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' "

Wedded To The Discothèque

New mix, and it's essential that you download this before the 4th of July weekend is through.


"Wedded To The Discothèque"- the upbeat dancin'-pants summer mix
Track Listing:
--No Nos Pararan [Spanish-Language cover of "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now"] *** Charanga 76

Got To Give It Up (Pt 1) *** Marvin Gaye

--Funkin' Around *** Bloodstone

Tequila [cover of The Champs] *** Duane Eddy

--I Got a Woman [cover of Ray Charles, the same song Kanye West used for "Gold Digger"] *** Bobby Darin

Everybody's Trying to be my Baby *** Carl Perkins

--Sweet Caroline [cover of you-know-who, done pon Steel Drum style, seen?] *** Esso Steel Band

Hang On Sloopy *** The McCoys

--Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood [cover of The Animals- BUT!- a mad DISCO version!] Santa Esmeralda

Bad Girls *** Donna Summer

--Girls & Boys *** Blur
The Girls *** Calvin Harris

--One More Time *** Daft Punk

In Yr Underwear (Jesper Dahlback Mix) *** Fox 'n' Wolf

--Your Bmore Singing Study Mix [an unlikely Balitmore Club edit of "Your Love" by the Outfield, as in "I just want to use your love, toniiiight"] *** Roctakon

(download "Wedded To The Discothèque.zip")

You should use the joy of this mix to place a cherry on top of what ought to be an ice-cream-sundae of a weekend.
This is basically a mix in the Shower-Jamz mold. Actually, there were a few more specific considerations at the origin of this mix.
1) My b-day
2) Girls (either as ‘what girls like’, or as girl-watching during the summer), and
3) Disco.
I thought (correctly) that these three exciting elements would all call forth a very upbeat version of the summer mix.
Now, the first summer mix was a perfect example of a particular side of summer- that wistful, utterly relaxed summer feeling.

But there is another side of summer…
staying out all night,
going to parties after you’ve gone to a BBQ after you've gone swimming,
drinking “summer drinks” (rum and tequila, citrusy, light beer in 10 oz cans and 8 oz bottles- drinks you don’t normally drink, but which go down “champion style” in the summer),
running in flip-flops (including these flip-flasks),

and so forth.
That is this mix. And you gon’ luv it.
Ah, but I digress like a mamma-jamma. Girls, Birthdays, and Disco morphed together, constituting a new theme….

Wedding Madness! This is actually a mix-theme matheme I pondered before. What would be the formula necessary to craft make a mix with
1) all the fun of good wedding receptions;
2) While cutting the cheese out (sorry, no jokey-pants modern country songs, like “Save a Horse- Ride a Cowboy”; no thanks); very difficult, but oh-so-essential, to making disco excellent
3) And still maintaining the songs that “old people wanna dance to, too”. Which would be largely, not exclusively, the disco classics- “Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now”, Yeah!.
And I stumbled upon the solution. Take two girls, add one cup (heh) of disco, and shake it all together, on MY BIRTHDAY!
Do you now believe my frequent claim, that I am one divinely inspired, as was Socrates? Except his daimon only told him not to do certain things, whereas my daimon positively brings that hot fire in mix form. My guiding divine daimon likes to party down.
So, yes, I am what Nietzsche called for, waited for, hoped for: that Musical Socrates. Pleased to meet me, aren’t you?

Download that there mix

Sugar Beats: Sugar Hill Gang's much-sampled 'Apache'

Another great song, just ripe for summering. Get ready, btw, for sum summer stooping. Unless I get some emergency transfusions of cash, this will be a very "can't afford to go out drinking" summer. So you'll have to join me at mine (...or yours...) for "free beer". I call beer bought from the distributors, "free beer". It's so cheap, relative to bars, that you practically make money drinking it!. That's right, my economic plan: "Drink yourself to prosperity; Spend yourself sober."
(it's complicated)
But where'd all the money go, oh, where? Well, recently, it went to late heating bills (boring), and mo' wax, aka more vinyl (exciting).
Including this little gem....

Apache, by Sugar Hill Gang



Oh, this song. Oh, man oh me oh my. First, it uses a similar bong/drum break to The Incredible Bongo Band's Apache, which itself is sort of similar to The Shadows' Apache...
Dude, you think my Summer Prosperity Plan is complex? Check out the involved history of this song. Interesting, but impossible to sum up. Really, you should always be going to that blog, Soul Sides, because it is just the jam. Old Soul, great rap, dropping knowledge without being boring or snooty or pedantic, and always giving you links to the cuts.
It is as essential as this blog (well, more, actually, but still).

Right! Well, anyhow, in hip-hop and drum and bass
(my deepest musical love- 'drum and bass' aka 'jungle' aka 'DnB'- which none of my friends ever like that much. No 'junglist crew' for me! Not enough of my friends are rude bwoys, turns out)
many many songs have sampled drum breaks from various versions of Apache. Lots sampled the guitar line too. You'll see why- the bongos that this song opens with are solid all by themselves, let alone the other versions of that beat that are dropped throughout the track.
Now, if you are one of these young pups, you will recognize the song not from (nearly infinite) DnB and H-H songs, but from Switch's track. This song was huge from a summer or two back. We still can hear it, on that rare occasion that we Make Time.

Here's the original Switch track... (you gotta wait til 2:02 for the guitar line to drop! It's a dance track after all). Called "A Bit Patchy", as in, APatchy=Apache.



Here is an M.I.A. remix of Switch, introduced by Diplo, who M.I.A. used to date, but doesn't now, and mixed into the end of Kitsune track..... I told you this sampling stuff gets complicated!


(jump to about 1:15 on this one if you want to hear "A Bit Patchy" coming in clearly)

The WRapper

I was The Wrapper Xmas gifts today, and it reminded me of this song.
"The Rapper" by Jaggerz.
The name (of the song) is misleading, and
the name (of the group) don't make no sense at all.



The name: because it is not about hip-hop- the song is from 1970, before hip-hop-rapping. They mean a guy who spits game at girls. He tries to pick up on all the ladies ... with sexy results ... Which makes for some funny lines in the song.
The group: because they didn't want to be confused with another band called The Jaggers, and Jaggerz really sets you apart from The Jaggers.
("s" and "z" are even right next to each other on the keyboard, making it easy to type them wrong. And while they didn't have personal computers in 1970, they did have typewriters: likewise QWERTY.
Lest you forget that bit of our technological past, for we are still haunted by the ghosts of technology past.)
Now, if they pronounced it "Yaygers", like Jaegermeister, maybe I can see a difference. I have a tie with the Jaegermeister symbol on it; oddly it is the symbol for patron saints of hunting. Jaeger means hunter auf Deutsch. Why anyone would put either a saintly symbol on a tie or a liquor brand symbol on a tie is beyond me.
(for formal deer hunts?) (for Rapping at 'classy broads'?)

Wikipedia 'clarifies' thus: "The Jaggerz had completed their evolution into how they are most known." Ah yes, I see, of course. The article also helpfully distinguishes between their Golden Age and their Waning Years, despite the fact that the article affirms their status as One Hit Wonders. Of course, I see, yes.


Please note that the chorus of this song is truly a delight.
Please note also that I do not know why the background video is something from the ABC Family channel. And, no, I can't tell who is dating who in the video either.


I won't say what I wrapped, even though the people I am giving to don't read my blog. They can use computers; these family members are not that old. But, I think they may not have been told of the giant excursion into S O U N D that is this blog yet.

RAPPER!

A Junkie Mayfly, He's Sure to Die

To celebrate Labor Day the other weekend, I did what every American was supposed to do:
1) I spent money, and
2) I worked/labored as little as possible.

Youtube link to Curtis Mayfield's "Freddie's Dead", from the Superfly Soundtrack



I got 3 CDs, 3 DVDs, 1 jacket, shoes (2 total).



Like any living mayfly, all of these were new, which is unusual for me. Well, the digital media came from FYE and some of it had been listened to in store, but that's not really used, is it now?

Obviously, one of the CDs was Curtis Mayfield's soundtrack to the blaxsploitation flick "Superfly". Probably a bit better than James Brown's entree into the world of soundtracks, itself pretty good.

I also got Jesus and the Mary Chain. Psycho Candy, evidently a German pressing, for whatever that's worth.
Also, for what it's worth, I am teaching St. Augustine tomorrow. If you Google "Augustine" and "Devil", to better determine that the Devil in Augustinian theology is nothing but 'persuasion' towards sin -- that is to say, he is not a giant fucking bat that shoots lasers or something -- you will get many more sites related to fishing (in Devil's Elbow in St. Augustine, FL) than you expected.

I'm saying this hypothetically, of course: I would never use the internet as an aid to research.




I also got some random Japanese cartoon (one character is named Cat: ?!? ), "White Heat" with James Cagney, "Technique" by New Order (obv VG), and Truffaut's "Wild Child". None of them cost me more than $8.55 (w/ tax); shoes and jacket, only $10 each.

Can I pick 'em, or what?

It feels much more natural to say "'em" than it does to type it. Just so you know.

Dirty Clean: Romulus and Remus

OREGON: DIRTY NW
PENNSYLVANIA: CLEAN BUT MEAN
-------------------------------------------

Can I get a free catalog(ue), or what?

Kicked Around - The Ad-Libs

(I've tried an experiment:
I'm writing two blogs simultaneously, so that you will have shorter posts, and more of them. We'll see if this works.
They are opposed twins, so we'll call them Romulus and Remus.
One was posted a few days back, this one today.)




The Above: another nearly randomly selected old CD, one of a growing number from Pennsylvania's own "Collectables Records", who reissue stuff only BenG has heard of.
I'm going to mail away, at Box 35, Narberth PA, 19072, for the free catalog, and see if this label is still in business: I'll post the results. The copyright on the CD in front of me is from a decade ago, so we shall see.

Originally, the songs on this CD, "The Ad-Libs and Friends" were on the Red Bird and Blue Cat labels.
I got this on a recent buying binge at AKA Music in Old City, next to the bookstore that throws out books every recycling day, around midnight.

This practice of recycling their 'never gonna sells' is what produced the immensely popular "Philadelphia's Most Eligible Bachelorettes" magazine/pamphlet/catalog/ephemerus.
Hard to select an appropriately summery song off this CD; not for lack, but rather because of a surplus, a surfeit, a surprising number of happy, clappy jems.
I mean, how to choose between "Ooh Wee Oh Gee", "Gee Baby Gee", "Merry Christmas Baby", "The Boy from New York City", "Sugar Boy", and "Iko Iko"?
With awesome music comes awesome responsibility, I've been known to say.

The initial attempt was to select the uppermost summerishly one, because part of how I am opposing Oregon and Pennsylvania here is that it so often rains in Oregon, and is sunny in Pennsylvania. ALWAYS. (This is not the very most interesting, or accurate, distinction: that's why I made other distinctions too.)
Summery like flask-flip-flops:


But then I decided to give up on that task- so many so summery songs!- it would be like selecting my VERY BEST BLOG EVER, which, since all are

s o ! g o o d,

would be a task for a Deified Romulus.
Instead, you get this
minimal bidness,
Beyonce-style riddim,
lil' flex of a track.
Dense chiming little percussion, an utterly purified bassline, no fluff there.
This one gets honors for those reasons, and also because it musically has the most in common with the last post (though still not much), and is a bit of a surprise, innit? You know what the rest of the disc sounds like- doo wop. This is the oddball of the disc, and when in doubt, "Even or Odd?", we go with odd.

So maybe this battle should be about whether, now that I have more time for new-music magazines and more inclination to be on the internet (the internet was avoiding me before),
would you care to have more "new now" bands like Salem, or stick to the "old odd" tracks like "Kicked Around"?
This blog ain't a democracy- that leads to chaos, naturally and inevitably- but it is a bit of a Republic. (Remember your 'lessons' from last time about Machiavelli?)
Which means that you, the plebs, the common unwashed uncouth unknown -but not unknowing- masses, do get some say. At the least I am curious what motivates and gratifies you, so that I can better control you. (halfsies kiddies)

THUS SPEAKS YOUR DICTATOR: I COMMAND YOU TO SPEAK
in the comments.

Futurist Revelations - the Second (secular) Coming - Be Thankful!

Yeeeeuh... another mix, matched so mean! This one is the originally planned mix for The Second (Secular) Coming: this one deals not with my colossal narcissism, but rather with the purity of spirit which is my Divinity Proper.
HELL YES!

Link it up : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip

As a mix, it moves from slow-burning but intense/driven (1-3), to sprawling dirty grandeur (4-5), quietism without passivity (6-8), a darkness (9-11) pefiguring The End and Resurrection (12-13). Quite a history here...


Here is the cast of characters, in the order in which you ought to listen to them:
1 Eternity Is Here *The Gun Club* Danse Kalinda Boom
2 Coded Language *Krust (Featuring Saul Williams)* Coded Language
3 The Prophet *The Make-Up* Untouchable Sound—Live
4 Revelations *Panthers* The Trick
5 Dead Souls *Joy Division* Permanent
6 My Body Is A Cage *The Arcade Fire* Neon Bible
7 City Of Refuge [Acoustic Version] *Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds* B-Sides And Rarities Volume I
8 Be Thankful For What You've Got (orignially by Devaughn - live cover) *Yo La Tengo*
9 Death To Everyone *Bonnie "Prince" Billy* I See A Darkness
10 Share the Fall *Roni Size and Reprazent (Grooverider's RMX)*
11 I Swear *Tulipomania*
12 Back *Alpha* Come From Heaven
13 I Am The Resurrection *The Stone Roses* The Complete Stone Roses

DOWNLOAD : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip


Share the Fall- sparse and epic. Like Fitzgerald, as 'read to me' (i.e. quoted) by Deleuze:
"twilight on a deserted range, with an empty rifle in my hands and the targets down. No problem set — simply a silence with only the sound of my own breathing." The sound of a faraway, lifeless planet: it bakes during the day and it freezes at night.

Body is a Cage: Church organs, giving the grand sweep, the operatic heights, appropriate to the Declaration of Divinity.


Eternity is Here: Once started, this song begins to instantly, insistently proclaim itself. Whipcrack drums, plaintive guitars. Its insistence is almost a prosyletizing.

Death to Everyone: see the cover for a picture of the aforementioned planet.



Lyrically, this songs does this:
"Stars turn, balls burn / Coming kids are raging

Death to everyone is gonna come / And it makes hosing much more fun"

"So strap me on and raise me high / Cause buddy I'm not afraid to die
But life is long and it's tremendous / And we're glad that you're here with us".

Dead Souls- Joy Division made this song, which later was covered by NIN (on "The Crow" Soundtrack). You know what this one sounds like. It sounds like JoyDiv, so how could it not go on a mix about the Second (secular) Coming?:
Ian Curtis died by his own hand (as did Jesus- well, His Dad asked Him to die, and He consented - since He is, in a mysterious but essential fashion, His own father. He consented to His own death: that is, He is a suicide),
and the Crow character COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD to avenge wrongs done him. And what is Divine Justice if not supernaturally aided punishment of the wicked?

DOWNLOAD : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip

Back- Alpha is always slept on: I told you this already. Some fantastic male crooning here; you'd do well to check it out if you like Rufus Wainwright, or the more sedate Morrissey even. This song has a hazy quality: incense floating through a still afternoon.
But In A Barn.
A barn with a record player. And records (for sampling): old ones, very scratchy and mellowed with age.

I = Resurrection- Manchester Madchester : Woodblock like the cowbell in a Will Ferrel SNL skit. "I put my raver-sized corduroy pants on the same way you do, mate: except when I put on my pants, I make GOLD RECORDS!" (cue laugh track)

(please?).

Coded Language - Man, when this one breaks, it B R E A K S out for real. Massive world consuming clattering drums. Some lyrics (By the great poet Saul Williams):
"Motherfuckers better realize, now is the time to self-actualize.
We have found evidence that hip hop's standard 85 rpm, when increased by a number of at least half the rate of it's standard, or decreased at a third of its speed, may be a determining factor in heightening consciousness.

[somehow, he is actually rapping all these words -
- believe, brudda, It Works]

Thus, in the name of:
Robeson, God's son, Hurston, Ahkenaton, Khalo, Kali, Whitman, Baldwin, Ghandi, Gibran, Shabazz, Hamer, Holiday, Davis, Coltrane, Morrison, Joplin, Gaye, Hathoway, Nostradamus, Nefertiti, Shiva, Ganesha, Yemaja, Kennedy, King, four little girls, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Marley, Cosby, Shakur, Those Still Aflamed, and the countless unnamed!"


By this point of the song, trust me, we are all aflamed. Lit up by millenia of song and millenia of thought, all compressed into (the Coded Language of) quantized drums. INTENSE.

DOWNLOAD : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip

Be Thankful- a mellow little interpretation of the ol' soul-ish/reggae-ish classic. Be Thankful that I put this on there. (You might even snap your fingers during it!) Yo La Tengo is supremely good at covers- get into it and see what I mean...

Revelations- Panthers started out super-Futurist, very much in the vain of !Nation of Ulysses!. The Kids wanted their revolution, by gum, and they were going to knock on the squares until they got one. Now, Panthers seems more gripped by the ennui of being a hipster who knows that he's a hipster, and who also knows what this means: they have become nearly paralyzed by awareness of self-awareness. But the music hasn't frozen - oh no - they have moved away from any formulaic punk and added that rad heavy stoner drone psych grind that the Kids these day like so well: more Black Sabbath and less !Nation!. It's a good mix- heavy, but still with momentum/propulsion.

DOWNLOAD : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip

DEATH TO ALL KINGS
LONG LIVE THE PRINCE OF PRINCES