Otherworld Cottage Industries Launches with Impressive Travis Edward Pike Collection

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — November 22, 2013 — Entertainment industry publisher, Otherworld Cottage Industries (OCI), launched this month with five websites up and running and its production, manufacturing and fulfillment facilities all in place. The company is the brainchild of Hollywood multi-hyphenate Travis Edward Pike and its initial offerings are properties Pike developed over his 50 years in showbiz. Pike asks his audiences to "Imagine a time capsule, sealed in 1974, full of exciting storytelling songs and rhymes composed at the height of the American social and musical revolution of that time – not recordings, but music, lyrics and rhymes never before recorded and released. Then, imagine the time capsule is deteriorating with most of its treasures still inside, and unless these works are retrieved and recorded quickly, they may soon be lost forever."

At 69, Pike is the time capsule and Travis Edward Pike's Odd Tales and Wonders: 1964-1974 A Decade of Performance is equal parts a memoir of his early career, and a collection of some of his most memorable original rhymes and songs from that period. The 246 page book is available in a $19.95 trade paperback edition and in a Kindle edition, regularly $14.95, but from today to the 26th of November, available FREE in Kindle's online catalog, where it will be temporarily priced at $0.00. Simply order it the way you would any other Kindle publication, but pay nothing for the download.

In those early years, Pike was mostly a storyteller, singer and songwriter and OCI has released CDs of his old-time, radio-style performances, complete with sound effects, in Travis Edward Pike's Odd Tales and Wonders: Stories in Rhyme and his fresh music recordings in Travis Edward Pike's Odd Tales and Wonders: Stories in Song. The book, published to coincide with the release of these CDs, contains all the words to the songs and rhymes. You may listen to samples of the songs and rhymes and sneak a peek inside the book at Odd Tales and Wonders.

Los Angeles native Harvey Kubernik, an active music journalist for over 40 years and author of five books, including Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon (2009), and with his brother Kenneth, co-authored A Perfect Haze: The Illustrated History of the Monterey International Pop Festival (2011), wrote the introduction to Pike's Odd Tales and Wonders. Aware of Pike's history and his ambitious plans for Otherworld Cottage Industries, Kubernik fully expected Pike to present him with a copy of the finished book. What he didn't expect was that the book would come with the finished Odd Tales and Wonders: Stories in Song and Odd Tales and Wonders: Stories in Rhyme CDs, a completely re-mastered 15th Anniversary Edition of Pike's critically-acclaimed, award-winning Grumpuss, with enhanced music and sound effects in an 80 minute Dual CD package, a 50 minute CD of Pike's concept album Morningstone Music, set in the mid-eighties and a DVD of the 50th Anniversary Edition of the Demo Derby theatrical short that played all across the country with the Beatles Hard Day's Night!

In an industry built on illusion, swirling in smoke and mirrors, here was substance, and Kubernik, finding himself in the position of a "First Responder" in what might develop into a major entertainment industry story, immediately asked for an interview. The illustrated pdf file of that Harvey the K in-depth interview is attached below.