Teasing the Korean

Thank you both.

Preorder now! This title will be available May 5th 2023. Please note that orders containing any items that are on preorder will ship in full when all items are in stock. A Sonic Apéritif! This is the apéritif that started the album that helped start the cocktail and exotica rebirth of the ‘90s! It’s hard to call recordings as lush and beautiful as these demos, but that’s what they are. These reels preceded the band’s Subpop debut I, Swinger, and contains early versions of most of that album along with songs you’ve never heard them do on record before! The devil’s in the demos! A singing, dancing tour of the seven wonders of the cocktail world hosted by Satan—it’s as awesome an origin story as any band could want. Especially the ensemble that kicked off the ‘90s neo-lounge scene. In 1992, the band squeezed into bassist Nicholas Cudahy’s living room to cut a home demo on his eight-track cassette recorder. “I think we recorded Liz in the bathroom,” reports drummer/vibraphonist Aaron Oppenheimer. “And then Nick mastered it down to these two-track tapes.” The process was anything but laborious. “Every song we played maybe a couple of takes. And then Nick went and locked himself in the room and came out with a demo.” Some songs wouldn’t make it to the band’s 1994 Sub Pop debut album, I, Swinger, and some would never see the inside of a proper studio at all. In their final I, Swinger versions, the bulk of the demo tunes sparked a nationwide movement. Legions of musicians swapped the Stooges and Ramones for Esquivel and Arthur Lyman in their pantheon of influences. But the tape that started it all was buried for decades until Nick unearthed it. In hindsight, the 1992 recordings seem as shockingly prescient as they were anachronistic, having foreshadowed everything from neo-swing to post-rock. And the ripples are still spreading. “I do feel like there is yet another resurgence of cocktail culture and tiki bars and things,” Oppenheimer avers. “Maybe it'll find a new audience. And maybe those folks who were fans 30 years ago will think, ‘Oh, yeah, that stuff is pretty good!’ It's exciting.” https://sundazed.com/combustible-edison-forbidden-isle-of-demos-cd.aspx

As I've mentioned elsewhere, my parents were professional group singers. They were in the final lineup of the Pied Pipers, until Chuck Lowry became so incapacitated from drinking that they had to replace him and, with no original members, began using other group names. So, I was steeped in this stuff from a young age, both through the records my parents played, and hearing then rehearse with other singers. I learned the tricks of the trade: To be a group singer, you had to sing with zero vibrato and have a smile on your face. (It's a different sound; you can tell when Sinatra is smiling when he sings.) After my parents retired and an old singer friend would visit us, we would sometimes sing arrangements. I was the second voice, right below my Mom. I wish I would have recorded this stuff. As a young person, I thought this would go on forever, and that I would have decades and decades to sing four-voice arrangements with my parents. They both died when I was in my 20s. Both the Hi-Los and Singers Unlimited were part of the wallpaper when I was a kid. So the name Gene Puerling was ubiquitous.

Agreed, reflective of and applicable to the Great American Songbook. It is nice to hear the Hi-Los with Latin rhythms and straight eighth notes. This track has a dark quality that reminds me of Les Baxter's Caribbean Moonlight album, in particular, his amazing version of "Poinciana."

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I find that I am less interested in particular albums by Singers Unlimited than I am by particular songs they sing. While Gene Puerling's aesthetics with the Hi-Los were very much reflective of and applicable to Great American Songbook stuff, I find that his aesthetics with Singers Unlimited are much more aligned with what I would call the 60s-70s international jet set aesthetic, which would include that songs by composers such as Jobim, Legrand, Bacharach, Webb, Hatch, Lennon/McCartney, Paul Williams, and others. The kind of set list that would comprise an Astrud Gilberto or Claudine Longet album. One of the reasons I was tempted to get this box set is that digitally, I can sequence my own ideal Singers Unlimited albums. With the LPs, I have to skip around a lot.

Over the original versions by rock "artists"? 90% of the time. There are exceptions. I hope this conversation is generating interest in this box set for felser!

I complete agree about the music knowledge part, but Puerling was following trends with the Singers Unlimited, which is one of the reasons I love them. As you know, I prefer "rock" music as interpreted by aging jazz and easy listening artists.

Here's one I have to find before summer!

Thanks for the update. I did think about it, but with other expenses and 11 SU LPs, it felt like an extravagance. Great way to get all of this music quickly and inexpensively, though! Puerling must have been very aware of the Carpenters also. This track could easily fit on one of their albums, although Bonnie, much as I love her, is a better group singer than a soloist. Incidentally, I include this track on my early 70s Jesus freak/ecology/solar energy/new beginnings compilation.

That doesn't mean Puerling wasn't influenced by Brian specifically or what was going on in rock/post-Beatles pop more generally. Clark Burroughs appears on a Brian Wilson tribute album, so singers in Puerling's orbit were aware.

I always felt that in Singers Unlimited, Puerling was moving away from more traditional functional jazz harmony and acknowledging vocal arrangers such as Brian Wilson. There is marked difference between these arrangements and those of the Hi-Los.

I reach for it on rainy Mondays, and it is an A+ album on those occasions, especially the ballads.

If it's any consolation, at least you got first dibs on the Kraftwerk, Klaus Nomi, Nina Hagen, and Hildegard Knef LPs.

I'm sure I didn't pay much for either of the ones I found. One has Oliver Nelson, and it is filed in the jazz section. The other has groovy 60s tunes, and it is in the Now Sound section.

It's time I gave some airtime to Shirley Scott. I have two of her Verve LPs and the Talkin' Verve CD collection. Not sure what has held me back.

What is the title? I can't remember any other details.

How is the high school gig?

Thanks for the recommendation!

I long for the days of glamorous rail travel, but there is no way that today's economy could ever support that. I'll have to be content reading accounts from All Aboard with E.M. Frimbo, a book you may know about as a railfan. When I started getting back into model trains as an adult, after decades of being away from them, I was fascinated to read about all the mergers. I wanted to be sure I was using period-appropriate cars, both in terms of railroad names, logos, and car designs. Box cars with waffle doors and no walkways on the roof are too new for my era. My beloved Baltimore and Ohio became part of the Chessie Sytem, and then CSX. In my first post, I mentioned that my fascination with the Great Plains may be an offshoot of my interest in railroads, but I think it is much more than that. Although, I do love finding pix online of long freight trains dividing infinite prairie.

Oh, I know. I have probably 10 of these on LP already. Just trying to figure out if I really need them on CD. EDIT: Make that 11 LPs.

I am tempted.

Great detail, thank you! I have read that one of the reasons Amtrak struggles in the US is that it still relies on old routes that do not take into account migration patterns and business/industrial shifts over the last hundred years or so. My Antonia has a lot of that also. It must have really given people a true sense of purpose when a successful harvest literally meant the difference between life and death. If the crops failed, you couldn't go to the 7-11 for a bag of Doritos.

Because of The Torrents of Spring, or was there more to it than that?

So, as someone who has never been to the Pains, that's my cliched impression of this region: that there are no trees, and that you're either baking in the sun half the year or freezing. Do the rail lines still exist in those regions where they've cut passenger service? I assume they are used for freight only?