Infamous Anniversary

Since today's is an anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I am throwing this at you. Put it on blast-
Team America!; Team Isley!



Download Isley Brothers, "Ballad of the Fallen Soldier" here

I didn't say "blast" to be funny. It was an accident; yet, since it is a little bit funny, I will leave it.
Another happy accident: I googled 'peral harbor' first (to check if today was the day or not ... shameful not to know, isn't it?). What if it were called "Feral Harbor"?
Wouldn't that be wild?!?!

That's a feral pig, dummy.

Jay-Z sampled the Isley Brothers' "Ballad of the Fallen Soldier": the keyboard hook and some guitar...


And you know what? The hell with Jay-Z. That's right, I said it. Why is that fool rapping about marriage?
Just because he is married is not a good excuse!
I do not want to hear songs about marriage right now- that is why I am listening to the hip-hop radio station.
Only NPR stations give you less about marriage than hip-hop radio. Well, NPR talks all the time about GayMarriage (...liberals...) fair enough. But I thought I could count on rappers to uphold their fine tradition of pretending like love and ruinous heartbreak simply never happen.

What the fuck rap?!
You blew it.

I Like to Boogie; I Like the Bee Gees

Another song off my IPod: Jive Talkin', by Los Bee Gees.
Oh sure, you want to knock the Bee Gees. Yeah yeah, you think you are too slick for all that. "Pfff", is what you say.
Well, I say, "Pffffff" back to you, sucker. Listen here:



Bee Gees' " Jive Talkin' "

Funkin' Around: The House That Disco Built

Okay, funk a little of this through your speak's and 'phones.


This is one of the deftly selected tracks from the last mix (grab a fistful of music, including the song below, here). Now, these fellows may not appear so very cool, but I think they spent all their money recording all those instruments in the studio. And so they spent very little designing, shooting, and dressing for the record cover.

You know, it's expensive to record this many guys.
A story made super short- the expense of putting full large bands in the studio (for disco, funk, etc) was an annoyance for bands and labels alike. So, when synthesizers made it possible to sub out a few guys, and lay down an additional sound without paying an additional dude- well, synths were understandably popular.
And that is how house music is born (I told you this was the short version). Broke people (so more blacks and Latinos- less ABBA Northern European) could make disco without having to have/pay a full band (no drummer, no strings, no piano player, etc) because one person could use synths instead.

-But!- using different materials (the instruments), even if one were trying to exactly replicate an existing form (disco), will inevitably shift the form too. Disco -->(shifty synthy changey)--> House.
(dropping eggs of knowledge in the discothèque)

Now, this song is not proto-house or anything; that is not what I'm trying to claim. But the "Wedded To The Discothèque" mix I made does eventually shift from disco to more recent house. So I thought I'd throw out a condensed version of how that happened historically. How it happens on the mix is different.
Pretend you are at a wedding reception that you actually really really want to be at- I'm DJing (ahem!). After a while, though our parents have drifted away from the dancefloor, we are really just starting to get wound up.
Gotta let it loose.
So your (inimitable! inestimable! incorrigible!) DJ eases out of the Disco classics, and slips into our classics- Blur, Daft Punk, and a few dance gems that you will crown classics, once you have heard them. Check the Jesper Dahlback RMX of Fox 'n' Wolf, for instance. In fact, check out the whole track listing on the last post.

Brothers From Another Mother: Isleys and Big Poppa

Speaking of samples (as I did last time), here is a gem of a song I've been sitting on for a minute. In a hot HOT batch of records I snatched up the other day, I procured a few Isley Brothers albums.
Of which there are roughly a million, by the way. In fact, Wiki tells me they had 20 albums between 1969 and 2006: excuse me, that's 20 albums that reached the Top 10, in 35-ish years. I guess when you have like 7 guys in the band, there are more songs getting written?
(7/35=5; 5x20=100; 100/10= 10; 10/10 = perfect: do the math, it adds up)

Who knows- the point is, that these Brothers From The Same Mother got sampled- and that produces another song, A Brother From ANOTHER Mother, as it were.

Here is the "elder" song, a real sexy satiny sort of thing.
Download Isley Brothers: "Between The Sheets"



A little suggestion: give it a listen on YouTube whilst ye download it.

The Isley Brothers: Between The Sheets on YouTube



And here is the song built around the former- I'm pretty sure we all love this song.

Big Poppa, Notorious B.I.G.



Also, I was trying to find a good picture of sample-sized-spoons, and I found this instead. A marrow- that's bone marrow, you understand?- spoon. A Narrow Marrow Spoon, that.



Interesting. I bet Biggie would be crushing on some marrow if he weren't dead. Sigh.... His loss, and ours.

Double Date with Boppin' Brothers

I'm pretty smart, so I figure stuff out mighty quick. I realized a while back, that although every brother and every sister (singletons too) in the universe loved my mixes, the sheer volume (oh!) of songs on a full mix was overwhelming to some.

---Download recent mix, "AMX: Black Mask McGuffin"
---(including the Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown")


(on that YouTube thing, here)

I used to present you with a list of 9-18 songs, all of which present an enticing new world of musical innovation, but which may not be familiar names. Along with that was the link for the mix. But what happened was that most people would skim the list, and skip the link.

It makes sense, after all those words (signifying next to nothing), to forget the link.
But folks, it's not good for you- these bands could be your life; last night a DJ could have saved your life...
So, what I did, see, was to give you a single song off the mix- so you could hear the geniuses, instead of just reading the geniuses' names.
Here, the geniuses are the Everly Brothers.
Then a little later, I would drop another 'single' off the mix. Let you get an idea of what was on the mix, over time.
Give it a listen, and if you like it, you can 'get loaded' with some similar songs, --here--

(((Here are the 'other brother' songs on the rest of the mix:
When You're Alone: Jerry Butler. Someday : Ricky Nelson. Don't Make Me Over: Dionne Warwick;
Cathy's Clown : The Everly Brothers. Sexy Mama : The Moments. Honky Tonk: Duane Eddy;
I'll Guess I'll Have To Cry Cry Cry : James Brown. Play It Fair : DeeDee Sharp & Chubby Checker. If It Don't Turn You On (you oughta leave it alone): BT Express;
Maybe More : The Carlisles. I'm Glad You're Mine : Al Green. My Heart is an Open Book : Carl Dobkins;
Be Real : Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes. Be Honest With Me : Billy Brown. Oh, Pretty Woman : Al Green. Never Gonna Give You Up : Jerry Butler )))

This song is so great, that another great song talks about it. Elliot Smith's "Waltz #2" has a character sing the song at karaoke.


(note that the album above has "great songs for listening or dancing")

But instead of listening to Elliot's song, why don't you listen to a live version of "Cathy's Clown" by the Everly Brothers? It's on old TV, so it's got that old oddball flavor to it.



And you know, looking at this video, I am starting to suspect that the Everly Brothers might actually be brothers. The Righteous Brothers are not brothers, okay, so you know, you have to be careful about what lineages you assume.