Album Review of
Live On The Sunset Strip!

Written by Robert Silverstein
July 18, 2022 - 3:25pm EDT
Review Rating Star Review Rating Star Review Rating Star Review Rating Star Review Rating Star

Celebrating 60 years of the finest jazzy TV and film soundtracks recorded between 1959 and 2019, Live On The Sunset Strip! is the optimum live album by guitar ace “Burnin” Mike Vernon and his band M-Squad. Legendary among surf-rock instrumental fans, Mike Vernon has maintained his status as one of the true musicologists and guitar experts recording today. Mike's other band, 3 Balls Of Fire are also remembered for their own releases including their 2013 album Somewhere On The Deep Blue Pacific, released on Deep Eddy Records. Mike was also deeply involved in writing liner notes for the series of Jerry Cole retrospectives on the UK based ACE Records label.

Live On The Sunset Strip! might have been overlooked in 2020 and 2021, during the craziness of the Pandemic, yet it’s still very much worth checking out. Highlighting Mike’s electric guitar work backed by a range of players, including Ted Hamer (keyboards), Doug Snyder (double bass), Chris Roberts (drums) and percussion by album producer Nelson Bragg, Live On The Sunset Strip! contains a flawless composite of classic music written by legends like Henry Mancini, John Barry, Elmer Bernstein, Les Baxter among others. Decked out with eye-popping album art and 2019 liner notes by Vernon, the 22-track Live On The Sunset Strip! makes for quite a comprehensive collection of spy-surf classics and provides a jazzy update on the entire Exotica / Noir movement that was commendably revived during the mid-1990s CD reissue explosion.