DJ Matthew Africa - I Wish You Would

Darling Dears and Funky Heavy

2012-02-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I received a mix of obscure teen soul ballads from my friend David Griffiths, a New York record dealer and obsessive who has curated some fine reissues on labels like Daptone and Kay-Dee. The selections in the mix were excellent and almost all were new to me.

Two tracks particularly grabbed me. Both featured an unusual pairing of airy female harmonies set against a wall of sludgy funk and heavy drums. One track was a snapshot of new love in bloom, the other a despairing slice of heartbreak. Both had a rawness and a purity that was totally transporting.

When I hit up David for details about those tracks, he explained they were taken from two sides of a phenomenal (and phenomenally rare) 7" single on the Flower City label by the Darling Dears & Funky Heavy (I had to ask twice to be sure I heard him right; the name just seemed too awesome to exist in real life). He told me how he had begun searching for the single after stumbling across a mention of it in Jeffrey Beckman's reference book, Soul Harmony Singles 1960-1990.

David's a native of Rochester a/k/a Flower City, so the label name piqued his curiosity and led him to uncover the story of how a teenage female quartet from Rochester, the Darling Dears, came to record with Funky Heavy, a local instrumental combo who roamed the area in a bus they called the Funky Skunk. Funky Heavy had often backed the Darling Dears during their rehearsals and live performances, so it was natural that they should go into a local studio together.

A thousand copies of their collaboration were pressed, but despite some local airplay the release was soon lost to posterity. The Darling Dears dropped out of the business, while Funky Heavy stuck it out, later morphing into High Voltage and then the Voltage Brothers. Under the latter name the group cut three well-distributed LPs and continue to perform to this day.

Over the years, the Darling Dears and Funky Heavy single became a holy grail for both sweet soul and funk collectors. For a time, only a handful of copies were known and the release reached stratospheric prices on eBay.

In 2008, David managed to track down the members of Funky Heavy, securing the masters and licensing the single for reissue. It is now the first release on his new label, Orivious, and it's been beautifully pressed and packaged. Orivious's distributor, Now-Again, is hosting a free download of "And I Love You" and selling copies of the 7" reissue.*

As a bonus, here's the original version of "I Don't Think I'll Ever Love Another", which was recorded by a male group, Rock Candy:

Rock Candy: "I Don't Think I'll Ever Love Another" (Dontee, 1971)

Rock Candy was a Baltimore group that also recorded as the Contemplations. This is a solid outing and quite similar to the Darling Dears' later version, but somehow it's nowhere near as transcendent.

*As I was preparing this post, I learned of a competing reissue of the single on the Cultures of Soul label. From what I can tell, both labels made a good faith effort to license the release, Orivious from Funky Heavy, Cultures of Soul from the record's producer, Alvin Lofton. I don't know who has the right of it, but I'm glad that someone is making these amazing songs more widely available.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - 2011 Reissues

2012-01-30T16:21:00.000-08:00

Last week I played and talked about some of my favorite reissues from 2011.

To keep things varied, I tried to limit my selections to one song per release but I still played a frightening number of things reissued by the Numero Group. The talking was a little disjointed and rambling to my taste but otherwise I was really happy with what I played and how it flowed.

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1. Bob & Gene – It’s Not What You Know... It's Who You Know (Ever-Soul 7")
2. Dave Hamilton – Soul Suite (V/A – Dave Hamilton's Detroit Soul)
3. Darondo – Gimme Some (Listen to My Song: The Music City Sessions)
4. Chucky Thurmon – Just a Man (V/A – Street Sounds From the Bay Area: Music City Funk & Soul Grooves 1971-75)
5. Aged In Harmony – You’re a Melody (Extended Disco) (V/A – Under the Influence Vol.1 Compiled By DJ Red Greg
6. Le'Chance – Get Down (V/A – True Soul: Deep Sounds From the Left of Stax Vol. 2)
7. Hot Pepper – Cancion Ritual (V/A – Real Sound of Chicago and Beyond)
8. Soki Ohale's Uzzi – Bisi’s Beat (V/A – Nigeria 70: Sweet Times - Afro-Funk, Highlife & Juju From 1970s Lagos)
9. Sroeng Santi – Kuen Kuen Lueng Lueng (V/A – Thai? Dai!: The Heavier Side of the Luk Thung Underground)
10. Little Ed & the Soundmasters – It’s a Dream (Numero Group 7” box)
11. Neighb'rhood Childr'n – Long Years In Space (Long Years In Space)
12. Golden Grapes – Please Don't Bother Me Anymore (V/A – Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound of South Korea's Shin Joong Hyun 1958-1974)
13. Oscar Hamod & the Majestics – No Chance Baby (No Chance Baby)
14. Index – Shock Wave (Black Album + Red Album + Yesterday & Today)
15. The Halleleuiah Chorus – I’ve Got to Find a Way (V/A – Eccentric Soul: The Nickel & Penny Labels)
16. Thomas East – Slipping Around (V/A - True Soul: Deep Sounds from the Left of Stax Volume 1)
17. The Four Mints – Endlessly (Numero Group 7”)
18. The Defaulters feat. Charles Hancock – Gentle Man (V/A – Pressed at Boddie)
19. Father's Children – Linda Movement (Who's Gonna Save the World)
20. Stone Coal White – You Know (S/T)
21. The Two Things In One – Walk On By (Together Forever: The Music City Sessions)
22. Kool and Together – Reaching Out (Original Recordings 1970-77)
23. Rob – Forgive Us All (Funky Rob Way)
24. The King James Version featuring King Solomon & Moses – He’s Forever (Amen) (V/A – Boddie Recording Company: Cleveland, Ohio)
25. The Soul Sensations - A Man That Is Not Free (V/A – The Music City Story)
26. Mike & the Censations – You’re Living a Lie (Don't Sell Your Soul)
27. El Rego – Ke Amon-Gbetchea (S/T)
28. O. C. Tolbert – All I Want Is You (Black Diamond)
29. Lloyd McNeill – Home Rule (Washington Suite)
30. Tino Contreras – Orfeon En Los Tambores (El Jazz Mexicano De Tino Contreras)
31. Jef Gilson Nonet feat. Jean-Louis Chautemps – Suite Pour San Remo: Ouverture (S/T)
32. Jef Gilson – Un Pas, Deux Pas, Cent Pas (S/T)

Clare Fischer, R.I.P.

2012-01-29T13:51:00.000-08:00

I was sad to see that Clare Fischer passed away last week. I knew of him mainly from his work with Cal Tjader. Only after reading a few obituaries did I realize he had also done arrangements on my two favorite Prince albums, Parade and Sign 'O' the Times, among many other things.

By coincidence, Cal Tjader's version of this Clare Fischer tune had been in my head for a week or so:

Cal Tjader: "Morning" (Fantasy, 1971)

I think I was reminded of it because I'd been listening to this, which is way more energetic but sort of has the same melodic feel to me:

Freddie Waters: "Groovin' On My Baby's Love" (Stax, 1975)

A-Lot

2012-01-25T11:15:00.000-08:00

Rap-A-Lot has come out with or is coming out with* some kind of 25th Year Anniversary box set, so lately label founder James "J.Prince" Smith has been giving a bunch of interviews that I'd recommend to anyone who is a fan of rap. In the early 1990s Rap-A-Lot radically altered people's expectations about what rap songs could be about, what parts of the country they could come from and how they could be marketed and distributed. Along the way, J.Prince released some incredible music by the likes of the Geto Boys, Scarface, Devin the Dude, Z-Ro and others.

Over on NPR's The Record blog, Noz talks with J.Prince about the label's history. Predictably, a bunch of people in the comments section are outraged that NPR is covering something that they don't approve of.

Complex also recently featured two scattered but often fascinating interviews by Rob Kenner: one in which J.Prince talks about the origins of the label, the government's conspiracy to kill him and owning an island and one in which he talks about the 25th anniversary and signing Drake. (Choice quote: "So I asked my son, I said, 'Man, do you really like this? Cause I ain’t really feeling this too much.'") It's a pity that Kenner wasn't able to get J.Prince to speak more directly; several times in the former interview he goes from vague to completely impenetrable.

A few other things that have had me thinking about Rap-A-Lot recently:

Willie D of the Geto Boys' Formspring account. In most people's hands, Formspring is an abomination-- I can't tell you how much eyerolling and unfollowing I was doing when that brief link-your-twitter-account-to-Formspring craze was going on. But Willie D is as funny, smart, ignorant and informed as you would hope, and when he gets good questions his Formspring is outstanding.

Rapper/producer/author/wiseass J-Zone recently did an interview where he talked about his five favorite Rap-A-Lot albums from the 1990s. As usual, his taste is great and he's funny and perceptive. (For what it's worth, J-Zone is directly responsible for turning me on to Rap-A-Lot's The Convicts; I first heard them on his Ignant mix many years ago.)

I'm not totally sure what I'd pick if I were asked to name my favorite Rap-A-Lot LPs from that era, but lately I've been listening to Big Mello's Wegonefunkwichamind album a lot. Big Mello was a member of DJ Screw's Screwed Up Click who cut two records for Rap-A-Lot and three for other labels before dying in a car crash in 2002. Most people seem to focus on his first LP, 1992's Bone Hard Zaggin', the ultra-pauseworthy title of which was repurposed by Girl Talk a few years ago.

I prefer Wegonefunkwichamind by a long ways. It's from two year later but feels ages more mature. It's definitely a post-The Chronic album; at times, it feels like producers Big Mello and Crazy C are trying to maintain the smooth, mid-tempo slump of Dr. Dre's "Let Me Ride" for the length of a whole album. But they do so interesting ways, sampling "Trans-Europe Express" multiple times, replaying "Back Together Again", "Lowdown" and "Slide" at Screw tempos, and coming up with some grooves that feel as unique and soulful as anything Organized Noize were doing at the time:

Big Mello: "Back Do Akshun" (Rap-a-Lot, 1994)

Rap-A-Lot reissued and remastered Wegonefunkwichamind a couple years ago, so once again it's easy to find.

* Hard to say which; the release date was supposed to be last year but it's not available digitally and no one seems to be carrying it.

Bet I got some

2012-01-23T10:24:00.000-08:00

I was listening to Schoolboy Q's new album, which caused me to listen to Schoolboy Q's old album, which caused me to pull this because it was sampled for "#BETiGOTSUMWEED", which is a lot better than its title suggests and which has a beat I love:

The Earth Disciples: "Spirit of the Bells" (Solid State, 1970)

The Earth Disciples were a four-piece jazz band that cut one LP. I'm guessing they were from L.A., although the liner notes don't yield any clues other than a grainy photo of them playing a concert at UCLA.

Etta James, R.I.P.

2012-01-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

On a lot of days I think this is the best soul song there is:

Etta James: "I'd Rather Go Blind" (Chess, 1968)

This isn't the year

2012-01-17T09:03:00.000-08:00

I'm told that the 49ers prevailed in some kind of athletic contest Saturday, so I can now post this without having to do a lot of explaining to my San Francisco friends.

Skrap: "The Bum Rap" (Escapade, 1983)

I have zero interest in football but I do enjoy faulty predictions, absurd nicknames (the crawfish sack! the crunch bunch!) and sports novelty records with drum breaks and pseudo-rap interludes.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - Last year's raps

2012-01-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

To recap 2011, I made a mix of my favorite rap songs from last year.

I hadn't made a mix of new raps in about a year and a half, although for much of the last year I've been steadily playing and talking about new raps through the Stay Hatin' podcast I do with my friends Serg Dun and Soft Money. People who follow that podcast closely will have heard about half of these songs there; a few even ended up in our year-end spectacular that featured homeboy Noz. Doing the podcast has pushed me to listen to a lot more rap than I might otherwise do; I'm always afraid of showing up and being the guy with all of the shitty or obvious songs. I try to listen as widely as I can, but honestly whenever it begins to feel like work I usually hang it up and go listen to some old records.

There's no overriding theme to the songs in the mix, just a lot of raps I like in a lot of different styles and from a lot of different places. I limited the selections to one song per artist, otherwise there would have been a lot more E-40, Kendrick Lamar and Starlito. (As it is, a couple of those guys snuck in twice.)

I broke the mix into two parts to make it more manageable. If there's interest, I may bounce it out as individual tracks and upload a .zip. I will not upload a double cup, however nicely or persistently you ask.

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1. Mr. Collipark – Let’s Have Some Fun (Intro)
2. Travis Porter – Bring It Back
3. Swizz Beatz – Everyday (Coolin’) feat. Eve
4. iamsu! – Swaggin’ feat. Loverance, Skipper & Kool John
5. Lil Phat & Mannie Fresh – Talk Some Mo Shit
6. Killer Mike – Ready Set Go Remix feat. T.I. & Big Boi
7. Dorrough Music – Blake Griffin
8. Stevie Joe – Raccoons
9. Meek Mill – House Party feat. Young Chris
10. B.o.B – Epic feat. Playboy Tre & Meek Mill
11. Tyler, The Creator – Yonkers
12. ADd+/Picnictyme – Likeamug feat. Sore Losers
13. STS – Bullshit feat. Kyle Lucas
14. LoLo C-4 – Poor Ppl Smiles feat. MondreM.A.N
15. Willie Joe – Blown Away feat. Aftah Sum & A Money
16. Curren$y – Scottie Pippens feat. Freddie Gibbs
17. Lil B – Motivation
18. Jay-Z & Kanye West – New Day
19. Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire – Build-a-Bitch
20. 50 Cent – Sunday Morning
21. Black Milk & Danny Brown – LOL
22. Hail Mary Mallon – Grubstake
23. Willie Evans Jr. – Dumbtron
24. Nas – Nasty
25. NhT Boyz – Chee$e
26. Roach Gigz – Gina
27. DJ Quik – Nobody feat. Suga Free
28. E-40 – Serious feat. T-Pain
29. Husalah – Da Mob
30. Lil Ill & Dashdcadet – I Just Wanna Smoke

1. Juicy J – A Zip & a Double Cup (Remix) feat. Tity Boi
2. Gucci Mane & Future – Stevie Wonder
3. Webbie – Trilla Than a Bitch feat. Lil Phat
4. Big K.R.I.T – Money On the Floor feat. 2 Chainz, 8Ball & MJG
5. Starlito & Don Trip – L Word
6. Sir Kashflow – Eat a Dick feat. Kamonster
7. Zilla – Bitch Dawg feat. Monster & Junebug
8. Bo Deal – Safe Sex feat. Mello & G Blanca
9. Shady Nate – Baby Sit Part 2
10. Fam-Lay – Money Makin’ Trick feat. Project Pat
11. A$AP Rocky – Trilla feat. ASAP Twelvy & ASAP Nast
12. Corner Boy P – Lala Pt. 2 feat. Smoke DZA, Fiend & Killa Kyleon
13. Starlito – Thinking of You
14. Young Jeezy – I Do feat. Jay-Z & Andre 3000
15. Waka Flocka – Round of Applause
16. Main Attrakionz – Chuch
17. Schoolboy Q – Birds & the Beez feat. Kendrick Lamar
18. Danny Brown – 30
19. Kendrick Lamar – The Spiteful Chant
20. Kristmas – I Need a Drink feat. Codie G & Joi Tiffany
21. G-Side – Gettin It feat. Stalley & Joi Tiffany

Some statistics:

Geography
Songs by artists from the Bay: 13
Songs by artists from California: 18
Songs by artists from Atlanta: 7
Songs by artists from New York: 6
Songs by artists from Tennessee: 4
Songs by artists from Louisiana: 4
Songs by artists from Alabama: 3
Songs by artists from Texas: 2
Songs by artists from Pennsylvania: 2

Demographics
Songs featuring artists who were popular in the 1980s: 0
Songs featuring artists who were popular in the 1990s: 11
Songs featuring artists who were popular in the 2000s: 13
Songs by artists who spell their names with non-standard spellings or messed-up typography: 22

Topics
Songs that refer to Scottie Pippen: 2
Songs that refer to Stewie: 2
Songs that refer to Quagmire: 1
Songs that refer to Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, Brian or Cleveland: 0

Other
Artists that appear in the mix twice: 9
Songs produced by Lex Luger: 2
Songs that Lex Luger productions: 3
Songs that previously appeared on Stay Hatin': 25
Songs I've heard on the local Clear Channel affiliate: 3

Hatin'/A trip down memory lane

2011-12-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Serg Dun, Soft Money and I taped a new installment of Stay Hatin', which you can stream or download here.

In it, we play a lot of new rap songs we like and also speak on important topics of the day, such as the singer Lloyd's resemblance to Gonzo and the genius of Los Masters Plus and Frank Frazetta.

These are the songs we played, most of which are available in a .zip file here:

1. A.Dd+ - Genocide
2. Mobb Deep - Conquer
3. Andre Nickatina - Call the Dealer
4. Juicy J - Stoner’s Night 2 feat. Wiz Khalifa
5. Z-Ro - Stompin
6. Ghost8800 - California Hot Boy feat. Birch Boy Barie & Gigs510
7. Nacho Picasso - Moor Gang feat. Jarv Dee
8. SL Jones - Gas Station
9. SpaceGhostPurrp - Dont Give a Damn (Miami Bass)
10. Fat Tony - Lotus
11. Willie Evans Jr. – Introducin’
12. Lakutis - Lakutis In the House
13. Keak Da Sneak - Punk Ho
14. Twelve - So High feat. Lil Goofy

Although I didn't manage to work it in, I had hoped to play this song:

Rick Flare: "Family" (The Good Look Movement, 2011)

Rick Fairley a/k/a Rick Flare a/k/a Kwanz a/k/a K-Dub a/k/a Dubstar Infamous passed away last year. The video was made posthumously and (I'm guessing) released to mark the anniversary of his death.

I didn't know Kwanz personally but he touched a lot of people I know. He was a member of SF's long-running Bored Stiff crew.

Back in the early 1990s, I used to work at the Groove Merchant record store. I think all of the guys in Bored Stiff lived in the neighborhood and they would come through often, usually in a big group. I never really became friendly with them, but over the years I admired a lot of the stuff they did both as a group and in the production Equipto and TD Camp did for Andre Nickatina, Mac Dre and others.

The Rick Flare song made me think of this, which I hadn't listened to in many years:

Marvin Holmes and Justice: "I Can't See You" (Brown Door, 1973)

Then I got to thinking about how we value things differently as times change. Back in the day, Groove Merchant used to regularly put copies of The Summer of '73 on the wall, usually priced at about $12. In those days, any time a record was marked over $10 it seemed to draw a lot of eye-rolling and questions about why our records were so expensive. Even so, people often shelled out for The Summer of '73 when we played "All Night Into Day", a snare-tight funk instrumental, over the store's system.

At the time I don't think any of us really appreciated "I Can't See You", "Got to Be There" or some of the more soulful songs on the album, but these days those resonate with me a lot more. I remember picking up a lot of copies in those days for two or three dollars; the record also sells for way more money now.

I feel very thankful to have come up in a time when there was so much low-hanging fruit and also that I've been given the time to savor it.

Howard Tate, R.I.P.

2011-12-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

Howard Tate died Friday. Although a cause of death hasn't been announced, he experienced a lot of ups and downs in his 72 years.

Tate was a hugely gifted soul singer who is best remembered for a handful of soul classics he cut with writer/producer Jerry Ragovoy in the mid-60s, this among them:

Howard Tate: "Get It While You Can" (Verve, 1967)

Ragovoy produced all and wrote most of two of Tate's three albums from the late 1960s/early 1970s, 1967's Get It While You Can and 1972's self-titled album on Atlantic. Although Ragovoy wrote some indisputably great songs in his day ("Time Is On My Side" and "Piece of My Heart"), I've never really warmed to the stuff he did for Tate the way I wanted to. Here are two favorites:

Howard Tate: "The Bitter End" (Atlantic, 1972)

Howard Tate: "Ain't Got Nobody to Give It To" (Epic, 1974)

The song takes a while to get going, but when it gets to the chorus and Tate's voice soars, it's an amazing moment.

Lee "Shot" Williams, R.I.P.

2011-12-02T12:36:00.000-08:00

Lee "Shot" Williams died this past week. From one of the write-ups I learned that he got the nickname "Shot" from his mother, because he liked to dress up like a "big shot". I liked that detail.

Although he's probably best remembered as a blues artist, I love his soul recordings on Shama and Sussex, in particular this two-sider:

Lee "Shot" WIlliams: "Get Some Order" (Shama, 1969)

"Get Some Order" is an all-star affair. The great Chicago arrangers Willie Henderson and Johnny Cameron are in the writing credits, and the Pieces of Peace are credited with production along with Syl Johnson, whose label Shama was. This song and its flip, "Our Thing Is Through", are as raw as "Different Strokes" or any of Syl's music from that era, which is saying a lot.

J. Blackfoot, R.I.P.

2011-12-01T22:43:00.000-08:00

John Colbert a/k/a J. Blackfoot passed away yesterday from a heart attack. Blackfoot was a member of the coed Stax quartet, the Soul Children, and later a solo artist. The Soul Children were gifted second-stringers who enjoyed a number of minor hits but never broke through to the kind of success enjoyed by labelmates like Isaac Hayes or the Staple Singers.

The Soul Children's Friction album was, for me, the gateway to a lot of other great soul music. I first heard it in the early 1990s at a time when I was mainly focused on obscure funk and rare groove records. Although I had a good grounding in a lot of the the great soul album artists of the 1960s and 1970s (e.g., Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, etc.), I had not yet bothered to dig in to the next tier of straight ahead soul artists.

The first side of Friction hit me like a ton of bricks, in particular "Can't Let You Go" (which Blackfoot sang lead on) and "I'll Be the Other Woman". The songs had this incredible mixture of intensity and restraint: it's not the emotional overload of James Brown or the instrumental overkill of Isaac Hayes, instead it's like the pain and longing in the performances are so overwhelming that every element succumbs to emotional exhaustion. It's the kind of record I pick up every time I see it cheap just so I can turn others onto it.

The Soul Children: "Can't Let You Go" (Stax, 1974)

A fair portion of the Soul Children's discography is in print on CD. There's a collection of Stax recordings that isn't great, but all four of their original Stax albums are available on CD twofers. (If only for the sake of this song, I wish Friction were paired with the S/T one but oh well.)

Soul Boulders 2

2011-11-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

At long last, DJ B.Cause and I are back with Soul Boulders 2, another 76 minutes of slow, funky soul burners.

The Soul Boulders sampler

To purchase the mix in digital form, go here.

To purchase the mix in physical form, please send payment via Paypal to matthewafrica at hotmail dot com. The price including shipping is $10 in the U.S, $11 to Canada. and $14 to the rest of the world.

Currently there is a limited number of copies of the mix available at Big City Records and Good Records NYC. We hope to place CDs with some of our other favorite stores soon.

For those who aren't familiar with Soul Boulders, here's the story.

Back in 2005, San Francisco's DJ B.Cause posted a mind-blowing 10-minute mini-mix on the SoulStrut message board. The songs were exquisite but hard to pigeonhole-- soulful and funky, but not purely funk or soul, slow, psychedelic, moody, maybe a little haunted. In other words, exactly my sound.

I sent him a message urging him either to finish the mix or to let me hop on and collaborate with him on turning his ten minutes into something CD length. I grabbed a dozen or so of my favorite records, figured out their sequence and recorded my half at B.Cause's house one rainy afternoon. Once B.Cause fleshed out his half and massaged the whole thing a bit, we released it in the spring of 2006. It was my first commercial mix CD.

The response to Soul Boulders was amazing. The Fader, The Wire, Wax Poetics and Hip Hop Connection said nice things about it. Friends and peers raved, telling us we soundtracked their summer, that it was their favorite mix, etc. In a couple cases, I even had people tell me that the mix changed their lives. Although it sold pretty modestly-- we only pressed 1,000 copies and gave many of them away-- it's easily the most beloved thing I've ever had a hand in. Over the years, people have consistently and insistently pressed me and Josh to give them more. So we did.

For me, Soul Boulders was hard to follow up because I worried a lot about how to make something that people would appreciate in the same way. The landscape has changed a lot since we made the first mix. Compilations, blogs and message boards have made a lot of formerly obscure music easily accessible and consequently everyone seems pretty blasé. Although rarity was never really the point of Soul Boulders-- creating something unique was-- the mix did feature a lot of music that was unknown to even hardcore soul listeners and that did help create some excitement around it. Since I more or less stopped seriously buying records in about 2005, I worried that I might not have a good enough set of records to construct another set; I didn't want to just present some tracks that didn't make the original mix.

Soul Boulders 2 features 40 meticulously mixed songs. Some are from common records, many are from rare ones, but all are (to us) extraordinary soul songs that embody a special feeling. We labored hard on the mix, cleaning up tracks, re-editing them to emphasize parts we liked, obsessing over the sequencing and tiny details in the transitions and generally polishing until we felt like we had made a worthy sequel. I think we succeeded.

Seven years

2011-11-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

The Impressions: "Seven Years" (LP mix) (Curtom, 1969)

"I was just so in love with you/and I thought you loved me, too/seven years now I find/it was just a waste of time."

I think only Curtis Mayfield could make such a bitter song sound so joyous.

Years ago I DJed a wedding for a couple who requested this along with a lot of other 60s soul. I found myself wanting to ask, "have you ever even listened to the lyrics?"

The mix that appears on 7" is way punchier, although unfortunately my copy is styrene and has a little burn on the high notes. On the plus side, it used to belong to Grandmaster Flowers, so there's that.

The Impressions: "Seven Years" (single mix) (Curtom, 1969)

Eleven Day is coming (Soul Boulders 2, too!)

2011-11-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

This Friday I'll be in New York paying tribute to one of my favorite DJs and closest friends, DJ Eleven, on Eleven Day a/k/a 11/11/11.

To celebrate the date, has Eleven is bringing together some of his favorite collaborators and friends. I'm honored to be DJing with Max Glazer, Mick Boogie, Cosmo and Ayres from the Rub, Illo and mOma. It should be really fun.

There are limited pre-sales here (OPEN BAR!), but if I know you and you hit me up promptly, I may be able to swing something.

***

I'll also be DJing with DJ Eleven on Thursday at Fam, his weekly party at Von on Bleecker. It's the night before a holiday, so I'm thinking it might well go off.

***

Also, at both events, I should have some of these in hand:

I have a limited number of CDs right now. In the next few days DJ B.Cause and I will be posting details on how to get your hands on a physical or digital copy.

Darker shades

2011-10-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

The Darker Shades of Black: "Nothing Like Love" (S.E.X. Ltd., 197?)

Most promising label name/group name combo I can think of. The record is pretty good, too.

I'd love to know the story behind this one. There's no info on the label or in the deadwax to suggest its origin. The flip is a nice duet that's similarly loose but a little more soul-ish.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - Love Songs

2011-10-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

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Recently a friend asked me if I could provide him with some music for his wedding, an hour or so of soul songs for the dinner hour.

Normally I would have just said no or looked for a polite way to suggest to him that I make my living doing something he was asking me to do for free, but this is a good friend and someone who's shown me a lot of support over the years.

So I made a mix of old soul songs, heavy on the classics but with a sprinkling of lesser-known gems. I slipped up and played one cheating song (or, more correctly, an "I-want-to-cheat-with-you-but-I'm-not-gonna-because-my-lady-is-too-valuable-to-me" song), but it sounds like a love song and in a way it is. These are some of my favorite songs.

1. Willie Hutch – I Choose You
2. The Intruders – Together
3. George Benson – My Woman’s Good to Me
4. Stevie Wonder – Hey Love
5. Aretha Franklin – Baby I Love You
6. Otis Redding – You Made a Man Out of Me
7. The Brothers of Soul – A Lifetime
8. The Icemen – She’s a Fox
9. The Charmels – As Long As I’ve Got You
10. Wilson Pickett – I’m in Love
11. The Four Puzzles – Especially For You, Baby
12. Jay Lewis – Oh
13. Sam & Dave – A Small Portion of Your Love
14. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles – More Love
15. The Mad Lads – Make the Young Lady Mine
16. Stevie Wonder – My Cherie Amour
17. The Four Tops – Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got)
18. The Checkmates Ltd. – Got to See You Soon
19. Bobby Reed – The Time Is Right For Love
20. Sly & the Family Stone – Everybody Is a Star
21. The Five Stairsteps – Ooh Child
22. The Jackson 5 – I Found That Girl
23. The Impressions – I’m So Proud
24. The Flamingos – I Only Have Eyes For You

Concrete jungle

2011-10-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

Little Beaver: "Concrete Jungle" (Cat, 1976)

I'll always associate this record with the one time I attended the NY record show at the Roosevelt Hotel, in October 1994. I was starstruck riffling through some crates next to Q-Tip, who held up the record and said to Large Professor, "Hey, you know this has got a beat on it, right?". It took a lot of fanboy restraint not to interject "Dudes! There's a great song on there, too!"

The Oak Cliff booty

2011-10-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Serg and I taped a new episode of our rap podcast, Stay Hatin'. We were back at All Day Play's studios for the first time in months, so things sound way better than they have for a while.

Soft Money couldn't be there but we were fortunate to have one of our favorite rap thinkers, Noz of Cocaine Blunts, Tumblin' Erb, The Fader, The Wire, MTV Hive, blah blah blah there in his place.

It was a very special episode of Stay Hatin'. We learned about the Dallas rap mullet a/k/a the Oak Cliff booty. We learned how not to use a toilet. We learned that there were a lot of rap movies made in the late 1990s that we only vaguely remembered. We learned that I didn't know how to pronounce the name of Serg's favorite hot sauce.

We also played these rap songs:

1. Rick Rock - Rocket feat. Battle Loco
2. B.A.P - Face Shot (Boo Dirty Dis)
3. A$AP Rocky - Trilla feat. ASAP Twelvy & ASAP Nast
4. Roc Marciano - My Persona
5. Duna aka Mac Duna - Vallejo Nigga feat. E-40
6. Kurupt - Take It Off feat. DJ Quik
7. Country C - Oh He’s So Fly
8. Travis Porter - One Cheek
9. G-Side - Getting It feat. Stalley & Joi Tiffany
10. 50 Cent - Love Hate Love
11. FatKidsBrotha - NWA feat. Snubnose Frankenstein
12. Pastor Troy - All the Way Live!!!
13. Jacka - Murder On My Mind feat. X-Raided & Smigg Dirtee
14. Cory Mo - Ain’t Nobody Trippin (Remix) feat. Pimp C, Bun B & David Banner
15. The Delinquents - Bitch Niggas feat. B-Legit & Richie Rich

You can download the podcast here.

You can subscribe to the podcast here.

You can download a .zip of the songs we played here.

Since I fell for you

2011-09-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

Jim "Preacher" Ellis & the Centuries: "Since I Fell For You" (Cross Road, 196?)

Jimmy "Preacher" Ellis (sometimes "Jimmie", here "Jim") is an Arkansas-born, Seattle-reared bluesman now based in Texas. In the 1960s he cut nearly a dozen soul singles, mainly for L.A. labels, ranging from gritty R&B to psychedelic funk. Some are very good, the others are great. All are balls out.

It took me years to find a copy of this record, which I first heard years ago on Mr. Finewine's Downtown Soulville show. I love the way the performance and arrangement totally bulldoze Buddy Johnson's song. In every other version I've heard, the tempo is languid and the mood tortured and resigned. Here the bossa nova beat and aggressive chant render the song strident, almost jaunty.

The lost Gil Scott-Heron/Brian Jackson album

2011-09-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

In the mid-1970s, Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, along with their percussionist Barnett Williams, wrote and performed the soundtrack for a low-budget Blaxploitation film, The Baron a/k/a Black Cue.

The film features portions of four original songs and quite a few instrumentals. Full versions of the songs were never released, but the snippets that appear in the film are tantalizing. The songwriting isn't Gil at his most subtle, but the songs groove hard.

I ripped all of the music from a DVD of the film and uploaded it in a .zip file here. There are 12 tracks, which run about 15 minutes in total. You'll hear plenty of dialogue and sound effects over the music, which is distracting but also entertaining. The film itself is fairly unwatchable, but listening to them I found myself imagining a better movie in my head to go with the music and dialogue.

Here are some highlights from the soundtrack:

"The Baron's Theme"

"Diamond Mine"

"A Bright Light On the Dark Side of Town"

I'm kind of surprised this never got the same bootleg-from-the-DVD treatment as some other Blaxploitation films with unreleased or partially unreleased soundtracks, like The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Bucktown, Black Belt Jones or The Black Gestapo. It's certainly as good as any of those.

Still hatin'

2011-09-28T21:20:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to put in a plug for the Stay Hatin' podcasts, which I've steadily been grinding out with SergDun and Soft Money.

We're 10 shows deep now and I feel like we've found a good formula, balancing new rap selections, informed commentary and having fun drinking and acting like dumbasses. (Truth be told, Soft Money and I are still trying to catch up with Serg, who excels at drinking and acting like a dumbass. I don't know if we'll get there.)

For our most recent episode, we enlisted Willy Staley, who for years has written the Nation of Thizzlam blog and who recently began doing a fine rap podcast of his own, Champale. Willy was passing through town and shared some cool selections and his boundless love for Team Knoc. We were also fortunate enough to have a brief guest appearance from Noz of Cocaine Blunts fame.

Download Stay Hatin' 10 here.

Check out more episodes here.

Subscribe here.

Wardell Quezergue, R.I.P.

2011-09-06T17:36:00.000-07:00

New Orleans songwriter, producer and arranger Wardell Quezergue (pronounced ka-ZAIR) died today of heart failure. He was 81.

Quezergue was a master of eccentric rhythms and sly arrangements. Although less celebrated than other New Orleans music figures like Allen Toussaint or Dr. John, he was arguably as important.

Here's a sampling of some quintessential classics Quezergue wrote, produced and/or arranged:

Professor Longhair: "Big Chief" (Watch, 1964)

Smokey Johnson: "It Ain't My Fault" (Nola, 1965)

Robert Parker: "Barefootin'" (Nola, 1966)

King Floyd: "Groove Me" (Chimneyville, 1971)

Jean Knight: "Mr. Big Stuff" (Stax, 1971)

These are some lesser-known but great tracks he had a hand in:

The Barons Ltd.: "Making It Better" (Chimneyville, 197?)

The Unemployed: "They Won't Let Me" (Cotillion, 1971)

Bonnie & Sheila: "You Keep Me Hanging On" (King, 1971)

Jean Knight: "Do Me" (Stax, 1971)

The Enticers: "Thief" (Cotillion, 1972)

King Floyd: "Do Your Feeling" (Cotillion, 1973)

Robert Parker: "Get Ta Steppin'" (Island, 1974)

Ted Taylor: "Somebody's Gettin' It" (Alarm, 1976)

Bonus: I've been waiting for an excuse to post this forever and because of the awesome flip of "Mr. Big Stuff", now is as good a time as any. It's obnoxious, juvenile b-boy humor at its finest:

Serious-Lee-Fine: "The Big Dis" (Arista, 1989)

Never ever ever

2011-08-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

Family Brown: "Never Had a Love" (United Artists, 1977)

Did someone sample this recently? It's been stuck in my head for a few days. (EDIT: figured it out, somebody did sample it. Pretty forgettable despite a Kurupt verse that starts off very strong.)

The Family Brown was (duh) a family act composed of four Browns and a Lewis. Imaginary World, which this is from, contains a number of strong tracks. I think it was their lone LP, although they also cut a decent boogie 12" years later.

"Never Had a Love" sounds a little bit pre-chipmunked, but maybe Renee Brown just had a high voice. I wish groups still took the trouble to arrange voices the way they cascade and answer here.

Nick Ashford, R.I.P.

2011-08-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

Nickolas Ashford died today. He was 70 and was being treated for throat cancer.

Ashford was best known for his hits with his wife Valerie Simpson, but before their own pop success they had a long track record as songwriters, like their remarkable run of hits for Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell ("Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing", "You're All I Need to Get By" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough").

Here are a handful of my favorites:

Ray Charles: "I Don't Need No Doctor" (ABC, 1966)

So rough.

The Geminis: "A Friend of Mine" (RCA, 1966)

The chords on this always make me think of this Scott Bradford song, which is like an extra-beautiful version of Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Brew".

Marvin Gaye: "When I Feel the Need" (Motown, 196?)

So soulful.

Marlena Shaw: "California Soul" (Cadet, 1969)

So classic.

Ace Spectrum: "Don't Send Nobody Else" (Atlantic, 1974)

So classy.

Sylvester: "Over and Over" (Fantasy, 1977)

Most jubilant disco ever?

Ashford & Simpson: "It Seems to Hang On" (Warner Bros., 1978)

So smooth.

Collins & Collins: "Top of the Stairs" (A&M, 1980)

For those who want to dig deeper into their catalog as songwriters, a few years ago Kent released a cool comp that focused on their early years co-writing with Joshie "Jo" Armstead.

Other brothers

2011-07-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

Brother to Brother: "You're Bout to Lose the One Who Really Loves You" (Win or Lose, 1972)

I don't know anything about Brother to Brother, although I assume that they were a sibling act signed in the wake of the Jackson 5's success. If I had remembered this song existed, I definitely would have included it in the Twee Funk mix I did a number of years ago. There's just so much frustration and yearning in the vocal and guitar.

The record was produced by the Poindexter Brothers, who wrote the song with their frequent writing partner Jackie Members (who was also Robert Poindexter's wife). The trio were responsible for a lot of classic East Coast soul, like Linda Jones's "Hypnotized", the O'Jays' "I'll Be Sweeter Tomorrow" and the Persuaders' "Thin Line Between Love and Hate", the last of which was also on their Win or Lose imprint. They also made this and this, which are two of my favorite soul records.

Not Hey Ya, Hey La Ya La

2011-07-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

Sam Campbell & the Bystanders: "Hey La Ya La" (Galaxy, 1969)

This record is by a New Jersey singer recorded in the Bay Area for a Berkeley label but to me it's one of the most New Orleans-ish records I've ever heard. It sounds like it was just made for Lee Dorsey.

Sammy Campbell is better known under the name Tyrone Ashley, the alias he used to record his one and only sort-of hit, 1971's "Let Me Be Your Man". From 1954 to the end of the 1960s, Campbell led a Plainfield, NJ vocal group called the Del-Larks. Although they never had any mainstream success, they had a friendly crosstown rivalry with George Clinton's Parliaments and left behind a famously collectible Northern single.

After the Del-Larks petered out, Fantasy Records' Galaxy imprint picked up Campbell on the strength of his demo for "Hey Ya La Ya". He relocated to the Bay Area, cut one 45 and then split when he realized Galaxy wanted to push him towards blues material. He then moved back East, had a minor hit with "Let Me Be Your Man" on Phil-L.A. of Soul and then mostly fell back from recording. A few years ago, Truth and Soul released a cool album of unreleased songs from that era.

There's a great history of Campbell and the Del-Larks here.

Mizell not Mizell

2011-07-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Following up on the Mizell Brothers post, here are two records I always associate with the Mizell Brothers even though they had nothing to do with either:

Leo's Sunshipp: "Back for More" (Lyon's, 1978)

Donald Byrd and 125th Street, N.Y.C.: "Love Has Come Around" (Elektra, 1981)

Both of these records really nail their style, from the chords to the vocals and arrangements. Given his many recordings with them, it's not so surprising Donald Byrd could pull off the imitation but I think it's cool that the song was produced by Isaac Hayes.

For what it's worth, there's a pretty good re-edit of "Back for More" by the Linkwood Family.

Fonce Mizell, R.I.P.

2011-07-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

Fonce Mizell passed away over the weekend at the age of 68. The cause of death hasn't been announced, but there has been a sprinkling of obits. Billboard's is the best of the ones I've seen.

Last year I did a mix of music produced by Fonce and his brother Larry. I got motivated to do it when I realized how many people I know who are serious music heads had no idea who the Mizell Brothers are, even though the Mizells inspired or informed a lot of artists they loved. That mix is available free as a download or stream.

I don't really know enough about the Mizell Brothers to separate Fonce's contributions from Larry's, but it was Fonce who launched their careers. While Larry was still working as an aerospace engineer, Fonce was co-writing and co-producing the songs that made the Jackson 5 famous. Here are a few of those:

Red Bull Music Academy has an excellent video of the Mizell Brothers talking about their career and their better-known productions in 2006. Fonce hardly speaks, but there's some cool video of him and Larry jamming with their brother Rod and the bond between them is clear.

The greatest music video of all time

2011-07-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

The Fat Boys are mostly remembered as a novelty act, three fat guys who remade a Jerry Lewis movie and collaborated with the Beach Boys in their "Kokomo" era.

It's a shame because when they came out, the Fat Boys were making some of the roughest, purest rap music of their era. They borrowed extensively from Run-DMC (with whom they shared a producer, Larry Smith) but they usually added their own flavor. Songs like "Can You Feel It?", "Jailhouse Rap" and "Reality" still hold up.

And then there's "Stick 'Em":

I'd never seen this video until a few days ago but I'm kind of obsessed with it. I love the performance, the production design (Buffy's glasses! the effects! the goofy patriotism!) and everything else about it.

In case you want to follow along at home, here's the lyric sheet from the "Stick 'Em" 12".

Triunfal

2011-06-30T00:05:00.000-07:00

Los Diamantes: "Triunfal" (Horoscopo, 19??)

I can't make out the Spanish lyric but I love this kind of moody, funky psych in any language.

The composition is credited to the very Anglo trio of Prury, Cook & Cork so I imagine this is a cover, but of what I don't know.

Nice and soft

2011-05-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

Wish feat. La-Rita Gaskin: "Nice & Soft" (Perspective, 1981)

Next to "Is It All Over My Face", this song has the most pause-worthy/maybe-not-intentionally-hilarious chorus of any disco record. Which is saying a lot.

"Nice & Soft" was produced by NY disco don Greg Carmichael, who was behind classics by the Universal Robot Band, Inner Life and Tony Aiken, among others.

I think this was the only release on Perspective Records, although the label was affiliated with Rota, which issued some good disco and disco rap records. This single bugs me out because although it's clearly a New York record, the sleeve lists the label address as an apartment a block from People's Park in Berkeley. It's a very un-disco address.

Shilling/sharing

2011-05-10T15:51:00.000-07:00

I currently have a ton of good rare groove, jazz, Latin and Brazilian records from my collection up on eBay. There are a lot of obvious trophy/grail pieces as well as some great mid-range things, but I thought I'd shine a light on a few that I think are quality sleepers.

Pardon the jankiness of the presentation here. The auction was kind of a last-minute thing, so before I pushed things out the door and into the arms of Brendan from Cavern Discos I didn't really have time to rip or photograph much, so I've borrowed a lot of Brendan's photos.

Lee Willhite: "The World Is a Ghetto" (Big Tampa, 1982) (auction)

Such a sucker for this. He does a good version of "Song for My Father", too.

Togetherness: "Ain't No Sunshine" (Custom, 197?) (auction)

Another lightly jazzed-up arrangement of a soul classic. There are some worthy jazz-funk tracks on the same album.

Sir Edward: "People Make the World Go Round" (Encounter, 197?) (auction)

Next to the Stylistics' original version this is probably my favorite version of this. Once it hits that turnaround at the 2:45 mark, the song sort of goes in to freefall in the best possible way. George Davis's guitar part kills. Fun fact: "Sir Edward" was an alias for Harold Vick.

California High Jazz Quintet: "Shadow of the Equinox" (LRS, 197?) (auction)

Björn Alkes Kvintett: "Communisten" (Caprice, 1974) (auction)

Swedish head-nodder.

The Ron Roberts Concert Ensemble: "No Terms to Be Made" (Jasmine, 1980) (auction)

A funky dirge from an unknown Missouri jazz man. FWIW, this Hans Dulfer record has a track that hits the same nerves.

Erwin Lehn: "Color" (MPS, 197?) (auction)

So rough. I literally ran to a DJ booth once to find out what this was.

Don Cherry & the New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra: "Action" (Everest, 197?) (auction)

Penderecki and Cherry came up with such a strange groove here. Some Brits sampled this awhile ago. Was it Nextmen? Unsung Heroes?

John Keating: "Space Agent" (Columbia Quadrophonic, 197?) (auction)

This kind of now sound/Dusty Fingers sound thing is sort of out of style these days but this track is nuts. It takes a while to get going but when it hits at the two-minute mark, watch out.

I particularly love the weird R2D2-type squeals.

Freddie Rodriguez: "Swing Para Ti Pt. 1" (UA Latino, 196?) (auction)

So many great tracks on this record. I posted up another from the record, "Lolypop", a while ago.

There are a few more things I would have wanted to include in this post but I realized I didn't get around to recording them, like the Eddie Palmieri record with "Condiciones Que Existen". Fortunately the auction listings have a ton of sound clips.

Momma was too

2011-05-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

Chubb Rock: "Momma Was a Rollin Stone" (Select, 1988)

Best mother's day song ever.

Talk talk

2011-05-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

If you like hearing me talk about good music with smart people, here are two chances for you to enjoy a lot of that.

First, my friend Oliver Wang of the great Soul-Sides blog has just introduced a new podcast called Sidebar and I am the first guest. The format is a conversation that revolves around three selections chosen by the guest.

In this case, Oliver asked me to choose three records that I chose not to part with when I recently gutted a portion of my record collection. (I've avoided shilling on this blog to date but 400+ of my best rare groove, jazz, Brazilian and Latin records are up on eBay currently.)

You can hear our conversation here and subscribe to the series here.

It just so happens that today is also the world premiere of a new podcast I'm doing with two of my favorite rap bloggers, Serg of Beer and Rap and Soft Money of Space Age Hustle. We call it Stay Hatin'.

The podcast came about because from time to time we hang out and talk about raps and Serg had the idea we should record our conversations. I really liked the idea because I respect their opinions and also because it would force me to pay more attention to current rap music than I have lately. Also I find Serg endlessly entertaining. Our current plan is to do one podcast every other week or so.

In the first episode we play and talk about some stuff I love and some stuff I'm indifferent to and some stuff I don't ever need to hear again but on the whole I think it's a pretty good listen. You can download it here or stream it at our tumblr page.

Power

2011-05-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

Thee Midniters: "Chicano Power" (La Raza, 196?)

In the trunk

2011-05-02T10:33:00.001-07:00

I've said good things about R8R & L-Wood's previous mixes devoted to the 1990s SF and Sacramento rap scenes, but I wasn't really prepared for their new 4-CD, 107-song Northern California Trunk Tape Resurrection. The set is an amazing overview of 1990s Bay Area rap, or at least a part of it.

There were two almost completely separate independent local scenes in the Bay Area in the 1990s. Both took their business model from Too $hort's hand-to-hand street hustle, but the content and style was almost totally different. On the one hand was the more town-ish sound, which took its cues from the style of Too $hort, Spice 1, RBL Posse and others. On the other was the 4-tracking, dirt hustling, ciphering set inspired by Hieroglyphics, Hobo Junction, Project Blowed, the Native Tongues and Ultramagnetic MCs. That music is mostly absent here, although there’s a track from Bored Stiff and two from Hieroglyphics’ Extra Prolific.

The selections span the region from San Jose to Sacramento, collecting a handful of recognizable names (Too $hort, Mac Dre, E-40, Spice 1, San Quinn) and dozens of unknowns inspired by them. Most of the selections are hopelessly obscure and many are great. There's a youtube flyer with some excerpts from the mix but I don't think it really captures the quality of the selections or how well the 4 CDs flow. I made it through the CDs without skipping anything, which is pretty much unheard of for me, and did a lot of rewinding in the process.

R8R and L-Wood worked hard to clean up the sound quality and it shows. Given how bad cassettes sound out of the box and how badly they wear, most of the tracks knock surprisingly well. The packaging is pretty cool, too. The CD inserts are difficult to read but they identify all of the titles and dates of the original releases, plus producer names.

There's info on ordering here. I can't recommend it highly enough to anyone who appreciates Bay Area rap from the 1990s. It's an incredible time capsule of the breadth and depth of the scene and also what it was like back then. It's got me real nostalgic for that era.

Here are a couple of cassette-only tracks from the Bay that aren't on there but might have fit in well:

Real Brothers: "Soul Controllers" (Black Vinyl, 1992)

Notwithstanding the label name I'm pretty sure this was cassette-only, which is a shame because the Real Brothers' album is great. They seem to have had ties to SF and to Sac. I really wish I'd know about them at the time because their album's pretty much exactly what I wanted to hear back then. The whole thing is posted over at Bust the Facts, so run and go get it.

Luniz: "Revelations" (Noo Trybe, 1997)

Yukmouth is a gifted rapper but often I can't deal with his songs (particularly his solo stuff) because he's just too nihilistic. Here he raps about some real-life personal drama that's so dark and intense that it kind of makes the aggression of his other stuff make sense. Big shout to my dude DJ Fuze, who put me up on this and sent me the rip.

Magic

2011-05-01T13:56:00.001-07:00

General Lee: "Magic, Pt. 1" (Lost Weekend, 1980)

General Lee was a Chicago group that released a few singles around the turn of the 1980s. (Notwithstanding what's written on the label here, I don't think their album was ever released.)

Another of their singles, "We Did It Baby", was one of the highlights of the first Fusion Batches mix by my homie Morse Code, who I mentioned yesterday.

General Lee seemed to have a knack for great but slightly spooky soul records. I only wish they could have released a few more.

Sunny days

2011-04-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

The weather in Oakland finally got nice enough to jam these two mixes properly, so today I think I'm gonna fill a wading pool, crack a six-pack and zone out:

DJ Day: Way Out of Living

Pools - Paradise: Mixtape Vol. 1

Both carry a heavy warm-weather vibe, so although they're each about a month old I've held off on really digging into them until now.

DJ Day is a Palm Springs producer and DJ whose sets tend to be really eclectic and dope. Technically he's a beast and his mixes always contain a lot of surprising and interesting selections. His Do Over set from last year is maybe the best one I've heard and features some outstanding records I never hear (Tha Alkaholiks "Only When I'm Drunker"! Waterbed Kev!). This mix runs the gamut from funk to disco to reggae to disco raps but stays groovy throughout. (Except maybe for when he plays a version of Toto's "Africa". Fuck that song.) There's a full tracklist in the comments on Day's blog.

The Way Out of Living mix is hosted by Piecelock 70, which is an umbrella for Day and a bunch of other talented folks who are sort of at the margins of the indie rap world-- Doc Delay, People Under the Stairs, Kat from Crown City Rockers. They recently launched a website and have some projects on the way including a book that I'm highly anticipating.

The Pools is a collaboration between LA's Thee Mike B and DJ Morse Code, formerly of Frisco, now also an Angeleno. Mike runs a fine blog and Nat has made great mixes devoted to Mac Dre and to fusion slumpers, among other things.

Both are very versatile DJs but with this mix they mainly stick to smooth and sophisticated house, disco and disco edits. The pacing and mixing are really top-notch. Their Soundcloud page contains a couple of their edits, which have a similarly smooth vibe.

Crazy/lonely

2011-04-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

While I was digging out records for my Huey Meaux post, I came across this, which for some reason I misremembered as being one of his productions.

Family Circle: "Crazy"

So tuneless, so frantic, so lo-fi, but it works.

Texas seemed to excel at this kind of sound:

The Equasions: "World of Loneliness" (Pac Sounds, 197?)

Huey Meaux, R.I.P.

2011-04-28T17:57:00.001-07:00

Huey Meaux passed away this week. He did some truly reprehensible things in his personal life, but he also recorded some great music.

The Texas producer was best known for discovering Doug Sahm and Barbara Lynn and for resurrecting Freddie Fender's career, but he also recorded scads of obscure and great singles from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Meaux had a remarkable ear for talent and a gift for shaping songs. Here are some of my favorite productions by him.

The Ascots: "She's So Indifferent to Me Now" (Crazy Cajun, 19??)

I posted this just about two months ago, but it's too sublime not to share again.

Georgie Boy: "You'd Better Quit It" (SSS International, 19??)

So obnoxious, so great. There's a Barbara Lynn version of this, too, but it's not nearly as good.

Kool & Together: "Sittin' On a Red Hot Stove" (Pacemaker, 197?)

This sounds like this and this, which is two very good things to sound like.

Yesterday's Obsession: "Complicated Mind" (Pacemaker, 196?)

The other side of this single is a little better known thanks to mixes and comps but this side is as good to me, if not better.

Joe Melvin: "Friends in Show Business" (Jetstream, 196?)

Basic concept, crafty execution.

James Young Blues Band: "Funky Booty" (Jetstream, 197?)

A/k/a Jean Knight's "Mr. Big Stuff". On some pressings, Young is credited as James "Big Sambo" Young. I don't know why someone thought that was a good idea.

Honorable mention:

This wasn't produced by Meaux, but Sonny Raye was one of Meaux's artists, Jim Duff was his engineer and it's a great record, to boot.

Sonny Raye & Fancy: "Calvin No. 1" (Sportscene, 1975)

Calvin Murphy played guard for the Rockets in the 1970s and 1980s. Although he was only 5'9", he held his own on the court and was a phenomenal free-throw shooter. Off the court, he has proved himself to be a miserable piece of shit. Despite that, I manage to enjoy this song by pretending it's about Earl Boykins.

Right on for the little man.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - Old Friends

2011-04-14T23:53:00.000-07:00

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An unfunny thing happened as I was preparing to do a show one Friday last month. My computer died.

I’m helpless without my desktop. I keep only a small fraction of my music on my laptop and the desktop not only holds everything else, it’s where I sort music and keep track of ideas for mixes and shows.

There was a time when I really didn’t play anything unless it was on vinyl, but these days it’s more or less the opposite. I seldom listen to anything unless it’s on my computer. So I decided to get back at my computer by putting together a show the old-fashioned way, playing nothing but vinyl.

The first two-thirds of the show is mostly made up of some records I’ve always wanted to hear together in a mix, but hadn’t combined until now. The selections are all over the map stylistically-- Northern soul, Latin, wiggy jazz funk-- but to me each of them ties in with a couple of the others.

The remainder of the mix is mostly recent rediscoveries. Over the past few months I’ve been preparing to cull a major portion of my collection and in the process I’ve heard a lot things I’d forgotten about or never noticed before.

I called the mix “old friends” because it's mostly stuff that's been knocking around in my head for years. Hopefully some of it will get stuck in yours.

1. Micki Lynn – I’ve Got the Blues (Capitol 45)
2. Major Lance – Sometimes I Wonder (Okeh 45)
3. George & Lee – Nobody but You (International City 45)
4. The Metros – Since I Found My Baby (RCA Victor 45)
5. Ernie Marbray – Ain’t Nobody’s Business (Wee 45)
6. The Mad Lads – Monkey Time ’69 (Volt LP)
7. The Curtis Liggins Indications – What It Is? (Kaycee-Soul 45)
8. The Turks – Generation Gap (Daran 45)
9. Tony Talent – Gotta Tell Somebody (About My Baby) (Vando 45)
10. Mitch Mitchell and Gene “The King” – Definition of Things (Goko 45)
11. Desciples of Soul – Soul Revolution (G.V. 45)
12. Tito Puente – Hit the Bongo (Tico LP)
13. Calvin Keys – B.K. (Black Jazz LP)
14. Tania Maria – Fio Maravilha (Barclay LP)
15. Mike Westbrook – Love Song No. 2 (Deram LP)
16. Jackie & Roy – Winds of Heaven (Capitol LP)
17. The Latin Dimension – What More Can I Say (Columbia LP)
18. Joe Loco – Isla Verde (Sunset LP)
19. Shirley Horn – Big City (ABC Paramount LP)
20. The Baron Von Ohlen Quartet feat. Mary Ann Moss – Runaway Heart (Creative World LP)
21. Malachi Thompson – The Quest (Ra LP)
22. Phil Moore III – Nappy Headed Child (Atlantic)
23. Ray Barretto – Hard Hands (Pink Elephant 45)
24. Groove Holmes – No Trouble on the Mountain (Groove Merchant LP)
25. Skip Mahoaney & the Casuals – Town Called Nowhere (D.C. International LP)
26. Friday, Saturday & Sunday – There Must Be Something (Dig 45)
27. Sunny & the Sunliners – Should I Take You Home (RPR 45)
28. Gene Williams – Don’t Let Our Love Fade Away (Forte 45)
29. Bobby Holley – Baby, I Love You (Weis 45)
30. The Wasters – Accept My Love (Uni 45)
31. Erroll Gaye & the Imaginations – You Don’t Want My Love (Steel Town 45)
32. The End Product – Sunday Dreaming (Paramount 45)
33. J.J. Barnes – I Just Make Believe (I’m Touching You) (Perception LP)
34. The Mystics – That’s the Kind of Love (Teako 45)
35. First Family – That’s Love (Washington 45)
36. The Topics – All Good Things Must End (Heavy Duty 45)

Retouched

2011-04-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

The Perception/Today labels were nothing if not efficient recyclers. Once you've listened to a few of the LPs, you recognize that the same backing tracks keep reappearing from album to album. So, for example, The Albert's horn-rock dirge "Pity the Child" appears with a poetry recitation under the title "The Trouble With Dreams" on Wanda Robinson's Black Ivory and just about every soul album on the label seems to feature at least one backing track already used by Black Ivory.

This practice is more than a little janky and awful in theory, but more often than that not it means hearing the work of Perception/Today's resident genius, Patrick Adams, versioned by multiple performers.

"Touching You" in an oddity among these because although it's a Patrick Adams/David Jordan composition, the arrangement is usually credited to Eumir Deodato, who oversaw the album on which it first appeared, Astrud Gilberto's Now.

Astrud Gilberto: "Touching You" (Perception, 1972)

I've never understood the allure of Astrud Gilberto. Even at her most emotive, she sounds like a heavily-accented Stepford Wife. Nonetheless, this was the first version of the song that I heard, so I've got a sweet spot for it.

But the vocal is so much better on this version:

J.J. Barnes: "I Just Make Believe (I'm Touching You)" (Perception, 1973)

And then there's this, for which they actually re-recorded the backing track:

Debbie Taylor: "Touchin' You" (Today, 1972)

FWIW, there's also a 45 on Today credited to the Patrick Adams Initiative called "Touching You". I don't know if it's yet another version, but I'm curious to hear it.

Sunday dreaming

2011-04-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

The End Product: "Sunday Dreaming" (Paramount, 1971)

The last time I was at Big City Records, I heard a version of this by the Shirelles but it took me months to place the original.

I know nothing about the End Product but I believe this is their only release. The song was co-written by J.R. Bailey, who is best known for co-writing the Main Ingredient's "Everybody Plays the Fool" but was also a pretty fair performer. There's also this version:

Rock Flowers: "Sunday Dreaming" (Wheel, 1971)

Rock Flowers was a group crafted to tie in with a line of Barbie-like Mattel dolls that were marketed with "rock" fashions and 45s. There are no members credited on the self-titled LP this is taken from. I kind of doubt the women pictured on the cover actually sing it. Casey Kasem knew the time:

Don't want

2011-04-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

Erroll Gaye & the Imaginations: "You Don't Want My Love" (Steel Town, 1975)

Steel Town was the Gary, Indiana label that launched the Jackson 5's career with a couple of pre-Motown singles in 1968. The lead singer here sounds more than a little like a young MJ. You can't blame them for hoping lightning would strike twice.

I love this record on its own terms but something about the high notes in the chorus always puts me in mind of that early 2000s era of rap beats with sped-up soul vocal samples. Then usually my thoughts wander and visions of Freeway, Husalah or Ghostface rapping over this dance in my head.

Reachin' out

2011-04-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

A bunch of years ago I heard this on a comp and was bowled over by the way it walks the line between the funk of the intro and the lovers-style sweetness of the verse:

Myrna Hague: "Touch Me Baby" (Studio One, 197?)

I knew it was a cover of a Johnny Bristol song, but I didn't realize that the arrangement was taken from this version:

Tamiko Jones: "Touch Me Baby (Reachin' Out for Your Love)" (Atlantis II, 1977)

The Myrna Hague track also reminds me of this great cover of a song that was already pretty much reggae in its original version:

Jerry Jones: "Still Water" (Bamboo, 1970)

Q: What's better than

2011-02-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

The Ascots: "She's So Indifferent to Me Now" (Crazy Cajun, 19??)?

A: Nothing.

Or at least nothing that's occurring to me this second.

The Ascots were a trio made up of Talmadge Armstrong, A.C. Gillory and James Kelly Duhon. Their lone LP, 1978's Color Me Soul, seems to have been cobbled together from recordings that were years old-- two of its tracks were released in the early 1970s on a single on Huey Meaux's Jetstream label and others sound like they date at least that far back.

Duhon and Armstrong each also released a number of solo singles on Port Arthur, TX labels in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I think mid-decade Armstrong moved to LA, dropped part of his first name and recorded some very sought-after modern soul. This is probably my favorite of those, although this is good, too.

Dream day

2011-02-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday marked the 11th anniversary of the murder of Mike "Dream" Francisco, one of the most beloved and respected figures in Bay Area graffiti.

My friend Willie Maze has put together an event tomorrow night to celebrate Dream's legacy and to raise money for Dream's son, Akil. I'm on the bill along with some of the Bay's best DJs including Fuze, Sake One, Shortkut, Myke One, Qbert and Willie Maze himself. There'll be live performances by Bored Stiff, Boots Riley with my homie Roberto Miguel, and Hobo Junction, among others.

Doors open at 6 for an art show by Dream's crew, TDK. The party starts at 9 and goes until late.

I'll probably be playing at least one of these unless someone beats me to it:

Plan Bee: "Quest 4 Survival" feat. Saafir & Pooh Man (One Hundred 20, 1994)

Plan Bee: "Grindin' RMX" (One Hundred 20, 1994)

Saafir: "Runnin' from 5-0" (One Hundred 20, 1994)

Plan Bee was a member of Hobo Junction who was senselessly murdered in 1992. Mike Dream was a close friend of his and he pressed up some of Plan Bee's raps as a tribute. Many people sweat the EP because it featured Saafir's first solo appearance, but Plan Bee was a pretty fair rapper himself. Dream himself later appeared on Saafir's Boxcar Sessions, doing one of the spoken pieces that dot that album.

Late night February 17th

2011-02-17T12:31:00.000-08:00

I'm obsessed with Big Ghost Chronicles, a blog devoted to the wisdom and teaching of Ghostface Killah. Only not actually written by Ghostface Killah.

Just in the last week Big Ghost has offered god lessons on why you should choose a girl before your fifth Long Island, DJ Khaled's quest to market the same song 5,000 times, the only part of Lil Kim that hasn't been surgically altered, as well as the umpteenth post on the supreme softhandedness of Drake.

Thank god there are antidotes like this:

Ghostface Killah: "Wildflower" (radio edit) (Epic, 1996)

"Wildflower" is the greatest Ghostface song ever and some days I think it's the best rap song period. Back when I used to do a broadcast radio show and relied mostly on vinyl, this 12" was invaluable since playing "Wildflower" either means a lot of fast editing or FCC beef.

Ghostface Killah: "Untitled (Good Times)" feat. Superb & Raekwon (Epic, 2001)

When I was looking for my "Wildflower" 12" I ran across this, which is one of many songs that didn't make it on to Bulletproof Wallets, presumably due to sample clearance. I believe that album had a budget of approximately $37 and 36 of them went to pay for Carl Thomas features.

All city all the way

2011-02-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

As a follow-on to the interview with Joe Quixx I posted yesterday, here are some things that came up in our conversation or relate to it.

Grandmaster Flash: "Wild Style Routine" (Original Version)

Joe cites this routine as a huge inspiration and something that he regularly revisits to this day. Because Bob James wouldn't clear use of "Take Me to the Mardi Gras", the version of Wild Style that's available on DVD features different music dubbed over this sequence. Ripped from the VHS version by Noz; I lifted this from his non-secrete Tumblr site. Thank you based Noz.

King Tech & MC Sway & Michael Erickson & Alexander Mejia: "Truly Funky" (Wild Style, 1989)

This track begins with some conversation between Michael Erickson and Alexander Mejia, two mix DJs who were established presences on KMEL before the Wake Up Show got there. Although both played hip hop, they came from a different generation and the lead-in to this track dramatizes that well-- Erickson and Mejia sound very smooth and adult compared with Sway and Tech. This is probably my favorite track from the All City Productions crew.

And now for something that doesn't feature "God Made Me Funky":

Flynamic Force: "We Want to Rock You" (All City, 1988)

This was Sway and Tech's first single and while I'm not really wild about the rapping or the track, the tape edits and scratching are so hardbody. The track also appears on an otherwise lame 12" by a King Tech-produced R&B group, New Kraze.

All City Productions: "Bust Your Rhymes" (All City, 1992)

This Joe Quixx-produced posse cut is the A-side of "Unsolved Mysterme" but it was never as popular. Aside from the intro, it sounds better than I remembered.

For those who want to hear more All City stuff, Ministry of Information has a rip of the Full Resistance 12", which is pretty good.

Milk: "Get Off My Log" (Joe Quixx & King Tech's Jazzyfatwoody RMX) (American, 1994)

I love the original version and this remix doesn't really fit with Milk's obnoxious adenoidal thing, but it's an interesting curiosity. It was always really hard to find on wax although it appears on some pressings of Milk's Never Dated CD.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - Real Talk: Joe Quixx

2011-02-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

This installment of 2 Busy Saying Yeah is something completely different-- it's an entire episode devoted to a conversation with a key figure in the Bay Area hip hop scene, Joe Quixx.

Joe Quixx began DJing as a high-schooler in Hayward in the mid-1980s. After making a name for himself, he joined up with a crew that revolutionized the sound of radio in the Bay Area and beyond. As the primary DJ for the Wake-Up Show and the 10 O’Clock bomb, Joe broke records and introduced a generation of listeners to uncut hip hop and to digging in the crates. As a producer, Joe created a number of underground classics. His style influenced a generation of listeners and he continues to inspire other DJs with his uncompromising, eclectic sound.

In the interview Joe talks about the formative influences that shaped his DJing, how the Wake Up Show came together and his classic productions for the B.U.M.S., Mysterme and others.

Me and Joe Quixx at the Bay Area Hip Hop Coalition First (and Last?) Annual BBQ, 1998

I first met Joe in 1992 or so when my homeboy Beni B started taking me up to the Wake Up Show, bringing Joe Quixx beats and samples to play on the radio. Joe and I quickly hit it off and for a number of years would frequently dig for records. Over the years we did a few residencies together and were even roommates for a while. He is one of my favorite DJs and has been a big influence on me. This interview is hopefully the first in a series of conversations with important figures in Bay Area rap.

I'm experimenting by making the interview available in two ways. One is as a single file available through my regular host, Podomatic. The other is as a series of chapters available through Soundcloud. Unfortunately, due to the length of the clips, I wasn't able to make all five of the chapters available through a single free Soundcloud account, so I may try and host these elsewhere.

The entire interview:

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Four (out of five) easy pieces:

Joe Quixx Interview Pt. 1 - How it all began

Joe talks about losing his first battle, the routine that inspired his style and the Bay scene in the mid-1980s.

Joe Quixx Interview Pt. 2 - The Wake Up Show

Joe talks about how he and his crew created the Wake Up Show.

Joe Quixx Interview Pt. 4 - Productions

We discuss a few of his landmark productions.

Joe Quixx Interview Pt. 5 - DJing

Joe talks about his love of DJing. I found his excitement about DJing really inspiring.

Just in time for Valentine's Day

2011-02-12T16:13:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've ever posted a slow jam like this before but two days before Valentine's Day seems like an appropriate time. I happened to snag this a few months ago on the strength of the cover and was quickly won over by its LeVert-style smooveness.

Ver-Sa-Tyl: "I Don't Know What True Love Is" (Rim, 1989)

Ver-Sa-Tyl hailed from Tulsa and although they were singers, the group's members had great budget rap names: M.C. Mooski, M.C. Sex-E, D.J. Steadyrock & M.C. Wilroque.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - D.J. Rogers

2011-02-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

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This episode of 2 Busy Saying Yeah is a mix devoted to one of the most overlooked figures in soul music, D.J. Rogers.[1]

I wouldn't argue that he's a talent on the order of contemporaries like Sly Stone, Al Green or Marvin Gaye, only that he deserves better than he gets. Rogers is a phenomenal singer who wrote and arranged some great soul songs. His music deserves a wider audience.

Rogers released eight LPs of inspirational soul music between 1973 and 1982. While only one of those albums was explicitly a gospel LP, all of them are steeped in the spirit, with lyrics about faith and perseverance. It's some of the most uplifting music I know.

This mix draws heavily on Rogers's It's Good to Be Alive album, which for my money is probably the most neglected major-label soul LP of the 1970s and which I've long hoped would experience an Inspiration Information-style rediscovery. I first heard it years ago during what was a pretty rough time in my life and even if it didn't dispel my pain, it did remind me of what it might feel like to be happy again. It sounds like what Sly Stone's Fresh would sound like if it had been made by someone blissed out on life, his lady and his newborn son.[2]

The rest of Rogers's discography is hit or miss. Hope Songs Vol. 1 is a great album and both Rogers's self-titled debut and Love Brought Me Back contain more than a couple of really good songs. Trust Me, The Message Is Still the Same and On the Road Again each contain a couple of really good songs. Love, Music & Life does not contain any good songs. The mix includes most of my favorites:

1. Bailout
2. It's Good to Be Alive
3. Love Will See You Through
4. Listen to the Message
5. Living Is All That Matters
6. Pressin' On
7. Will You Remember Me?
8. Love You Forever
9. (It's Alright Now) Think I'll Make It Anyhow
10. Love Brought Me Back
11. I'm Sold on You
12. He'll Be Your All and All
13. Hold On, Be Strong
14. One More Day
15. Celebration
16. Trust Me
17. Love Can Be Found
18. If You Didn't Love Me (Don't Go Away)
19. Faithful to the End
20. Say You Love Me
21. Overcome
22. Coming Back
23. Jesus Chant
24. Coming Back [Reprise]

For what it's worth, I probably should have included Patrice Rushen's "Givin' It Up Is Givin' Up", but I kind of spaced on it initially and then after the fact decided it didn't really fit in the mix anywhere. Plus he's more or less a back-up singer on there. Great song though. The Coup and Pimp C both used it well but I'll always associate it with this.

[1] Which is not to say that he's been completely overlooked. Kanye West sampled one of his songs on the last Common Sense album that I made it all the way through. His tracks have also found their way onto a Questlove comp and into mix CDs by discerning DJs like Monk One, Muro and Om/Breakself. If I remember right, "Bailout" also caught a shout from the Beastie Boys in Grand Royal long ago.

[2] Rather than someone quickly destroying his talent and himself. The newborn son, D.J. Rogers, Jr., went on to sing, too. He's best known for "Doggie Style", a very R.Kelly/Jodeci-style song on Suge Knight's Above the Rim soundtrack.

The buddy that I like

2011-02-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

The Beat Electric blog is hosting a mix of very nice 70s soul and funk obscurities by Deejay Om & Breakself that's well worth a listen.

Om is a San Francisco guy I've known for years; although I've never met Breakself, the folks I know who have all seem to adore him. Apparently he's facing some pretty serious medical issues, so Om was moved to put together a mix of Breakself's records and his own to raise some funds to defray bills. You can hear the mix and read the story behind it here; if it moves you, you might want to donate.

There are a lot of great selections on their mix, some of which were new to me. One of the tracks in there that I don't hear often enough is this:

Johnnie Walker: "Love at First Taste Pt. 2" (New Detroit, 197?)

Keb Darge put the very similar "Love at First Taste Pt. 1" on a compilation years ago. I think this version uses the same backing track but with some different and slightly wiggier overdubs. Either way, it's some uniquely spaced-out late-night funk.

Beat conductors

2011-01-28T11:16:00.000-08:00

Next Friday Madlib is playing records at 103 Harriet in SF. I'll be playing records, too.

Tickets and a full description of everything the Change the Beat guys have lined up are over here.

There are a lot of folks on the bill, but one of the performances I'm most psyched to check out is by F.A.M.E. (Fresh Analog Music Experience), a project featuring my friends Teeko and Max Kane. They're both members of the 4OneFunk crew and phenomenal scratch DJs. With this project they put a new spin on the turntable band with heavy use of analog synths and the Controller One turntable. They've been doing it for a while but I somehow have not ever seen them live.

BTW, my friend Trackademicks, who cameos in the video above, has finally released his debut album. You can get it here.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - 2010 Reissues

2011-01-27T23:05:00.000-08:00

Like we often do about this time, I recently did a radio show for All Day Play devoted to reissues that came out in 2010.

This kind of project always makes me nervous because I know that as many great things as I heard last year, there are plenty more than I missed. There are also some excellent releases I meant to highlight but for whatever reason didn't, like Numero's Syl Johnson box, Soundway's The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria, Analog Africa's Angola Soundtrack - The Unique Sound of Luanda (1968-1976) or DWG's TDS Mob reissue, all of which are better than some of the one-trackers featured here.

Most of the selections are from releases that are legitimately licensed and carefully assembled, with proper mastering, handsome packaging and thoughtful annotations. I have a lot of respect for those who take the time and effort to do it right. I hope you support them so that they can continue the work that they do.

Part one

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1. The McCrary – Emerge (V/A - Groove Merchant Turns 20)
2. Mark Capanni - I Believe In Miracles (Jazzman 7”)
3. Matthew Larkin Cassell – Rendezvous (The Complete Works)
4. Lô Borges - Tôda Essa Água (S/T)
5. The HE3 Project - Rapture of the Deep (Chapter One)
6. Pastor T.L. Barrett & the Youth For Christ Choir - Nobody Knows (Like a Ship (Without a Sail))
7. Clarence Smith - Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (V/A - The Gospel Truth: The Gospel Soul & Funk of Stax Records)
8. Little Ann - Deep Shadows (Deep Shadows)
9. The Wildflower - Wind Dream (V/A - With Love, A Pot of Flowers)
10. Saknatee Srichiangmai - Nom Samai Mai (V/A - The Sound of Siam: Leftfield Luk Thung, Jazz & Malam in Thailand 1964-1975)
11. Ton & Sergio - Vou Sair Do Cativeiro (Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas: Tropicalia Psychedelic Masterpieces 1967-1976)
12. In Memory of Stella Burke - Already Been in the Water (V/A – Gospel Funk)
13. Gilbert Deflez - L'Agonie (Je Suis Vivant, Mais J'ai Peur de Gilbert Deflez)
14. Roy Brooks & the Artistic Truth - The Last Prophet (Ethnic Expressions)
15. David Lee Jr. - Love Parable (Evolution)
16. Nina Simone - Either Way I Lose (V/A – A Van McCoy Songbook: The Sweetest Feeling)
17. Tammy Montgomery - I Cried (Come On And See Me: The Complete Solo Collection)
18. London Jazz Four - Song for Hilary (V/A - Impressed 3 Compiled by Tony Higgins)

Part two

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1. Googoosh – Talagh (V/A - Pomegranates)
2. The Gospel Soul Revivals - If Jesus Came Today (V/A - Good God! Born Again Funk)
3. Enrique Olivarez y Los Vampiros - Arriba Tipo (V/A - California Funk: Rare 45s From the Golden State)
4. Billy Byrd - Lost in the Crowd (Soul 7 7”)
5. The Brief Encounter - We're Gonna Have a Good Time (Special Release)
6. Randolph Baker - Getting Next to You (V/A - Off Track Vol. III: Brooklyn)
7. Minority Band - Tasty Tune (V/A - Peoples' Potential Unlimited Family Album)
8. Jewel Bass - Let Your Love Rain Down On Me (V/A - Malaco Soul Sisters)
9. Twilight - Never Want to See You Low (Pains of Love)
10. Universal Robot Band - Barely Breaking Even [Club Version] (V/A - John Morales - The M&M Mixes)
11. Martin L. Dumas, Jr. - Attitude, Belief & Determination V/A - The Real Sound of Chicago)
12. Darwin's Theory - Just Take Hold (S/T)
13. Eddie Kendricks - He's a Friend (V/A - Get Down With the Philly Sound)
14. Roy Ayers – Everybody (Lots of Love)
15. Johnny Mathis - Something to Sing About (V/A - Nile Rodgers Presents the CHIC Organization Box Set Vol. 1)

Come on down

2011-01-07T11:27:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow night I'm playing records with my friend Eddy Bauer at his Supercuts party at Bar 355 in downtown Oakland.

I've mentioned Eddy Bauer a bunch of times before-- he's an Oaklander with great taste, solid skills and a really genuine excitement about music. It's always a pleasure to play or talk music with him.

Over on his blog, he's posted a much-overlooked Greg Perry tune, "Come On Down". (Soul Boulders fans may remember that that mix kicks off with a Greg Perry instrumental, "Love Is Magic". I also posted a great, floaty vacation song by him a while back.)

Anyhow, here is another version of "Come On Down", from Edna Wright's Greg Perry-produced Oops! Here I Go Again album:

Edna Wright: "Come On Down (Get Your Head Out of the Clouds)" (RCA, 1976)

Wright's version is a little more subdued and, to my ears, less good than Perry's. Her album is very adult and kind of subtle, but there are some really good songs like this and this.

Now usually I don't do this but, uhhh...

2011-01-01T04:45:00.000-08:00

I don't usually recommend that people who read this blog go buy things, let alone things I haven't thoroughly listened to, but I'll make an exception this once.

It's late, I'm fighting a hangover I can already feel coming on and I have to be up in 3 hours because I promised my lady we could go build snowmen tomorrow, but I need to take a minute to say this:

go buy G-Side's The One... Cohesive album here.

Over the past few years, G-Side has been making some of my favorite current rap music. Their production crew, Block Beattaz, has a knack for beautiful, ethereal sounds and ST 2 Lettaz is one of my favorite current rappers. (The other half of the duo, Clova, continues to grow on me but I can't help feeling that he gets outshone a lot of the time.)

G-Side and the Block Beattaz have devoted much of the past year to making a follow-up to their excellent 2009 Huntsville International album and have promised to make a record that lives up to its name, The One... Cohesive.

I'm guessing that they pulled it off and have made something really good. There's a lot of talent on the Huntsville, Alabama rap scene but the projects that Codie G and CP put out under the Slow Motion Soundz banner always seem to benefit from a little more focus or quality control or vision.

I've heard about half of The One... Cohesive as I've been typing this up and I can't wait to hear the rest, even if sleep is about to win out for a minute.

Like a man

2010-12-15T18:32:00.000-08:00

The other night I was driving home after a gig and was trying to listen to some music on one of those iPod car radio adapter things but was foiled by interference from a pirate station. I was mad until I gave up on the iPod and realized that the DJ was playing this:

The Dramatics: "Treat Me Like a Man" (edit) (ABC, 1975)

The Dramatics are one of the longest-running franchises in soul music but aside from their hits from Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get and their appearance on Snoop Dogg's best song, I can't say I listen to them much. For a couple of years the album this is taken from, Drama V, had been sitting in a small pile of LPs near my desk with a note reading "rip 'Treat Me Like a Man'".

I've edited the track a little. The album version starts with "The Dramatics Theme", a 90-second instrumental that doesn't do much for me. My edit comes in kind of funny but I prefer it this way-- it's far more enjoyable on repeat.

Incidentally, this song was produced and written by Michael Henderson, who has a fascinating career that took him from Stevie Wonder sideman to the linchpin of Miles Davis's electric band to quiet storm gold and then on to eventual fame as a bikini model.

***********

Kind of related: for a horrifying true-life story of race relations in America circa 1967, check out John Hersey's The Algiers Motel Incident. To summarize: in the midst of a riot, some police and national guard members raided a Detroit motel in search of gunmen who had been reported near the motel. The police proceeded to brutally interrogate the guests of the motel, 11 black men and two white women. All 13 were beaten; 3 were murdered; 5 were the original members of the Dramatics.

Oh, my spectacularly poor timing...

2010-12-03T15:48:00.000-08:00

Sunday I'm flying out to NYC to hang out, eat, shop, play some records, etc. but it looks like I couldn't have timed it much worse. In the 48 hours before I arrive there's a ton of great stuff happening-- tonight Mannie Fresh is DJing at Santo's and Syl Johnson is performing at Southpaw; tomorrow DJ Anonymous is guesting with my homies from the Rub.

Meanwhile, I'll be returning to the Bay just a little too late to catch this:

Back in July I did a mix celebrating the 20th anniversary of Luv 'n Haight Records, a great reissue label that grew out of the Groove Merchant store in San Francisco.

Luv 'n Haight has just released Groove Merchant Turns 20, a new set compiled by the store's current owner, Chris Veltri.

Chris is a tremendously knowledgeable collector with great, eclectic tastes in rare records. The album tracks those tastes-- there's floaty soul, bummer folk, soulful disco, funky gospel, moody jazz and a few things that might fit into a bunch of those categories. Almost all the selections were new to me and great, to boot. The packaging on the vinyl version they sent me is also fantastic: the sleeve is ultra-heavy duty and Freddy Anzures's layout and poster are a perfect fit for Chris's own highly-refined aesthetic (if you've ever examined the store's windows, you know what I'm talking about). It's easily my favorite compilation of the year.

Next Friday, they're throwing a release party for the album at the Elbo Room in San Francisco featuring Chris and the store's three current employees-- DJ B.Cause, Sweater Funk's Jon Blunck and Vinnie Esparza.

Also on the bill is a surprise guest I won't name or even hint at, but I will say this-- there aren't that many DJs I see as peers and there are even fewer I look up to; the special guest is the only one that makes me want to roll over and give up. I really wish I could make it.

****

New Yorkers who want to catch me:

I'm keeping a pretty low profile this time out, but I'm planning to swing through a couple of my favorite weeklies devoted to great sounds from the past: Jared Boxx & the Lost & Found Crew's Tuesday night party at Savalas in Brooklyn and Mr. Finewine's Wednesday night at Botanica in Manhattan. Both are all-vinyl affairs, so I'll be limited by the number of records I choose to drag east with me, but I'm looking forward to getting to play a lot of stuff that's a little too sophisticated for Bay crowds.

I haven't confirmed yet, but I may also be guesting again with Radio Rios and Oskar Mann on their East Village Radio show, Never Not Working. (Sorry I've been flaky, dudes!)

Iron Chic

2010-12-02T02:48:00.000-08:00

I had planned to stop with Chic-related stuff but then tonight I ran into Trackademicks and in the midst of a long conversation about '80s British blue-eyed soul, Ciara's "C.R.U.S.H." and the shittiness of commercial radio in the Bay, I remembered that he made this beat from one of my favorite Chic songs, "A Warm Summer Night":

Rydah J. Klyde: "Quit Wynin'" feat. Johnny Cash (Thizz, 2005)

I love this song to death but every time I bring it up, Track kind of winces because apparently they snatched the music from a beat tape he had made and he wasn't happy with how it came out. He was credited on the CD but the beat they used was only a loop of the intro to the actual track Trackademicks had made. Fortunately he says there's a full version that he may get around to putting out one day. (Homie: Please please please.)

Trackademicks also has a debut album due out in late January that he's been working on since I met him in 2006 (and probably before that!). There are two teaser tracks featuring Phonte and F.A.B. that you can grab here and here. Both are strong productions but I'm more into the latter one.

Harry Whitaker, R.I.P.

2010-12-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

Harry Whitaker passed away two weeks ago and I've been meaning to post something about him.

I first heard Whitaker's music through his work with Roy Ayers, who Whitaker served as a keyboardist, writer and arranger during Ayers's early-1970s artistic prime. Whitaker played on all of Ayers's albums from 1970 to 1974 and wrote classics like "We Live in Brooklyn" and "Boogie Back". During the same period, Whitaker worked as music director for Roberta Flack and Eugene McDaniels.

Whitaker's first release as a leader, 1976's Black Renaissance, was almost as ill-fated as it was great. The album was pressed in minute quantities by a fly-by-night Japanese label and Whitaker lost the masters in a house fire. It wasn't until 2002 that the record got a wide release, courtesy Luv 'n Haight records. After that reissue, Whitaker had something of a renaissance, releasing three further solo albums.

There's a very nice reprint of a 2002 profile by Andrew Mason over at Wax Poetics.

Over the years, Whitaker had a hand in a ton of great records. Here are some favorites:

Eddy Jacobs Exchange: "Pull My Coat" (Columbia, 1970)

(co-writer, arranger)

Roy Ayers Ubiquity: "Hummin'" (Polydor, 1970)

(organ)

Roy Ayers Ubiquity: "We Live in Brooklyn" (Polydor, 1972)

(writer, arranger, electric piano)

Roy Ayers: "Coffy Is the Color" (Polydor, 1973)

(electric piano, orchestration)

Black Renaissance: "Black Renaissance" (Baystate, 1976)

(piano, writer, producer, arranger, conductor)

Terumasa Hino: "The Planet Is Ours" (Flying Disk, 1978)

(writer)

Vitamin E: "Sharing" (Buddah, 1977)

(keyboards)

Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway: "Back Together Again" (Atlantic, 1979)

(keyboards)

More Chic

2010-11-30T11:27:00.000-08:00

This isn't going to turn into Chic week or anything but while I'm at it I figured I'd post these:

Charanga 76: "Mi Amor Prohibido" (TR, 1979)

Charanga 76's cover of "Good Times" has been reissued, but this is a little less well-known. Their cover of "We Are Family" is also less well-known and a little less good.

Family zydeco band rips off "Le Freak", masks it with a new lyric built around the members' last name:

Sam Bros. 5: "S.A.M." (Arhoolie, 1979)

It's weird enough that this exists but even weirder that it's on Arhoolie.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - The CHIC Organization Pts. 1 & 2

2010-11-29T13:37:00.000-08:00

Download Pt. 1

Download Pt. 2
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This episode of 2 Busy Saying Yeah is a two-part mix devoted to one of the greatest production teams of all time, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards a/k/a the Chic Organization Ltd.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s the two wrote and produced a remarkable body of work both for their own group, Chic, and for artists like Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, Norma Jean and others. Their sound was unique [1] and instantly identifiable—razor-sharp, sophisticated, elegant and funky. It was also strikingly original and weird.

The basic elements of a Chic song—vocals, rhythm guitar, bass, drums, strings—aren’t so different from what you’d find in many soul, disco or funk songs, but they are deployed in bizarre ways. While the drums are almost totally static, Nile Rodgers’s scratchy, syncopated guitar provides most of the rhythmic variation. Bernard Edwards’s limber bass often dominates the songs, while the slightly anonymous vocals, chanted or sung, sometimes seem less the centerpiece than accompaniment, like the strings and tubular bells that tie so many of their songs together. It’s like every instrument is doing another instrument’s job.

The great irony of Chic is that Rodgers and Edwards didn’t aspire to be dance music pioneers—they just wanted to be rock stars. If things had worked out for them, they might have been the Bus Boys, but thankfully record labels had no idea what to do with a black rock ‘n roll band. Instead, they found their niche first with a series of club records, then pop hits.

I wrestled with whether to include pop the stuff but ended up working in everything, from cult classics to megahits. There’s a run of songs in the first mix that I never, ever need to hear again but that at the same time I really wish I could hear for the first time again. As burnt out as I am on “Le Freak”, “We Are Family”, “He’s the Greatest Dancer”, “I’m Coming Out” and “Upside Down”, I know that they’re amazing pieces of music—they floored me when I first heard them as a kid.

Although Rodgers and Edwards each have some fairly impressive solo recordings and productions, I limited the mix to their collaborations except for Rodgers’s “Telephone”, which I needed to hear next to “Why”. I also included Dimitri from Paris’s remix of “I Want Your Love” from the new Chic Organization box set; remixing Chic is not a productive use of anyone’s time but I like what he did with it, in particular his nod to Moodymann’s “I Can’t Kick This Feelin When It Hits”.

(For what it’s worth, the box set is a mixed bag. It’s great that it includes Chic productions and 12” mixes but there’s also a lot of fluff and the liner notes are way too skimpy. The best reasons to pick it up are that everything is mastered really well and it includes three songs from Chic’s legendarily scrapped album with Johnny Mathis, which are surprisingly great.[2])

The first mix features the hits and is more danceable. The second mix is focused more on oddities, album cuts and ballads. The second is a little closer to my heart but I love the music on both. Here are the track listings for each. Enjoy.

Pt. 1
1. Chic - Chic Cheer
2. Chic - Good Times
3. Norma Jean - High Society
4. Sister Sledge - You Fooled Around
5. Chic - Soup For One
6. Chic - I Want Your Love (Dimitri From Paris Remix)
7. Chic - Everybody Dance
8. Chic - Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)
9. Chic - Le Freak
10. Sister Sledge - We Are Family
11. Sister Sledge - He's the Greatest Dancer
12. Diana Ross - I'm Coming Out (Original Chic Mix)
13. Diana Ross - Upside Down (Original Chic Mix)
14. Chic - Stage Fright
15. Chic - Happy Man
16. Fonzi Thornton - I Work For a Living
17. Sheila & B. Devotion - Your Love Is Good
18. Chic - My Forbidden Lover
19. Norma Jean - Sorcerer
20. Chic - Strike Up the Band

Pt. 2
1. Sister Sledge - Thinking of You
2. Chic - Real People
3. Chic - What About Me
4. Sister Sledge - Reach Your Peak
5. Diana Ross - Telephone
6. Carly Simon - Why
7. Chic - Just Out of Reach
8. Chic - You Can't Do It Alone
9. Johnny Mathis - I Want to Fall In Love
10. Chic - I Loved You More
11. Chic - A Warm Summer Night
12. Chic - At Last I Am Free

[1] Which is not to say it was never copied really well.
[2] No more Johnny Blaze, Johnny Mathis.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - Ninety-Now: East Coast Indies Pt. 4

2010-11-17T13:46:00.000-08:00

More stress, more maintaining, more izm, more ruggedness, more boom bap -- in other words, more east coast indie raps from the 1990s. Mostly NYC, with side trips to Virginia, Illinois and Montreal.

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1. Company Flow - Vital Nerve feat. BMS
2. Hi-Tech - 24-7
3. Da' Mad Scientist - Never Fear
4. DITC - Day One
5. Heltah Skeltah - Operation Lockdown
6. Showbiz & A.G. - Spit
7. Obscure Disorder - Entree
8. Common - Car Horn
9. Mark the 45 King feat. Latee - Brainstorm
10. Akinyele - In the World
11. Natural Resources - I Love This World
12. Lace Da Booms - Cut That Weak Shit feat. Kwaze Modoe & Royal Flush (Remix)
13. Royal Flush - Rotten Apple
14. Ill Biskits - God Bless Your Life
15. Group Home - East NY Theory feat. Brainsick Mob
16. Finsta Bundy - Don't Stress Tomorrow
17. Black Star - Another World [Joc Max RMX]

Separated at birth

2010-11-15T09:14:00.000-08:00

Smoked Sugar: "I'm a Winner" (20th Century, 1975)

One World: "Victor" (EMI Nigeria, 197?)

2 Busy Saying Yeah - Ninety-Now: East Coast Indies Pt. 3

2010-11-02T11:02:00.000-07:00

This is the third in a series of mixes devoted to indie rap records from the 1990s that have aged well. For the moment, the scope is limited to east coast releases-- this time out, mostly NYC with cameos from NJ, Philly and Boston.

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1. Street Smartz - Metal Thangz RMX feat. O.C. & Pharoahe Monch
2. Money Boss Players - Walk With a Limp
3. E. Bros - A Toast
4. Black Attack - Correct Techniques
5. 36 Zero - Maintain
6. God Sunz - Sub Sidewalkers
7. DSA - Dark Skinned Assassin - Lock Shit Down
8. Half-A-Mill - Another Homicide Scene
9. Scientifik - I Got Plans feat. Diamond D
10. Tragedy - L.A., L.A. (Kuwait Mix) feat. Mobb Deep & Capone -N- Noreaga
11. Ba$h Ton - More Cheese
12. Artifacts - Brick City Kids
13. Mr. Voodoo - Lyrical Tactics
14. Thrust - Emcee
15. L-Fudge - What If feat. Mike Zoot, Talib Kweli, Skam & Shabaam Sahdeeq
16. Jigmastas - Iz You Dee [Joc Max RMX]
17. Sonic Sum - Downtown Maze
18. Network Reps - Simplistic feat. Tru Persona
19. The Mountain Brothers - Paperchase

If you missed the first two volumes, they're here and here. I'm thinking the east coast portion of the series might run to 5-6 hour-long episodes, but I'll stop when I get bored or it starts to suck.

Giant fever

2010-10-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

I posted this last year but it seemed like time to bring it back.

The Paid Attendance: "Be a Believer in Giant Fever" (Homerun 500, 1978)

Can I borrow a dollar? Ooh you're a star now!

2010-10-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

Next Wednesday I'm playing records at the Aloe Blacc show at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco. (Tickets here.)

Aloe Blacc is the L.A. singer and rapper who has a hit with the recession anthem "I Need a Dollar", which is the theme song to HBO's How to Make It in America and seems to crop up lots of other places. While I'm a little more partial to the less retro stuff he was doing a few years ago (like his work with Exile and this, which he did with the homie DJ Day), I'm happy to see the dude doing well. Also, I am always a fan of recession music.

Here's a great recession-themed single that's mostly escaped notice from funk collectors. I was turned on to it a couple of years ago by Mr. Finewine, who played it in a set I caught at his Botanica weekly.

Johnny "Guitar" Watson: "There's a Recession Going On" (Vulture, 1972)

This single was recorded during what seem like Johnny "Guitar" Watson's lost years. Watson had been a star on the rhythm & blues circuit since the 1950s, but his recording career hit a lull after his 1967 collaboration with Larry Williams-- between 1967 and his 1973 resurgence on Fantasy, the only other release I know of from Watson is a 1968 Fats Waller tribute album.

Gabriel Mekler's Vulture label was very short-lived and while it seems they had a minor hit with Frederick II a/k/a Nolan Porter's "Groovin' Out on Life", I don't think they did much with Watson's single. Ironically, I don't think there actually was a recession going on at the time this single was released-- it was around the time of Nixon's wage and price controls but a couple years before OPEC price shocks ended the U.S. post-war economic boom.

Don't take my shadow

2010-10-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

For a while I've been meaning to put in a plug for the radio shows DJ Shadow has sporadically been posting over at his website.

Thus far they've been an eclectic bunch, including sets devoted to things like new heavy metal and goofy private press records about life on the job. My favorites have been the loner psych selection from Dante Carfagna (what it sounds like) and the brand new sweet soul set from Chicago soul guru Bob Abrahamian (so many scratchy lo-fi wonders). Shadow himself has also contributed a couple I've enjoyed, like his Korean psych/soul/funk set (funky, fuzzy Xmas classics and covers for days) and one of his collections of things he was listening to recently (as eclectic and good as you'd hope).

Each is about an hour long, has no track listing and unfortunately is not downloadable, so unless you're using the Shadow app you'll have to stick near a computer. Nonetheless, the ones I mention are worth the hassle and you also ought to check out his new single, "Def Surrounds Us" b/w "I've Been Trying".

2 Busy Saying Yeah - Ninety-Now: East Coast Indies Pt. 2

2010-10-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

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This episode of 2 Busy Saying Yeah is the second in a series of mixes revisiting indie rap records from the 1990s. Like the previous installment, this one is limited to east coast releases (in this case, NY, Philly, NJ, Boston & D.C.) and it's still exclusively indie releases, although this one features some of the bigger and more obvious ones.

There are a bunch more to come after this volume. I haven't decided how long this series will run, but I plan to cut it before the quality starts to dip.

1. Outsidaz : Rain or Shine feat. Axe, Pacewon, Yah Yah & Young Zee
2. Kamakaze : On the Real RMX feat. Nas & Cormega
3. Cage : Agent Orange
4. N.Y. Confidential : Why
5. Black Moon : Reality (Killing Every...)
6. Ed O.G. & Da Bulldogs : Acting
7. Sunz of Man : Intellectuals feat. Raekwon & U-God
8. The High & Mighty : Dirty Decibels feat Pharoahe Monch
9. J-Live : Braggin' Writes
10. Dutchmin : Get Your Swerve On
11. Team Demolition : Dirty Gusto
12. M.F. Doom : Dead Bent
13. Scott Lark Da Sensei : Natural Bliss
14. Shadez of Brooklyn : Change
15. Buckwild : Burn Me Slow feat. O.C.
16. X-Caliber : Le Miserables
17. S.O.P. : Styles
18. Rob O : World Premiere

You should buy these records

2010-10-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

I frequently wrestle with the ethics of posting mp3s for download on this blog, in particular how it affects all of the people who used to have an easier time making a living selling music-- not just artists, but also my friends who run or work at labels or record stores.

I make rules for the blog, like not posting links for things that are commercially available, not posting whole albums, etc. and hope that on balance what I post will spark curiosity and stir more people to support music they love.

On that note, I feel like it's time to introduce a new feature devoted to new releases I recommend buying. I don't really have the chops, time-management skills or inclination to be a music critic, so don't mistake this for that; I'll write about stuff when I feel like it, not necessarily well and not on a deadline. I also am really not interested in shilling for labels, etc., even when I like their music very much. (Several times in the past year, I've been serviced with things that I liked and wanted to put in a good word for but just felt creepy about it; please don't send me CDs.) Instead, it's just me saying, "Hey, support this stuff and hopefully there will be more like it".

Here are two new reissues I recommend to the fullest:

When the Numero Group included a track from Pastor T.L. Barrett's Like a Ship... (Without a Sail) on their recent Good God! Born Again Funk compilation, I was surprised they went with the title track. I mean, "Like a Ship" is pleasant, but to my ear there are few songs in soul, funk or gospel as powerful as "Nobody Knows".

I first heard the song on Nick the Record's Gospel Mix, which I've alluded to more than once and which I still listen to about as often as any mix. "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" is a great composition to begin with-- there's a reason, after all, that standards become standards-- but Barrett's version is amazing.

The arrangement and performances are perfect: the piano chords that drive it, the rhythm section that swings but never distracts, the way the song crests into a "Don't Knock My Love" vamp and most of all the vocals. Barrett's vocal strikes such a perfect balance between suffering and self-possession; he sounds wounded, but not lost. Then there's the interplay between his lone voice and the choir, so monumental, but also so human, so comforting.

Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth For Christ Choir: "Nobody Knows" (Mt. Zion Gospel Productions, 1971)

Light in the Attic has reissued the whole album, together with extras like a 7" and interviews with Pastor Barrett and the Chess sessioners who played on it. If nothing on the album is quite as good as "Nobody Knows", most are great and there's really only one track that doesn't hold up for me.

***

Lô Borges is best known for Clube Da Esquina, the 1972 double album that featured him, Milton Nascimento and other artists from their Minas Gerais music collective. That record yielded this among many gorgeous moments. The same year, Borges released a superb self-titled debut that was recently reissued on vinyl by 4 Men With Beards and CD by Water Music [1].

Borges packs 15 songs into barely 30 minutes and most songs are gone before you want them to be. He covers a lot of ground on the record-- folk, soul, rock, funk, jazz, balladry-- sometimes all within the same song, but not in the zany, kitschy, kitchen-sink way of, say, Os Mutantes. He deploys rich arrangements in support of, rather than in place of, his songs. I was driving around town and fishing for something to compare the album to and weirdly the comparison I kept coming back to was Big Star, which Borges's album resembles in its surprising juxtapositions of prettiness and grit.

Again, the album is very varied so this particular track isn't representative of much, but more than once I've put it on repeat and been mesmerized for long stretches:

Lô Borges: "Toda Essa Agua" (EMI, 1972)

[1] Hey Water Music guys, if you happen to read this: you never paid me for those liner notes I wrote for you a long-ass time ago. I'm not gonna hold my breath but it would be really cool if you did. OK, thanks.

And the beat goes on and on and on

2010-10-18T19:18:00.001-07:00

Saturday I happened to rip three covers of Sonny & Cher's "And the Beat Goes On" and then, THE VERY NEXT DAY, Mad Men closes out a season with their "I Got You Babe".

This is too much of a coincidence to let pass. This is exactly the sort of deeply irrelevant coincidence this blog exists to document.

I think I first heard both songs in the 1980s while watching a syndicated episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in which the two made cameos. Back then, even before Bono was a Republican congressman representing Orange County and well before Cher was patient zero of the auto-tune epidemic, I knew that Sonny & Cher were deeply uncool. Still, I couldn't resist "And the Beat Goes On" for its loping, jazzy bassline and wildly casual scatted chorus.

Los Yorsy's: "El Ballet Hippie"(Musart, 196?)

I'm not sure what I like more about this version, the Spanish title or that the lyrics remain in English but are still mostly incomprehensible. This version sounds uncannily like Willis Jackson's version of "Jive Samba", which is not easily linkable but which also sounds uncannily like Jackson's "Nuther'n Like Thuther'n", which is.

Rocky Roberts & the Airedales: "The Beat Goes On" (Durium, 1967)

Rocky Roberts & the Airedales was a group of African-Americans who recorded in Italy, mostly as Wess & the Airedales. This is taken from their Sabato Sera, which features a mix of originals and covers in Italian and English. Among the other covers are good versions of "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" and "Hey Joe" (not that there is a bad version of the latter).

Kenny Smith: "And the Beat Goes On" (Music Minus One, 196?)

Kenny Smith was a bassist who recorded with Horace Silver among others. He cut two two-record instructional sets for the Music Minus One label, The Beat Goes On and For Bassists Only. Both feature Smith leading small groups through solid versions of current jazz and rock fare like Silver's "Song for My Father" and "Psychedelic Sally", Mongo Santamaria's "Para Ti" and Mel Tormé's "Comin' Home Baby" (not that there is a bad version of the latter). Smith's take on "And the Beat Goes On" features vocals from a very young Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Animated, like a cartoon

2010-10-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

In 1970, CBS and Hanna-Barbera made an animated Harlem Globetrotters TV series. The show paired cartoon versions of Meadowlark Lemon, Curly, Geese and the other Globetrotters with a bus-driving granny and Dribbles, their dog mascot.

A wikipedia entry describes the show's premise as this: each week the team would "travel somewhere and typically got involved in a local conflict that leads to one of the characters proposing a basketball game to settle the issue. To ensure the Globetrotters' defeat, the villains rig the contest to ensure that their opponents lose. However before the second half of the contest, the team always finds a way to even the odds, become all but invincible, and win the game."

The show also generated a soundtrack album which has an amazing fold-out cover but is otherwise very missable except for this:

The Globetrotters: "House Party" (Kirshner, 1970)

I've got a mile-wide soft spot for this kind of studied goofiness and the house party theme is a nice kicker. The song was co-written by J.R. Bailey (who made this! and this!) and the team that Bailey wrote this classic with. Apparently none of the Globetrotters was involved except for Meadowlark Lemon, who had enough of a jones for music that he eventually got a solo deal with Casablanca late in the decade.

Speaking of Casablanca, I recently read Larry Harris's And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records. Harris is someone who broke into the music industry doing radio promotions for Buddah, which was then run by his cousin, Neil Bogart. When Bogart left to found Casablanca, Harris joined him as a founder and, eventually, executive vice president. The book contains some great anecdotes about seventies record label decadence as well as some unintentional hilarity (crediting Bogart with "damn near single-handedly creating disco", rationalizing some truly awful signings), but its greatest strength is probably its description of the nuts and bolts of breaking records and acts in that era. Worth a read.

Rodger Clayton, R.I.P.

2010-10-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend the DJ and party promoter Rodger Clayton passed away. Clayton was the general of Uncle Jam's Army, a crew that defined the sound of Los Angeles rap music before N.W.A. and at its early 1980s peak regularly packed Los Angeles venues like the Convention Center and the Sports Arena.

Clayton began DJing house parties as a teenager in South Central L.A. In 1978 he hooked up with partner Gid Martin and began throwing parties at community halls. Taking the name "Uncle Jam's Army", Clayton and Martin built a huge following for a series of events that cycled through venues across L.A., drawing thousands. Within a few years they were the dominant DJ crew in L.A., with a roster that included future legends like Egyptian Lover, Bobcat, Joe Cooley & DJ Pooh.

When the crew made the leap to wax in 1984, it scored huge regional hits that solidified the emerging sound of L.A. rap: fast, electronic bass music that was heavily inspired by Afrika Bambaataa & the Soul Sonic Force but which leavened Bam's afro-futurism with liberal doses of freaky California hedonism.

Clayton and his crew cut three singles under the Uncle Jamm's Army name (the extra "m" was likely to dissuade legal action from Funkadelic). The first and best of these is "Dial-A-Freak":

Uncle Jamms Army: "Dial-A-Freak" (Freak Beat, 1994)

The song is credited to Clayton, billed as Mr. Prinze, and Greg Broussard a/k/a Egyptian Lover and truth be told it sounds more like the Egyptian Lover records of the time than either of the other singles by Uncle Jamms Army. Regardless, it's a near-perfect distillation of influences like Sexual Harrassment's "I Need a Freak", Grandmaster Flash's "Scorpio", Midnight Star's "Freak-A-Zoid" and Hashim's "Al-Naafiysh".

Although Toddy Tee and Ice-T scored some hits with a more street-oriented style, this remained the dominant sound of L.A. rap until at least 1987, when Eazy E's "Boyz-N-the-Hood" changed the landscape.

Even after Uncle Jams-style electro rap faded from popularity, Clayton's influence was felt through the hits and classics produced by his protégés, like LL Cool J's "I'm Bad" and "I Need Love", Rodney O & Joe Cooley's "Everlasting Bass", Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day", King Tee's "Played Like a Piano", etc.

Clayton and crew also probably deserve some credit for L.A. having the first all-rap radio station in America, KDAY, starting in 1985. The sheer size and visibility of the audience Uncle Jam's Army built must have been instrumental in convincing somebody that the format could be commercially viable.

West Coast Pioneers has a reprint of a cool 1983 LA Times article about Clayton and Uncle Jamm's Army. There were also tantalizing links for audio interviews with Clayton and with Dwayne Simon of the L.A. Posse here, but I couldn't get them to work.

2 Busy Saying Yeah - Ninety-Now: East Coast Indie Raps Pt. 1

2010-10-11T16:33:00.000-07:00

Back in August I read about Fat Beats closing its last retail stores.

I hadn't shopped at Fat Beats in almost 10 years and not just because it meant dodging Percee P. Still, when I read it was closing I started to feel some nostalgia for the era and style of records the store was built on. Over the past month or so I've been pulling together a lot of these records for a series of mixes/radio shows devoted to the best of these.

For most of the 1990s, I followed east coast rap about as closely as any not-yet-internet-savvy person living in Cali could. I listened to every record I could find, read everything that I could and prized any dub of radio shows by Stretch & Bobbito, Mayhem, Riz, Eclipse, etc. that came my way. During that era, I made it to New York about once a year and would spend every free minute combing stores that might have rap records I couldn't get in the Bay, like Bobbito's Footwork, Rock & Soul, Beat Street in Brooklyn, etc.

Eclipse at the NYC Fat Beats store

Once Fat Beats opened, it was easily the best of them. The store changed the landscape for rap music in New York, creating not just an outlet but also a focal point for a certain style of underground rap. Or maybe several styles of underground rap, since the scene seemed to embrace a range of non-commercial NYC-centric styles, from arty downtown rappers to outer-borough knockoffs of Nas & the Wu-Tang Clan.

I'm still figuring out the parameters of this series, but I've got some basic rules for what records are going in to the mixes:

1. No major label releases. This is a little squishy but I've excluded subsidiaries and labels that had major-label distribution (e.g., Loud, Tommy Boy, Payday, Wild Pitch, etc.). Thus far I've also excluded some of the larger indies, like Relativity and Priority, which were kind of in a different league as far as resources, promotion and distribution went (and which ended up major-label subsidiaries anyway). I'm on the fence, but may include some indies that got picked up for re-release.

2. Only one release per artist.

3. Nothing released after 1999. This is a very arbitrary cut-off, but it's kinda around when I lost interest in east coast indies. I feel like they got very stagnant and insular around that time, two qualities that don't usually make for great music.

4. (For the moment) No records from the west coast. There's no shortage of great east coast-style indie rap records from the west coast, but I feel like that scene deserves its own mix/show. As far as I know, other parts of the country didn't produce nearly as many, so I feel okay about grouping east coast-style indies from Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City or Ohio in with those from NYC, NJ, Philly and Boston. Canadian indies were a tougher call but there aren't quite enough ones I like to do an all-Canada mix, though I really did consider it.

Anyhow, here's the first installment. More to come soon.

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1. BBO Enterprises : Dayz Lik This
2. Boostin’ Kev : That Be Boostin’
3. Mixed Elements : Divine Styles
4. 2 Face : Hey Hey Hey
5. Basement Khemists : Petrified
6. Mr. Complex : Why Don't ‘Cha feat. Pharaohe Monch
7. Scienz of Life : Powers of Nine Ether (Distorted Views of Life)
8. Mood Swingaz : The Blessin’ (Boom Bodya Da)
9. Q Ball & Curt Cazal : My Kinda Move
10. Dynasty : Wildcat
11. Al Tariq : Spectacular
12. Mike Zoot : Service
13. Us : N****z
14. Screwball : F.A.Y.B.A.N.
15. Rahsheed : 1.9.8.6. feat. Ill Advised & Pauly Yams
16. Smoothe Da Hustler & Trigger Tha Gambler : Smith Brothers
17. N.O.T.S. Click : In This Game
18. Lord Digga : My Flows Is Tight
19. Maestro Fresh Wes : Fine Tune Da Mic feat. Showbiz
20. Bumpy Knuckles : A Part of My Life
21. Meaner : Real Rap Song
22. Mic Geronimo : Men v. Many feat. O.C. & Royal Flush

A-Alike, be alike, see alike

2010-10-06T23:55:00.000-07:00

I've been gearing up to do a series of radio shows/mixes devoted to east coast indie rap records from the mid-to-late 1990s. Being the obsessive I am, that's meant dozens of hours combing through old playlists, youtube videos and boxes in storage for records I'd forgotten about and then hours and hours more recording old 12"s.

There have been some nice moments of rediscovery, but also plenty of things I'm shocked that I once liked enough to have kept all these years.

Here's a record that for whatever reason never left my head-- some portion of the music box sample and chorus rings in my head about once a week.

A-Alikes: "Walk With a Bop" (Bomb, 1998)

2 Busy Saying Yeah - "Live" at Sweaterfunk

2010-10-05T11:40:00.000-07:00

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The other night I guested at Sweaterfunk, the boogie party at SF's spectacularly unpretentious Li Po Lounge.

Each Sunday night for the past two years, Jon Blunck and 12 other disciples have lugged their sound system down into Li Po's basement to play boogie, modern soul and two-step records. They only play original vinyl, much of it rare, which sounds snobby and esoteric but their enthusiasm is disarming. And contagious-- they've built a big following and attracted guests like Dam Funk, U-Tern, Daz-I-Kue and Kon & Amir, all of whom have dropped sets simply for the love of playing great music on a great system at a great party.

I'd been wanting to check it out for a long time because I've known a couple of the main DJs since forever and my homie Eddy Bauer always raves about the party. Unfortunately I always reserve Sunday nights for my lady so I'd never actually gotten to go to the party before. After meeting most of the rest of the Sweaterfunk crew back in August at Eddy Bauer's party and getting a really warm reception from them, I was geeked to play their party.

A couple of people asked me to record my set and I brought a recorder but, like a dumb-ass, I forgot the line-in cord from the mixer so I ended up with a recording of muffled tunes augmented by record nerd conversation. Fortunately I kept the records I played in order so later when I went home I was able to record myself playing the records how I played them at the party. It's all the way live and part of the way sloppy-- Jon was very generous in plying me with Tsing Tao and shots of some Chinese liquor that tasted like Fernet would taste if Fernet was made out of pork armpits rather than roots and herbs.

I played lots of favorites but not too many rarities. Because my interest in the boogie era really only took off after I mostly stopped buying records, my crates are nowhere near as deep as those of, say, Disco Tom Noble, who played right after I did. (Hooo-boy does he have some great records; you can buy some of his excellent reissues here or old records here.) I included a couple things on the Solar Records label in honor of Dick Griffey, who passed away last week. Here are the songs:

1. Cameo : Please You
2. The Jimmy Castor Bunch : Space Age
3. Jesse James : Love Vibes
4. Sabata : Man for My Lady
5. Tony Cook & the Party People : On the Floor (Rock-It)
6. The Limit : She's So Divine
7. Dynasty : Check It Out
8. Vin Zee : Funky Bebop
9. Ellis Hall, Jr. : Back It Up (Try It Again)
10. Starshine : All I Need Is You
11. One on One : Body Music
12. Bernard Wright : Master Rocker
13. Dayton : The Sound of Music
14. APB - All Points Bulletin : Rock Your Spirit
15. The Escorts : Make Me Over
16. Soul Mind & Body : I Took Your Love (To Be True)
17. Shalamar : There It Is
18. Oliver Cheatham : Just to Be With You
19. The Gap Band : I Owe It to Myself
20. Aurra : Like I Like It (Timmy Regisford remix)
21. Mtume : Hips

Summer memory

2010-09-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

Summer officially ended today.

In honor of the season, I recently contributed to O-Dub's summer songs series over at Soul-sides. The record I chose is a favorite and I put a lot more effort into it than I usually do with stuff I post here, so basically I'm saying you should go over there and check it out. While there be sure to check out other entries in the series from the likes of Cosmo Baker, DJ Day, JBX and more.

Here's a song that seems end-of-Summer appropriate:

Freedom: "Summer Memory" (Malaco, 1979)

I was listening to the Freedom album this comes from earlier and it sounded way better than I remembered. "Get Up and Dance" doesn't hit nearly as hard as on the 12", but the rest of the album is a nice mix of two-step soul and funky sunshine-y disco with only one dud in the bunch.

Live at the BBQ

2010-08-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

Next Saturday I'm playing a one-off party that should be really fun. It's a day-time, outdoor, all-vinyl affair at the Missouri Lounge in Berkeley.

I've never DJed at the Missouri before but I have enjoyed its unpretentious atmosphere and cheap drinks. This time out there will be free BBQ (fingers crossed, hoping for Phat Matt's) and the patio will be in effect, which is key to tapping the kind of outdoor summer thing we're going for. Oh, and it's free.

(EDIT: there will not be free BBQ. There will be BBQ but it will not be free, nor will it be from Phat Matt's, which you really ought to go to anyway because all other barbecue in Oakland is basically dried-out, gristly meat drowned in sauce. I haven't had the BBQ at Missouri Lounge, so I can't really offer an opinion either way except to say that you really should be eating at Phat Matt's if you have the opportunity because usually when I go in there they are way less busy than they ought to be and I worry that they'll go under and then I'll be left with nowhere to eat BBQ and maybe have to drive all the way out to the peninsula to try that place Serg says is good.)

There's a pretty cool flyer by Aebl Dee:

I wish he hadn't cropped the image of me such that I look like a hunchback, but I probably share some of the blame since I provided a crappy photo. Partygoers who attend the event will have the opportunity to see me demonstrate repeatedly and emphatically that I am not, in fact, a hunchback. (No offense, hunchbacked readers.)

The party was put together by my friend DJ Eddy Bauer, who I met towards the end of my time at KALX. He impressed me right off with his curiosity and excellent taste, and I soon learned that he's also remarkably nice. For a while, he was doing the favor of warming things up at Kitty's prior to my Hubba Rock party, but then he left to do a bunch of Friday parties at Oakland/Berkeley venues like the Missouri Lounge, Mua and Geisha. He also has a spiffy blog.

In addition to me and Eddy Bauer, the DJs include E Da Boss, who is maybe best-known as one half of the Timmion Records retro-soul duo Myron & E but is also a strong DJ and producer in his own right. The line-up is rounded out by a trio of specialist crews: boogie folks from the Sweater Funk party, Latin record fanatics from Club Unicornio and people from the hopefully self-explanatory Vintage Reggae Society.

I'm not 100% sure what sort of records I'll bring to play, although I think I might take the opportunity to go buckwild with some ancient disco raps. As annoying as I find the concept of all-vinyl parties, I do like the way they limit you to what you've carried with you-- if I only bring records I'm excited about, I'm only going to play records I'm excited about.

Here's one:

The Jimmy Castor Bunch: "Space Age" (12" version) (Atlantic, 1976)

"Space Age" has been a crate staple for me for a few years but I only recently snared the 12" version, which is longer. I've been tempted to mess with the file to adjust its wandering tempo but it's kind of perfect as it is.

True love waits

2010-08-20T19:05:00.001-07:00

I was listening through a stack of 45s that had been exiled to my closet for several years when I discovered this:

Tony Troutman: "I Truly Love You" (Gramophon, 197?)

Tony Troutman is a singer and songwriter who recorded for a number of Atlanta labels in the 1970s and 1980s. Contrary to what I've read in a few places, I don't think he had anything to do with Roger Troutman's funk outfit, Zapp, although he did cut a collectible modern soul record.

This track is straight-ahead soul and subtle, to boot-- I can see how its charm would elude a casual listen. After a bunch more listens I was hypnotized by its intimacy and warmth. It would sound really good alongside Eunice Collins's "At the Hotel", Sweet & Innocent's "Express Your Love" or a half-dozen Bobby Womack classics.

I apologize for the crappy quality of the vinyl rip. My copy of the 45 is actually pretty clean but the pressing is awful.

Smoking O.P.'s

2010-08-19T22:19:00.001-07:00

I don't normally listen to other people's mixes much but lately I've been on a tear. Blame procrastination, curiosity and yardwork. I've heard some really good stuff in the process.

My friend DJ Anonymous just relaunched his excellent DJ's Delight blog with a redesign and a new mix, the fifth installment of his Disco (formerly "Disco to Get Drunk to") series. The set is very eclectic-- frosty Brit-funk rubs up against Salsoul oddities, cuts from people you wouldn't expect to see in the disco (hey, Carly Simon! Dave Grusin!) and excellent UK-only obscurities from ESG and Prince-- but it's beautifully mixed and flows nicely. Stream or download here.

Vancouver producer/DJ U-Tern's Summer '10 is an excellent and eclectic mix of things that shouldn't work together but do-- The-Dream, albino rock, Serge Gainsbourg, disco and house-- particularly the way U-Tern ties them together with summer-y sound effect washes and artful mixing. Stream here, download here.

I'm at best a casual listener to dance rock but I really enjoyed DJ Steve1der's An Introduction to the Twelves. I'd been curious about the Brazilian production duo since hearing their remix of the Black Kids' "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You" a couple years back. Since then, I tend to check for everything they remix but this still contains a lot of things that slipped by me. And it jams. Stream or download here.

I feel like I'm constantly recommending episodes of Chairman Mao's monthly Spine podcast, but I seem to mainly do it just before or after they disappear from Spine's website. His latest installment features the homie Dave Tompkins, who went uptown to Mao's house to play and talk about an hour of vocoder oddities that don't appear in the his Monk One-assisted vocoder mega-mix that I mentioned a few months ago. Mao handles the mixing; Dave deciphers and reciphers the mix here. Stream or download (while it's still available) here.

My friend O-Dub recently prepared a secular music-inspired gospel set for Aquarium Drunkard. It's not really a mix so much as a compilation, but his selections are great and incorporate a lot of funk and deep soul. Many of the songs had previously been featured on Soul-Sides over the past few months but are no longer available there, so you've got a second chance. Download here.

BBE is about to release a new compilation/mix from DJ Spinna that's a sequel to his endlessly smooth 2001 set, Strange Games and Things. On first listen, this one's a little choppier-- there are some great selections if not quite the same end-to-end groove. Still, I admire Spinna's ear for slightly below-the-radar gems and underplayed classics. Stream here.

People mourning Fat Beats should also check out Spinna's recent Underground Forever mix, which is an excellent survey of the kind of NYC 90s indie hip hop releases the Fat Beats store and distribution network were built on.

I might be late in noticing, but DJ Spinna also has a podcast. I grabbed a bunch of shows and all were good but I was especially glad for his Marvin Gaye mix, which put me on to a different version of one of my favorites:

Marvin Gaye: "Time to Get It Together" (Alternate version) (Motown, 1978/2007)

This version is from the 2007 double-disc reissue of Here, My Dear. It's rougher, looser and way longer but it grooves like crazy and it's cool to hear elements that got abandoned in the final version (which, come to think of it, is kind of sloppy and murky in its own right).

The chorus has to be about the most gangster lyric of its era: "blowing coke all up my nose/getting in and out my clothes/fooling 'round with midnight hoes/but that chapter of my life's closed." It was basically made to be remade by Three 6 Mafia, or at least their protégé Kingpin Skinny Pimp:

Kingpin Skinny Pimp: "Midnight Hoes" (Prophet Entertainment, 1996)

I kind of wish DJ Paul & Juicy J had taken more than the chorus but their track is pretty nice in its own right.

The return of DST

2010-08-06T21:21:00.000-07:00

I was over at the Spine Magazine site grabbing Chairman Mao's new boogie-funk podcast (you should, too!) and saw that there's a new song from De La Soul:

De La Soul: "The Return of DST" (?, 2010)

De La Soul has always excelled at the respectful nod to rap music's past and here they revive one of the illest old school rap routines , Grandmixer DST's synthesizer routine from the 1982 First Annual Black History Jam at Bronx River Center:

Grandmixer DST & the Infinity Rappers: Live at Bronx River Center, 1982 (Music of Life, 1992)

For 9 minutes, DST plays a vicious interpolation of the Exorcist theme-- probably the evilest synth part this side of Doug E. Fresh's "Phantasm" rip-- and riffs on some other songs (Gwen McCrae's "Funky Sensation", Junior's "Mama Used to Say", the theme from Close Encounters, etc.) while the Infinity Rappers hype the crowd and do some chants (King Floyd's "Feel Like Dynamite", what!).

DST also recorded a studio version of this for Celluloid, "The Grandmixer Cuts It Up". The distance between the live version and that is roughly the same as the gap between the live version of "Flash to the Beat" and the defanged studio take that Sugarhill released later. Still, I'm glad there's video of that version:

Grandmixer DST & the Infinity Rappers: "The Grandmixer Cuts It Up" (Celluloid, 1982)

Back to De La Soul for a second, they did a song last year for a video game, which is usually where rappers relegate material that's too uninspired even to serve as filler on their shitty commercial albums. Evidently not understanding this practice, De La made a really good song instead.

Waterfalls

2010-08-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

This is one of the more obscure tracks in the Mizell Brothers mix I posted yesterday:

Margie Evans: "Waterfalls" (Buddah, 1974)

Margie Evans is a Los Angeles-based singer who was part of Johnny Otis's revue for many years. Her clavinet-heavy "Good Feeling" is a minor personal favorite.

Anyone want to take a crack at deciphering the lyric? I have no talent for Pig Latin.

2 Busy Saying Yeah 21 - The Mizell Brothers

2010-08-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

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Fonce & Larry Mizell are two of my favorite producers ever ever.

In fact, they almost transcend the category because on their signature records they contribute in so many ways -- songwriting, arranging, playing and singing -- that they elide the distinction between producer and artist.

However you want to characterize their role, they made music that's wonderful, completely original and instantly identifiable. Although they produced only two major pop hits, A Taste of Honey's "Boogie Oogie Oogie" and LTD's "Love Ballad", they crafted some of the most successful jazz albums of the 1970s and a body of work that continues to inspire producers in just about every stream of rap, soul and electronic music.

The two began began playing music in their teens, both as trumpeters and singers. After college, Larry got a job in aerospace, while Fonce went to L.A. to make it as a songwriter. He and college friend Freddie Perren landed jobs as staff songwriters at Motown and, working with Deke Richards and Berry Gordy as the Corporation, quickly scored a series of massive hits for the Jackson 5 ("ABC", "I Want You Back", "The Love You Save"). Larry finished a master's degree and moved west to join Fonce, finding work as a session keyboard player.

Fonce's first production after leaving Motown, Donald Byrd's 1973 LP Black Byrd, was a huge hit by jazz standards and became the blueprint for a run of albums the brothers produced for Byrd, Bobbi Humphrey, Johnny Hammond, Gary Bartz and others. All combine electric instrumentation, spacey synths and skittering rhythms with lush, tricky arrangements of soaring horns and the Mizell Brothers' harmony vocals, frequently augmented by strings, sound effects and ghostly whistling. Although like many of their jazz contemporaries, they drew on rock, soul and funk the Mizells took the influence in a different direction, lightening the rhythmic pulse, softening the edges and adding many layer upon layer of harmony and counterpoint. Remarkably, as rich as the arrangements are, they never sound stiff or fussy.

I got inspired to do this mix a few months ago when I heard DJ Platurn close out the radio show that precedes mine on All Day Play with a Bobbi Humphrey song; I think it was "Chicago Damn". There were a couple of guys in the room who make beats pretty seriously and they started flipping out over the record, talking about how easy it would be to turn it into a beat, etc. I was shocked that they weren't familiar with the record or with the Mizell Brothers generally and it got me thinking about how little known the Mizell Brothers are even though their influence is so pervasive. I thought it would be cool to make a mix that highlights some of their greatest songs.

I wrestled a little bit with what fell within the scope of the mix because it's not always clear what is or isn't a Mizell Brothers record. For example, on the soundtrack to Hell Up In Harlem, Fonce and Freddie Perren are credited as producers and writers, while Larry is only credited with playing synthesizer. "Airport Chase", from that album, ended up in the mix because it sounds like a Mizell Brothers track. Similarly, their outings with Bobbi Humphrey credit Larry Mizell and Chuck Davis as producers, rather than Fonce and Larry, but Fonce was prominently featured and the music sounds like the Mizells. (Total digression: does anybody know the story on Chuck Davis? The only non Mizell-related thing he did that I know of was that kinda great crossover 7" by Beloyd.) Other things were easier calls, like the Jackson 5 hits-- great as they are, they didn't involve Larry at all, so they were clearly out.

I tried to include songs from every major project they did but things kinda clumped up around my favorites. Without realizing it, I included all six tracks from Johnny Hammond's Gears LP and not one from Roger Glenn's Reachin. (Total digression #2: if you know me in the real world, ask me to tell you my Roger Glenn story sometime.) I probably should have included more from the Blackbyrds' first album, too. If I were to recommend five records produced by the Mizell Brothers, they'd be: Donald Byrd's Places and Spaces and Street Lady, Johnny Hammond's Gears, and Bobbi Humphrey's Blacks and Blues and Fancy Dancer.

The Mizells' music doesn't really lend itself to DJing-- the tempos fluctuate a lot, the arrangements are dense and the songs tend to be really long-- but I did my best with it. I tried to let some of my favorites breathe, while still trying to make room for as many songs as I could. The mixing isn't airtight but is pretty good considering I did it live or at least sort of live; early in June, I recorded a live version for All Day Play in which I played and talked about the songs. In this version, I took the original mix and replaced the talking portions with music and, in some cases, additional songs. (If you want to hear the talky version, it's here.)

1. Johnny Hammond - Tell Me What to Do
2. Donald Byrd - You and Music
3. L.T.D. - Love to the World
4. Margie Evans - Waterfalls
5. Donald Byrd - Lansana's Priestess
6. Johnny Hammond - Conquistadores Chocolatés
7. Gary Bartz - Music Is My Sanctuary
8. Johnny Hammond - Star Borne
9. Johnny Hammond - Fantasy
10. A Taste of Honey - World Spin
11. The Blackbyrds - Reggins
12. Rance Allen Group - Reason to Survive
13. Donald Byrd - Wind Parade
14. Bobbi Humphrey - New York Times
15. Bobbi Humphrey - Uno Esta
16. Bobbi Humphrey – Jasper Country Man
17. Donald Byrd – Change (Makes You Want to Hustle)
18. Johnny Hammond - Shifting Gears
19. Donald Byrd - (Fallin' Like) Dominoes
20. A Taste of Honey - Do It Good
21. Donald Byrd - Think Twice [Mizell Brothers 2005 Remix]
22. Gary Bartz - Gentle Smiles (Saxy) [DJ Day edit]
23. Donald Byrd - Places and Spaces
24. Bobbi Humphrey - Harlem River Drive
25. Marvin Gaye - Where Are We Going?
26. Bobbi Humphrey - Blacks and Blues
27. Johnny Hammond – Can’t We Smile
28. L.T.D. - Love Ballad
29. Donald Byrd - Stepping Into Tomorrow
30. Donald Byrd - Miss Kane
31. Brenda Lee Eager - When I'm With You
32. Bobbi Humphrey - Please Set Me at Ease
33. Bobbi Humphrey – My Little Girl
34. Donald Byrd - Slop Jar Blues
35. Donald Byrd - Black Byrd
36. Edwin Starr - Airport Chase
37. Bobbi Humphrey - Mestizo Eyes
38. Bobbi Humphrey - Fancy Dancer
39. Johnny Hammond – Lost on 23rd St.
40. Donald Byrd - Rock and Roll Again

Finally, I want to send a big shout to my friend Cosmo Baker, who has been talking about doing a Mizell Brothers mix for years and who I had to check with before I did this. Cosmo is a fantastic DJ and if he gets around to it, I'm sure his mix will be better than mine (especially since he has a secret weapon). Let's hope he does.

In the meantime, you might want to check out his latest mix, which is the penultimate installment in the Rub's mighty history of hip hop series. You can grab all 30 (!) of them here.

Al Goodman, R.I.P.

2010-08-02T15:16:00.001-07:00

The soul singer Al Goodman passed away last week. For decades he was a member of the Moments, a trio renamed Ray, Goodman & Brown after it left Sylvia Robinson's grip. Goodman sang bass and was involved in writing, producing and arranging many of their hits.

The Moments are best known for classic sweet soul ballads like "Love On a Two-Way Street", but I've always had a fondness for their more groove-oriented songs and in particular the tracks they recorded in the style of their 1973 hit "Sexy Mama":

The Moments: "Sexy Mama" (Stang, 1973)

(Hint for vinyl buyers: the version of "Sexy Mama" on The Best of the Moments is much longer and better than the original LP version.)

After the success of that tune, the Moments cut a bunch of songs patterned on it: gently swaying mid-tempo tracks made up of little more than a sinuous bass line and the light tock of a primitive drum machine. Although none of them was a hit, all of the tracks got multiple releases, in some cases years apart. It makes sense-- although they all sound very similar to each other, none sounds much like anything else, so to this day they don't sound dated.

The Moments: "Ride Your Pony Girl" (Stang, 1974)

In Europe, this appeared on the Those Sexy Moments album. In the US, it came out as a single credited to Harry Ray and also appeared on a Stang cash-in LP entitled The O'Jays Meet the Moments.

The Moments: "The Next Time I See You" (Stang, 1974)

This originally appeared on Those Sexy Moments and, 8 years later, on a 7" credited to Harry Ray. I don't have a copy of either release, so I grabbed it from DJ Anonymous's excellent blog.

At about the same time, the song was also performed by label head Sylvia Robinson over the same backing track:

Sylvia: "The Next Time I See You" (Vibration, 1974)

Sylvia's version originally came out on a 7" single and then appeared on her self-titled 1976 LP. That record also features the very similar "Sweet Stuff", which was featured on DJ Anonymous's blog, too.

Finally, this is kind of far afield from the Moments and the "Sexy Mama"-style tunes, but it was co-written by Goodman and has been ruling my ears for the past few months:

First Class: "Filled With Desire" (All Platinum, 1976)

Soul songs don't get much more jubilant.