Hawaiian Enchantment For Dancing - The George Poole Orchestra

Aloha from your friends at the Starlite Lounge! Thanks to everyone who asked about our hiatus, we're glad you were eager to come back. What a great night to throw open the doors again, when the hot night air makes it fun to cool down with some chilled cocktails. That lilting steel guitar that you hear seems to beckon you to a tropical paradi--oh, enough of the corny references already. The George Poole Orchestra is playing tonight, and while they may not actually be Hawaiian, fauxness is not only accepted in the exotica genre, it's essential. You don't have to really BE Hawaiian, you just have to think you are! Let's raise our tiki mugs to summer, shall we?

Your Stereophonic Enchantment download is here!

Fear not, friends of the Starlite! We're not out of business....the Lounge will soon return with some more swanky pleasures.

Love After Midnight - The Moonlight Strings

Welcome back to the Starlite Lounge, where we love serving up a potent cocktail or two--with the sole intention of putting you in a better frame of mind, of course.  Tonight we encourage you to imbibe this scintillating mixture by The Moonlight Strings, "Love After Midnight".  Call us square, but this has turned out to be an important find since we gave it a spin here at the Lounge.  This is Eames-era elevator music extraordinaire, ladies and gentlemen.  True, gossamer productions like "Lonely Is The Name" are the kind of thing we're in love with. But we admit, we live for the moment in "Spanish Flea" where the lush arrangement suddenly gives way to a burst of swanktastic horns and late 60s party atmosphere.  Even the cover here is something to behold, in all it's shagtastic glory.  And yes, we're talking about the carpet.  The cover star herself seems to have her mind on other things, such as love and some kind of necklace.  Drink up, this is the kind of thing we live for here at the Starlite Lounge!

Your TotalSound® download is here!

The Sound of Leroy Anderson - Stradivari Strings and Ping Pong Percussion

We admit it: sometimes we judge a book by its cover. Or at least, a Spin-O-Rama album cover.  While stocking up for background music at the Lounge, we stumbled across this gem, "The Sound of Leroy Anderson", which boasts not one but two lead artists: The Stradivari Strings and Ping Pong Percussion. The music is a strange combination of...well, percussion and strings.  But we sure do love that cover art best of all, the strange combination of iconic graphics.  Who knew ping pong balls could be colored like salt and pepper?

Your <-----Spin-O-Stereo-----> download is here

Twilight Moods - The Three Suns

Originally the Starlite Lounge was meant to be the Twilight Lounge, until we realized that name is now more closely associated with glittery teenage vampires.  Well, we're reclaiming twilight for the spirited lounge set, and what better to banish a vampire than the sun? Three Suns, as a matter of fact, so don't even try it, Bella's boy.  

Truth be told, tonight's recording is a little scratchy, proving that while vampires can be eternal, vinyl isn't.  We did the best we could with what we had, though, and The Three Suns have harpist Marga Hanson with them to help round out their sound.  It's more Welk than Esquivel, but is this a bad thing?  We don't think so.  Wonder if Marga Hanson was a champagne lady?

Your twilight download is here.

Exotic Love - Martin Denny

Exotica is a word that always gets our attention here at the Starlite Lounge. Les Baxter is a name we should know, but as a wise green puppet once said: "There is another": Martin Denny.  Baxter may have written "Quiet Village", but it was Martin Denny who crafted the genre known as "exotica", which became known for its use of sound stylings and percussion to create simulated frogs, water sounds, and birds.  Tonight's feature at the Lounge, "Exotic Love", came to be in 1968, many years after Denny's initial splash, and there are some weird and wonderful cover versions of songs like "This Guy's In Love With You" and "I Say A Little Prayer".  Just watch the rush on the bar when we get to Denny's rendition of "MacArthur Park".  Exotic bliss!  The bartender has Mai Tais at the ready, so dive on in! Blub blub blub.... (bird call)

Your exotic download experience awaits you here.

Batman - The Bat Boys

Spinning at the Lounge tonight is a favorite curiosity, this strangely anonymous instrumental record "Batman", credited only to The Bat Boys.  We think it's a pseudonym for a band that never was, since there's more than a little pilfering going on here.  Their frantic rendition of the "Batman" theme is what was clearly intended to convince the average record-buyer to part with their dollar, but this ain't Neil Hefti.  The cover is another cleverly designed piece, not quite the Batman logo, so no trademarks have been violated.  I wonder if anybody ever paid attention to the other tracks on the album? With titles like "Cheatin' Charlie" and "The Villain Strikes", could they have been trying to convince us this is an entire "Batman" collection? Trust us, it's not, but their lowbrow title selection is a gas all the same.  Charlie isn't the only one cheatin' here--several of the songs are simply tunes stolen from other songs, such as "Mars Visitor", which is simply a jazzy rearrangement of "Music To Be Murdered By".  We're pretty sure The Bat Boys were thinking of "Think I'm Going Out of My Head" when they penned "Fight Flight", too.  We're not sure though, the bartender has been serving up a shot called the Alien Brain Hemorrhage and we're going out of our heads over it. Glub glub glub....

Your Stereo download begins here