over the years have valued Brian May's score for Snapshot, and after its initial release on LP, it can still be found for sale.

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/daily/article.cfm?articleID=2211

LP, stereo Citadel (USA) CTV 7020 1980US title The Day After HalloweenMusic composed, conducted by Brian May Recording Engineer: Roger Savage Musical Assistant: Russell NaughtonMastering Engineer: Richard Simpson The Reference PointSequencing: Steve LazurProduced for Citadel Records by Scot Holton and Tom NullExecutive Producer: Chris Kuchler

Side 1:

Opening Title Music (2'40")Madeline’s Theme/Pursued (1'28")Angela’s Decision (1'10")Locked Out (1'25")Darryl’s Dilemma (2'37")The Gay Disco (1'42")Angela’s Transformation (1'34")Sans Chemisette (1'01")Who’s Sleeping In My Bed? (2'38")

Side 2:

Bermuda Cool (Madeline Makes Her Move) (2'24")Goodbye To Madeline (1'10")Fright And Flight (2'38")Danger! The Whippy Van (1'08")Elmer’s Place (1'28")Studio Fire (2'21")Exit Darryl (2'39")Closing Title Music (1'47")

The presence of a couple of Sherbet tracks firmly fixesthe soundtrack in the late 197s.

Sherbet were a successful pop rock group, and they havea wiki here.

Their presence didn't help the band or the movie, withthe track Angela barely making it into the top 100 inJanuary 1979. The band broke up in mid-1979, thoughthey would later get back together, though with theregrettable name The Sherbs getting a run.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherbet_(band)

The B-side was Take My Heart, by G. Porter/T. Mitchell, produced by Jay Lewis.

(Below: Sherbet)

The soundtrack was also released by 1M1 Records as a doublebill on a now rare CD with Brian May's score for Harlequin:

 The Day After Halloween - 1M1CD1010

25. Opening Titles 2'44"26. Madeline/Pursued 1'27"27. Preparing for the Shoot 1'23"28. Locked Out 1'26"29. Darryl is Jealous 2'38"30. The Gay Disco 1'33"31. Angela's Transformation 1'36"32. Sans Chemisette 1'04"33. Who's Sleeping in My Bed? 2'41"34. Madeline Makes Her Move 2'24"

35. Goodbye to Madeline 1'07"36. Fright and Flight 2'43"37. Danger! The Whippy Van 1'15"38. Elmer's Place 1'20"39. Studio Fire 2'26"40. Exit Darryl 2'39"41. Closing Titles 1'48"

The film also provides a rare opportunity to see Bob Brown performingas Captain Rock, in a cabaret context. Brown was a comedian andperformer who eventually settled into a career as a school teacher andchildren's entertainer, and whose humorous songs appeared in various ABCSing music song books. One of his early claims to fame was hisrecording of Give Me a Home amongst the Gumtrees, which firstappeared on his 'Buried Treasure' album in 1975.

Brown co-wrote the song with Wally Johnson, and while these days it is perceived as a patriotic song, it was first performed as a satirical part of a comedy act the pair were doing for the Flying Trapeze Cafe in Fitzroy, Melbourne (the Federal government had proposed a national song writing contest to replace God Save the Queen, and in 1982, the bush band Bullamakanka found a copy of the album in a sale bin and covered it, and the rest, as they say is history, with the later cover by John Williamson making the song even more popular. The Bullamakanka version was used as the theme song for Don Burke's national television gardening series Burke's Backyard for seventeen years).

At the time of the film, Brown was a Mushroom artist, and so like Sherbet,he might have got the gig on the film as a result of representations madeby Mushroom CEO and artists' manager Michael Gudinski.

(Below: Bob Brown aka Captain Rock as he appears in the film)