I'll Find It Someday

 

I've spent a few hours tonight poring over the new arrivals and playing some of them while doing it.

I've got Arson Garden on in the background while I type this. (I think it's likely to be something to add to this pile at some point.)

Anyway.

Let us continue from where we left off.

The Oranj Album (1998)

The second and unfortunately only other album by the Oranj Symphonette.

Here they do a version of  "Dreamsville" which I discussed in the previous post but they've also expanded their repertoire to cover tunes by Duke Ellington, Marvin Hamlisch and Burt Bacharach among others.

All with the same manic glee. All tongue in cheek and arranged in entirely unexpected ways. Things shine differently when they're reinvented and  rearranged. It's the wonder of taking music that exists and making it your own. And so long as everyone's having fun it's all game.

Which doesn't mean that everyone gets it.

Christopher Howard in the Jan. 21, 1999 issue of the Orlando Weekly certainly didn't.

"The jazz parodists of Oranj Symphonette have their work cut out for them. This eclectic troupe performs oddball renditions of Henry Mancini film scores, tongue-in-cheek versions of revered jazz standards, and even a deadpan take on the absurd pop hit “Up, Up, and Away.” The opening track of The Oranj Album, a cover of Quincy Jones’s “Call Me Mr. Tibbs,” combines the cheesy Farfisa organ of a B-movie surf band with disco funk. The second tune resembles the background music at the Olive Garden, and Duke Ellington’s “Satin Doll” is blasphemed with banjo, Mellotron, and fuzz bass. The Oranj Album puts the concept of elevator music to very good use. But do we really need to hear “A Man and a Woman” twisted into a cruise-ship classic or a forty-second breeze through the theme from Woody Allen’s Bananas? As entertaining as this CD is, I hope these versatile, talented players rise above novelty status."

He certainly sounds like he didn't get invited to a lot of parties.

Anyway. This is actually the second copy of this I've bought.

At some point I had been playing the first copy and when I switched to another compact disc. The actual case for it wasn't handy for whatever reason. I was in the middle of doing something else that I didn't want to interrupt by getting up to look for it. But I also didn't want to just leave a loose disc lying around unprotected. So I stuck it in the case with another disc that I'd been listening to and had every intention of putting it away properly when I was done with whatever it was that I was doing.

I didn't.

And then I forgot that I'd done that and subsequently the cd it was put in with got filed.

Now I can't remember which one it was. 

So there's an extra copy somewhere among the 2.5k compact discs I currently have.

I'll find it accidentally some fine day before I die.
(Maybe.)

Jumping the Line

 

I got two packages of records and miscellaneous compact discs and a smattering of seven inches in the mail today. Including the other two volumes of Duke Ellington live at the Click Restaurant in Philadelphia in 1948. Plus one of the two Jethro Burns solo singles from after Homer's untimely death with a song called "Dolly Parton's Sweet on Me"

But I also got a replacement for a disc I lost somewhere along the line and I'm jumping over everything to just put both of them up because they are both fucking brilliant fun.

I will also warn regular viewers that this is something more akin to Jazz than the usual rock and roll based nonsense that is the most regular feature of this exercise in silliness.

Plays Mancini (1996)

The Oranj Symphonette were all part of the backing band for Tom Waits so first off you know that they are/were some really talented and versatile musicians. Secondly Henry Mancini was a really amazing composer who had an incredible knack for writing indelible hooks and earworms but for some reason gets kind of lumped in with a kitsch mindset because of it's association with campy movie soundtracks. But there it is ingrained deeply into people's pop culture back brain such that you can instantly hum along with the "Pink Panther Theme" or "Moon River" without consciously knowing you're doing it.

I mean, I used to sit in for a while with a local "Jazz Workshop" for a bit. Everyone got to pick a tune during the session. One time I chose "Dreamsville" (from the "Peter Gunn" tv soundtrack) for my pick. There was some grumbling amongst the serious folk until they played it. It's a fucking beautiful and lush song. There were no grumbles after.

So there's this. 

A group of A-List musicians who then take up some of these well known and not so well known songs and then proceed to turn them inside out with a mixture of equal parts love, respect and malicious glee.

 
I live for shit like this.

1993

 

Doing Flexis. Can't talk right now.

 

 Another Year, Another Town (1993)

Malcolm Ross was pretty much in or played with folks from every Scottish band your hipster friend is likely to namecheck to appear like he knows something.

He's right, but still a pretentious dick.

Nowherica (1993)

S.F. Seals

It's a Barbara Manning thing named after a long lost baseball team.
Try it. You'll like it.

or else.

I Don't Know What To Do With Splits

I'm roasting a chicken stuffed with onion, apples and sage.
I'm going to throw the remaining apples and onions that wouldn't fit along with beets around the chicken to roast with it and in the juice in a little bit.

I've got potatoes ready to go as well.

A nice rounded meal.

But in the meantime, I have a little time to kill.
I also realized that there were a number of split singles & flexi discs clogging up the epic SSC folder that I wasn't sure what to do with.
I'd vaguely considered using them for Compilation Days, but also realized I had a fuckload of compilations so that it would be unnecessary.

So I'm just going to post them over the next several posts and have fucking done with it.

Here we go....

 Mates of State/Fighter D (1999)

Mates of State have moved around a lot, but were based in San Francisco at this time according to the address. I saw them sometime in the late 90's at the 400 Bar touring with Apples in Stereo if memory serves.

Fighter D seems to have been from Oakland.

Orange Cake Mix/Füxa (1997)

Orange Cake Mix is Jim Rao and all who sail with him.

 Füxa were from Detroit, Mi

Getting Your Mojo Working

I don't know.

I'm feeling kind of cranky and with limited attention but want to crank out a few posts tonight so I get the feeling like I'm actually making headway, though this whole process has turned into a kind of Sisyphean task. (Cranky in two ways, if you will)
I post on a regular schedule, but I acquire more than that regularly and while I work on the new arrivals there's still the vast backlog of the existing collection that needs doing.

Well, that's what hobbies are about then.
If I completed a collection I'd have to find other shit to do.

In This Dream (1984)

Mojo Sect were from Umeå, Sweden.
This appears to be the only thing they ever released.

It's very of the time and quite nice in that ethereal "We have a Chorus pedal and we're going to turn it to 11" kind of way.

Of note is that the drummer and singer would later resurface in the band Komeda who were somewhat a hip flavor of the month back in the tail end of the 90s.


And now, a quick twofer....

 

 Dance With Me (1965)

The Mojo Men. From San Francisco.

This one's a bit of a novelty stomper. Play loud.

Sit Down I Think I Love You (1966)

Way back in the day before the internet and having access to all the information in the world at your fingertips because no matter how interested you are in anything there is always somebody way more obsessed with that shit than you and they'll devote themselves to getting together a website to show the world their authority on said subject, a person had to utilize whatever they could find as a guide.

When I first became interested in 60's garage/punk/psychedelia there was very little by reference other than word of mouth from collectors and a couple of magazines devoted to it.

But first and foremost was the original guidebook, "Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era" double lp compiled by Lenny Kaye (aka Patti Smith's guitarist). It was a grand introduction to both some of the big names and a number of obscurities.

Once bitten by the garage bug, I tried to hunt down my own personal copy of every item on that album and at one point had virtually succeeded when my interests and disposable income went elsewhere.

All of which is a lot of words to say that this is where I first heard the A side and why I have a copy.

Sunshiney California Pop at its finest.

Pitter Panter Pooter

Not to be confused with the Duke Ellington tune "Pitter Panther Patter"

That's a duet between the Duke and his ace bassist Jimmy Blanton.

That goes something like this:

This post is about something very different.

Very.

 Italian Sunglasses Movie (1981)

Gary Panter is better known as an artist and illustrator who is long involved in the Residents/Ralph Records sphere. So it will come as little or no surprise that the Residents ably abet Mr. Panter in this particular seven inches of avant wonderment.

You, dear record enthusiast, may also recognize quite a bit of Panter's commercial album artwork

The other cool as fuck thing about it is that the sleeve is actually a large foldout poster.
(I couldn't find an online picture of the actual poster, but trust me.)
I have plans on getting myself a second copy someday to have one I can frame and hang proudly on my wall. It's of a robot playing a guitar.

 I'd make space for that.

Action (2000)

I suppose if I hadn't wanted to class this place up with a bit of Duke Ellington I could have alternately named this post:

"Panter, Paul & Lara"

that's probably a much better play on words.




 Oh Well.
Choices were made and we must live with them.

As it is, I'm simply biding my time while some bolognese simmers for an appropriate amount of delicious time and random play on the music player thinks this is a good night to sort through the terabytes of material to play multiple tracks by the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Wanda Jackson.

Oh yeah, this single. Hunger has me kind of mentally wandering off into the woods.

It's on Kitteridge records (1999-2006) which was label that I'm looking to pick up everything on because I haven't been disappointed yet.  They've been gone so long all the links on the website point to Myspace. Sad. (though I may have to poke around and see if I can score some NOS titles on the cheap direct from them.)

I also actually have two copies of this because I found a cheap copy and had forgotten I already had one. But at least I have both the green and the blue unreadable covers now.

Apparently this sibling duo also released a full length as Layton.

My wantlist grows one full length compact disc longer.

Following Up

A quick post of things by previously posted bands.

Just singles.
No BS

Search up the other posts if you're curious.
I may or may not have more info.

Probably not.
I get lazier as time rolls on.


.


.

Don't Blame It On Me (1982)

the Contractions.

Deep Water (1993)

Still obscure and generically named second single by Fruit.
Once again on Sunday Records, so you know what that means.
(You do don't you?)

Five Years Old (1993)

Third single by Melbourne's Girl of the World.
As good as the previous two.

The Inexplicable Still Unexplained

Got another large package of compact discs in the mail today plus a couple of records for good measure. I'm ripping those in another couple of windows.
Some of that shit might end up here in a year or two. Or not. I don't know anymore.


Meanwhile I'm going to queue up a few posts since I'm sitting here anyway.

Cannibal (1993)

Job's Daughters is a side project from Brendan Kearney of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 abetted by Greg Freeman and others.
I read a while back on a link I can't relocate that the A side is an Ennio Moriccone track from the soundtrack to low budget Italian film "I Cannibal" The B side was from some odd Asian record of unknown origin, but a lovely song nonetheless.

That's about all I got.
I have some Duke Ellington shit to tag in another window...

Beat the Dog (1985)

A random flexi I acquired many years ago for the above noted fifty cents by Jesus Couldn't Drum. It is unfortunately afflicted with on nasty noisy blurt in the title track (such is the woe of cheap flexis), but is otherwise so wonderfully catchy that I decided to post it anyway.

I want to also go on record as not condoning actual animal cruelty and would like to assume that Jesus Couldn't Drum didn't either.

I'd kind of forgotten about this until it came up in the record box. Now I have the Jesus Couldn't Drum discography in my wantlist.

That is all.

Analog Drum Machines Keep Perfect Time.

I started this post and I intend to finish it.

What's Your Name (1983)

Bruce Loose from everybody's favorite band ever, Flipper, takes a solo turn.
I've carted this fucker around for nearly 4 decades.
I'm even including scans of the insert.
That's all that need be said.

Pip Pop (1980)

Louder Animal Group. I've been on the lookout for an upgrade copy since I pulled this out of a close out bin for the princely sum of a dollar in the middle of the 80's some time.
I just haven't come across one.

Just Because

Danny & the Parkins Sisters (1982)

I really don't know what I'm supposed to make of this record.

So I made this post.

It's Danny & the Parkins Sisters

It's early 80s weirdness from San Francisco which is a weirdness quite unique to the Bay Area and replicated nowhere else.

Even without already knowing where they were from I'd have picked San Francisco.
It be like that sometimes.

I don't know. There was a space of a couple weeks in the middle of this post because I'd made a severe editing error in the files that I needed to fix and it took me that long to gather enough fucks to do that. In the meantime I lost whatever train of thought I had when originally started banging out this post.

It's almost kind of appropriate to what this record is like.

For External Use Only

For the Bi-Coastal Punk Rock Novelty Lover in Everyone

We're at it again.

 Two coasts. Two bands.
All Novelty songs.

Death to Disco (1978)

Jim Laumia & the Psychotic Frogs echo the sentiments of a lot of people and then proceed to back it up with a cover of "Wipe Out". From New York City.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong about any of that.

Rock and Roll Weirdos (1978)

Leila & the Snakes were from San Francisco.

For kids today, the flipside may need a bit of explanation. In more innocent times of the 70's there were some hippie types who believed all kinds of ridiculous New Age bullshit like the power of the shape of a Pyramid to do magical stuff.

At the very least you can play the marvelous guessing game as to which ass on the sleeve belongs to which lady on the cover. Keep you busy for a little while at least.

Not ever knowing is half the fun

Bi Coastal

First off,

Let's establish a few things here.

This post is of two bands with releases in 1981 from each coast of the continental United States. One based in New York, New York and one based in San Francisco, California.

It is not in any way related in any way shape or form to the 1980 record "Bi-Coastal" by the late Peter Allen which was the first album he released after divorcing his beard, Liza Minnelli and coming out of the closet. Which was great for him, but not much of a surprise to anybody (except maybe Liza.)

That was this:

This record was a particular favorite of my mother who would play it quite a bit on the 8 track in her Pontiac.
 I loathed it.

And still do.
It's dreadful stuff.



This post however is something entirely different.

Entirely

Wolvarines (1981)

Wolvarines were from San Francisco.

They made a primitive pop noise and left almost no physical record of their existence beyond this sole seven inch vinyl record.

However a diligent five minutes of intense googling did unearth a short section of a live radio broadcast which can only add to the mystery.

Reasons for Change (1981)

Meanwhile on the other side of the country and the other other coast...

David Leonard and his group were making a much more polished power pop sound in New York City.

There's a more recent picture of him in the gallery section where he's playing through a Supro Thunderbolt amplifier. I can't hate a dude who plays a Supro, even if it's one of the new revived ones rather than the old school ones I've owned and treasured through all those years gear snobs would sneer at them. Now they're cool and valuable and I've been vindicated. Suck it gear snobs.

So there's that too.

The Link

Still of minor interest, but I like linking things together. Make me feel like I'm actually accomplishing shit.
I'm not really, but it feels better than like I'm wasting my life on the internet.

Let me waste some of yours too.

Something Broke (1984)

Here is a nice three piece band from San Francisco called the Contractions.

This is the full length that followed a pair of singles. (of which I have one and I'm considering holding out until I get the other to go with it.)

They looked like this in the flesh.

This Lp was also produced by the same Lisa Wexler as the previous Boxing Day post and she adds percussion on it as well. 

Small world.

Kathy Peck who played bass and wrote the material is also the founder for H.E.A.R. Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers  which I'm going to have to give a shout out to just on principle. I've already got tinnitus. It sucks.

It's too late for me. Don't let it be for you.

Only the Good. No Yammer

Here we go again.

I got nothing.

Tank is empty.

Keyboard acting up.

Start Rite Now (1980)

Two Farfisa driven garagey singles by the Jars from San Francisco. First has a weird verion of "Psycho" by the Sonics.

Time of the Assassins (1980)

The follow up suffers from some reggae influences on the a-side, but the flip is an instrumental entitled "Jar Wars"

Make of that what you will.

Here's Your Hangover Post

Yeah, hopefully you had a good time last night. You may in fact be a tad hungover today.
Perhaps it's all a blur.

Or maybe you went to bed early and today is just another fucking day.

Or maybe, like me, you worked all night.

Any way you slice it this post is for you.

Start 2019 off with something good for a change.

Inflatable Boy Clams

 Inflatable Boy Clams (1981)


Here it is, kids. their sole release ever. A double seven inch so good they didn't need to record anything ever again.

Dangerous Minds has a little history for those who want it.

I don't. I have my own history with this masterpiece and its mystery that any additional knowledge could only taint. It is as it exists to me. I intend to keep it that way. (except that two members had previously been in the band Pink Section whom I also quite enjoy but in a different way.)

Cold Pizza

I'm typing with on hand while I use the other to hold a slice of cold pizza.

 Don't Get Mad (1980)

Power Pop from the Bay Area from 1980 by the Imposters.
It's good stuff.

Hey Who (1967)

What would probably have been a Power Pop equivalent for the time by a band from the Chicago area called the Ingredients.

Also the good stuff.