Copper Mining and Smelting Far Side of the Sun

Copper mining and smelting, in dim, faded color and dark contrast. This film seems to be about from the late fifties, early sixties, it's difficult to say, I believe filmed in Utah. It follows the process of mining and refining copper with an eye towards what looked cool.

There's little sign of the workers here, the camera doesn't dwell on them much. This was the post WW2 booming economy and technology, humans were secondary considerations to the vast amount of power they were creating. There's a tangible sense of carelessness, the strip mining, the ore cars on jolting tracks, men walking through and working with melted copper without much protection at all. Why worry about that, back in those days, if you had any losses, you just blew up more hillside because resources were unending.

Well, not really, but hind sight is twenty-twenty. The movie is in bad shape and desperately needs to be restored, but has a strange, otherworldly feel as it is. You can view the entire ten minute movie at the internet archive.

The music is a spiritual opposite of "Anymore". Dark, paranoid, it stalks through the subconscious and flares out to remind you it's there just when you thought you had a handle on it. But really, is it all that bad to be paranoid? That nagging gut feeling that something is wrong, well, it just might be right.

The music is performed mainly by Tedd Smith and Mike Williams, the very convincing Hammond is actually another appearance of the GR-20 guitar synthesizer. It actually fooled me, because you can hear the slight 'click' of keys - which is the pick on the strings.

Just another meltdown on the mother road.

Some Rights Reserved.

Wecome to Route 66.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Copper
• Mining
• Smelting
• Strip
• Utah
• Far
• Side
• Sun
• Tedd
• Smith
• Mike
• Williams
• GR-20
• Roland
• Synthesizer
• Gothic
• Alternative

[ghilliesniper09]

I live I Miami,AZ. 85539. I can guarantee you that they are still smelting and will be for a while. Also the operations continue in Hayden to this day(45 mins away from my house). The only other ones I know of do not operate anymore, such as superior,AZ(my hometown) and San Manuel,AZ(my Grandfather worked underground in superior/ San Manuel).

[Goldenthrush]

@ghilliesniper09 I can't even imagine what it must be like being around and working around those operations! Thanks much for the information, I hope your Granddad wrote about his experiences, I'm sure those would be really interesting.

[silver760]

@foilseal I see there are 3 smelters in the USA,Kennecot Garfield,Utah,ASARCO Hayden,Arizona and Phelps Dodge Corporation Miami,Arizona.Kennecot being the biggest of all three,all three employ the flash smelting process.

[silver760]

Has that singer sat on something sharp? Or is he just pissed?

[foilseal]

copper smelting is now illegal in all 50 states after maine banned it in 1980