Smack My Bass Up- Larry Graham, his Bass Badassery, and You

I got a new setup for taking records and putting them onto my computer. I won't bore you with technical details, but it will sound even better now.
One of the first albums I ripped using this newfangled high-tech methodology was Larry Graham's band 'Graham Central Station'.

The album I got is called "Now Do U Wanta Dance?" and it's first track is called "happ-e-2-c-u-a-ginn", NJK, which should have clued me in: he used to be in Sly and the Family Stone. Remember, they have that song "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)".



Evidently, this guy Larry Graham invented the slap bass, which is a pretty big deal. If you ain't hearda it, you are decidedly UNFONKY. You can hear some fonk here, where he and his band cover Al Green's "Love and Happiness". The bass, which Larry plays*, is big and right up front. You've already heard it, right?, funkily plunking away.

* Larry plays a bunch of instruments, and other than this (and another) cover, he wrote, produced, and arranged all the songs. He is evidently very proud of this (he should be), because on the back of this album, there is a 'TYPOGRAPHICAL NOTE' that clarifies: "There was a misprint on the last album: all songs WERE NOT WRITTEN by Steve Henderson. ALL songs were WRITTEN BY LARRY GRAHAM".
I'm approximating the note: I didn't bring the record to the cafe with me (regret).


Here are some more things that happened in Portland.


(This didn't happen- read below for details- it's an engraving by Albrecht Dürer- he's famous-like.)

At Stumptown, I drank coffee from $300 beans. I'm approximating again: they were $15 an ounce (you do the math, SQUARE!)! I don't know why they cost so much. I paid regular coffee price for a mug. It tasted good, but then, so do their $12/lb coffees. For $300+/lb, that coffee had better won some tasting awards. No: It better have won the damn Olympics.

I got these reading materials in Portland. (I now feel like I am filling out '15 books 15 minutes' on Facebook again.)

Par Lagerkvist- the sibyl
Never heard of, Nobel Prize winner

Graham Greene- quiet american
Kurt Vonnegut Jr- cat's cradle
Gregory Dicum- Window Seat
Pictures of the landscape, as you see it flying over in a plane. Shows you how to identify things, like former glacier movements, military installations, barrier reefs, etc. The writer and designer of the book had connections at Wired magazine, so the book has all these interesting cool looking diagrams.

BUSTED magazine
Wherein random mugshots of people arrested in your county are posted. You can read it at my house, next time you are there. (Lot of meth-related arrests and DUIs: Go Oregon!)

Candy Bombers - Andrei Cherny
About the Berlin airlift. Haven't heard? When the Russians blockaded Berlin, almost setting off Russia/USA violence in the middle of the Cold War, America airlifted necessary supplies into Berlin. Including (not limited to) candy/raisins for children, and a power plant. Really, all the tools and materials for a WHOLE POWER PLANT. If you ever get bored in life, remember that shit like this goes down all the time. Don't be lazy; read something; bye-bye boredom. Then you'll know that the kids affectionately called the pilots 'RaisinBombers', and extended this later to all Americans.

Technologies of the Self
Papers by Foucault and others who took this course from him.

Wax Poetics
Philly Issue! Philly International records, and such!

I'll share fun details out of this, as I read it! That's Teddy Pendergrass above, looking luxe.

Akira: two random collections of Akira comics.
A small small fraction of the over 1800 pages it eventually came out to.

Albrecht Dürer. Lots of pictures. He is famous for his engravings (but you knew that). A funny medium to be immortal in - good for you, Albrecht: good for you.
Click on them for larger versions, if you're into that sort of thing.

I Made it Good to Myself (but Michael Jackson did not, b/c he's dead)

Got back from Portland, where the weather was about as good as it has been lately in Philadelphia. Surprisingly, I only got two (2) (!) CDs while I was there. I meant to go by Everyday Music, still my favorite ever CD shop, but didn't really have time. (Didn't get to Prineville's Neat Repeat either).
That's okay, for two reasons- 1) saved $40-80; 2) I can go in a few weeks if I go back for the Beer Festival: odds are about even on that.

Make It Good To Yourself - James Brown

BREAKING NEWS: James Butler has reported that E! has reported that Michael Jackson is reportedly dead! Reports are reporting that it was cardiac arrest (aka a BROKEN HEART!).
(not to be selfish, but does this mean that I can finally claim the title of King of Pop?!?!? ALL HAIL the NEW King of Pop!!! Three Cheers for meMeME!!! YEA ME!!!)
Related reports report that Farrah Fawcett also finally succumbed to her long bout of cancer... ANAL cancer!
NJK! Look it up!

(related connection: a famous beer expert is also named Michael Jackson, and is also dead. It's a F A C T ! Also, James Brown is dead- sad but true!)


Got them (them: James Brown "Black Caesar" sdtk.; Jesus & Mary Chain hits/best) at some resale shop near Alberta, or near Mississippi (ask Emily which it was).

You know that James Brown is called "the Godfather of Soul", of course. What you DID NOT KNOW is that he gave himself this nickname via the score/soundtrack he did for "Black Caesar". "Whuh?", you say. Cos' "The Godfather" came out around the same time, and since both movies deal with godfathers/Caesars/gangsters, he piggybacked on the other, already successful, movie. So sayeth the liner notes. IT BE FACTUAL!

While I was there, these things happened:
I almost hit a bear with my parents' car. On a mountain, obviously: my parents don't live (quite) that far out.
Talked firearms etc. with Jeffrey et al ("reasonable people", the lot of them).
I mass-texted a rape joke. It met with laughter (text laughter) (in most cases).
I got a flat on another person's bike. (For consistency's sake, yet retaining a certain air of variety via a clever inversion, I got two flats when I returned, on my own bike while going to a house which is not my own.)
I received a subpoena* for James Brown.**


it says: 'my heart tells me that you will not listen to my words and this is the cause of my tears and my cries'. This sums up my blog.

*subpoena, like Caesar, is hard for me to spell. I'll never get to be the new King of Latinists if I can't get them right!
**this DID IN FACT HAPPEN, although when I lived in Portland before. One of the children who mugged Adriel when I was with her was, evidently, named James Brown. "Godfather of Soulful Muggings"? "Hardest Working Boy in tha Game"? Maybe even "New King of Robbery"?

Sidenote: I am listening to some of the mixes posted earlier on this blog, and man, THEY ARE GOOD! Find the list of blogs with full mixes HERE.

Got it?, Good!

As a treat to myself, I got me some more records, all of which are top drawer: they all get top billin'.


Audio Two - Top Billin'



One of them is this bad bad bad beat. An ol' skool hip-hop classic, I mean classic cut. On the Youtube comments, someone rattled off 4 big songs they knew that sampled this song- the drums, I imagine- and someone else dropped a few more on there.

A bunch of the other songs posted as this on Youtube are not the song; remixes (by Youtube users, not real remixes), other songs entirely (they will make you take the songs down sometimes, they = copyright holders, and people often put up a new song and leave the name of the old), and one version that was so very quiet, you couldn't hear the bass go

....boooooooooom.....

which, on this version, you can.