Combustible Edison Fires Up Lounge Music

A couple of years ago, when so-called lounge music became the trend du jour among the scenemakers who hop quickly from one cultural hot spot to the next, principals of the genre grew understandably uncomfortable.

“The worst-case scenario,” says Combustible Edison’s Michael Cudahy, “was if [the scene] becomes instantly popular, everybody jumps all over it, it’s in the news and in Entertainment Weekly and gets beaten to death before it has a chance to grow, and then everybody’s on to the next flavor of the month.

“And that pretty much happened. After our last record I thought, ‘The fad thing is over, but hell, we’re still doing it. . . .’

“This is the first baby step and we intend to be around for a long, long time. We want to be your post-millennial cocktail music of choice. We’re looking far down the road.”

Cudahy’s Boston-based quintet--which will get its most prominent showcase with its score to the upcoming film “Four Rooms”--is at the forefront of a movement that’s currently in search of equilibrium, seeking to establish a viable subculture a la rockabilly, surf and other self-sustaining pop-music genres.

“Part of our mission,” he says, “was to call into existence a sort of network not only of people who are turned on to the music and the lifestyle that we’re living and espousing, but also to get the go-getters in the crowd to open up places [to play].

“I would just like to have someplace to go where I don’t feel like a total freak, which hasn’t completely happened yet.”

Cudahy, who goes by the nickname the Millionaire, might find at least temporary sanctuary tonight at the Park Plaza Hotel, where Combustible Edison is the main attraction at “Exoticon ’95.” Organizers are expecting at least 1,000 fans of the music and associated fashion and cultural ephemera for an event they claim is the largest such expo ever mounted.

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Lounge music--which is variously termed cocktail, space-age, bachelor-pad and exotic, among other descriptive tags--is a wide-ranging genre, encompassing everything from ‘50s easy-listening to surf music, Mancini film scores to Martin Denny Polynesiana.

“We’re playing roots music,” explains Cudahy, who also brings Combustible Edison to the Viper Room on Sunday. “They’re our roots. . . . That kind of thing is there in everybody’s life, and you probably hear even more of it than the music you choose to. Most people don’t really acknowledge it as something that’s formed them, and we did and realized that we liked it too.

“I think there’s room for the music to grow in an infinite number of directions. Lounge music can embrace almost everything, and I think that’s a key to its vitality. It’s really more an approach and attitude than it is a sound itself.”

Who are the fans who will flock to the Park Plaza to be blessed by mysterious patriarch Korla Pandit and peruse the displays of such publications as Tiki News and Lounge magazine?

“I think it’s people that are kind of jaded with punk but still have that do-it-yourself attitude,” says Steve Alper, who is staging “Exoticon” with his partners Josh Eick and Otto von Stroheim.

“As someone who sort of grew up with the whole punk scene in Los Angeles over the last 17 years, I see the same kind of thing happening, of people doing fanzines and putting shows and events together, much the same way.

“Where it’s gonna go I’m not sure. I don’t know if this is going to be the Woodstock of lounge or the Altamont of lounge, but it’s gonna be interesting.”

* “Exoticon ‘95” featuring Combustible Edison, the Phantom Surfers, Joey Altruda Sextet, Korla Pandit, Joey Sehee and others, today at the Park Plaza Hotel, 607 S. Park View St., 6 p.m. $11 in advance, $12.50 at the door. (310) 335-6963 .