Tito Puente : Fancy Feet
taken from the album “On The Bridge” on TICO (1969)

Larry Harlow : Freak Off
taken from the album “El Exigente” on Fania (1967)

Roberto Roena Y Su Apollo Sound : Shades Of Time
taken from the album “2” on Fania (1970)

Joe Bataan : Make Me Smile
taken from the album “Mr. New York And The East Side Kids” on Fania (1967)

Low ceilings. Little light. Sweltering heat. Lack of oxygen. Dust. Mold. Sweat.

And VINYL. Thousands upon thousands of old dirty records. Covered in the funk of ages. I had never seen so many records in such a small, tightly enclosed area- with such a minimum of consumer traffic! At the end of an enlightening and resuscitating Caribbean excursion, I found my place of yogic peace in amongst these alleys of long forgotten Latin hits, and misses. Surrounded by the countless products of creative individuals experimenting in their respective primes, I found myself reverently calm and silent. Here were the highest hopes and reveletory dreams of multiple generations of artists, mass produced masterpieces shelved and left for dead. Sadly, I walked into this digger’s heaven only three hours before my plane was scheduled to leave from San Juan back to NYC. But it’s almost better that I didn’t end up staying in that place any longer. I’m still sneezing up black boogers, and it’s been a full week now.

Finally, the last of my plastic picks has been windexed clean and all of the covers have been scrubbed and scraped of mold. A smell lingers, but I’m pretty used to the fine scent of a nicely aged attic mold at this point. The French appreciate their cheese don’t they?

So here is a small portion of my latest dig. Some crackles and pops to be sure, but the louder you play the music, the less this interferance is noticeable. I’m in an old-school upbeat soulful mood, thus the boogaloo and shingaling over the salsa and ballads today. But there’s plenty more where these tracks came from.

Curious to find out more? Tito, Larry, Roberto, and Joe were all (and everyone but Tito remain) highly prolific and groundbreaking Latin artists… well, Larry is Jewish, but still. I actually got to see Roberto play live down in Puerto Rico and I met him afterwards. I gave him a copy of my E.P. and challenged him to find the place where I sampled him. Real mellow guy.

Check it out, the everbusy Future Boogie crew from Bristol have put up a new mix that I made for them and have kindly included a little feature interview on the true nature of “Gumbo Funk”. Thanks for the shine guys!

Some tunes you’ll hear on the mix: Last Poets, Ralfi Pagan, Patchworks, Gilberto Gil, Gaspar Lawal.

There’s about three hundred pounds worth of other good music on the site, including multiple mixes from Gypsy Bogdan (of Turntablelab) who I’ll be spinning with this Thursday – DEEP CRATES!

I’ll put up some of the fruits of my Puerto Rico digging session this weekend, stay tuned…

Little Brother : The Way You Do It (Captain Planet Remix)
this here’s a Captain’s Crate exclusive

Little Brother : The Becoming
taken from the album “The Minstrel Show” on Atlantic (2005)

Long before I started scrutinizing the periphery of pop culture in search of forgotten gems and original source material, prior to my developing a powerful appreciation for all things funky and foreign (or even knowing that those things existed), I was a hip hop head. I was aware of other kinds of music and was generally open about the vastness of my ignorance, but hip hop music provided the fuel that burned in breakbeats and drove me to my current state of musical obsession. Within hip hop’s layers of samples I began my digging outward and backwards in time. And honestly, not being a musical prodigy by any means, it was the do-it-from-scratch formula to hip hop music that made me imagine I could have any type of future in music making at all.

Which brings me to Little Brother. The self-proclaimed younger sibling to all of those great names (Tribe, De La, JB’s, Pete Rock…just scratching the surface) that played in my walkman and served as the fodder for my formative mixtapes. I don’t want to say much for fear that I’ll dive way out into the deep end of an olympic-sized pool of cheez whiz (which I may already have done), but it’s a very rare thing these days when I am truly excited about a hip hop album and will continue listening to it in its entirety- and will continue to be blown away by it! The Minstrel Show accomplished this feat. The Listening did too. Haters say that they’re not doing anything new, but doesn’t rock solid soulful consistency stand for something in an over-flooded market-driven galaxy of wack fools? And yes, I thank god for The Roots, Outkast, Missy, Common, Kanye (slightly wincing about that last one), but 50 still outsells them, and drops a book, and makes a film that is “based on fact” just enough to actually really mess with millions of kid’s heads (I’m an ex-public school teacher, not a republican). If hip hop is alive and healthy, then why does 90% of hip hop radio sound so fake? And if you actually believe the shiz they’re saying, you’re definitely getting duped. [Have to admit here that I still listen to and enjoy the radio, I still dance to 50, and I’m generally entertained by the videos that I see on BET]. I don’t want to be a hater myself, my point is more to bring attention to the underdog [no 50, not you]. I just want to see a little more balance, that’s all.

Flick a fat middle finger in the face of the countless record execs and industry cronies [excluding the good people at Atlantic who hopefully won’t drop LB after this album] who put less faith in the listening public than I do in my four-year-old brother, and help this album go platinum. ‘Cause right now, it ain’t. As for the remix, I made this beat for another song which hasn’t been recorded yet (Chinaka, where you at?), and with minor tinkering it fit quite nicely over an accapella from The Listening. Not trying to outdo 9th or nothing, just putting a crispy clean (and nostalgic like WHAT?!) spin on it. Hope you enjoy it. And try not to get weirded out if you hear a similar beat with different vocals on it down the road…

Also, I’m heading down to Puerto Rico next weekend for the Candela Music Festival. I’m real excited to be spinning alongside cats like Quantic, Bobbito, Rich Medina, Garth Trinidad, Nickodemus… but don’t expect a post from me for a minute.

Timmy Thomas : Why Can’t We Live Together and Rainbow Power
taken from the album “Why Can’t We Live Together” on Glades (1972)

Darker Than Blue: Soul From Jamdown happens to be one of my all-time favorite compilations (look to the last post if you’re confused). It has all the right elements- superb soul songs, done in cover version (which always adds a point of interest for me), and all the selections (big up to Mark Ainley & Steve Barrow) had barely seen the light of day prior to re-release. Don’t hesitate if you see that album, splurge, and buy an extra copy to give to the person you choose to marry. My post is related as follows, Tinga Stewart’s extended disco version of “Why Can’t We Live Together” appears on the comp that I’ve just been exalting. I’m not giving it to you because the OG really stands in a league of it’s own. Sade did a cover version too on her “Diamond Life” album, but you don’t need me to give you that one either.

The album is simply Timmy and his organ. No frills, no backup, no production know-how. With the possible exception that he knew how to freak the organ drum machine like no one I’ve heard since. There’s also that moment in “Rainbow Power” when he takes his hands off the keys to clap, that gets me good. RAWness. The LP plays like a jawdroppingly powerful demo reel from a guy who’s about to blow up. But Timmy never really did blow up. His story leaves much to the imagination for those of us on the outside. I’m left wondering if there exists in his basement some stack of un-released recordings that Timmy made during lonely, dreamy hours that passed with as much potency as the moments which produced this bit of genius. I’m thinking there must be. A profoundly simple and piercing sound like his doesn’t slip away in the night. If Syl painfully presents the problem, Timmy proclaims the solution: “Rainbow Power”. Nuff said.

Gotta give respects to Pandamonium Jones for introducing me to Timmy via “Funky Me” 45 – I feel like you were mixing it with some crazy 60’s pop record at the time?

Dorothy Ashby : Come Live With Me
taken from the album “Afro-Harping” on Cadet (1968)

Dorothy Ashby : The Moving Finger
taken from the album “The Rubaiyat Of Dorthy Ashby” on Cadet (1970)

I thought that after last week’s post in praise of Richard Evans productions, I ought to bring out some of the heavy-hitter tracks that originally got me hooked on his sound. Here are two choice cuts from the entirely unique funky-harp queen Dorothy Ashby. While fellow jazz harpist Alice Coltrane was travelling outward and inward on the yogic path, Dorothy went in search of the divine groove- constructing adventurous stereo-panned worlds on godsent breakbeats. In Dorothy’s sacred land, the kalimba and piccolo (vibraphone too!) join forces with stabbing strings and an amorphous fuzz guitar in what pilgrims recognize as nothing short of prophesy. Who could have heard the funk in an instrument so seemingly harmless? It’s really on “The Moving Finger” where we see the fulfillment of her vision. Syncopated staccato stankiness on the KOTO? That’s realness.

“The Rubaiyat…” is a concept album which takes it’s inspiration (and some literal quotations) from the poetry of Persian renaissance (before there was a renaissance) man Omar Khayyam. When he wasn’t writing about moving fingers and drinking wine, Omar was pushing boundaries in mathmatics, science, philosophy, and astronomy too. I actually used a translation of his Rubaiyat as one of the texts for my final collegiate thesis- how nerdy is that. To redeem a bit of hipness, I also referenced this particular LP and explored the art/science of DJology.

Just found out about a REALLY sick place to download mixes, read interviews, and remind yourself how much better taste in music people tend to have in the U.K., check out FutureBoogie.com for yourself. I’ll be doing a mix for them pretty soon, picking out tracks now…

And on the ill mix tip, illvibe.net reminds us that there are cats over here keeping things nice too. So bollocks to you bloody euro buggahs! No offense, I don’t even really know what I just wrote.

Final shout-out: Steve (aka Sema4) over @ Scissorkick.com threw a dope party on Saturday night with a couple bands that I guarantee you’ll be hearing more from shortly. Nice work mang!

The Soulful Strings : Within You, Without You
taken from the album “Groovin With The Soulful Strings” on Cadet (1967)

The Soulful Strings : Soul Message
taken from the album “Another Exposure” on Cadet (1968)

The Soulful Strings : Listen Here
taken from the album “In Concert” on Cadet (1969)

My high school art teacher (an accordian-playing, thick-rimmed -glasses-wearing, Reno-born, black-haired-stringbean-of-a-woman) is one of the few characters that I find myself increasingly influenced by, and appreciative of, the further I grow into my own quirkiness. For a substantial part of my Junior and Senior years, I would stay at work in the art studio, bumping music from a box that I rarely allowed out of my control, until 6 or 7, when sports practices were finishing up. My driver’s license was tragically taken away from me by an unruly state of bureaucratic affairs, and so I often relied on getting rides home from post-sports-practice folks. During these delicious hours of acrylic paint and charcoal smudges, my art teacher became my closest “older” friend. Kooky indeed, she spent almost an entire year working on a dark, pre-renaissance, life sized self-portrait with a crow’s face in place of her own. Visiting the apartment where she lived with her equally amazing and creative boyfriend (last I heard, he was painting backdrops for Spongebob Squarepants), always entailed a thorough schooling from their inspirational vinyl collection. The eating of pot brownies would not be out of the question and I was certain to walk away with a new mixtape that would continue to enlighten and awe at least until the next installment.

The point is, my art teacher and her boyfriend, who had lived in Chicago together previously, were the ones to teach me about Cadet records and the brilliant work of Richard Evans. To this day I’m diggin after items that I have on tape from their collection- like both of the Dorthy Ashby albums that make any proper beatfreak flip. Before those albums were reissued, I wasn’t sure if they even existed outside of my art teacher’s abode. Anyway, here are some other fine things that Evans was behind. Highly cutting edge in their day, these albums represent some of the earlier experiments merging string orchestrations with pop and soul. It’s interesting when you think about how common that became in disco later on, and how common it remains today (G Unit’s got strings for days). There’s a bunch of other choice selections on this plastic, including the more well known “Burning Spear” (which later became a disco hit), a siiiick cover of “MacArthur Park”, and the sample friendly “Who Who Song”.

Also, check out a nice blog by Kansas City rocker DJ Ozgood – A Damn Shame

And DJ Carlito comes correct as well (he’s got radio mixes available) – Carlito’s Blog