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!

Michael McCray - Bring Your Love Back

Two posts in one today, to make up for a week long absence of illegally distributed music via our ragged looking blogspot page, both with circa 1983 London theme, one from me and another from Tom Thump, perhaps the first rare groove DJ I ever heard after first moving to San Francisco a long time ago. I made contact with him whilst searching for a mixtape of his that I used to play on repeat during my train ride into work around the turn of the millennium, he graciously dug into his archive and hooked me up, as well as agreeing to to grace us with a guest mix.

 My contribution today is a one off dance cut by Antiguan expat Wendell 'Del' Richardson, better known as the guitarist in London based Afro Pop band Osibisa. Soul On Fire's hard instrumental is offset by Del's sugary soul vocal, there are two versions of the 12" out there, the Dutch released 'Disco Mix' which I have and am posting here, and a Larry Joseph mixed US release which I actually slightly prefer but unfortunately do not have (have it? get at me, or at least share a rip so I can add it to the post). I'm including the short DJ friendly 'Fire Beats' instrumental seeing as it got tacked onto the recording anyway:

Del Richardson - Soul On Fire (Disco Mix)
Del Richardson - Fire Beats (D.J Trix Mix) 

From DJ Tom Thump:

MAXIMUM JOY FROM A BUNCH OF JAZZ PUNKS.

I know this is a bit different than most of the great music posted on Beat
Electric, but, Rip, Rig & Panic hold a special place in my musical life,
there really was no one like them. The 3 LPs have yet to be reissued
(there has only been a CD Compilation, that is long out of print) and that
is just ridiculous.

Rip Rig + Panic were a post-punk band founded in 1981, who broke up in
1983. They were named after a 1965 jazz album by Roland Kirk. They were
formed by Sean Oliver (bass), Mark Springer (piano, sax, vocals), Gareth
Sager (guitar, sax, keyboards, vocals) and Bruce Smith (drums, percussion)
(the latter two formerly of The Pop Group) with singer Neneh Cherry. Their
other members included saxophonist Flash (David Wright), singer Andrea
Oliver, trumpeter David De Fries and viola-player Sarah Sarhandi.

The group strayed from more conventional post-punk, mixing avantgarde
elements with jazz and led by Cherry's innovative pop/soul singing style.
Their second album, I Am Cold, included a number of tracks featuring jazz
trumpeter Don Cherry, who was Neneh Cherry's stepfather. They also
appeared with Nico on a BBC radio session.

The band notably made a guest appearance in an episode of the British
sitcom The Young Ones performing their 1982 single "You're My Kind of
Climate". Rip Rig + Panic became Float Up CP in 1985, and produced the
album Kill Me in the Morning. The band dissolved shortly thereafter.

Mark Springer has continued to record as a solo artist and has a number of
CDs available. Sean Oliver died in 1990.

Tom's Rip, Rig & Panic Megamix

Time to keep chipping away at the Patrick Adams discography with this 1977 gem. This track features his classic Arp 2600 patch and some dubbed out production. For the sound quality nerds, this is recorded from an original 1977 copy not one of the similar looking recent represses. There is a bit of tape noise particularly during the breakdown probably due to the open extended remixing. This track was also sampled/replayed by the Sunburst Band with their song "Everyday".

Marta Acuna - Dance, Dance, Dance (Disco Version)

My brain was heavily serotonin deficient from desert parties and what not but I finally mustered the energy to share some tracks. First off is an Italo boogie track from 1983 by High Resolution! As usual the vocals leave more to be desired but the bass line is fresh! This was composed by Paolo del Prete and Marco Fatali and was released on SPQR.

High Resolution-Sweepin' Off
Next up are my two favorite tracks from Glenn Jones' 1984 LP called "Finesse" which came out on RCA Records. Both tracks have pretty dreamy synthesizers and Glenn's voice is spot on. Let me know how the tracks sound, I just got my vinyl ripping R2D2 working.

Glenn Jones-It Hurts Too Much
Glenn Jones-Finesse

I always thought we must have posted this years ago, but doing a search it looks like we never have, so in an effort to right this minor injustice I'm going to put up both sides of Caprice's overlooked dollar bin classic, 100%.

There isn't much to say about this one, if you look at the credits its an all star cast, Leroy Burgess, the Aleems, Leroy's cousin Sonny Davenport. The only real question that remains is who is the vocalist? If she got a credit I can't see it on the label, I know the same vocalist sang as Caprice on a couple of other indie Chicago area releases, also produced by Leroy and the Aleems, but her identity is still shrouded in mystery.

Caprice - 100% (Vocal)
Caprice - 100% (Instrumental)

The Beat Electric crew has been deep in the world of Carmen as of late. After a series of record release parties in SF, LA and Costa Mesa in March, it feels like it's about time to wind things down a bit and start thinking about what our next 12" reissue will be.

In the meantime here's one more track produced by Kevin McCord. This smooth jam from 1987 is probably his rarest release alongside the killer Snooky cut that folks are paying ridiculous amounts of money for these days.

Also check out Carmen's full length debut album right here.

Stinger J. - Pretty Face (45 Version)
Stinger J. - Pretty Face (12" Version)
Stinger J. - Pretty Face (Instrumental)

Ralph Hennings was a German synth pop producer, heavily involved in the ZYX label from around 1983 to 1987, having a hand in a lot of their output. His 1984 solo project, Hypnotic Samba may be a little on the hard 4/4 side for many, but I don't post much Italo and this one disappeared off of the internet a while ago due to people's media share site links expiring or being taken down, old italo blogs disappearing etc, so by request I found my copy and here it is yet again:

Hypnotic Samba - Hypnotic Samba

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.

 I made a guest mix for Ulysses82's London based radio show, Uptown Express. You have to listen to me stumble through a long winded story about how Carmen's Time To Move re-issue came about for about 10 minutes, but now the show is up on soundcloud you can use technology to forward past my enlightened conversation at any point you feel your frontal lobes were about to suffer damage and get straight to listening to me stumble through a DJ set instead.

 At the time I made a bold statement on air that I would gift a copy of the Time To Move re-issue as well as an original copy of Carmen's 1985 track  Throw Down  on 7" to anyone who can spot 7 of tracks from the mix, a decision which I hadn't really thought through at the time and sort of regret, but whats done is done.

Leave a comment on their soundcloud or whatever.

Spring is nearly upon us and that means that it is time to polish up those roller skates. This funky jam came out in 1978 on Earwax Records out of Detroit. I like its PROTO-proto house sound. I don't really know anything about the group other than that they put out a couple of LPs and singles. Their first record came out in1977 and is easier to find than their 1978 LP that contains this single. I think it is ripe for an edit to remove the chorus; here is what you need to make it happen.

Hunt's Determination - Rollerskate
Hunt's Determination - Rollerskate (Instrumental)

Here is a laid back 1984 track with some deep production from Buddy Turner. Buddy worked on a lot of tracks on Philly World Records including Q's masterpiece The Voice of Q. Pamela Joy's sole release is a great example of the classy sparse '84 funk sound with especially great synth stabs that will keep haunting you long after your first listen.

Pamela Joy - Think Fast

Pamela Joy - Think Fast (instrumental)

If you are in or around San Francisco we are having our record release party for the 12" re-issue of Carmen's Time To Move at Sweaterfunk this Sunday. Held at China Town's Li Po lounge.

For everyone else, here is one of my favorite afro boogie tracks of all time, it has been bootlegged twice in the past 10 years or so, the original from time to time making it's way out of Nigeria into the hands of European record dealers..

I have to leave the apartment, I'll finish the rest of this post later.. its epic, trust me..

William Onyeabor - Body And Soul

Here is a special guest mix by our friend Randy Hotthobo Ellis, we hope you enjoy it. He used to run a night here in San Francisco called Grow Up. The name was a tongue in cheek poke at Blow Up, a dance party for barely post pubescent kids who wear neon. Grow Up was an adult party for well mannered boogie fiends. Randy also co-owns Voltaire Records, a label specializing in new tunes in the electro, boogie, and kraut vein; check it out.

Tracklist:
1. Junei - Let's Ride (Pharoahs)
2. First Love - It's A Mystery To Me (Chycago International Music)
3. Kadenza - Let's Do It (PRT)
4. Geno Jordan - You're A Peachtree Freak On A Peachtree Street Part III (PPU)
5. Ocie III - Return On Love (Chycago International Music/Boogie Times)
6. Jady Kurrent Band - Standing There (Starstream)
7. Silk, Satin & Lace - Always (Sunrise Productions)
8. Dr. Togo - Be Free (Derby)
9. Gianni Riso - Disco Shy (Goody Music)
10. Advance - Take It To The Top (X Energy)
11. Delegation - Darlin' I Think About You (Ariola)
12. Jewel - Paradise (Lotus Land)
13. J Parker Band - Live Lady (Tenya)
14. Ish - Don't Stop (TK Disco)
15. Tom Hooker - Talk With Your Body (Fulltime)
16. Evo - Din Don (Cultura & Musica)
17. Fonzi Thornton - Beverly (RCA)
18. Alfreda James & Billy Ray - Back To Love (Rappers Rapp Disco Co)
19. Windjammer - I Thought It Was You (MCA)
20. Toney Lee - Love So Deep (Instrumental) (Radar)
21. Wind Chymes - Baby Your The One (Lotus Land)

Softly Shafted - A Mix By Hotthobo

I wish I could write you something about the history of disco rap in Quebec, but I can't as all I have is this one record, and the label doesn't give much information to go on other than that the heavy funk backing band is noted as being 'Rhythm Section Montreal Rock' and it came out on "O' Bey Music".

If you are from Montreal and you know more, please share it with us.

Kebec Star - Gotta Take You Higher (Vocal)
Kebec Star - Gotta Take You Higher (Instrumental)

Here are a couple of jams I picked up in NYC. I have been looking for this Ragtyme record for years and was so glad to find it. Unfortunately, my hectic travel schedule put a slight warp in it but it plays OK on my Beogram. I grabbed a bunch of nice early techno and house records in NYC; I don't think they don't know how good they have it over there.

Ragtyme was a project produced by Marshall Jefferson and represents soulful deep house at its best. There is plenty of smooth with lots of edge to keep it interesting. This 12" was mixed by Frankie Knuckles and features remixes by Lil Louis and Ron Hardy.

This 1988 tune by Innercity reworked by Derrick May is an early techno masterpiece. It was produced by Kevin Saunderson.

Ragtyme - I Can't Stay Away (Ron Hardy's Club Mix)
Innercity - Big Fun (Mayday Re-Edit)

Denroy Morgan is a Jamaican expat, moving to Brooklyn as a teenager. He is famous for his roots reggae sound but in the early eighties had a string of well known disco hits on Beckett records. He has apparently fathered over 30 children, 10 of which are either rotating in his backing band or gigging on the New York reggae scene. BeatElectric admires the virility and power of his loins/roots electrofunk fusion.

Happy Feeling was a lesser known hit compared to I'll Do anything For You, thats maybe why it's instrumental doesn't seem to be up anywhere, but unlike I'll Do Anything For You with it's strong standout vocal I think the strength of this one was in the mid tempo disco funk backing track found on the flip..

Denroy Morgan - Happy Feeling (Instrumental)

Here are a couple of cool cuts from 1984. 1984 was an interesting year for music. The boogie greatness of 1982 was fizzling out, electro was king, and house was just getting started. These tracks highlight where genres converged and coalesced into some strange hybrids.

This first track by Zero Hour shows a lot of electro influence and can easily pass as a theme song for the oft overlooked comedy masterpiece Fletch Lives. Seems like it could have been produced by Herbie Hancock or Jan Hammer with a little help from Egyptian Lover.

The next track by Leon Love is an odd bird produced by proto house legend Patrick Adams with Ron Mindseed. It sounds a bit like electro coming dangerously close to Hi-NRG territory. Almost too close; but us in the Bay Area have a very low threshold for it.

Zero Hour - The Dark Side (Dub)
Leon Love - Once Is Enough (Dub)

We've covered Maurizio Sangineto's productions before on this site. Firefly was a dance music group composed of fellow Italians and released four LPs during their career. This track was a big tune at the Garage. The uplifting vocals get me every time. I also really like the brave use of some dynamic range in this 12" mix. It is rare to hear jams like this with such an impact when the beat comes in after the breakdown.

Firefly - Love (Is Gonna Be On Your Side)

Carol Shinnette put records out on Oakland's 'Optune' label. Don't ever call the 415 number printed on the front of her 7" sleeves, as the gentleman on the other end of the line will threaten to kill you. This B.E have learned the hard way.

Although the record is claiming our hometown, it turns out it was actually produced in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where Carol still resides to this day.

Carol Shinnette - Handsome Man

A younger and hipper DJ friend whose taste I admire bought a bunch of records and played me a couple from his haul that he thought I would like. One was a weird, left field, boogie proto rap type edit by a producer that he was into. I recognized it, and took smug, nauseating, sad dickhead like pleasure in telling him that I owned a copy of the original record that the edit was sourced from, but for the life of me couldn't remember what it was called, so I asked him to tell me the name and artist of the track but he couldn't, because whomever had done the edit had stuck his own name all over it and obscured that of the original artist. We then had an animated discussion as to the ethics of this sort of thing. I own plenty of bootlegs, and sometimes you simply can't find the original artists behind some of these more obscure records but none the less they deserve a repress for more people to play out and enjoy, there isn't much money in these short vinyl runs anyway, but can you really take the original artist's name off the track (I think it was obscured down to a two letter initial in this case) and stick yours on simply because you extended the drum intro? Perhaps the guy didn't want anyone to know the OG cut's name but why the secrecy? I see it a lot, it just seems like an exploitative way to prop up your own brand. I mean, you don't have to pay the guy who made the song that you looped up, but at least leave his name on there alongside yours.

Anyway, I went through my shelves and found it. Terrance Tee seems to have produced a couple of known early rap and boogie 45's that I have seen in auction lots etc, but this 12" doesn't seem to be listed anywhere. It came out on 'New York Town Records' and was written by Terrance Moore (no doubt Terrance Tee himself) and produced by T. Marcini. I cannot find anything on either of these people.

My copy is signed in scribbled pen "To Terri, From the M.C, Terrance Tee" . Terri, wherever you are, thank you for getting rid of this weird, weird record.

Terrance Tee - She's A Party Girl (Vocal)
Terrance Tee - She's A Party Girl (Instrumental)

Here is a great disco boogie jam produced in part by drummer Howard King. He was a member of Mtume's band and also contributed to some great LPs from Gary Bartz, D-Train, Eddie Henderson, and Stephanie Mills. This tune has pretty amazing breakdown and is just great soulful dance music start to finish. Definitely a sleeper and a kinda tough pull from the RCA disco 12" catalog.

Candy Bowman - I Wanna Feel Your Love

Here is a late Christmas present. If my theory is true, and this is the only Minnesota disco rap ever recorded, then it also holds true that it is also the best one. To my ear its one of my top 5 disco raps of all time, the 1980 style party delivery with the 1985 era instrumentation make it unique. Sir Nature Alexander was a transplant to Minneapolis from Atlanta and became a well known fixture of the local music entertainment scene, most notably as the city's best breakdance instructor, going on to host his own show on local TV, and also working as a singer and producer on the Minneapolis funk circuit.

Sir Nature has a rare 1986 solo album with more of a contemporary for the time Minneapolis scene sound, but I don't own it sadly. He has been producing records constantly up and to this day, now more in the vein of Southern soul styled r'n'b, you can find Sir Nature Alexander current work here:

http://www.myspace.com/newjackblues

And you can find the first ever(?) rip of his electro masterpiece here:

Nature - The Prep

The Bell family from Youngston, Ohio produced three brothers who made immense contributions to the jazz/disco/funk scene in the 70s and 80s. Robert and Ronald Bell formed a group The Jazziacs that eventually became Kool & The Gang. Kevin Bell, also known by his Arabic name Amir Bayyan, formed Kool protege group The Kay Gees. Kevin was a prolific musician and producer, also playing in the group Forecast and producing jams for Armenta, LaToya Jackson, Tomorrow's Edition, and Jimmy Cliff. Here is one of his tight one-off tracks under the name Candela released in 1982 and mastered by Herb Powers Jr.

Candela - Love You Madly (extended version)

So yeah this italo track from 1984 is probably one of the most lyrically confusing songs of all time. The vocalist implores you to "get down" all while scorning the concept of cheating and engaging in threesomes. Seems to be a bit counter intuitive to the general 80's disco vibe, but that aside Get Down is a hot track.

Mirage - Get Down

Could Radar Records do no wrong? Key-Matic's Breakin' In Space was by far the labels biggest 'hit', and the record holds a place in the pantheon of early electro master pieces. It has all the right ingredients, tastefully done vocoder (I'm by no means a vocoder collector/fan/nerd), non lame old school raps about space, dubbed out synths and cosmic overtones.

There are even a few young, future celebrities on this cut. The saxophone was done by Najee, who went on to rival Kenny G for a while as smooth jazz radio sax top dog, and we also have some scratches from Wizard K-Jee, a.k.a Keith Shocklee, future Bomb Squad member and the discoverer of Chuck D.

Here are all the cuts from the record.

Key-Matic – Breakin' In Space (Vocal)
Key-Matic – Breakin' In Space (Instrumental)
Key-Matic – Breakin' In Space (Lunar Beats i)
Key-Matic – Breakin' In Space (Lunar Beats ii)

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.

download lo-rez samples here
RYSQUE 001 Pierre - Cherri Snow b/w Veronica - So In Love
RYSQUE 003 Tim Tucker - C'Kret b/w Davinity - Fishnets

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.

We haven't put up any straight up hardcore disco in a long time so here you go. It is impossible to put these joints on and not want to invite all the foos in the neighborhood over for a dance party; unless you live where I live, then again, OK it's a bad idea altogether. Just convince BT to throw a matinee party at his house in LA and go hang out in his heated pool.

This Mandrill Jam reminds me or a mix between Tempest Trio's Do You Like The Way That It Feels and a song by Imagination. Sorry for the parts where it is clipping near the end, I am trying to dial in my new rig.

This early Tee Scott remix shows his knack for turning a straight forward disco hit into a dance floor classic with long drawn-out breaks with empty quiet backgrounds contrasting the disco anthem choruses.

Mandrill - Dance Of Love
First Choice - Love Thang (Tee Scott Remix)

Beatelectic is starting to look a little dated, we gave it a revamp a couple of years back, but the fact is it's a blogspot page, and in this day and age thats the equivalent of having your website up on geocities, with animated gifs of grim reaper skulls puking fire and popup ad's for cheap hotel rooms. All the new blogs I go to with the decent new electronic music on look like they were made by a team of trendy engineers with degrees in graphic design, then I come back to beatelectric and we look like shit. In reality I suppose to have had a blog this long hosted by google with direct mp3 links to unlicensed music is somewhat of a miracle, most got taken down due to copyright infringement complaints long ago, but I think its really a testament to the unpopularity of the under the radar dusty commercial failures that we post. And with that in mind, I'm about to post some private press Hi Nrg...

My apartment is on the corner of Castro and Market St in San Francisco, which has been the heart of the gay community here for decades, and as such when I go digging around my local thrift stores and yard sales I come up with endless San Francisco scene high energy and uptempo, euro disco. Not my genres of choice or expertise, but each to their own. A block either side of where I live were the homes of Megatone records, Moby Dick records, Hot Tracks records, some other labels and plenty of record stores specializing in dance music popular in the gay clubs at the time. Now and again, when searching around the 'hood something locally made that's a little outside of the norm shows up.

Sonny Padilla Jr.'s self released 1985 single is marked as coming out on Uno Records, the address of which is a few doors down the street from me, an old apartment complex, and probably the address of Sonny's living room office. It turns out that this record is actually well known and quite sort after on the digging circuit, fetching a couple of hundred bucks in mint condition, due to it's heavy utilization of the vocoder on the A side's It's Your Body, and as a rarity it makes it on to a lot of vocoder nerd's wants list. I actually prefer the instrumental of the B side, 'Talk To Me!', which doesn't appear to be on the internet anywhere.

In the sleeve notes Sonny states that the record was made at The Automatt, a well known studio which is now a parking lot on Fulsom St, the photo in this post was taken from the main room's mixing console. Sonny lived in San Francisco and worked in the music industry throughout his life before passing away in 2007, an obituary to him can be found here:

http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-11-30/news/17270905_1_memorial-tribute-naras-tv

Sonny Padilla Jr. - It's Your Body!
Sonny Padilla Jr. - It's Your Body! (Instrumental)
Sonny Padilla Jr. - Talk To Me!
Sonny Padilla Jr. - Talk To Me! (Instrumental)

Here are some slow jamz to cure your case of the mondays. This is the type of serious adults only R&B I like to vibe out to. "So Nice" is an album cut from Leroy Hutson's 1979 Unforgettable, unfortunately the rest of the record doesn't live up to the title. Don Blackman's "Heart's Desire" is a rare groove classic and needs no introduction. Bay Area funk artist Marvin Holmes shows us how it is done with a scorching late-period track from 1986. Don't be afraid of the lost years ('86-'89).

I've been neglecting my duties for some time now and for that I am remorseful. Fortunately, Joel Brüt has picked up the slack sharing his deep Kenny G cuts with the boogie world. But please don't blame him for posting those questionable white guy jazz noodlings, it's simply not his fault. He is a wine maker in Napa Valley, and that's how they roll up there in wine country.

This Sypher track has some 80's saxophone as well but it doesn't blow me out too hard. The lead synth hook is so fucking legit that this could be a Vertical Horizon track and it would still work for me. Fonda Rae's commanding lead vocals don't hurt either.

Sypher - It's Got To Be Right
Sypher - It's Got To Be Right (Dub Version)

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!

Here is a slammin track that was released on Prelude records in 1981.

Gayle Adams - Love Fever (Instrumental)

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

Kwick - Nightlife

I was speaking with some head recently and they brought up the locally sought after bay area 45 Disco Train by Brafa in conversation, which reminded me that there was an even harder to find Brafa 12" out there that someone (thank you whoever you were) a long time ago had ripped for me during my failed efforts to track down James 'Brafa' Bradford. Its called 'Caught Your Fever' and was put out on the same Lovebone Records label as the 45 single. It has a more straight ahead disco funk feel, but is equally indie and dusted. I hadn't seen this around anywhere else, so here it is:

Brafa - Caught Your Fever

In a couple more years I'm going to have run out of Halloween themed funk records, why did they never release the soundtrack to Bride Of Blackenstein? I would have been good to 2014.

Whodini - The Haunted House Of Rock
Whodini - The Haunted House Of Rock (vocoder version)

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.


Scratch - Keep On Searching For Love
Scratch - Eastern Lady

Here is a surprisingly good track from Bobby Orlando that came out on Prelude Records in 1983. It is a good version of that italo sound that he had for a couple of years before going full on HiNRG. Bobby O has an interesting story and I think we have covered him here a couple of times before. Basically, he was an ultra religious homophobe and in the mid to late 80's, he made the gayest music ever and it was pretty-much only listened to by gay men.

One -Two-Three - Runaway

This came out of a dollar bin in Chicago last weekend. I had always heard the weirdly mixed vocal version of Secret Weapon's 'Must Be The Music' of their self titled and only (I think) album, but picked up a 12" with an instrumental mix on the flip when I saw it as the vocal is what always slightly turned me off the original. Result, they replaced the male sung passages with maybe the greatest guitar solo in funk history:

Secret Weapon - Must Be The Music (Instrumental)

Zig Zag appears to be another moniker for then Miami producer and KC & The Sunshine Band member Richard Finch, who producer a few small run electro releases with still active Colorado based r'n'b keyboardist Drusel White way back when. Drusel still plays the Colorado circuit and Rick Finch is fighting a legal rap in Ohio, where he and his wall of platinum records currently reside.

Zig Zag - Circuit Break (Vocal)

Zig Zag - Circuit Breaker (Instrumental)

I hope you don't mind if I change it up and post something a bit different (less electric) than most of the material here. I think this record should appeal to many of our readers as fans of soul and left field disco.

The release date of the elusive Deep Inside You EP on Selector Sound is unknown, but I think tracks were probably remixes of material recorded much earlier, updated for the disco era. "Love Is A Hurting Thing" was also released on a 7" with the instrumental on the flip (listed as "How Can You Say It"), though this shorter version lacks the disco back beat and loose dub mixing style heard on the 12". It was probably the best pull of my record digging career when I found this last weekend at what Black Shag would call a car boot, and I am glad to share it with you all.

Gloria Ann Taylor - Love Is A Hurting Thing

Here are a few french white guy attempts at making boogie cuts circa '82-'85. Thanks to our friend Didier from Paris for the source material.

Flash System - La Fille De La FM
Micky Milan - Quand Tu Danses
Style - Playboy En Detresse
Elegance - Vacances J'oublie Tout
Francois Feldman - Wally Bouile Noire

Someone managed to plunder the master tape's of Philadelphia's Philly World Record's Alpha Studios and help themselves to all the choice instrumentals of their uptempo boogie numbers. Much respect, and thank you. You needn't book me for a DJ gig ever again, just play these off your laptop, sway in a gentle yet off balance motion out of time with the music, don't dress well and frown a lot, the experience will be the same as a BlackShag DJ set if not better, as your laptop won't trainwreck and blame it on the way the last DJ balanced the needles..

Taken down at the request of the rights holders, who were very nice about it. Sorry folks.

Here is a 1984 house classic in its 1985 special longer remix form. "You Don't Know" was produced by Paul Simpson and still sounds excellent today. As a bonus I'll throw in this garage flavored extended Shep Pettibone mix from Instant Funk.

If you are in the Sacramento area tonight I'll be playing records at The Press Club for a new weekly party, "FFFreak". Come hang out and dance to '80s music!


Serious Intention - You Don't Know (special remix)
Instant Funk - (Just Because) You'll Be Mine (Extended Club Mix)

I don't put up much italo, but this came up in a box of US r'n'b and disco recently and despite the rarity of any european pressed italo of note appearing in a dollar bin out in California (doesn't really happen that often), I thought the instrumental of Gazebo's 'Masterpiece' had a dark electro rhythm and a melancholy, wistful sort of feel to it that appeals to me, so I'll throw it on the BE.

Now, for all this instrumental's great qualities, the parts of the arrangement I like are spread sparsely amongst some sort of epic piano and atypical italo cheeseball bits, it comes with the territory. Its well worth listening through all 13 minutes, it gets deep and electro percussion heavy in the last couple but to many a modern DJ's tastes it could perhaps benefit from an edit, I don't have time for that, the producer wrote it this way for a reason and there are only so many hours in the day, so one of you should edit this up, stick it up on your soundcloud with your name all over it and be a hero.

Gazebo - Masterpiece (Instrumental)

Here is a tight disco boogie jam especially for you. Have a great Labor Day weekend if you are one of the few that is employed; otherwise, enjoy vacation and the free tune.

Brief Encounter - We Want To Play