Wax of the Week #44...Arthur Lyman: Isle of Enchantment (1964)

 

Very low-key and not as exotica-sounding as previous records. In fact I only really like the title track. Guess I’m just keeping it for completist’s sake.

Wax of the Week #43...Astrud Gilberto: September 17, 1969 (1969)

A bit unusual, as she interprets American hits of the day, including an eight-minute “Beginnings,” “Light My Fire,” and “Here There and Everywhere.” Gets into Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks composed pop zones with “Summer Sweet.” Almost sounds like a Claudine Longet record (not a bad thing).

Wax of the Week #42...Arthur Lyman: Blowin' in the Wind (1964)

Lyman changes it up a little by incorporating some pop and folk standards into an exotica template. Also includes a take on “Eden’s Island” by Eden Ahbez.

Wax of the Week #41...Astrud Gilberto/Walter Wanderley Trio: A Certain Smile, a Certain Sadness (1967)

Real nice wine-sipping music, produced by Creed Taylor. This was Gilberto’s sixth LP, if you count collaborations. Brazilian Hammond master Wanderley died in San Francisco in 1986, age 54.

Wax of the Week #40...Arthur Lyman: Taboo Vol. 2 (1960)

Another good Lyman exotica record. Eye-catching cover, to say the least.

Wax of the Week #39...Astrud Gilberto: Beach Samba (1967)

Gilberto’s fifth solo album only has three songs I like but they’re all delightful bossa nuggets. “Stay” was written by original New Christy Minstrel Gayle Caldwell (famous for Sinatra’s “Cycles,” which also appears on Caldwell’s 1969 LP for A&M); “Oba Oba” is a Luiz Bonfá tune, while the title track was co-written by Pery Ribeiro.

Wax of the Week #38...Arthur Lyman: Bahia (1959)

Another solid Lyman LP, nuff said.

Wax of the Week #37...Arthur Lyman: Leis of Jazz (1959)

More of a straight easy jazz record than exotica, but still has its moments. Has an earlier catalog number than Taboo, but conventional wisdom says it came later.

Wax of the Week #36...Arthur Lyman: Taboo (1958)

Pound for pound, I reckon Lyman’s discography is at least as good as that of his former boss, Martin Denny. Maybe better. He was actually born of Hawaiian heritage on Kauai, and learned to play on toy marimbas. He was the one who added bird calls to Denny’s groundbreaking exotica hit “Quiet Village” (or was it Augie Colón?). Lyman was still playing weekend gigs in Honolulu right into the ’90s. Taboo was his debut LP.

Wax of the Week #35...Æthenor: Betimes Black Cloudmass (2008)

Meditative atmospheres from a pretty underrated label, VHF (home of Pelt and Sunroof). Features Stephen O’Malley of SunnO))), Daniel O'Sullivan of Guapo, and Kristoffer Rygg of Ulver.

Wax of the Week #34...Armando Trovaioli: Seven Golden Men (1969)

Soundtrack to a 1965 Italian crime/comedy soundtrack. Rome-born Trovaioli (1917–2013) was a prolific composer for his native cinema (THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS, BOCACCIO ’70, and THE LIBERTINE stand out). I haven’t seen this film yet; the only actor I recognize is Gabriele Tinti, a.k.a. Mr. Laura Gemser. This is mostly short cues in the vein of Italian crime jazz.

Wax of the Week #33...Armando Sciascia/New Dimensions Quartetto: Digressioni dal Vero (1968)

Choice crime/suspense library record from Sciascia’s own Italian label, perfect for scoring a giallo or a tense holdup scene in a poliziottescho. If I had the time and the players, this is the kind of music I’d like to play in nightclubs.

Wax of the Week #32...The Aquarians: Jungle Grass (1969)

An obscure but appealing Afro-Brazilian style jazz session (only names I recognize are guitarist Joe Pass and pianist Bobby Hutcherson). It even ventures into exotica zones at times. I think I first saw this mentioned on the old Soulstrut forum. Anyway it’s a nice, little record with some cool grooves.

Wax of the Week #31...Antonio Carlos Jobim: Tide (1970)

The guy who wrote “The Girl from Ipanema,” “Água de Beber,” “Insensatez,” “Meditation,” and “Desafinado,” and helped create and disseminate a whole new style of music in the late ’50s, combining the heady winebuzz coolness of west coast jazz with a danceable samba rhythm. Tide was his sixth or seventh studio record, if you count the soundtracks, but leave out the collaborations (Getz/Gilberto, Sinatra, etc.). It definitely has more of a glossy, easy listening sound compared to the more pure and authentic sounds of earlier records, but is still enjoyable. The bossa nova craze in the US had mostly died out by this point, but these original Brazilian artists never stopped creating, and you can find great records by many of them well into the ’80s.

Wax of the Week #30...The Anita Kerr Quartet: We Dig Mancini (1965)

Nice music from nice people for nice people. Kerr, born in Memphis in 1927, started as a backup country singer but by ’65 had a successful group of her own and moved to L.A. to expand her sound. I didn’t know she was behind those Living Voices records on RCA. She eventually moved to Switzerland and went gospel. Did you know Mancini’s Peter Gunn theme had lyrics?

Wax of the Week #29...v/a: Angel Dust (1988)

Savage Pencil, the nom de plume of English underground cartoonist Edwin Pouncey, compiled this classic collection of biker movie soundtrack highlights, nicely packed in a gatefold sleeve with picture disc vinyl and humorous Albini sleeve notes. Besides a few choice Davie Allen fuzz fests, there’s also incidental studio hack tracks, and the immortal lounge singer theme from “Satan’s Sadists.” FTW…

Wax of the Week #28...v/a: All Hell Let Loose (1983)

Italian-only vinyl version of the Neat cassette compilation 60 Minus Plus (minus four songs), and a pretty good New Wave of British Heavy Metal collection. The song by Crucifixion (from Essex) is a re-recorded version of a 1980 single. Alien (from Newcastle) also appeared on the 1982 Neat comp One Take No Dubs. Axis (from Stockton) released a good 1980 single.

Wax of the Week #27...Aline Mendonça Luz: Aline (1979)

Years ago I started getting into music from Brazil. Just a little at first. Mostly it was because I liked a lot of the ersatz bossa nova heard on many easy listening records from the ’60s, and eventually was slowly drawn to the siren call of the real stuff. Later I figured out I needed the positive vibes and joie de vivre (or alegria de viver) of Brazilian music to counter the natural negative tendencies of my personality. Luz (1946–2003) was an activist against the military regime running her country at the time. Apparently this jazzy LP (her debut after an aborted career at RCA) was one of the first independent albums from a Brazilian artist.

Wax of the Week #26...Alex Keack: Surfers Paradise (1963)

It's a tough slog going through old budget label LPs in search of something you'd want to hear twice, but it's worth it to discover little gems like this. Keack was a member of the vocal group The Islanders, but on here he plays some pleasant exotica, and not the slapped-together surf music one might expect. Budget labels have provided years of exploration for tenacious diggers. I remember well into the early ’80s these types of records were sold mainly in pharmacies and discount stores like Woolworth’s, for non-collector civilians who vaguely desired some music but rarely ventured into record stores. I used to pick up King’s Road exploito cover albums of hits of the day at Fay’s Drugs on upper 2nd Ave. in Lansingburgh. Crown pressed released of albums from 1957 to about 1972, a few of them quite enjoyable and many pretty curious or even strange. A few of the older blues LPs they pressed featured raw demos from the likes of B.B. King and Elmore James and aren’t easy pulls.

Wax of the Week #25...The Alan Lorber Orchestra: The Lotus Palace (1969)

The term "psychedelic" may be a cheap, grossly overused term in eBay descriptions, but to me it's not a genre onto itself. Most often when people refer to music as "psych" it's short-hand for psychedelic rock, mostly from the ’60s. In reality it's a template that can be affixed to various genres: rock, rap, jazz, even classical music. Here's an interesting novelty: a psychedelic easy listening record. Lorber was (is?) a producer/arranger who came up working on Gene Pitney and Leiber/Stoller records, and helped birth the Lovin' Spoonful/Mamas & Papas forerunner The Mugwumps. On this record he busts out the sitars (played by Vinnie Bell) and tablas, inspired by a commercial for a bank he wrote the music for and presumably the Beatles, and creates a healthy chunk of cash-in kitsch.

Wax of the Week #24...Al Hirt: The Horn Meets "the Hornet" (1966)

A better one, featuring some spy/suspense themes, including the Green Hornet theme used in the first Kill Bill.

Wax of the Week #23...Al Hirt: Latin in the Horn (1966)

Hirt (1922–1999) was a burly New Orleans trumpeter who got respect from even Miles Davis. Not a great record by any means but sports a few minor attractions.

Wax of the Week #22...Al Caiola: Blockbuster • Movie/TV Themes (1972)

 

Usually pick up any of these easy listening LPs that are basically compilations of movie themes, especially if they contain suspense or espionage titles. Some good ones on this, which doesn’t turn up as much as some others.

Wax of the Week #21...Al Caiola: Let the Sunshine In (1969)

At the end of the day, I probably have more easy listening records than anything else. Several reasons: they're cheap (still), tons of them came out, and most have at least a song or two worth hearing if you're into this crap. I started picking them up back in the ’90s, as they reminded me of the stuff I'd heard playing over department store P.A.s as a kid. Also, I got a kick out of the "now sound" records, where square old man orchestras would cover the hip rock songs of the day in a desperate attempt to be with it, often accidentally creating in the process records that in the rearview are surprisingly pleasurable and still modern-sounding. Jersey-born guitarist Caiola wasn't anywhere near the top tier of easy listening (we'll hear stuff like Enoch Light's Spaced Out and various John Gregory platters later), but some of his records contain songs that make for pleasant, passive listening. This one features some entertaining spy jazz and bossa-laden tunes.

Wax of the Week #20...Al Caiola: Sounds for Spies and Private Eyes (1965)

Not the most dynamic spy jazz record in the world (too brassy, for one thing), but it does include a couple of decent tracks. “Underwater Chase” was written by the record’s producer, LeRoy Holmes, and “Baker Street Mystery” is from the 1965 Sherlock Holmes Broadway play.

Wax of the Week #19...The Agents: Themes for Secret Agents (1967)

Spy jazz evolved out of crime jazz in the mid-’60s, mainly inspired by the early James Bond scores and the future-pointing feel of the era. It classed up crime with some twangy surf guitar and brought it out of dark alleys and smoky taverns, into mid-century modern lairs and cocktail parties. I'll be posting several superior examples of spy jazz in the future, but for now here's a low-key (and rather mediocre) studio musician cash-in example from Sunset/Liberty that veers more to the easy listening side.

Wax of the Week #18...v/a: Afro-American Spirituals, Work Songs, and Ballads (1952)

Astounding Alan Lomax recordings from 1930s southern prisons and work farms, released by our very own Library of Congress. An aural time machine with not an ounce of self-consciousness; it’s the “real deal” as they say.

Wax of the Week #17...Aerosmith: Toys in the Attic (1975)

Their flabby, watered-down, indulgent post-rehab career all but crapped on their legacy as a killer 1970s rock band. Hell, I'd put "Adam's Apple" up against anything the Stones were doing in ’75 or '76 (hey you, Black and Blue). Not quite as good as the next LP (Rocks, their peak) because of the overplayed hits on here, but the stuff you don't hear on the radio still sounds great. There's a pattern with drug-devouring musicians where often, on the way up, the dope is opening creative pathways and letting them get out of their own way, leading them to an ideal point on the graph where creativity meets skill. Of course, once peaked, they begin the inevitable slide and release stepped-on dope like Pump, with its production focusing on vocals, drums, and brass (!?). Anyway… Is it curious that Joe Perry and Steve Perry both have prominent beaks, are Portuguese, but aren't related?

Wax of the Week #16...v/a: Adventures in Paradise (1959)

 

This TV soundtrack is relatively unremarkable save for a couple of nice exotica tracks by The Islanders. The show ran for 91 episodes from 1959 to ’62 and featured the crew of the Tiki III (including Guy Stockwell) sailing the South Pacific looking for adventure. Thai actress Sondi Sodsai (who made her own exotica album) was a regular on season two. I haven’t seen the show but would like to check it out.

Wax of the Week #15...Adorior: Author of Incest (2005)

Here's one to separate the real heads from the Pavement fans. Ugly, dirty, bestial black death metal. Not the technical, jazzy, abstract species of death, but the guttural, simple and rough brand, a descendant of the likes of Necrovore, Sarcófago, and Blasphemy (with a splash of d-beat). Not for the faint-hearted. From the UK, and that’s a chick on vocals. Careful, any vegetation in a room playing this will turn brown. Love the sleeve on this, very Bosch.

Wax of the Week #14...Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O.: La Nòvia (2000)

This Japanese psychedelic collective has enough product out to fill several swimming pools, but the quality level is surprisingly high, at least if you're into dunking your head into a gushing waterfall of liquid LSD and allowing your astral body to merge with the flow for an album side. I’m hearing Popul Vuh, Gong, English psych folk… an amalgam of trippy music throughout the ages.

Wax of the Week #13...Acid: Maniac (1983)

Another solid metal record from this Belgian band. It’s too bad I didn’t have these LPs back then, would have jammed them at parties and they would have went over well.

Wax of the Week #12...Acid: Acid (1982)

When flipping through the metal bins at the local record stores in the mid-’80s, I'd stare at this Belgian group's album covers, and get a little nervous that they were one of those weird European import bands whose records would just be too heavy, guttural, and monstrous to listen to, that the primitive bestiality of the music would poison my soul and give me nightmares. Just the name (ACID!) suggested you might succumb to a bad trip by spinning their records and go off the deep end (I've seen it happen). Big dummy, I should have picked them up back then, as it turns out yeah they were somewhat primitive, but they actually played rockin' speed metal with a punky/NWOBHM edge, and had a tough female vocalist. Would definitely recommend this LP to non-metalheads exploring the genre, as it avoids some of the motifs that turn off many potential listeners (squealy guitar, cookie monster vocals, complex riffing that goes nowhere).
 

Wax of the Week #11...Accept: Russian Roulette (1986)

Bought this when it was released, but wasn't too impressed other than the song the local metal radio show played ("Another Second to Be"), but spun it recently and liked most of it. It’s pretty much straight-ahead, traditional metal all the way, and (like most German records) nicely recorded. This was the last Accept record I've gotten, so will need to explore their later stuff.

Wax of the Week #10...Accept: Restless and Wild (1982)

One of the great pre-thrash, traditional metal records of all time. Their fourth, and the first to really make headway in the English speaking world. Most heads would probably pick this as their peak album. It's best known for the furious opening cut, "Fast as a Shark," surely one of the bellwethers of the speed/thrash sound, but the whole album is great. Accept were a bit too obscure for the local party contingent growing up, but in certain circles this got a lot of drinking/bone cruise cardeck play, and has aged well. We're looking at the US pressing, which wasn't released until ’83. These guys looked pretty intense; four Teutonic rockers fronted by a stubby, gnome-like singer in battle fatigues who screamed and growled like a maniacal drill sergeant. As with most good heavy records before the modern era, the band had a sense of dynamics and included softer passages and songs to accentuate the hard parts (a songwriting/arranging skill mostly lost today). I had the previous album, 1981's Breaker, but only liked a couple of songs and didn't keep it. The demo for this LP is reviewed in my book (it's slightly different). The band (formed in 1968!) is still around, and based in the US, but now has the ex-singer for Jersey rockers TT Quick as their frontman, Udo having long since gone on with a solo career.

Wax of the Week #9...The Aaron Bell Orchestra: Music from 77 Sunset Strip (1959)

 

I still have yet to see this show (is it worth tracking down?), but you gotta love the light-hearted, swingin' crime jazz of this soundtrack cover album, which plays straight through with no duds. Crime jazz (and its descendants, spy jazz and cop show funk) create an aural world I want to live in, and I can listen to this stuff all day. If I ever win the lottery I may open a quiet, dark jazz club on a dingy sidestreet where live combos play this kind of music, a dress code is enforced, and no televisions or sports memorabilia are allowed. A dress code… remember in old movies, where the sign of a guy really down on his luck was that he was wearing a dirty suit?

Wax of the Week #8...AC/DC: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976)

Their third Australian album with the original cover. This seems to be a 1980 pressing. Big fan of a few songs on this one, namely the resigned, last-call lament "Ride On," the lascivious "Squealer," and the rockin' "Problem Child." The sinister slashing of the title track sounded a bit dangerous on the radio to teenagers back then. Amazingly this wasn't released in the US until 1981, after the huge impact of Back in Black, in altered format of course.

Wax of the Week #7...The Aaron Bell Orchestra: Music from Peter Gunn (1959)

Henry Mancini’s soundtrack to the gritty detective show, Peter Gunn, is an all-time favorite in these parts. I’ll get to that one later, but in the meantime I try and grab every one of the several cover albums related to the show. This is one that can be played straight through. Samuel Aaron Bell (1921–2003) was an Oklahoma-born jazz bassist who played for Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. He tweaks the arrangements a little but keeps the spirit of the compositions. A good one.

Wax of the Week #6...AC/DC: TNT (1975)

Their second album (Australian version), while still in their early, somewhat more primitive stages. Love "Live Wire," "High Voltage," and especially the anthemic "It’s a Long Way to the Top" with its droning bagpipe. AC/DC are one of those bands, like The Ramones and Motörhead, where if you don't like them it's hard to grasp why you'd even like any harder rock music.

Wax of the Week #5...AC/DC: '74 Jailbreak EP (1984)

I remember when this came out, it was great to hear these early Bon tracks that weren't released on the American versions of their albums. And they weren't throwaways. "Jailbreak" is one of their best songs, with its Doors-like dramatic middle part. Even the cover of Joe Williams' old blues standard "Baby, Please Don't Go" (by way of Them's version, I'm guessing) kills, with its smokin' main riff. I'll bet it's expensive to be a completist AC/DC collector, with all these international variations and non-LP songs, as with Thin Lizzy.

Wax of the Week #4...A-II-Z: No Fun After Midnight 12" single (1981)

They're not the most well-known NWOBHM band (they only released a live album and one other single), but damn if the second b-side, "Valhalla Force," isn't one of the best songs of the era. The other two aren't too shabby, either. Simon Wright, AC/DC's drummer for most of the '80s, plays on this. One of the great thrills of buying metal records in the '80s were European import singles, which usually featured non-LP flipsides, and those big 45 RPM grooves sounded MASSIVE.

Wax of the Week #3...AIDS Wolf: The Lovvers (2006)

I think I only listened to this once before filing it. What comes to mind was a more trebly, punky-prog Black Flag, but I could be totally off. But even if the music was awful I’d still file it, as this is the band of two of my favorite graphic artists out there, Chloe and Yannick of Seripop. They naturally put a beautiful, screen-printed package together, complete with inserts, poster, and the works. Their work has that killer, primitive energy in the best underground Gallic tradition, à la Le Dernier Cri. Seripop became well-known via their gig posters, but have since entered the fine art realm, producing large, ambitious installations of abstracted screen printed paper. If you have any old Seripop posters you don’t want anymore, please send them to me. In the meantime I’ll give this another spin.

Wax of the Week #2...AC/DC: Flick of the Switch (1983)

I'm not as big a fan of the Brian Johnson version of AC/DC, but there are certainly good songs scattered throughout their 1980s records. I like three songs on this one. At least they produced it themselves, and ditched Mutt Lange. Never got to see this band live. Not sure they played the Albany area much back in the day.

Wax of the Week #1...AC/DC: Powerage (1978)

Often forgotten because of the popularity of its followup (Highway to Hell), Powerage (the band's fifth LP) was sort of like a musical comedown (in feel, not quality) or respite from the hyperventilating fury of its monster predecessor, Let There Be Rock. Despite the presence of fast rockers like "Kicked in the Teeth" and the massive "Riff Raff," many of the songs have a more restrained, bluesy feel that borders on southern rock. It also contains what is probably my favorite song from the band, "Down Payment Blues," with its unusual (for AC/DC) arrangement. It's one of those rare records where every song is digable. Unfortunately, after this magical slab, "Mutt" Lange would come in and shave all the burrs off their sound. I have the original mix version that omits "Rock ’n’ Roll Damnation" but adds "Cold Hearted Man." 

Upstate New York Notables: Matt Dike

Matt Dike (1961–2018), DJ/record producer, Suffern/West Nyack, Rockland County.

Upstate New York Notables: Roy Atwell

 

Roy Atwell (1878-1962), actor, born in Syracuse, Onondaga County.

Upstate New York Notables: Steve Cerio

Steve Cerio (1965–), artist, raised in Liverpool, Onondaga County.

Upstate New York Notables: Fred Beir

Fred Beir (1927–1980), actor, born in Niagara Falls, Niagara County.

ARRIVEDERCI, BABY / LOST COMMAND

Two 1966 flicks in a Palm Springs drive-in double-feature from January, 1967: a British comedy from Paramount paired with a Columbia war drama starring Anthony Quinn.

BATTLE AT BLOODY BEACH / SQUAD CAR

Here’s a Palm Springs double feature from June, 1961 with two Fox releases that have no video release that I know of. BATTLE AT BLOODY BEACH (1961), one of two features directed by Hitchcock associate Herbert Coleman, was set in the WW2-era Philippines. SQUAD CAR (1960) was a crime flick lensed in Arizona.