The Exotic Sounds Of Martin Denny - Hypnotique & Exotica Vol. III

We carry on with another pairing of Martin Denny classics. This time, I present 1959's "Hypnotique" and "Exotica Vol. III", as collected by the good folks at Scamp! SCAMP!: the exclamation point means it's quality!

While all of Denny's covers are great, "Hypnotique" is probably my favorite. The font used for "Hypnotique" is so distinct and evocative of the time. The cover layout is quite bizarre; an exception to his other releases with its clutter and lack of regional specificity. It references surrealism in a way that few other mood music records do; the exception coming to mind is Jackie Gleason's "Lonesome Echo", released four years prior and featuring a Dali painting.

Anywho...one more Denny two-fer to go, then it's on to more Scamp! catalog.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Monitor This! Oct/Nov 2010

I like to play this little game when I come across this, a sampler that came from the missus' collection. It's "which record did she buy to get this free with purchase?"

Was it Superchunk, whose "Majesty Shredding" was a heavy spin for the two of us in our first year dating each other? She's always been a big Ben Folds fan, with loads of CD-R filled with live sets. I bought her a copy of his 2010 collaboration with author Nick Hornby, "Lonely Avenue", during a record-buying binge before she went home for Christmas that year. It seems unlikely it would have been the recent releases by Robert Plant (not a Zep fan, as far as I know) or Jerry Lee Lewis (she's a Sun Records purist). Maybe it was KT Tunstall; she's the right age to have blasted "Suddenly I See" while bombing down I-97 to her job in Annapolis. Or perhaps Anberlin, as she listened to a fair amount of emo-adjacent alt rock for years before meeting me. A Stone Sour purchase would confuse me. A late-catalog Ice Cube CD would be very out of character for her. And Maroon 5? Well, in this house, that's grounds for a serious conversation.

With any luck, it was a Mark Ronson record that I've yet to turn up in our shared collection. Or maybe somebody just tossed it in her bag to be nice, one fall day in 2010.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various - Zetrospective

This is a late post. I blame the missus, who distracted me with her feminine wiles while I was in the middle of writing this up. Mea culpa: I am quite susceptible to feminine wiles.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might think that I came to ZE Records via no wave. I've written about James Chance multiple times over the years, and the tag has a number of entries associated with it (I should probably remove it from the Screamers' live set). And that's not a terrible assumption. However, it was David & Don Was's Was (Not Was) that poisoned my brain with their mutant disco and led me to the venerable downtown label. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but every time I heard the Waitresses during the holidays, or the DJ spinning "Mr. Softee" as part of a Friday, 5pm closing shift, I was getting introduced to the downtown sounds of ZE.

And this is why I like both types of music: hardcore and disco.

This two-CD set came out back in 1989, an early digital collection of ZE's five-year heyday. I'm not entirely certain where I found it, but I'm sure I plotzed when I found it on the shelf. The combined set was only available in Europe; each disc got its own release here in the States. The artwork on said 2CD set is a horrible merge of the American releases' covers; I've subbed in the vinyl cover below.

All this is to say, I got a good deal when I turned this up for a few bucks.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - CMJ Presents Certain Damage! - Volume 3

Here's a look back to when people still thought the Red Hot Chili Peppers were edgy, when college rock meant you could loop Fields of the Nephilim, Robbie Robertson, and Kool Moe Dee together, and funk metal was the next big thing. Truth be told: I kept this because I found the cover art so goddamned charming. The Cabaret Voltaire song is pretty solid, Lion was on the "The Transformers: The Movie" soundtrack, and I'm not sure I'll ever get Bryan Ferry solo. 1987 was weird for music, man.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - I Hear Ya! Fall 1995: The Caroline Distribution CD Sampler #11

Caroline and ADA were the two "cool" distributors we could buy from when I worked that Borders-esque book & music store in suburban Baltimore. ADA had Sub Pop and Matador, and were always good for a big stack of promos every month. Caroline, home to their eponymous label, Astralwerks, Revelation, and Dischord, were less generous with promos, but did a nice sampler series called "I Hear Ya!", which we played over the PA during closing while we cleaned up. In retrospect, it seems weird that I never held onto those, considering there's a really good mix of stuff from the mid-90s.

The big release around this time was the Misfits' box set; I assume that's why Jerry Only and Doyle are the cover boys here, and why "Teenagers From Mars" headlines this sampler. This was also my first experience hearing the Brian Jonestown Massacre, who blew my 17-year-old mind the first couple times I encountered them. Doc Hopper, Shift, 88 Fingers Louie, and State Of The Nation were all bands we could see playing VFWs and basements; we had no clue that Hole was covering the Velvets, or who Mick Farren was...only that they sounded cool as hell. Sounds like those coming from Crash Worship and Controlled Bleeding were exotic, even if they didn't lead to my buying either record.

This one popped up in a dollar bin on the central California coast last winter. As fall...uh, falls, I thought it was an apt spin.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - The Sound Gallery Volume One

There's a dude over at Twilight Zone who's been posting KPM 1000 Series records the past few weeks, and they're all top notch. Thus it was serendipitous that this week's entry in the Scamp chronicles is their first compilation, "The Sound Gallery Volume One". It draws from KPM's gigantic library music collection, while being filled out with sounds from EMI's Studio Two imprint and United Artists. For the uninitiated, go immediately to the Alan Hawkshaw and Mandingo tracks.

These are quintessentially 70s sounds, and if they inspire you to dress like Serpico, well, I can't be held responsible.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - No Alternative

If the blog count is to be believed, this is post #750. Pretty good for an amateur writer with a stuttering memory and shit taste in music. It's a real testament to my "never-say-die, never-think-things-through, never-consider-irrelevance" attitude towards life.

"No Alternative" came out shortly after my 16th birthday and is one of the few Columbia House acquisitions I've managed to hold onto. And why not? It was the first Red Hot benefit I picked up, initially for the Beastie Boys and Nirvana tracks. It was my introduction to Pavement, Uncle Tupelo, and Patti Smith. Who could ever part with such a momentous, influential release?

Now that it's been 30+ years that I've owned this, it's a lot easier to look back and pick up on things I missed as a teenager. I didn't know that Urge Overkill were covering Marvin Gaye or that the Goo Goo Dolls were covering the Stones. I definitely didn't know that Bob Mould was the guy from Sugar back then (I did know that Sugar were good). I hadn't yet put together that the leader of the Breeders used to be married to John Murphy. And could I have imagined that the guy from Buffalo Tom would eventually become a troubadour in Stars Hollow, or that I'd eventually associate the singer of Smashing Pumpkins more with pro wrestling than alt.rock? I know all these things and more now, the benefit of age and a greatly expanded record collection. To think: maybe if I hadn't snagged this one all that time ago, I might not have taken this path to the music and the misery.  And you wouldn't have gotten two hundred ninety-two words about it all.

(Postscript: the Sarah McLachlan and Matthew Sweet tracks still swing.)

Discogs

Click here to download.

Jackie Gleason – And Awaaay We Go!

I'm going to skip over SCP-9705 for now, due in great part to not knowing where the hell the actual CD is. Instead, let's proceed with a survey of Sheriff Buford T. Justice's character work. "And Awaaay We Go!" is an expanded edition of Jackie Gleason's 1954 10" release on Capitol. In addition to the eight tracks on that original release, the Scamp reissue adds theme music from both "The Jackie Gleason Show" and "The Honeymooners", a pair of recitations as Reginald Van Gleason III, and a few other incidental tracks. It adds up to an interesting artifact from the early days of television, as well as one of the few ways to experience Gleason's character work aurally. It is very, very cool.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Round One: Rawkus vs. Astralwerks (Mixed by Q-Burns Abstract Message)

I have a special place in my heart for samplers like these. Most of them aren't nearly this good, nor are they constructed so well. The selections come from contemporary releases from Astralwerks and Rawkus, who both were on fire in 2001. The weak spot is Q-Burns Abstract Message, and his contribution isn't really bad at all. His mix isn't really more noticeable than beat matching and letting a sextet of big beat, house, and hip hop do its thing. If nothing else, this is a great excuse to really dig into the Rawkus catalog. Association with the Murdoch family aside, they put out some all-timers back in the aughts. I really should pull that Pharoahe Monch debut LP out and give it another spin.

Anyways, thanks POWERade for your off-brand rehydrating drink and Cornerstone for putting together the sampler. AND the digital camera you sent me in early 2002 for doing street team stuff in Baltimore. Love, me.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - The Copulatin' Blues Compact Disc (22 Blues And Jazz Classics)

You know, they don't just make compilations about fuckin' any more. I blame Trump.

These sort of compilations of early 20th century American music are a real gateway to me. Collecting and preserving early jazz & blues is probably boomers' greatest contribution to pop culture, even if, in the course of putting these sort of records together, they probably avoided paying the appropriate royalties to the artists. Hey, what can you do? Cultural appropriation and exploitation wasn't a thing back in 1976!

But enough of the shit talk. Bring on the Alberta Hunter! Give me more Sidney Bechet! I celebrate Lucille Bogan and Tampa Red! The theme is unimportant (albeit amusing); the art's the thing, and I'm way into this thing.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Insound Tour Support Collection Vol. No. One

It seems weird that I've only written about the Insound Tour Support series once, for how many of them I ended up with and how many times they got me onboard with a band or an artist. The Kind Of Like Spitting release, in particular, is the thing that got me listening to Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Leon Redbone. I heard the Canyon EP before I saw them live, even though they were based in DC and were dudes from emo bands playing Neil Young-style country rock...a genre engineered to grab my early-20s interest.

A lot of this is now hitting the quarter century mark, which explains why the original records are being revisited (s/o to Numero Group and Solid Brass for their ongoing reissue programs). So I thought it was a good opportunity to finally post this one up. It compiles a fair amount of the bands who appeared in Volumes 1-19. And like a lot of what I share here, it's a good snapshot of indie rock in the years around 9/11. Bright Eyes, Ida, and the Faint are the biggest names here, although relistening to this makes me wish I had held onto my copies of the Lion compilation EP and the Very Secretary release.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Pilot To Gunner - Games At High Speeds

At some point in the summer of 2000, Dave from the Oranges Band, who I knew through punk rock and would later work with at the Ottobar, informed me that TOB would be opening for Lifter Puller at Brownie's in NYC. Would I like to tag along? Of course I would; I was no dum-dum. To see Lifter Puller in their home away from home, at a classic indie club that I'd never visited before...well, that was a treat too delightful to pass up. So I wedged myself into their van's loft (hangers-on do not get a seat), and off we went to Manhattan.

Pilot To Gunner opened up that show, and I'd be lying if I said they made a major impact on me at the time. It was emo-derived indie rock, not so dissimilar from what was coming out on Equal Vision or Deep Elm at the time. I remember thinking they were probably on their first record with a major label, a la Jimmy Eat World or Shift. It wasn't until after their set, when I took a look at their merch table, that I discovered they were actually on Gern Blandsten, home to Rorschach, Chisel, Native Nod, and a bunch of other North Jersey/ABC No Rio hardcore and hardcore-adjacent outfits. I wished I'd paid more attention, I thought, right up until the Oranges Band started their set.

This one would get reissued by Rykodisc under their Arena Rock imprint, alongside Pilot To Gunner's second full-length. I uncovered my CD copy, obtained sometime before 9/11, just recently, gave it a spin, and found it a perfectly reasonable flash back to the days when I was physically able to fit within a 24" tall space for 3 hours to go see a band. This is a pretty good one, it turns out.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Energizer Titanium Technology Presents

This sampler, a recent discovery in a tranche of the missus' CD collection, reminds me of Joston's sponsoring the validation sticker on Bart's Hullabalooza ticket on "The Simpsons". Like, what better way to show the kids your battery is the coooooooool battery than to sponsor a sampler of Island Def Jam's finest artists, circa 2005? Still, it's always big fun in my house when I discover an item that wasn't previously listed on Discogs, and this one fits. Add in tracks from Fall Out Boy, Thrice, and Juelz Santana, and this is legitimately a keeper.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Astralwerks SXSW New Music 2006

From the "Holy Shit, It's Been 20 Years!" Files: this sampler.

This one came from the missus's collection, which I would say runs both less esoteric and more eclectic than my own. For one, even 20 years ago when it was still primarily a place for indie rock bands to play 6 shows in the course of 4 days, you wouldn't have caught me down in Austin for SXSW. I was always happy for friends who got a bunch of slots down there, and a good opportunity to tour to and from. But it felt like a combination of too much money, too many bands, too many drugs, and not enough sleep, even in my twenties when all that's supposed to be what you're living for.

The contrivance part of Astralwerks was really no longer present by the time they put this out in 2006. It was no longer only the place where EMI would collect and license a bunch of European electronic music makers to help them grow. The success of Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers led to more breakouts from the likes of Sia and Hot Chip. It also served as the American home for Beth Orton and Placebo. Dance punk adjacent artists like the Juan MacLean and VHS Or Beta put out records along with soul survivor Candi Staton. It was still a home for dance music, but this sampler is a reminder that it was a much larger tent by 2006.

Does it hold up well, 20 years past? In a few instances, yeah, the song and artist is timeless. I'm going to think of Christopher Walken every time I hear "Weapon Of Choice" and it's going to make me smile. Hot Chip sounds like the future, just like they did on the "Over & Over" 12" that DFA put out in '05. Likewise for the Juan MacLean, whose eponymous leader also recorded for DFA before putting out their first full-length in the States on Astralwerks.

2006 was my first year of marriage, my first year out of college, my first year working under my abilities at as "straight" a job as I could stomach. It was the end of youth, the beginning of respectability...or so I thought. As it turns out, it was the first major detour in an adulthood full of them, and this sampler, just out of the mainstream of the times, is as good a soundtrack to remember those times as anything.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Jetset In-Flight Entertainment

I couldn't quit y'all.

Jetset Records came to my attention in 1997 with their release of a Jesus Lizard 10" and the American version of Mogwai's first LP, along with a collection of their earlier recordings. TJL was a known quantity, although on the back end of their original run as kings of noise rock. And one of my best friends, an Anglophile who'd been buying a bunch of Chemikal Underground records back then, swore by Mogwai.

So that sets the scene for me getting a copy of this sampler in 1999. Mogwai's moved on to Matador here in the States, releasing "Come On Die Young" and blowing many minds. I'm familiar with who the Go-Betweens, Macha, and Firewater are, even though I haven't heard them then. I'm tickled by a band going by Prolapse, and the rest are brand new to me.

In retrospect, this is one of those perfect samplers. It's a comp built for me, the young indie rock enthusiast with a fistful of expendable income. I'm pretty sure that, with the exception of Tomorrow's World and Kid Silver, I bought every record represented here. "Bedhead Loved Macha", "The Lost Album", "England Made Me": all recordings released around this time that I still revisit on the regs.

My copy came in this clear, round clamshell, while Discogs says this came in a generic cardboard sleeve. For whatever that's worth to ya.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Future House: Best Of House Music Vol. 4

I wanted to get in a mid-week post ahead of Halloween, which means a really half-assed post is in order, and this title fits the bill to a T. I picked this up a few years ago for a buck, solely on the presence of a Leftfield track and that it was released on Profile. I kinda dug the cover, too; the green-on-purple just really grabs my attention. How could I turn it down?

Someone more involved in this scene in the mid-90s and less involved in their junior year of high school can speak to whether this is an example of truth in advertising. Is this, indeed, the best of house music from 1992-1993? Shit, I barely knew what Maximum Rock 'n Roll or Fugazi were back then, so I am far from qualified to determine what's good. I like it; it's got a good beat, and you can dance to it. Dick Clark gives this a 69.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Spin: 100% Original

The words "Ocean Pacific" pops out at me, one of those brands of my youth, up there with Airwalk, Vans, Stüssy, Jncos, Bones Brigade, and Sex Wax as signifiers of teenage fashion of a certain era. Not that I could afford any of the above, nor did I have the cool uncle/aunt/older sibling who'd plunk down money on them so I could feel cool. As a result, I'm not particularly driven towards tracking down any fluorescent shorts or skin-tight monochromatic tees from early adolescence. Thank g_d for Mom & Dad's cheapness for avoiding that particular nostalgic curse.

This promo, sampling the contemporary Atlantic Records roster of 1999, is the sort of thing I would have tossed immediately back then, but happily share with you today. Just do yourself a favor; avoid track 4. Nothing good comes of listening to Bob Ritchie nowadays.

On the other hand: Fountains of Wayne, Fat Joe, Bad Religion, and Latin Playboys all provide no worse than decent cuts from their then-current records. There's a Collective Soul track, a sampling from the swing revival, and a few others that I cannot be arsed to revisit. Also sponsored by Spin Magazine, although I couldn't say if this was a giveaway with Spin, an OP purchase, or a mailaway. I'd think this was attached to a Spin subscription; otherwise, how would I have ended up with a copy?

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Tromeo & Juliet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

When I saw the other day that James Gunn had yet another movie open #1 at the box office, I was reminded, yet again, that he made his bones writing "Tromeo & Juliet", Troma's beloved take on Shakespeare. So it led me to bust out this shiny slab of aluminum. I bought it b/c Troma and Unsane, I kept it b/c Motörhead and Superchunk and Meatmen and Wesley Willis. Hell, they even managed to wedge a song from Gunn's band, the Icons, on here.

This is not going to show up on a listical of iconic 90s soundtracks. But I'd suggest that it should be recognized as part of the canon. While there's little here that is exclusive to the soundtrack, it does offer a wide swath of "alternative" rock from the late 90s, from a deep cut from Sublime to music from the Ass Ponys and Supernova. Plus: Brujeria!

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Mojo Presents: 1-2-3-4! (The Roots Of The Ramones)

It's coming up on 30 years since the Ramones broke up; we're in the sixth decade of having them on the planet. What a pivot point. Everything that came before was garage rock or proto punk or beat. Everything that came after was punk, the new wave. Knowing what we know now about the interpersonal politics of the band, it's amazing to me that we got more than a couple of singles, much less 22 years of turning a 33rpm world up to 45.

Like most Mojo giveaways from this period, "1-2-3-4!" is pretty well curated, snagging 15 tracks of predecessors and contemporaries. As fellow music psychos, you probably have a number of these tracks already. If you're here reading this blog, you don't need me to tell you that Television, the Shangri-Las, and Love are fucking incredible. Placing Ronnie Spector singing a Joey composition and adding a track from Leslie West's pre-Mountain garage back are nice touches. Does T.Rex fit here for me? I dunno, but maybe you have some insight. It's all led off with a Ramones rarity: the Stones' "Street Fighting Man", performed with ex-Heartbreaker Walter Lure.

Good art doesn't need to be groundbreaking or proficient. It also needs to have heart, be authentic; talent is always a plus, but that's all subjective. And, subjectively, the Ramones distilled their influences and surrounding into something truly great. And this is still a good way to hear what contributed to that greatness.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Music For TV Dinners

I wrote about the second "Music For TV Dinners" about a year ago. That one seemed to be pretty popular. And I came across a grip of 90s Esquivel! CDs at the local Half Price Books last weekend (owned 'em all already), which inspired me to revisit this first volume, which, oddly enough, I only snagged a copy of about two months ago.

But it was worth the wait, right? Allow me to apologize for not properly dating each track contained herein. You'll find some names in common between the two volumes; Laurie Johnson and Johnny Pearson are the two that I key on. This one surveys the KPM and APM library music catalogs, and, to me, it whets my appetite for space age, lounge, tiki, and other atomspherics that all faded away as synths, beats, and dissonance all filled the scoring space. It's the sound of the late 50s and early 60s, our themes for better living through technology!

It's a vibe, as the kids say. Beats the hell out of what's happening in the world right now.

Discogs

Click here to download.