Waiting On You
Pointer Sisters (Official Site, Wikipedia, Twitter)
Having A Party, 1977
Blue Thumb/ABC
(CD, iTunes, Amazon)

Shout to Maggie Stein for putting me onto this, probably the most consistent Pointer Sisters album, back in the day. This is proof positive (one of many many examples) that the Pointer Sisters should be remembered for more than “Jump (For My Love)”/”I’m So Excited”/”Neutron Dance” et al.

Stevie Wonder is credited with playing keyboards and synthesizers on the album (along with two other people) and has a partial songwriting credit on “Bring Your Sweet Stuff Home To Me.” I’m not sure if he had anything to do with this song. It doesn’t “sound like him” as much as ‘Sweet Stuff’ does, but you never know. I’ve heard that he’s involved in far more records than album credits would suggest.

I love the tone of this song, it almost fits into my “inappropriately happy” category but not quite; it’s more an a chosen optimism in a bad situation.

I was going to say something about it being funny to think of the television networks also being in the music industry (this album was distributed by ABC which was bought by MCA in 1979) but as I was checking to see if there ever was an “NBC Records” (i don’t think so) and when Sony bought CBS Records (1988), I read that CBS Records is actually back from the dead. Who knew?

[To download, right-click (PC) or ctrl-click (mac) on song title above & choose “save linked file as” or similar.]

Never Can Say Goodbye (Beatnick & K-Salaam Remix)
The Jackson 5
Beatnick & K-Salaam: Never Can Say Goodbye, 2009
K-Salaam & Beatnick Bandcamp Site

My friend Needles sent me this mp3 last year after it was floating around on some blogs. I was kinda blown away at how well it worked as a song; there’s almost always some kind of disconnect between the past and present when I hear “current-sounding” remixes of soul classics.

I’ve been playing the song at gigs fairly regularly ever since. I played it a month or two back at Madame X and someone who works with the them came up to me (excited to hear the song) and wrote down their bandcamp address as a place to get more of their music. It took me a minute but I went to the site this week and there are a lot of good (free) tracks. This song is part of an 8-song remix EP (although it might be the best song on it). There’s also a 10 song Common remix EP and two other albums. Not everything is good (as is always the case) but there are some gems.

Bandcamp is my new favorite site for getting music (I encourage everyone giving away music to set up an account - you can sell music too) because I can download songs at CD quality (with lossless compression). The actually give you 8 different format options (mp3, aac, FLAC, ALAC…) for your download. I’ve developed a disdain for mp3s over the years (don’t get me started) and have stopped using them whenever possible so I get excited whenever I see someone has their stuff on bandcamp.

I have to air one beef about this project (and many, many other remix projects). I realize you are trying to get your name out there…but you are not the artist. Does your name really need to be in the song, artist, album and comment fields? This song was originally titled:

04. Michael Jackson - Never Can Say Goodbye Remix (Prod. by Beatnick & K-Salaam)
K-Salaam & Beatnick
Beatnick & K-Salaam Present - Never Can Say Goodbye

Seriously? I do realize that I’m more detail-oriented than most (ok, almost all) but the artist is The Jackson 5 (not Michael Jackson and definitely not you!). And please save the tracks number for the…uh, “track number” field…there actually seem to be a “trend” of people putting the track numbers in the song title recently…god knows why.

Ok, thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Oh yeah, last thing; they need to decide who’s name goes first.

[To download, right-click (PC) or ctrl-click (mac) on song title above & choose “save linked file as” or similar.]

DJ Center will be in the studio Monday night to preview tracks and talk about his debut album “Everything In Time” that comes out the next day.

(Update: The album is available on iTunes as well as a limited edition Ecopack CD at pushthefader.com. You can catch him spinning at Soda this Friday and Deity this Saturday (both in Brooklyn) and in L.A. on March 5th (with special guest Garth Trinidad) for the Everything In Time album release party! (more info here).

Far Side of Town
Arthur Lewis
If We Were - EP, 2008
Rxlngr

on iTunes

I love this song. My friend OP over at Suite903 put me onto Arthur a few months ago and he seemed perfect to have on the radio show. After bullsh&*#%n for a couple months I finally dug up his site, emailed him and he came by last night. At my request he picked songs to play for the rest of the show (after we played his EP) and they were appropriately all over the map (you’ll hear many influences when you hear the song).

We had a great time talking music. This is quote that I love from another interview he did, it encapsulates one of the reasons I’m excited about new music right now in a way that’s more concise than it is in my head:

There’s a certain narrative of success that says you have to compromise in order to reach a big audience. That you have to “sell out” your “art” in order to reach your cookie-cutter goals of fame and fortune. But things have changed a lot in the past few years, to the point where, outside of the major label-360 deal-recoup or die model, it’s almost the opposite. To distinguish yourself from the throngs of people making records in their bedrooms, you have to be unrelentingly yourself.

This is a track that he made available for free on his site.

Songs are available for two weeks.