It's been a busy week since I got back from D.C. and I finally had a minute to record a few tracks to share here. I had a great time out there, got a chance to look at records almost every day of my visit, saw the Earcave in person, and got to meet the Beautiful Swimmers. The cherry on top of the trip was a private show from George Smallwood in his home a few hours before my return flight.
Som Records is the best shop in D.C. I loaded up a healthy stack of twelve inches including many local go-go funk records that are obviously everywhere in their home town but a bit harder to find here on the west coast. Here are two of my favorite local finds. Master Jam released two singles on local D.C. micro label 2nd To None. "Celebrity Funk" is a cool vocoder instrumental on the one-off DOC label.
Here is an obscure g-funk gem from Little Rock, AR from an unknown year, presumably early eighties. This track has a classic mellow slower kick-clap groove. Hang on for one of the greatest breakdowns ever with soaring Junie Morrison style synth whine. Big thank you to Eddy Funkster for hooking me up with this rare 45.
Private Eye was a bay area funk group in the '80s produced by Berkeley native Claytoven Richardson. The group released one LP and a few singles on Fantasy in 1983. "I Lose Sleep Over You" is their hardest funk track and has been on my turntable a lot lately. The talented Richardson had a hand in numerous '80s funk records including the boogie laced Bill Summers LPs Call It What You Want and Seventeen, as well as one of the best Bay Area 80s funk LPs No Better Love by Chas.
There is a later (and much easier to find) version of "I Lose Sleep Over You" by Street Fare from '87 that is still great, no doubt due to the same producer's touch.
Here is a rare female-produced funk song from Jackki Milligan. "Got Me Burnin' Up" has an all star lineup of musicians including Latin percussionist Willie Bobo, jazz-funk guitarist David T. Walker, and Darryl Roberts from Mighty Fire on synthesizer. Synth work on this record is especially great with nice bass line and the perfect hook. Jakki also released an earlier 7" version that is more rare. I prefer the harder synth funk approach of the 12", though the 7" is still great and would appeal to modern soul fans. Apparently Jakki realized she had a hit on her hands and assembled a great crew to re-record an updated more club friendly version. I'm glad she did. This record also has the distinction of having the most exhaustive musician credits on the label of any I've encountered with the majority of its real estate devoted to text.
Here is another one-off funk track from a producer who quit while he was ahead and moved on to the greener pastures of the hip hop industry. Michael McCray aka Mike Fresh released one track for New York based Top Flight Records in 1982. This tune is boogie perfection with great synthesizer arrangements and a certain flavor that only seems to come from Florida producers. There are a couple different versions of this 12", apparently the original black/silver version is even noisier than the also lo-fi but improved red label pressing.
To the best of my knowledge Mike Fresh McCray still lives in Miami where he runs Mike Fresh Productions. Based on a photo on his myspace page a more recent claim to fame may be some production credit on the New Jack City soundtrack. He continues to produce for local rappers, if you need some beats get at him!
These are two funk tracks I have been spinning a lot lately. The synth bass on both of these tracks is pure squelchy quality. The synth and bass guitar combo on Chaz's New York dance floor workout is especially great. Chaz delivers a real winner here with dubbed out extended mixing production and a nice fake out ending. He must have been really feeling this track to rinse it so hard. I'm glad he did. Bromar's Call Me Up is more digital Minneapolis funk with some tasteful sampler use and a classic phone call breakdown.
Like many record collectors it has always been a dream of mine to press something on wax. I have always wanted to contribute to the world of the black crack by putting something in print for anyone to enjoy rather than just repping older hard to find records. A couple years ago I became good friends with a local collector Tim who during an extended car ride to a record lead told me about his activity playing in several bands growing up in Oakland in the 1980s. After some pestering on my part Tim reluctantly dug up boxes of cassette recordings from this era. I think he was content leaving them as skeletons in the closet but I managed to convince him people still enjoy drum machine soul. Tim got on craigslist and tracked down the same model Tascam Porta-one four track machine we needed to play back the tapes.
Tim played regularly with a band known as Davinity during this time and recorded hours of material from bedroom demos to proper studio tracks. Recording quality is dodgy at times but fortunately they insisted on using only hi bias tapes and generally hit them with a good level. After sharing some of our finds with Sean from Sweater Funk and Andrew at PPU we decided to take the plunge and let some of this see the light of day 20+ years after it was recorded.
So far we have two 45s available featuring our favorite tracks from the Davinity cassette archives. A huge thank you goes to Andrew from PPU who was the inspiration for this project and provided a great deal of help in the process. Peoples Potential is also distributing the records worldwide.
We are very excited to start releasing music for y'all, look for more in the future including a debut from Beat Electric Records in 2012.
records available for purchase from EARCAVE (Washington DC), Rush Hour (Europe), and many other fine vendors. or you can email me directly at rysquerecs AT gmail.
I have never heard of a female audiophile. I have never met a girl that lusted after shiny knobs and had to have that preamp with a flowchart emblazoned onto the front to it. Knobs, switches, VU meters, equalizers, quadraphonic, and reverse stereo. I often wonder what a stereo would look that was designed by women. Probably much like my current stereo sadly, I am whipped!
Kwick was a Memphis based group who released three LPs in the early eighties. The group has a great sound with perfect claps and catchy synth hooks. Their first LP is the easiest to find and has a slightly more disco tinged sound. Their second album To The Point features the killer track "You're The Kind Of Girl I Like" in more of a boogie mode. I finally found a nice (sealed) copy of the record and took the opportunity to rip the two best jams during the squeaky clean first play. Kwick - You're The Kind Of Girl I Like
Master Funk Records was an '80s UK dance label founded by electro producer Tony Williams (not to be confused with the American jazz drummer who worked with Miles Davis). This 12" was one of the label's later releases from 1984. Both sides are great, I might actually prefer the B-side which sounds starts off sounding like a Sade instrumental until the deep bass line comes in. For more on Tony Williams check out this interview by Greg Wilson on the excellent Electro Funk Roots website.
Bevin Fagan was most well known as the lead singer and producer of one of the UK's biggest reggae acts, Matumbi. Yet in his time he was involved with and influenced by all sorts of music that was going on in South London during the seventies and early eighties, even being part of a prog rock band named 'Stonehenge' even at one point in his youth.
Guardian Angel was a roots reggae project with his wife (or maybe sister) Sylvia Fagan on vocals. They put out a few lovers rock type singles, but if you flip the accompanying album over, the B side is mostly (and oddly) unique sounding funk and disco tracks, of which 'Last Funk' is the most left of center and hard hitting of all.
Through some miracle over the years I have managed to come across two copies of this LP from British reggae collectors who don't rate it as Fagan's best work and are turned off by the funk on the flip. One man's trash as they say. If you want my double hit me up.
Spellbound were an obscure group from Ohio. This track is the b-side to the band's first single released on their own private label Great Records in 1983. Spellbound went on to record a sought after and (as evidenced above) killer looking full length LP on Heat Records in 1985. This is the perfect poolside slow jam for the summer that just won't seem to get hot enough (at least in LA) to kick off proper.
Here is a funky jam off a 1983 Strut Records 12" by Charles Earland. The drum programming reminds me of proto garage tunes from the same era. The vocal versions on this 12" are pretty weak, but I like this one up until the guitar and sax solos make it whack.
Also, I have a funky modern soul number from 1982 by Fredi Grace and Rhinestone I picked up in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago.
Debra Laws comes from a prominent musical family. Her siblings include jazz-funk proto-smooth jazz pioneers Ronnie Laws and Hubert Laws. This 1981 record, Very Special has some funky synth boogie mated to the smooth flute and sax work of her brothers. I have included two of the funkiest and most upbeat jams on the record. They were also released on a UK only 12". Debra Laws - On My Own Debra Laws - Long As We're Together
Well let me start off and issue another apology for the lack of posts this summer. I have been a bit buried in the weeds as of late. This weekend I move to Los Angeles leaving all three Beat Electricians scattered across the California landscape. Not to worry, once I get settled in it will be back to business as usual. So if I can get Black Shag to come out of his morphine induced coma, this weekend we will pack up the moving van and head down to the sunny beaches of Southern California to seek out Sean Michael and his band of goth-model boogie warriors.
Anyhow, on to the music:
I believe we have probably posted more joints off of Prelude Records than any other label and that's fine by me. Don't worry I have some deeper shit on the horizon to satisfy the elitists, but I must say The Key by Wuf Ticket aka James Mason is solid gold and particularly the The Francois Kevorkian dub is a favorite from the Prelude catalog. Just avoid the groups first 12", a boogie-rap entitled Ya Mama. Not a good look.
The best thing about NYC is the many record stores, flea markets and (apparently) street corners packed with heat. Thanks to my east coast journey I am flush with new BE material for some time to come. I am still waiting for UPS to show up with the bulk of what I found but I managed to sneak a few records in my bag. You Should Have Known Better by T.C. Curtis aka William Alexander Smith is one of them.
I posted T.C.'s first record Body Shake a few months back in my Quality/RFC post. he went on to record and produce a number of 12"s on his own Hot Melt imprint, You Should Have Known Better being my personal favorite. T.C. got into the house game in the late 80's, before winding the Hot Melt label down in 1990.
The one and only Roy Ayers obviously needs little introduction, but his indie Uno Melodic label still holds a bit of mystique as it was formed in the early 80's as a juxtaposition with his more pop oriented releases on Polydor and Columbia. Released in 1982, Fast Money was Ayers vibraphone laced stab at the boogie-funk sound and a successful one at that. All told the Uno Melodic label put out a handful of recordings, many of them essential. Most certainly we will cover a few more releases down the line.
So anyways Black Shag and I are pulling an all-niter before we catch a very early flight to Montreal to spin some records for the Luxe party at Velvet. Montreal friends, we hope to see you tonite in a haze of sleazy funk and sleep deprivation.
It's been a long couple of weeks, I am much too burnt out to formulate a cohesive thought but duty calls and a much overdue tribute to my favorite boogie-funk reissue label is in order. People's Potential Unlimited is the brainchild of Washington DC based record digger Andrew Morgan. Andrew is a top authority on the boogie-funk sound, his specialty is tracking down the original artists behind the very obscure records he sources out. Every release on this label just slays, check out some of the highlights posted below. In order to not piss off any of the artists I had to keep these rips low quality, but that's ok, they are all on wax and pretty damn cheap to purchase directly from PPU.
I tried long and hard (about 15 minutes) to find a good disco track for you to listen to while you celebrate 4/20 but I quickly came to the conclusion that the genres of rock, rap, and reggae will probably have you better covered. Listen to Cypress Hill tonight and listen to this track tomorrow. You don't want to see Beat Electricians on the pot, they can't handle it. I don't know much about this cut; I don't even know how to pronounce the artist. I do know that is came out on Partytime records in 1983, it was written and produced by a couple of nobodys and mixed by Jimmy Simpson, who also mixed a couple of GQ 12"s. I did a slight edit to this track. Nhytjar - All In Fun (Instrumental Edit)
I am not quite sure why the members of Young & Co. released a couple of 12"s under the Joy alias, but that seemed the fashion for the loose coalition of artists that formed the groups Aurra, Slave, Steve Arrington's Hall of Fame and the aforementioned Company formed in 1979 by the Young brothers. This 1982 release on the bands own Eastern Records is one of my all time favorite boogie joints, period. It certainly didn't hurt that the powerhouse Young & Co. team featured one of the heaviest bass players in the history of soul music, Buddy Hankerson. Now feel free lose your shit to the below video:
Young & Co. still tour to this day and Buddy also has his own project The Buddy Hank band. I am particularly fond of their blown out 1990's 1.0 web page. Also thrown in for good measure is Sending My Love by Pleasure because either it was collecting dust in my rips folder or maybe it is the perfect response to I Need Your Love's call.
