Friday Afternoon Video: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Houstonist has always loved the groovy, psychedelic, exotic sounds of Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer hired on the cheap in the 1960s to write soundtracks for the so-called spaghetti Westerns directed by Sergio Leone and others. The eerie bird calls, dark tension and lines like "Keep your hand on your gun. Don't you trust anyone. There's just one kinda man you can trust, that's a dead man," give Houstonist the feelings of tension and struggle for survival that make those movies so great.

So last month, while vacationing in Paris, we spotted a poster for the Spaghetti Western Orchestra in the Metro. The vaudevillian-style group who play Morricone songs from half a dozen spaghetti Western films were playing a month-long engagement at a small theatre in the City of Lights, and we knew we had to be there.

The show was excellent — five guys playing more than 20 instruments (sometimes several at a time), hilarious interludes between each performance during which the band never broke character, and an amazing use of everyday materials to create sound effects like arrows whipping through the wind, horses galloping, and the crunch of boots on dry desert ground.

So Houstonist highly, highly recommends that you make the drive up to College Station on Tuesday, Nov. 11 to see the Spaghetti Western Orchestra during their short tour of the US. Just dig the skills of the whistler (he's the guy on the far right):

The Spaghetti Western Orchestra
Admission: $45-55
Date: November 11, 2008
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Rudder Theater, College Station