Ella Mae Morse-Barrelhouse, Boogie & The Blues LP

What you see pictured here is an EP by the legendary Ella Mae Morse. She was one of the most versatile and talented singers of her era. She could sing blues, pop, swing, boogie, ballads and even rock & roll. She recorded the very first single for Capitol records, "Cow Cow Boogie" and it was a big success. She started recording as a teenager, and really developed quickly into a phenomenal singer. Her popularity was mainly in the early 1940s. This album was one of her few LPs and it shows her full range as a performer. Her band leader during this era was "Big Dave" Cavanaugh. As far as I know this LP in it's original lineup has never been released on CD. There is a box set of the same name, that is basically everything she ever recorded with Capitol records. I have a copy of the EP seen here, and found the additional tracks needed to make up the complete LP she issued in the mid 1950's. I picked 3 more tracks that seemed to go well with the original LP and am offering it here for your enjoyment. If you have the money to spare, get the box set on Bear Family records, or a used copy of the Capitol Collector's Series it is highly recommended. My vinyl copy has a lot of hiss that is unpleasant so I am offering a version with songs taken from CD.

get it here

UPDATE, I just found out someone is sharing the actual vinyl version of this 10" EP, so if you'd like to hear it from vinyl please visit the real cool blog called Big 10-inch record

Mimi-Soak

I am shocked that this album is out of print. This is such a fine album from the lead singer of Hugo Largo. Half of the songs are produced by the late Hector Zazou and the other half are produced by fellow Hugo Largo member Hahn Rowe. This album is simply beautiful and intoxicating, give it a listen.


Get it here

Hypnolovewheel-Space Mountain

This is a really good album, and is criminally under-appreciated, I have never seen it show up on Soulseek or other P2P sites. My copy is from CD released on the Alias label. The playing is tight, the lyrics are clever, it is a really fun album. I can't find out who all is on this album, but there is definitely Chris Xefos (who also played with King Missile) and Lou Giordano (who is a respected producer and engineer). I recommend this album highly as well as their Altered States album.
Thanks goes out to Army anesthesiologist Hank Wilson for turning me onto this music.

Get it here!

Woody Herman & The New Third Herd - Men From Mars 10 inch LP

This is a 10 inch album which was purchased by my Mom in England around 1955. I listened to the album since I was very young because I liked the cover illustration so much. I scanned the cover with a friend's camera and figured I would download the songs somewhere quite easily, after all this is the famous Woody Herman. I quickly realized that this is a very rare album, especially for downloading. Fortunately that same friend had just purchased a Roland Edirol recorder so we hooked it up to my Stanton turntable and got down to work. I also looked up recording dates for The Third Herd and proceeded to find a few more tracks which were recorded for the US Verve 12 inch release of this album. I found 5 tracks which were recorded around the same time and by the Third Herd to the best of my knowledge. I really hope you will enjoy this rare gem the way I have over the years. "Marakeesh" is the track that my Mom purchased this album for, and it is a beautiful piece of exotica. The flautist, Sam Staff really shines on this track, and sadly died at age 34 before this album was released in England. This album seems to fit stylistically in between Cool Jazz and Lounge Music, it is bouncy, sophisticated and modern. The title track features an unusual Organ/Electric Piano combination which helps give it a modern otherworldly quality. Woody was in his early 40s around the time he assembled his Third Herd and I think that is reflected in the music here, it is mature, somewhat restrained but forward looking collection.

get it here

Ghosts Inc.

This is a project I have been involved in this year, and am extremely proud of. 2 years ago I made an EP of songs that incorporated EVPs (unexplained voices) with electronica music. That album entitled Ghost Suite will be available here before long. Two very talented recording artists, Norbert Croonenberg (HaveMercy) and Mikael Hannson (Colab) decided they would like to remix the songs from my Ghost Suite album and eventually Ghosts Inc. was born. The album that we have so far is 6 songs and they are really something special. Eventually there may be 2-4 more songs on the album, so we are calling this album Sounds From The Attic version 1.0. Our MySpace page is HERE so give us a visit and say hello, I hope you like the album.

download sounds from the attic v 1.0 (320kbps)

RIP to 3 great musicians

This remix of a song called Sima Edy by Dub Colossus was made largely as a memorial to the late greats Earl Palmer, Richard Wright and Hector Zazou. To hear many great remixes of artists on Peter Gabriel's Real World label visit Real World Remixed.

Bruce Woolley & The Camera Club

This LP from 1979 features one of the writers of the famous song "Video Killed The Radio Star". Ironically, the song became somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy for Bruce Woolley. He released a rocking version of the song in 1979, but it was eclipsed by The Buggles version thanks to MTV showing their music video repeatedly.
BW&TCC were similar to The Buggles but rocked harder and also featured Thomas Dolby who would become famous very shortly with his solo LPs. The album shows similarities to Bowie, Sparks, Devo, Talking Heads and Brian Briggs. The band is tight and lively and Woolley's singing and lyrics are a lot of fun. The album was released in the US as a self titled LP and released in Europe as "English Garden". Sadly, this classic artifact from the New Wave era is long since out of print, and quite expensive to get on CD. I sincerely hope this will be available again on CD in the future, but until then, here's a copy to enjoy from vinyl.

UPDATE- Bruce Woolley now has 2 web pages that are really worth visiting and joining:

www.brucewoolleyhq.com
www.brucewoolleyhq.ning.com

Download Part 1
Download Part 2 

Steve Miller Band-Rock Love

This is SMB's 6th album, and thanks to the tendency of music critics to completely "ape" each other, it is his least popular of their first 10 albums. The album gets a bad rep possibly because it is half studio half live recordings, but it is a diverse album with memorable moments. Don't believe all the negative hype behind this record, it is still classic SMB and should be regarded much more highly than it is. The live songs show the side of Steve Miller that later blues/rock guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan would become famous for. The studio tracks are all strong and the tune "Rock Love" is almost pure pop perfection. I am stunned that none of these tracks were released on SMB's box set a few years back, they really don't deserve to be this obscure. I found a copy on Soulseek and it was ok but had too much noise reduction and not enough stereo separation, so I remastered that copy quite a bit, and re-ripped it to LAME 3.98. The artwork was also tweaked a bit, but comes pretty close to the original. I hope you will agree that this is a good album that does not deserve to remain out of print forever.

Rock Love LP in LAME

Flaming Lips-Hell's Angels Cracker Factory

A few years back, Flaming Lips released a box set which contained most of the LPs and EPs from the early years of their career. Sadly, they did not include the full 23 minute version of their song "Hells' Angels Cracker Factory". It is one of the best pieces included with previous editions of "Telepathic Surgery" LP. This is an ambitious psychedelic song that helps keep the album from sounding too "sold out" or radio friendly. There are lots of things going on to keep the listener interested, and it shows the sort of ambition which would eventually win the group critical acclaim. There is a link listed in the comments section for downloading the full track.

More music from "Until The End Of The World"

A few months ago, I started talking to Kevin Sartori creator of the great blog, Psychotic Leisure Music (One of the biggest inspirations for my blog). We decided to pool our resources and come up with as many of the songs from UTEOFTW as we could find. Together we came up with most every song that was on that fine film including the music that the actors made. Now the official OST is still in print so we decided not to offer the complete collection we assembled, but it did seem appropriate to offer the songs that aren't on the OST. So here is a link to a file of nearly everything that was on the film that isn't already on the OST or the unreleased score (which you can get at Psychotic Leisure Music). This collection does feature a few of Graeme Revell's unreleased score tracks, all of the AKA Pygmy music, aboriginal music and most of the actor's jams. Combine this with the official OST and score and you have almost everything that was on this fine film. Thanks again to Kevin for his fine contributions to this project, be sure and get the unreleased score from his fine blog.

Download Missing From UTEOTW
check out unreleased score

Lilliput Revisited, A Christmas present in June

This is 4ADs 1993 compilation album with some extra bonus tracks and a pdf file of the complete booklet and cover art. The pdfs and 2 songs came from a download shared by Alexei Luther on his great blog, Difficult Listening. 75% of the songs came directly from my CDs, and the rest came from Limewire and Emule. I arranged CD2 so that every artist now gets 2 songs, and included 2 by the group Belly as well as 2 more by Dead Can Dance. the final 2 songs on CD2 are both by the Tintwhistle Brass Band covering 2 Pale Saints songs. CD 1 has the additions of "Lolita" by A.R. Kane and a rare track by Bettie Serveert called "Get The Bird". I wanted to take this opportunity to mention an incredibly cool website that is all about 4AD. It is called Eyesore, and it has a huge database listing nearly every 4AD release/artist since the label first began. You can find out what albums each song/artist has appeared on. They also have the Rare 4AD series and lots of beautiful album art and more, do yourself a favor and check it out, http://eyesore.no

Download Lilliput

The Crazy Beat Of gene Vincent (1963)

This excellent album went out of print very soon after it's release and has not ever made it to CD in the US. The recording sessions vary in age quite a bit. Lonesome Boy was recorded about the same time that Eddie Cochran was helping him out, while Weeping Willow and some others were recorded after Eddie's tragic death. Although it is one of his less cohesive LPs, it is a great one nonetheless and deserves to be heard in High Fidelity. The download is a 256 kbps copy of songs that appeared on The Gene Vincent Box Set of Capitol and Columbia recordings, it is recommended highly. The tracks leave on extraneous material like studio talk, and an occasional false start. I also added 2 bonus tracks and 2 alternate takes. This album boasts a huge number of respected musicians and session players from both The United States and Europe. It features at least 2 eras of Blue Caps as well as Sounds Incorporated (who played on The Beatles Sgt. Pepper Album). Weeping Willow is a British all-star tribute to the recently deceased Eddie Cochran. I hope you'll enjoy this LP as much as I do. Notice that the production, arrangements and vocal performances exceed that of the early 60's British Invasion groups in sophistication. The Beatles wouldn't come close to this level of excellence until the mid to late 60's. I own every song Vincent has released during his lifetime with the exception of his last 2 LPs for the Kama Sutra label. If anyone has those albums they want to share let me know please.

Download 256 kbps

Orbital-Snivilisation

I was completely shocked to find out that this album is currently out of print in the US. So while that is the case, I thought I would share a link to a FLAC copy. This was Orbital's 3rd LP, released in 1994, it is, in my opinion, the closest they have come to a concept album. Get it while you can, because this probably won't stay out of print for long. Then, of course, get yourself a new CD.

Snivilisation FLAC (500 Meg)

R.I.P. OUIM.net ?

I was saddened yesterday to discover that a real nice net label that I have released 2 albums on seems to be calling it quits. The label is OUIM they were founded in Bulgaria in 2005 and have consistently offered some very fine electronica from all over the world. The quality is high on every release I have heard from composition to presentation of the final product, with very nice looking cover art and high bit-rate downloads. The label hasn't offered a new release since my early January offering called "Winter LP" and the site says we are closed, sorry. Fortunately all their fine music is still available there to download for free, and I strongly recommend the works highly. For killer modern hard stuff try Death On Glamours LP, and for the most atmospheric ambient check out any of Observation Point's releases. I can only hope, that continued support may bring this fine label back from closure. In the meantime, if someone can recommend a similar net label, I need a new home for my free original music.

UPDATE: I am happy to report they are back and releasing free albums and live sets for your listening enjoyment.

Old Skull-CIA Drug Fest

At the request of a few folks here, I decided to share the 2nd and final album by Old Skull. By the time of this album Jesse Collins-Davies had left the group as well as Graham Lindsey, and Chris and Josh Scott became lead vocals and guitarist. This is the album where father/manager Vern Toulon wrote some of the lyrics. The album was released in 1992, after which they embarked on a Japanese tour but broke up shortly thereafter. The biggest difference in this album from Get Outta School is that there is more polish in the playing and actual chord progressions. The vocals are scratchy and angry enough to impress even Al Jourgensen of Ministry and possibly scare Freddy Krueger. What I miss is the reckless abandon and virtual anarchy of the first LP. Most of these guys have re-appeared in adult musical acts in recent years, although nothing is reported about this LPs lead vocalist and guitarist, if anyone knows what became of Chris and Josh Scott, please leave a comment here. Old Skull's most thorough bio can be found at wikipedia. The cover scan was supplied to Amazon.com by Escapist. If you'd like to hear or read about their first LP (My Favorite) click HERE.

CIA Drug Fest (VBR LAME)

Exotic Moods Of Les Baxter (Review)

The Exotic Moods Of Les Baxter was released by Capitol in 1996, and is my opinion the finest Les Baxter collection of all time. It is superior sound quality to some of Capitol's previous Baxter releases, and the song selections are terrific. This is 40 of Baxter's finest soundscapes from his years at Capitol records spanning from the 1940s - 1960s. This is over 2 hours of rich, vibrant exotica and a few lounge tracks. The only the thing I wish had been added are the songs "Tropicana" and "Atlantis", otherwise it is an impeccable sampler. The unbelievable thing is that this album is not in print, and it costs a pretty penny to buy it used. Prices seem to fluctuate between $55 to $90. I am in complete hopes that Capitol will reissue this gem of a collection as well as their similar Martin Denny collection. Until that happens there will be a link located in the comments section to hear this wonderful collection in Hi-VBR LAME MP3s. I do not know the original source of this copy, it was acquired on Daemonoid back in the day. There is on CD2 an additional bonus track of "Atlantis" which I added. The cover pictured here is from the great exotica blogpage Xtabays World. This finishes my posts about exotica for the time being, I will return back to my eclectic offerings.

The Deviants-Metamorphosis Exploration (Synthetic Mix)

This is the final song on the final album by the original line-up of The Deviants. Most of these musicians would soon become known as The Pink Fairies. This is not a very popular album amongst Deviants fans mainly because it is a radical departure from their Fugs inspired classics. I like this song quite well because it does capture the feeling of progressive rock which these musicians would soon be doing full time. I only remixed the song slightly, speeding it up without changing the pitch. I feel it captures the energy these guys were capable of, and soon would become better known for. I also tweaked the cover a bit so that it is seamless now. I recommend this LP to anyone who loves progressive rock and The Pink Fairies.

Download remix (256 kbps wma)

Les Baxter-Bora Bora OST (VBR)

Bora Bora was a romantic film directed by Ugo Liberatore filmed in 1968 and released in 1970. This is an excellent soundtrack by the renowned Les Baxter, and exceptional in that it is a real return to his exotica sound. There is a 1960's vibe that makes his lush sound more modern, but it is classic Baxter magic otherwise. There is a good copy of this on Xtabay's World, it is a 128 kbps rip direct from vinyl and it is best for vinyl purists. I remastered his copy so that the eq brings out the highs a bit more, adjusted volumes and stereo seperation and added fades to the end of tracks. LAME assigned a higher bitrate to these remasters, but it is audibly the same as the 128kpbs version. No disrespect is intended to the amazing Xtabay blog, and I will remove this if the original ripper or author wishes.

Download Bora Bora

The End Of Violence (OST and Score)

Wim Wender's films are such a treasure, not only are they cinematic masterpieces, but the soundtracks are always exquisite. I was sickened to discover that both the Songs and Score to this film are both out of print in the US. There is music by U2, Tom Waits, Eels, DJ Shadow, Los Lobos and a Brian Eno remix of a previously unreleased Roy Orbison tune just to name a few of the gems on the Soundtrack. Also there is another CD of the original score written and performed by Ry Cooder and his son Jachim, with the help of Jon Hassel, Howie B, and Jim Keltner to name a few. Both Soundtrack and score are out of print which is inconceivable to me. So here is a link to download both. I also recommend the film to anyone who hasn't seen it, it may not be one of Wender's finest films, but it offers plenty.

Download Soundtrack and Score

Homer And Jethro Collection

This is everything I could find by Homer & Jethro, I own their best of collection on vinyl and a couple of songs on CD collections, everything else was found on the internet. 33 songs spanning almost their entire career including 2 instrumental numbers that showcase their talents as musicians. The quality of the sources varies drastically, but I have attempted to smooth out the scratches, eq and volume differences. I would love to find a copy of them doing I Want To Hold Your Hand so if anyone has that, please let me know. These fellas were funny, talented and deserving of more CD releases than they currently have. For more information on these two go to their wiki link, or their page at the Country Music Hall Of Fame.

Download Link (VBR LAME)

Les Baxter-Kaleidoscope (1955)

This was an LP that my parents bought to play at parties, and I loved it since I was very young. Instead of being a concept album it is mostly a very mixed bag with a wide range of styles. The biggest treats on this album are Tropicana, Blue Tango, Julie and Atlantis. Tropicana was the song that really turned me on to this album and Les Baxter as an artist. It displays most of Baxter's best talents in a very quick and concise number. Plus the percussion and arrangement show more reckless abandon than most other songs from around 1955. Not to say that the song is sloppy though, it is very tight and precise. But the tom toms and timbales duke it out now and then as if in a boxing match against each other. The dynamics also make the piece seem ferocious at times, sometimes getting louder to really punctuate the ending of a phrase. I can't say enough good things about the song, so I'll leave any further observations up to the listener. Blue Tango is one of his better known pieces and it speaks for itself. Atlantis features really strong lively hand percussion that contrasts beautifully with an exotic flute passage. I didn't expect to share lounge music on my blog, but I noticed that this LP and the song Tropicana are very difficult to find on the internet, so here's my copy. Unfortunately this is the same exact copy that I have been playing since around age 7, so some of the quieter songs suffer from scratches and static. If someone out there has a cleaner copy let me know, I would love to have a copy, until then enjoy this one. I just noticed another vinyl version at a lower bit-rate is available from Thrift Shop DJ .

Download vinyl album (VBR LAME)

UPDATE- I just realized that I owned 5 of these songs on CD so I now made a Hybrid version incorporating my old vinyl with the CD masters, so 5 songs are now from a digital master. If someone has Tropicana from a digital master, I'd love to get a copy.

Download digital/vinyl hybrid (VBR LAME)

URDATE - I made one final version that adds a bit of reverb to the tracks to compensate for noise reduction that was used.

Download Reverb Version

Can-Out Of Reach (1978)

This is the second to final Can album before the musicians took about a decade off for side and solo projects, it is also the only album to have no involvement from Holger Czukay. I assume it is the last fact that makes this album the only one of their original releases to not be in print. It is very unfortunate that Czukay is not on this album, but it is still a fine piece of work. there are 4 songs that I feel still capture that audio magic that these fine musicians were so capable of conjuring. Michael Karoli's guitar solos on the songs Serpentine, November and Seven Days Awake stack up along with some of his finest recorded moments. The rhythm section delivers exceptional playing as well as keyboardist Irmin Scmidt. Rumor has it that Jaki Liebzeit had a very limited role on this album, but he is credited on 5 of the 7 songs, so I tend to feel that rumor is false. This version originally comes from the old TKO magnum CD release which unfortunately was taken from a so-so vinyl copy. I went and remixed these tracks so that the high end is brought out more, and I increased the stereo separation as well. The cover art here was also taken from that CD but was retouched to look more like the original 1978 release. I Hope you will enjoy it like I do.

Download Can-Out Of Reach

Album Art

I restored some classic record covers to print up for CD size. I don't have my own scanner, so I had to use the best versions I could find. So none of it is high Resolution. Hopefully it may prove useful or entertaining regardless. These are all great LPs and highly recommended for purchase. Two covers here are collages that I made to be used for whatever. Click on the 2 panel covers to see them in CD size. I hope to get better at this when I have a scanner and a program more sophisticated than Window's Paint. If you use these scans on your website, please give me a mention, thanks! the top picture is courtesy of a great blogspot called Xtabay's World.

Side Show

This is an album I owned as a boy, I believe it was the first group I ever bought a record by without my older brother's prior recommendation. Since it was my own "discovery", I earnestly tried to enjoy the album, but I must admit, it isn't the kind of music most kids would like, and I soon traded the album away. I found the record again on Ebay a few years ago, I snagged it to bring back forgotten memories, and now I appreciate the music much better. The album came out on Atlantic records I believe around 1969, and I'm guessing didn't do very well. The album pictured a group on the front, but didn't say anywhere who the members were and what they did. I determined from the individual song credits that the band consists partly of: Paul Giovanni, Gregg Kreutz and Ken Zeserson. Paul Giovanni appears to be the lead vocalists, and he went on to create the score for the original "Wicker Man" film with a group called Magnet. The vocals on that soundtrack are remarkably similar to those on this album, leading me to the conclusion he was the lead vocalist with Side Show. Giovanni went on to become a writer, and has since passed away. Gregg Kreutz (Bass) went on to become a Master painter and playwright he has a website here. Ken Zeserson is still a musician and has played with The Purple Valley and Radio London. The music on this album is hard to categorize, it reminds me of mellow progressive rock and also the folk/rock songs of the late 1960s. I think what I like best is the tasteful arrangements and the instrumental touches which were recorded very clearly. The album was produced and conducted by Arif Mardin, so there are a few nice string arrangements occasionally. The overall feeling of the album is mellow and restrained which may have been a factor in the group not becoming famous, but it does make this a worthwhile album nonetheless. If you love the soundtrack to "Wicker Man" you will enjoy this album since it has a similar maturity and the same lead vocalist. If you know any more about this group, or if you also owned this LP let me know, I have never met anyone else who had even heard of them.

Side Show LP

Bruce Haack-Moog Medicine Man

If you are not aware of Bruce Haack read up on him a bit at Wikipedia. He was a very talented and inventive composer and his album Electric Lucifer is for my tastes the highpoint of his career. The LP is now available on CD so I am only going to offer one song to help promote and showcase the album. All downloads I found taken from the vinyl release have a skip on track 4 making it less than enjoyable. The new CD release was taken from the original source tapes recently found in the Columbia record's vaults. It is stunning audio quality and I recommend it highly.

Program Me