DJ's Old-Time Granny and Dyn-O-Mite spin old school soul, funk, and disco jams! The show airs on special occasions on WCOM radio, 103.5 FM in Carrboro, NC, and streams online worldwide. www.resoul.org
While hanging out at the new gelato spot today, I ran into a CT-based rapper and producer named Skobie Won. It intrigued me to learn he's out of New London, since I recently relieved the the New London Sal's of all their decent vinyl, and found another large used record stash at a nearby antique mall that yielded some goodies, too. Skobie said he had a big collection, and I bet he does...those producer cats stockpile up all the good crate-dug shit. He just dropped his third album, Drive, and checking out his website led me to this very dope electro-flavored track right here, Burn:
which was the first single off his last album, Bedlam and Squalor. Burn to the ground, baby! Just keep the flames away from the gelato.
His car re-materialized, and he was so thrilled, he lost me in traffic before we could go out for lunch to celebrate. I ended up at the Pitman Street Sal's, where I picked through the leftovers from a stash I'd discovered earlier in the week. It was the first chance I'd had in several days to get back over there. After I'd looked through every piece of vinyl in their overflowing stacks, I stumbled onto this, peeking out of a pile of classical box sets. Saturday Night, Sunday Morning is the more celebrated dancefloor number from this record, but the title track blasts off to a rainbow disco in the sky.
This here's a record I had been meaning to listen to for a while before it finally landed on my turntable this morning - Mandrill Is, the second LP by Mandrill, which dropped in early 1972. And when the needle hit the groove, the very first track hit me with an eargasmic blast of funk. By the time it was over, I had a mad smile on my face and my day was off to a great start.
And the rest of the album was dope, too, especially tracks like I Refuse To Smile and the closer, The Sun Must Go Down, which sounds like a missing Strawberry Alarm Clock track off Z-man's party mix from Beyond The Valley of the Dolls. I first discovered Mandrill thanks to DJ Bro Rabb, aka Phil Bell, who gave me a mixtape about 15 years back that I think had their first LP on one side, and a classic Detroit Emeralds album on the other. Originally formed in Brooklyn in 1968, the band's nucleus were the Panama-born Wilson brothers (Carlos, Lou, and Ric). In a 2012 interview given shortly before Lou Wilson's January, 2013 death, he and Ric described the origins of their polyglot funk sound as the "melting pot" of music from all corners of the world that the brothers heard while growing up in Panama. I never knew that Mandrill contributed a track to The Warriors soundtrack, which is a joint for another day, since I just scored that record at a yard sale last month.
A German pressing, this particular copy of Mandrill Is came from a antiques mall in Rhode Island I visited earlier this year. Convinced dude at the counter to sell it to me for two or three bucks, because it was a little scratched. It does skip on one totally out-there track, Universal Rhythms, which is too bad, because that particular track showed Mandrill was onto some meaning of life shit as they broke down the rhythms of the universe, all explained by the Enchanting Wizard of Rhythm. But I was still able to decipher the track's central message, a timeless reminder for us all - "Higher levels of consciousness demand rhythms of peacefulness."
One of the records I dug up on a recent trip to one of the few Triangle-area thrift sto's I'd never been to before was Stump Your Feet and Dance, by Kim Taylor. A Peter Brown-produced rare number from 1979 that's going for $150+ on eBay in VG+ or better condition. Mine is all scratched up, but probably still playable, and on red vinyl. Apparently there was an even rarer black vinyl version. Both on Queen Constance Records, one of the labels Peter Brown and Patrick Adams used to propagate their P&P disco spawn across the world's dancefloors.
There's an instrumental on the flip. I've also seen this track credited to Cloud One, and it turns out that's becuz it was released under their name in an earlier, longer instrumental version back in 1977, Stomp Your Feet And Dance.
Like every other Cloud One production I've heard, it was the shit! A monster disco-funk instrumental with insane, tripped out synths and a relentless, driving beat. Guaranteed to keep your body working.
A forgotten disco gem is today's featured joint - Dream World, by Don Downing.
This is the version off his 1978 album Doctor Boogie, but the track was previously released as a single back in 1973, and remixed by Tom Moulton in 1974. Found Doctor Boogie recently at the Goodwill on Garrett Road, it was one of only two records I bought there. On the same thrift sto' excursion, I also stopped by the Elliott Road PTA, and the Durham Rescue Mission on 15-501, where I picked up a dozen at $.99 per.
Today I stopped at the Swansea Sally's and found $20 worth of great records. One of which was Disco Gold, an underground disco compilation from 1975 entirely composed of remixes by legendary 70s producer and remixer Tom Moulton, aka the father of both the remix and the 12" single. And one of the standout tracks on that was Make Me Believe In You, by Patti Jo.
It was originally written and produced by Curtis Mayfield, and released as a single in 1973. The original version is great, but Tom Moulton's mix is off the charts fantastic. This track was specifically mentioned by Andrew Holleran in his classic 1978 novel Dancer from the Dance about queer life in New York City, set amidst a backdrop of the era's gay bars and discos.
Disco Gold is super cool artifact of the 70s disco era because the back cover lists nearly 300 disco DJ's with the dedication, "Thanks, for without your help this album would not be possible." The list includes pioneers like Steve D'Acquisto, George Cucuzzella, Alfie Davison, Francis Grasso, Walter Gibbons, John Hedges, Richie Kaczor, Barry Lederer, Larry Levan, John Luongo, David Mancuso, David Rodriguez, Tom Saverese, Nicky Siano, Roy Thode and David Todd. Additionally, on the inside gatefold cover, there's a list of nearly 200 discos that were operating in 1975, primarily ones in New York City but also discos in 16 other states, plus D.C., Puerto Rico, Canada, Australia, and the French West Indies.
Listened to some more of the vinyl from this week's thrift store score, and the joint that stood out was Funk You Up, by The Sequence. It was the very next release (SH-543) on Sugarhill Records in '79 after The Sugarhill Gang dropped Rapper's Delight (SH-542), and these ladies were layin' down some powerful rhymes...rappin' in the key of R-A-P. Straight outta' Columbia, South Carolina, where the three of them were high school cheerleaders together.
Apparently, the first rap record released by a female group. Hip hop history! The cut reached #15 on the Black Singles chart, and was co-written by label owner Sylvia Robinson. Later, The Sequence backed up Spoonie Gee on his 1980 hit Monster Jam, and much later, starting in the 90s, lead rapper Angie B (Brown Stone) had a neo-soul career as Angie Stone.
Besides the rare grooves in this latest thrift sto' stash, I also snagged a copy of Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. The first ever hip-hop track to top the Billboard charts (continuing the time-honored tradition of white American artists profiting from black music), and a massively over-played video that still draws attention today with many, many millions of views on YouTube, this track is the very antithesis of a rare groove.
I never owned the track before (and apparently the 12" is rarer than you would think, since it was pulled from stores after the song hit #1, becuz the record company wanted folks to buy the whole album). But had to get it. I remember watching Ice (aka Rob Van Winkle) on the best reality show of all time, The Surreal Life, on its second (and best ever) season, which aired over the winter of 2004, also featuring Ron Jeremy, Erik Estrada, Tammy Faye Messner (Bakker), and a memorable cameo by Gary Coleman.
Before this show, the last time Ice had made headlines was in 1999, during the taping of an MTV special called 25 Lame. He was invited on camera to destroy the master tape of the video for Ice Ice Baby, and instead took a baseball bat to the show's set. The Surreal Life revealed a very vulnerable Vanilla Ice. (Note from 9/10/13 - and also relaunched his career, leading directly to his current stint as a star of reality TV home improvement shows, the latest being Vanilla Ice Goes Amish, which premieres on October 12, 2013.)
It was because Ice told Ron J. how much he admired Rick James that Ron called the guy up and got him to stop by the set one night, and it was very sweet, Ice was totally awestruck. Erik Estrada chimed in and told the camera, "I knew Rick from the Studio 54 days...I used to like to trip to New York City, Friday night, I'd head right to Studio 54, until Sunday morning, just jamming all night and getting crazy." When Ice asked Rick, "How did you two guys meet?", meaning him and Ron J., Rick said to Ron, "You'd come to my house, man, every night, and there'd be like, 30 girls." Classic.
This morning, for the second day in a row, I was back at the same thrift sto', picking up a few more tracks from the dolla bin, all part of the same stash of vintage 80s electro/freestyle/house rekkids I discovered the day before. But I didn't add this one to my pile b/c it was pretty scratched up. Think I already own a copy, anyway. Definitely a stellar Arthur Baker electro production. I don't know if he was married to Tina B at the time this track dropped or if they tied the knot at a later date.
Even tho' I left it for the next lucky digger, it was still joint-worthy, because previewing it on YouTube reminded me how fresh it sounds. Plus turned me on to a dope fan-made video compilation of classic breakdancing footage, including scenes from Graffiti Rock, a series that was intended to be a hip hop Soul Train, but instead only aired as a pilot episode on June 29, 1984 on WPIX in New York City. Unfortunately, that particular video has since disappeared from sight.
Today I unearthed a nice stack of choice records at a thrift store spot I seldom swing through, and clearly, it was a good thing I stopped there. The first joint I spotted, the one that made me realize there were goodies lurking, was Clear, by Cybotron.
A legendary electro release, and one of the records that heralded the dawn of techno. Cybotron (Juan Atkins, Richard "3070" Davis, and John "Jon 5" Housley) got signed to Fantasy Records after their two earliest tracks, self-released out of Detroit as 7" slices of wax in 1981 and '82, sold a combined 15,000 copies. Clear was the most successful single off their 1983 debut LP, Enter, and shipped 50,000 nationwide.
There's debate over whether this can be considered the first-ever pure "techno" track, an argument that's a little silly in light of the fact that Cybotron was building on the foundation already laid down by Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra. And a lot of people consider Clear too electro to be techno, pointing to Cybotron's 3rd single, Techno City, as the real techno holy grail, or No UFO's, the first track that Atkins released (as Model 500) on Metroplex, the record label he founded after leaving Cybotron over creative differences with Davis. But however you want to classify it, Clear is still a classic track.
Today's history lesson comes courtesy of Professor Kurtis Blow:
Kurtis was totally breaking it down with this powerful pro-peace, pro-unity, anti-war statement. Little wonder I never saw this video on MTV back in the day, circa when it dropped in 1985. (Editor's note: Another entry in the coincidence or cosmic convergence category - this is the 85th post to appear on Soul'ed Out, UnLtd. The universal funk elders must be lookin' out for the SOUL train!)
Pretty sure I found this 12" at the recent clearance sale that the former Stock Exchange owners were holding in the old American Tourister factory in Warren, along with a fat stack of other classic hip hop joints that had somehow escaped crate-digging notice.
Since my friend DJ Babs aka Berrytone assures me I'm on staff at Barry's Video Dance Club, I've been trying to dig up some rare disco video artifacts. Which is how I came across a 1975 audio recording from a 45 record featuring DJ Tee Scott advertising a night at legendary NYC nitespot Better Days, where "your mind will be your flight path," and a late 70s public access commercial for Plato's Retreat, the swingers' club that opened in the space formerly occupied by the Continental Baths, where Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles got their start DJ'ing.
And some vintage video footage from French TV circa 1978 of Studio 54, where the track playing happened to be Let's All Chant, by the Michael Zager Band. Which was one of the tracks that stood out when I recently came across A Night At Studio 54 at the thrift sto'. A continuously mixed two-record set released on Casablanca Records in 1979, it threw together the totally commercial disco hits of the moment like Y.M.C.A, Le Freak, and Shake Your Groove Thing with lesser-known Studio 54 classics like Souvenirs by Voyage and Musique's In The Bush, produced by Patrick Adams. But my favorite overlooked gem was Let's All Chant. So I was totally psyched to find there was an original video, and it's a killer.
From Eumir Dedato's 1984 LP Motion, feat. Camille on vocals. This LP either recently materialized in the dolla bins at All Day Records, or as a $2 record in the stack I picked up at the Carrboro Record Show last Sunday. All but one of which I bought from Gene Brown's friend Paul O'Boyle.
And as luck would have it, I already had a copy in my Lost City back stock that was ready for sale. But whatever, now I can sell it instead of hanging outo it like I would have done otherwise. Becuz it's a classic track with a timeless feel, it spent 12 weeks on the Billboard Top 20 Dance Chart.
The whole reason I went by All Day Records in the first place yesterday when I ended up with a dollar bin score (besides the fact that I was hanging out with my pal Barbara, formerly known to some as DJ Berrytone, now shopping for a new name, and considering DJ Taco Trouble) was naturally, to pick up another record from out the dolla bin that I had on hold! Which I figured was a karmically silly situation, since back in the day at the Lost City, it drove me right up the f-ing wall when heads would hand me a fat stack of expensive rekkids and ask me to put them on hold. Then not show back up for months at a time. I would regularly paw through the hold crate just to see all the great records we weren't selling.
But just to set the record straight, it wasn't becuz I didn't have a dollar in my pocket that I had to put the joint on hold, altho there's no shame in being a broke-ass DJ with a vinyl habit. I spotted this LP during a previous visit as Ethan was desperately trying to evict us from the store at closing time, and just wanted to make sure it wasn't totally scratched up before taking it home.
It was the full-length LP of Keep On Jumpin' (1978) by Musique, produced by Patrick Adams. Missing the sexy picture sleeve, which is the only reason this record got slept on, since it was sitting right at the front of the dolla bins, staring kids in the face as they walked in the store. Besides the title cut (which went #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play charts), this one included In The Bush (also hit #1 Dance, and was a late nite Lost City fave), plus today's Joint Of the Day – Summer Love. The fourth track on this LP (they all clock in at around 8 minutes) is an instrumental, soundtracky version of the same cut (Summer Love Theme). But the vocal version is the bomb. Too bad it's not the summertime yet. Listen to this, and it'll get you in the mood early.
Earlier today, Old-Time Granny busted me as I was digging through the free crate outside All Day Records. But I was supporting the store, too – by helping them clear out their dollar bins! It was difficult to focus, tho, becuz Ethan kept spinning a never-ending stream of really great records from all genres on the store's sound system. WADR should be its own radio station, and I encourage vinyl shoppers to spend as much time in that store as possible. Mad props to Ethan and Charlie for helping local record junkies feed our addictions! They do international mail-order too, off their website, so check 'em out.
Anyway, I dug up a few choice goodies, including jazz cuts from Stanley Clarke, Tom Browne, and my man the fusion flutist - Tim Weisberg! Plus the killer find of them all (at least the best of the free crate), "A Logger's Reward," by Buzz Martin. Straight outta Oregon. With hits like "Too High On The Stump" and "Since They Repossessed My Used Log Truck." Buzz Martin was the Johnny Cash of the Northwest, and while the song titles sound like novelty songs, these tracks are actually very heartfelt tales about his existence as a struggling logger.
And I found this 12" right here, by Side Effect. In the dolla bins, not the free crate. A sure sign of quality from the get-go. Who already represented in a JOTD a few weeks back, but here they are again. I'm A Winner is just too good to pass by. The scat singing during this track's break is especially funky.
Maze feat. Frankie Beverly have consistently toured the Triangle pretty much every year or two for the past two decades, which is how long I've been down here, and probably the decade before that, too. So I kind of slept on them b/c of the familiarity factor. Well, I really should have taken the time to listen to them first, and the self-titled Maze feat. Frankie Beverly LP is a great place to start.
It was their 1977 debut on Capitol Records, the one with hits like Happy Feelin's and While I'm Alone. My #1 fave is Color Blind, not least b/c of its super positive message and appeal for racial unity. I also really dig the 9:27 closing cut, Look At California, and found an awesome video clip set to it featuring footage of the breathtaking natural beauty on the drive along the Avenue of the Giants, inside Humboldt Redwoods State Park in Northern Cali.
My copy of the Maze record that served up today's JOTD still has its original $4.99 price sticker from the House Of Sight & Sound. Which is a store where a lot of the great soul, jazz, funk & fusion vinyl I recently scored at the Elliott Road PTA apparently came from. Now I'm curious to know where that store was. Google seems to indicate it may have been in Van Nuys, CA, described in a 1963 Billboard article as a "prime San Fernando Valley dealer."
A little more digging turned up a photo of the place!
The House of Sight & Sound circa 1960s, located at Van Nuys and Victory in the San Fernando Valley
And Billboard ran a complete article on the spot, dated 7/4/64, confirming it was THE main record store in the area, and also sold a full line of stereo equipment, TV's, even pianos. That's pretty cool. Billboard reported that "S&S customers primarily purchase middle of the road LP's, but jazz purchases are starting to increase as a result of new people into the Valley," according to Jerry Johnson, the store's owner.
Today's joint proves that you can't judge an LP by its cover. I picked this beauty up at the Elliott Road PTA last month, in one of my two huge mid-winter thrift sto' vinyl scores. But I put off listening to it, because...it just looked silly. I figured it would be some commercial-sounding, rip-off disco bullshit, maybe the West Coast, Fantasy Records, all-black version of the Village People.
Turns out I was totally wrong. Goin' Bananas by Side Effect is a soul/funk masterpiece. On yellow vinyl! "Produced by Wayne Henderson for At-Home Productions (All good music starts At-Home!)" will forever after be recognized by me as a sign of quality, as any fan of the Crusaders can testify (except for heads like my Choice Sides co-host Obliveon, who feels like they let down the planet by moving away from their hard bop origins as the Jazz Crusaders).
"Everybody, can't you feel the effective side...that's really real."
Keep On Keepin' On is my fave, but it was hard to choose, 'cuz there's lots of goodies, including Open Up Your Heart, It's All In Your Mind, and Mr. Monday. The last one, in particular, I listened to about 10 times in a row, since it's so smooth and delectable, and after all, today is Monday, dammit! But predictably, not on YouTube.
I'm not gonna wax poetic for too long about KOKO, just let me say that it features scat singing! And zodiac shout-outs! And a super positive message laid down over a mellow, funky groove. Did I mention that the record is yellow, like a banana?
Can the ultra white-bread, bubblegum pop, manufactured TV group The Partridge Family be FUNKY? Maybe so, and today's joint is the proof. Anybody who's ever seen The Spirit of '76 and watched DavidCassidy in his red, white and blue Captain America jump suit and sparkling silver platform boots go all kung fu fighting on Leif Garrett while rescuing Olivia D'Abo the disco diva (aka Chanel-6 from the year 2176), well, they already knew the man's got some killer dancefloor moves. And listening to this track, now I realize he also had a little blue-eyed soul thing going on. Closing cut on Side A of The Partridge Family Album, which was a Carrboro PTA find in my big score of a few weeks back. It's far better than anything I've ever heard before from "the family that reverbs together." Who were actually just Cassidy and his step-mom Shirley Jones backed up by session players - Danny Bonaduce and the rest of the cast didn't play or sing on any Partridge Family records.
I've always been a fan of I Think I Love You, which was their biggest hit (#1 on the pop charts in December, 1970), although I never thought it was all that sexy a song. Which puzzled me, because back in the day I remember reading a reprint of a Rolling Stone profile about Cassidy (turns out it was an infamous cover story from '72 called Naked Lunch Box: The Business of David Cassidy, which sold out on newsstands, one of only three RS issues ever to do so). It told how Cassidy was playing sold-out concerts packed with screaming teenage girls and having such a lustful effect on them that workers had to clean the seats once the shows ended. Was that just hype? Listening to this sultry, suggestive, soulful track, it all makes sense.
And cueing this number up over and over again today on my turntable, which clocks in at a teasingly short 2:05, I've got new respect for the first crop of DJ's in the early 70s who had to create extended jams from double copies of two or three-minute songs on 45 rpm records. Wish there was a 12" mix!
