MUSIC FOR A REAL TIKI THEATER

You may have heard the distressing news today that Fred Willard, a fine comic actor whose work I've always enjoyed, was arrested for performing an obscene public act at a porn theater on Santa Monica Blvd called the Tiki Theater. I used to be intrigued by the place because of the cool tiki signage, til I read about it online. Blech. Smoking crack and doing nasty things to each other seem to be what the patrons go for, not, unfortunately, imbibing umbrella drinks in a tropical environment whilst wearing Hawaiian shirts and listening to music like this 1959 gem (recorded off my red-colored vinyl copy!) from the one-man-band master of organ exotica, Korla Pandit.  It is, like much of Pandit's music (and '50s/'60s exotica in general) rich in haunting and mysterious atmosphere:

[UPDATE 7/31: New Link:]
Korla Pandit "Tropical Magic"

(After clicking the above link, scroll down for a choice of downloading options. You may have to wait a few secs.)

1. The Breeze And I
2. Blue Moon
3. Lovely Hula Hands
4. Trade Winds
5. Tabu
6. Lotus Love
7. Moon Of Manikoora
8. Strange Enchantment
9. Poinciana
10. Tango In D

Pandit wasn't really Indian, as he had always claimed, but was in fact an American black guy named John Roland Redd, a fact not revealed until after his death.  Which was quite a shock to me - I'd actually met and spoken with the man in the '90s when he was performing around town with the Wonderful World of Joey neo-lounge revue, and never doubted his story.  No-one did. He spoke to me in a soft Indian accent, and still wore the bejewelled turban that was his trademark when he used to perform daily on L.A. television back in the '50s.

So let's reclaim the Tiki Theater from the crack-heads and pervs, and put on real tiki shows. That sign's too good to waste. Do it for Korla!  Or whatever his name was!

Music Recorded In A Cave on "The Great Stalacpipe Organ"

Here's some real "underground music," har har!  Put on your lantern helmet and repel with me down into Luray Caverns, Virginia, where an engineer named Leland Sprinkle noticed that striking the cave's rock formations produced musical tones. So, in 1954, he conceived of an organ with little hammers that strike a hollow rock when the organ's keys are depressed. It's quite musical, though with a limited sonic palette. Rather then the usual pipe organ bombast, the Stalacpipe Organ ("The World's Largest Musical Instrument!") is quiet, ghostly. The reverberating splashes of dripping water in the background sounds like sporadic electronic percussion, adding to the ambient feel.


In 2001, United States Naval Academy chapel organist Monte Maxwell recorded a cd full of popular, classical, gospel, and American patriotic standards played on the Organ. Four-and-a-half years ago, when the album was still in print, I posted one song from it, but as it has apparently fallen into a deep cave, here's the whole dang deal:

Midnight In The Caverns: Music From The Great Stalacpipe Organ

Older recordings can be heard here (the original 365 Project), and Week 15 of Tape Findings.

Exotic Sounds of Tiki Gardens

Here we are, back from vacation, ready to...go back on vacation. So let's warm up these darkest depths of winter with one of the most expensive exotica albums ever. Yep, this one goes for hundreds of dollars on ebay, and I have no idea why. For one thing, it's not a music album so much as a tourist souvenir record, complete with nerdy narration. As such, it's a fascinating time-travel back to '60s kitsch America, but the one-man organ band ain't exactly on the order of Les Baxter's complex arrangements (tho Princess Carloa's "Hawaiian Wedding Song" is beautifully sung). Tropical birds, waterfalls, ocean waves, and a volcano also make guest appearances.

Florida's Tiki Gardens was built in 1963. Alas, it was sold in 1990 and demolished - just before the tiki revival.

Exotic Sounds of Tiki Gardens
includes: "Torch Lighting Ceremony," "Selected Sounds of Tiki Gardens," "Polynesian Fantasy Theme Song ."

VINYL-PALOOZA #8: The Occult Organ of Jimmy Rhodes

Late at night, when it's all quiet, the lights are low, cocktail in hand, nothing hits the spot like old organ records - cool, creepy, atmospheric...wistfully nostalgic and romantic, but with a darkness. Best played low in the background. Aaah...

This album sounds like the way it's '40s-ish noir album cover looks, only it was recorded in the late '60s/early '70s. Mr. Rhodes was clearly way out of step with the psychedelic generation, which isn't too surprising: according to his bio (the only thing on the 'net I could find about the guy) he went on to play with Lawrence Welk and made Christian records with his wife.

Jimmy Rhodes "My Best To You"

01 My Best To You
02 Around The World
03 Moritat (Mack The Knife)
04 Beyond The Reef-Hawaiian Wedding Song
05 Lies-The Glory Of Love
06 Alley Cat
07 The Blue Skirt Waltz-The River Seine
08 Miss You
09 Til Tomorrow-Goodnight My Someone
10 The 3rd Man Theme
11 Do You Ever Think Of Me-You Were Meant For Me
12 Avalon-The Sheik Of Araby
13 Que Sera Sera
14 The Portuguese Washerwoman
I featured other occult organs on my "Strange Interludes" collection.
This has been another fine windbag contribution.

VINYL-PALOOZA #1: Space Age Lounge Pop A-go-go!!

It's Vinyl Month here at M4M. Yep, in an attempt to pick up the slack after technical difficulties have kept me from posting much here lately, I'm gonna go thru my 12 inch black round thingies and spend the month featuring some weird old records of drool-worthy obscurity, lovingly hand-ripped from crusty old vinyl on to my new computer (Umm...tell me if the new recording software sounds ok, ok?) Record Store Day is coming up, after all.

We post all kinds of music here, but one thing we can all agree on is the grooviness of '60s Space Age/lounge/ pop. Albums of this sort have been some of the most downloaded 'round these parts, and this one has it all: futuristic Perrey/Kingsley-like keyboards, discotheque dance energy, Roger Roger-esque wackiness, lounge jazz, Latin rhythms, and sample-able funk grooves. It was released by the British library label Studio 1, who had ties to a German company, and I do notice some rather Teutonic-looking names in the writing credits. Otherwise, there's nothing else I've been able to find out about these most talented chaps.

The George King/Joe Corney Organ Sounds

SCIENCE GONE TOO FAR?!?

Some recent musical mad scientists:

"The Chipophone is a homemade 8-bit synthesizer, especially suited for live chiptune playing. It has been built inside an old electronic organ." Yep, Linus Akesson of Sweden can play those bloopy-bleepy video game sounds on a proper keyboard, the kind of two-level organ your grandma might have in her living room. A helluva lot of work went into building his contraption. Dig the 7 minute demo video:



And check his original song:

Linus Akesson "Spellbound" (not the Hitchcock theme)

It's pretty obvious by the number of robot musicians we've covered here that mechanical music is a growing phenomenon, and now that veteran jazz star Pat Metheny has embraced it, maybe other music journalists will finally start to take it seriously. We're here, we're gears, get used to it! (sorry.)

Metheny's The Orchestrion is truly a marvel - it isn't just one robot playing pre-programmed music, it's a whole orchestra. And the level of performance is remarkable. Much robot music is understandably a bit stiff - machines can't really "swing" - but this stuff comes as close to passing a musical Turing Test as any, where you can't tell if you're dealing with artificial or human intelligence.

Musically, he's favoring percussion instruments like xylophones. Easier for robots to play, I guess. And that's fine by me, I like percussion music.

Pat Metheny - "Orchestrion" (excerpt) - Metheny's guitar is the only live instrument here.

It still sounds like typical Metheny fusion jazz. But the Los Angeles-area KarmetiK crew have built a Machine Orchestra with more of an eclectic bent. They are from CalArts, after all, so they have to get all ethnicky 'n' stuff. No albums or mp3s, but there's a video on their site, and another one HERE of their fascinating mixture of robo-rockers and humans.





Thanks to Richard E. and Joshua U.!

STRANGE INTERLUDES

Strange music for strange weather: As you may have heard, out-of-control fires have made it positively Satanic here in L.A. (well, more Satanic then usual): hot, a brown haze in the air, an acrid smell, and a blood-red sun, at least where I live in the Valley where I can see the flames from my house. It reminded me of a mix tape I made in the '90s that I've set about for the last few nights re-compiling called "Strange Interludes." Not exactly noir or Halloween musics, these were mostly '40s-'60s early jazz, EZ, and Space-Age pop songs with a weird, moody feel. The tracks were mostly plucked from otherwise-normal albums, like there might be a collection of soundtracks hits with one theremin tune on it, or an organ collection of pop standards with a dark exotica track thrown in between the Beatles and the Bacharach covers.

My tape was inspired by an early '60s album recorded by Lew Davies & his Orchestra for Command Records called "Strange Interlude," which you can get HERE. I loved it. Unlike your usual Command stereo hi-fi upbeat gimmickry, it was low-key, creepy, with songs like "The Witching Hour," "Old Devil Moon" and "In A Mist".

Using my old cassette as a guide, I re-recorded the songs from my thrift-store vinyl. But a number of these tracks have since been re-issued on CD so I've tried to include as many good digital copies of these songs as I could. I've also added some songs that I've discovered since I made the tape, as well.

Apart from the afore-mentioned theremins, there's also harmonicas, Phantom-Of-The-Opera pipe organs, sound effects, ondiolines (an early electronic keyboard), a capella vocal groups, and plenty of percussion (e.g.: tuned bongo drums) mixed with the usual '50s EZ lush orchestrations.

Strange Interludes

1) Johnny Kemm "Taboo" - Man, I loved this track so much, I've scoured the net looking for any info; all I've found was that he was a popular organist from Joplin, Missouri who, according to this newspaper archive (scroll down) died a bizarre death, and had "been employed as an organist by the Missouri State Hospital for the Criminally Insane"! Huh? Any Maniacs live in the area who can do some research on this guy?
2) Marty Gold And His Orchestra "High On A Windy Hill"
3) Duke Ellington "The Mooch" (Buy it!)
4) Dick Hyman "Stompin' At The Savoy"
5) John Buzon Trio "Mister Ghost Goes to Town"
6) The Four Freshmen - "Crazy Bones" (Buy it! tho this is taken from my vinyl)
7) Phil Kraus "Buffoon" (Hey, entire album posted here! I agree with Mr Purse - this is one of the best songs on it)
8) Georges Montalba "Anitra's Dance" (never expected this obscure pipe organ record to be not only in print but a collector's item for being mistaken as an Anton "Church of Satan" Levey album)
9) David Carroll - "Hell's Bells"
10) Billy May & Samuel Hoffman "I Dream Of a Past Love" (Buy it!)
11) David Rose - "City of Sleeping Dreams"
12) Dick Schory & The Percussive Art Enemble "Cloud 9" (at 1:50 or so, doesn't this sound like Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express"?)
13) Enoch Light and the Light Brigade, arranged by Lew Davies "Bidin' My Time"
14) George Gould - "Dark Eyes"
15) The 3 Suns "Autumn Leaves"
16) Eartha Kitt - "I'd Rather Be Burned As A Witch" (Buy it!)
17) George Shearing - "Bewitched"
18) Lionel Hampton - "Blue Moon" (Buy it!)
19) Creed Taylor Orchestra "Monster Meet"
20) The Mulcays - "Kiss Me Again"
21) Carl Stalling "Skeleton Dance" (audio recorded from a cartoon)
22) Leroy Holmes & His Orch - "Spellbound"