Gotted some nice bits of vinyl recently. A couple of nice moody soundtracks from two of the masters. Everyone needs the UN Resolution on Racism on vinyl right? Bottom right is a UK HMV copy of an Impulse comp that has a bunch of tracks unreleased elsewhere on vinyl. Gooduns.

Some Impulse purchases am I rite?? My orange spine hunt continues. That Jackie Paris is actually pretty cool for some cornball Sinatra stan. That Mel Brown record has a hefty bit of drums on it. The other two are just nice original copies of classic albums.

The top two have Okay Temiz on drums. He is definitely one of the best drummers ever, from anywhere in the world and if you see a record with him on, grab it. The Indian record has Jnan Prakash Ghosh of “Drums of India” fame(!) on it. The Malaysian record is pretty cheesy as per usual but it’s got The Stylers backing the singer and they are always good for a song or two per album.

This Roy Meriwether album is mental. It starts out as kind of a Gospel album and ends up as crazy spiritual Jazz. François Rabbath’s “The Sound Of A Bass” is a fascinatingly original and musically jaw-dropping solo bass album from 1969. I also grabbed two great Elvin Jones LPs on Blue Note.

Some nice 12″s have been coming through recently. The first is a great track I’ve been after on vinyl for a while now, by Sylvia Robinson of Sugarhill Records fame. “PSK/Gucci Time” has got to be one of the greatest double-sided Rap 12″s of all time, seen here in it’s original Sound Makers Distribution pressing. “Do The James” and “Egypt, Egypt” are the kind of records that I would never have imagined finding original copies of ten years ago. I know you can find anything online, if you want to pay the price, but I like finding them in the wild most of the time. Like Pokemon.

How sleazy is this fucking porpoise? What a wrongun. Is he pimping an underage mermaid? This record must be good cos it’s bloody trashed.

Cloud 9 (aka Nookie) – Gonna Be Alright 1992

As a kid of 11 or 12, I used to have a radio just above my head where I slept. It seems funny now as I’ve barely listened to the radio for more than ten years but back then I used to be lulled to sleep by the relaxing sounds of HARDCORE PIRATES.

I used to put a tape in the box, turn the dial to 92.3 FM and listen to The Weekend Rush, broadcasting from Hackney’s Nightingale Estate. When I was getting tired, and assuming the signal was decent that night, I’d press play and record and fall asleep. On a monday morning I’d have three or four sides of C90 to keep my walkman warm for the week. At the end of the week, I’d probably tape over them again, unless they were particularly good, in which case they’d get a numbered label in my best 12 year old’s handwriting.

The above tune is the original white label version of the Nookie track “Gonna Be Alright” which is often known as “Sound Of Music”. In my great love for cheesy chords, no keyboard line means as much to me as this one. Utterly sentimental. Simplistic. Played on a cheap piano synth. It couldn’t be tackier but it hit me as a kid and has stayed with me. I still have the tape that recorded the first time I heard it. I sellotaped it back together a couple of times but it still plays.
Years later, I now own this original mix, the famous mix, the Foul Play remix (very good) and maybe a couple more mixes, and find it doesn’t really matter what goes on around the keys, as long as they’re there in all their simple glory. You could probably sell me a Robbie Williams song with that piano line.

Thelonius Monk it is not but it is as important to me as anything else put to wax and I’m very grateful that those pirates weighed anchor in my neck of the woods when I was growing up. They could have been at sea, hijacking oil tankers but they chose to share the music with London. Ta.

Arena Pirate Radio Documentary Part 1 & Part 2.

Poet – All Hell Breakin’ Loose 1987

Feeling my raps at the moment. Today.
Actually I’m always listening to Hiphop, just sometimes it feels like I’m not. I get into more music of more kinds all the time, but Hiphop is skin on me and all that other music is clothes. Like right now, for instance, “Put Ya Filas On” by Schoolly D just came on random and my volume control wasn’t quite ready for it. I’m sat right between my speakers and I’d wager Mr. Weaver just took a couple of years off my earlife, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the best thing I’ve heard all day. Listening to music at a reasonable volume is the cousin of death anyway.

I don’t normally put raps up here. Kind of because there are a million Hiphop blogs out there and I don’t have particularly rare shit that no one else is posting. I’m gonna put a few lesser known favourites up this week regardless because, you know, it’s what I’m feeling.

This record came out a couple of years after the aforementioned Schoolly D had kicked the (then) polite world of recorded Hiphop in it’s stomach and paved the way for uncompromising hardcore rap.

Poet went on to work extensively with production legend Molly Moll and form the groups PHd and Screwball but in 1987 he was on the rocks. Rocks and programmed drums, and not that crossover shit that Darryl and Joe had taken up the charts with Steve Tyler. No this is about as threattening and uncommercial as Hiphop got in 87, and all the better for it.

One day I’ll convince my favourite Rock-Only pub to let me play a couple of hours of strictly Rap-that-samples-Rock. It’d be great. I’d go. This would be amongst the prime cuts and all hell would break loose.

Missing – Flex & Relax 1994

If you’re programming drums then you might as well program something that no one is gonna play on a drum kit. I’d love to hear someone sit down at the traps and knock this out but I think the robots have got us beat for now.

Absolutely M&M P-nuts.

As we rumble in the Jungle I want to point out my boy DJ Bazia who is about the same age as most of the tracks he’s spinning here. Maybe a little younger. The force is strong in him.

All this music needs is an intermission with adverts for Club Telepathy and Jungle Mania: The Lion Returns. Possibly with a short statement on how the station is “not a drug-run organisation”, otherwise it’s perfect.

Hold tight all pirates!

Times Square – You’re Hot (European Version) 1981

“So young ladies, and gentlemen, once you try it once, you gonna do it again”

Back in 1981 when Hiphop tracks hedged their bets by being disco tracks. Back in 1981 when disco tracks hedged their bets by being Hiphop tracks. Back in 1981 before Hiphop was responsible for our childrens upbringing. Back in 1981 when Hiphop exploited a whole side of vinyl for its tracks. Back in 1981 before Hiphop was drum machines and before-before it was loops of James Brown and before-before-before it was people with keyboards again. Back in 1981 when it was people with keyboards.

The bit with the key and horn swells hits all my favourite chords. That’s hot.

“You’re gonna do it again”

Dizzee Rascal – I Luv U (Remix Feat Wiley & Sharkey Major) 2003

For some reason the remix to Dizzee’s debut single wasn’t included on his first album. I can’t think of a good reason. It’s not even available on iTunes…

Surely the strongest lineup on any grime track ever; Dizzee, Wiley and Sharkey Major all kick very different takes on not loving. Not loving being the only thing worth writing songs about after all. The chorus is that overheard-on-a-bus-soul-music they you need in your life cos you tell people you’ll ring them back when you’re on the bus.

It’s one of his best tracks and the beat is even crazier than the original “I Luv U”, yet it got kind of overlooked in all the album hype when it should have been the star of the show. This and “Brand New Day”.

Reggie Griffin & Technofunk – Mirda Rock 1982

Here is some top quality electro funk from a time when computers were only slaves to scientists and were a threat to the rest of us, even Spider-man.
Reggie Griffin seems to have been a regular synth-funk playing, jheri-curl having, stand-up guy. Playing with and writing for a number of great early 80s soul artists. He released an LP as Griffin in 1984 called “Hot Fingers” which includes a track with the name “No Humans Allowed”. I need this album.

Above is 1982’s “Mirda Rock” (avant-garde spelling for the time) on Sugar Hill imprint Sweet Mountain, complete with quite outstanding company sleeve. The first of the seven minutes is the highlight but the whole groove is nice. Now do what the computer says before it digitizes you.
Sadly it’s been twenty five years and computers still can’t dance as well as humans.

The Source Featuring Candi Staton – You Got The Love (Extended Vocal) 1986

Candi Staton is probably best known for her feminist disco anthem “Young hearts, run free”. To younger folks in the UK though, she may be better known for her vocals on the house track “You Got The Love”, which has three times made the British top ten. In 1991, remixed in 1997 and in it’s “original” form again in 2006.

The actual original is the above gospel-disco tune from 1986. Released under the name The Source Featuring Candi Staton it was the band’s only release and the only release on Source Records (though some discographies confuse it with the 70s label of the same name). The song is definitely on the boogie side of 80s disco, rather than the electro side. It’s slap-bass and nice cheesy keys all the way. Although excellent the track wasn’t a hit in the US.

In 1989 John Truelove took the acappella and stuck it over the instrumental of the biggest house track to emerge at that point, “Your Love” by Frankie Knuckles. He bootlegged it. It hit big in Ibiza and UK clubs and Truelove released it as a proper single, taking on the Source name himself and naming the track “You Got The Love (The Erens Bootleg Mix)”. It reached number 4 on the singles chart and has been a club staple since. The first straight mash-up hit?

The four minute radio version of the original has often been included on releases of the “Erens” version but I think the full extended version is only available on the original 12″. It’s a great track. You can’t really go wrong with those vocals and playing the original is a nice break from the played-to-death house version.
Now and then, I feel.