Breakbeat Tuesday – Special Guest Oliver O-Dub Wang

Whattup, world? Been a minute since I’ve brought the breaks on the second day of the week (third if you’re a tribes member) but this week I’m happy to bring in a very special guest, my dude Oliver Wang BKA O-Dub from the almighty Soul-Sides.com. For those that don’t know, Soul-Sides has been one of the preeminent sources and most comprehensive places on the web for all things soul, funk, jazz, latin, hip-hop, you name it. If it’s got soul, it’s on this site. O-Dub go way back many years ago after linking up with him via The Strut, and I started to spend a lot more time in The Bay. Ever the scholar, he has a true gift of breaking down the stories behind the music in a very academic manner (he is an assistant professor at CSU-Long Beach for crying out loud) but with never removing the humanity within the grooves. Truly “Doing The Knowledge.” So it’s my sincere pleasure to bring to you this week’s BBT with my man O-Dub at the helm. Take it away, my man…

Like the rest of the world, I probably first heard the the “Cussin, Cryin’ and Carryin’ On” break (“CCCO” for short) on 45 King’s instant classic of a remix for Take 6’s accapella jam, “Spread Love.”

Even among the pantheon of great 45 King beats, this one stood out for any number of reasons. For one, the kick drum has that incredible bottom boom; it literally sounds like a “fat beat.” However, by itself, it wouldn’t be anywhere as potent if not for the syncopation of that kick with the hi-hat and snare. Any number of images come to mind when I hear how the pattern lines up – it’s like someone rattling and throwing dice, it’s like whipping a rattlesnake by its head, it’s like down-shifting a race car and flooring it. You get the idea.

The brilliance of how the “CCCO” break comes together owes partially to its source:

Ike Turner (or more accurately, his drummer), should get proper credit for dreaming up that particular pattern but notice that the “break” here is basically a one bar intro; the rest of the song doesn’t keep that particular cadence. The “CCCO” break, as we know it, wouldn’t be what it is without 45 King recognizing the potential of looping that up and creating something far greater than its original source. Hell, even “Put Your Hand In the Hand” lasts for two bars.

Befitting the royalty of 45 King’s creation, the “CCCO” break recurs prominently in some major ways, especially as a track to kick a freestyle over. Arguably the most famous examples – twice over – lies with Biggie. You’ve probably seen this video:

There’s the young B.I.G., apparently rocking a street corner over the “CCCO” break. And then later, the same beat appears again in one of the greatest “what could have been?” moments in rap history:

Yup, ‘Pac and Biggie rapping over the “CCCO” break (along with Big Scoob, Kane and Shyheim), live at Madison Square Garden in ’95. But to give credit where it’s due, a year before that, you hear the “CCCO” break powering another live session but this time, it’s taking MCs to war:

During the infamous Hiero vs. Hobo battle in 1994, DJ Joe Quixxx used the “CCCO break” (using doubles of “Spread Love”) during the first couple of rounds between Casual and Saafir.

Indeed, the “CCCO” break had a real heyday in the early 1990s, showing up on records by everyone from Das Efx to the Pharcyde to Towa Tei but my absolute favorite (on griminess alone) is from Madman Shawn:

Camy wear? Check. Black hoodie? Check. Timbos? Check. The fact that the video is hella low-budget only enhances its mad-wreck-realness. Rip it up, son, rip it up.

Ike & Tina Turner “Cussin’, Cryin’ & Carryin’ On” (Pompei, 1969)

RIP Gil Scott-Heron

We lost one of our greats. The other night I was not myself. And then I turned to find that Gil Scott-Heron is dead. My hero. Our American hero. Now even more so, not myself.

I spoke on his impact and legacy, both personal and in a broader sense, and shared some of his music here in this post from March of last year. At this point there’s not much more that I can say myself, or that I even feel needs to be said. I’ve been a very big fan of Gil for many years now. That’s the wrong way of putting it. His music was pretty much the music of my teenage and early adult years. He is the voice of the city, he is the voice of the everyman, the voice of struggle and desperation, he is the voice of my youth, the voice of the tragedy of the game. He was our flawed, fragile Superman (although the brother himself would say there ain’t no such thing.) Honestly, I’m still in awe of the honesty and sincerity of his work, not just the body but the depth . I am not worthy to even speak about him. I’m not worthy to write about him. I’m just not worthy, I’m still just standing in his shadow. We all are. And we will not see another like him, not ever.

Ayres wrote a very nice piece on The Rub site, and Chairman Mao wrote a great piece as well as a mini tribute mix on the Ego Trip Blog. And to paraphrase Ayres, this loss hurts more than most because Gil was ours. And today me and Kenan will be doing a very special 2 hour Gil Scott-Heron tribute show on Chances With Wolves on East Village Radio. Tune in at 4 PM East Coast Time.

Peace Go With You, Brother. As-Salaam-Alaikum.

Breakbeat Tuesday – Ticket To The Moon

Last January the earth opened up and swallowed part of Port-au-Prince, Haiti and leaving a country and a people in dire straits. The good people over at Soulstrut decided to hold a “Heatrocks For Haiti” campaign, where the members of the site would donate some of their most prized pieces of vinyl for auction, with all the proceeds going towards several different charitable foundations. We had done the same thing for our folks in New Orleans when Katrina hit, and both times we raised a massive amount of money, helped people, and shared our love of music and vinyl in the process.

We all went on a furious bidding war to grab records but there was one in particular that basically smacked me over the head and that I was determined to grab. I WANT IT NOW. And so I bid and I upped my bid and I upped it a little more. Once it got into the 3 figures price range I was pretty sure that I was coasting towards victory, but at the very last moment (as too often is the case) someone snuck by me and came out on the other side, victorious. Thwarted, I vowed that one day I would own that record. That record is the Karen Records version of Betty (Bettye) Lavette’s “Let Me Down Easy” B/W “Ticket To The Moon” – and to use some of the most apt (yet absurd) vernacular to describe this record, “shit is hard body as a motherfucker.” Especially the flipside, “Ticket…” just reeks of nastiness.

The Bettye Lavette story is quite interesting. Basically a detroit girl, she started her singing career very young, performing with a variety of artists including the James Brown review as well as a young up and coming soul singer from Georgie, Otis Redding. Having enjoyed a relatively healthy career touring and recording all throughout the 60s, it was during this time she recorded what many soul music aficionados refer to as “one of the greatest soul recordings of all time,” the original 1965 Calla Records version of “Let Me Down Easy.” I know at least one hip-hop producer agreed with how ill the song is, but I can’t remember who that was at the moment (feel free to chime in, folks.)

In the early 70s she signed with Atlantic / Atco and went down to Alabama to record an album (“Child Of The Seventies”) at the legendary Muscle Shoals. For reasons still unexplained, the project was cancelled and, other than 1 single, the album was shelved. Disillusioned, she continued on with her career releasing a few disco records and even singing on Broadway until 1999 when a French record collector found the master tapes for “Child Of The Seventies” and released it on his own imprint (under the new title “Souvenirs.”) This began an upsurge in her popularity and, coupled with a gang of newly recorded material over the past decade, Bettye is as popular than ever, having won awards and selling records like crazy. Don’t call it a comeback!

A couple months after I lost that bid for the record, I found another copy on eBay and was determined to get this one. Don’t ask me how much it cost but for sure it was a pretty penny. You know I was psyched when I got the 7″ package in my mailbox and opened it up, finally having this banger. One of the first things that I noticed when I looked at the label was the words “Arranged By Dale Warren.” Now I honestly do not know the back story on how all of this went down, as I’m not really as deep in the digging game as a lot of other dudes, but I figured it had to be the only other Dale Warren that I had heard about in the soul music scene at that time. Dale Warren was a musician and arranger for Motown in the 60s, and he’s the man behind the original arrangement of “Let Me Down Easy.” Being the classically trained violinist it makes sense, as the OG version’s pizzicato is so powerful. In the early 70s Warren moved over to the Stax label to join up with Isaac Hayes as the label’s in-house arranger. In 1973 he released a concept album dealing with the effects of American poverty. That album is “Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth” by 24 Carat Black, a magnum opus that, while it didn’t sell well at the time, is considered a masterpiece and touchstone in soul and funk music.

That album is dark and gritty and brooding… and booming. There’s really nothing quite like it. And listening to the 45 I had just got, one can hear that it was the direction that he was moving towards. Desperation funk. Combined with the unmatched intensity of Bettye’s voice and the longing and pain in it, it’s rawer than almost anything. That’s HARD BODY. For my money, when it comes to describing something as “hardcore” I will put this A and B side doubleshot up against any record by Slayer or M.O.P. It sounded like it was recorded somewhere in a cave in Hades. Unbelievably powerful and moving. And YES, both sides have drums, hence this record being a no-brainer for Breakbeat Tuesdays. I hope you enjoy it, as I have the A-Side as a Youtube clip so you can hear it, and the B-Side as the WMD. Peace!

Betty Lavette “Ticket To The Moon” (Karen, 1969)

Breakbeat Tuesday – Special Guest The Gaff & An Introduction

Greetings, all… and welcome to my brand new version of my website!I think it was about time that I moved into the 21st century and stopped having a jawn that was like 1997 HTML. Anyway, I’m really glad to have this up finally and it was a ton of work. But I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the help of my cousin Jonah Birns who designed this whole thing, and made it happen for me. He’s extremely talented and should get recognized for his work. Check out his site -the super super dope The Long Years – and drop him a line if you’re with it. Like I said, he really deserves the recognition. Also big shout to my friends Mike Davis AKA Mike The 2600 King of Twelve Car Pileup / Burlesque Of North America for the design of my fly logo that you see about, and also my main man Kenny Rodriguez who took the photo above (and all the official photos) that you see of me. Now there are a few things that I’m going to have to tighten up on the site but we’re off to the races for the most part. Expect the site to actually be going into overdrive with tons of brand new and cool content. AND, as an added bonus, you can finally leave comments on the jawn so if you like something, please let me know, and if there’s something that you want to see, don’t hesitate to ask. Now, with that all said, let’s delve into one of the site’s most popular features. It is Tuesday, after all…

This go-round for Breakbeat Tuesday, I have the pleasure of introducing you to my man The Gaff. Gaff hails from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada, AKA the REAL Great White North. To be honest with you I didn’t really have any idea as to what it was like up there until several months ago when I got a chance to rock at the club where Gaff has his residency, Scratch. I was blow away with the openness and receptiveness of the people. As it turns out, Gaff has been steady serving the residents of that town with a healthy dose of rare and obscure funk and goodies, eventually training his denizens to get down to the most excellent and bizarre.

So as we got to know each other, it happens that we both posted on the same record collecting website (#NerdAlert) and had a bunch of mutual friends. Then as we got to speaking about music and – in particular – record collecting, I found that this motherfucker has like some of the deepest crates of almost anyone that I have ever encountered. Just 2 weeks ago I sent him the MP3s of a very rare Turkish freakbeat record from the early seventies and he promptly sent me back a photo of him pulling it out of his stacks, saying “Oh you mean this one?” And the first time I was in Saskatoon I went over to his house to have a vinyl listening & ripping session with Vinyl Ritchie and Gaff and Ritchie just decided that he had to hit me off with a CTI 7″ of Deodado’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Oh, and did I mention that Gaff makes some seriously DOPE party breaks? Okay, woith no further ado, I present to you Breakbeat Tuesday with special guest The Gaff:

When Cos asked me if I’d like to contribute to one of his “Breakbeat Tuesdays” shortly after looking through some records at my crib during the summer, I didn’t hesitate given I have my own private “Vinyl Ripping Mondays.” Upon going through one of my “playout” 45 boxes, he holds up Mel Torme’s “Comin’ Home Baby” and says “What’s the deal with this one, like, THE dude Mel Torme?” – And I’m like, “You know this song bro, it’s classic.”

Mel Torme “Comin Home Baby” (Atlantic, 1962)

Torme’s version released in 1962 whopping in at over 140 BPM, is a vocal take on a tune composed by Ben Tucker and recorded the year before with Herbie Mann at the Village Gate in New York, 1961. Ben played bass in the Village Gate session, and what a beautiful Latin infused session that was!  Recorded with flute, 2 percussionists, bass, drums and vibraharp, the Village Gate session was heaviily influenced by a concert tour to South America earlier that year.  Mel Torme (following the advice of his producer) popularized it the following year, singing it (with lyrics written by Bob Dorough of “3 Is The Magic Number” fame) on his debut Atlantic album, in which he also played the drums, and churned out a song & arrangement to be covered for the ages. Comin Home Baby has been covered numerous times, in various countries around the world, in a variety of styles.Peep Melvin Taylor’s funky contemporary guitar workout below:

I personally first heard it many years ago on the Herbie Mann “At The Village Gate” LP, and only after hearing some other cover versions did I come across the Mel Torme vocal original… COVERS, COVERS, COVERS. At some point in the mid 70’s, in one of the miracles of “covering” standards, some Japanese individuals were led to rethink the tempo, speed up the herbie mann arrangement, make it funky, keep it classy, put in some drum breaks and latin percussion for good measure and give you, in my beat-diggin opinion, the sweetest version in almost 50 years of the songs existence, easily trumping other versions by regular digging favourites (Booker T & The MG’s, The Peddlars, Soulful Strings, & Quincy Jones to name a few.)

There happen to be 2 prominent break laden flute instrumental covers of the song that I know about, both on rare & obscure LPs – one from Japan, oozing smooth class, and one from Finland with a rawer funk sound. Since I think people should do some of the work themselves, Cosmo gets both versions, and you the people get the other one… Definitely not cheap to produce!  We actually used a scan of one of the photos from this book for the inside cover of the Trip Beyond album. The material on the “groove” side is all covers, super groovy covers actually of “Venus,” “House Of The Rising Sun,” Lalo Schifrin’s “The Cat,” “Comin Home Baby” etc… The last tune being the highlight with an intro break and even longer mid-track break – my ideal as a break loving / backspinning DJ. This cover is pure class, and I’ve used it for all sorts of occasions, namely to flip the sound of the night into a more classy affair – the sound of that flute FILLS a room!

But then again, I use cover versions of songs in almost every occasion as a DJ anyways… which leads me to go on to say that playing cover versions (hopefully from records you own) has always been a great way to stand out with a unique sound as a DJ. Enabling a person to really express their records / skills / knowledge as a DJ with their own sound and taste, popularize or bring back tunes, while still playing the melodies that people know and keep them dancing (or grooving depending on your time slot and engagement.) It blows me away that in 2010 we can rip a rare record, change it’s sonic structure to suit our needs, and instantly have “virtual doubles” to cut up (via Serato,) not having to wait to find a 2nd copy of a rare record with a break or loop. Every day that I rip records at home I feel like a kid in a candy store that gets everything two-for-one! More reason than EVER to go to your local record store, and buy a break knowing that you can rip it, flip it into an mp3 and cut it up in a matter of minutes. Record digging is a lifestyle and hobby unto itself aside from DJing (yet totally complementing it) and I’d like to give a big thanks to Cos for spending all this time educating the masses with this column.

Also, can I make some Breakbeat Tuesday guest requests Cos?  3 dudes I’d love to see what they bring to the table are Supreme, Uncle Nu, and Anonymous (Sampo) – 3 people who’s digging tastes have influenced ALOT of people including myself each in different ways over the years… (Okay I will work on that my dude – C)

Word! GAFF

Love (Unknown Artist) “Coming Home Baby” (Victor Japan, 197?)

Word, thank YOU Gaff! That’s is dope and efinitely doing the knowledge. I look forward to rocking with you again my man. And for those of you who don’t know please make sure to check out The Gaff’s Soundcloud – he has got funky shit for days! Thanks again for tuning in for yet another Breakbeat Tuesday!