SPARKLING JEWELS! In effect like alternate side of the street parking rules!
STILL BEEFING WITH: Kev Durant’s shooting accuracy and Westbrook’s incredible clutchness, people who don’t use turn signals, the state of Florida, the radio station at the laundromat that plays the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” every goddamn time I’m there, MMG now and forever, and Daniel Dumile for keeping his tour in foreign places, far away from my home. NEW BEEF: the state of Arizona, that awful new Animal Collective song (honestly, WTF), people who clicked “dislike” under the Danny Brown doc (HONESTLY. what in the fuck), and Nelly for not following Pharrell’s lead in making a respectful mention of the death of Chuck Brown, even though this anger is of my own making. (My expectations are probably too high of someone who puts “CEO of Nelly, Inc” as his first bio credit on Twitter.)
BRAND-NEW BEEF!: my recent lack of self-control at the record store. I am about my paper, obviously, and I like to shout about it. “Look at me, just look how I’m always adding to my collection while still being able to eat and pay rent.” (This is my version of Got a condo on my wrist.) Last week in Pasadena, however, this system took a hit. I overspent, boss. I’m terrible. You say you need a hundred bucks? I’d spot you, but man I’m fresh OUT, or as my man E-40 said during the old school lunch hour on the radio today when I was driving, “perhaps today my scrilla ain’t feeling me.” Being CEO of Logan, Inc. doesn’t pay as well as you’d think.
Big big shout and hello, before we begin, to whoever tagged this blog NSFW on Reddit. Anonymous Internet soldier, you got me about a hundred thousand hits. My mother would like to have a word with you, though. “This site is very SFW,” she’ll say, “And yes, she did get her hips from me; who do you think taught her how to use them to get out of speeding tickets?” To those of you who were expecting sexy, sexy filth based on the NSFW tag, I’m sorry for the lack of nudity. We can engage in penetration but only of the cerebral kind. Which reminds me:
WHO WANNA HEAR ABOUT SOME RECORDS I BOUGHT.
NOPE, not my tribute to the Denver Broncos. Hush now. These here are just the outtakes from my shoot for The State vs. Logan Melissa mixtape.
“You will spend $120 for 17 albums at Poo-Bah Records in Pasadena,” said my palm reader a couple weekends ago. “You really should tone it down with the spending,” she added. “Take it easy, baby doll.”
Kobe! Relax, god. Glad to see you shopping here during your off time, and boy I bet your upper body is tired since you’ve been carrying an entire goddamn team on your shoulders for 6 months.
05/12/12. Poo-Bah’s leftside wall that I saw upon entering,
except, in BrownVision™,
HERE’S HOW I SAW IT.
Poobah is the name of a buffoonish, self-important character in a Gilbert & Sullivan opera, and the word has been taken to mean “pompous individual; person who mistakenly believes he or she exerts great influence” ever since. It also means “Slightly chubby MC in Historically Black University hoodie.” Grand Puba’s “360° (What Goes Around)” is all catchy, braggy self-promo with the divine Miss Gladys Knight on the hook and I love that. Puba’s known for getting money, hitting skins (teehee, ’cause it was ’92), wearing Girbauds (’92). Count on it. He’s predictable, like taxes, the sun rising, the circle of life record spinning around and around, “Sweet Dreams” coming on at the goddamn laundromat, Curren$y doing a song per week about cars and penthouses and the whores who love them. Your Starbucks order is so predictable, as is mine of course.
Puba probably wasn’t hitting a ton of skins, in ’92 or at any point, but he was telling the truth about the cyclical nature of human existence. We’re all predictable. I’m predictable. Alamo, is you with me? Cuz there’s just one thing I wanna say, and that is If what goes around comes back around again, tomorrow morning I’m getting my iced coffee with vanilla syrup at Starbucks, just like I did this morning and the morning before that. I’ll do laundry on Saturday; I’ll buy records on Sunday. My buffoonish sense of self-importance leads me to think I can spend and spend and somehow keep apartment 680′s rent paid. I’m coming back to Poo-Bah with my debit card and an intense stare. (When I get evicted, let’s be roommates! I’m a good cook and I’m fun to be around. Just don’t touch my stuff.)
★
Librarian in a sweater 2 sizes too small, and Sounwave doing his “Black Milk Signs to Interscope in 2005.” Our styles are so different but we both love this Monk Higgins record.
1. Monk Higgins, Dance To The Disco Sax Of Monk Higgins (Buddah, 1974). $4.99.
I learned from Schoolboy’s “There He Go” that some dudes smoke Garcia Vegas (verse 2). I also discovered that I do a mean lean-point-&-lipsynch move (during the hook), and Sounwave and I have at least one record in common in our collections (the break, which comes from Dance to the Disco Sax). What I learned from the video is that Kendrick continues to be the square one of the crew, surrounded by cool guys who manage to be interesting just by sitting there. He’s the Ernie Johnson of Black Hippy, and he’s got Barkley to his far left (Ab) and Shaq to his right (SBQ). Poor Kendrick-Ernie. Anyway, the erotic-thriller sounding piano at the beginning of “There He Go” absolutely makes the song; it’s so dreamy and perfect. But like I’ve said about so many songs throughout history, it would be nothing without those drums.
You need this album. Jesus, what a find! “One Man Band (Plays All Alone)” is the “There He Go” drum break that Sounwave used, and the hook turns up in Meyhem Lauren and Action Bronson’s “Typhoon Rap.” Bronson and Lauren have that big-boned body type in common, and they’ve both done NFL player name songs (“Larry Csonka,” “Ray Lewis”) – a trend that is becoming tiresome even for someone like me (football fan; Fantasy Football team owner; person who tweets at the ridiculous NFL on Fox robot out of boredom and rage). Bronson and SBQ have this break in common, they both look extremely huggable, and I’m pretty sure they satisfy that requirement I have of all straight men in that they do not know anything about ladies’ purses. None of you guys should know the difference between an LV Speedy and a Trouville. It’s one of my heart’s rules. All I need is simply to be the more feminine one in a relationship, whether that relationship is headphone-based (I don’t know you but I like your music) or flesh-based (I know you, and we are sleeping together, sharing childhood stories, watching Sportscenter, and other couple-y things). Jot it down.
Least surprising name-instrument matchups: Sidney Sharp on strings (alliteration), Freddy Robinson on guitar (“Freddy Robinson” just sounds like a man in the ’70s who played guitar). Most surprising: Jim Horn on flute.
Most Perplexing: Nobody’s chopped n’ looped the first 10 seconds of “Space Race.” The Beatnuts in ’97, get on that. Best Album Title, with its instruction to Dance to the Particular Instrument that Mr. Higgins Plays. Everybody go on and dance if you want to, I’m humming to myself as I write this. The muuuuuusic makes your body move. WELL, ALL RIGHT. I’m still thinking about Ohio after having found Zapp for $2 and marveling at how much Delonte West looks like Bizzy Bone. Jazz dazz, disco jazz, said the Dazz Band (from Cleveland). Jazz dazz, disco jah-yazzz. Monk Higgins was from Arkansas but I feel like he’d agree with the Dazz Band that “disco jazz” is a real thing.
Jeopardy! fact: Jim Horn was often used by Spector in the Wall of Sound, and plays sax on Ike and Tina’s “River Deep, Mountain High.” Tina took her shirt off when recording the vocal, a fact that everyone in the studio remembers with pervy accuracy according to the 3 Spector bios I’ve read. Jim Horn also played sax and flute on Pet Sounds (hi Dad!) and Ladies of the Canyon (hi Mom!), in case the topless Tina story is too sexy for Jeopardy!
Personal goal: “5’7″, 280, murder bloods for rep” – Bronson, “Typhoon Rap.” Start a 5’7″ club with Bronson! Kate Moss can join too.
★
2. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, live at the Forum, April 1969 (bootleg – but Zipper was the first label trying to profit from it, 1988). $7.99.
The topic on LA sports talk radio again today was the Bynum Problem. What do we do about Bynum, everyone wants to know. Our giant baby with the glass knee: will he mature? Or is his inner knucklehead a permanent part of his personality? Call now, lines are wide open, blah blah, opinion, analysis, disagreement, sarcasm, yelling. Andrew will mature, absolutely, unless he doesn’t. We should keep him, or maybe we shouldn’t. I don’t know! It is a debate I have no personal stake in but that nonetheless entertains me, like Backwoods v. Swishers v. Optimos (v. Garcia Vegas!). At the end of the hour, the consensus was that the Laker organization should hire Charles “Terrifying Human Being” Oakley to be an enforcer and knock Andrew’s crybaby block off. Kobe’s serial-killer icegrill has proven to be ineffective in making Andrew act right; Andrew, we all agree, will only respond to physical intimidation. Furthermore, I maintain that if the team played at a creaky, old, soulful venue like the Forum, Andrew’s behavior would not be tolerated. Staples is lovely and comfy, but it’s so completely soulless, from David Beckham’s stupid floppy hat to all the Speedy bags underneath the seats of plastic-breasted ladies sitting courtside. Becks ain’t coming to Inglewood. Listen, the point is what can I possibly say to describe a Hendrix bootleg album that I got for less than ten bucks other than YOU NEED THIS ALBUM and the beautiful gentleman sitting on the hood of the car up there wins the award for Best Impression of Andre Benjamin.
Jeopardy! fact: In ’96, Dr. Octagon, Roger Troutman, and Cobain did a show at the Forum, which you will obviously know as the FABULOUS Forum if you’re from anywhere within a 50-mile radius of my apartment.
Personal goal: If Oak is available post-Bynum, get him to punch the face of 106 & Park’s Terrence J, whose face was positively built for punching. Normally I don’t have these violent tendencies, but.
★
3. Smokey Robinson, Big Time soundtrack (Tamla, 1977). $3.99.
“MCs couldn’t hang if they was lynched by the Grand Dragon.” You need this album. It’s got the “8 Steps to Perfection” break.
Prettiest Lady: my forever/always girlfriend Jayne Kennedy, star of Big Time and of men’s daydreams, and the epitome of “bad.” Those credentials are good enough, GO JANE, but the bigger feat here is that she’s “bad” while simultaneously looking “sweet” and “has a college degree”-ish, such a tricky combination to pull off. I got “college-degree looking” on lock; “bad,” however, is still something I need to attain. I feel like my hips get me halfway there, but then my gait and prim demeanor set me back in Schoolteacherville. SIGH. Teach me, Jane!
Most Transparent: the marketing folks at Motown Films in 1977. “Small-time con man Big Time Eddie Jones hustles his way to the big payoff,” goes Big Time‘s media kit description, “while trying to stay one step ahead of insurance investigators*, the FBI and the Mob. Think Uptown Saturday Night, with a harder edge.” Ha. Yeah, I bet you’d like me to think Uptown Saturday Night, Motown Films, and you’d also like me to ignore the fact that Big Time has no Poitier, no Silky Slim, and no Geechie Dan. Smokey probably turned up in Jet in ’77, being interviewed for a promo fluff piece and talking about how if you squint hard enough during Big Time, you might see a guy who looks kind of like Richard Pryor. Willie Hutch should’ve just ended the whole charade and put out a song called “Gullible Moviegoers.”
* There is no less-sexy film villain than an insurance investigator.
BEST OPENING. BEST BEST OPENING. The first 25 seconds of the movie’s theme song bang so freaking hard, courtesy of freaking hard-as-HALE guitar-banger god Wah-Wah Watson. That opening makes you think the song’s gonna be some spacey oddball adventure with sexy alien ladies and maybe a fake-Moroder bassline, but then, sigh, it turns into vanilla ’77 discotheque white-noise. As a listener, I feel bamboozled; “Ha Ha (Gotcha, Bitch)” would’ve been a more appropriate song title. Smokey could only divert from the norm so much, though. Even in the late ’70s he was on that tight Motown leash.
Best Uncredited Appearance:
eXquire!
Jeopardy! fact: Marvin’s I Want You; Blondie, Bohannon, George Duke, Quincy Jones, the Beach Boys: Wah Wah Watson never appeared on a corny album.
Jeopardy! fact: Get that El-P + Killer Mike “G-Money” vinyl package. Am I my brother’s keeper? Shut up, who cares, GIMME. I must own it! The instrumental album is blood red!
★
4. Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway (Atlantic, 1972). 99¢.
Chicago’s got some bad juju — Donny’s suicidal brain chemicals, Kanye’s women issues, Derrick Rose’s ACL, poor Chief Keef can’t afford a tshirt. Good Chicago juju, thankfully, includes the unstoppable gray-haired, marriage-equality-pushing most-powerful-man-in-the-world calm-temperament aura of one B. Obama, and the achy powerful beauty of Donny’s voice (top 10 voices in apt. 680′s collection, easily). I hereby announce that YOU NEED THIS ALBUM. This news fits right in with the rest of the world, because this week was full of facts that did not need to be announced, like Mitch Kupchak’s official statement that the Lakers “will be considering trades” (thanks for the info, Scott Van Pelt) or that _____ and _____ were beefing last week and now, what’s this? They’re collabing? Imagine I’m doing a “Public Service Announcement” freestyle when I tell you this, and it’ll come out less like an order and more like a helpful suggestion: You need this album. It’s Flack and Hathaway. I cannot WAIT for the Weezy x Pusha mixtape, by the way.
This one wins Best Hangover Album — it’s melodic, floaty, and gentle, which makes sense since Arif Mardin was in charge of strings and a gentleman named Joe Gentle played flute on it. (Best and Most Appropriate Flute Player’s Name: Joe Gentle). And it’s got Purdie drums, which are never too brain-rattling. You’ll appreciate this when it’s the morning after you yelled BOTTLES ON ME 14 separate times in one night, and you did that stupid “WOOOO.” The memories of acting like a retard are flooding your brain and making you cringe and also the terrible terrible nausea.
Roberta and Donny do their take on “You’ve Got a Friend” – appropriate, since they were best buddies. They do “I Who Have Nothing” and “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,” a song that I have never liked but it’s got a great Spector-being-creepy story behind it. The critics went nuts for this album. It is a collection of music that is the opposite of ironic. Roberta and Donny will slay the grouchy dragon that lives in your heart with pure, uncut love of humanity. They excel at earnestness. The two of them are the best in the whole world at it, other than maybe Neil Young. The fact that Donny’s brain chemicals were starting to betray him at this point in his life lends a beautiful gravity to the album, and also a sense of really making me mad and hopeless. Stop it, songs, my brain says. It’s like the songs are telling the future, the horrible bleak future of Donny, but that’s not true – I’m just reading too much into the songs like always. It’s best to listen to this album in a vacuum. Put it on and pretend it’s ’72.
Best Piano Break, provided by Donny, above, later used in “On My Block,” the instrumental of which you’ll recognize as the backing track for every “successful MC returns to his old neighborhood” story on MTV. “Where is the Love,” already a huge bummer of a song, provides the break in Nate Dogg’s “Never Leave Me Alone,” last heard in the lunchtime old school hour on the radio every day in Los Angeles for the last 5 years. Ugh. Nate is on my radio these days on the hook of a song called “Party We Will Throw Now,” a song that is too awful for me to link to and which should be called “Make Money off Nate Dogg’s Name and Likeness We Will Do Now.” Biggest Bummer.
Jeopardy! fact: Before she signed to Atlantic, Carole King had imagined that Tin Pan Alley was an actual, physical alley next to the Brill Building. What a dummy! This is why girls shouldn’t be in the music industry.
Personal goal: Jerry Wexler, bosslike always, referred to himself as “a despot who delegated poorly” at Atlantic Records, which reminds me that I should go to the Despot/Killer Mike/El-P/eXquire show at the Echo on 6/28, a block away from my apartment. I need to hear a hundred F words and I need you to buy me a drink and NOT tell me I look skinnier in person like everyone always does.
★
“industrio-rap.” LOL, music sites trying to out-clever each other in describing Death Grips.
5. Death Grips, The Money Store (Epic, 2012). $14.99.
FIRST of All, Most Unbelievable in 2012: Epic Records still exists. Second of all, this really is some dude rap and not really appropriate for a proper lady such as myself.
“get get get get got got got got, blood rush to my head lit hot lock/poppin off the fuckin block knot, clockin wrist slit watch bent through bot/tail pipe draggin, volume blastin, bailin out my brain red light flash, dem stop i smash/abraxas*, hydroplane, massive, catch this flight flow, rainin madness/mastered mine and laced, the ave wit black cat fish tailin waves of stratus.”
I’m not going to pretend I can enjoy these lyrics half as much as someone with a penis, because the laws of the universe state that this is impossible. Thisssome DUDE RAP, no doubt about it. But in a world of this type of babyish male communication, I am in pure, old-fashioned, Sacramento industrio-love with Death Grips.
Hahaaaaaaaaa. (9 a’s).
In my more compassionate moments, I’ll see a post on Rap Radar about the latest MMG wind-up rapper and think Aw, this is awful music, but what do I care. Let ‘em have their fun. Get paid, darlings. I drove to Poo-Bah with the radio on, enjoying that “Burn” song in was the most guilty, dirty pleasure of my week. Then I get the fucking Death Grips album and I’m filled with heat and energy (which I guess is just another way of saying heat) and I think Yes, this is exactly how it should be. Only the people who I say can rap should be able to rap. Meek Mill still has the best cheekbones since Metta World Peace, but the fact remains the pleasure’s been stripped from future listenings of “Burn”; I bet “Cashin’ Out” will be next (just gimme 2 more listens). And now it is time for an “I’ve Seen Footage” interlude to cleanse my palate.
(I’ll listen to your “Stay Schemin” freestyle if you can get me the “Audemars” instrumental, though. Deal? My fondness for Meek Mill’s vocal playfulness and light rasp is well documented. Unfortunately, I reached my saturation point for Audemar raps back in August ’11, so: instrumental, please.)
“Hustle Bones,” “I’ve Seen Footage,” and “Get Got” are the Best Song Titles in this record haul (next to “Sugar Lump” on that Leon Haywood record). This baby was destined to come home with me the second my eyes met it from across the room; the only misgiving I had about buying it was when I realized that Bieber probably has it on his iPod. But I fought it off, and now The Money Store is home with me, wedged in between some Nu Shooz and Jerry Butler on my living room floor.
Jeopardy! fact: *“Abraxas” doesn’t really mean anything other than “Santana album from 1970.” In Greek, abrasáx is “of obscure origin” but the combined numerical value of the Greek letters is 365, “an important figure in numerology,” OOOOO ILLUMINATI YALL.
Personal goal: Get Epic to re-release The Money Store with special bonus track “Phil Rizzuto.”
★
6. Freddie Hubbard, Windjammer (Columbia, 1976). $1.99.
“Drums: Andy Newmark.” Bass: Gary King.” “Keys, producer, arranged by, conductor: Bob James.” Oh hello Windjammer, I said when I came across it in the bin, You must come home with me based entirely on these 3 credits. (Best Use of Andy Newmark; Best Use of Gary King; Best Use of Bob James). A Google image search of Gary King (I was just curious) has led me to the wonderful world of the TalkBass.com forum (Best Link). But JESUS, Most Disturbing Album Cover. Looks like something out of a Cronenberg movie.
Windjammer features the legendary Bernie Glow on trumpet. If his nickname was not Bernie Blow the music industry and the music-nickname industries have both failed me.
The title track, above, provides the Best Walking-Down-the-Street Snippet (00:22 – 01:01), which turns into the Best Transitional Moment in My Personal Narrative, Such as When I Turn a Corner and See An Ex-Lover and Must Decide Whether to Stay for Some Uncomfortable Conversation or Run Away (01:02 – 01:25, the panic of the horns illustrating this perfectly). Then, starting at 02:48, my ex and I are making out in a sexy, dirty alleyway. (Sorry, Mom! It’s just a makeout; we’re not getting back together). And finally, at 3:20, I come to my senses and continue down the street. Probably Jamba Juice, because I’ll feel a little sick and feverish after I acted that way, making out with my ex – so out of character for me! – and I’ll want something healthy.
“Neo Terra (New Land)” has a spacey, super Bob-James-sounding open that Masta Ace used, though I must deduct points for Low End-era Tribe not using it. It would’ve been perfect. I also must deduct points for Freddie, or more likely Freddie’s A&R, deciding that “Neo Terra” had to include “(New Land)” in its title, since otherwise how could a buyer of this record with some basic understanding of Latin root words possibly know what the words neo terra mean.
Jeopardy! fact: Fellow flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione shares a song title with Afro-Rican (“Give It All You Got”)! This is a Jeopardy! fact but mostly it’s an “excuse to post this song because it’s been a long week and I feel like we can use it, also it’s good for the ass” fact.
Personal goal: Tear myself away from the TalkBass.com forum. It’s the new prince.org in apartment 680.
★
7. The Bee Gees, Main Course (RSO, 1975). 99¢.
Real Gs move in silence, fierce little Dwayne told me in early ’11. Real Gees, however, make slinky bass and falsetto sounds when they move. Also their hair is feathered and that goes whooooosh when they start walking briskly. Released in August ’75, Main Course entered a world in which the number one jam was the Isleys’ “Fight the Power,” a song about Mookie breaking windows at Sal’s Pizzeria. People obviously needed some levity, and the Gibbs came along to give some.
Side A, track 1: “Nights on Broadway,” yes, perfect, love it, a yummy piece of chord-progression cake with synth frosting. Side A, track 2: “Jive Talkin’,”a headphone banger to such a degree that I get upset when it comes on at CVS in those tinny speakers that don’t do it justice.
These guys were capable musicians, not spectacular, and basically just got white-guy points for being white guys in the non-white-guy dominated world of the dance floor, but they had feathery hair they spent too much time on and they loved soul music, which is also a fitting description of myself. So I love em. The Gibbs came out so strong with those first 2 tracks; Main Course was produced by Arif Mardin which is why there’s that straight ear candy melodic goodness. But the brothers get fatigued out the gate, and the rest of the album is throwaway. Too many ballads. It starts bangingly and ends with a sad whimper, like the legacy of Pau Gasol as a professional athlete in Los Angeles. Still, those first two tracks! You need this album!
Further down in the post I share that I have big problems with Khalifa’s team design-jacking a David Ruffin album cover. But Akinyele jacked the Bee Gees’ cover and I have no negative comments. I’m complicated. And I actually prefer dancing to the version of a song done by feathery-haired Australians over the version done by Rufus, which is so weird for me to type, but it’s true. I’m complicated.
“NICE PANTS. HA, you guys look RIDICULOUS” – Kev Durant.
ASSORTED EPIC MOMENTS: Me, looking at the back cover and seeing “Conductor” as a credit (Gene Orloff); the first 10 seconds of “Jive Talkin,” which sounds like it could be the first 10 seconds of almost any Parliament song during the years 1974-9 (those amazing Gibbs! Sweet lord.); the weird echo effect on the “Edge of the Universe” vocals; the perfect BPM of “Nights on Broadway” (the piano break from which turned up in the speakers of every Maxima in ’98, courtesy of Dame Grease’s beat for DMX’s “The Convo.” Put it on at your next BBQ to see all the dudes over age 28 crying into their potato salad.)
Jeopardy! fact: The Gibbs were appointed to the Order of the British Empire. This puts them in the same category as George Martin and the flute player from Jethro Tull.
Personal goal: Book that concert I’ve been lining up in my head – the Bee Gees, the JB’s, O.C., L.T.D., and Thee Oh Sees. Live at PJ’s, of course.
★
8. David Ruffin, My Whole World Ended (Motown, 1969). $2.99.
My whole world ended when Khalifa’s people jacked the hell out of a Ruffin cover for Kush & OJ. It was upsetting and I regret having seen it. I also discovered a minute ago that “The Double Cross” from My Whole World Ended turns up as the break in, sigh, a J. Cole song. I regret having found this out. Cole’s producer is someone named Canei Finch, who does not appear to be as fresh as his name suggests (“Canei Finch”! So fresh!). His recent Twitter updates include the words “Sherman Oaks is popping,” which is absolutely a lie so I must leave Canei Finch behind. Moving on.
My Whole World Ended is like all other Ruffin albums in that it falls into the category of Records That Both Juicy J and I Would Tell You to Buy if You Ever See Them In Your Local Store’s Bin, along with anything by Womack or Willie Hutch. This alone is reason enough to buy it. Also, it’s Ruffin. You need this album. Support beautiful, doomed, coke-ravaged vocal masters by collecting their records, even though Berry Gordy is obviously Illuminati.
Jeopardy! facts: Humans see sexy ladies as sexy objects and sexy menas sexy people. Humans trust people with our money based on their faces rather than on their ability to handle money. We are a mess as a species, just hopeless. Science websites give me daily discoveries in the new and sad ways humans are tragic and primal, and these discoveries remind me that we’re too hard on the tragic, primal David Ruffins of the world.
Personal goal: Have someone look at me longingly while the title track plays.
★
Tampa Bay Bucs colorway.
9. Brother Jack McDuff, Tobacco Road (Atlantic, 1967). $5.99.
Best Hammond. Best Hammond. Tobacco Road was produced by Lew Futterman, a last name that ‘70s/’80s/’90s babies will probably (hopefully) always associate with “Futterman’s Rule” from Ill Communication. The album was purchased on the strength of Brother Jack’s esteemed status as a man whose songs were frequently tapped for ’90s breaks, but that cover design helped convince me, and the fact that “The Shadow of Your Smile” turns up in an Action Bronson song really just solidified the deal.
Statik Selektah looped that flute in “Shiraz,” which features THIS Logan-pleasing combination of words: “I’m straight stoned – Sly, thank you.” I’m so easy. And here’s to my second Action Bronson mention in one post! King me! Oh, wait—what I meant was QUEENS me, due to my compulsive need to be clever. You need this album because it’ll remind you of that funny wordplay I just employed.
Brother Jack was from Illinois, so an album called Tobacco Road is silly. Then I found out the song was written by John Loudermilk, from North Carolina, and this soothed me because it made absolute sense. Loudermilk also wrote “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye,” a song of numerous versions that we will all now (hopefully) associate with this, below, the very best version, Johnny Nash’s version, which leads to my Turn-and-Look-Over-My-Shoulder-Please-Don’t-Go/Heartbreaking-Vocal-Beauty-of-Johnny-Nash Interlude Yall, concurrent with my Strongest Plea with Kanye to NOT Use This as a Break, Ever, NO KANYE DON’T DO IT PLEASE You’ll Ruin It:
Jeopardy! fact: Bull Durham Tobacco had its logo painted behind the Yankees’ dugout, thereby sparking the phrase “bullpen.”
Personal goal: Get a hug from cuddly tough guy Bronson. I’d rank him top ten in the world right now when it comes to huggers.
★
She takes my flight/she holds my weight.
10. Jack White, Blunderbuss (Third Man, 2012). $19.99. (OUCH)
Jack reached his high point in my heart with that live video of the Raconteurs doing “Level,” Christ, a walking-down-the-street banger from which my hips may never recover. Blunderbuss is helping to keep him in my heart, because of his freaky upper-register vocal tricks and because I like it when I have the same taste in music as someone whose record I’ve just purchased (the guitar riff that starts “Sixteen Saltines” proves that Jack and I both really love the intro of Def Leppard’s “Photograph”).I’ve loved songs about homemade narcotics ever since daddy played George Jones’ “White Lightnin’” in the living room on Saturday mornings when I was little. This is why, as a grown-up, I’ll beat you, anytime, just name the place, if you’d like to engage in a Nickatina-lyrics-off with me. Or perhaps E-40′s more your speed? Let me know! Bro we can do this anytime. We can do this. My brain’s got a special area where the verses are embedded, deep within the gray folds, and it’s only gotten more developed with age. I am also guaranteed to love anything with a pedal-steel guitar in it because of all my dad’s other Saturday-morning turntable DJ classics. The lovely pedal-steel on Blunderbuss‘ title track, which I love of course, comes courtesy of Fats Kaplin. He played with Pure Prairie League, the ones behind baby-Logan-family-vacation-car-tape-deck-everybody-sing-along-banger “Amie,” even though Kaplin wasn’t in the band when they recorded “Amie.” Nonetheless: “AMIE” INTERLUDE YALL.
Best Bars in This Record Haul, and Jack’s Not Even an MC: “Spike heels make a hole in a lifeboat/Drifting away when I’m talking and laughing as we float/I hear her whistle, that’s how I know she’s home/Lipstick, eyelash, broke mirror, broken home/Force fed, force meds till I drop dead/You can’t defeat her, when you meet her you’ll get what I said/The Lord knows there’s a method to her madness/But the Lord’s joke is a boat in a sea of sadness.”
You need this album. Like most great things in life, RZA is partly responsible for it. Get Blunderbuss. “Freedom at 21″ was co-produced by LTJ Bukem, according to my imagination when I heard the opening drums. The title track is about fantasy love and contains the line An ancient grand hotel of Persian thread and ivory/And when your man would turn his head I’d see you look at me, which I swear is from an R. Kelly song. Plus the vinyl just feels really good to hold. It’s nice and hefty. I like a record that weighs 2 or 3 pounds, like a premature baby.
Jeopardy! fact: A blunderbuss is a musket-type gun. It’s also something you call a “clumsy, unsubtle” person. That’s why Cory Gunz can also be called Cory Blunderbuss without his name losing any meaning.
Personal goal: Go to Detroit. Make it a real place in my heart and head. The problem, guys, is that Detroit’s too fraught with history, tragic romance, and musical pixie dust for it to be real. It’s not real. It’s Henry Ford, Jeff Mills, Barry Sanders, Proof. The motor city’s burning. We almost lost Detroit. Kick out the fucking jams. Bass bass bassbassbass, metal-pipe sound from the GM assembly line, backspin, bass. I know from the hit film 8 Mile that Detroit gentlemen like to have sex in factories. I know from books that what was once Aretha’s dad’s church (New Bethel Baptist) is on the corner of Linwood and Philadelphia. But I don’t know where the westside begins or how to get to Ford Field. “I would never let my children roam the Dexter-Linwood area or 7 Mile and Chalmers,” says a concerned parent on a Detroit message board, “but how many responsible parents would?” Concerned parent, how should I know? I’ve never been to Detroit. I’m going, though. I’ve already practiced what I’ll look like at People’s Records.
CATCH ME SHOPPIN AT PEOPLE’S, LOOKIN REAL NSFW IN SOME LEGGINGS.
★
11. Lalo Schifrin, Voyage of the Damned score (ATV/Entr’acte, 1977). $3.99.
There’s no gentle way to say that this is the score of a film about a boatful of doomed Jewish refugees in 1939. Voyage of the Damned is a super bummer of a record, but even bummer Lalo, unstimulating Lalo, is Lalo worth having. The music does what it’s supposed to – just kind of lulls around in your brain after you’ve listened. It’s not a good sex record; it’s a folding laundry with frequent moments of staring off into space record. I could try to sell it by convincing you that owning this Lalo record will provide you with a wonderful object to spark historical conversation with your children about major-life themes (persecution, war, humanity). I’ll just leave it at It’s Lalo Schifrin; you need this album.At least 100 Bibles have been to the moon, I read once in Harper’s index. It made sense. People like to feel secure when they go on trips in which they might die; Lalo’s soothing background music for the boat trip was composed with this credo in mind. And for some levity, let me point out that one of the film’s protagonists is named Professor Egon Kreisler, played by THE GOD Max Von Sydow, whose characters always sound like they need to be mentioned in Doom songs (“Lankester Merrin,” “Colonel Kosnov,” “Antonius Block”). I’d tell this to Doom in person if only he’d bring his tour to my country, the United States.
Jeopardy! fact: Lalo was nominated for an Oscar for this score. But he was up against Jerry Goldsmith for The Omen and Bernard Herrmann for Taxi Driver, so, unshockingly, Lalo went winless. Shockingly, however, Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” from Rocky did NOT win Best Song in ’77 (Conti lost to Oscar juggernaut Barbra Streisand). This is a 35-year-old fact that I find so irritating it might as well have happened yesterday.
Personal goal: “Antonius Block” – DOOM feat. Kool Keith, Danny Brown, Mac Dre, Brian Eno, Scarface, The D.O.C., Reggie Watts, and Nas when he was 19, with some mid-’90s UGK skull-rattle bass, and 3 or 4 Dilla sirens sprinkled throughout.
★
12. Oh wait this isn’t the one who’s related to Alice Cotrane, The Golden Age of Apocalypse (Brainfeeder, 2011). $9.99.
Thundercat’s real name is Steve Bruner, a name so uncool it sounds like a cop’s name, and therefore comes with automatic ironic-cool cachet. This does not make up for the stupid photo above. Yes, we see the Louis belt, Officer Steve Bruner of LAPD’s Rampart division in your Louis belt: you are dressed like a child and I’m mad you don’t use your real name. How could you NOT use the name Steve Bruner professionally? I do not approve of not using the name Steve Bruner. I also do not approve of cutesy-spellings for song titles (track 1: “HooooooO”). Other than that, Nice Personnel on Your Record, Thundercat (Badu, the Sa-Ra guys, Daddy Kev). Nice Musical Genes