{"title":"NEWmero","description":"\u003cp\u003eNew Joints.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","products":[{"product_id":"eccentric-soul-the-capsoul-label","title":"The Capsoul Label","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhere everything Numero begins. Three guys in a purple Saturn station wagon drove down to Columbus, Ohio, and came back to Chicago with a lost label—the rest is history. In the early ’70s, Bill Moss’ Capsoul imprint could barely break wind in the larger music marketplace, and yet today the label’s output can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any classic soul of its era. Isolated in central Ohio and lacking the funds to back them, groups like the Four Mints and Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum \u0026amp; Durr might’ve easily withstood ten rounds against the Temptations, Smokey, or Otis. The scrappy Capsoul writing team of Dean Francis, Jeff Smith, and Norman Whiteside would’ve gone blow-for-hook-filled-blow with any Gamble \u0026amp; Huff or Holland\/Dozier\/Holland cared to throw at them. From Bill Moss’ civil rights meditation “Sock It To ‘Em Soul Brother” to Marion Black’s future hit about the future “Who Knows” to Kool Blues bounding “I’m Gonna Keep on Loving You,” Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label remains dollar-for-dollar the best soul compilation of its century and the perfect primer for anyone piqued by the Eccentric Soul series.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap\"\u003eAs the capital of arguably the most soulful state in the nation, Columbus, Ohio is remarkably unassuming. Just south of the rust belt and barely above the Mason-Dixon, it is surrounded by the fertile crescent of American R\u0026amp;B. Propped up culturally and economically by the largest university in the country, it had neither the boom nor the bust of nearby meccas Detroit and Memphis. Columbus was a stable burg where talent could flourish unmolested by the prospect of stardom, a the perfect environment in which idiosyncratic, eccentric soul music could thrive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCapsoul, short for Capital City Soul, released in its five short years only a dozen 45's and one highly-sought-after LP but managed to score several regional smashes and one national hit before collapsing under the weight of its own debt and hubris. The catalog languished afterward in a sort of limbo, too obscure to find new life on oldies and dusties stations or on Time-Life collections, but too common to attract serious interest from collectors of rare soul. But 30 years after it ceased to exist, the Capsoul label would rediscover its original audience, lying in wait somewhere between the mainstream and the underground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe roots of Capsoul sprouted in 1966, during Bill Moss’s tenure as a popular DJ at WVKO Columbus. Moss pooled the resources of a few low rollers around town to launch the short-lived Nassau label, a tribute to his native Bahamas. Right out of the gates, “Ooo-Poo-Pa-Doo” b\/w “East 24th Ave” by Billy Graham and the Escalators was picked up by Atlantic Records, where it promptly fizzled. The second release on the starkly pink label would yield better results. Moss met a young singer named Ronnie Taylor who’d had recording success already as a member of the Four Pharaohs, themselves hit makers for Cincinnati’s King label and the local Ransom imprint. Taylor recorded a dazzling double-sider, “Without Love” backed with “I Can’t Take It,” which soon attracted interest outside the capital, this time with Lebaron Taylor’s Revilot label, who was currently hitting with The Parliaments, Darrell Banks, and The Holidays. Taylor’s record managed to chart with this higher profile release, but neither Moss nor Taylor ever saw any money from the release, which would begin an unfortunate trend for Moss’s productions. Before folding the label, Moss would take a last crack with “Memories Are Made Of This,” his debut as an artist, but an unfortunate and mediocre crooner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMoss’s next endeavor partnered him with local promoter Jim Justus to form another small imprint, the Holiday label. Its first two singles, issued in 1968, were by the same group under two different names. Both the Vondors and the Soul Partners were made up of Jay Almon, Jimmy Norbit, Ron Farthing, Roscoe Almon, Ronnie Threatt, \u0026amp; L.A. Almon. “Walk On Judge” by the Soul Partners charted locally, giving Moss the confidence to use his WVKO clout and shove the single into the hands of Larry Uttal at Bell. Uttal picked up the 45 and even went so far as to bankroll the next Soul Partners single. Moss used this relationship to distribute his next two efforts as a solo artist, a pair of singles that matched his positive approach. Banking less on his vocal chops than on charisma and charm, both “Sock It To ‘Em Soul Brother” and “Number One” were triumphs. The former, a tribute to African-American leadership, had inherent attraction to the black radio culture that was peaking nationwide. The latter, a surprisingly irresistible “father’s lecture” set to music, may not have hit number one, but it did chart nationally. Bill Moss, however, never saw a dime, and after Bell refused to even pay for the studio time, he pulled the masters and ended the relationship.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBefore the Soul Partners channeled their success at Bell into national tours and deals with Scepter and, later, Utopia and Rainbow Collection, they backed one last session in 1969 for an up-and-coming vocal group, the Four Mints. James Brown, Louis Dotley, Bobby Shank, Herschel Davis, and James Spencer started out at East High in 1955 as the Five Mints, but by the time of their Musicol session, the Five had been whittled down to one. Joining Brown on the sublime ballad “You’re My Desire,” and its flip “You’ll Want To Come Back,” was doo-wop floater Ben Caldwell, Timeless Legend brother Jimmy Harmon, and Donald Russell. The 45 was strong opening salvo to an impressive recording career, but it failed to attract much attention.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy 1970, Bill Moss had tired of his work as a DJ and regional promoter and decided to give the label business one more try. His last-hurrah act at WVKO took the form of a talent show, a surreptitious recruitment drive for his nascent brand. All the most important local musicians of the era competed, but it was dark horse Marion Black who stole the show with his heart-wrenching performance of “Go On Fool”—later to appear as the first single on the Capsoul label. Sales skyrocketed in every city that gave it airplay. Although most deejays preferred the vastly superior B-side “Who Knows,” AVCO\/Embassy licensed the single and issued promotional copies with only “Go On Fool” on it. Nationally, “Who Knows” would ultimately be ignored.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStill, that tiny morsel of success gave Moss a taste for the real thing. With a small chunk of cash and the help of a couple Ohio State engineering students, Moss built a small studio at 3504 N. High Street, which quickly became home base to a bright team of musicians and songwriters hungry for a shot. Audiophile and chronic record store employee Jeff Smith would scratch out songs on guitar. Dean Francis, already known for his locally released single “Funky Disposition,” played drums and quickly grew as a star songwriter. Moss imported the now legendary Billy Wooten from Indiana to play vibraphone. Frank LaRue, a University violin teacher created all the Capsoul string arrangements with the help of some of his best students. Dwight Cartier, Steve Taylor, and Terry Wilkes filled out the bass, keys, and rhythm guitar. And Bill’s fledging company got a boost when he was able to secure a $30,000 loan from City National Bank. Moss had taken care of the money, the music, and the management. All he needed now was raw talent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVirgil Johnson, Al Dawson, Willie Tatum, and Norris Durr were a group of neighborhood kids who called themselves the Revelations. Prompted by a friend, Moss decided to give them an audition. What they sang that day was anything but a revelation, but those voices were right on. Liking the ring that Crosby, Stills, Nash \u0026amp; Young had coming off the tongue, Moss re-christened the group Johnson, Dawson, Tatum \u0026amp; Durr. A few weeks later he would absent-mindedly swap “Dawson” for “Hawkins” while laying out the labels for their first single, “You Can’t Blame Me,” accidentally renaming them for a third time. If you haven’t heard it yet, stop reading right now and drown yourself in pure liquid soul. Moody, complex, dark, with a shockingly unique falsetto lead courtesy of Virgil Johnson and a proto-hip-hop bass line beat that grooves like a bus on speed bumps, “You Can’t Blame Me” is tense and intense. The flip, “Your Love Keeps Drawing Me Closer,” made a dent on the soul dance scene but couldn’t touch the impact of the a-side. Few records could. It was played everywhere and went to number one throughout the Midwest and up and down the eastern seaboard. While crucial cities such as Chicago and New York overlooked it, sales in places like Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Cleveland were massive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe success of that first single was no mystery. Virgil Johnson’s hypnotic and unsettling lead was the linchpin of its popularity. Unfortunately, Virgil knew it as well as anyone else. After their second single, “You’re All I Need to Make It” b\/w “A World Without You” was in the can, Virgil was ready for the big time and Capsoul, he figured, wasn’t getting him there fast enough. One very heated confrontation later, Johnson was thrown off the roster. Pride-bound, he immediately moved to Los Angeles, where he encountered the hard truth of his own insignificance. One of a million singers trying to get a gig in the big city, he was forced to return to Ohio just a few years later and has, as far as anyone can tell, never recorded again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeginning a trend of recycling instrumental tracks, Moss retroactively filled a hole in the catalog between “Go On, Fool” and “You Can’t Blame Me” with a single by the generically named Capsoul Group. Moss snagged the instrumental to his second Bell single, “Number One,” and tacked it on to the string heavy instrumental to “You’re All I Need To Make It,” but the two sides couldn’t have come from further places. The a-side was backed by a gaggle of hourly session men, but its flip was a product of the scrappy group of amateurs and semi-pros plying their trade at 3504 N. High. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe instrumental to “Sock It To ‘Em Soul Brother” was also revived after Moss licensed “Pure Soul” from the South Carolina group Elijah \u0026amp; the Ebonites. Lead by Elijah Hawthorne, the original release of the song appeared on their own Superior label and featured a cover of “Yes I’m Ready” by Barbara Mason on the flip. As Moss wasn’t fond of releasing cuts he didn’t publish, he slapped “Soul Brother” on the other side and issued it on the Loren imprint, named for his first son.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the wake of “You Can’t Blame Me,” pressure was on Capsoul to deliver hits. City National loomed in the rearview mirror on every out-of-town promotion junket. Hoping to change his fortunes, Moss produced and issued a barrage of singles. The Enticers, another vocal group from the WVKO talent show, had by then narrowed their line-up to a duo, Tennessee natives John Primm and William Gilbert, and were known as the Kool Blues. Their first single, “Why Did I Go,” was from the pen of Dana Middleton and Jeff Smith and would later be retread by the Four Mints. “I’m Gonna Keep On Loving You”—which draws inspiration from the duo’s home state heroes at Stax—was penned with the help of young upstart Norman Whiteside, a hanger-on around the Capsoul studio. Whiteside later formed the band Wee and recorded an LP that—along with the Four Mints’ \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.numerogroup.com\/products\/four-mints-gently-down-your-stream\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eGently Down Your Stream\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e LP and Timeless Legend’s \u003cem\u003eSynchronized\u003c\/em\u003e LP—are considered the finest soul albums in Columbus history. While it’s absurd that the single was ignored, the b-side saw life again years later on the northern soul scene. Their second single featured two excellent ballads: “Can We Try Love Again,” a funky, mid-tempo rug slasher, was backed by the eerie, contemplative “I Want to Be Ready.” Among the last singles on the Capsoul label, it barely even attracted the marginal attention of its predecessor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile Moss recovered from Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum \u0026amp; Durr’s break-up, he was able to re-unite with the Four Mints, then eager to enter the studio again. Without much difficulty, “Row My Boat,” written specifically for the group by Dean Francis, went to the top of the local charts. A timeless single, the song interpolates elements of the nursery rhyme “Row Your Boat” into the melody. Lead singer Ben Caldwell’s breathtaking vocal range, somewhere between a caramel tenor and a pure sugar falsetto, was a perfect recipe for the soul style of the moment. Though originally issued on Capsoul, this single also has a scarcer alternate pressing on Loren.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1973 was the year of Four Mints, with a total of three singles emerging, the largest output for the label thus far. “Can’t Get Strung Out” saw two pressings, the first with “In A Rut” on the flip, the second issue with the Mints’ take on “Why Did I Go.” They closed out the year with a reissue of their Holiday single, which fared better this time, boosted by the Capsoul imprint’s new notoriety. This surge in extraordinary output, however, wasn’t enough to save the label from receivership, despite one more close call that nearly put the books in the black. While on the road in Memphis promoting the singles, Bill Moss and Four Mints founder James Brown heard breaking news that Al Green had been hospitalized after being scalded by hot grits. Inspired, they raced back to Columbus to resurrect “Pure Soul” by Elijah \u0026amp; the Ebonies as “Hot Grits!!!” It was re-re-released on Capsoul and found life via novelty appeal throughout the south.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The final Capsoul release would be the Four Mints only album, Gently Down Your Stream, a collection of their 45’s plus one leftover, “Too Far Gone,” another Dean Francis masterpiece. Neglecting to issue this as a single may have been one of Capsoul’s greatest errors; it stands with “Row My Boat” as the Mints’ finest recorded moment. The album’s release did nothing but showcase the exceptional output of this vocal group, though its scarcity today indicates that sales never even exhausted a first pressing.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Around the end of 1974, City National informed Bill that he was too “emotionally involved” with the label and that they’d decided to pull the plug on Capsoul. Things got dire when Moss showed up at 3504 N. High Street to find the door padlocked, forcing him to break in to his own studio to abscond with the master tapes. Uneasy about keeping them at home, he secured them safely at a friend’s place in the rural outskirts of the city. Several years later, he’d return for them only to find that the tapes had been destroyed in a flood. And it gets uglier. Fed up and disgusted with the record business, Moss drove to Queen City in Cincinnati with the remaining Capsoul 45’s and had them recycled for a pittance in returns.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003eCapsoul was my first love. You never get over that one.\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd so Capsoul lay entombed for 30 years, the seeds of its promise spread out in hopes of discovery by a future generation. The cast and crew followed suit. Marion Black found his way to Harmonic Sounds across town and recorded a few moody singles for Clem Price’s Prix label. Taylor joined the military and recorded killer funk with Sojourner Truth in Kentucky, and even deadlier funk with O.F.S. Unlimited, also on the Prix label. Black works, as he has since his recording days, as a waiter in upscale Columbus establishments, while Taylor relocated to New Zealand, where he lives to this day. The Four Mints never made another record but still perform semi-professionally in and around Columbus. Dean Francis would keep writing and recording, working with Timeless Legend and Jupiter’s Release with former Kool Blues Billy Gilbert and John Primm. Gilbert took a job as an inspector for the City Of Columbus, while Primm moved back to Nashville. No one has heard a peep out of Virgil Johnson since his sheepish return from Los Angeles. Jeff Smith recorded a few more times in the 1970s but sadly died of cancer in 1997. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Bill Moss would eventually enter politics, declaring that it couldn’t be as cutthroat as the music business. He ran for congress in 1976 and won election in 1977 (and six later re-elections) to the Columbus school board. He even ran for mayor in 1985 but was handily defeated. When we met with Moss in March of 2003, he could still be heard on WVKO radio, on Saturday mornings as the host of his “Let’s Talk” show and on Sunday afternoons with his own “Good News Sunday Gospel.” We enjoyed a few all-too-brief years of friendship with Bill before his sudden death on August 1, 2005.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Before he passed, Moss reflected, “Capsoul was my first love. 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Gastr Del Sol’s David Grubbs adds his guitar to two songs, slinking on and off the 24-inch stage with little fanfare, but leaving his signature indelibly on the performance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero Group","offers":[{"title":"Lounge Ax Photobooth Vinyl (Numero Exclusive)","offer_id":42716269445318,"sku":"NUM201.5LP-C1","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Lounge Ax Green Room Vinyl","offer_id":42716269478086,"sku":"NUM201.5LP-C2","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Black Vinyl","offer_id":42716269510854,"sku":"NUM201.5lp","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":40260942495942,"sku":"NUM201.5cd","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40260942528710,"sku":"NUM201.5dig","price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM201.5LP-C1CodeineWhatAboutTheLonelyLoungeAxPhotoboothVinyl_Silver.png?v=1686695534"},{"product_id":"purple-snow-forecasting-the-minneapolis-sound","title":"Forecasting The Minneapolis Sound","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e10th Anniversary Edition: Re-mastered and Re-cut.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBubbling up from the snow-blanketed land of 10,000 lakes, the Minneapolis Sound defied expectations, emerging late in the ’70s as a slick, black, technologically advanced fusion, poised to storm the charts. In relative silence, the Twin Cities had been harboring a tight-knit community feverishly at work in radically manipulating American dance music, varnishing futurist funk with guitar rock’s glamorous sheen. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cem\u003ePurple Snow\u003c\/em\u003e, the Numero Group’s ambitious 50th mainline release, chronicles false starts and follow-throughs toward Minneapolis Sound, on four LPs or two CDs and 32 rare and unreleased recordings from the years just prior to, and just after, one gifted Nelson was crowned Prince. At some 30,000 words, our 144-page hardbound book meticulously directs the listener through two hours of music, and a decade dotted by adept producers, combos, and characters—like 94 East, Flyte Tyme, and Alexander O’Neal, whose less celebrated groundwork put Minneapolis’ purple launchpad on the map. From Jimmy Jam’s extroverted Mind \u0026amp; Matter collective to André Cymone’s polish-free bedroom demos, \u003cem\u003ePurple Snow\u003c\/em\u003e gathers as the sprawling, nonfiction prequel to \u003cem\u003ePurple Rain\u003c\/em\u003e’s cultural takeover. In image-rich splendor, funk-informed hordes of unsung Twin Cities talent bask for a spotlit moment, out of that persistent violet shadow, to shine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBonus: 20% off when grabbing 3 or more Minneapolis Records - discount applied in cart automatically.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCurrently In-Stock Minneapolis Records:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/numerogroup.com\/products\/94-east-the-cookhouse-5\"\u003e94 East - The Cookhouse 5 LP\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/numerogroup.com\/products\/mind-matter-1514-oliver-avenue-basement\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eMind \u0026amp; Matter: 1514 Oliver Avenue (Basement) LP\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/numerogroup.com\/products\/youre-everything-b-w-youre-all-i-need\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eMichael Dixon \u0026amp; J.O.Y. - You're Everything 7\"\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/numerogroup.com\/products\/keep-your-faith-in-god-b-w-just-give-it-all-to-christ\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eLucky Rosenbloom - Keep Your Faith In Good 7\"\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"4xLP Lavender Vinyl + Book","offer_id":43147502223558,"sku":"NUM050lp-C1","price":100.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"4xLP Purple Snow Vinyl + Book","offer_id":43147505008838,"sku":"NUM050lp-C2","price":100.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"4xLP + Book","offer_id":40261019893958,"sku":"NUM050lp","price":90.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2xCD + Book","offer_id":41175976444102,"sku":"NUM050cd","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261019828422,"sku":"NUM050digital","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM050lp-C2PurpleSnowLavenderVinylMockup.png?v=1707247006"},{"product_id":"mind-matter-1514-oliver-avenue-basement","title":"1514 Oliver Avenue (Basement)","description":"\u003cp\u003eJimmy Jam Harris was just 16 when he began writing and arranging for Minneapolis 11-piece Mind \u0026amp; Matter. Boasting a perfectly calibrated vocal quartet, an aggressive rhythm section, and stacks of Rhodes, Rolands, and Hammonds, the danceable act failed to win favor with frigid Midwest audiences. Tracked in 1977, this bundle of never-before-released basement demos throw Harris’ beloved Philadelphia Sound into an unfinished root cellar, pelting it with Clavinet attacks, disco skats, and infectious hooks. Named for the street address of its underground uptown genesis, \u003cem\u003e1514 Oliver Avenue (Basement)\u003c\/em\u003e is James “Jimmy Jam” Harris’ first foray into songcraft and an organic Minneapolis-vintage alternative to a late ’70s Prince songbook gone increasingly synthetic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"Love Is Like A Fire Vinyl (2023 Repress)","offer_id":42696926658758,"sku":"NUM050.5lp-C1","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Black Vinyl (2023 Repress)","offer_id":42696926691526,"sku":"NUM050.5lp-C2","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Black Vinyl","offer_id":42700825952454,"sku":"NUM050.5lp","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":42700826771654,"sku":"NUM050.5cd","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261033459910,"sku":"NUM050.5digital","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM050.5lpMind_Matter1514OliverAvenue_LoveIsLikeAFireVinyl.png?v=1684446013"},{"product_id":"bedhead-whatfunlifewas","title":"WhatFunLifeWas","description":"\u003cp\u003eTheir shambolic 1994 debut, remastered from the original tapes and presented in lavish, gatefold form. A mix of restrained loud and purposeful quiet, \u003cem\u003eWhatFunLifeWas\u003c\/em\u003e’s eleven tracks unfold at a marathon runner’s pace, picking up speed when necessary, but its eye on completing a personal race. Singer Matt Kadane’s soft, semi-drawl is buried in the mix, letting brother Bubba and Tench Coxe’s guitars weave cleanly around drummer Trini Martinez’s all-ride-all-the-time timekeeping. \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Numero Group","offers":[{"title":"Love Foam Pink Vinyl","offer_id":42773259518150,"sku":"NUM1239LP-C2","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Powder White Vinyl","offer_id":42773260009670,"sku":"NUM1239LP-C1","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Black Vinyl","offer_id":42773259550918,"sku":"NUM1239LP","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261165711558,"sku":"NUM1239dig","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM1239LP-C2BedheadWhatFunLifeWas_LoveFoamPinkVinyl.png?v=1691769251"},{"product_id":"ultra-high-frequencies-the-chicago-party","title":"The Chicago Party","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor 23 straight Saturday nights of 1982, “The Chicago Party” dance show assaulted Chicagoland UHF eyeballs with Spandex, Southside fly guys, tender tenderonies, magicians, contortionists, prismatic video gimmickry, and lip-synched singles by a rising regime of local post-disco casualties. Unfettered nightlife and outlandish humor poured out of oddball outpost The CopHerBox II and onto TV screens, presented here as a 100-minute video mixtape on DVD. Its companion compilation features five previously unreleased tracks, joined by music culled from a trove of self-released 45s and small-time 12\"s. Die-cut cathode-ray jacket and six in-package stills put the Party at your fingertips.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAvailable on CD or 2LP, each edition of \u003cem\u003eUltra-High Frequencies: The Chicago Party\u003c\/em\u003e will arrive in one of six cover configurations, all of which are interchangeable via printed inner sleeves and enclosed booklet. Original pressing editions include our entertaining DVD mixtape, isolating the most absurd and outrageous moments from the original broadcasts. Play functions enable viewers to enjoy 23 unique musical performances, as well as a mini-documentary about the creation and realization of “The Chicago Party.” For fans of electronic soul with a public-access aesthetic, \u003cem\u003eUltra-High Frequencies: The Chicago Party\u003c\/em\u003e is the place to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepress Editions (2024 and later) do not include the DVD but you can stream the entire DVD on \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sRcCtOUFOMU\"\u003eYouTube\u003c\/a\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"Chicago Flag Vinyl","offer_id":43187014107334,"sku":"NUM056lp-C1","price":17.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Love Explosion Red","offer_id":43187014369478,"sku":"NUM056lp-C2","price":17.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP","offer_id":40261209718982,"sku":"NUM056LP","price":16.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD + DVD","offer_id":41170420564166,"sku":"NUM056CD","price":12.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261209686214,"sku":"NUM056dig","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM056lp-C2UltraHighFrequencies-TheChicagoParty_ChicagoFlagVinyl_D2C.png?v=1708726181"},{"product_id":"wayfaring-strangers-cosmic-american-music","title":"Cosmic American Music","description":"\u003cblockquote\u003eI [have] some sort of ‘rep’ for starting what has turned out to be pretty much of a ‘country-rock’ plastic dry-fuck.\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs progenitor and contemptuous poster boy for the music that came to be Cosmic American, Gram Parsons found himself mired in a recording career spent mostly in scouting the perimeters of chart success. “He hated country-rock,” Parsons collaborator Emmylou Harris would later reflect. “He thought that bands like the Eagles were pretty much missing the point.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Parsons had been orbiting the idea of Cosmic American Music for some time. In ‘68, he’d parted ways with the Byrds and was looking to take air with a new project. “It’s basically a Southern soul group playing country and gospel-oriented music with a steel guitar” he told \u003cem\u003eMelody Maker\u003c\/em\u003e, on the subject of The Flying Burrito Brothers. So it was that when A\u0026amp;M’s Burrito Brothers debut \u003cem\u003eThe Gilded Palace of Sin\u003c\/em\u003e made it to shelves in February of 1969, early adherents to the Cosmic American gospel were already echoing its message from areas flanking Gram Parsons’ Southern California hills and canyons. There was F.J. McMahon in coastal Santa Barbara, Mistress Mary further inland in Hacienda Heights, and Plain Jane of Albuquerque, New Mexico, each responding by committing their own private readings to tape before day one of the 1970s. Parsons himself might’ve disdained them, had he even been aware of such minor ripples, shimmering at the edges of his desert oasis. But these were true believers all the same, given over fully to his roots music concept, each filling vinyl grooves with non-rock instrumentation like fiddle, banjo, and pedal steel guitar, the last undoubtedly Cosmic American Music’s most distinguishing stringed signifier. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Only too predictably, big labels did the grunt work of confining and defining the movement, as ABC, United Artists, RCA, and more played catch-up with Asylum’s raptor rock juggernaut, via backwoods crossover also-rans with names like Gladstone, American Flyer, and Silverado. Twang reigned, the shitkickers kicked shit, and the vaguely western-sounding guitar records piled up. Country-rock became “the dominant American rock style of the 1970s,” as Peter Doggett’s comprehensive \u003cem\u003eAre You Ready for the Country\u003c\/em\u003e put it much later. Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music picks up and dusts off golden ingots from the dollar-bin detritus of that domination, to reconstruct events as seen from the genre’s real Wild West—America’s one-off private press label substructure.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"2xLP (Astro Spangled Red and Blue Vinyl)","offer_id":42519693852870,"sku":"NUM058LP-C1","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP (Black Vinyl)","offer_id":40261483036870,"sku":"NUM058lp","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":41175995089094,"sku":"NUM058CD","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261483004102,"sku":"NUM058dig","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/products\/NUM058lp-C1VariousArtistsCosmicAmericanMusicBlue_Red2xLP.png?v=1672871834"},{"product_id":"unwound-fake-train","title":"Fake Train","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter the Pacific Northwest grunge raids of the early ’90s that saw Nirvana, Mudhoney, and even the Melvins hoisted up the major label flagpole, Unwound’s 1993 debut came as a welcomed reprieve for underground noise-niks everywhere. A pulsing cluster of wiry feedback, lurching bass, and single stroke rolls, \u003cem\u003eFake Train\u003c\/em\u003e entangles the energies of frustrated backpack emo, faded \u003cem\u003eRiot Grrrl\u003c\/em\u003e back issues, and their own dash of teen spirit and unleashes it all in an earsplitting 10-song assault. \u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":43226418806982,"sku":"NUM1291cd","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Opaque Pink Vinyl","offer_id":42986936271046,"sku":"NUM1291lp-C2","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Spaced Out Silver Vinyl","offer_id":42057826271430,"sku":"NUM1291lp-C1","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP","offer_id":41156216127686,"sku":"NUM1291LP","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":42621647356102,"sku":"NUM1291cass","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261797970118,"sku":"NUM1291dig","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM1291UNWOUND_FakeTrain_Pink.png?v=1706020025"},{"product_id":"seafaring-strangers-private-yacht","title":"Private Yacht","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith pop music’s volume knob adjusted for deflation in the early '70s, softness begat smoothness. Crewmen arrived from the worlds of jazz, folk, rock, and soul, all peddling a product that was sincere, leisurely, and lofty. A sound that was buoyant, crisp, defined. Sometimes classified as West Coast—and, later, Yacht Rock—the compass points of our \u003cem\u003ePrivate Yacht\u003c\/em\u003e expedition are the blue-eyed harmonies of Hall and Oates, the cocaine-dusted Fender Rhodes of Michael McDonald, and the combover strums of James Taylor. Here, at the glassy apex of rock’s softer side, 20 strong swimmers are gathered together. An album for both relaxation and reflection, where listeners can enjoy the present, a cool breeze, and a taste of the good life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap\"\u003eAs if fired from a cannon, the cacophony of ’60s rock left a ringing in some ears. Burned out or bummed out, fatigue had set in. Free Love had come at a price. Many young couples had become young families, with their bandleaders-turned-breadwinners gracious they’d purchased a station wagon rather than the customary van. As rock began to mellow and folk began to solidify, “Our House” became a work of nonfiction—with a mortgage. Some escaped the vortex of the collective cul-de-sac and lived to headbang another day, while others followed their collective hairlines, receding into the margins of the counterculture. Stretching an extension chord to the bonfire had always posed an obstacle for lackadaisical strummers. Likewise, plugging in poolside proved a new hazard. Others found it less of a bother to get an acoustic guitar in and out of rehab than an amplifier. Everywhere the wind blew, James Taylor and Carly Simon were soft rock’s power couple, with a combined catalog mellow enough to enjoy after the kids had been put to bed. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e This is not to say soft rock was a sacrifice. Rather, it reflected the refined tastes of the boomers: better wages, better dwellings, better drugs. Greater musicianship led to improved songwriting, chord voicing, and a deeper respect for harmony. Sometimes classified as West Coast—and, later, Yacht Rock—the architects of this sound were not exclusively Californians or mariners. These were stylistic tides felt in North Dakota and Colorado, along the Outer Banks and the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Softer fare could occasionally serve as a salve for city life, a coping mechanism for strong swimmers still treading the nations’ metropolises. With pop music’s volume knob adjusted for deflation, softness begat smoothness. Songs conceived on the Gibson Dreadnought were embellished with Fender Rhodes, hand percussion, and chimes. Crewmen arrived from the worlds of jazz, folk, rock, and soul, all peddling a product that was sincere, leisurely, and lofty. A sound that was buoyant, crisp, defined. Numerous artists were able to coexist along this narrow stylistic isthmus. There was Crosby, Stills, Nash \u0026amp; Young—and, eventually, Scaggs, Rundgren, Hall \u0026amp; Oates. All the while, James Taylor was still plucking away with a beautiful head of hair, no end in sight to where a capo could take him. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe hands that hoisted the sail over the ’70s went down with the ship in the early ’80s. Feeding tributaries of Caucasian reggae, Salsalito, and Marina Rock, some ponds were drained while others stagnated, and others still overflowed. With the pop charts littered with shiny keyboards, sherbet guitars, and gated reverb, our celebrated strain of rock became a casualty of the gluttonous hair decade. Marriages capsized. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Staring out from either coast, a thin membrane is almost visible, one that separates the calmness of the sky from the stillness of the sea. Likewise, it’s hard to distinguish the event horizon where acoustic forces swirled around thoughtful rock, creating the estuary subgenre to which this compilation is devoted. There, at the glassy apex of rock’s softer side, away from all of the commotion, exists a place for both relaxation and reflection, where listeners can enjoy the present, a cool breeze—a taste of the good life.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"2xLP (Seafoam Green Vinyl)","offer_id":42519689593030,"sku":"NUM072lp-C2","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP (Black Vinyl)","offer_id":40261837717702,"sku":"NUM072LP","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP (Purple Vinyl)","offer_id":41156181590214,"sku":"NUM072LP-C1","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":40261837652166,"sku":"NUM072CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261837684934,"sku":"NUM072digital","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/products\/NUM072lp-C2SeafaringStrangersPrivateYacht2xLPTransparent.png?v=1672871681"},{"product_id":"warfaring-strangers-acid-nightmares","title":"Acid Nightmares","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs the hippie movement hurtled towards its imminent demise, bad vibes infiltrated the rock world. Tainted LSD, loud motorcycles, and a series of brutal deaths spawned inspiration for guitar-wielding teenagers across the globe. Implementing deafening fuzz and satanic screams to create their proto-metal monstrosities, short-lived stoner bands pressed their lysergic experiments in microscopic quantities before blacking out entirely. Lifted from the ashes of the acid rock hell fire are 18 distorted tales of dope fiends, pill poppers, and the baddest of trips. \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nDeluxe 2LP comes housed in a blacklight poster-style jacket illustrated by \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.benjaminmarra.com\/\"\u003eBenjamin Marra\u003c\/a\u003e, replete with flocking and lysergic neon. 24 pages documenting the creeping existential dread of the hard rock underground are tucked into the gatefold pocket alongside two dead dinosaur-heavy LPs. Compact disc is packaged in standard Numero slipcase, with digipak and 40-page book, limited to 2000 copies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap\"\u003eIn the fall of 1967, signs of San Francisco’s darkening fell like leaves. The transient young people who’d invaded the Bay Area to cash in on the media’s cheap drugs\/free love promises had departed for points east. Haight-Ashbury, what remained of it, had become an open-air market for illicit substances, overrun with speed freaks, panhandlers, and Hell’s Angels motorcycle club adherents. Throughout the summer, leather-clad Hells Angels had become a fixture in the San Francisco scene, their Harleys crowding sidewalks outside the Fillmore West and the Carousel Ballroom, on nights when hometown rock n’ roll heroes the Grateful Dead or Big Brother and the Holding Company crowded the stage.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nHippie harbingers Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters had established ties to the Angels in ’65, introducing the biker brutes to LSD at a house happening in the hills of nearby La Honda. The Angels turned on and, for the most part, got along with psychedelic types who just liked to get high and groove. They loathed Berkeley’s politico set and were far from peaceniks. In less than two decades of activity, Angels had racked up more than 800 felony arrests—for sexual aberrations, drug charges, assault, and even attempted murder. On August 24, 1967, a prominent Hell’s Angel known as Chocolate George cruised Haight and crashed—at high speed and most likely high otherwise—into the back of a ’55 Chevy. For droves of locals, the demise of Chocolate George signified the Summer of Love’s departure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom his apartment at 369 Haight Street, San Francisco musician Dickie Peterson looked down on the deathscape of Chocolate George’s last ride. At summer’s end, suffused with the Haight’s baddest vibes, Peterson and his bandmates took to Amigo Studios in North Hollywood to capture their fried acid trips on tape. They named themselves Blue Cheer, after a potent strain of LSD cooked up by Grateful Dead engineer and chemist Augustus Owsley Stanley. \u003cem\u003eVincebus Eruptum\u003c\/em\u003e—mangled Latin for some kind of conquering eruption—emerged at the dawn of ‘68. The LP’s lead single was a fuzzed-over rendition of Eddie Cochran’s 1954 hit, “Summertime Blues.” On May 4, 1968, the single hit #14 on the \u003cem\u003eBillboard\u003c\/em\u003e Hot 100, sending fuzz-fueled acid rock into wildfire combustion. With pained ears and expanded minds, early Stateside adopters wasted little time cutting their own lysergic episodes to wax.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nIn 1968, Ty Gilliland was introduced to hard drugs by a member of the Outlaws motorcycle club after a gig in Columbus, Ohio. “They liked us enough because we played some Stones songs,” Gilliland said. “One of the Outlaws they called Muscles came up to me after a show. He held out his hand and said, ‘This’ll make you feel better.’ It was speed. Boy, I could sure play fast on that stuff.” And so he did. One amphetamine addiction later, Gilliland wrote “Speed Freak” for his band, The Rituals. Four hundred miles away, on the eastern seaboard, Baltimore high schoolers The Cross Blood Experiment were turning on with LSD—Orange Sunshine, specifically, a varietal concocted by the Brotherhood Of Eternal Love. They named their distortion-drenched single after the stuff, and made the drug’s effects sound far less than sunny. The embodiment of a bad trip, it comes on slowly, weaving vivid lyrical trails before speeding on into a rhythmic gallop beside an unhinged guitar solo. Out in Kansas City, Paul Parkinson of \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.numerogroup.com\/products\/bulbous-creation-you-wont-remember-dying\"\u003eBulbous Creation\u003c\/a\u003e was having just as little fun, on pot or smack or whatever it was that had him “Hooked.” “I’m sick of hearing myself,” he sang. “My head hurts like hell. My mouth so dry I can’t spit. Oh Lord, I wish I had another hit.”\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDarkness billowed out of the psychedelic cloud in the final weeks of 1969. In the months leading up to the West Coast answer to Woodstock, lurid tales of Charles Manson’s deathcult and their affiliations with rock’s literati had spilled across the headlines. The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were set to share the bill at Altamont Speedway in northern California on December 6. Bad vibes disturbed the air long before sunrise. Concert-goers arrived the night before, ill-prepared for near-freezing temperatures; for warmth, they burned fencing, garbage, and rock show road cases, adding a crusty stench to a cold, dusty valley. As the morning rolled on, the highway leading to Altamont clogged for miles. Hell’s Angels showed up for security duty, parting the dense crowd on 800-pound metal bikes. By noon, the medical tent overflowed with acid casualties. An hour later, when Santana took the stage, the Angels had long since helped themselves to handfuls of uppers, downers, wine, joints, and the $500 beer allotment they’d received in lieu of pay. Power-mad, they descended on any fan who posed even the slightest threat, unleashing flurries of fists and pool cues. At sundown, the Stones mounted the stage, as tension filled the air. \"The vibes were bad,” Grace Slick recalled. \"It was that kind of hazy, abrasive and unsure day. I had expected the loving vibes of Woodstock but that wasn't coming at me. This was a whole different thing.\" Breaking point at Altamont and “Under My Thumb” arrived together, when a juiced-up Angel stabbed 18-year-old fan Meredith Hunter repeatedly with a buck knife. Hunter had been armed; he’d been on speed; he died of his wounds. The 1960s were officially fried. \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nNoxious fumes quickly crossed the Atlantic, as evidenced by Black Sabbath’s emergence from the haze on a Friday the 13th in February of 1970 with their \u003cem\u003eBillboard\u003c\/em\u003e debut LP. It’s a record that bears the pall of the sunny ’60s into a drug-addled English wood; lyrics are written in Lucifer’s voice, and “The Wizard” is as much an ode to Gandalf as it is to the band’s dealer. Sabbath countrymen Brass Alley and Sardonicus got the memo, dropping pink pills on the way toward eroding their own brains. In Portugal, the like-minded band Xarhanga didn’t even bother to mince words, delivering an actual “Acid Nightmare” that spun at 45 RPM. And a Viennese group called Novak’s Kapelle planted a flag firmly in the drug rock canon with their daring single “Hypodermic Needle,” its message mangled by a language barrier and a misunderstanding of what exactly was happening in the U.S. rock scene.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the ’70s dragged on, a deep, dark hangover set in. In the American Midwest, Whistler’s Mother, TNS, and Gollum came in dehydrated and fumbling with the child-proof cap on a bottle of expired aspirin before issuing “Dark Dawn,” “Times Up,” and “Prayer of Despair.” In the south, the Shy Guys fretted about the dangers of lightning, Mass Temper wrote an ode to a drunk driving casualty, and The Purple Sun preached of “Doomsday.” Terre Haute, Indiana’s Goliath had made most of their career abusing drugs, but the comedown came at a terrible cost. “I had two guitar players and both of them committed suicide,” said Goliath drummer Steve Peterson. “In those days, it was very hard to keep young guys straight.”\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nThe nightmare is over, but the flashbacks remain.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\t\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/numero-cdn\/images\/atoms\/warfaring-strangers-acid-nightmares\/atom-1601587769.jpg\"\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"2xLP (Neon Blotter Swirl Vinyl)","offer_id":42683661091014,"sku":"NUM068LP-C11","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP (Neon Purple Vinyl)","offer_id":40261848596678,"sku":"NUM068lp-C7","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2xLP (Neon Green Vinyl)","offer_id":40261848629446,"sku":"NUM068lp-C8","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP (Neon Yellow Vinyl)","offer_id":40261848662214,"sku":"NUM068lp-C9","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP","offer_id":40261848367302,"sku":"NUM068lp","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP (Blue Heaven Vinyl)","offer_id":41170997149894,"sku":"NUM068LP-C6","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2xLP (Orange Sunshine Vinyl)","offer_id":41170997870790,"sku":"NUM068LP-C4","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2xLP (Window Pane Vinyl)","offer_id":41170999509190,"sku":"NUM068LP-C2","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2xLP (Electric Kool Aid Vinyl)","offer_id":41171000361158,"sku":"NUM068LP-C5","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"2xLP (Neon Pink Vinyl)","offer_id":40261848563910,"sku":"NUM068lp-C10","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":41176010490054,"sku":"NUM068cd","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261848334534,"sku":"NUM068dig","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM068lp-C11WarfaringStrangersAcidNightmares2xLPNeonBlotterSwirlVinyl.png?v=1683571838"},{"product_id":"super-static-fever-silent-dynamic-torture","title":"Silent Dynamic Torture","description":"\u003cp\u003eA band that played so loud their entire fan base went deaf and never spoke of them again. 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A record that just barely does, and probably should not, exist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":45746657624262,"sku":"NUM209cd","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP (Acid Wave Vinyl)","offer_id":44724702380230,"sku":"NUM209lp-C1","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":41156188831942,"sku":"NUM209lp","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261913280710,"sku":"NUM209dig","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM209CD_Super_Static_Fever_Product_Mockup_9b5d6a53-f15b-409d-ae28-2c34b8387208.png?v=1776703816"},{"product_id":"laraaji-vision-songs-vol-1","title":"Vision Songs Vol. 1","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eVision Songs Vol. 1\u003c\/em\u003e is the Laraaji album like no other, located at the intersection of new age and gospel, his outlier and magnum opus, the feel-good DIY tape of the century. Casio synth jams recorded at spiritual retreat guest rooms and a tiny bedroom on the Upper West Side in 1984, lysergically-spectacular anthems for a continually arriving new moment. “Channeled from the sky,” humbly offered on vinyl for the first time, this is where this is going on, this is where this is taking place, this is how this is going on. 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Sampled by T.I., Kanye, and Khalid, Barrett created a rapturous, crossover gospel classic that's still wildly relevant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"LP (Joyful Medley Splatter Vinyl)","offer_id":43201503789254,"sku":"NUM1271lp-C4","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP (Ice Wind Transparent Vinyl)","offer_id":42300035039430,"sku":"NUM1271lp-C3","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP (Clear with Black Splatter)","offer_id":40261922390214,"sku":"NUM1271lp-C2","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP","offer_id":40261922357446,"sku":"NUM1271LP","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40261922324678,"sku":"NUM1271dig1","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM1271lp-C4.png?v=1709159562"},{"product_id":"don-slepian-sea-of-bliss","title":"Sea Of Bliss","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom 1970s Hawaii on to modern day New Jersey, Don Slepian has enjoyed a reputation as one of new age’s most respected and technologically-advanced synthesists. 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Two side-length Alles synthesizer tracks transport listeners to personal paradises for relaxation, rest, focus and reset on vinyl for the first time, only on Numero Group. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePair with the Tee Of Bliss Shirt and get 25% off both in your cart when picking up the record and shirt together.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/numerogroup.com\/products\/sea-of-bliss-t-shirt?variant=42810220609734\"\u003e\u003cimg height=\"488\" width=\"488\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM806-T01DonSlepianT-Shirt_White_1fa18b5e-66b4-4f98-ad58-965e58ea5694.png?v=1712325218\" alt=\"\"\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"Deep Blue Vinyl","offer_id":42633927884998,"sku":"NUM806lp-C1","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Black Vinyl","offer_id":40262197575878,"sku":"NUM806LP","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40262197543110,"sku":"NUM806dig","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/products\/NUM806lpDonSlepianSeaOfBlissDeepBlueVinyl.png?v=1679093294"},{"product_id":"unwound-leaves-turn-inside-you","title":"Leaves Turn Inside You","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Unwound album that ended all Unwound albums. 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By its completion, \u003cem\u003eUnderstand Each Other\u003c\/em\u003e—more often referred to as \u003cem\u003eThe ConVeyor\u003c\/em\u003e, with that uppercase V intentional but unexplained—featured generations of Cleveland luminaries, and representation from most scenes, both sexes, and several ethnicities. The album’s credits read like the guest list for a Lou Ragland episode of \u003cem\u003eThis Is Your Life\u003c\/em\u003e.  Kathy Grant was brought in to arrange the massive Cleveland Orchestra, inviting her father Frank in as first chair cello. A pre-O’Jays Dunn Pearson handled keys, and Richard Shann, the man who Pearson would replace in the O’Jays, got an arranger’s credit as well. The horn section was rounded out by Mother Brain Tree trombonist Ulysses Young, Bell Telefunk trumpeter Watson Vaughn, and future Dazz Band trumpeter Pierre Demudd. Lou’s live-in girlfriend Elaine Hines and her First Light singing mate Joyce Jenkins, both on break from stints with Terry Knight’s Grand Funk Railroad project, contributed backing vocals. One-time Co-Co co-owner Leonard Jackson brought his Temps knock-off the True Movement in as a male counter to First Light. In the middle of his stumbling career on the Miystic Insight label, Sonny Lovall adds another voice. Hot Chocolateers past and Seven Miles Highers present Tony Roberson, Herbert Pruitt, R. C. Johnson, Tom Tichar, James Johnson III, Joe Jenkins, and Pam Hamilton are all accounted for.   \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eUnderstand Each Other\u003c\/em\u003e opens with the socially conscious title track, gutting out a second place finish to Marvin Gaye's \"What's Going On?\" in both its mission and its mix. Like Gaye's own conceptual title track, there is not a dull moment in Ragland’s, as strings, horns, percussion, and vocal motifs rise and fall organically through the monumental piece. Lou testifies throughout, matching the complicated terrain of the dynamic opener. Two songs later, “Since You Said You’d Be Mine” gets its 30-second intro back and looks all the stronger for it. On Side B, Ragland revisits Love For Dollars And Cents’ “Into The Next World”—issued on Co-Co in 1972—stretching the song out toward the five-minute mark but truncating its title. The album closes with an instrumental “Understand Each Other,” reminding the listener to flip the record over and begin again.  \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nThe album’s jacket must be the most curious element of the package. The cover drawing, from the pen of Remus Peterson, depicts Lou Ragland as peacemaker, standing between a sabre-toothed tiger and a dove, asking them literally to “Understand Each Other.” On the reverse, that message is taken to the spiritual extreme. Sometime in 1977, Lou had taken on Lateef Mahmud as his spiritual guru in a brief flirtation with Islam (the Arabic on the sleeve translates to “God Is The Greatest”). Mahmud somehow snagged a producer credit, but he was also called on to pen an album preface. 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Little did Ragland know, an interracial band of musical Englishmen were eyeballing the same nom de chanson in their native Brixton. They approached John Lennon for clearance for their reggae cover of “Give Peace a Chance,” but the powerful Beatle liked their interpretation so much, he added them to the band’s Apple Records roster, thrusting the Brits ahead in the race to make Hot Chocolate a household name for something other than dark, sweet beverages. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Despite the potential confusion—and perhaps in hope of capitalizing on it—Lou Ragland began filling his mug with a host of recordings that would make up his Hot Chocolate’s eponymous debut. The album would be released on the oh-so-cleverly-named Co-Co label in 1971 and bankrolled by a five-pointed council that included Ragland, Lyman Moffat, Loretta Walker, Tom Threat, and Leonard Jackson. 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Dick Dugan, the Cleveland Plain Dealer sports illustrator who’d later conceive iconic mascots for the pro baseball Indians and pro football Browns during his career, was commissioned to sketch out the \u003cem\u003eHot Chocolate\u003c\/em\u003e cover for a paltry $100. Working from a photograph, Dugan penned an imaginative rendering of the group, performing in a mugfull of their namesake dessert drink. 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Boston’s Karate emerged as a force that could grip a national youth movement whose disparate tastes still commingled in the inky pages of fanzines overflowing with florid prose and on concert calendars for volunteer-run DIY spaces, community centers, and bowling alleys. In this world, Karate’s music was an enigma, one equally inviting to sneering punks and highfalutin indie-rock aficionados. Their 1996 self-titled debut, issued on Southern Records, set the standard. Lassoing together white-knuckle posthardcore tension, sharply focused slowcore serenity, and resplendent jazz complexity, Karate eschewed settling in any one definiable style. But they certainly used the language of punk to get their point across; occasionally, guitarist Geoff Farina abandons his warm, hushed cadences for a hoarse shout that made him sound ragged, intensifying an aggression that burst out with every snaggletoothed guitar riff or drum snap that went off like cannon fire. Few followed their path—but who could keep up? Karate could make pensive moods blossom into feverish rollicking (“What Is Sleep?”), gracefully tip-toe around aggressive punk explosions without getting bent out of shape (“Bodies”), and stretch out slowcore’s quietest reveries till their reflective notes sound ripped from an improvisational jazz session (“Caffeine or Me?”). 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At its most intense moments, \u003cem\u003eIn Place of Real Insight\u003c\/em\u003e bestows the kind of rowdiness that elevated hardcore base buried deep within the unconscious of their music—it comes out most vividly when Geoff Farina and Vitt trade throat-searing shouts and bite-sized barks on “New Martini.” So many lesser bands with two guitarists and a copy of \u003cem\u003eIn on the Kill Taker\u003c\/em\u003e at their disposal felt the need to try their hand at being Fugazi, Karate evaded such pratfalls, though Goddard’s compact, quicksilver basswork and Gavin McCarthy’s fractured drumming on the bridge for “New New” contain the same rhythmic electricity that the D.C. legends wielded so well. For the most part, Karate used their larger palette to intensify their already alluring musical sensibilities. Farina and Vitt’s gentle guitars nearly mirror each other as they carry the drawn-out tension of “The New Hangout Condition” to its equanimous conclusion, though Karate wouldn’t hold that mood for long; they made quick work of disrupting such peacefulness with the needling disquiet that opens “On Cutting,” a rare track that cast a spotlight on Vitt’s understated vocals. Karate emboldened the quiet moments of \u003cem\u003eIn Place of Real Insight\u003c\/em\u003e with the same forcefulness of its archly punk cuts, effectively allowing the tenderness that blankets “Today Or Tomorrow” to coexist alongside their rough-hewn material. Karate made sense of seemingly polarizing styles, and \u003cem\u003eIn Place of Real Insight\u003c\/em\u003e is arguably their best album because they allowed such disparate parts to co-mingle. In a subversive music community oscillating between radical polemics and hair-splitting musical orthodoxy, Karate were a question mark—one that exhibited the scene’s best instincts, because they sounded like few others.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"LP (Indigo Die Dye Vinyl)","offer_id":42487504371910,"sku":"NUM904lp-C3","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP (Metallic Gold Vinyl)","offer_id":40390790447302,"sku":"NUM904lp-C1","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP (Black Vinyl)","offer_id":40390786810054,"sku":"NUM904lp","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":40390795821254,"sku":"NUM904cass","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40263390232774,"sku":"NUM904digital","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/products\/NUM904LP-C3KarateIPORIIndigoDieDye.png?v=1669998297"},{"product_id":"karate-the-bed-is-in-the-ocean","title":"The Bed Is In The Ocean","description":"\u003cp class=\"dropcap\"\u003eA lingering guitar note. 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After expanding from a trio to a quartet and employing a dual-guitar attack with 1997’s \u003cem\u003eIn Place of Real Insight\u003c\/em\u003e, founding member Eamonn Vitt hung up his axe to attend medical school. Karate soldiered on as a trio, with mid-stream addition Jeff Goddard’s bass work helping establish a sidewinding path forward through the smoky jazz melodicism and sun-beaten blues brushstrokes that hung in the background of the band’s catalog.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In their short time together, Karate helped bolster the national punk ecosystem, a scene in which individual artistic vision was prized but rarely achieved. Their exacting precision and emotive interplay helped recombine the DNA of the dignified grace of slowcore, the hot-and-sweaty atmospherics of the blues, and the high-wire tension of post-hardcore to deliver drawling instrumental curveballs and a furtive riptide climax with a controlled grace on “Outside Is The Drama.” Singer-guitarist Geoff Farina frequently teased out the emotional nuances of each song, his worn-in voice shading in the complexities of his enigmatic lyrics; no matter how difficult it may be to parse his snatched-from-daily-life wisdoms, on \u003cem\u003eThe Bed Is In The Ocean\u003c\/em\u003e Farina sounded like a guy who knew exactly the right thing to tell whoever may be listening. And with Karate’s snaking turns through quasi-punk reveries no one else appeared capable of mustering, it’s comforting to hear it accomplished by a band that knew exactly what they were doing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"Lego Tri-Color Vinyl","offer_id":41427188809926,"sku":"NUM905lp-C1","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Indie Exclusive Vinyl","offer_id":41533354901702,"sku":"NUM905lp-C2","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Black Vinyl","offer_id":41427161874630,"sku":"NUM905lp","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":41429861466310,"sku":"NUM905CASS","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40263439909062,"sku":"NUM905digital","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/products\/NUM905_Karate_TheBedIsInTheOcean_LP_LegoTriColor.jpg?v=1656102965"},{"product_id":"blonde-redhead-blonde-redhead","title":"Blonde Redhead","description":"\u003cp class=\"dropcap\"\u003eFeral art rock from the gritty depths of ’90s Manhattan. 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They switch between emotional grandeur and eye scratching immediacy.” —Arto Lindsay\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cfigure\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM901_902_BlondeRedhead_ColorBundle_480x480.jpg?v=1656101051\" alt=\"\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM901_902_BlondeRedhead_ColorBundle_480x480.jpg?v=1656101051\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cfigcaption\u003eColor Bundle\u003c\/figcaption\u003e\n\u003c\/figure\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44039705460934,"sku":"NUM901cd","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP (Astro Boy Blue Vinyl)","offer_id":40263467106502,"sku":"NUM901lp-C1","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP","offer_id":40263467073734,"sku":"NUM901lp","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Blonde Redhead Color Bundle","offer_id":40263467139270,"sku":"NUM-BlondRedheadBundle","price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/files\/NUM091CDMOCK.png?v=1724435334"},{"product_id":"blonde-redhead-la-mia-vita-violenta","title":"La Mia Vita Violenta","description":"\u003cp class=\"dropcap\"\u003eArt-house kosmische from the battered basements of pre-9\/11 New York. 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The back half of the decade was spent touring with Albert King, Curtis Mayfield, and The Emotions, before returning home to Gary, Indiana, to focus on his own sound. In 1985, Junei’s girlfriend brought home a suite of Fostex home studio gear, including a 12 channel board, 8-track tape machine, and a halftrack for mix downs. He added a Yamaha drum machine and a Maestro echoplex and started his solo project.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “The only artists I listened to was Hendrix and Santana,” Junei said. The emissions coming from his home studio were entirely different, however, as “Let’s Ride” channels the Euro sensibilities of Kraftwerk or Italo over virtuosic guitar. “I just didn’t want to sound like anyone else,” he continued. “Let’s Ride” achieved that differentiation, and managed to anticipate Chicago house by a few years. 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Tracked at home in 1999, the  \u003cem\u003e1975 EP\u003c\/em\u003e expands on Stratosphere’s slacker-positive dreamscape, with layers of guitars both clean and fuzzy, humming organ, and—gasp!—a drum machine. Needle down, candles on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"LP (Mostly Milky White Vinyl)","offer_id":41795103391942,"sku":"NUM1275lp-C2","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP (Mostly Ghost White Vinyl)","offer_id":40263510098118,"sku":"NUM1275lp-C1","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP (Black Vinyl)","offer_id":40263510065350,"sku":"NUM1275lp","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40405407301830,"sku":"NUM210.3dig1","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/products\/NUM1275_Duster_1975_LP_MostlyMilkyWhite.jpg?v=1656098719"},{"product_id":"karate-unsolved","title":"Unsolved","description":"\u003cp class=\"dropcap\"\u003eWhatever sense of unity bound a hodgepodge of underground American punk sounds in the 1990s like a Duct-tape wallet began to come unglued by the end of the decade. A couple years into the new millennium and the emo scene that once had enough space for a band as brazen in their fusion of slowcore, jazz, and post-hardcore as Boston’s Karate would barely be reflected in a cookie-cutter style commercialized by major labels and mid-level indies that acted like the majors. The part of punk that overlapped with indie rock would begin a slow ascent from its comfortable home on college radio charts to the soundtrack of American Apparel shops and eventually the Billboard charts. In this strange, stratifying milieu, Karate, a band that seemed to thrive by cleaving to a nether-zone between several sounds that otherwise never touched, delivered an engrossing constantly shifting shot of rock that covered three sides of 12-inch vinyl: \u003cem\u003eUnsolved\u003c\/em\u003e arrived in 2000. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Karate spent much of the ’ 90s wrestling punk aggression and volume into svelte shapes and often condensed what felt like a generation of scuffed-up intensity into whispers. The quiet moments carried much of that unbridled intensity throughout \u003cem\u003eUnsolved\u003c\/em\u003e —the fuzzy guitar squawk and snatchet of machine-gun drumming on “Sever” aside, things hit a little more sharply the moment the trio pivoted into their subdued jazz melodic interplay on that song. Karate’s transition into indie-rock maturity had become so complete by the time they dropped \u003cem\u003eUnsolved\u003c\/em\u003e that you could play the coffeehouse soul of “Halo of the Strange” and sultry jazz of “Lived-But-Yet-Named” to an unsuspecting punk and spend an entire evening trying to convince them that, yes, this band had made their bones playing the same DIY circuit made of bands that sounded like they wanted to harm their audience. But few bands other than Karate played like they understood the musical lingua franca of scene godheads such as Fugazi and Unwound, and knew how to make that language evolve, and nearly every song on \u003cem\u003eUnsolved\u003c\/em\u003e made that clear. If you didn’t get the memo by the end of the elegiac 11-minute closer “This Day Next Year,” which gained an irrepressible power from a plaintive guitar melody cycling through the song’s back half like a yearnsome cry for the divine, you might’ve been better off buying a ticket for Warped Tour and waiting a decade or two to figure it out.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero Group","offers":[{"title":"Small Fires Vinyl (Numero Exclusive)","offer_id":42609504747718,"sku":"NUM906LP-C1","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Angels Halo Vinyl","offer_id":42609504780486,"sku":"NUM906lp-C2","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Black Vinyl","offer_id":42609504813254,"sku":"NUM906lp","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":42609631264966,"sku":"NUM906cass","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40269028720838,"sku":"NUM906digital","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/products\/NUM906LP-C1KarateUnsolvedSmallFiresVinyl.png?v=1677771886"},{"product_id":"technicolor-paradise-rhum-rhapsodies-other-exotic-delights","title":"Rhum Rhapsodies \u0026 Other Exotic Delights","description":"\u003cp class=\"dropcap\"\u003eIt was a musical cocktail born in a marketing meeting: Two parts easy listening, one part jazz, a healthy dollop of conga drums, a sprinkling of bird calls, and a pinch of textless choir. Serve garnished with an alluring woman on the album jacket for best results. Liberty Records co-founder Si Waronker called it Exotica; the soundtrack for a mythical air conditioned Eden, packaged for mid-century, tiki torch-wielding armchair safariers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the five years after \u003cem\u003eExotica\u003c\/em\u003e—Martin Denny’s 1957 landmark Liberty debut—arrived, hundreds of other ethnographic forgeries washed up in record racks all over the U.S., bearing titles like \u003cem\u003eSophisticated Savage, Sacred Idol, Chant of the Jungle, Polynesian Paradise, Exotic Paradise, Taboo, Primitiva, Forbidden Island, Afrodesia, Hypnotique, Percussion Exotique\u003c\/em\u003e, and a barrel’s worth of other portmanteaus. “All of those ica and itiva endings I came up with because I thought I was being cute,” Waronker said. “And I don’t know why, but nobody got wise.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile Liberty certainly had a first mover advantage, it wasn’t long before the major recording companies began reinventing their aging mood music purveyors as pushers of peregrine percussion. And where the majors went, so too did the rest of the market. Dozens of readings on the genre standards like “Quiet Village,” “Similau,” “Miserlou,” “Caravan,” “Nature Boy,” “Moon of Manakoora,” and “Taboo” appeared on micro-pressed 45s and LPs as hotel lobby combos and restaurant entertainers alike tried their hand at creating regional living room lotus lands while others summoned their own sonic visions of Shangri La, bringing their versions of the Pacific, Africa, and the Orient to the hinterlands America.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003eIf you can’t come to paradise, I’ll bring paradise to you.\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe earliest whispers of this brand of appropriated escapism appeared not in song, but literature. Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 collection \u003cem\u003eThe Jungle Book\u003c\/em\u003e and William Henry Hudson’s 1904 novel \u003cem\u003eGreen Mansions\u003c\/em\u003e both chronicle the experiences of young protagonists in the jungles of India and Guayana, respectively. Eight years later, Edgar Rice Burroughs blew the naturalist scene wide open with \u003cem\u003eTarzan of the Apes\u003c\/em\u003e. These woodland tales inspired English Impressionist Cyril Scott, who in penning “Lotus Land” in 1905 and “Impressions of the Jungle Book” in 1912 unwittingly became the godfather of exotica. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Exotica was a name I made up,” recalled Waronker, “I never heard that word before.” But the cultural trappings of that word began appearing nearly 25 years before his invention. Born in February 1907, Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt would be the first to “bring paradise”—as he sloganized—to American shores. The 1933 opening of his first Don the Beachcomber’s Cafe offered Los Angelenos a glimpse into island life, its walls adorned with spears, masks, and bamboo, a hose dripping on the corrugated metal roof giving beachniks refuge from a make believe tropical deluge. The fare was simple: Chinese food served in wooden bowls. The drink menu, on the other hand, was transportive: A bootlegger’s trunk of rums mixed with fruit juice and other liqueurs, with terror-glee inspiring name like Cobra’s Fang, Demerara Dry Float, Missionary’s Downfall, and Zombie. As Hollywood rediscovered their love of alcohol following the repeal of prohibition, Gantt—who officially changed his name to Donn Beach—found himself in the middle of a typhoon of cash and franchise opportunities. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe bombing of paradise on December 7, 1941 inadvertently set off the tiki explosion, when Beach and 16 million others joined the war effort. Many servicemen caught their first glimpses of the outriggers, rattan rugs, thatched roofs, wahine waifs, and totems while stationed on Wake Island, the Philippines, and Guam. When the curtain was drawn on the Pacific theater, these suntanned veterans washed up stateside with more than just sand in their boots; they brought tiki culture to the suburbs. Beach faced a rude awakening upon his return; his wife filed for divorce and he lost everything but his name, which he’d take to Waikiki for a reboot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLieutenant Commander James A. Michner published his account on the fictional island of Bali Ha’i as \u003cem\u003eTales of the South Pacific\u003c\/em\u003e in 1947. “I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific,” Michener wrote. “The way it actually was. The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we called islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean. Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description. I wish I could tell you about the sweating jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting. The waiting. The timeless, repetitive waiting.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor America, the wait for exotica’s arrival was almost over.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1947, Eden Ahbez was living under the first L of the Hollywood sign. He’d spent the bulk of his 40 trips around the sun as a proto-hippie, living in caves and lean-tos with a group of men affectionately known as “The Nature Boys,” before decamping to Mount Lee with a sleeping bag and his wife. Lyrics for his free-love hymn “Nature Boy” began circulating in 1946, with a tattered copy reaching Nat King Cole via his valet the following year. Hoping to record the song, Cole began seeking out a bearded man who was last seen preaching the wonders of Lebensreform on the streets of Hollywood. The April 1948 release would ultimately hit #1 on the \u003cem\u003eBillboard\u003c\/em\u003e charts and spawn dozens of cover versions, making “Nature Boy” the first hit in the exotica canon. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNearly a year to the day after the release of “Nature Boy,” Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s musical adaptation of \u003cem\u003eTales of the South Pacific\u003c\/em\u003e debuted on Broadway, whetting America's island appetite. Juanita Hall’s quivering mezzo-soprano on “Bali Ha’i” prototyped the coming movement, her character Bloody Mary creating a sultry intrigue with the lyric “Where the sky meets the sea. Here I am your special island. Come to me, come to me.” The Original 1949 Broadway cast LP was the best selling album of the decade, bringing the imagined sounds of Vanuatu into living rooms everywhere. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Cyril Scott’s 1928 book \u003cem\u003eThe Influence of Music on History and Morals\u003c\/em\u003e he anticipated that “Great floods of melody will be poured forth from the higher planes, to be translated into earthly sound by composers sensitive enough to apprehend them.” His heir apparent was only six at the time of the prediction, but two decades later Les Baxter found himself on the cusp of creating a series of modern classical works that would define an entire genre. Baxter had spent the ’40s banging around west coast jazz combos, including stints with Freddie Slack, Mel Tormé and his own Les Baxter Trio before being tapped by composer Harry Revel to arrange an album around the then-chic theremin. The two Revel collaborations—1947’s \u003cem\u003eMusic Out of the Moon\u003c\/em\u003e and 1948’s \u003cem\u003ePerfume Set To Music\u003c\/em\u003e—solidified Baxter’s innovative reputation at Capitol Records, who had unusual pairing in mind for his next effort. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“I hadn’t been to South America or Cuba or anyplace when I did my exotic stuff,” Baxter said in a 1995 interview with Peter Huestis. “It just came out of nowhere.” He did, however, have a Peruvian princess in the studio to make up for the lack of stamps in his passport. Yma Sumac arrived in New York in 1946 with her husband\/manager Moisés Vivanco, showcasing her her five octave, quasi-operatic talent as Inca Taqui Trio before finally catching Capitol's ear three years later. “We sat with Yma Sumac and listened to her natural incantation, or music, or whatever you might call it, which was totally foreign to anything that we know as Western music or European music, or anything else,” Capitol V.P. Alan Livingston said. “I give Les Baxter credit. He sat with her and managed to isolate certain portions of what she was doing to write and create a background to go with it.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“After \u003cem\u003e(Voices of the Xtabay)\u003c\/em\u003e came out, people were very intrigued,” Sumac said. “They had never heard this kind of singing before. They didn’t know how to classify it; whether it was classical or mumbo-jumbo!” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the half century mark, exotica had found its image via Donn Beach, its sound through the classical musings of Les Baxter, and its voice in Yma Sumac, but it lacked for an anthem. Baxter’s 1951 solo debut \u003cem\u003eThe Ritual of the Savage\u003c\/em\u003e would change that. The back cover described the album as “a tone poem of the sound and the struggle of the jungle...the hue and mood of the interior...the tempo and texture of the bustling seaports and the tropics!” Savage’s signature moment doesn’t appear until the opening of side B, when “Quiet Village” unfurls as a series of ostinatos bathed in percussion and strings. It would be another eight years before the song hit the charts, and even then Baxter’s name could only be found while squinting at the credits.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMartin Denny washed up at Donn Beach’s Dagger Lounge in 1954. The pianist had spent the previous 20 years in and out of casinos and hotels on and off the mainland before forming a trio with vibraphonist Arthur Lyman and bassist John Kramer. A year later, after moving on to the Shell Bar at Hawaiian Village and adding percussionist Augie Colon, inspiration struck Denny: “The Hawaiian Village was a beautiful open-air tropical setting. There was a pond with some very large bullfrogs right next to the bandstand. One night we were playing a certain song and I could hear the frogs going ‘Rivet! Rivet! Rivet!’ When we stopped playing, the frogs stopped croaking. A little while later I said, ‘Let’s repeat that tune,’ and sure enough the frogs started croaking again. And as a gag, some of the guys spontaneously started doing these bird calls. The following day one of the guests came up and said, ‘Mr. Denny, you know that song you did with the birds and the frogs? Can you do that again?’ At the next rehearsal I said, ‘Okay, fellas, how about if each one of you does a different bird call? We must have played that tune thirty times. It turned out to be ‘Quiet Village.’” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWord of Denny’s schtick spread east to Liberty Records’ Los Angeles office, leading Si Waronker to take a $850 gamble and put Denny \u0026amp; Co. in the studio. The result was 1957’s \u003cem\u003eExotica\u003c\/em\u003e, a slow burner that wouldn’t find the charts for nearly two years, but would ultimately be the genus for an entire subspecies of music. Baxter’s song would be covered vigorously in the coming years, working its way into every lounge set from Maui to Miami, replete with bird calls and piped in shorebreaks and tradewinds. Was it jazz? Was it classical? Was it world music? Could it be mumbo-jumbo?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust as Si Waronker wrung every nickel out of Ross Bagdasarian’s Chipmunks, he would apply the same level of force in getting the most out of his new invention. Thirteen Martin Denny albums were pushed through the system over the course of five years alongside cash-ins by the likes of Russ Garcia, Leo Arnaud, Jack Costanzo, Ethel Azama, John Buzon, Augie Colon, Chick Floyd and Rene Paulo. Many of these shared more than just a flair for Polynesian pop, they used the same team of photographers, and quite often the same woman for their album covers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe team of Murray Garrett and Gene Howard had only a few credits under their belts when a portrait of a bejeweled Sandy Warner peering through a beaded doorway was optioned by Liberty Records for use on Denny’s debut. An aspiring model and actress, the buxom Warner appeared on 16 Denny jackets wearing little more than the wind, and many of the other Liberty exotica titles. Blonde or brunette, half naked or clothed, in nature or in studio, Warner’s striking look earned her the title of “Exotica Girl” on the way to a career that included body doubling for Marilyn Monroe in \u003cem\u003eSome Like It Hot\u003c\/em\u003e and guesting on \u003cem\u003eThe Twilight Zone\u003c\/em\u003e. “A lot of people bought the album on the strength of her pictures,” Denny reflected. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“She came to Hawaii and sat in the audience right in front of the stage. After my performance, she sort of waved at me to come over. I walked over to her table, and it turned out that she was on her honeymoon. But I didn't know who she was. Then she said ‘You and I have a lot in common.’ And I said ‘Oh, really? What's that?’ She said, ‘Well, I'm the girl on your album covers!’ I looked at her and said, ‘My God, you're right!’”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWarner took her celebrity status one step too far with 1959’s \u003cem\u003eFair \u0026amp; Warner\u003c\/em\u003e album, exotic in cover only, and even then just barely. She’d hardly be the last struggling actor to go looking for paradise in a Hollywood recording studio; Martha Raye, Aki Aleong, and \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/dev.numerogroup.com\/products\/darla-hood-silent-island\"\u003eDarla Hood\u003c\/a\u003e all donned sonic loincloths on their climb up Mount Lee. Even Les Baxter succumbed to the pressure of Tinseltown and recut his own version of \u003cem\u003eSouth Pacific\u003c\/em\u003e, adding—as described on the back cover—”a new dimension of color and momentum...to the already legendary music of Rodgers and Hammerstein.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time Hawaii entered the union in August 1959, the Exotica movement was febrile. Hawaiian shirts and floral muu muus became de rigueur. Backyard pools were ringed with torches and rattan furniture. The Outrigger Lounge in Rochester, Minnesota, The Mainlander in St. Louis, Missouri, Tiki Cove in Fairbanks, Alaska, Kahiki in Columbus, Ohio, and Judges’ Beyond The Reef in Brookfield, Wisconsin, proved that the phenomena was no longer coastal. Walt Disney even got into the fray, breaking ground on his million dollar Enchanted Tiki Room at the turn of the decade, promising to combine “entertainment magic and the wonders of space-age electronics...starring a cast of more than 200 birds, flowers and tropical Tikis…all brought to life through the wonders of AUDIO ANIMATRONICS!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe arrival of the Beatles and their British brethren in 1964 wiped out this lush, easy-listening movement almost entirely. Sinatra or Martin might be able to squeeze “Blue Hawaii” into a set at the Sands, but for the turned-on boomers gripping with the Kennedy assassination and the Civil Rights Movement, a bit more substance was required. A few outliers would slip through here and there, but America’s fascination with the tropics was largely over. Martin Denny’s 1969 album \u003cem\u003eExotic Moog\u003c\/em\u003e was a fitting nail in the coffin. “The company aimed this at what was then called the ‘underground’ market. This was when the hippie thing had started happening in San Francisco,” Denny said. “But the record never sold, so that was the end of \u003cem\u003ethat\u003c\/em\u003e.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA quarter century later, a new generation of space age bachelors and bachelorettes rediscovered the sound, nestling Esquivel and Chaino LPs between their mid-century hi-fi systems and Libbey cocktail glassware. Capitol Records—the repository for both the Les Baxter and Liberty catalogs—rolled out nearly 50 volumes of \u003cem\u003eUltra Lounge\u003c\/em\u003e, compact disc compilations aimed squarely at hipsters and boomer nostalgists alike. Fittingly, much of the renaissance focused on the more established names in the field, ignoring—or just completely unaware of—the indie contributions to the field. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eTechnicolor Paradise\u003c\/em\u003e is proof that Denny, Sumac, and Baxter were just islets poking through the sea, and that Exotica’s larger ecosystem of reefs, lagoons, and sandbars are worthy of equal attention and conservation. Be it mosquito-bitten torch singers, landlocked surf quartets, fad-chasing jazz combos, mad genius band leaders, wannabe actors, or a middle aged loner programming bird calls into a Hammond, Exotica was always more concerned with what geography might sound like over who was conducting. Bill Bradway of the \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/dev.numerogroup.com\/products\/gospel-hawaiinaires-the-songs-of-bill-jean-bradway\"\u003eGospel Hawaiianaires\u003c\/a\u003e never even made it to the 50th state, but his homemade three-necked pedal steel is far more exotic than the Xaphoon or Chinese Bell Tree. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTechnicolor Paradise is where one makes it, after all.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Numero","offers":[{"title":"Moon Mist Vinyl (Numero Exclusive 3xLP)","offer_id":42411309301958,"sku":"NUM065LP-C1","price":80.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"House of Grass (3xLP)","offer_id":42411311038662,"sku":"NUM065LP-C2","price":80.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Technicolor Isle Pink Swirl (3xLP)","offer_id":42411312414918,"sku":"NUM065LP-C3","price":80.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Blue Oasis (3xLP)","offer_id":42411313955014,"sku":"NUM065LP-C4","price":80.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"3xLP","offer_id":40311233315014,"sku":"NUM065LP","price":70.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"3xCD","offer_id":40311233282246,"sku":"NUM065CD","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40311233249478,"sku":"NUM065dig","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0573\/1650\/7846\/products\/NUM065_TechnicolorParadise_RhumRhapsodies_LP_MoonMist.jpg?v=1667329763"},{"product_id":"birdlegs-pauline","title":"Birdlegs \u0026 Pauline","description":"\u003cp class=\"dropcap\"\u003eTucked deep into the wilds of Wisconsin, Cuca Records was the custom recording and pressing outfit for the Badger state. From its opening in 1959 until its closing in 1973, Jim Kirchstein recorded nearly 2,000 sides—ranging from polka and gospel to country and R\u0026amp;B—and issued over 1,000 45s on his Cuca, Sara, Age of Aquarius, Night Owl, Citation, Psalms, Top Gun, and Jolly Dutchman imprints. Though the studio was located in rural Sauk City, Cuca quickly became a go-to destination for black artists looking to cut on the cheap. “Black musicians, especially the young R\u0026amp;B bands, loved to come to this little town, since there were treated as royalty,” Kirchstein said. “Often I would hear, ‘Hey, there ain’t no black people here!’ My folks’ grocery store next door was always opened for bread and bologna before the late seasons started, with a quick trip downtown for wine. One could buy carry-out liquor up to midnight in those days. It really was a lot of fun then—not work, even, though the sessions were long.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSidney “Birdlegs” Banks and his wife Pauline made the trek from nearby Rockford, Illinois, in early ’63. Backed by brothers Mack and Floyd Murphy as The Versatility Birds, the couple cut the bluesy shuffler “Spring” b\/w “So Many Ways” issued on Cuca that February and eventually climbing to #18 on the R\u0026amp;B chart and later reissued by a near-bankruptcy Vee Jay. “Pauline was one of the finest vocalists I’ve ever heard,” Kirchstein said. “Could have been a lot of money if [Vee Jay] had stayed in business. We did an album on them shortly after.” That album came and went with the season, and by the end of the decade the Bankses had split. Former Mrs. Banks Pauline Shivers cut a handful of records under her maiden name for Chicago’s Expo and Opex concerns. 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