Breakbeat Tuesday – From Brooklyn & Back Again

It’s funny that sometimes you don’t even know what your look at when it’s right in your face. For instance, today I was listening to a self-titled record by the Bobby Boyd Congress. Bobby Boyd is a singer, songwriter, saxophone player and band leader who formed his group The Congress in Brooklyn back in 1970. Brooklyn was a hotbed of musical talent at that time, eventually giving us many legendary groups, including but not limited to Mandrill, The Fatback Band and B.T. Express. With The Congress Boyd created a unique sound that was centered around his powerful vocals and horn arrangements, but with a really heavy psychedelic tinge to the songs with distorted guitars and whatnot. I’m not sure if it was a preemptive move because of the saturation in the scene of  funk bands or if it was because of lack of success, but in 1971 Boyd moved himself and the entire band to Paris. That wasn’t an uncommon thing to do for musicians back then. While in France they released the self-titled record which is a funk monster and a bit of a holy grail, with prices fetching up to $1000 for a copy. Here’s 2 songs from it, the first which includes a monster breakbeat about 2/3 of the way though, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Sweet Linda Devine break that Black Sheep (& everyone else) used.

Bobby Boyd Congress “Straight Ahead” (Okapi, 1971)

Bobby Boyd Congress “Dig Deep In Your Soul” (Okapi, 1971)

So basically I thought that this particular story for Breakbeat Tuesday was going to end there, with this incredibly talented New York cat packing his bags for overseas, releasing one stunning album  before fading into obscurity. But I did a little more searching around about the backstory and there’s a whole other gigantic dimension to it. Apparently after a couple of years, Bobby Boyd decided that he had enough of living overseas and decided to pack it in and go back to New York, but the band stayed in France where they fell in with producer Pierre Berjot aka Pierre Jaubert. Berjot rechristened the Congress “ICE” and they soon recorded a self-titled album for Berkeley California based Prestige Records. Unfortunately I’ve always found the ICE record to be somewhat tepid, and lacking the raw edge the Congress had. But around the same time they renamed themselves the Lafayette Afro Rock Band and released a few more records. These ones were distributed in Europe but also got distribution on a African Funk specialty record label based on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn called Editions Makossa. It was these records that have 2 of the most monster funk tunes of all time. At first listen you will recognize both of them as songs that whether you know it or not are ingrained into your psyche. So with no further ado I present to you for Breakbeat Tuesday, the Lafayette Afro Rock Band.

Lafayette Afro Rock Band “Darkest Light” (Makossa International, 1976)

Lafayette Afro Rock Band “Hihache” (Editions Makossa, 1974)

It is highly probable that I will be playing at least one of these songs that posted up at tomorrow’s Class Act party at Southpaw with Anonymous and Eli Esco. Obviously on vinyl, obviously. Don’t trip or slip..

Breakbeat Tuesday – Break-Face

So it was a great week and weekend. Thanks to everyone that came out to see me and Eli rock on Saturday – that was a lot of fun, and I got a chance to play all vinyl again, which is such a special treat for me. And apologies to everyone that came to see me rock at Santos – unfortunately there was a scheduling and time slot mix-up and I didn’t get a chance to play, but will be back there soon. In the meantime I will be in Zihuatanejo, Mexico this weekend but back next week with a full schedule of events. So I hope to see you all out. Okay, now off to the races, or better yet… The Breaks!

So Rod Stewart is one of them dudes that was just way too corny for me growing up, like he was the antithesis of “cool” for people my generation. I know that he had a pretty potent musical pedigree, but by the the time I was really exposed to him he had really gone the way into faux-crooner mode, completely schmaltzy and lame. Now I kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt because my mom and them liked him, and even as a kid I dug his disco-crossover “Do You Think I’m Sexy” which is a guilty pleasure (even though it’s directly lifted from Jorge Ben’s “Taj Mahal” for reals…)

But like I said, I knew there was more to dude and I never really knew how bad-ass Rod was until I started peeping Faces, his original band with Ronnie Wood. Dudes were really on their schitt. Stewart and Wood came over from The Jeff Beck Group so they were already well-versed in that British Blues style. These 2 dudes, complete with the rest of the band (originally called Small Faces) gelled like glue and rocked like crazy. And attitude, they got that attitude in spades.

So in the short time span of less than 4 years these dudes put of 4 incredible albums and made their mark, only for everyone to go there separate ways and careers, most notable Stewart as a solo artist and Tony Bennett imitator, and Wood joining The Stones for further fame, glory and excess decadence. But About The Breaks, this one is off the 1971 “Long Player” album. “Bad ‘n’ Ruin” is a really great bluesy number that just moves, and when it gets to about the 3 1/2 minute mark, drummer Kenney Jones just lays in for 4 bars of hard-hitting, straight ahead openness. Nothing fancy or intricate, but just smacking. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Sometimes, simpler is much better.

Faces “Bad ‘n’ Ruin” (Warner Brothers, 1971)

Bonus YouTube Beat: Check out Faces performing Bad ‘n’ Ruin on Britain’s Top Of The Pops in 1971.  Super ill performance and dudes go off on it. A really great video, and when Jones’ drum solo comes on he smacks it even harder than he does on the actual recording. Plus, check out Ronnie’s toilet seat guitar. Nasty…

Breakbeat Tuesday – A Stoned Alliance

I was speaking to my friends about my baby brother the other who is like the best dude ever. He lives literally on the other side of the world (Japan) and I never see him, which sucks, but I know he’s there and he knows I here and no amount of physical space can erase that cause we’re brothers and I got his back forever.

I had been doing this thing with records for a while and he kind of fell into it after me on some old brother emulation schitt, but he also kind of owned it in his own way. For instance, he was the dude who put me up on Stone Alliance. You might know that from the Beastie Boys line “I like Sweetie-Pie from the Stone Alliance, everybody knows that I be dropping science.” Trust me when I tell you that the song he’s referring to is smooth as butter, unlike that rap lyric. Stone Alliance was a Afro-Cuban jazz fusion group who’s nucleus consisted of  established Jazz heavyweights Gene Perla, Don Alias and Steve Grossman. They got together in the early 70s and only put out a few records, but during that run they laced us with this saxophone-driven funk monster “Sweetie-Pie.” Simple, effective, to the point, and absolutely on fire…

Stone Alliance “Sweetie-Pie” (Happy Bird, 1976)

Here are two really great usages of this sample, both used in completely different ways but both kind of incredible. The first is a 7″ by the mysterious Chopp Master Flopp, better known to must as Brooklyn’s own DJ Spinna. The illustrious Spinna does a masterful job with “Peetie Swei” where he basically just takes the original and chops it to all hell , completely re envisioning the original. He didn’t need anything except the original record and the MPC.

Chopp Master Flopp “Peetie Swei” (Sure Shot, 2006)

The second usage here is the Large Professor Remix of Leader’s Of The New School’s “What’s Next.” This was the lead single off of the second LONS album and, while the original is okay, Extra P propels it into a completely different ballpark with his take on it. Based mainly off the 24-Carat Black “Brown Baggin'” sample, he uses the horns from “Sweetie-Pie” to complete the chorus and bridge. This is a great example of an era when rap used multiple samples in one song and yet somehow it worked and didn’t sound cacophonous.

Leaders Of The New School “What’s Next (Large Professor Remix)” (Elektra, 1993)

Breakbeat Tuesday – Love City

So I typed out most of the content from today’s update only to have my application freeze up on me. D’oh. Not feeling it, son. Anyway, I was just saying that I’m gonna try and make sure this site doesn’t veer too far into “Cosmo’s Appreciation for Oldies Website” too much. I mean, that’s where my head is at these days but still, next week I’ll bring it back down to eye level by posting some Philly rap music. Nothing like Tuff Crew to get one ready for WMC (actually, Miami was one of Tuff Crew’s biggest markets outside of Philly, so it might be apropos.)

Happy 67th birthday Sly Stone! Actually it was yesterday but I didn’t get a chance to post up so I figured that today would be a good opportunity to kill 2 birds with 1 Stone, get it? Okay so if you don’t know who this guy is, welcome to Planet Earth. Like in last weeks post about those “elite artists,” if that group were a class Sly would be the genius / class clown. Plus, honestly for the funk is there anyone that’s more influential than this guy other that maybe James? From both a musical and probably a social standpoint, probably not. Plus there really wasn’t anybody that embodied “cool” like this dude. I have fond memories of being a really young kid and my mom playing “Dance to The Music” on the radio while us kids were in the back bopping our heads and moving our bodies like we were in The Muppet Show. But Sly was – is – an incredible artist and visionary. I’ve been planning on doing a Sly related project for a long time now and just never have gotten around to it but I hope to revisit the ideas I have for it real soon. And so today’s first breakbeat from today’s selection comes from a strange, maybe bootleg, record that I’ve had for years comprised of early recordings of him which I think are pre-Family Stone, but still fully up in the San Francisco scene. At first glance you might want to pass this one up but it has some great tunes on it and gives a nice glimpse into Sly’s gospel and soul background. The song with the beat is called “Rock Dirge” (um, okay…) but this record also has “Life Of Fortune And Fame” on it that was used by The Roots for the song “Game Theory” (YOU VIOLATING, SON! Nah, but for real that’s one of my favorite Roots songs of all time. PS – Congrats, Riq!)

Sly Stone “Rock Dirge” (Sculpture, 196?)

Moving on to some later material, I was trying to figure out what song to choose for today. For some reason, even there’s a lot to choose from, ones that might be more “open” I had to choose “Love City” from their 1968 album “Life.” For the record, I consider Sly & The Family Stone’s drummer Greg Errico to be one of the greatest drummers of all time, and he’s so often overlooked that it’s a shame. Dude is NASTY, and I think this song is a great example of how “pocket” dude can be. But the beat is BANANAS. Also, as an aside, the way that Paul C flipped the drums on this (and I still don’t know to this day how he made it sound the way he did) for Super Lover Cee & Cassanova Rud’s “Get’s No Deeper” Remix is both a testament to Greg’s drumming, and Paul’s absolute genius.

Sly & The Family Stone “Love City” (Epic, 1968)

Check them performing “Love City” as their encore at Woodstock. HARD BODY doesn’t even describe it. Man this performance is nuts. This is one of the few performances that really makes me say that I wish I could have seen Woodstock.

One last bonus beat. This is from a reissue 45 that came out a few years ago, a great cover version of Family Affair by The Generation Gap. All I know about the original LP is that they were a studio group that released a record with a bunch of cover songs as well as doing soul / funk versions of popular TV theme songs from the 70s. Worth checking for, but this 45 is great as the Cracker Boys extended the break in the front out, backed with a great edit of the Dee Felice Trio’s cover of James Brown’s “There Was A Time.”

The Generation Gap “There Was A Time (A Cracker Edit)” (Octopus Breaks, 2006)

Before I’m finished here, I can’t leave without posting this video of really early Sly & The Family Stone. In it they’re performing at the Ohio State talent show which must be like 1967 or 1968 (when M’Lady was released as a single.) But from the look of it, and being the fact that they’re performing in a talent show, I would guess this is before the blew up to become the biggest band in America. But you can see all the ill routines that they did over the years, and just bodying the contest. Very ill..