Today's Release Of "Feelin' Better" Cd Completes Otherworld Cottage's "Odd Tales And Wonders" Cycle

October 3, 2014 - Last year, Otherworld Cottage Industries introduced us to Travis Edward Pike's Odd Tales and Wonders as part of the contents of a deteriorating time capsule, full of treasures, some dating back more than 50 years, that would all be lost if action wasn't taken right away.

Action was taken. In 2013 Otherworld Cottage published "Odd Tales and Wonders 1964 – 1974 A Decade of Performance," a combination memoir and collection of narrative rhymes and song lyrics from that decade, and both "Odd Tales and Wonders Stories in Rhyme" and "Odd Tales and Wonders Stories in Song," performance CDs of the works described in the book.

But the book was about much more than those two CDs. It explored Travis' early musical career both in his native, Boston, Massachusetts, and in Germany, where his off-duty activities with the Five Beats, his German-Italian show band. The "nuevo-retro" songs in his latest album, "Feelin' Better," were originally written for that band. Travis never got back to Germany, so the band never heard them, but Travis performed seven of them in his father's 1966 theatrical feature film, "Feelin' Good."

The book went on to cover Travis' Red Cross inspired concerts in Chelsea and Portsmouth Naval Hospital wards, which eventually led to his return to the stage as a popular singer-songwriter in New England coffeehouses, a period of original music composition captured brilliantly in Otherworld Cottage's July's release of "Reconstructed Coffeehouse Blues," the CD collection of songs created in 1965 and 66, never before recorded, arranged and performed with a virtual (and real life), coffeehouse combo he never had back then!

The first of his three new releases this year was "Travis Edward Pike's Tea Party Snack Platter," a selection of audience favorites from his 1967 – 1969 compositions, uncannily recorded in the style of Travis Pike's Tea Party, his popular Boston-based band that in 1968 migrated to Southern California.

There is even a DVD in the collection. In 1963, on his way to Germany, Travis composed the title song for Demo Derby, a film that in 1964 played on more than six-thousand screens across the country with the Beatles "Hard Day's Night." This being the 50th anniversary of the Beatles coming to America, Otherworld Cottage Industries was delighted to add the 50th Anniversary Edition of Demo Derby to its catalog.

Travis' "Odd Tales and Wonders" from that remarkable decade have been at least partially revealed – and well-supported with the previously mentioned fresh recordings of his early works, but Travis has no intention to slow down.

As he put it, "I turned 70 this year. At my age, I have no idea whether or not I'll get to finish my work before this aging time capsule turns to dust and ashes."

Otherworld Cottage published his "Morningstone Music" CD last year, and with that in mind, Travis is now adapting his screenplay of that deliciously esoteric 1987 rock opera into a novel — and assembling the elements for a non-fiction book exploring the mysteries contained therein.

For Harvey Kubernik's in-depth, pictorial interview with Travis Edward Pike about the "Feelin' Better" CD, see the attached pdf file below.