Breakbeat Tuesday – Records From My Brother

First and foremost, I want to send a Rest In Peace shout to Lena Horne & Frank Frazetta. Two people from another generation who changed things by just doing them – no more and no less.

A couple of days ago was my baby brother Walker’s birthday so I want to give him a shout for that. Happy belated officially up pon the site, my dude. He’s my brother but also he’s the best dude in the world and that’s real rap. We’ve always been close and it’s tough not being with him on his birthday and just in general. But he truly is one of the most amazing dudes I’ve ever had the honor to know in my life. Kind, absolutely brilliant, and talented to a depth that I don’t think that I can truly comprehend. Here’s the sucker, with our 2 sisters, our mom and yours truly.

So the other day I was having a bit of a twitter rampage – not in a bad sense really, but more in a reflective manner. So during my barrage of 140s I made the remark that this marks my 20th year in the game as being a DJ (thank you, thank you – hold your applause.) I’ll probably reflect on that in the coming months, but I’m talking about The Dude here. So I was a DJ for the majority of Walker’s childhood and adolescence and he’s always been “into it” in a passive sense. I don’t think he actually tried to DJ but after watching his older brother do his thing I know he installed turntables in his bedroom. We definitely share tastes and values as to what we like musically, which in a nutshell could be boiled down to various Moog records and The Beatnuts. And I’m sure a lot of it has to do with wanting to be just like his big brother. But in many ways he would try to emulate something that I would do and end up taking it so far and beyond that it surprised everyone. Case in point – he knew that I dug for old records. So one day when he got out of school, on his journey downtown he passed a yard sale that had records in it. He picked up a couple things including one funny looking record that had a guy screaming on the cover between to samurai for 50 cents. (50 fucking cents!)

My phenom of a brother had just brought home Eugene McDaniels freak-folk-funk power-piece “Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse” a tour-de-force concept album that was a complete departure from music that had been heard before or since. “The Left Rev Mc D” Eugene McDaniels, hailing from Kansas City, had already become an accomplished singer and songwriter by the mid 1960s, most notably with his song “100 Pounds Of Clay.” And he saw continued success later on in life having penned such hits like Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Making Love” – which is a song a lot of you younger folk might actually think is just a D’Angelo record but actually was a huge hit when it came out in 1975. It was a #1 hit actually, and was nominated for a Grammy for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

But something happened in the mid to late 60s. The Vietnam war was in full swing and people were mad disillusioned and just generally fed up with things. Out of this environment McDaniels wrote “Compared To What” which was the first song on Roberta Flack’s debut album. Later on that year Les McCann & Eddie Harris covered it for their “Swiss Movement” album, the recording of their performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The song was a runaway success, a simple protest song that took on a life of its own because it reflected the sentiments of the people and their frustrations with the direction our country was headed. And also because it was incredibly groovy. Check this video out, which after years of listening to this song, I never even knew it existed. Man is it COOKING…

So McDaniels signed onto Atlantic Records and proceeded to put out a couple of solo LPs. Both produced by the legendary Joel Dorn, the first of the two is “Outlaw” which was the first shot across the bow of Mc D’s new freak-folk-funk sound and philosophy – a philosophy that possibly can be summed up by the simple liner notes of the album: “Under conditions of national emergency, like now, there are only two kinds of people – those who work for freedom and those who do not… the good guys Vs. the bad guys” The album didn’t do so well, but less than a year later he returned with “Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse.” This ground-breaking album set the bar kind of too high in my opinion. First of all the session players that they got for the recording were the best in the business at the the time – Harry Whitaker, Miroslav Vitous, Gary King, Alphonse Mouzon to name a few – all guaranteed that the groove would be locked it. Couple that with Mc D’s provocative but deadly on-point lyrics mad this an album that people just had never been privy to before. Approaching subjects like the co-opting of black culture by white artists (“Jagger The Dagger,”) the history of American colonialism (“The Parasite,”) and racial profiling and police brutality (“Supermarket Blues,”) Mc D opened up a new door for radical subject matter in pop music. This was a door that the powers that be didn’t want opened. Atlantic was one of the biggest record companies in the world at that time. The story is that Spiro Agnew, Vice President under Dick Nixon, personally called Ahmet & Nesuhi Ertegun, founders of Atlantic and, for the sake of  not “causing public unrest” demanded that support for the album be pulled. I don’t know what happened after that but promotions immediately dried up and the album sunk like a lead balloon.

Now like I said, McDaniels went on to have a successful career as a songwriter despite this order of Executive Branch Hating. And, as you probably have figured out by now, the music on “Headless Heroes” went on to be revived for it’s second life through the world of hip-hop music. But the story about how it all came about and went down is pretty remarkable to me. So thank you Mr. McDaniels for doing what you do and changing my world in a large sense. If it wasn’t for this record I truly believe that my mind would not be what it is today. And I have my brother to thank for putting me on. Thanks dude, and happy birthday! This Breakbeat Tuesday is dedicated – and completely indebted – to you!

Eugene McDaniels “Supermarket Blues” (Atlantic, 1971)

Eugene McDaniels “Jagger The Dagger” (Atlantic, 1971)

EDIT: About 20 minutes after I posted this particular Breakbeat Tuesday post about Eugene McDaniels, I get an email from Left Rev McD’s publicist. Like… really? Yes… really. Apparently some things are happening, and that is how they like to say “what is up.” More on that to come…

Breakbeat Tuesday – Sweet As Sugar

You  know, as I’ve said in the past (both on this site and to my family and friends in person,) I am a professional DJ – and if faced with the question as to having one’s vocation be the definition of the person, then I guess that would be where I would fit in. And, although we all know that there’s way too many shades of grey to fit people into that box of “what you do defines you” I have fully embraced what it is that I do, and have been grateful for the opportunity to do what is truly my passion for many years now. But, when I travel, for business or for pleasure, when it comes time to fill out a customs form, under “occupation” I write “DJ.”

Obviously the main aim of this site is to chronicle my thoughts and journeys as a DJ, with the ultimate goal being that those who come and visit this site to buying some music from me or finding out about a time that they can come out and see me perform live. But again this is where those shades of grey come into play. There’s a tremendous amount of research and studying that goes into learning about this music thing, and that’s great for me considering my love for old music and penchant for incorporating oldies and forgotten gems into my current sound and repertoire. This is great for me because I’m a bit of a history buff. Also, it’s in my nature to share and so if I unearth something that I think is cool then it’s a natural urge for me to spread that information around to those who I hope are in to this sort of thing. In addition to all this, I’ve been writing for a long time now and although that’s not really the medium that the muse directs me towards, writing is still pretty much second nature to me. Over the past several months of me working on keeping this site updated, after a long period of neglect, I have started to find my voice again. And it’s a wonderful thing when people come up to me and tell me that they “read my blog religiously” because there’s a sense of validation I get knowing I reach people outside of the music. I’m compelled to do this – I have no other choice.

This site has kind of taken on a life of its own. Sure there are lots of people who are more well suited for writing about the great archeological quest that is digging for records – “this thing of ours” as I like to call it. I think of Oliver Wang at Soul-Sides, I think of my man, the great Matthew Africa, a person whom I am eclipsed by his super-human knowledge of music. But this site is just me – it’s my voice, and a conduit for me to get what I want off my chest. With all that being the case, the past several weeks I’ve been talking with a friend of mine (a super well known DJ and Producer) and he’s convinced me to work on a greater project that will transcend this little hobby / blog of mine. It’s kind of a big endeavour but over the past week or so all the signs have pointed me in the direction of deciding that this has to be done. So with what started as Breakbeat Tuesday will hopefully transform into something greater. It’s going to take a while, a year easy, but I think it’s going to be worth it. Like I have said – I’m compelled to do this and I have no other choice. But enough of my ramblings, let’s get to the MUSIC…

I don’t know much about “Sugar” Billy Garner and I’ve tried to do as much research as I could, and thanks to my friend Larry Grogan who runs the Funky 16 Corners site I was able to figure out a few things. Garner (also known as Willie Garner among other things) was a Detroit based signer and songwriter who in the early and mid 70s released a few 45s as well as 1 LP (which became very popular years after the fact because one of the songs on it was covered by Joss Stone on her debut LP.) Most of his music was produced by Dave Hamilton who was the one-time guitarist and vibes player for The Funk Brothers, Motown Records in-house band. Garner faded into obscurity and by some accounts eventually made his way to Memphis, TN and became a brick layer. But in the cyclical nature of the way this thing works, his music was given second life through hip-hop. In 1992 the great DJ Premier gave a nod to Garner when he used (and masterfully flipped) Garner’s 1971 funk / breakbeat monster “I Got Some” for “B.Y.S.” off the “Daily Operation” LP.  The original song begins with an incredibly raw and powerful breakbeat and then launches into a heavy hammond and piano driven funk monster about Sugar Billy coming home and “gettin’ some” from his woman. And those piano hits were chopped to high heaven by Primo in an unconventional way for 1992, proving that Mister Works Of Mart was so far ahead of his time, and not for just the choice of the original sample source material alone.

Garner’s records are very hard to come by and especially the original “I Got Some” 45 on New Day records which I’ve seen go for up to $500 for a copy. For us record fiends though, that price might just be well worth it because it’s a monster… Breakbeat and all.

Sugar Billy Garner “I Got Some” (New Day, 1971)

The bonus beat goes to DJ Clinton Sparks for his decision to use the original “I Got Some” for Kanye West and Busta Rhymes to spit over for his “Touch The Sky” mixtape in 2006. Basically the same construction as B.Y.S. but with a little touch of the raw break and Garners impassioned vocals that come slipping through. And I can’t front, I love hearing MCs spitting over some “real schitt” sample-based bangers…

Clinton Sparks “Love 2 Hate feat. Kanye West & Busta Rhymes” (Mix Unit, 2006)

Happy Birthday James Brown

It was a fun weekend at The Rub at Southpaw as well as doing The Rub in Philly. What sucks is that someone crashed into my poor car, totalling it. So my car is now dead, a hunk of metal, and that is my Sobb Story…

Looking on the bright side, today is the born day of The Minister Of New New Super Heavy Funk, James Brown. The world of music would not be the same were it not for him of course, and my DJing wouldn’t be what it is today without question. But all that is a given and I don’t even need to speak on it. But for real I figured this would be a good time to re-up my James Brown mix that I did for the Mad Decent Podcast a few years ago. Basically it was something that I put together really quick, comprised solely of joints that I loved that fall under The Godfather’s umbrella. It’s real short, clocking in under 30 minutes, but I could have gone on for weeks making this mix. The homie Diplo asked me to do this for his podcast, but I’ll let him put it in his words:

“James Brown died on Christmas, and I couldn’t do any more podcasts til we did it about him. Cause James Brown gave birth to this podcast and he gave birth to everything in modern music – nothing is the same after he was here and now he’s gone and I feel bad for people in heaven that have to rewind through his life cause it must be pretty damn nuts. This mix of JB songs and production credits is under 30 minutes and I thought I was listenin’ to it for 3 days before it ended. Mix was done by Cosmo Baker… he’s a true hero to me. I used to go to Fluid on Monday nights to check Cosmo at his party called Remedy… It was on fuckin’ Monday nights and it was packed thick and Cosmo would drop his signature style of hip hop and classics and weird stuff no one would expect but would turn it out… I recognized Cosmo as that dude from the On The Go video that was in 9th St. Records and bought Funk INC. and McCoy Tyner LPs for like a dollar (that was crazy staged cause I know that dude behind the counter was mad cheap!)… At The Remedy I saw everyone from Phill The Soulman to Cash Money to MF Doom to DJ Drama up in there playing… I even slipped Pharrell a copy of Newsflash on 12” on a Monday. So JB gave birth to everything in modern music then Cosmo was a dude that gave birth to DJs like me. I had to ask him to do this mix cause he was a more then a mentor… his James Brown science is like Mr. Wizard… As you can listen these days Cosmo is killing it as a member The Rub in BK and doing loads of parties from Calgary to Tel Aviv on the weekends so I suggest you go to see him play or you will lose a little bit of your soul…” – Diplo, 2007

01 The Land Of Milk And Honey With James Brown by cosmobaker

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..