When spending three nights within the confines of a rented studio apartment on wheels, a proper entertainment set-up isn’t just key, it’s borderline survival basics. The PG clan (consisting solely of my wife and me) each hand-picked 10 albums for our excursion… of which we’re down to about 12 after just one half day. But wait! Grady’s Record Refuge is just a quick Uber / Lyft ride away, so after the Tim Hardins and the Les Baxters are laid to rest, unknown gems from Ventura’s finest will get their spinning debut… inside a studio apartment on wheels.
Tag Archives: camping
Roughing It Day 1
Another holiday camp outing in the works, and we had to start with Volume 2 of Persuasive Percussion. Happy Friday, wherever you lay your head and drop your needle.
Denny in the Woods
Day 3: Martin Denny’s Afro-Desia… nothing but the essentials, kids.
Miles & Miles
Day 2 essentials. Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue with coffee in the AM. Enjoy the night’s sky, kids.
Camp Muswell
Day 1 essentials. The Kinks – Muswell Hillbillies. Channeling 1972 in Santa Paula. Enjoy your weekend.
Music for Dirt, Peacocks, and Fire
The below list is, we feel, adequate camping music for the inner, nature-minded ruffian in all of us. A few old standbys, a few personal favs, but all helping to create a calming soundtrack for our recent, peacock-screaming nature excursion. I’d be interested to hear what others would consider like-minded, camping-acceptable albums.
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Willy and the Poor Boys
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmo’s Factory
Jim Croce – I Got A Name
ZZ Top – First Album
John Fahey – The Dance of Death & Other Plantation Favorites Volume 3
Booker T. & the MG’s – Green Onions
Michael Bloomfield / Al Kooper / Steve Stills – Super Session
The Beatles – The Kinfaun Demos
The Kinks – Muswell Hillbillies
The Doctor, Walter, and a Rebel’s Yell
When the sun goes down out past Santa Paula on a wonderful Valentine’s Day with the fiancée, the Doctor tends to emerge, and with him, a bottle of cheap whiskey, and Walter Light. Happy Sunday, kids.
Vinyl, Beer, and Camping
Excess has no limits, because Money Mark on vinyl while tent camping for two nights is obviously a requirement.
… Pillow
Home from the outback excursion, and we’re ready to lay our heads on any immobile pillow within arms reach, surrealistic, or otherwise. Happy New Years eve, kids!
We’re Nookie-Bound
Since you asked, the hands-down greatest camp song ever written goes something like this:
We are the C.I.T.’s so pity us,
The kids are brats the food is hideous,
We’re gonna’ smoke and drink and fool around.
We’re nookie-bound.
We’re the North Star C.l.T.’s.
If you’ve never been to summer camp, or don’t remember one of the greatest scenes in the 1979 Ivan Reitman film, Meatballs, then you, my friend, have never experienced summer.
Alright, that may be a bit harsh, but for someone who grew up with this film (my parents had dubbed it onto the same VHS as Stripes… they will forever be related, the ultimate 6-year-old double feature), this scene, and this song in particular, has driven in its stakes and popped a permanent tent into the dust-covered, brush-rattling, creek-rolling, open-air, tree-covered corners of my psyche. It’s always summer up there, and this is its theme.
I still get goosebumps when listening to this song, and every time it’s welcomed with a smile. I hope you enjoy.
Camp Lo
Having just returned, unscathed, from an overnight impromptu camping trip, one couldn’t help but spin this 1997 debut by Bronx helmed Camp Lo. Collaborating with both Trugoy from De La Soul and Butterfly from Digable Planets, with the majority of the producing done by the Jay-Z famous Ski, Uptown Saturday Night is unobtrusive, yet no less hard-hitting sophisticated hip hop galvanized from jazz and funk roots. Camping is fun, and so is Camp Lo… makes sense to me.
Also, it’s President’s Day, so drink up… your forefathers certainly did.
The Prudent Groove 