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

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various artists - Music For TV Dinners: The '60s

Back during COVID Year One, when I was just barely backing off the throttle of a post a day during the revival of this here blog, I made an ill-fated, poorly-executed decision to write about and share the entire Scamp Records catalog. Scamp was a Caroline imprint, executed in the mid to late 90s to reissue a bunch of EMI's easy listening catalog and exploit the lounge revival. I'd been coming across a few of them for super cheap, and thought "here's a fun topic to revisit."

(A brief explanation for my younger readers: somewhere in the early 90s, Gen X'ers rediscovered tiki bars, fruity drinks, and Esquivel in their quest to move on from R.E.M. and legitimize kitsch and camp. Some of it was thirsty as hell, but it opened the door to appreciate the fun parts of 50s and early 60s exotica culture. And there are definitely parts still worth appreciating.)

At any rate, even though I shit the bed following through (click the Scamp tag to see how well I did), I did continue acquiring Scamp titles, to the point where I'm just missing one release and one promo. I've almost done it, kind reader. I've bought a gaggle of CDs that have been out of print almost since I graduated high school. It's a high point in a low life. Some people share pictures of their kids; I'm stoked to share records that have been out of print for almost 30 years.

So here's "Music For TV Dinners: The '60s". It's library music from the incredibly deep Barry Music Co. catalog. The publishing was all held under EMI Music Publishing, hence it's available to be mined for this comp. Maybe you didn't know you needed a record of music that all sounds like it was the soundtrack to late 60s British television. Let me assure you, dear friend: you absolutely DO need this music.

Discogs

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various artists - The Sound Gallery Volume Two

Remember back when I said I was going to post all the Scamp reissues I owned? And then I did no such thing? And I became what is known affectionately the world around as "a liar"?

That was a good time.

Clearly, Rome was not built in a day, and lies cannot be rewound, only countered. Here's my piddling effort, a swing to make things right for your Monday. This is Volume Two of the two-volume Scamp series "The Sound Gallery". Why not Volume One first, you might ask? Well, Volume One lives on a hard drive that I cannot currently find. So Volume Two is what you get.

What you get here is a wealth of late 60s through mid 70s film scoring/library music/lounge music/songs for the swapping set. Were you born too young to throw your keys into a bowl at a party? Does the word "Eurosleaze" evoke clear images for you? Do you crash YouTube looking for four-episode ITV adventure series? Then this here is your soundtrack.

Discogs

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101 Strings - Astro Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000

Remember, like, a month ago, when I was all, like, "Hey, I have all the Scamp Records releases now. I think I'll do a write-up and post about each and every one!" Hey, good times, right? Whatever happened to that?

What happened is a combination of: A) my external hard drive, which holds the vast array of my MP3 collection (and, yeah, don't think I don't get a little douche shiver every time that phrase comes up), has disappeared in one of five different places in Mrs. Ape's and my apartment; B) the hard copies of each release are spread across any number of 14 X 14 X 14 boxes in one of my storage units (that's right, units, dude); and C) I cannot be arsed to tear either the apartment or my storage units apart to rectify the situation.

Did I write that run-on sentence to justify the use of the phrase "cannot be arsed"? Damned right, I did.

So I replaced my beater, 128kbps listening copy of SCP 9717-2, 101 Strings' "Astro Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000" with a physical CD the week before last, not only to honor my commitment to you, the kind reader, but also because it was a decent price, and the seller had a copy of that Mission To Burma comp that I posted a few days back. And now I have good cause to post one of my favorite space-age/Now Sound records of all time.

This exists as one of those grail records that would turn up in more thrift stores than record stores, because as any crate digger knows, hitting a vein of 101 Strings records means you're about to dig through a fat stack of budget mood music. When I've talked to buds about this in the past, and shown them the cover, they've all collectively slapped their heads. They've seen it, handled it, even, but few ever actually bought it. Those who did snag it immediately encountered truth in advertising, a record consisting of psychedelic instrumentals, swinging, modern sounds...the kind of stuff your grandparents got loaded and spouse swapped to.

I love this shit so much. It's so much cooler than most of the rest of 101 Strings' extensive catalog; hell, I'd put it up against the best of Esquivel are far as being "far out" and "outta sight". It presages everything from Isaac Hayes' "Hot Buttered Soul", to AIR's score for "The Virgin Suicides", to the various beats of Danger Mouse, all the way up to J.G. Thirwell's most current work. The good folks at Modern Harmonic did a nice reissue of this in 2017; it was the first American vinyl reissue in nearly 50 years. However, I copped this because the 1996 Scamp release, albeit not on vinyl, came with three extra cuts from 1970's "The Exotic Sound Of Love", which has yet to be reissued since its original release. One can only hope that day comes in the near future...or I just turn one up while mining one of those veins of otherwise garbage vinyl.

Discogs

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Robert Mitchum - Calypso - Is Like So...

I've been planning for months to start a new series, focused on the 90s reissue label Scamp. Scamp was an imprint of Caroline Records, focused on easy listening, lounge, bossa nova, middle-of-the-road, tiki, and other 50s and 60s curiosities from the greater EMI label family. Why, you might ask, would a blogger of punk and reggae be drawn to lounge music? Probably for the same reason why these reissues came into existence in the first place. You get older, and no matter how much you might love three chords and the truth, you just don't necessarily want to listen to it all the time. Not to mention it, but I, like most of you, have been stuck inside for most of the past ten months, and you gotta collect something, right?

I'll be sharing these passports to excitement weekly, according to catalog number, every Friday, just in time for you to pull out the liquor and mixers, put a new download on the speakers, and enjoy your own throwback happy hour. If nothing else, I've committed to 23 more blog posts. It's good to set goals.

First up is SCP 9701: the 1995 reissue of Robert Mitchum's 1958 debut, "Calypso - Is Like So...". Originally released by Capitol Records, the record was inspired by Mitchum's interactions with the calypso scene in Trinidad during the filming of "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison". As far as actors making records goes, it's in my top five all-time. Whereas this would sound like crass appropriation in someone else's hands, Mitchum obviously gives a shit, and sounds so smooth doing it. It's clearly a white guy singing a white version of calypso; there's little to no innuendo present, something that makes listening to the likes of Mighty Sparrow so much fun. But there's real passion present, and Mitchum's singing voice is so strong.

Say what you will about the music, but don't you dare front and act like Robert Mitchum doesn't look like the coolest motherfucker alive on that cover. I've had two drinks all year, and I'm ready to climb off the wagon and onto that stage to split a rum and get eyebanged by the star of "The Friends Of Eddie Coyle".

You'll still find this regularly in thrift store bins, although I've never seen a Capitol pressing that hasn't been beat to hell. The Europeans are much more hip to what a great record this is; if you're looking for a vinyl copy, I definitely recommend snagging the 2010 Bear Family pressing, who cut a DMM disc on 180g wax. It sounds hella good. Surprisingly, this Scamp release is the last American release to date of this underheard classic, and one of only a handful of CDs that have come out over the last 40 years. But that's the point of writing about it, right?

Discogs

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