various artists - Salvation! Original Soundtrack

It was a great week last week for crate digging. Things kicked off after a rare work-from-the-office day when I stopped by one of my regular haunts before coming home. I had seen a picture of their Monday night restock, showing two bookshelves full of CDs and cassettes. I knew there was quality to be found; I was proven correct when I walked out with 25 CDs at $2 a piece. Yesterday, I stopped in my local Value Village, and found copies of Can's "Ege Bamyasi" and "Soundtracks", along with a copy of "Foreign Affairs", all three of which I shared with the homeys over at Twilight Zone. But the finest find of all came courtesy of Half Price Books' clearance section, where I found this lil 5" piece of aluminum.

1987's "Salvation!" was No Wave director Beth B.'s first solo feature. I've never seen it, but it stars Steven McHattie as a televangelist who cheats with an impressionable girl (played by Dominique Davalos), who it turn becomes a rock star. It costars Viggo Mortensen and Exene Cervenka. New Order received the music credit. And that's why we're here.

The five New Order tracks appearing herein are DEEP cuts, having only been reissued in 2024 as part of the Definitive Edition reissue of "Brotherhood". Cabaret Voltaire also provides a pair of cuts, neither of which appear to have been reissued. Arthur Baker, who had been remixing New Order to great results since 1983, chips in a quartet of songs, with three of those being co-written with and performed by NYC club promoter John Hood. In all, this feels like the last moments before club sounds shifted from New York to Manchester, from Danceteria to the Factory. The Factory-adjacent label Les Disques du Crépuscle handled the physical media, with the Dutch East India imprint Giant putting it out here in the States. 

The Blu-ray is available on Kino Lorber, which means I'll be looking for a copy to see just how this all fits together. It's been a good listen and a very good find.

Discogs

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The Mummies - Double Dumb Ass...In The Face

Here at Primitive Offerings, LLC, you can count on a few things. There'll always be a fair amount of justified shit talk, I rarely take time off (unless we do), and I'm going to post Mummies records on Halloween until I run out. Here is the 1996 double 7" "Double Dumb Ass...In The Face", a reissue by Estrus of the first two, self-released singles by the Mummies. I know that I bought a copy of this from Hex Induction a couple of years ago, and it'll bum me out to no end if it was lost in my last move or placed inside a poorly labeled box by a mover. It's a humdinger, I tell ya. But you can almost certainly decide for yourself with just a few clicks of the trackpad.

Discogs

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various artists - Babe, You're No. 1

As mid-90s rock radio promos go, this one is pretty good. It's hard to beat a lineup that leads off with Foo Fighters/Ben Folds 5/Buffalo Tom/Edwyn Collins. Add in some British indie from Teenage Fanclub, the Verve, and Sleeper, a pair of covers by Circle Jerks and Tricky, and a contribution by the tragically-underheard China Drum, and I'm left thinking, "I'd listen to this radio station RIGHT NOW!"

I've started fantasizing about DJing a once-a-week radio show recently. Nothing big like our own KEXP, with thousands of online listeners. Just a thousand watts, late at night on a Wednesday or Thursday, just like I did it 30 years ago, spinning records and talking shit. Is all this (waves hands around, gesturing wildly at Blogland) the modern equivalent of college radio in the 90s? Am I already doing it, just with less steps?

Discogs

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various artists - Bright Ambassadors Of Morning: Mojo Presents 12 Cosmic Echoes From The Psychedelic Universe

The summer is officially over, here in the deep south of Alaska. It is wet again, and 50 degrees, and it looks like the sun is always rising or setting. For a few weeks, it will be golden hour all day long, and it has both glory and sadness in its coming.

I loaded this into my phone when I was rebuilding the Workupload folder, having forgotten I picked it up as part of a lot of CDs. It makes for a pretty good score for this time of year, as well as serving as a good example of where Mojo is at their best. I was only familiar with a handful of the artists contained herein: the Flaming Lips, Todd Rundgren, Phil Manzanera, and Agitation Free. The rest might as well have never existed before I heard them here, the sort of music that I would know to discover otherwise. Does the algorithm exist to get Jon Hassell on your radar, even if you're already listening to EG releases from the 80s? How does one get to Natural Information Society if you're not already juiced into the contemporary progressive indie scene? Not of this is a gripe, mind you; it's a weird "thank you" for providing a means to encounter something trustworthy and new.

Discogs

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Mel Henke - La Dolce Henke

Mel Henke's "La Dolce Henke" (subtitled "The Mad Musical World of Mel Henke") is the deepest cut in the Scamp catalog. No less than the avant-garde musician and critic Eugene Chadbourne had this to say about Henke:

Coming up in a variety of Chicago bands in the '40s, this pianist had an unusual career that included recording downright weird tunes such as "Shock Treatment," "Cocky Coo-Coo Clock," and "Frenzied Flight," as well as creating what might be one of the masterpieces in the genre of lounge music, although experts in this style have been a bit relaxed about establishing an exact opinion. Henke shows up in the rhythm section on some Louis Armstrong records, and meanwhile over in Nashville, he once successfully placed a song with Conway Twitty. Henke was trained to please in writing ad copy, an influence that has been considered both a pro and con factor in his recorded works. Perhaps Henke's greatest influence as a musician was in the advertising field itself, as he was innovative in mixing music and sound effects as an attention-grabbing factor in the commercials of the '60s.

...In 1955 he went to work for Disney's television department, writing material for a great deal of the studio's commercials as well as incidental music for the Disneyland television series. Henke ran his own production company as well, and was known for experimenting with sound effects and the concept of mixing dialogue into musical passages. Inevitably, he created a series of albums combining these techniques with full-length musical performances and instrumental skullduggery. "La Dolce Henke", worth hunting down for its title alone, is considered his masterpiece.

"La Dolce Henke" is one of two records Henke released on Warner Bros. in 1962, and it wouldn't be inappropriate to call it "zany". Henke's trademark was to combine jazzy composition with sound effects and voiceover, something he used to great effect in his later TV commercial. Here, it can be a little grating, while novel. I chalk that up to this working best when delivered in small doses. This reissue lives on my shelves next to Carl Stalling, Raymond Scott, and Spike Jones; all bandleaders who weren't afraid to get mega weird and wild. 

Discogs

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various artists - Requiem By Rough Trade

A brief update: I've reuploaded the rest of the missing 2026 posts. I'm debating what from 2025 or before I'm going to reupload, but, as is still the fashion online, please feel free to drop a comment asking for a fresh upload.

This also came from the estate sale where I obtained Monday's "Cohen Covered" blog. And, boy howdy!, does it check a lot of boxes for me:

• It's a compilation.
• It's a Japanese pressing.
• It was released only two years after the introduction of the compact disc.
• It's a sampler of Rough Trade artists.
• It was a buck.

When I'm out in the world, this is EXACTLY the sort of thing I'm looking for. It's not that the music is especially rare; Lord knows how many times I've heard that Smiths track. But the selections here generally aren't drawn from the songs I would have expected. The Wire cut comes from the "Our Swimmer" 7", and there are two Weekend tracks (instead of Young Marble Giants). Robert Wyatt also contributes a pair of songs, including the rousing "Red Flag", which I love, but is no one's idea of a hit. There's also a Dome side, coming from the Gilbert/Lewis side project that I didn't know existed until I picked this up.

It's a very cool compilation, and, clearly, I'm a fan of cool compilations.

Discogs

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various artists - Cohen Covered: Mojo Presents His Greatest Songs

Mojo has released two Leonard Cohen tributes to date. I wrote about the second release, 2012s "The Songs Of Leonard Cohen Covered", last September. People seemed to like it; my Blogger stats say that around 250 people read the post, so I'd guess around 300 folks downloaded the comp before I nuked my Workupload last week.

So the timing was good to share the first volume, which came out in 2008 while the master songwriter still stalked the earth. I pulled this from an estate sale a few weeks back, bringing it home along with a pair of Tom of Finland prints, some Patrick Cowley 12"s, a Pedro Almodóvar DVD box set, and numerous other rad things that I was thrilled to give a new home to. Now that I've listened to both Mojo/Cohen releases, I will say that I prefer this one.

I'd never heard Dion's and Claudine Longet's versions of "Sisters Of Mercy" and "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye", and they, alone, were worth the buck that I paid for this. The Bad Seeds cover "Avalanche" from "Songs Of Love And Hate". Martha Wainwright singing "Tower of Song" reminded me how much I love "I'm Your Man" and pushed me to throw it back on my phone. There are also contributions from Linda Thompson, Eyeless In Gaza, Ian McCulloch, and even a live rendition of "Song For Bernadette" from Judy Collins. This tribute led me to enjoy a Judy Collins performance. If that's not a bright endorsement of the quality, I don't know what could be.

Discogs

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The Exotic Sounds Of Martin Denny - Quiet Village / The Enchanted Sea

The final Scamp reissue of Martin Denny's library features the record that was my introduction to the exotica master. "Quiet Village" came out in 1959 but I wouldn't hear it for another three and a half decades. I had a boss in the mid-90s, a very hip lady who was ahead of the lounge revival by about 24 months. She knew that, despite the hardcore badges on my flight jacket, that I loved what I'd been exposed to from 50s cocktail culture. So one night, as I was vacuuming the front quarter of the bookstore we both worked in, she handed me a C90 with "Quiet Village" on the A-side. On the drive home, I pushed that tape into the deck of my Pontiac Sunbird and was transported away from suburban Baltimore to...somewhere warm and sunny and lazy. I soon and happily spent full price on Capitol's The Exotic Sounds Of Martin Denny compilation that came out under their "Ultra-Lounge" series in '96. And that's why, 30 years on, I'm sharing this now.

Oh, yeah, and John Sturges wrote the original liner notes for "Quiet Village". John Sturges! The Great Escape! The Magnificent Seven! Bad Day at Black Rock! Marooned!

"The Enchanted Sea" takes up the backside of this reissue. I do not have any fun stories about "Enchanted Sea". I hadn't heard it until I picked up this CD a few years ago. I've also never seen a copy on vinyl in a thrift store bin. That's neither here nor there, but it does seem weird that I've yet to turn this up in the wild.

Nine records in three years, helping to create a new subgenre, supported by a record company that'd let him do whatever he felt like creating. Damn, Martin Denny was so cool.

Discogs

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various artists - Stax 60th Anniversary

It seems like a good idea to follow up Monday's post with this one, a sampler of Stax's heyday to celebrate their 60th anniversary in 2017. I found this one tucked amongst a grip of Motown reissues at one of my favorite thrift stores and was more than happy to throw it on the pile of CDs I brought home. My only complaint is that there's no Rufus Thomas present. That seems like a real missed opportunity in my book.

Nothing but A+ floor fillers here. Just classic Stax soul from front to back.

Discogs

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Alert - Workupload links lost

Second Update: 10/14/26, 10:59pm - April onward has been re uploaded. Looking to have the rest of 2026 done before the weekend is over.

Update: 10/12/26, 10:48pm - everything back to June 1 has been re-uploaded. Let me know if you have any issues downloading any of those.

It appears that I inadvertently deleted every Workupload link on the blog last night in the course of uploading some new files. So bear with me if you're looking for something specific. I'll start working backwards from "Where Is My Mind" tonight, but if you're looking for something older, leave me a comment, and I'll bump it up in the queue.

various artists - Stax Uncovered! (Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos - A Mojo Sampler)

It's hard to believe that I've been doing this blog for this long and have yet to really talk about how Stax Records fits in my fandom. I was raised listening to Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and the Staple Singers. I played "Theme From 'Shaft'" at the midway point of every episode of my radio shows. I just bought a second copy of David Porter's "Victim Of The Joke?" at an estate sale because my first copy is buried and boxed in my storage unit. I'm not a completist, but I'll happily buy the same Stax or Enterprise release in multiple formats. I may have problems...not bad ones, but ones I might need to work on.

"Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos" came out in 2023 and unleashed a wealth of never-before-heard recordings on the world. Seven discs, 146 songs, 140 of which had never been released commercially. I've yet to buy a physical copy; too rich for my blood, but the day may yet come. Instead, I've enjoyed this Mojo sampler at great length. There are a pair of Eddie Floyd-penned classics: "634-5789 (Soulsville U.S.A.)" and "Stay With Me", which never got released. Mack Rice's solo version of "Respect Yourself" is one of my all-time Staple Singers favs. The box set shares two versions of the unreleased Banks/Jackson composition "Too Much Sugar For a Dime"; I really dig the Bettye Crutcher version that appears here for the first time.

Memphis soul is the one that speaks most to me, and this sampler is a fine, economical way to dig into what remains one of my favorite catalogs. Enjoy yourself!

Discogs

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