Paradise Vendors >> I know what you need

Paradise Vendors - "Prozac" (a.k.a. "Proloft")

(self-released [Spartie Records], 2003 / 2005)

Paradise Vendors were a short-lived New Orleans band, or dare I say supergroup, named after the fictitious hot dog company for which Ignatius J. Reilly worked in the novel A Confederacy Of Dunces.  I read that book over 20 years ago and later unknowingly went to the same university (Loyola) as its author.  The book has always annoyed me a bit, but it's undeniably a classic of Southern literature.

I first heard this song on WTUL in late 2003, under its original title of "Prozac."  I was driving and had no cell phone yet, so when I got home I immediately called the station to ask what the song was.  I knew it'd go down as a local classic.  (This mp3 is from the impossibly-rare Music 1... demo EP CD-R.)  In 2004 PV played around town a lot and in early 2005 put out their one and only album, Candy.  It included "Prozac," but under the name "Proloft," presumably to avoid lawsuits, though the second name seems more likely stir up two lawsuits, if you ask me.  The semi-rapped ending verse of the song reminds of me of the surrealist "eatin' cars" part in Blondie's "Rapture," and the song in general has a playfully quirky, genre-busting feel like that of "Rapture."

Live in the crimson confines of Circle Bar on Oct. 26, 2004; photo by Jason Songe

I saw a subtly brilliant performance by a local band called the Vivid Prawns in March 1998 at the Mermaid Lounge, with fellow locals Sage Maas (proggy alt-metal) and Zoom (lame retro power pop).  The Prawns were basically a clone of The Sea And Cake (one of my favorite bands ever), and I was sure they'd get signed to Thrill Jockey Records, but they never released any official music, to my knowledge, and kinda faded away.  If anyone has any Vivid Prawns music or info to send my way, please do so.  They morphed into Veloka in the early '00s or perhaps late '90s.  So if you know about the two bands that made up PV, you'll understand how they got their hybrid sound: smooth tropical stylings from the Vivid Prawns, and burlesque-y edge from Veloka.  Paradise Vendors' bassist Dave Baker and drummer Elzy Lindsey were each in the Vivid Prawns and Veloka, as well as some band called Nuclear Choir.)  I'm sure I'm making this sound way too confusing...  So I'll put it this way: The bassist and drummer in any band comprise what is known as the rhythm section.  The following three NOLA bands had the same rhythm section: The Vivid Prawns, Veloka, Paradise Vendors.  And the synth guru from Electrical Spectacle, Anton Gussoni, was PV's secret weapon.  Add the dynamic vocal stylings and fashion sense of Jeanne Stallworth and you have the final piece in the Paradise puzzle.

I don't have any clips of the Vivid Prawns, but here's one of Veloka at the Howlin' Wolf (now called Republic) in glorious 144p:

Since I think it's rude to embed more than one video per page, see another super-psychedelic clip of Veloka here.

Hidden under a "Read More" tab at CD Baby is a great trove of info about Paradise Vendors, so I will simply cut and paste some of it over here, in case that page ever disappears.
First is a bio, presumably written by the band members themselves:

"If the illegitimate children of Martin Denny and Nancy Sinatra grew up in New Orleans and they formed a band... or you played turntables with LPs by Brasil 66, Dick Dale, The Pixies, and Burt Bacharach simultaneously and all the tunes were in E minor... or punks play bossa nova in the Irish Channel... or The Cramps fell in love with Doris Day... You might have pop exotica space rock.

When bassist Dave Baker (Veloka [alternative rock], The Vivid Prawns [Asian pop rock fusion], Nuclear Choir [new wave punk]) and drummer Elzy Lindsey (Veloka, The Vivid Prawns, Nuclear Choir, Fucus and way too many more bands to mention...) met thespian and chanteuse Jeanne Stallworth, (The Foxy HooHoos), guitarist Robert Vicknair (Veloka, Frank [digital garage], Merkins [post punk]) and last but not least, Anton Gussoni (Electrical Spectacle) on Moog and Rhodes piano... the eclectic collaboration of Paradise Vendors was born."

Here are excerpts from some local reviews:

Bunny Matthews (OffBeat magazine) describes our music as "excellent."
Anthony DelRosario (Turducken Productions) says "Paradise Vendors blends gypsy, surf, new wave, moog stuff, cabaret, world percussion, trashy girl rock & spacey instrumentals into an otherworldly hybrid too eclectic to readily classify."
Steve Perrin (rock journalist) says "P.J. Harvey meets Marlene Dietrich."
Jason Songe (liveneworleans.com) says "The music was a soundtrack to an underbelly... The band's music exposed what was under the city's black veil."
Keith Spera (Lagniappe / Times-Picayune) describes Candy as "eclectic, adventurous and artful modern pop..."
Alex Rawls (Gambit) says Paradise Vendors' music "evokes the luxuriousness of artists like Les Baxter or John Barry."

Songe is the affable booker at the Circle Bar, and he used to run the aforementioned site liveneworleans.com, which was an invaluable resource for reviewing under-the-radar local bands in the pre-MySpace/Facebook/Tumblr/Twitter era.  It has what are probably the only two detailed gig reviews that Paradise Vendors ever received, replete with photos:
Cafe Brasil (April 11, 2004)
Circle Bar (Oct. 26, 2004)

Last month I finally(!) got the original 2003 demo EP, Music 1..., whilst enjoying an in-store performance by What Moon Things at Euclid Records.  Afterwards, I convinced the band to snag a used copy of Candy for a few bucks after I had a Euclid employee play "Prozac" on the stereo.

This is of course the EP spread open; the front cover uses the same photo that's on the CD.
It's a purse with a Paradise Vendors 7" record (which doesn't actually exist) sewn or glued onto it, replete with the band's label, "Spartie Records." And a light-up ring.

Planets with similar climates: Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra - "Some Velvet Morning" (1967), Moonshake - "Exotic Siren Song" (1996), Blondie - "Rapture" (1980), Bleach - "Surround" (1991), The Cardigans - "Carnival" (1994), Furry Things - "Burn For" (1997).

The Aqua Velvets >> Amber waves of sand

California Month continued, tremor #26:

The Aqua Velvets - "Nomad"

(Milan Records, 1996 / Riptide Records, 2006)

Not much to say here... Just a dope, chilled-out surf instrumental.  This kind of thing is actually quite hard to make, since most surf shredders play way too many notes and hence fail to nail that blissful, electrolyte-depleted sundown feeling that you have after a good day at the beach.

I don't really know anything about this band and haven't made any effort to fix that.  I bought this CD in summer of '09 at a Baton Rouge thrift store on a whim for one or two bucks; the main coup of that day was buying Suzanne Vega's fantastic self-titled debut CD for about five bucks.  This Aqua Velvets CD, Nomad, came out in 1996 on Milan Records and was reissued ten years later on Riptide Records, which is the band's own label.  (Riptide released their debut album in '92.)  The mp3 I'm giving is from the original '96 CD; I'm not sure if the '06 version was remastered or not.

Their next album is pretty good and has one of the best covers ever:

Today this Spanish bullfighter got gored in the head and had one side of his face ripped apart from the inside.  I watched a clip of it in slow motion and felt quite nauseous afterwards.  Of course I'm happy whenever a bull gores a matador, but this took it to another level, so I'm not going to link to it.  Other stuff I did today: Listened to some Toro Y Moi on iTunes to decide if I want to see them on Monday or not.  The answer is probably "or not," despite the greatness of their song "Still Sound."  Watched #1 LSU crush Florida.  Watched this movie Catfish, which turned out to be a documentary, not a psychological thriller / mockumentary as I had anticipated.  Ate a banana.  Checked on Kreayshawn's tumblr, a guilty pleasure for the last month or two.  Listened to some of Insides' album Euphoria in the car.  Played basketball for two hours at my favorite court, the one at Lutcher Playground.  I was the only non-black person there out of about 100 people, as it was some sort of family reunion / block party, with a DJ playing smooth jams under the pavillion.  (I think he was just playing a mix CD and announcing each song in between over a PA system, but I didn't mind because the music was good.)  Most of the basketball players were teenagers, and none were in my league skill-wise, so it got a little tedious, especially since some of them would randomly start texting or walk away to get barbecue or whatever.  Probably 15 different guys cycled in and out of the game overall.  A cop car pulled up and told them to turn the music down at one point, which was not surprising, since the police station is about 50 feet away.  When the sun set, I decided I was too sweaty and tired to stop at Winn-Dixie to get groceries.  Listened to some of Savage Republic's self-titled CD in the car on the way back.  Did laundry.  Wrote this.  Still in shock over the Phillies being shut out last night at home in an elimination game.  Ryan Howard injuring his ankle on the game's final play was fitting, but I still wore my Howard jersey today.  He batted about .100 in the series.

Today I also skimmed through the "Index of First Lines" appendix at the back of The Contemporary American Poets: American Poetry Since 1940.  (Signet Classics edition, 2000.)  Tell me you don't want to read every one of these after reading their first line:

One that is not shown in the pic since it's at the bottom of the left page is "I walk the purple carpet into your eye."  This is from Diane Wakoski's Inside Out.  Fun Fact: The line "inside the blood factory" was used as the title of a 1968 compendium of her poetry, well, actually closer to prose, that I bought last year.

Notice in the following list that I'm not just throwing out tracks by well-known '60s surf bands, e.g. Ventures, Shadows, etc., like most people would do.  So it's a good example of how I like to dig a little deeper into the soul / essence of a song when finding its kindred spirits, and that usually means going outside of its accepted genre.  None of them are surf bands, and none are even from the West Coast, but the tracks all have haunting, bluesy guitar melodies that have been stuck in my head for many years.
I think my favorite "similar planet" recommendation so far has been Concrete Blonde's "Dance Along The Edge" in the post about The Sound's "Burning Part Of Me."

Planets with similar climates: Yo La Tengo - "Return To Hot Chicken" (1997), Eric Clapton - "New Recruit" (1992), Polvo - "Snake Fist Fighter" (1990), Scenic - "Ionia" (1996), Tortoise - "I Set My Face To The Hillside" (1997), Felt - "Fortune" (1984).