Coming this week—two bands that draw inspiration from the movies.

~ ~ ~

Another band that more wholeheartedly embraces Morricone is Los Angeles’ Spindrift, which performs with Dead Meadow and Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound at Big Sur’s Fernwood on Saturday. Led by Kirpatrick Thomas, and featuring former and current members of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Spindrift’s songs meld the classic Western sound with ‘60s psychedelic rock.

On the group’s mostly instrumental “Speak to the Wind,” the guitar comes in shimmering waves like a mirage on a hot highway. Meanwhile, “Celebration of the Human Body” would feel equally at home on the soundtrack to a classic Western or a ‘60s surf movie like The Endless Summer.

Spindrift bassist and baritone guitarist Henry Evans says there are many reasons why his band is drawn to Morricone’s soundtracks. “Part of it is that it’s good music,” he says. “But, it’s also really dramatic, and it’s music that’s telling a story. It’s just a celebration of things that are great about America and individualism.”

The members of Spindrift are so into the classic Western mystique that they just recently finished up work on their own feature-length cowboy movie, titled The Legend of God’s Gun. Evans says the film, shot in the California desert, is about a gunfighter who seeks revenge on the bandits who killed his girl. Before that goal is accomplished, he says, the main protagonist has a “psychedelic freak out” and reforms a small town, after more blood is shed. “In the end, pretty much everyone dies,” Evans says.

All of the musicians in Spindrift play a character in The Legend of God’s Gun. “Basically, it’s all deadbeat musicians and no actual actors,” Evans says.

In addition to the movie, Spindrift pays homage to Western culture by making sure to perform at Pioneertown’s saloon, Pappy & Harriet’s, twice a year. Pioneertown, which is located in southern California, is a former Western movie set transformed into an eclectic desert community.

When asked how Spindrift would react if Carmel resident Clint Eastwood attended their Big Sur show, Evans becomes noticeably excited. “We’d all pass out,” he says. “That would be wonderful. We’d ask him if he would want to be in God’s Gun Two.”

THE THRIFT STORE COWBOYS play Monterey Live, 414 Alvarado St. in Monterey, Thursday, March 29, at 9:30pm. $5/students w/ ID; $7/general admission. 877-548-3237.

SPINDRIFT, DEAD MEADOW and ASSEMBLE HEAD IN SUNBURST SOUND play Fernwood, 24 miles south of Carmel on Highway 1 in Big Sur, Saturday, March 31, at 9pm. $12. 667-2422.