Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Captain of the Starship - William Shatner Live!


Here's a special treat for you. This two record set features William Shatner speaking at Hofstra University sometime around 1978. For those of you who like to hear the Shat Man do dramatic soliloquies, you'll be happy to hear him perform pieces from "Cyrano de Bergerac", "War of the Worlds", and others. For those who want tidbits for the (at the time) upcoming movie, you've got that here too, even talking about why Leonard Nimoy was holding out for more money. (If I remember right, Shatner said the budget for the upcoming "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was around $8 million. It turns out that, according to the IMDB, it was really around $35 million.) And if you want some stories about how Star Trek changed his life, you've got that as well.

I think Shatner sounds sort of fun and bubbly when he's talking to the audience here. He seems to me like he's really enjoying the attention, before he became a full-on celebrity and (maybe) expected to be treated like a celebrity. Anyway, hope you enjoy this.

(And yes, the cover photo shows him menacing some off-camera alien with an upside down camera tripod!)

It all sort of meshes together, so the tracks are divided by side.

Here's the track list:
  1. Earthbound/Go with Me/High Flight/The Flight of Man/Galileo
  2. 6 Ways to the Moon/War of the Worlds
  3. The Movie
  4. SHORT TAKES: William Shatner - Audience/Starship's Facilities/Peter/Summer Spaceship/Three-way Alchemy - The Brain/Finale
Click here or here to download!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks tony! here's to the Greatest Actor of the 20th Century and Beyond!

jima said...

I also have this album, but with a weirdly different LP cover: The Shat-man standing behind a bunch of microphones. I don't see the image online; I'll have to see if I can scan it in.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry about it jima, i've got this covered: http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/1264/shatlive.jpg

Long live The Shat!

. said...

oh ho! I was wondering about ripping my vinyl. I paid $48 Canadian for a used copy in 1984, and it didn't come with the poster or photos that i read in an ad from an old science fiction magazine.

I was hoping to get hilarious comedy like some of the quirky music and acid rock he, and Leonard Nimoy released, but this is a great release nonetheless.

Pugs Malone said...

Thanks, I heard about this years ago and knew I had to have it.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Tony!

I have been looking for this!

I don't suppose you'd happen to have back art, too... I want to make CD covers.

Thanks again!
Kit

Anonymous said...

Oops...

Apologies. I hadn't opened the file yet.

Thanks!
Kit

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this!!!!

noochinator said...

Not complaining, not by any means, but: I think the pitch on this is too fast -- Shatner's voice seems speeded up -- I compared a section with a section posted on YouTube (I know, I need to get a life) and this one goes much faster. Still and all, I am grateful this is here.