five star records

In honor of Valentine's Day, we're going to be featuring a little Mystic Moods Orchestra to get you love birds all warm inside.

More a concept than an actual band (or even an orchestra, for that matter), the Mystic Moods began with founder Brad Miller's passion for recording the sounds of nature. Way back in the fifties, Miller started making meticulous recordings of all sorts of things, from thunderstorms to steam engines, eventually forming a company he called Mobile Fidelity Records so that he could sell the results (mostly stereo recordings of trains in motion) to model railroad enthusiasts.

One night in the early sixties, San Francisco area disc jockey Ernie McDaniel got an inspiration. McDaniel primed a couple of turntables, put Miller's 'Steam Railroading Under Thundering Skies' on one and an album of easy listening music on the other, letting both records play at the same time over the air (probably while he was taking a leisurely restroom break). The stunt produced a flurry of phone calls, most of them wanting to know where they could get the record.

Once Miller found out about it, a light bulb went off over his head. Suddenly, he realized there was a much larger segment of the music buying public besides model train dorks that he could take advantage of. Since he already knew what would work, Miller just put the easy listening music right on the same album as the sound effects he'd already recorded and voila! the Mystic Moods Orchestra was born.

In 1965, Miller hired arranger Don Ralke to write and arrange some appropriate music, booked an orchestra then mixed the results with his own recordings. They took the tapes to Philips records, inked a deal and released 'One Stormy Night' under the Mystic Moods name. Much to everyone's surprise, the LP became Philips' top seller for the year.

It wasn't long before Miller realized that his common denominator was people trying to get laid. The combo of storms rolling in and E-Z listening music made more panties wet than John Holmes did during the entire decade of the seventies. By the time today's featured LP came out in 1975, Miller was pandering for the sexual market, aiming the music at horny folks, the inner sleeve here depicting a naked young couple just prior to coitus. Another LP from this era included a spare pair of panties as a bonus (presumably because the lady had recently soiled hers).

My copy is a bit worn, but sounds great. Along with the tried and true thunderstorm sounds, they've attempted some blues vocals this time around (not as bad as you might expect), breaking up the instrumentals, with the overall approach borrowing heavily from blaxploitation film music of the same period. The song 'Honey Trippin' even made the charts for six weeks, peaking at #98.

Number Ninety-Effing-Eight... Imagine THAT! Ninety-Eight Degrees... of Goddamn MOTHER-EFFING Mood-Effing-Music...

Hey... Man, am I EVER drunk.... All of a SUDDEN! Just like THAT! I guess that last beer was a BAD IDEA!

What day is this? Thursday? It's effing VALENTINE'S DAY and I have NOwhere to be! I called that girl I just met last week...Whassername? I ferget...But...Yeah, I CALLED her... Well, actually, I attempted a TEXT message and it turned out WRONG because of my CLUMSY MOTHER-EFFING thumbs, but SHE CALLED ME BACK! Yes, she did... Hey, I've been drinking...VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA!!!!!!

It's not even TEN P.M.! And I'm already WASTED! Whew! Whoo! Whoo hoo!

I gotta go to bed now...HAPPY EFFING VALENTINE'S DAY ALL YOU PATHETIC LOVESICK FOOLS!