I'm partial to the Caraa Sport Studio Bag (I have the medium size in two different colors), and it has never done me wrong. I should also note that, while the contents of my go bag are very important, I also have a very specific taste in what kind of bag I use. Through my frequent travels I've figured out what I absolutely need to have with me while I'm out and about, from a travel wallet to a hair moisturizer. Luckily, I've been on a few trips myself - I've visited 10 new countries in 2019 alone - and I can help out in this department. For starters, you definitely need to know what things to have in your travel go bag so you can be sure you're prepared for anything that comes your way while you're on the road. Once you plan an itinerary, book everything, remember to pack everything you need, get on a plane or in the car, arrive at your destination, check into your accommodations, and finally settle in, you still have plenty more things on your to-do list. It is a trifle, yes, but an absolutely delicious one.There are a lot of steps to take to having a really successful vacation. It isn't concerned with authenticity or interested in irony, only in setting the mood. It is an album of plastic op-art sheen, blonde coos, and ba-bas tailor-made for space-age bachelor pads, far-out dragstrip clubs, opium dens, and rock & roll aeroplanes. From the galloping "Leslie Phillips in Santiago" by Tomorrow's World with its flamenco picking and go-go bass to the woozy Classics IV guitars of Milky's suggestive "The Emperor of Oranges" to Wallpaper's mesmerizingly groovy, faux studio hippie-exploitation psychedelia, the music manages to be both slinky and innocent, coquettish and corrupt, but always brilliant fun. But the most charming part of the volume is the life-like period gusto that the bands put into their original tunes, which tend to be just as good as the archival songs. The Tomorrow's World cover of Free Design's signature tune, "Kites Are Fun," is infused with sunny Thursday-afternoon-in-the-park harmonies. Loveletter gives the Cowsills' "We Can Fly" a go and turns it into an updated but spot-on approximation of guileless Sagittarius/ Millennium soft rock orbit, a Vegas psych-pop amalgamation of Curt Boettcher and Lawrence Welk. Even more befitting, the British artists on this compilation (British maven Mike Alway is its instigator) cover songs from bands on the lightest, most harmonic end of the American '60s spectrum. Viva Maria squeezes out a rendition of Henry Mancini's "Nothing to Lose," originally performed by Claudine Longet in Blake Edwards' The Part, while "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher"'s guitars open Loveletter's gossamer-light cover of "Barbarella," a Davy Jones-singing-bossa-nova tune. There is a cinematic slant to the music that recalls such '60s soundtrack practitioners as Claude Lelouch, Nelson Riddle, Ennio Morricone, and John Barry, and the album even includes a couple covers of film songs. The result is an album that dramatically veers through variable shades and degrees of swank pop, but does so with the kind of infectious verve and vibrancy that makes you fall in love with the stuff, even if it is against your better judgment. But the compilation isn't just an attempt to mimic those hedonistic, ridiculously stylish impulses of yore, it literally re-creates the ambience and mood of the era. What is kitsch? What is retro? Descriptions like these are nothing more than a trap, really, especially when it comes to the first volume of Songs for the Jet Set, a playful, escapist romp through the suave and decadent cocktail, space-age, French new wave, and chic psychedelic pop native only to the '60s.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |