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From '50s NYC clubland, a Yma Sumac-inspired version of "Babalu" by jazz/calypso singer Phyllis Branch.
Category Archives: Instrumentals/Surf
Office Naps Winter 2008 Psychedelic Pop mix
The latest version of the psychedelic pop mix, streamlined and scratchier than ever. If anything, people tend to remember the decade for the sitars and sunshine harmonies and fuzzed-out guitars. The reputation is not entirely undeserved. But I am here … Continue reading
The sea
The sea. Its mystery and expanse has inspired innumerable poets, writers, artists and musicians throughout the millennia, its endless capacity for beauty and violence has silenced individuals not usually given to speechless wonder. Cursed, mythologized, prayed to, every seafaring culture … Continue reading
Surf exotica
If it was the instrumental that kept rock ‘n’ roll simmering in the murky years between its ‘50s inception and arrival of the British Invasion in 1963, then surf music would be the instrumental’s final, most colorful efflorescence. Excited by … Continue reading
Office Naps Fall 2007 Psychedelic Pop mix
This is the rose-colored soundtrack I strive to cocoon my life in, a CD-length metaphor for the first time you watched Solaris. Part of the ongoing Office Naps psychedelic pop mix series. Office Naps Fall 2007 Psychedelic Pop Mix The … Continue reading
Everybody wipe out now
When they’re discussed at all, the early 1960s are usually derided as rock ‘n’ roll’s Dark Ages, the years when the hot guitar licks and sexualized strains of boogie and backbeat were subdued by an army of brylcreemed teen idols … Continue reading
In the trail of Telstar
There’s a special place in the constellations for the brilliant British pop producer and innovator Joe Meek and his 1962 instrumental hit “Telstar.” Britain’s musical eccentrics and studio experimentalists did not enjoy the same host of independent labels that America’s … Continue reading
The Desert
In the early 20th Century, arthritis-addled citizenry sought relief for their maladies in the warm, dry air of the desert. Decades later, Carlos Castaneda-addled graduate students set forth in the name of academic discovery, getting really, really baked in the … Continue reading
