Celebrating The 60th Anniversary Of Dr WHO 1963 - 2023
In tribute to the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who we’ve decided to dig out the last remaining MP3 of Freudstein’s Dr Who theme tune cover version circa 2005 for your listening pleasure. God knows where we misplaced the WAV file or how we came to lose it? If we could go back in time and save a high quality version somewhere clever, then that would make me us Time Lords.
Wait. Rewind. Freudstein covered the Dr Who theme tune?
Yes, believe it or not, even these horror afficiandos were captivated by daleks growing up in the United Kingdom. In 2004, I found myself working out the notes for the Dr Who theme tune, just for fun, years before it was possible to find the musical tablature or MIDI on the internet. I was just genuinely excited to make my own modern version and got so excited that I added a drum and bass loop and even wrote a new middle 8 section with a new riff - sacrilege I know - but at no point did I sample any of the original audio. Everything musical was recreated, right down to the distorted main riff using a basic DAW called Cakewalk. Once it was finished, we worked it into Freudstein’s early eclectic live performances and it became a staple of our live shows. We had a lot of fun with it and even shared the stage with 6 foot cardboard daleks at one point.
This all changed when we attended the Glastonbury festival around 2004 -2005 and watched a performance by one of our favourite bands, Orbital. I remember half way through their live set a friend turned to me when we both instantly recognised the Dr Who theme bassline intro. And in that moment we knew Orbital had beaten us to the punch with their similarly inspired rendition of the Dr Who theme tune. After that concert, I was convinced that anyone who heard our version would just assume we had copied Orbital so we shelved it, and forgot about it. Until now.
Fast forward 19 years and we’ve dug out Freudstein’s rare unofficial cover version and put together a simple video to accompany the track, retro fitting video footage from the original Tom Baker ‘Armageddon Factor’ episode. It’s unmastered, imperfect and likely to be banned by You Tube for using BBC Dr Who video footage.
So join us one more time hiding behind the sofa from daleks for a rare Freudstein cover version of the Dr Who theme tune - circa 2005. Now, whatever did happen to that Blakes 7 theme tune cover version…?