Monday, April 26 2010

A Little Rain Must Fall

I decided to post a record today to share with the world and looked out the window and it is one dismal, grey, rainy day here in New York. I typed the word “Rain” in my iTunes and found a list of records that would do the trick, but one jumped out at me immediately….

I’ve got some friends visiting New York from overseas and over the past few days we’ve been having an ongoing discussion about the perception that people outside of the US have about the people here. It’s like, with all our progress, they must think we’re idiots. Granted most people know to give New York, and the coasts in general, a pass. But damn man, and now with this whole Arizona Jim Crown thing… I know a lot people don’t believe in evolution. What about devolution? Anyway, listen to this very early P-Funk ditty and chew it over. “… and the president’s talking bout a change, but nobody’s got sense enough to come in out of the rain.”

Parliament “Come In Out Of The Rain” (Invictus, 1970)

On a lighter note, I’m glad that people like my site and all the content that I post up on it so much. The feedback over the past several months has been incredible. And, I love writing and after a long hiatus I feel as though I’ve found my voice again, and am committed to keeping the momentum rolling with this. But, let’s not lose sight, at least I can’t – this is my personal website and I am a DJ / musician and I hope through the site I can drive more commerce my way. Let’s not get that twisted. Always trying to get that next gig…

And so this past Wednesday I was DJing at the Kastel Lounge inside the Trump Soho. It was pretty standard as far as hotel lounge gigs go, and so I kind of was playing what I wanted. Early on in the night I dropped Steve Arrington’s “Way Out” and 30 seconds later this dude comes over with a heavy British accent and says to me “Mate, this is my favorite song of all time. When it’s done, give it a rewind, from the top why don’t you?” So I said sure. I looked around the room and I noticed that I was providing innocuous background noise except for one single table of about 10 folks in the corner, who we’re just going nuts over everything that I was dropping. After a while they would come up to the booth, “Mate, play some Gap Band!” “Mate, Larry Young’s Fuel.” and the occasional “CHOOONE” for something that I dropped. Turns out it was these guys, in town to film something for The Colbert Report. I did not know…

So back to Steve Arrington, dude has always been one of my favorites. Both with Slave and as soloist, way too dope, and his very existence is good evidence for my theory that Ohio is actually the funkiest state in The Union. Steve’s a longtime favorite, and so when I saw this tweet from Peanut Butter Wolf the other day I got super excited. You may or may not know that Steve is teaming up with Dam Funk for his next record. The living legend is coming back with the funk, and it’s helmed by one of the dudes that’s really handling things proper. So be on the lookout for that no question. And in the meantime, I’ll leave you with Steve’s “Way Out.”

Steve Arrington’s Hall Of Fame “Way Out” (Atlantic, 1983)

B/W – As an aside, this came in my email box the next day. I normally don’t pay attention to these things, and nor do I get geeked over this stuff, but this one hahah, this one I found to pretty damn cool…