Thank You Jesus
Just got my long awaited Showmen record in the mail. In the liner notes, the lead singer Norman "Cricket" Johnson (later of Chairmen of the Board) names Jackie Wilson, Little Willie John, Sam Cooke, and Ira Tucker of the Dixie Hummingbirds (above) as his favorites.
September 2012 Music
The Ba-Benzélé Pygmies - Hindewhu (Whistle) Solo
The song that inspired Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man. Play it for your dogs, they'll love it.
The Blenders - Don't Fuck Around With Love*
The Brooklyn Allstars - I'm Glad You're Mine
Count Ossie - Bongo Man
Wow! Rasta modal jazz! From AllMusic: "The foundations of reggae and its association with Rastafarianism were established by drummer, percussionist, and vocalist Count Ossie (born Oswald Williams). Together with his band, the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, Count Ossie combined African-influenced music with the European hymnal tradition to create a unique sound that inspired everyone from Ras Michael & the Sons of Negus and the Skatalites to Bob Marley & the Wailers and Toots & the Maytals."
The Darling Dears & Funky Heavy - I Don't Think I'll Ever Love Another
David Bowie - Memory of a Free Festival (Alternate Album Mix)
In case you wanted your Memory two minutes longer and echo-drenched.
Flying Lotus - Sultan's Request // Putty Boy Strut
I Roy - Tougher than Tough
For the past 18 years I thought the sample was "This is Ralph and Tony."
Jackie Wilson & LaVern Baker - Think Twice (Version X)*
Jimmy Smith - I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby
Lucille Bogan - Shave 'Em Dry*
The Meditation Singers - Good Old Gospel Music // Trouble's Brewin'
Motörhead - Overkill
Nora Dean - Ay Ay Ay
The Rivingtons - Mama-Oom-Mow-Mow
Tito Puente & His Orchestra - Hit de Bongo
* These are all from WFMU's smutty music post.
Additionally:
A never aired half hour performance of 1969 David Bowie for German television:
Strippers in space:
LA is a trippy, funky place:
A Prince look-alike contest! Make sure to see kid Prince at 2:53
Boutique-era Beasties on Soul Train with an added verse rapping about Don Cornelius!
Scientist remixes What's Going On:
LargeUp: Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires was released in 1981 and then a year later, Michael Jackson’s Thriller came out utilizing some of the same B-Horror movie sound FX and samples. When you heard Thriller, what did you think?
Scientist: [Laughs] You really want to know what my honest opinion was? The composition is good. But I really wish I could get those tapes of Thriller to really make Michael Jackson–hear how he really sounds. Here’s what the gospel truth is: Thriller is a form of electronic music that came out of reggae. I am a person who created hi-fidelity and set the standard and the benchmark. So when I hear Michael Jackson’s music–to people in that time, because it was new to them, it was like “Wow,” but I could hear all the defects. Just like I could hear all the defects in Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” song. The whole world knows that song. But when that song came out about the same time, I could hear all the weakness that Motown was putting on it, because people never heard that music in any other way and they grew up listening to it like that, they believe that’s what it’s supposed to sound like. The evidence is when you go back and listen to the exact same track that I remixed–it’s just a rough mix–the original mix comes nowhere near to it. The same exact instruments. Reggae is what set the benchmark for these other genres. It’s not the other way around like what people who are trying to confuse the world to think. Remember, Jamaica’s the place where a recording console became an instrument.
My First New York
There was no one specific moment when the rigorous self-consciousness gave way to authenticity. It was more of a dim realization that the very act of playing the "Are we a New Yorker yet?" game means you aren't one yet. But it eventually happens, dawning on you after the fact, tapping you on the shoulder after you've passed it. It comes from an accretion of shitty jobs, deeply felt friendships that last, deeply felt friendships that end, funerals, marriages, divorces, births, and betrayals, and you wake up one day to realize that you passed the eight-year mark decades prior; that you are older than all the characters in Manhattan, with the possible exception of Bella Abzug; that you have been to a party in the garden at MoMA and watched the sun come up over Sutton Place and the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge and decided that, in the end, you'd rather stay home; that only a rich moron would buy his groceries at Dean & DeLuca; and that, as fun and Margo Channing as it might seem to be drunk and witty and cutting, it's probably better in the long run to be kind. These are all realizations endemic to aging anywhere, I am sure. It must happen in other cities, but I've really only ever been a grown-up here.
August 2012 Music
The Commodores - Celebrate
This mixtape of Digable Planet's sample sources.
Tina Fey's guest verse closing out Childish Gambino's new album:
The Doors perform the Reading Rainbow theme song:
And lastly, playing Cypress Hill through a squid:
Donald Byrd - You've Been Talkin' 'Bout Me Baby
Flosstradamus - Rollup (Baauer Remix)
Gábor Szabó - Some Velvet Morning
The Hungarian jazz guitarist covers Lee Hazlewood.
Janey & Dennis - Take It From A Friend
Jeremih - Fuck U All The Time
Mugadzikwa Mwanagona - Chirombo Weye Nditerere
This is off an LP of Alan Lomax's field recordings in British East Africa. I think it was recorded in the 1950s. From the liner notes: "Played by Mugadzikwa Mwanagona (13) at Roman Catholic Location School, Fort Victoria, S. Rhodesia. In many districts, the use of indigenous instruments is discouraged by the missions, but young lads like this Karanga boy continute to play the Mbira. The boy had been given it by a Nyassa musician, but had tuned it to his local mode, paying his melodies in a manner traditional to his own district." Fucking missions...
I'm curious to know what possessed Colin Blunstone of the Zombies to re-record his hit song under a psuedonym, and then again in Italian.
The New Birth - You Are What I'm All About
I like to think of this song as an I Want You Back for (funky) grown-ups.
Tina Fey's guest verse closing out Childish Gambino's new album:
The Doors perform the Reading Rainbow theme song:
And lastly, playing Cypress Hill through a squid:
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