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.