(Composed and arranged by Reynold D. Philipsek copyright 1995 Zino-Rephi Music BMI)
Guitars, vocals-Reynold
Keyboards, bass-Gregg Inhofer
Drums-Jon Niefeld
Recording engineer-Stymie Seamans
In 1995 I attempted to write a sort of “musical”. It was called “House of Curiosities.”
As a musical play, it was not so great but some of the tracks from it are very nice. Especially this one.
“Welcome” was obviously the opening tune. The whole enterprise was probably a bit too ambitious but at least a handful of songs came out of it. This album was the immediate follow-up to “Global Home Movie” which, to this day, is the most successful recording I have made.
Jon Niefeld and Gregg Inhofer are longtime friends and I am very pleased to share this old recording we did together in the Spring of 1995.
This is an analog recording done on a Teac 80-8 machine on half-inch tape at 15 IPS. Lots of track “bouncing” of course in order to build the tune with more tracks.
At any rate, when I heard it at a friend’s house quite by accident (they were playing the CD) I was reminded how much I like this piece.
So I “resurrected” it last year for YouTube. Headphones help, so if you can use them, please do.
If the lyrics seem a little obscure or arcane please remember it was supposed to be the opening song for a “musical play.”
(Basically, “House of Curiosities” was a fantastical idea that was predated by more than ten years the very similar “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium” except my main character centered around “Dr. Plebius and his House of Curiosities.” ) In both cases, the activity is centered around the proprietor of a shop (a curiosity shop and a toy shop respectively). And, in both stories, the contents of the shop have magical powers.
The melody and harmonies on this song are good however and if I weren’t so lazy maybe a lyric rewrite would be good. So, this song/recording will have to survive as a “curiosity,” which given the title of the album it vibes from, is appropriate.
Headphones help.
Be kind.
Love,
Reyn