“Other Thing” -the Chandler Travis Philharmonette from “RadioBall 23- Live at Bubala’s”, recorded by the Valet, I’m guessing, in the summer of 2003.
It being Halloween week n all, thought we’d bring back one of our creepiest efforts, though this is an early and relatively sprightly version (nowadays, we play it a lot slower, so it takes forever); still, even here, it’s a bit unsettling and unpleasant. Our long lost (and much lamented) keyboardist, Keith Spring (aka Mahavishnu John Casual) always had fun with this one, and Mark Chenevert on clarinet and John Styklunas on string bass were real good sports about it.
It is preceded on the album by “Thing”, the first entry in the “Thing” series of instrumentals, which suggests that “Other Thing” might’ve been the second one. The series keeps growing (the most recent additions being “Thing Of It Is”, “Wisp Of a Thing”, and “X Marks the Pretty Thing”):… maybe we’ll get to do a “Thing” album some day! I’d forgotten about the first “Thing”, and enjoyed hearing it agin.
And by the way… boo!
“Monster Mash” -Allan Sheinfeld with the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, recorded live at the Belt Sander Races at the Sander Dome, Nov. 1st, 2014, by The Valet.
Always a pleasure to have Allan Sheinfeld join us for any reason, but the occasion of last year’s Belt Sander Races was an especially fine excuse. Some will be horrified to hear the delicate strains of the always touching “Monster Mash” embellished with quite this many f-bombs, But Allan just can’t help himself when it’s holiday time, he just gets carried away. Wait til’ you hear his version of “Away in a Mangah”…!
“Vampire” -the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, recorded upstairs at the Middle East, Halloween, 1998.
This one’s very long, very quiet (mostly), and very spooky… has much fine keyboard work from Keith Spring AKA Mahavishnu John Casual AKA Skip Winter… if you played this faster and harder and doubled the lead vocal, it would sound like Squeeze, except for the bridge, which already sounds like the Who (I hope)… also has just about my favorite ending of all time. It’s one of those seasonal things that gets performed very rarely. Boo.