Archive for 2007

this happened at sip last weekend (during the ice/snow storm)…there were about 12 people there and i was playing some pretty low-key hip hop.

him: yo play that gnarls barkley
me: “crazy”?
him: i know it seems played out, just see what happens. that’s a hot album.
me: didn’t really like it, a couple cuts
him: what?! but you weren’t in atlanta is 2006!
me: no i was…here
him: cause that’s the home of outkast
me: i’m well aware
him: so you can play that weird s#%t and still get low! just play it…as an experiment
me: as an experiment? no
him: see what happens! it’s three minutes (with a “what do you have to lose?” shrug)
me: (staring at him)
him: how about that “transformer”? just as an experiment - see what happens
me: no
him: how about prince?
me: um
him: play “kiss.” let me groove to “kiss” and then eat my sandwich
me: how about i’ll be in charge of the music and you be in charge of the sandwich?
him: the sandwich is under control!

Little Ghetto Boy
Donny Hathaway
Live, 1972

This is #1 on my list of albums I can’t believe haven’t been reissued on CD in the US. I’m sure someone can come up with something to trump this but this one is particularly noteworthy as the album is outstanding and everything else that he’s done (except for a live album from 1980) have already been reissued - including, as of this year the soundtrack to Come Back Charleston Blue, which is a Blaxploitation movie soundtrack that he did with Quincy Jones as music supervisor. I only heard it briefly once at someone’s house but from what I remember it’s mostly instrumental and not that moving, or at least not typical D.H. soul. It is however the first place that “Little Ghetto Boy” first appeared so we have it to thank for that.

I remember when I bought this album 6 or 7 years ago; talking to people about it then, it seemed like it must only be a matter of time before Atlantic would put it out on CD. That “matter of time” was longer than I thought (and getting longer every day) but the good news is that the import is now available on amazon for “only” $16, which actually isn’t that bad. Dusty Groove also has a reissue of the LP for the standard $9 price. Dusty Groove has the CD (out of stock) listed as a UK import at $19.

Side A of this album was recorded live at the Troubadour in Hollywood and Side B (including this song) was recorded live at the Bitter End in NYC which is on Bleecker near Laguardia. I was going to say that despite The Bitter End’s good musical reputation over the years, that it seemed sad Donny would be playing such a tiny place after putting out Everything Is Everything but…I just read that Curtis Mayfield classic Live album was recorded there the year before so…what do I know? (not much apparently…)

I will say that whoever wrote the Bitter End website is given to a certain level of hyperbole, claiming the owner has “play[ed] host to every important entertainer in the last thirty or more years.” I’m still waiting on that “Prince Live at the Bitter End” album to come out…

The darker intro to the song has served as good source material for Dr. Dre and The RZA (and others, I’m sure) but don’t sleep on the redemptive ending!

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Starchild (12 Inch Version)
Level 42
12 Inch Single, 1981

This is another record that I got from Jonesy (who finally has something I can link to). He probably has the illest record collection I’ve ever seen. He told me downsized it (to 20,000 from 40,000) because he only wanted to keep the stuff he knew he was going to play (whoa). As you might guess, most people with 20,000 records struggle a bit with organization. Not him, which is especially impressive as he keeps his records with the spines facing in, for easier access to the actual records, but that means he can’t see a single title.

I made a few trips out to his NJ lair a few years ago and came back with about 50 records each time for about 1/5 of what they were worth. This was a record I got on one of those trips. I was passing over stuff left and right (Cloud One “Atmosphere Strutt,” Jimmy ‘Bo’ Horne “Dance Across The Floor,” Odyssey “Inside Out,” this record, Seawind “Light the Light” - which I ended up using on Juxtapose Vol.1) and he kept asking me, “do you already have that?” and I’d give him a tentative “no” which meant, “um, no…do I need it?” Then he’d play it for me and 4 times out of 5 I it would go immediately onto the pile of stuff I wanted.

This song is a surprisingly great bit of spacey-dance-pop-rollerskating-music. It’s a lot more varied than their more famous hits like “Something About You” and the synthesizer bits (especially 2:06) don’t sound like anything else I can think of.

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Art of Storytellin Pt. 4 - Outkast
Make the Road by Walking - The Menahan Street Band
Said and Done - Orgōne
The Bottle (Bloodfire Edit) - Gil Scott-Heron
Shaft In Africa - Johnny Pate
Innocence - Björk
Happy (Only You Can Make Me Happy) - Surface
I Don’t Need It - Faith Evans
Earth Changes - Jackhigh
Dead Meat - Sean Lennon

Once Around The Block
Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra
Hits the Hits!, 2007

My friend Cocoe from Ubiquity Records just sent me some treats in the mail which included this track which I couldn’t resist posting even though the stellar Orgōne album was vying for attention. This song is a cover of the Badly Drawn Boy song that I posted 2 1/2 years go. Not like I thought the song was my secret or anything but I was really surprised to find it on a CD with covers of (what I think of as) much bigger hits like “Hey Ya” by OutKast and songs by Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, The Gorillaz, Amy Winehouse and Missy Elliot.

Shawn Lee generally finds a nice balance of playing stripped-down funky versions of these songs while not going overboard on the irony factor (there’s a little, for sure). I guess novelty factor is another thing that makes “Once Around the Block” seem out of place on this album. He covers it with basically the same instrumentation, substituting flute for lead vocals and throwing in some nice touches like an interpolation of “My Favorite Things.”

Here’s a snippet of his covers of “1 Thing” by Amerie and “Hey Ya.” Can anyone tell me what wind instrument that is in the Amerie cover??

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I Don’t Wanna Stop Featuring Kylie Auldist
The Bamboos
Rawville, 2007

Australia stand up! The Bamboos released their second excellent album on Tru Thoughts this year. They branched out/augmented their trademark choppy funk sound this time with slightly mixed results. Rawville includes two tracks with Portland MC/Producer Ohmega Watts and two tracks (this being one of them) that are much closer to soul than funk. Where the hip hop tracks (especially the horn hits on “Rockin’ It”) cause me to immediately picture what’s actually happening (an all-white Australian band trying to play hip hop), the soul tracks are spot on for 1973 American soul and, like the rest of their music, make me think of how good it is first, then proceed to whatever cinematic image it conjures.

I’ve been playing this track a lot recently; I played it around 3:00 a.m. last Friday at the Back Room and it seemed to cast a certain spell over the place for a moment: there was a section of people dancing to it as if they knew it (there’s not much dancing there) and the manager stopped walking around checking on things and posted up at the top of the stairs and started a serious head-nod.

There doesn’t seem to be much info on the guest singer, Kylie Auldist.

Australian PBS FM had this to say:

Kylie Auldist has long been something of a treasured hometown secret in Melbourne; a powerful soul singer fronting all manner of blues, roots and hip-hop acts around the inner city venue trail.

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Another World
Joe Jackson
Night and Day, 1982

Ben came back to NYC for a quick second (the Ben I DJed with and visited in Sweden) and we got together and had a vinyl recording session. In the crate of records he pulled out, I noticed this album. I, in predictable fashion, offered that I already recorded “Steppin’ Out” but the song he was after was this one which I totally missed.

This was Joe Jackson’s first album after moving to NYC from England and Allmusic describes it as when he “abandoned new wave rock for a catchy pop-jazz-salsa-dance hybrid.” Now that I read that, I guess I hear those influences but the song seems pretty straightforward to me, it’s not like there are more than a handful of chords. The keyboard stabs that start at :32 remind of another song that I can’t place right now (which is going to drive me crazy), anyone know what it is?

There’s a no-budget version of him performing the song at “Carling Acadamy Islington” on youtube (apparently they couldn’t even afford spell check).

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Wichita Lineman
The Nite-Liters
Instrumental Directions, 1972

Song writer Jimmy Webb makes his second appearance on my blog. I didn’t know this song before hearing it on this record but apparently it was a big hit for (country-ish singer) Glen Campbell and was covered by tons of people. A quick google search shows that “Wichita Lineman” has it’s own wikipedia entry that lists 34 covers of the song (although it doesn’t list this one) and says that it’s in Rolling Stones Top 500 songs of all time.

For some reason it didn’t occur to me that this song would have lyrics - the horn melodies seem whole and complete without words. I think this song makes the case that the world needs more (non-honking) baritone saxophone (see 1:46 and 2:04/2:08).

P.S. - I am cooking up a podcast idea for music like this that doesn’t fit well into the DJ-set format (and I have much more music like this than I do “dj-friendly” music so it should be a nice outlet).

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Groovallegiance - Funkadelic
Free Like Me feat. Dee - HandinHand
Another World - Joe Jackson
Thinking of You - Sister Sledge
From The Corner To The Block Featuring Juvenile & Soul Rebels Brass Band - Galactic
Remember Who You Are - Sly & The Family Stone
Red Eye - Sade
We’re Almost There (DJ Spinna Remix - 12″ Version) - Michael Jackson
I Want You Back - Raphael Saadiq
Kiss Them For Me (Snapper Mix) - Siouxsie and the Banshees

Welcome To the Terrordome
Pharoahe Monch
Desire, 2007

Wow…what to say? So many things…I’m not a hip hop historian by any means but I can’t name another hip hop cover, can you? And if there is one (there must be) I bet that it was supposed to be funny a la Weird Al.

This is a very well-timed appropriation. Public Enemy’s original came out in March of 1990, during the George Bush Sr.’s presidency, 5 months before the first gulf war. By most approximations everything that was going wrong then is much worse now (not to mention “new” problems like unlimited wiretapping). Accordingly, Pharoahe uses Chuck D’s entire first verse but writes his own second verse to incorporate new themes.

Unfortunately I don’t have the liner notes so I can’t get more info like who produced the song and whether or not the horns are from 70’s Bay Area funk group Tower of Power who are featured on another track on this album. Tower of Power were ahead of their time, opening their 1974 Urban Renewal album with “Only So Much Oil In The Ground.” I say they were ahead of their time but what do I know? I wasn’t around and maybe it was already a big issue at that point. Either way, kudos to them for writing lyrics like this at any time:

There is only so much oil on the ground
Sooner or later there won’t be much around
Tell that to your kids while you driving ’round downtown
That there’s only so much oil on the ground

Can’t cut loose without that juice
Can’t cut loose without that juice
If we keep on like we doin’
Things for sure will not be cool
It’s a fact we just ain’t got suffiecient fuel

Cause there’s only so much oil in the ground
Sooner or later there won’t be none around
Alternate sources of power must be found
Cause there’s only so much oil in the ground

Yes there’s only so much oil in the earth
It’s a fact of life for what it’s worth
Something every little boy and girl should know from birth
That there’s only so much oil in the earth

There’s no excuse for our abuse
No excuse for our abuse
We just assume that what we use will not exceed the oil supply
But soon enough the world will watch the wells run dry

Does anyone recnognize the speech at the beginning of Pharoahe’s version? I’m wondering if that’s something they did for the record if it’s from an actual public speech.

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