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…

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)

Do The Knowledge – Billy Stewart

So I woke up today and after breakfast, I put on the iPod shuffle in the house and the first song that started playing was one of my favorites – the Billy Stewart rendition of the George Gershwin classic “Summertime.” I know today is only April 3rd but It put me in such a mood and made me anticipate the wondefrul seasons ahead that I just had to rap about it for a little bit.

The summer of 1999 was a hot one in Philly. It was the first summer that I had spent after being in a pretty horrific car accident, one where I almost didn’t live, and had to learn to walk again, and basically put the pieces of my life together after having it shattered in a thousand tiny bits. It also was the first time ever in my life that I owned a car. It was sold to me by the boyfriend of a friend of my mother. He was moving out of the country and had no use for it so the offer was made to me. Growing up in Philly, one never really needed a car. It was walk, skate, bike or SEPTA anywhere and everywhere. But, because my legs were still weak, and I also thought that it was that time in my life where I stepped up my game, I bought the little gold 1987 Jetta from the guy. Unfortunately, I gave him half the money and he gave me the car, but before I could give him the remainder of the balance he moved to Eastern Europe. The unfortunate thing for me was that he left without giving me the papers, registration, all of that stuff. So here I was with this car that was technically mine but was actually illegal as all hell. Of course with no registration or pink slip I couldn’t get the car insured. Oh, did I mention that I didn’t have a drivers license yet either? That’s just a minor detail that’s in there too.

So here I was driving this little Gold Bug around the city riding so dirty that it’s incredible, but I loved that little car and I didn’t really care. It didn’t have air conditioning, and it sometimes wouldn’t start when it rained. Also, there wasn’t any tape deck so I was forced to listen to Philly radio. Around this time I had really started to have my fill of commercial rap music, which was probably more a change in me as much as it was within the music itself, so I found myself tuned into WOGL “Oldies” 98.1 FM most of the time. I would drive around the city that long, hot summer incessantly, just exploring and taking the vast city in. One day while driving down Germantown Avenue the sounds that came through the tinny-ass speakers was a revelation, this incredibly soulful voice singing in this staccato rapid-fire delivery of scat, launching into this incredibly rich and full orchestrated version of “Summertime.” It was coming through the speakers, going right into my brain, as I was soaking up the summer scenes right in front of me in Funky North Philadelphia. It was like one of those moments where all the planets and stars align and the universe pulls the curtain back to give you a glimpse of a very special and ancient secret. I drove to my mom’s house and immediately asked her about this version, and at first she couldn’t figure out who I was getting at, but as soon as I did for her the “BrrrrrrUP BruP chupdupadup CHUP” she said “Oh, that’s Billy Stewart!” I went out that day and found a copy of his “Unbelievable” LP at Bob Dicky’s 9th Street Records and it was a wrap for me from that moment on.

Billy was kind of a wunderkind, starting his singing career at the age of 12 with his brothers singing gospel tunes on local Washington DC radio. During his teenage years he sung with another musical legend and DC native, Marvin Gaye, and like so many artists of his time, Billy gained great popularity when he made the transition from spirituals to singing secular music. He signed to Chess records and that’s where he put out most of the records in his tragically short career. All his records have a distinct sound to it which may be attributed to being on the Chess imprint but I really think that the key ingredient to the magic of his music is the way that he attacked the song vocally with such a radical and unique approach. His version of “Summertime” is such a departure from any rendition of it before and is so hardbody, he owns that song from now until forever. I said yesterday that his version is more punk rock than most punk rock songs.

And so I’m listening to Billy today. He’s one of those artists that I personally just feel a deep connection to. I don’t think that you can say that he’s under appreciated in any sense – just go to a low rider convention in California and I would bet that 2 out of the 3 cars will be playing his tunes. And he’s obviously not under appreciated in the hip-hop community – just ask Just Blaze, K-Def and Vance Wright. But today I’m very focused on my dude, and I am DEFINITELY playing your music tonight at The Rub. Thanks for making me a little happier today, Billy. And I hope that his music moves my readers a little bit as well. So here’s a few choice pieces from Billy. I’m starting with a record that I posted up last year but became pretty popular again after Just Blaze touched it for Jay Electronica’s “Exhibit C.”

Billy Stewart “Cross My Heart”

Billy Stewart “Sitting In The Park”

Billy Stewart “Every Day I Have The Blues”

Billy Stewart “Tell Me The Truth”

And of course the tune that inspired me to write about this today… Here’s to the upcoming summer!

Billy Stewart “Summertime”