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ZZ Top: I've always wanted to do a little break out on ZZ Top’s '70s records, in fact, I had a partially sketched-out piece from a few years back that I dusted off for reference tonight. I'd been saving it for when I finally caught them live, since I always thought I'd get a chance … Continue reading ZZ Top
The native terrain of funk is undoubtedly the 7" single. Now don't get me wrong, there are stacks of great funk LPs out there, albums by original dons like James Brown and The Meters through seventies purveyors like Parliament, Cymande and The Beginning Of The End, and running right up through Zapp and Mtume in … Continue reading Sir Mack Rice – Dark Skin Woman
This list came about naturally enough a couple months back, when my sister-in-law Leah decided that she'd like to do a 'top 45 of the '70s' list for her 45th birthday. Although she's Gen X to the core, the 1970s were crucial in shaping her musical tastes — which roughly put center primarily on canyon, country, and … Continue reading 45 From The 70s
Rammellzee vs. K-Rob Beat Bop (12" Single) Tartown: 1983) Put simply, the Beat Bop 12" is one of the stone tablets of hip hop. Originally released in an ultra-limited run on Tartown Records, which — paired with its skewed street-level funk and visionary, impressionistic raps — virtually guaranteed that it would quickly attain the status of hip hop holy … Continue reading Rammellzee vs. K-Rob – Beat Bop
Tony Allen with Afrobeat 2000 N.E.P.A (Never Expect Power Always) Mercury: 1984 In the course of writing last week's tribute to Tony Allen, I was purposefully brief when discussing this record because I knew I'd have to return to it for a full-length feature in its own right. After all, it comes in at a … Continue reading Tony Allen – N.E.P.A.
Shadez Of Colour presents Allied Heights: DJ Slye In The MixInterplanetary Transmissions 2002 Now what we're gonna do right now is go back... way back. Rewind your mind back to fall 2002: Futureform had just parted ways, with Snakes venturing into the wide open trance-states of the high desert and Slye back to the city … Continue reading Allied Heights
Let the transmission commence! A few weeks ago I promised to touch on a couple key links in the proto-punk funk story, both of whom seemed to possess wholly self-contained visions of new wave disco years before the fact. As was the case with Suicide's debut, the cockney disco of Ian Dury And The Blockheads … Continue reading Terminal Vibration: Back To Get Ya!
Japan Adolescent Sex Ariola Hansa 1978 You must've known this one was coming! I can think of no album that more perfectly encapsulates the entire slow-dissolving red light sleazy glamour of gutter funk disco than Japan's debut album. Lumped in at the time with the tail end of glam rock — which was by then well past … Continue reading Japan – Adolescent Sex
ARP Solina String Ensemble A sound as indelible as the 303 or the electric guitar. While we're on the topic of gutbucket dancefloor funk, time well spent down at the red light disco, it's as good a time as any to sing the praises of that little magic box: the ARP Solina String Ensemble. Oftentimes … Continue reading Sun-Glazed Solina
Ian Dury And The BlockheadsTop row: Chas Jankel, Mickey Gallagher, Davey Payne, Norman Watt-RoyBottom row: John Turnbull, Ian Dury and Charley Charles If there was one figure that had a vision of punk-inflected disco before anyone else, it was Ian Dury and his Blockheads. Emerging from Essex in the U.K. (where The Prodigy would later … Continue reading Ian Dury And The Blockheads