"Diggin' Up Down Under!" - V/A [Dig The Fuzz '9?] Way strong Aussie 60's freakbeat comp
Peter & Gordon - "In London For Tea" [Capitol '66]
Gram Parsons/Flying Burrito Bros. - "Sleepless Nights" [A&M '76, rec. '70 and '73]
The Persuaders - S/T [Atco '73]
Bill Evans - "Quintessence" [Fantasy '77] With Kenny Burrell, Philly Joe Jones, Ray Brown and Harold Land...gotta spin this masterpiece of intense quietude and compellingly intimate recorded sound at least one day each year
Then in memory of Robert Culp finally watched supposed cultural touchstone and multi-Oscar winner "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" [Columbia '69, dir. Paul Mazursky] which I'd had for years without giving it a play (mostly pedestrian soundtrack by the ubiquitous Quincy Jones). Dated? Of course, in the extreme, but that's half the point with a piece like this, that could and would never be made in later days, and it does feel like it captures one facet of a unique moment in time (and place -- this could only have been set in California). Though one might wish for a slightly more jaundiced view -- and despite some less than completely believable or fully developed pretenses (not to mention a notable lack'o what and who else was going on in the world at the time, only implied by the degree to which it's ignored in the film's insularly depticted, bourgeois faux-hip sunnySoCal backdrop) -- this still manages to hold up as not only funny but challenging, one assumes not least of all for the actors involved. So here's to ya Bob (and Natalie, who could not have been any foxier)
