Jet Set Planet

Here‘s a great little regular music show you might find entertaining:
Jet Set Planet

A program of space age era instrumentals, TV Jazz, and other related music, featuring dismissed, forgotten, or otherwise marginalized vinyl LPs from the record bins of Thrift Store USA.

* Exotica
* Crime Jazz
* Lounge and Cocktail music
* Big Bands in the Stereo Age
* Ping-pong percussion
* Bongos. Bossa Nova, and Latin tunes
* European and American soundtracks
* Jazz for swingers and soft-core sensualists
* E-Z & Sleazy Listening
* Rock-Gone-Wrong
* Juvenile Delinquent music
* the Now Sound
* Songs of the Jet Set
* the Schreee of 10,000 strings
* and Spy jazz

Chart Sweeps at YouTube

From the days A&Rs would do the occasional string arrangement. The Billboard Hot 100 sounded different. This particular one from 1963 reminded me of the days I did full song chart themed mix tapes of, say, summer 1964, southern Calfifornia local radio charts music. That way I had a nice helping of surf instros, among their contemporaries. I would pop it in the car-radio-tape player, blasting out of 2 sixties Dual speakers in the back of my beetle on the way to St. Peter with my 9ft board on the roof. You never know what it feels like until you try it.

kfxm/kfmen radio blogspot

Bollywood Filmmaker GP Sippy Dead

He directed the biggest bollywood movie of all time: Sholay. Here’s a movie song (composed by R.D. Burman) on YouTube.

From the BBc South Asia website:

Veteran Bollywood film producer GP Sippy has died in the western Indian city of Mumbai at the age of 93.

Mr Sippy was best known as the producer of Bollywood’s biggest ever commercial success, Sholay (Flames).

read more at BBC

Loudness Wars Explained

What a great find! Somebody on a audio recording board posted this link.

It’s an animated movie explaining “loudness”. It’s a high average volume level. Meaning there’s less softer parts in the music. If you read this you probably have a chance of enjoying old music. You probably think about the old recordings as being played by real musicians, on real instruments, projecting real emotions and so forth. All fine an dandy with me. But that’s not all there is to it. They recorded it differently! The guys at the record companies enjoyed loud parts coming after quieter parts. A scary movie is most scary when nothing is really happening, but your senses tell you that something could and probably will happen. Then when all the screams come on, its not scary anymore. You are scared in the fracture of a second actually, the transition from quiet to loud.

With modern music it’s like horror screams all of the time. No wonder most people eventually turn away from it. At first (your early teens) you think “cool – it’s really loud”. But as an adult you will find that the dimensions offered in music are richer for your enjoyment.

Many professionals in the recording industry think that this loudness war is one thing that is hurting the music business of today. Also consider the fact that an artist will sound wimpy on stage by comparison to his recordings. You didn’t read about booed off the stage superstars in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Or even the 80s. It’s fans robbed off another illusion. And they start realizing they have one voice.

Hamburg Recording Studio

Folke Jensen engineered The Looney Tunes band’s second album Modern Sounds of… at his Ultraschall Studio in Hamburg, back in 1995.

Many consider this to be my former surf-band’s best album, and a key factor is the great sound Folke managed to capture on tape.

His project Ledernacken is here on MySpace.

That is a pioneering electronic thing, but trust me when I say he knows what great vintage sound is about.

Great Surf Soundtrack Comp!

chaiman of the board comp cover

Quoting from their MySpace profile:

Surf Soundtracks 1964 – 1974 Released on July 2nd on Harmless Records

Never mind the Beach Boys, Chairman Of The Board is a collection of vintage soundtracks from iconic cult surf films. Underground film makers wanted original music, a harder sound to reflect the new wilder cinematic expression now possible on the face of a wave. The soundtrack they chose to enhance this visual experimentation was the mellower stoner blues and psychedelic rock, which perfectly captured the cerebral highs of living the alternative dream. The music featured on this compilation, some of which has never been released, originates from six of these classic surf films.

I have some of the films on VHS or DVD, and some of the released soundtracks on vinyl. It’s a really great genre with a very high musical standard. And it’s something you can play to people if they ask you what music surfers listened to, in the 60s (and early 70s in this case).

Hammond Organ Spy-Jazz

Ingfried Hoffmann plays Bond

Ingfried Hoffmann – Plays Jazz for Secret Agents

Fantastic organ led spy-jazz cd. Mostly Bond titles from the early movies, but some great originals too. A nifty guitar player is involved here as well!!!


Ingfried Hoffmann - Jazz Club: Hammond Bond

iTunes link

Save Independent Internet Radio

forwarded from Luxuriamusic:

Luxuriants,

A bill has been introduced that will save independent internet radio from the huge royalty payments that the CRB recently handed down. Call your Representative right now and ask them to co-sponsor the “Internet Radio Equality Act”, introduced by Representative Jay Inslee. This bill will set royalty rates that internet radio pays to the same reasonable level that satellite radio pays.

Please call the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your representative.

If you don’t know who your representative is, you can find them here

Go to www.savenetradio.org for more information

Then tell them:

– I am a constituent and I’m calling to ask Congressman/woman ________ to save Internet radio by co-sponsoring the Internet Radio Equality Act.

– Due to the recent Copyright Royalty Boards decision to significantly
increase royalty rates for webcasters. In the case of most independent
Internet radio stations, the royalties amount to several times their gross revenues!

– Without this bill, my favorite Internet radio stations will be forced off the air and I do NOT want that to happen. Please tell Congressman/woman ________ to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act, which sets royalties for Internet radio that is fair and in-line with what other digital radio services pay.

Other information you may want to share:

– Internet radio stations have been paying royalties, and are happy to pay reasonable royalties that fairly compensate artists for the music they make. But putting webcasters out of business by royalties that are
several times their gross revenues will actually harm artists who depend on independent Internet radio to get their music out to fans, build new audiences and sell their music. When internet radio goes off the air, so do artists.

Feel free to mention how much music you’ve discovered through LuxuriaMusic, or that you’ve learned about music that you never heard any place else.

Also, please forward this to your friends who love internet radio, and help get the word out. Since getting a bill passed in Congress is a difficult, we need to contact our representatives NOW!

Thank you for your help,

The LuxuriaMusic Team

Here’s a page on the subject.

The History of Indorock

tielmann brothers

This site has a very informative primer for Indorock newbies. Indorock is the closest equivalent to Surf western Europe had at the time (early 60s). It was performed by indonesian emigrants living in the Netherlands and touring western Europe, mainly the Federal Republic of Germany.

Here are The Tielman Brothers doing an Elvis vocal during the period the above picture was taken, with Fender Jazzmasters and Bass VI.