Songs for My Father Mixtape

A jazz mixtape for my dad. What kind of father gives his son a Sun Ra tape when he's nine?

Horace Silver Quintet - Song for My Father
Gracan Moncur III - When
Donald Byrd - Cristo Redentor
Unknown
Lee Konitz - Five, Four and Three
Duke Pearson - The Phantom
Donald Byrd - You've Been Talkin' Bout Me, Baby
Sun Ra - Angels and Demons
Yusef Lateef (R.I.P.) - First Gymnopedie
Bill Evans Trio - My Man's Gone Now
Ernie Clark - For the Grace of God
Leon Thomas - Song for My Father


Songs for My Father
[right-click to download]

Brooklyn Museum Highlights 12/27/13

From the exhibition WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY

Dmitri Baltermants
Tchaikovsky, 1945 (Red Army seizure of Berlin)
Gelatin silver print

Vo Anh Khanh
A Cambodian guerrilla is carried to an improvised operating room ina  mangrove swamp in this Viet Cong haven on the Ca Mau Peninsula, 1970

Messenger pigeon released from a British tank, France 1918

Post-Apocolyptic Screen Grabs #10OblivionCause: The Tet

October 2013

Billy Young - Suffering With A Hangover

Darrow Fletcher - My Judgment Day

The Deceptions - Of All the Hearts

The Dub Syndicate - Hi-Fi Gets a Pounding Pts. 1 & 2

Freedom Express - Get Down

The Inner Drive - Party Man

James K-Nine - Live It Up

Johnnie Taylor - I'm Trying // Poor Make Believer

King Tutt - You've Got Me Hung Up

Koushik - Be With

Lee Austin - Screwdriver

Little Janice - Since You've Been Gone

Luther Davis - You Can Be A Star

The New Birth - Oh, Baby, I Love the Way

Orchestra Harlow - Freak Off

Os Mutantes - Balada do Louco

The Poppy Family - There's No Blood in the Bone // You Took My Moonlight Away // Shadows on My Wall // Where Evil Grows

Sun Araw - Deep Cover

Swizzymack - Drip

Additionally:

Flying Lotus's FlyLoFM radio station for GTAV


Ego Trip: Have you ever thought about collaborating with more hip-hop artists outside the Beasties?  Ad Rock: Yeah, we’ve toured and been friends with rap groups and we’ve always been like, “Yeah, let’s do this or that together.” I wanted to start a group in ’92 with me, Q-Tip, B-Real and Busy Bee and call it the “Nasal Tongues.” I thought it was funny. I mentioned it to Busy Bee, but I don’t think he remembered me. But the other guys were into it.

Poor Bessie!

[ENTER]

Moon at Night

"Our kids are the last generation who will see no city lights on the moon."
— Randii Wessen, via BLDGBLOG

See also: Formation of the Moon, Terraforming the Moon

Koch Lovers

Get ready for the grimiest 80 minutes of your week:






I'm seeing Wolfen, Saturday Night Fever, Dog Day Afternoon, Midnight Cowboy, Death Wish, Cruising, Superfly, The Warriors, Rosemary's Baby, Taxi Driver, French Connection, Husbands, Three Days of the Condor, The Odd Couple, Author! Author!, Klute, The Boys in the Band, Hi, Mom!, Superman, Scarface, The Landlord, American Pop, Mean Streets, After Hours, Wild Style, Panic in Needle Park, Fame, Downtown 81, Tootsie, Fritz the Cat, Serpico, Serpico, Serpico, and so many other movies I'm desperate to see.

August and September 2013

Needless to say, I've been busy.

Antonio Adolfo & A Brazuca - Transamazonica

Big Youth - Cool Breeze

Captive - The Fool

Chester Lewis - Precious Lord

Clarendonians - You Won't See Me

Danny Brown - Dubstep 

Devendra Banhart - Golden Girls

Disclosure - Latch // White Noise
 

Dr. Alimantado - I Am The Greatest Says Muhammed Ali

Hank Williams - Angel of Death (Undubbed Session Demo)

The Headhunters - Mugic

Jeremiah Jae - King Raid // Seventy 8

Joyce - Aldeia de Ogum

Juj - Mbira Spirit

Lennie Hibbert - Soul Shack // Village Soul // More Creation // Montego Rock

Michael Jackson - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough (Demo) // Billie Jean (Demo) // Beat It (Demo) // Want to Be Startin' Somethin' (Demo)

The Monks - Drugs in my Pocket

Piece of Peace - Pass it On, Part One

Robert Vanderbilt & the Foundation of Souls - A Message Especially from God

Scotty - Salvation Train

Sly & the Family Stone - Wishful Thinkin'

Stylle Band - If You Love Me
From the forthcoming Numero Group pre-Prince Minneapolis comp Purple Snow

Tesfa Maryam Kidané - Heywèté

Additionally:

Kathleen Hanna explains the story behind Smells Like Teen Spirit:


[ENTER]

July 2013

Brenda & the Big Dudes - Weekend Special
Straight out of 1986 Soweto.

Doris & Kelley - You Don't Have to Worry

Francis Bebey - Akwaaba

Fruko y sus Tesos - Bang Bang

Ken Boothe - Let's Get It On

Little Boy Blues - Dream Weaver
I've loved their song Seed of Love for years. I've only just discovered the song that immediately precedes it on their only album.

Outkast x A Tribe Called Quest - Relaxin' Jackson

The Raincoats - Lola

Additionally:

Richard Pryor & Sly Stone on the Mike Douglas Show, 1974


The Madvillainy samples mix.

[ENTER]

David Rakoff — Love Dishonor Marry Die Cherish Perish

From David Rakoff's final book, written while dying of cancer. A novel in rhyming couplets spanning the 20th Century:

He'd loved Touch of Evil, when la Dietrich tells
The fortune of corpulent, vile Orson Welles:
"Your future's all used up." So funny and grim.
But now that the same could be spoken of him
It was sadness that gripped him, far more than the fear
That, in facing the truth, he had maybe a year.

When poetic phrases like "eyes, look your last"
Become true, all you want is to stay, to hold fast.
A new, fierce attachment to all of this world
Now pierced him, it stabbed like a deity-hurled
Lightning bolt lancing him, sent from above,
Left him giddy and tearful. It felt like young love.
He'd thought of himself as uniquely proficient
At seeing, but now that sense felt insufficient.
He wanted to grab, to possess, to devour
To eat with his eyes, how he needed that power.

June 2013

Astrud Gilberto - Take it Easy My Brother Charlie

The Belles - Melvin

The Commands - Too Late to Cry

The Fabulous Denos - Once I Had A Love

Gary U.S. Bonds - I Wanna Holler

The Gaylads - I Love the Reggae

Holy Name of Mary Choral Family - He'll Give Us What We Really Need*

Laura Mvula - Green Garden [Demo] // Can't Live With the World


The Manish Boys - I Pity the Fool
Just David Bowie on vocals and Jimmy Page on guitar, no big deal.

Omega - Gyöngyhajú*

Parliament - The Motor-Booty Affair

Prince Buster - Whine & Grine

Sound Dimension - Ironside

Wee - Aeroplane (Reprise)*

*Yeezus samples

Additionally:

Beck covers Bowie's Sound and Vision with a 160-plus person band/orchestra:

The Rediscovery of Heracleion

Heracleion, Egypt's main port before it sank into the sea in the 6th or 7th century A.D., probably due to earthquakes or floods. Located in 2000.

Basquiat's Resume, Age 20

May 2013

Al Green - Beware (Extended Version)
An unreleased, 15 minute jam of Al Green in his prime? Yes please! (Please note this will be the only time I ever refer to a jam as a positive).

Ballin' Jack - Found A Child
I picked up this album because it has the Beastie Boys' "never let 'em say that I don't love you" sample on it and was delighted to come across the Bust A Move sample too! In retrospect not surprising since Paul's Boutique contributor Matt Dike also worked with Young MC.

Broadcast - The Sacred Marriage
From the horror movie soundtrack they were working on when singer Trish Keenan took ill and died. The whole album is a wonderful Zombi-esque work.

Curtis Mayfield - Power to the People

Dorothy Ashby - Taboo // Autumn in Rome

Lee Moses - What You Don't Want Me to Be // Free at Last

Marconi Notaro - Symphony em Ré

Nina Simone - Come On Back, Jack

Rogério Duprat - Flying // Baby
The man behind the orchestrations for Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso, Tom Zé and Gilberto Gil. The "George Martin" of Tropicalia" and the "Brian Wilson of Brazil."

Shuggie Otis - Special

The Undisputed Truth - Ball of Confusion

The Weeknd - Kiss Land

Additionally:

The infamous Jimmy Page score for Kenneth Anger's Lucifer Rising.

Jay-Z, Harlem, 1939.

This mix by Kaytranada.

Oh David!

Glenn O'Brien — How to be a Man

It is an excellent tactic to be unfailingly polite. If you are cheerful, solicitous, and appear kind and attentive, you will be welcome almost everywhere. Strangers will believe that you like them. Your enemies will be thwarted, even disarmed by the relentless good vibrations you transmit.

Wyndham Lewis said, "The best artist is an imperfect artist." The perfect artist is finished. He's done. He has found it; he's not looking for it. The genuine stylist is too caught up with developing and applying his modus operandi to the job to rest... Style isn't taste. As Lewis said, "Taste is a dead emotion or mentally treated and preserved emotion." Style is spontaneous emotion; you feel your way through the world. You dig for it, you find it, and you put it out in the world. I guess it's what Smokey Robinson called "the way you do the things you do."

I will be forever grateful to this book for introducing me to H. L. Mencken:

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

April 2013

Al Green - Beware

Antonio Carlos E Jocafi - Glorioso Santo Antonio // Kabaluerê // Hipnose // Quem vem Lá

Bill Evans - Autumn Leaves // Nardis

Chet Baker - So Che Ti Perdero
Ennio Morricone collaboration.

Djalma Correa - Tudo Madeira

Don Cherry - Brown Rice

Donald Byrd - Places and Spaces

Ernie Clark - For the Grace of God

The first song on this great spiritual jazz mix

Family Plann - Do the Breakdown

Jai Paul - Genevieve // 100,000 // Magic // All Night [leaked versions]
I can't wait to buy the real record!

James Blake - Voyeur:


Jorge Ben - A Minha Menina

Kev Brown - Albany (Instrumental)

Libra Jones and Nicole Morris - 1-800-Cocaine/I Made a U-Turn
According to the internet this song does not exist. But Dam-Funk says it does.

Loleatta Holloway - Catch Me On The Rebound (Walter Gibbons 12" Mix)

Major Lazer - Jessica

Okay Temiz - Denizalti Rüzgarlan

The Pazant Brothers - A Gritty Nitty

Peter Ivers - Ain't That Peculiar ft. Asha Puthli

The Salsoul Orchestra - Seconds f. Loleatta Holloway

Smiley Culture - Shan-Ah-Shan

Stanley Cowell - Travelin' Man

Sun Ra - Enlightenment

The Sylvers - Wish That I Could Talk to You:


Unknown song from the Up There - A Spiritual Jazz Mixtape

Additionally:

The Annotated Star Wars Trilogy

I can't remember ever geeking out this hard on something. The annotated Star Wars trilogy, complete with deleted scenes, alternate takes and angles, on-set audio, bloopers, cast and crew commentary, and non-stop pop-up info. Watch them before Lucas throws a hissy fit:







He's also done one for Raiders of the Lost Ark and appears to be at work on a Jaws one.

Some of the many many factoids:

• The noise of the Tie-Fighter is that of a slowed down elephant call, mixed with the sound of a car driving on a wet road.
• Yoda could be etymologically derived from the Sanskrit yoddha ("warrior") and/or the Hebrew yodea ("one who knows").
• Endor is the name of a place in the Bible, where king Saul went on the eve of his final battle and came across "The Witch of Endor." It is also the Elvish name for Middle Earth in J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings.
• Mark Hamill is surprisingly funny: "When I read the third one I mostly was upset with the cavalier attitude towards Boba Fett. He'd been built up as this monumental bounty hunter and he suddenly just gets, you know, he just flies away. I thought that was going to be a major revelation. Off comes the helmet: 'Oh my God, it's my mother! She's a double agent working for the good guys!'"

Related, Patton Oswalt's Star Wars filibuster:

Unclear Holocaust

This feature length collage of seemingly every shot of New York's imagined destruction is extremely entertaining until they start splicing in actual 9/11 coverage and it starts being very squirm-inducing.

Via Yimmy's

Found this in the Strand Stacks

Cool Kids Mixtape

Eddie Kendricks - Day by Day
Lil Wayne - Let the Beat Build
The Cool Kids - Pump up the Volume
Missy Elliott - On & On
Thunderheist - Slow Roll
M.I.A. - Do Ya'
Spank Rock - Chilly Will
Azealia Banks - Fuck Up the Fun
Major Lazer - Pon de Floor
DJ Mujava - Township Funk
Dominique Young Unique - War Talk
Spank Rock - Backyard Betty
Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler
M.I.A. - XR2
Justice - Genesis
Flosstradamus - Rollup (Baauer Remix)
TNGHT - Higher Ground
Quakers - RIP
Flying Lotus - GNG BNG
Madlib - Chrome Dreams
DJ Grand Wizard Theodore - Subway Theme
Digable Planets - Borough Check
Mos Def - Brooklyn
Notorious B.I.G. - Freestyle


Cool Kids
[right-click to download]

March 2013

Al Green - Eli's Game

Apple and the Three Oranges - I'll Give You A Ring (When I Come, If I Come)
Someone commented on Apple's audacity about having his wife sing backing vocals on a song about his mistress. 

Assim Assado - Na Boca Da Estrada // Sol, Sal, Sol Tropical

Bobbie Gentry - He Made A Woman Out of Me

Bobby Bland - Care For Me
Wedding jam!

Broadcast - Echo's Answer // Interlude 2 (Black Session, Paris 5/4/2000)

Charles Mingus - Scenes In The City

Dave Bartholomew - Shrimp & Gumbo

Ernest Ranglin - Oh My

Faye Addams - The Hammer

Fleetwood Mac - Albatross
The song that inspired the Beatles' Sun King

Funky D.J. - Fried Chicken

Jermaine Jackson - You've Got To Hurry Girl

Marcia Griffiths - Here I Am Baby (Come and Take Me) // Don't Let Me Down

Marcos Valle - O Cafona // Com Mais de 30 (Versao Instrumental)

The Peacemakers - Don't Push Your Luck

Stiff Little Fingers - Kicking Up A Racket

Thomas East - Slippin' Around
Via the Madlib produced track for Captain Murphy

Tony Joe White - Studspider

The Upsetter - Bingo Kid
A great flip of Junior Murvin's Police and Thieves

Additionally:

Johnny Cash's acting debut:


Nick Drake's mum Molly.

Tom Gauld's book comes out April 16th: