I don't know why we never posted this before (maybe we did), but here is the classic cut off of The Jammer's first self titled 1982 Salsoul released album. One of the few standout albums of the genre that hits hard from start to finish, you pick just about any track off of that and throw it up on the internet, but Be Mine Tonight has the most recognizable hook of the bunch. Richie Weeks and a prime Shep Pettibone both had a hand in this, with pretty much an all star instrumental lineup provided by Salsoul.

The Jammers - Be Mine Tonight

This is what happens when you mix a funk band, a freestyle producer, and Miami together. Pretty Tony produced this record in 1983. It has a an proto Miami bass beat mixed with a smorgasbord of sounds and effects; and somehow it works.

Freestyle Express - Freestyle

Maybe Florida's most prolific R'n'B writer and producer, Eugene Wilde came from a musical family, including still performing favorite Dee Dee Wilde, and had some solo success including an r'n'b chart #1 on Philly World Records in the early 80's. After moving from the limelight for a while and behind the mixing boards, he found himself writing smashes for the Backstreet Boys, Brittany Spears and Victoria Beckham in the early 2000's. Now he is back releasing independent modern soul singles out of Scandanavia.

'Personality' was Eugene's second or third single, coming out in 1984. This is the cleverly titled 'Split' mix, a proto house garagey dub version that came out on the 4th & Broadway issued UK release. A pleasant backdrop for this hot weather.

Eugene Wilde - Personality (Split)

Mazarati are known for being an early Minneapolis based Prince produced side project, starring Prince And The Revolution bassist Mark Brown (also known by the bizarre stage name BrownMark). They put out two albums, Mazarati I & II, but are better known for the songs that Prince wrote for them, then took back after hearing the bands demos when he realized the songs had real potential to make some loot.

Amongst the weird and wonderful world of the Prince bootleg collector community, cassette tapes of early Mazarati studio sessions and unreleased material have long been prized. 'Little Mazarati', a mock up of a sort of title track for the band, was never released, and comes from such a traded stolen studio session tape, which then eventually made it onto a Prince Bootleg CD-r compilation in the late 1990's (hence its 128kps, which was standard back then in the olden days of dial up modems and ambient drum'n'bass).

This is some low-fi indie, stripped down boogie funk rock by one of the all time grand masters.

Mazarati - Little Mazarati

The saxophone is very much maligned instrument for good reason. In most instances, it can spread so much smooth cheese that it is difficult to taste the funk. Here are some sax heavy cuts that are pretty palatable for a Sunday afternoon pool party.

Marcus Miller was a session bass player and this cut is off his first record, 1983's Suddenly. There are good funky basslines all over this LP. The cheezy saxophone solo in this track adds a campy element against a backdrop of serious funk. Think of it as a workin' man's hand in a velvet glove.

Kenny G needs no introduction. The university trained accountant and full-time cheezmeister learned his chops by playing along with his Grover Washington Jr. records. His curly head adorned the cover of The Jeff Lorber Fusion's Wizard Island album in 1980 before he got his own record deal at Arista. This track is from Kenny's first record, which was produced by Lorber in 1982. 1982 was a banner year for soul and not even Kenny G could disappoint. This cut has some great sax work tightly intertwined some funky jangly guitar. Lorber lets loose with a janky synth solo to round out the whole package.

Markus Miller - Suddenly
Kenny G - Stop And Go

There are two Steve Harvey's and both have links to funk and R'n'B, there is the American born actor Steve Harvey who used to play a retired funk musician who teaches highschool in downtown Chicago in a short running sitcom back in 1999, and then there is Scottish born musician Steve Harvey who also lives in the US that produced two of the most perfect synth led proto house funk tunes of the early eighties. They make it hard to google one another.

Tonight and Something Special both have a contemporary quality to them, like they could have been produced in Paris yesterday by some up and coming producer on the current house or 'nu-funk' scene. Tonight gets slightly less shine, but I think the dub version of that particular track has one of the most transcendent basslines to come out of the eighties. Steve did a couple of garage house records in the early nineties too, although as for what he has been up to recently I don't know, he is still working in LA somewhere I would imagine.

Steve Harvey - Tonight (dub)

Spoken word and funk artist Gary Byrd, the 'Professor Of The Rap', wrote the Stevie Wonder produced The Crown in 1982 for Stevie's short lived Wondirection label. The single didn't do much in the US, but reached #6 in the UK charts in 1983, and broke some sort of record for being up until then the longest ever top ten single weighing in at 10 plus minutes long.

Gary's early example of socially conscious rap isn't included on this instrumental side, but you do get some of Stevie Wonder's accompanying verse about 6 minutes in, which will catch the crowd pleasantly by surprise, as the disco funk groove sort of just loops up until then, never seeming to get old.

New Yorkers may know Gary Byrd better today as Imhotep Byrd, the radio talk show host WBLS 107.5

Gary Byrd And The G.B Experience - The Crown (Instrumental)

I finally got my recording rig sorted; hopefully these are loud enough for you. Now, if I could just keep my computer from crashing! Here are some early 80's gems. This 1982 D Train cut is a no brainer. No group can put me in a good mood like them. They are so filled with positive energy and they make me want to get up and dance. This dub version is on the flip of the Walk On By 12". This 1983 track by Bobby Nunn is a jam, a warm up or a cool down for sure. Has a lot of garage flavor in a modern soul dish.

D Train - Tryin' To Get Over (Dub)
Bobby Nunn - Do You Look That Good In The Morning?

I like Washington DC, its my favorite place to be on the east coast, but that being said Go Go is a funny genre isn't it?

This is my favorite track by GoGo's godfather, Chuck Brown, and I think its my favorite because its his least GoGo sounding. Off of 1980's Funk Express lp, In The Pocket is the standout straight hard hitting funk dancefloor smasher that somehow never saw a 12" release.

Chuck Brown still performs and releases records to this day, and recently even had a street named after him, Chuck Brown Way, in his native DC. GoGo is still weird though.

Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers - In The Pocket

The Beat Electricians aren't posting much these days because we are too busy planning for the rapture that is coming in three weeks. In that time, the only thing that will survive other than a few pious Americans are their Hummers and my Threshold SA 3.9e; which was made specifically to withstand such an ordeal. In all honesty, I need a new soundcard and just came up with a janky solution to rip a couple of jamz for you foos. So here we have a favorite jam of mine off of Cymande's second record that came out on Janus in 1972. I have also included a selection for the ladies. Here Roy Ayers is apparently seducing his robot lover.

Cymande - Anthracyte
Roy Ayers - Programmed for Love

Began Cekic made his money in the Brooklyn construction trade, and during the disco boom decided to capitalize by setting up a label and producing what were perhaps some of the early examples of dance tracks made up of looped and re-worked riffs and hooks from earlier well known hits. You can find his hits produced for Brooklyn Express all over the internet, as well as many others, but I can't find a clean version of Hi Voltage's Somewhere Beyond/Let's Get Horny anywhere, and I think its his best, so I'm putting it up. That being said maybe I just didn't look hard after I randomly picked it out off the shelf this morning.

Began was a shadowy, uncelebrated figure in the New York disco scene, Tee Scott who mixed this record gave an interesting and colorful account of him in an interview he did with Daniel Wang back in the nineties, but a decade later Began Cekic turns up in the history books again, this time in a new york times article about the Montenegro separatist movement. Turns out he went from disco revolutionary, to, well, revolutionary..

'"I think we made a difference," said Began Cekic, a demolition expert from Brooklyn who returned to his parent's home in Gusinje in the north of the republic. His friends and neighbors, a mixture of Montenegrins, Albanians and Muslim Slavs, celebrated late into the night, waving Montenegrin, Albanian and Bosnian flags.'


Hi Voltage - Somewhere Beyond
Hi Voltage - Lets Get Horny

Due to fair weather funk collectors, who shall remain unnamed, neglecting their duties to BeatElectric in order to concentrate their time on their newly formed Witch House band ('Witch House', look it up, I shit you not), I will be renaming beatelectric to BlackShag.com . It will comprise mostly of rips of soon to be not as sought after as they were last year before Witch House came along electro boogie records, and discussions about fantasy wargaming.

Owning the biggest boogie 12" collection in North Norfolk county comes with a burden of heavy responsibility, and as such it was high time I posted Goody Goody's Make Me Hot, maybe one of the most perfect uptempo electro funk compositions put to wax. I say perfect because it has all the bits I like very much, a squelchy woofer shaking bass line, synthy space effects and on point vocals. This is maybe the last great single that came off of Philly Sound Works and is still to this day more coveted than the first Salem demo cd-r that I caught BT Magnum and Joel having a bidding war over on ebay (no need to look Salem up)..

Goody Goody - Make Me Hot

Asphalt Jungle was a project of session drummer and Salsoul Orchestra rhythm section ace Keith Benson. The above is not a picture of Keith, as I can't find one, its just a picture I like of a drummer, so its in context.

If you look at the man's discography he is credited with playing on hundreds of New York sessions all the way up until the nineties, but he is only credited as producing and writing a rare handful. He either re-recorded or re-edited Asphalt Jungle's Freakin Time without the vocal and with more dubby bits, a bit similar to the B side pt. 2 version of this release, a few years later in the early eighties as The Funk Fusion Band, which is no easier to find than this his original version.

Asphalt Jungle - Freakin' Time Pt. 1

Asphalt Jungle - Freakin' Time Pt. 2

It was just this last weekend that your Beat Electricians got together to pay tribute to none other than the original corvette driving, San Francisco, white bread, master of the turntables and slayer of the ladies, Cameron Paul. Tim Sweeny was even hallucinating from the experience. Dogtones from Laserfunk and I were playing a gig a couple of weeks ago and met a guy named Raul who built a special antenna so that he could receive Cameron Paul broadcasts from San Francisco all the way in Sacramento. Dogtones hooked us up with these mixes. We have hosted some of his janky jamz and even a janky megamix (mixed by yours truly), so click here for more. Also, here is another mix on the KMEL site.

Cameron Paul - Late Great 88
Cameron Paul - Mixx It Power Mix '87 Side A
Cameron Paul - KMEL Megamix

Bass session wizard and unsung synth funk producer Kenni Burke produced this instrumental as a backing for The O'Jays uptempo philly style harmonies. The O'Jays scored a minor radio hit with the vocal version of this track, but it's Kenni's synth work that makes this stand out. Seek out any of Kenni Burke's self produced albums, and also keep an eye out for a couple of much rarer singles produced by his brother, Cubi Burke, who is probably deserving of his own post if I can ever find the wax.

O'Jays, The - Put Our Heads Together (Instrumental)

Black Soul was a disco group from Dakar Senegal on the West Coast of Africa. This cut comes from a 1977 record on Beam Junction Records out of New York. I love the whole LP. It is an early Tom Moulton mix which explains its fat disco stomp. Speaking of, my new phono stage doesn't have a lot of gain, so a lot of the tracks I have been posting are a bit quiet. How do I get more input gain than the slider gives me in Logic?

Black Soul - Africa Africa

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.

Charles Earland - (It's A) Doggie Boogie Baby (Instrumental)
Fredi Grace and Rhinestone - Help

The most difficult part about getting a good rip is having a clean record. Using a $500 cartridge to clear out the grooves is endlessly frustrating. I have had most of the parts to assemble this record cleaning machine for over a year. I had procrastinated building a vacuum attachment like this; but found the perfect solution at the hardware store when I was looking for something else.

Here is what you need:

Shop Vac (this one is 3HP)
Shop Vac detail brush kit
Turntable
Dry Brush
Nitty Gritty Wet Brush
Record Clamp (optional)
Record washing fluid (make your own like I do or buy it)

There is a record washing fluid recipe in the link. I have access to a lab, so I am able to buy reagent grade water and isoproponol. I bought the surfactant from a photo supply place online.

Here is a cool rare lazer soul record I picked up in Denver. It is from Detroit and was released in 1988. It sounds more like 1984. I love the synth work and the production. Almost ever track is good on this LP and there is even a slow jam that makes me a little frisky.

Dennis Paul & Apossa' - Who's Lovin' You?
Dennis Paul & Apossa' - Can't Get Enough

Here is an early one from future New Order producer Arthur Baker. He would have produced this roller boogie mover sometime in his early twenties, and it features his wife on vocals Tina Klein Baker, later to become freestyle star Tina B.

This one came out on the always upbeat and choice Posse Records, I'm sure he also produced the Ritz 12" whose name I cannot remember on Posse a year or so later that everyone sweats. After this point in his career me and Arthur Baker's tastes diverge a little, but these early outings behind the boards at such a young age hint at what a power house behind the boards he was set to become.

Glory - Can You Guess What Groove This Is?

Unfortunately, I have some bad news. BT Magnum is in Europe bringing sweet boogie flavor to dance parties all over and just got all of his records jacked while on a train to Amsterdam. If you are over in that neck of the woods and you see someone pedaling raw, sick ass heat, please bring it to the attention to the authorities! These records took years, lots of cheddar, and countless hours avoiding work; help him out if you can!

Here is a loft jam in mourning.

Jo Bisso - Your Love

Here is a proto house instrumental produced by saxophone great Patrick Henderson, used as backing for Mr T's preachy 'Mr T's Commandments'. This one came up whilst looking through the cheap section at a record store last weekend, on a lovely sunny day in Eagle Rock.

I don't really have to write much about Mr T's cash in tween market focused rap career, I think the sleeve cover for this single really does all the talking for me. Unfortunately his gruff early eighties style staccato flow about such important topics as not talking to strangers, and telling your parents about your problems, has overshadowed what is an lovely piece of progressive electro funk on the flip of this dollar bin single..

Mr T - Mr T's Commandments (Instrumental)

Space was a space disco group from Marseilles, France. This one comes off the 1977 Metropolis release. It is still the most epic space disco track ever. The pic above was from my trip to Malibu over the holiday where I was visiting and partying with some good friends who live next to Babs, Mccaughney, and Hans Zimmer . A washed up (so to speak) drunken sailor beached his 37' recording studio in this precious paradise while in-route to LA from Santa Barbara. He and his two cats survived. I threw my back out removing a strange piece of gear that would have been better served as a boat anchor.

If you are near Davis on Friday, come to the Delta of Venus where Dog Tones and I will be spinning funk, soul, and rare disco.

Space - Magic Fly

Harvey Mason was a jazz funk drummer extraordinaire and and continues to work in the contemporary jazz group Fourplay. He was featured on most of the Mizell produced jazz funk works of the 70's and 80's and he kept the beat on the seminal Herbie Hancock album Headhunters.

This track comes off the 1981 record M.V.P. Albums made by jazz drummers usually feature way too many drum solos and awkward fills all over the place. The drum work on this record is in good taste and super tight albeit a bit too loud in the mix. The whole record has a groovy boogie sound and is great, minus the obligatory smooth jamz. The album artwork features Harvey doing just about every sport you can imagine, from SCUBA to horse stadium jumping; a renaissance man indeed.

Harvey Mason - On And On

 Here is some top shelf electro funk, although for a few years this one never left my bag, and so the drop beat at the beginning of the vocal side is a little fuzzy from me rocking back and forth on it with overweighted club needles. A shame, but then this music was meant to be played and danced to, not reside forever in some sad beardo's vault, and this was always the electro jam for ladies that managed to keep that infectious edge and as such needed rinsing out. 

 Zest's Hot Tasty Love was a very early 1983 project but the then young duo of keyboardist Fred McFarlane and producer Allen George, both of whom wrote and produced independently and together as a duo well in to the nineties house era, when they were particularly prolific in the new york garage scene. This effort was indicative of the quality that was found on pretty much every record I have come across since with either guy's name on, I only wish I knew who the singer was.

Zest - Hot Tasty Love (Vocal)

Zest - Hot Tasty Love (Instrumental)

I grabbed this record whilst digging in Sacramento with my buddy from lazerfunk over the weekend. This record, still sealed was in a pile of MC Hammer 12"s and $10 Switched On Bach LPs on a lower shelf. I also got a couple of mint Aurra 12"s, some good jazz funk, and some Chi house heat. While I was down there I was crop dusted by some middle aged weirdo who was looking for a soundtrack to a movie that he couldn't remember. It was a nice and productive four day weekend that refused to be marred by all the wine and beer that went down my gullet. Not only did I get a grip of records for Beat Electric, I finally finished restoring my 1976 Bozak and it is sounding so smooth and punchy. I am going to have to put a booth together and record a mix!

This record seems to be pretty a rare 1984 release on Beverly Glen. This track mates this famous old gospel crooner's voice to disco strings and a sweet boogie bassline.

Johnnie Taylor - Seconds Of Your Love

 TV Sounds Orchestra was the blanket name used for all of super producer Tony Valor's inhouse backing band and instrumental efforts. On the flip of many of Tony's hits throughout the seventies and early eighties you will find a dub credited to the TV Sounds Orchestra and this one comes off of the B side of Fantasy's 12" electro funk single 'Live The Life I love'.

 Tony Valor came up through the 60's Brooklyn music scene, first as a soul singer, then moving into engineering, production at the birth of the disco scene then eventually talent manager and label owner with TVI records and alongside Tom Moulton as one half of T'n'T records. I read somewhere he was a New York beat cop and music industry lawyer for a while too.  He is a savvy business leader and still produces and manages creative assets to this day. Here is a quote I liked from a 2003 Pedro Lopez interview with him I read on discomusic.com, giving his typical crotchety old seventies record executive take on the ever villainized modern evil..'sampling' (boo hiss, *shakes fist*)...

'This was a good opportunity to ask Tony Valor how he felt about sampling and he responded, "I’d rather people sample and pay the fee. There’s a singer in the U. K. named Rhianna with a song called "Oh Baby" which is fabulous. They did a whole thing from one of my 1958 records called "I Forgot About That / Latin Nights In Manhattan." They paid very nice and her record has done very well. I’d rather them do that than just copy. It gives you money and credit. Sampling to me is fine, the creativity of years ago-you can’t beat it. There are very few good musicians. With MIDI there is no need to be a good musician.'

TV Sounds Orchestra - Live The Life I Love (Instrumental)

 Sometimes I get a little too hung up on whether something has already been posted somewhere else, or whether its a well known track or not etc before I will consider a record for recording and putting up on the site. I have decided to drop those pre-requisites, because whether a track is known or not is really relative to your level of sad record collector beardy'ness, and whether it is posted or not is usually relative to how many medifire or rapidshare links you are willing to click on, plus who cares anyway. I took a quick look around for this one and couldn't see it easily available, so thats good enough for me, especially considering it's, as they say in the jazz world,  a standard. 

 Lime are a well known disco pop duo from Montreal composed of husband and wife Denis and Denyse LePage. Denis was a prolific producer in the Hi NRG scene, and hence a lot of Lime records turn up in San Francisco record bins, SF being a Hi NRG city. On The Grid is in contrast to most of their releases as it is a predominantly instrumental italo jam, with a sparse vocoder vocal line. It turned up on some bootleg compilations a few years ago, but here I offer you both side of the Prism records 12", the dub and the "remix". I have never really been able to tell the difference between the remix and the dub versions, and back in the day would just play either side at random..listening now I think the 'remix' version is better.

Lime - On The Grid (remix)

Lime - On The Grid (dub version)

I just got in from Chicago this afternoon and I had a really great time. It is such a clean and beautiful city and I was blessed with mild weather. I tried to see as much of the city as I could but it is huge! It seems like each neighborhood is the size of SF. I was on foot, bus, and subway but didn't get a chance to ride the el. I met a lot of cool hipster foodies; ate and drank well. I also thought I was tanking my life in my hands when I went to this huge sports bar in Lincoln Park to see Congressman Pacquiao beat the crap out of the much bigger Margarito, but Chicagoans are civil people. I was working the most days, but I was able to break away and get a grip of records. I have posted a track that I picked up.

This J. Blackfoot cut came from the cool janky modern soul LP City Slicker, which is loaded with great basslines and synth work. Blackfoot is a bit of a swooner for my taste and has filled all spaces with this voice. This is a bummer because I would like to edit the tracks to make them less vocal heavy. It came out on Sound Town Records in 1983.

Also posted it an edit of one of my favorite party jamz. I have wanted to do this for a while and since my lady wants me to clean the house I finally got it done.

J. Blackfoot - Street Girl
Positive Force - We Got The Funk (LeBaron Edit)

 In honor of LeBaron's trip to Chicago, I'am posting the greatest ode to the midwest's greatest city. Roy Ayers' Chicago first appeared on a 1983 album named (according to my memory) Silver Vibrations, but also appeared re-recorded on 1988's Drive, from which these recordings game from the 1992 Japanese CD release.  Everybody and Fast Money I imagine would have sounded a little dated in 1988, but then the 'acid jazz' revival of the sound Roy pioneered was just about to occur so maybe it was no accident.

Roy Ayers - Chicago

Roy Ayers - Everybody

Roy Ayers - Fast Money 

If someone told me that this was the new Glass Candy or Chromatics track, I would totally believe them. This, to me is a perfectly executed slow burner. Stacey Q producer Jon St. James put this out on Synthecide Records in 1988. It's much more of a bedroom track than one for the club, for sure. When your girl screeches, "do you ever listen to anything other than disco?"; put this on and you have 5 minutes to do your thing. It puts me in a winter state of mind and is priming me for a trip to the cold ass mid west next week. Give me a shout if you know where I should be in Chicago next weekend.

Bardeux - When We Kiss

 I was going to meet my mate Steven from dub.com for a beer, but sadly he has been in California too long, and has turned from a once dependable Dubliner, ever a reliable drinking partner and record beard discussion catalyst, and metamorphosed over the long years into a true San Franciscan, i.e a flake, having been caught up in the Giant's world series riots the previous evening.  But even though my meeting with the reggae don fell through, it got my thinking about all the island tinged boogie and so on I could bring up in conversation with him before I eventually got out of my depth and exposed for what I really am, a lame poseur. 

 There is of course tons and tons of reggae disco, dubbed out B side instrumentals, jamaican boogie, london carribean scene funk and what have you, and by all means put your favorites in the comments section. Reggae and dub hit the north american and european mainstream the same time as disco and punk (right? or no?), so it figures I would guess. Out of my depth already. These two tracks though are from my own collection and I could not find them elsewhere on the greater internet, and are both very different from one another, so I thought would make a good post. 

 Landscape were a UK New Wave band, that had some artsy electronic 7"s in the seventies and a couple of radio played synth pop tracks in the 80's (one was called 'Einstein' or something, and had a great video with the ghost of Einstein in it haunting a chemistry lab(?)). 'The Fabulous Neutrinos' is a dubby instrumental B side to the harsh on the ears single 'So Pure, So Good, So Kind', unearthed from a dollar bin many moons ago.

 Frankie Paul, sometimes called the 'Jamaican Stevie Wonder', because of his poor vision, is a dancehall singer who was associated with the Coxsone soundsystem. 'Funky Reggae Party' is an out of place mid tempo electro funk track that sits weirdly on the B side of the South London produced and recorded dancehall reggae album 'Ripe Mango' on Blacker Dread records in 1983. I forget which part of south london the Blacker Dread record store is in, but its still there. Flipping the record over and finding this was a nice surprise: 

Landscape - The Fabulous Neutrinos

Frankie Paul - Funky Reggae Party