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Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 12:30:06 +0100
From: Moritz R <moritz@derplan.com>
Subject: Re: (exotica) Introductions are in order.
I just remember this list-members personal-questions-list that circulated here a couple of years ago, where everybody (xept me) answered questions like "Do you wear a fez?" :-)
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Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 11:40:49 -0800
From: "F. Cobalt" <fcobalt@lycos.com>
Subject: Re: (exotica) Re: top 10 or 50 Exotica/Lounge records: top 68
>* Lew Davies: "Strange Interlude"
> All sorts of exotic percussion, plus Ondioline & Theremin.
>Johan owns everything and if anyone can come up with >a list, it's him and
>it's silly to argue with these lists since it's all >personal taste.
>Having said that, I think Strange Interlude is a very >very disappointing
>record. First of all, there's very little theremin >on it. And some of the
>cuts are simply boring. I guess that the best cuts >on it may deserve to be
>on a list of the great exotica cuts but the album as >a whole is a snooze.
Once again I agree with Alan. This is the first sort-of-exotic records I ever thrifted. I still have it. I look at it from time to time, and go, That's a nice cover. And then I think, I haven't listened to this for a while. Then I look at the song titles and I remember why: it's dull. And relative to its dull quality, the cover is relatively dull too. I guess people are interested in it because of the ondioline and theremin, but the use of those instruments is relatively inconsequential to the overall orchestrations on the album. The album I think that does what people seem to THINK this album does (well, there are many), and the one I really love, is The Three Suns "Movin' 'n' Groovin'". That album is like no other. Now there's a record and a cover to match. People should be putting that near the top of their list, cut-out cover and all, instead. Okay, just my two cents for the day.
Mr. Unlucky
- ---
Mr. Unlucky presents Shoot To Kill, a weekly set of jazz, soundtrack music, Now Sound, and the occasional foray into international territory on Supersphere.com, Thursdays 1-2 p.m. (CST). Many past sets are archived for future listening pleasure.
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Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 15:11:09 -0500
From: Clayton Black <clayton.black@washcoll.edu>
Subject: Re: (exotica) When I First Joined This List
There's been a host of introductions lately, and although I have not
actually subscribed to this list until yesterday, I've been reading the
online archives for over a year now. I didn't plan to join, in part because
it seemed that discussions had tended off in directions that didn't hold
much interest for me. But the recent thread on a top-50 list and, even
better, the talk of unusual additions to such a list, finally got me talking
to the screen again, so I decided I ought to quit the clandestine affair
with the exotica mailing list and bring it out in the open.
My name is Clayton, and I've been buying the kind of albums familiar to
you all for about five or six years. I teach history (Russia is my
specialty, but I have to cover pretty much everything non-U.S.) at a small
college on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Ever since I was a kid I've been under
the spell of vinyl. My brothers and I centered our free time around the
ritual of buying, cleaning, reading liner notes, and staring for unnaturally
long stretches of time at records and their covers. In those days it was
mostly Zappa and late-70s punk--at dangerous levels. In college I went
through the typical Dead phase. In graduate school I migrated to Afropop.
But as I reached the end of graduate school and found myself driving more, I
began to think that I'd really like something innocuous, softer, without
lyrics--like the stuff my father used to listen to when we'd take those
interminable cross-country trips in the station wagon. We hated it then (in
part because my father would keep listening even when we were reaching the
limits of the radio's range and the fuzz became intolerable), but I was
beginning to see what he saw in the music.
And there was that other attraction--vinyl was cheap now. At first it
was partially for the humor of it. What kind of weird sounds would this
thing have on it? It was only 50 cents, why not see? But the music was
just good and I couldn't get enough of it. I've got about a thousand
records now, much to my wife's chagrin (our house is small), but there are
still plenty of classics in the genre that elude me.
OK, I'm sure you're all familiar with the rest. So let me say that I've
been wanting to raise the issue of "hidden treasures" for some time now.
The "Living Brass" discussion piqued my curiosity, so let me contribute a
few that I don't hear enough of on record discussions but that find their
way to my turntable on a regular basis:
Any of the George Shearing Latin albums. The sound he gets out of his
keyboard (whatever it's called--is it just a straight piano or is it
something else? A Mellophone?) sets the perfect mood for almost any
occasion. It's also one of the few artists that doesn't set my wife's teeth
on edge.
Gary McFarland, Summer Samba. I bought this one by chance. Jazz
aficionados dislike it for being a sellout, but I love it. Whistling and
off-key humalong. (My wife actually likes this one) I actually avoid
playing it for fear that I'll play it too much and get sick of it.
Henry Mancini, Soundtrack to Arabesque. I've never seen any discussion
of this album, and I only found out about it because the local PBS station
ran the film and my ears perked up when I heard the title song--unmistakably
Mancini. Great, great soundtrack, especially "Something for Sophia."
Maybe not a classic, but still a great album is Werner Muller's Hawaiian
Swing. Most Hawaiian stuff puts me to sleep, including the disappointing
Stereo Action album _Paradise Regained_ by Leo Addeo, but Muller's Hawaiian
songs bear little relationship to authenticity, and I appreciate it.
A recent find that might not be on a top-whatever-number list but that
really turned me on was a Kai Winding album with the Axidentals, on the
Pickwick label. I have studiously avoided that label, but this one's a nice
combination of brassiness and vocals (not zoo zoo, I admit, but still good).
I'll quit there. If you've stayed with me this long, thanks.
I'm glad to be out of the archives.
Clayton Black
Chestertown, Maryland
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