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First off, three current youtube favourites:

The Poets, from Shindig, doing Now We’re Thru – one of the very strangest records to hit the Top 30, in an era of strange records: dig those ruffles.

For more, read George Gallagher in the second volume of Andrew Loog Oldham’s excellent biography, 2 Stoned.

John Lennon, who knew a thing or two about oddity, pronounced Now We’re Thru fucking weird. The clip also reminds us of a period when real-life hard men were not afraid to dress up like ponces, pansies and such estimable members of society. The next clip is vintage Buddy Holly, from a US TV show called Arthur Murray Dance Party, December 29th 1957. I’ve been immersing myself in the brand new, career-spanning Not Fade Away 6xCD box – which is totally riveting – and so it’s great to see one of the very few clips of Holly and the three man Crickets in action. Despite his tux and bow-tie, Holly can hardly restrain himself, in stark contrast to the stiff teens behind him:

The introduction is rather sweet, and Holly is perfectly poised between charm, unrestrained motion, and a tiny hint of menace – if not actual punk attitude in such a setting. The final cut is from 1968, and it’s the Easybeats on German TV, Beat Club, nailing what should have been the follow-up to Friday On My Mind, Good Times. A great song – the primal R’N R spirit updated – and a beyond committed performance from singer Stevie Wright (and it is Steve Marriott you can hear on backing vocals, on the original record):

Rock’n roll: it makes you do the chicken, it makes you do the stroll. OK some 45’s now, as I like nothing better than to play these out: all these are from the 1960s, found at the Utrecht Record Fair. The first is by Dutch gods N.V.Groep 65, who released two deranged singles in 1966. This is their first, Dank Zij De Heer (thanks to the Lord) – a bizarre and scandalous Gregorian chant – backed with Tanger, a simple ode to the pleasures of ‘wietjies’ (joints). The band split up in 1966, partly due to escalating drug use of singer and writer Warnar Landkroon (a/k/a Jesus). The full story can be found in the recent Grey Past 10” EP that contains everything the group recorded.

Another find was a 1967 single by Q65 who, in their original incarnation, released a string of tough freakbeat/ punk 45’s and a terrific album (Revolution) during 1966. It Came To Me is a monstrous rocker, constructed around a driving riff, that builds and builds. It’s on their recent RPM compilation, The Complete Collection.

Also from 1967 is the first single by the revamped and relaunched Fortunes. The Idol was heavily promoted on Radio Caroline that summer, and with its spacey introduction, ear-catching hooks and breathy finale, adds extra spice to a lyric about the loneliness of the long-distance pop star: ‘I can walk on fitted carpets, I can swim down at my pool, I can throw expensive parties, yes afford to be the fool’. Fitted carpets?

A fantastic break that was also released in 1967 is Syl Johnson’s Different Strokes. A staple of various breaks albums (Ultimate Breaks and Beats, Super Breaks), it begins with a brilliant James Brown style grunt interspersed with the high moans of an ecstatic female. With a nod to the shing-a-ling and the funky broadway, Syl makes ‘so many ways to play’ sound like fantastic fun.

The last single is an epic by the Edgar Broughton Band from 1970. There were quite a few tribal rock beats at that time – beginning with Give Peace A Chance – but Out Demons Out is one of the greatest, with multiple applications. For its use in the 21st century, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUxUsRuaXDo for a recent performance featuring Linder Sterling, dozens of local musicians and a very nervous dog, live at the Tate Gallery St Ives.

For some modern music, we go to CD’s still. No great complexity here, mostly electronica. More Kompakt, including Giu Boratto’s Take My Breath Away and the Total 10 2xCD compilation, featuring Boratto’s great re-mix of the Sam Taylor-Wood/ Pet Shop Boys’ version of I’m In Love With A German Film Star (in fact Roadent, but that’s another story) and DJ Koze’s latest wheeze, a track constructed around a tough tennis point, replete with the bonk bonk of the ball and female grunts, 40 Love. A couple of nu disco comps: Hibernation Vol. 1 on Bearfunk is really terrific, with a fake fur CD sleeve and plenty of those updated, high spacey disco sounds – including Greg Wilson’s version of Social Disco Club & Maia’s, The Way You Move. I heard Wilson’s own CD, Credit To The Edit Vol 2, playing in Les Hart’s Kingbee Records – quite possibly the best record store in the UK – and snapped it up. It has excellent extended versions of Love Is The Drug, Voodoo Ray and Dirty Talk in a very agreeable mix. Also recommended: the Feelies’ unregarded second album, 1986’s The Good Earth (reissued on Domino), songs that begin quietly and build to a surge; and most of all, to my surprise, the Jazzman collection of Lloyd Miller’s self-released music from the fifties and sixties, A Lifetime In Oriental Jazz – which becomes more and more oriental as you go through. Impressions of Bhairavi Raga indeed! Finally, Rick Tomlinson has morphed into Voice of the Seven Thunders, and, on tunes like Kommune and The Burning Mountain his forthcoming LP is liberally dosed with some great acid rock guitar. It’s out in February and is highly recommended.

Tags: Buddy Holly, Easybeats, Edgar Broughton Band, Giu Boratto, Greg Wilson, John Lennon, Kingbee Records, Kompakt, Lloyd Miller, N.V.Groep 65, Out Demons Out, Q'65, Sam Taylor- Wood, Syl Johnson, the Poets

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 8:41 pm  7 Comments

Vince Aletti’s The Disco Files 1973-78 has just been published for the first time in the UK by DJhistory.com It’s an indispensable read, not just for Disco and dance addicts, but for anyone interested in music writing. Aletti was the first person to identify the trend that would, for a brief and heady period, take over the world in the late seventies. His September 1973 article for Rolling Stone, entitled Discotheque Rock ’73: Paaaaarty! spoke of a new underground where DJ’s were the stars, and the ‘hardcore dance crowd – blacks, Latins, gays’ would congregate in private lofts or one off events in hotel ballrooms. The new mix, lab-tested in David Mancuso’s legendary club the Loft, included classic mainstream Philly and Motown records from the period, the O’Jays’ Love Train and The Temptations’ Papa Was A Rolling Stone (check out the recent double CD of the Tempts’ late sixties/ early seventies reincarnation, Psychedelic Soul, esp the track Message from A Black Man) , weird Euro-records by Barabbas, as well as African breaks like Manu DiBango’s classic Soul Makossa and Cymande’s The Message. From late 1974 to the end of 1978, Aletti wrote what was pretty much a weekly column for Record World that charted the rise of what would soon be called Disco: from the social, racial and sexual underground to the top of the charts – albeit in a sanitised version, thanks to the Saturday Night Fever movie. Along the way there are fascinating diversions – the popularity of a b-side by the Glitter Band, Makes You Blind, the rise of Euro Disco, the recurrence of the Space theme (for more, see the playlist below) and of course the onset of Electronic Disco – the total futurism of Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, records that have not dated at all thirty years later. Quite apart from the musical content, Aletti’s columns are an object lesson in how to write regularly for a demanding readership: he is enthusiastic, engaged, informative, yet not afraid to pick up on a topic and run with it – like the sophistication of the music and its audience, or the impact of gay politics contained in records like Carl Bean’s I Was Born This Way.

Interview with Vince Aletti at DJHistory.com

DJhistory.com have also released an extremely entertaining double CD of totally instrumental French library disco from 1979, le disco: tele music remixed: with contemporary mixers upping the spaciness quotient, tracks like Funky Bass are futuristic, funky, sexy and psychedelic – what more do you need? Just let yourself go, you know it feels good. Some of the same impulse can be found on DJ Koze’s recent collection of remixes, reincarnations. Best-known for his multifarious releases on Kompakt – like the shifting, ambient, almost gamelan Zouzou on Kompakt Total 9 – this Hamburg native exercises his higly developed prankster side by announcing on the sleeve: ‘DJ Koze would like to announce that he is no longer DJ Koze. Since 01.01.2009 he is Swahimi (The Unenlightened)”. The fourteen tracks range from techno to cosmiche disco to ambient and back again: a highlight is the remix of Sascha Funke’s Mango Cookie, a deep house exploration that segues into a 1977 track by famed German actress / singer Hildegard Knef, Ich Liebe Euch. (Koze is playing Future Flash at London’s Cable Club on the 22nd of August 2009).

Another psychedelic mood piece, which sounded great during the recent hot spell, is David Crosby’s first solo album If I Could Only Remember My Name… (1971) – recorded with a cast including Grace Slick, Jerry Garcia, Graham Nash and Neil Young (more on the Decades box soon). Long-regarded as a superstar indulgence, this drifting, relaxed, melodic album is remarkable for the way that it deals with grief and absence: by the last three tracks, this notoriously flamboyant sixties/seventies figure has almost disappeared into receding layers of pure sound. For those who want more, there are out-takes from the sessions floating around, collected together as Everybody Here Can Be In The Band, which include a haunting song with Jerry Garcia on vocals, Loser. Let’s hope that the heat comes back.

Space Disco playlist 1977-81

• Magic Fly – Space
• Moon Boots – Orlando Riva Sound (ORS)
• Space Rock – The Rockets
• Cosmic Traveller – Sumeria (Alec Costandinos)
• (Do You Have) The Force – The Droids
• I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper – Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip
• Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band – Meco
• Spacer – Sheila B. Devotion
• Tango In Space – Space
• Space Bass – Slick
• Stars (12″ version) – Sylvester
• Cosmic Cars (7″ version) – Cybotron
• Spacelab – Kraftwerk
• Cosmic Raindance (7″ version) – Cybotron

Tags: Carl Bean, David Crosby, David Mancuso, DJHistory, Donna Summer, Grace Slick, Jerry Garcia, Kompakt, Kraftwerk, Manu Dibango, Neil Young, Rolling Stone, Temptations, Vince Aletti

Posted on July 21, 2009 at 4:14 pm  1 Comment

I’m having a major Terry Riley moment after finding a copy of “Reed Streams” on Mass Art (1966) and have been revisiting the Organ of Corti (now Elision Fields) reissues. “Rainbow In Curved Air” is obviously his best known record – and is an all-time cosmic classic – but I can also recommend “The Last Camel In Paris”, a concert from 1978, and “Les Yeux Fermes / Lifespan”, two soundtracks from the mid seventies. Riley is a true pioneer and visionary: much more organic and less stiff than Philip Glass and, unlike LaMonte Young – another peer – he believes in releasing his music. (Both Riley and Young appear on another recent favourite, two CDs of Pandit Pran Nath’s extraordinary Kiranic vocal ragas, “Midnight” (2002). Jon Hassell played on the famous Columbia recording of Riley’s “In C” (1968), performed in Young’s ‘Dream House’, and was inspired by Pran Nath: he also covered Eden Ahbez’s ‘Nature Boy’ on his “Fascinoma” album (1999). His latest album is “Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street” – his first for four years, and worth the wait.

Disco has been making a comeback of late, for some very good reasons: it’s fun, it’s spacey, it’s sexy and it’s liberating. The two “Dirty Edits” compilations – put together by DJ/ remixer Pilooski – are highly recommended: “Vol. 2″ (2008) contains brilliant reworkings of J.J.Cale’s “Ride Me High” and Del Shannon’s “Gemini”, amongst others. Another dirty crew, Dirty Sound System (Guillaime Sorge, Clovis Goux, and Benjamin Morando) have put together “Dirty Space Disco” (2007), a compilation of the Cosmic Disco style invented by Italian DJ Daniele Baldelli – ‘a blend of percussion solos, samples from classic Operas, progressive German rock, Disco classics, slow Dub pieces’.

For the modern equivalent, I crave the Kompakt label, and am really enjoying “Total 9″ and Gui Boratto’s “Take My Breath Away”. One of the stand-out tracks on the former is a strange, almost gamelan shuffle, “Zouzou” by Hamburg resident, DJ Koze (transl. DJ Vomit: nice!), who has just released a compilation of remixes, “Reincarnations” (2009). In the sleevenotes, he informs his followers that ‘he is no longer DJ Koze. Since 01.01.2009 he is Swahimi (The Unenlightened)’. Also highly recommended is the new Pet Shop Boys, simply titled “Yes”, with great songs like ‘Pandaemonium’, ‘Vulnerable’, and ‘All Over the World’ (with its counter-intuitive quotation from the ’1812 Overture’) as well as an instrumental album ‘Etc’ partially inspired by the Human League’s “Love and Dancing”. There are dozens of great dubs from the early eighties – ‘Rock The Box (Dub Box)’ by Sylvester and the ’1018 Mix’ of Noel’s ‘Silent Morning‘ to name but two – and I’ll be putting up a few on the site in future months.

To my surprise, I’m enjoying the forthcoming Procul Harum reissues from 1967 and 1968, “Procul Harum” and “Shine On Brightly”. Remastering has greatly improved the sound – which has always erred towards piano/ organ stodge (a sound taken from Bob Dylan and the Hawks: “A Christmas Camel” is “Ballad of A Thin Man”) – and revealed a taut internal logic that slowly draws you in: a combination of rich organ tones, Keith Reid’s allusive and intriguing lyrics, and Gary Brooker’s instantly recognisable voice. In true Sixties’ style, they did not include “A Whiter Shade of Pale” – the most played record on radio – on the first album at the time, but it’s on the reissue, even if over-familiarity has dulled its impact.

I much prefer the much less familiar second hit single, “Homburg”, also an extra on “Procul Harum”

“Shine on Brightly” has the great third 45, “Quite Rightly So”, and one of the first 18 minute multi-part epics, “In Held ‘Twas I”. If that’s too proggy for you, then try to hear Brooker in beat/ jump mode, on the Paramounts’ speedy version of “Little Bitty Pretty One” – from 1964, a fantastic pop year. When you think of what the beat musicians went through from 62-66, then the freedoms – if not excesses – of the later sixties and early seventies begin to make more sense.

Compiling 24 ‘Nederglam’ tracks from the early 70′s. “Clap Your Hands and Stamp Your Feet” is one of those compilations that reveals a whole, secret world of pleasure. Silly music can be great entertainment, as well as a great solace, and songs like “Pantherman” by Pantherman (see pic) and “The Rock Goes On” by Bonnie St.Claire really hit the spot. Dutch glam reveals itself as the bastard, andrognynous child of mid sixties’ Freakbeat, late sixties Psychedelia and Heavy Rock, early Seventies’ boogaloo and a healthy smattering of Europop. In the sixties, Holland had a ravening Beat/ R&B scene which has been well-excavated during recent years, and the scene’s pinnacle is Q’65′s “Revolution” album (1966): every track is a winner, but of special note is their perfect Bo Diddley/ Pretty Things’ raver, “Nightmares” – with its killer riff and sneering vocals from Willem Bieler (RIP).

Final inspirational thought, from the sleevenote for “A Rainbow In Curved Air”:

‘and then all wars ended… The Pentagon was turned on its side and painted purple, yellow & green/ All boundaries were dissolved/ The slaughter of animals was forbidden…World health was restored’.

Tags: Bob Dylan, Bonnie St. Claire, Daniele Baldelli, Del Shannon, Dirty Sound System, Disco, DJ Koze, dubs, Eden Ahbez, electro, freakbeat, Gary Brooker, Gui Boratto, Human League, JJ Cale, Jon Hassell, Kompakt, Nature Boy, Nederglam, Noel, Pandit Pran Nath, Pantherman, Paramounts, Pet Shop Boys, Pilooski, Procol Harum, Swahimi, Sylvester, Terry Riley, Willem Bieler

Posted on April 23, 2009 at 4:18 pm  4 Comments