Archive for the 'Vinyl Recordings' Category

Bleeding Together (DJ Eli Remix)
Dissent
Wide Hive 12 Inch, 2003

I played a Barack Obama Fundraiser last night at this swanky new place called Hudson Terrace on the far west side. This was one of the songs I pulled to play but I didn’t get to it. It was actually hard to know what to play. It definitely didn’t have the “rally” vibe, it was more of a business attire fundraiser. I tried to avoid being sucked into the upscale vibe of the place and I ended playing everything from “Impeach the President” (Honeydrippers) to “Superstar” (Lupe Fiasco) to Pharoahe Monch’s version of “Welcome to the Terrordome” to “Let’s Get Blown” (Snoop Dogg) to “A Chance For Peace” (Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes) to the “Barack Obama” song by Cocoa Tea (thanks to RikRok for that one, if you haven’t heard it – check it out). I managed to make it all work.

The Ahn Trio and Mingus Dynasty also donated their services to the fundraiser and gave great performances. Recommended. The Ahn Trio’s website is really impressive.

This track isn’t overtly political but the line “we are all alone…together / not all-together alone” seemed to fit with Obama’s overall message. I’ve never heard the original version of this song but I have the feeling this quiet little remix kicks its ass.

>> right-click –> here to download the 192 kbps version [10.6 MB] and here for the 320 kbps version [17.5 MB]

Only One
Joan Armatrading
Walking Under Ladders, 1981

I’m going to switch it up this week. This is a tender, hazy, folky, simple piece of bliss. Warning: this is not going to sound good on work computer speakers combined with the hustle and bustle of an office. This song is best enjoyed in the quiet confines of your home late at night…on non-computer speakers, although I guess no one has stereos anymore, right?

This is from my pretty large folk collection that almost never makes it out of my apartment. I have 12 Joan Armatrading albums (you could call me a big fan). This album has two great songs on it (this one and “The Weakness In Me”) but I would actually recommend starting with Show Some Emotion (1977), followed by Bring Back The Night (1975) (which is apparently not available on cd!) and her self-titled album (1976), if you’re into the more mellow 70′s folk sound. In the 80′s she started using more electric guitar and developed a slightly more aggressive sound.

This song is actually not very representative of her style. Most of her 70′s work features her on acoustic guitar (with no synthesizers) and her songs incorporate elements of blues, reggae and jazz. That doesn’t sound so noteworthy now but she was a bit of a pioneer in the early/mid 70′s. She grew up in Birmingham, England (she was born in Saint Kitts in the West Indies) and she was, to quote 100 Great Black Britons: “first black female singer/songwriter to gain prominence on the British music scene.” She didn’t get “big” in the US until her 1980 Me Myself I album but her records sold enough here that I was able to find them somewhat easily so I think her impact was not only felt in England.

She gave the season-opening concert at Celebrate Brooklyn four or five years ago and I had a similar experience to when i first went to the Wonder-Full party; songs that seemed to only exist in my living were suddenly interrupted by the applause of 1000 people after their recognition of the first few chords.

I love this photo of her from the inner-LP-sleeve (click it to see the whole thing).

>> songs are available for two weeks (192 kbps) [5.7 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (320 kbps) [9.5 MB]

This Is Your Life
Commodores
Caught In The Act, 1975

I had to take it back to the shag carpet classics this week. This is the Lionel Richie ballad that started it all. The Commodores first album was basically all uptempo funk. This album, their second, is mostly funk as well, “Slippery When Wet” was a #1 R&B hit, and although this song didn’t do as well, it clearly outclasses the other ballad that was written by the whole group. There are exceptions, but it wouldn’t unfair to generalize and say that each album after this featured (at least) one Lionel Richie-penned ballad which was the biggest hit and that the songs got progressively more mainstream (“Easy” (Like Sunday Morning), “Three Times a Lady” and country-goodness of “Sail On”). This of course, lead up to his leaving the group to pursue his very pop-friendly solo career.

But that’s not the part worth dwelling on. The first few ballads are so good! I couldn’t decide to whether to post this or “Just To Be Close To You” (and let’s not forget about “Sweet Love”). I like this song more, but Lionel’s preacher-ish spoken intro on “Just To Be Close To You” (“I found that material things…I thought had so much val-ya [value], did really have any val-ya at all…”) is slightly shocking if you don’t already know it. When I realized this is song didn’t make the “The Best Of The Commodores, The Millennium Collection” and that their 1978 Greatest Hits only has the radio edit with 2:29 of the song cut off, that made my mind up for me.

>> songs are available for two weeks (192 kbps) [8.2 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (320 kbps) [13.5 MB]

We Almost Lost Detroit
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson
Bridges, 1977

I haven’t been record shopping much recently but after taking the reMitch to The Thing and picking up 10 records, I uncoincidentally found myself walking into Good Records on East 3rd street, saturday after East Village Radio. This was the first record I found – a record I’ve wanted for about 7 years. I think the records are trying to tell me something (“don’t stop digging!”).

This is another one of those tracks that’s been sampled, then re-visited and re-sampled. The floaty keyboard intro was first sampled by the French duo Air on “Modular Mix” (you didn’t see that one coming did you, Dale?). I am pretty sure that was off the radar of J. Rawls who smartly chopped up the pieces of guitar between the lines of the first verse for Black Star’s “Brown Skin Lady” in 1999, which was definitely on Kanye West’s radar when he sampled the keyboard fills between the lines of the second verse for Common’s “The People.” I wonder if he was consciously trying to one-up J. Rawls, especially as he used the same technique. Who’s next? There’s still the horns at the end that are up for grabs.

From the album sleeve:

Wikipedia makes it really easy to know who Karen Silkwood was. He actually performed this song at a concert called “No Nukes” at Madison Square Garden in 1979.

>> songs are available for two weeks (192 kbps) [7.4 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (320 kbps) [12.2 MB]

Cozy
Bar-Kays
Too Hot To Stop, 1976

This is one of my first records, I wish I could remember where I bought it. I had always thought that “Cozy” didn’t have enough energy to play at dj gigs but I played it last week for the first time and realized I play songs that are more relaxed than this on a semi-regular basis. It’s funny how my notion of what is ok to play has changed a lot over the years and, like in this case, I sometimes come across some outdated assessments in my brain.

This song really seems like it’s destined to show up in a sketch comedy show or a love scene gone wrong in some sort of modern equivalent to Boomerang of Booty Call or some movie like that. The lyrics are just too literal; did people really say things like “the music’s playing soft and low, now’s the time to let our feelings show” in 1976? (Obviously, I hope so.)

Of note: the unexpected-overacheiver-drum fills, and key-change in the fade-out, I think that’s a first (ok, probably not).

This album has been reissued on cd with nicely sanitized artwork. The front cover isn’t so bad (ok, the level of sweat is a little creepy) but the back cover has the nice addition of a naked woman lying on stage at a concert:

>> songs are available for two weeks (192 kbps) [5.1 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (320 kbps) [8.3 MB]

Black Patch
5th Dimension
Individually & Collectively, 1972

I’ve had my eye out for this song since reading the (incorrect) sample credits for “Trying People” on De La Soul’s AOI: Bionix album. They were only off by a letter (they listed it as “Black Path”) but apparently that was enough to thwart my lukewarm research efforts for um…6-7 years? (yeah, yeah, so I only checked once). Luckily, my girl Geraldine in the Bay put me up on it via her excellent radio show The Need To Calm (set your iCal/Outook to remind you to tune in Fridays at Noon EST/9:00am PST – this wasn’t the only song that made me beg for a tracklist).

I’ve historically been pretty dismissive of the 5th Dimension; it always seemed that their music was a little too light and potentially geared to a white audience. I still think that’s true but I’m coming around on them between this song and “Dimension 5ive”.

“Trying People” by De La Soul is pinnacle of you might call De La Soul’s “grown a$$ man” period (both Art Official Intelligence albums). This sample was perfect for themes rarely heard in hip hop such as:

Got fans around the world
But my girl’s not one one of ‘em
And my relationship’s a big question
Cause my career is a clear hindrance to her progression
Said she needs a man and our kids need a father
I’m not at all ready to hear her say don’t bother
And break and this i know i can’t take but uh
C. Smith said to hold on…my brother Luck (?) said to hold on…

If you know the De La song already, it will be a little surreal to hear the rest of “Black Patch.” The intro provides the expected ethereal-ness but then the song immediately launches into a much more traditional, almost big-band thing. The weirdest moment is when the “people are you ready?” part from the intro comes back in over the horns at 1:59.

Bonus Question: can anyone tell me – what is Black Patch? (“Woman child on the sad street – flashin’ in black patch”…??)

Recommendation: set the start time of “Trying People” to 0:28 and the end time to 4:25 (how to do that is here).

>> songs are available for two weeks (192 kbps) [6.4 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (320 kbps) [10.3 MB]

Kid Charlemagne
Steely Dan
The Royal Scam, 1976

I watched the Grammys this year after skipping them since whatever year the head of RIAA ended the show saying something to the effect of “please stop downloading music – you don’t want the music to stop, do you?” That was a real “wow” moment for me. I always knew the record executives wanted to save their a$$es and their nice apartments/houses but that was the first time that I considered that they actually believed that music would “stop” if they went out of business.

So few artists ever get a dime from major record companies (literally less than 10%) that it’s preposterous to think that all artists would say, “if I’m not going to get royalty checks then I’m going to just stop making music.” Most artists that don’t have multiple platinum albums make all of their money off of touring and merchandise as it is. No doubt that having an album out on a major label is great press and would help with those things but it’s definitely not required. No big surprise: record companies are now desperately attempting to make touring and merchandise part of their contracts.

What does all this have to do with this MP3? Not much other than it’s a song that was sampled on Kanye West’s grammy-award winning “Graduation” album. Kanye used this on “Champion” which is one of the songs that I liked from that album. I’m sitting here trying write something about how hearing the sample makes the Kanye track disappointing but I can’t front, I still like how he used it (even though he says things as stupid as, “I shop so much I could speak Italian.”)

>> songs are available for two weeks (192 kbps) [6.2 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (320 kbps) [10.3 MB]

Ask Me (Danny Krivit Re-Work)
Ecstacy, Passion and Pain
Edits by Mr. K | The Original Rare Disco Edits, 2003 (originally 1974)

Danny Krivit’s Site

A new friend was nice enough to let me borrow this record after hearing me gasp when I came across it while flipping through her collection. I didn’t realize that any of Danny Krivit’s re-edits had ever been compiled.

You can read Danny Krivit’s full bio here but in short, he’s been djing for over 35 years (around the world, but based in NYC) and has been become very well known for re-editing songs (the difference between a “re-edit” and a “remix” is that a re-edit rearranges or extends pieces of the original song, where a remix brings in totally new sounds/instruments and often, more or less creates an entirely new song). Danny Krivit’s re-edits often eclipse the popularity of the original version of a song and become the known or expected version. Some, like his edit of “Give Me Your Love” by the Sisters Love (especially because they are usually not well-labeled, because most aren’t legally cleared with the copyright owners) are often assumed to be the original version of the song because they’re the only version a lot of people have ever heard.

He’s done more than 200 re-edits, so the 10 here are a very small portion of what’s out there. Even more impressive when hearing these tracks is that the bulk of them were done with a reel to reel tape machine and razor blade. This edit was actually done using computer software, hence the “underwater” effect at the beginning and at 4:30. I haven’t heard effects like that in the older edits of his that I’m familiar with.

I didn’t know this song before I heard it on this compilation but it blew me away. A room full of people dancing to this song would basically be my dream party.

According to the releases page on Danny’s site, this release was Japan-only which explains why I couldn’t find a site selling it for less than $27.

If you are deterred by the house-y beginning, wait for the vocals, you will be rewarded.

[Notice: this is the same image of Krivit that was used for this flyer for a party I played in L.A. two years ago.]

>> songs are available for two weeks (192 kbps) [9.6 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (320 kbps) [15.9 MB]

Oh Not My Baby
Aretha Franklin
Spirit In The Dark, 1970

Before we start, I’d like to give a shout to Eddie Hinton, Jimmy Johnson and Cornell Dupree…well, at least one of them. They are all listed as playing guitar on this song and (other than Aretha’s voice, obviously) the guitar playing, although very low in the mix, totally makes the track.

This song is pretty sad. Basically the lyrics are: my friends said you were cheating, i defended you, they insisted (they were right)…i defended you…and I’m really glad I did because in the end, you wanted to marry me.

This is another gem borrowed from the Carole King / Jerry Goffin library (the most obvious being “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”). I actually heard the Carole King version first and completely passed over it (I still agree with my assessment upon second listen) and I think the reason is because when Carole King sings it, you feel sorry for her, like she doesn’t understand that her logic is flawed. Aretha is able to carry it in such a way that the underlying message is, “hey, life ain’t perfect and I love him.” [For the record, this song dates back to at least 1964 and wasn't popularized by Carole King or Aretha.]

The funniest part of the song is when Aretha says “he may have had a last minute fling” and the background singers quickly follow with with a “wooo!”…ok, ladies, a little too excited, she didn’t win the lotto, she got cheated on.

>> songs are available for two weeks (192 kbps) [4.0 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (320 kbps) [6.6 MB]

What Am I Waiting For
The O’Jays
Survival, 1975

“O’Jays power ballads” would definitely make my list of the good things in life. I wouldn’t actually call them “power ballads” (because of the 80′s rock connotation) but they definitely have more zest than what I think of as a “ballad.”

Wait…first things first, being from outside of Cleveland I need to point out that the O’Jays are from outside of Cleveland (Canton) and not Philadelphia as a lot of people think. Their best work (far and away) was with Gamble & Huff for Philadelphia International Records (P.I.R.) but just like Ohio license plates claim “birthplace of aviation” (the Orville Wright was born in Dayton), we also claim The O’Jays. The started out recording for King Records out of Cincinnati in 1961 and renamed themselves after Cleveland radio DJ Eddie O’Jay in 1963 after he gave them early support. Just wanted to give you the heads up so you don’t get your feelings hurt if you are ever talking about the O’Jays to any black person over 40 from Cleveland (and many younger). Eddie-Levert-pride is not a game.

They went on to record for Apollo, Imperial, Bell and Neptune before 1971. Neptune Records is where they met Gamble & Huff (G&H worked with Neptune pre-P.I.R.) and then they signed the O’Jays to P.I.R., which they created after Neptune folded.

In compiling the list below (my favorite O’Jays ballads) I realized that Bunny Sigler had his hand in most of the songs which I didn’t realize.

Back Stabbers
Listen To The Clock On The Wall (written by Gamble & Huff)
Who Am I (co-written and co-produced by Bunny Sigler)

Ship Ahoy
You Got Your Hooks In Me (written by Bunny Sigler)
Don’t Call Me Brother (written by Gamble & Sigler)

Message In The Music
I Swear, I Love No One But You (written & produced by Bunny Sigler)

So Full of Love
Help Somebody Please (written & produced by Eddie Levert and others)

If you like “What Am I Waiting For” be sure to check for those songs too. Most of this stuff is out on CD.

This song was sampled (poorly) by Nashiem Myrick on Jay-Z’s “You Must Love Me” on In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 and with a little more subtlety by the somewhat recently deceased Disco D on 50 Cent’s “Ski Mask Way.”

>> songs are available for two weeks (192 kbps) [5.5 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (320 kbps) [9.1 MB]