Combustible Edison
| Combustible Edison | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Combustible Edison Heliotropic Oriental Mambo and Foxtrot Orchestra |
| Origin | Providence, Rhode Island |
| Genres | Lounge, exotica, jazz, swing |
| Years active | 1991-1999 |
| Labels | Sub Pop |
| Associated acts | Christmas, Monopoly Queen, Super Casanova, the Swinging Erudites, the Del Fuegos, the Fabulous Billygoons, Barrence Whitfield & the Savages, Brother Cleve and His Lush Orchestra, Wheelers & Dealers, Miki Singh & Jetset, Dragonfly, Waitiki, Funk House |
| Website | Official website |
| Members | Miss Lily Banquette (Liz Cox) Michael "The Millionaire" Cudahy Nick Cudahy Mr. Peter Dixon Aaron Oppenheimer Michael "Laughing Boy" Connors Robert "Brother Cleve" Toomey |
Combustible Edison, founded in the early 1990s in Providence, Rhode Island, was one of several lounge music acts that led a brief resurgence of interest in the genre during the mid-1990s.
Unlike other bands with a more ironic take on the lounge scene, Combustible Edison took the music seriously and strove to add to what its members saw as a canon of works by Esquivel, Henry Mancini and Martin Denny. Said Trouser Press, "As the band that poured the first shot in the Cocktail Revolution, this Boston-area combo brought lounge music into the '90s — or, more accurately, transported tastemakers back to the suburbia of the '50s — with strikingly authentic interpretations of some of the most unauthentic sounds known to mankind".
The band ended in 1999.
Connecticut natives Liz Cox (drums, vocals) and Michael Cudahy (guitar, vocals) formed indie rock band Christmas in Boston in 1983. They issued three albums, In Excelsior Dayglo (1986), Ultra Prophets of Thee Psykick Revolution (1989) and Vortex (posthumously released in 1993). Cudahy's brother Nick was a member of the Christmas lineup for the second album. Cox and Michael Cudahy relocated to Las Vegas in late 1989, where they discovered underground cocktail culture.
In 1991, Michael Cudahy, now redubbed "The Millionaire", wrote a stage show titled "The Tiki Wonder Hour", and formed the 14-piece Combustible Edison Heliotropic Oriental Mambo and Foxtrot Orchestra to accompany the performance. After three performances of "Tiki Wonder Hour," the orchestra shortened its name to Combustible Edison and slimmed down to five core members: Cox (renamed "Miss Lily Banquette", on vocals and various percussion instruments), The Millionaire (guitar), Nick Cudahy (bass), Mr. Peter Dixon (keyboards) and Aaron Oppenheimer (drums and percussion).
Combustible Edison signed to Sub Pop Records and released their debut album, I, Swinger, in 1994. A live review by Los Angeles Times critic Chuck Crisafulli noted that the album "perfectly duplicates the '50s cool and hi-fi exotica of such lounge icons as Martin Denny", while Trouser Press said, "I, Swinger is a faithful replication of bargain-bin exotica, right down to a sleeve festooned with cocktail recipes and calculatedly dated hep-cat liner notes". The group performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on December 23, 1994.
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