Customer Reviews

Re/Search #14: Incredibly Strange Music, Volume I

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This book was good therapy- it was reasuring to find that there were many people out there like me that spent a great deal of their spare time combing thriftstores and yardsales to find Martin Deny albums or twisted versions of Beatles tunes sung by washed up celebrities.

Here's a simple test to see if you'd like this book: you're at the local thrift store when from the corner of your eye you see a record of Buddy Hacket singing favorite Yiddish songs. Do you...

A)keep looking for your Partrige Family lunchpail that your mother gave away 18 years ago.

B)Break into a cold sweat and lunge for the record with trembling hands.

If your answer is B maybe you should check out this book.

After their popular "Incredibly Strange Films" book, the Re/Search team shifts their focus to music, specifically to fringe genres represented primarily by forgotten vinyl releases of the past. Interviewing assorted individuals, both music lovers and cult stars alike, V.Vale and Andrea Juno explore their record collections and gather anecdotes about beloved artists, treasured finds, and favorite album covers. In the first volume, Ivy and Lux of The Cramps recall their discovery of rockabilly and garage rock through thrift store scavenging, and members of the Phantom Surfers discuss surf and hot rod music, monster party albums, and Beatles knockoffs. Brian and Stuart of San Francisco's Amok Books talk about lounge and exotica music (Les Baxter, Arthur Lymann, Korla Pandit), and the founders of Norton Records detail the strange careers of Hasil Adkins and Esquerita. There's also chats with Eartha Kitt, exotica legend Martin Denny, and Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley on their work both together and solo. Throughout the pages are hundreds of B&W photos and images of classic retro album covers. A companion CD was released featuring selections from some of the records covered. These books are an excellent read for those drawn to the bizarre, the shameless, and the ridiculous in music history. These are the unsung artists who never get mentioned in traditional music guides. Definitely recommended.

This is the definitive book on thrift store music finds. Of course, because of its publication it's become increasingly difficult to make good thrift scores since it's opened up the field to many more collectors. But at least we've still got ebay! If the Velvet Underground can lay claim to launching 1000 bands, then the "Incredibly Strange Music" series is responsible for launching thousands of record collections.

This book mostly consists of interviews with people discussing their unusual record collections. If that sounds like your bag, here it is. Of course, I dug it.

Re-Search took an in depth view into the lives of their subjects. Told by the people themselves as well as the fans. It approches it's subjects with an open mind and no judgement. This statement is for all of the books put out by Re-Search.